He was a mad scientist, a master of the form, a crucial point in the genealogy of guitar-based music for which he represents a distinct before and after. When you think of Eddie Van Halen, what sound do you hear? Is it white-hot guitar notes flitting like bits of molten lava belched from the mouth of a volcano in “Eruption”? The echoing start-stop riff splashing through the mix in “Panama,” like high tide spraying a rocky beach?

In the psycho-comedy Silver Linings Playbook, bipolar Pat (Bradley Cooper) is newly sprung from a mental hospital and given to smashing things when reminded of his estranged wife, with whom he’s delusionally convinced he’ll be reunited. Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence), a cop’s widow who recently lost her job after sleeping with everyone — everyone — at her office, might be even more disturbed. For writer-director David O. Russell, they’re a hell-match made in heaven.

Critic’s Note: This review was written before the horrendous shooting in Colorado at the midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises. Already I’ve read musings on the wisdom of midnight shows, which seems to me a ridiculous issue, and the wisdom of easy access to weapons, an issue that couldn’t be less ridiculous. Some wonder whether the suspect, reportedly dressed in black and wearing a gas mask, was modeling himself on the film’s villain Bane or even Batman.

Clockwise, from top left: Shakira and Fuerza Regida, Peso Pluma, Grupo Frontera and Bad Bunny, and Karol G. Edgar Barrera didn’t need another hit when he started working with Grupo Frontera last year. Over the past decade, the 32-year-old writer-producer has become one of the most prolific and in-demand collaborators in Latin music, with a knack for elevating traditional styles across cultures and a list of credits that includes stars like Alejandro Sanz and Maluma.

Bill Paxton, as fans love to point out, is one of the few actors who has been killed by a Terminator, an alien, and a Predator. And with his latest, Edge of Tomorrow, “add a Mimic to the list,” the actor suggested. “I think the Mimic would take its place in there, too.” The Mimics, of course, are the alien beings that Tom Cruise, Emily Blunt, and Paxton try to battle in the film’s Normandy-like invasion.

Edward Norton and Willem Dafoe in Motherless Brooklyn. Some people make acting look easy, vanishing into roles in ways that render all decisions about timing and technique invisible. Edward Norton has never been one of them. To watch him is to be made aware of how difficult it can be, of how active the choices he’s making are — the tilt of a head, the narrowing of an eye, the tenor of a voice.

Billy Porter. Vulture Honorary Degree recipient Billy Porter is one vowel away from EGOT. The actor hopes that his upcoming film, Our Son, will get him closer to that elusive O, even if another certain movie contains the winner. His latest drama is a “quiet” divorce and child-custody story “in the spirit of Kramer vs. Kramer and Marriage Story,” starring Porter, Luke Evans, and Christopher Woodley, he told Vulture Festival on November 12.

In celebration of New York Magazine’s 50th anniversary, this series, which will continue through October 2018, tells the stories behind key moments that shaped the city’s culture. Tony Kushner’s Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes, the two-part, eight-hour play that opened on Broadway in 1993, is the definitive work about the age of AIDS. Originally performed in San Francisco as the epidemic reached its crest, then produced in Los Angeles and then New York, Angels swept the Tonys, won the Pulitzer Prize, and helped change the way gay men and people with AIDS were represented onstage and in the media.

It turns out that if you direct one of the biggest musical comedy franchises of all time you know a thing or two about music, comedy, and directing. Let this be a lesson. Elizabeth Banks Directed Her Own SNL Monologue ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7t8HLrayrnV6YvK57kWlobmdhZnymuMizmJudpJ16o63NpKpmnJmnsqTAxJ1koZ2iYry4uoyspaVlnaS7sLjOoKyeZpipuq0%3D

Dozens of women have come forward with their experiences in recent weeks, fleshing out a pattern of sexual harassment and misconduct allegedly committed by James Toback. With multiple complaints of assault now lodged against the director, Grey’s Anatomy star Ellen Pompeo looks back on an incident with Toback in which she called him out on his sexual behavior. “I actually did have a situation with James Toback where I kind of told him to go (expletive) himself,” the actress recalled toUSA Today about their meeting.