KEN LOACH WINS CANNES’ TOP PRIZE

British director Ken Loach was the surprise winner of the 2016 Cannes Film Festival’s top Palme d’Or award. Loach triumphed with his film I, Daniel Blake, about a heart-attack survivor battered by the bureaucracy of the British welfare system. The title character was portrayed by Dave Johns, an English stand-up comedian in his first film. […]

CHEERS, JEERS GREET “THE NEON DEMON” AT CANNES

A horror flick playing at the Cannes Film Festival? Ah, yes, but as you might expect, The Neon Demon, starring Elle Fanning, is no ordinary horror flick. After it was screened on Friday, Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn was praised by critics for his uncompromisingly artistic approach to the genre, even as many of them […]

A QUIET PROTEST ACCOMPANIES BRAZIL’S “MAGNIFICENT” CANNES ENTRY

These days, the only thing in Brazil that is more abundant than coffee is chaos — economic and political. A week after the country’s first female president, Dilma Rousseff, was impeached by the legislature, a screening of Brazil’s entry in the Cannes Film Festival’s official competition, Kleber Mendonça Filho’s Aquarius, was accompanied by an anti-government […]

NOT MUCH BUZZ AT CANNES, BUT A LOT OF HO-HUMS

Several past favorites of Cannes’ selection committee have returned this year, but their films, while earning respectable and respectful notices have failed to generate the kind of acclaim that many of their previous works had earned. Jeff Nichols, whose 2012 film Mud, starring Matthew McConaughey, was cheered when it debuted at Cannes in 2012, was […]

WILL IT BE A “TONI” AWARD AT CANNES?

Going into the homestretch at the Cannes Film Festival, which ends on Saturday, the clear leader for the top Palme d’Or award, at least among the critics here, is Maren Ade’s Toni Erdmann. All the more remarkable is the fact that it is a German comedy, more or less a rarity in the land of […]

A LONG AND WINDING ROAD MOVIE DEBUTS AT CANNES

According to many pop-culture historians, the cultural revolution of the ’60s began when writer Ken Keasey (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest) set off on a transcontinental trip with his band of Merry Pranksters on a school bus covered with psychedelic patterns from La Honda, California, near San Francisco, to the 1964 World’s Fair in […]

A GIANT QUESTION IN ROOM AT SPIELBERG’S CANNES NEWS CONFERENCE

Only days after reporters covering the Cannes Film Festival were taken to task for failing to ask Woody Allen about the latest accusations by his son Dylan Farrow that he sexually abused his sister when she was seven years old, those reporters were still reluctant to put any controversial questions to Steven Spielberg. Both Allen […]

GEORGE CLOONEY, JULIA ROBERTS AND JODIE FOSTER GRACE CANNES’ RED CARPET

When it comes to reviews of Jodie Foster’s Money Monster, which was screened out of competition at the Cannes Film Festival Thursday night, you pays your money and you takes your choice. Although the festival audience gave the film a four-minute ovation following the screening, U.S. critics, for the most part, held their applause. Joe […]

SHOULD CANNES REPORTERS HAVE CHALLENGED WOODY ABOUT ABUSE CHARGE?

Press conferences at the Cannes Film Festival often drown in the gushes of celebrity journalists who are likely to preface their questions with some fawning remark about how they loved the celebrity’s latest film. This year, however, they are being criticized for not challenging Woody Allen about ancient allegations that he sexually abused his daughter […]