One of the pleasures of getting older as a moviegoer -- besides never having to sit through “High School Musical” or its spawn -- is the privilege of watching the full arc of an actor’s career.

Sometimes it’s a bittersweet pleasure. Wasn’t it just yesterday that X-actor or Y-actress was dewy fresh, a bright young thing making his or her debut? And now there they are on screen, fuller of face and figure, popping up as a matron or a grandfather. If one ever needed a reminder that the years are whizzing by, it’s right up there, bigger than life.

Of course, to have this reaction, you have to be getting on in years yourself. Back in 1976, when I was 20 and saw “Network...

Actors aren’t the only ones how suffer from typecasting. Directors can get pigeonholed into certain kinds of movies just as easily.

It’s why, in the old days of the studios, Ernst Lubitsch always made sophisticated comedies with European settings, George Cukor stuck mostly to “women’s pictures” and Howard Hawks excelled at adventure films and breezy comedies starring tough guys and gals.

And that didn’t ease off any as films became even more of a director’s medium in the 1960s and ‘70s, with the rise of the auteurs. In fact, directors even more came to be seen as having a recognizable touch, particularly when examining topics and themes to which they...

When screenwriters or, more often, directors and studio executives want to impress, they natter on with would-be eloquence and erudition about how a movie reveals “the hero’s journey.”

They namecheck figures from Greek mythology and the Bible, Voltaire’s “Candide” and, of course, Luke Skywalker and the original “Star Wars” trilogy.

The phrase, “the hero’s journey,” originates with the revered classics scholar Joseph Campbell. In his 1949 book, “The Hero With a Thousand Faces,” he used it to describe the outlines of a recurring story, one which is found repeatedly across times and cultures.

“A hero ventures forth...

If Netflix is looking for testimonials on behalf of its streaming service, I’m putting my hand up.

This week, I went to a screening of the new version of “The Mechanic” and then went home and, three clicks of a mouse later, was watching the original 1972 version with Charles Bronson on my laptop.

Given that Hollywood now seems to be so thoroughly invested in the remake business (or “reboot” if you want to sound hipper), the instant ability for a moviegoer to go back and compare and contrast a remake with the original is invaluable.  

Were characters changed drastically or cut? Did even a snatch of the original dialogue remain intact?

Of course...