A “CRAZY” ENDING TO THE 2023 BERLINALE

“Are you crazy, or what?” director Nicolas Philbert remarked after climbing on stage Saturday night to receive the Golden Bear, the top prize at the Berlinale, the Berlin Film Festival, for his film, “On the Adamont.” His comment was directed at the members of the awards jury headed by Kristen Stewart. “Crazy” was not a […]

CANNES 2022 — THE WINNERS

Palme d’or TRIANGLE OF SADNESS directed by Ruben Östlund   Grand Prix (Tie) CLOSE directed by Lukas Dhont STARS AT NOON directed by Claire Denis Best Director Park Chan-Wook for HEOJIL KYOLSHIM (DECISION TO LEAVE) Best Screenplay Tarik Saleh for WALAD MIN AL JANNA (BOY FROM HEAVEN) Jury Prize (Tie) EO directed by Jerzy Skolimowski […]

SCI-FI FILM PREDICTS SCIENTISTS WILL GMO YOUR BODY

It would be impossible to provide a synopsis of David Cronenberg’s Crimes of the Future without making the plot seem downright ludicrous. Take the opening scene, for example: An eight-year-old boy is playing with the gravel by the seashore when his mother calls him inside. He dutifully obeys, heads for the bathroom, brushes his teeth, then […]

HEROIN, COKE, AIDS, AND ACTING IN THE ’80S

May you build a ladder to the stars And climb on every rung May you stay forever young Forever young, forever young = Bob Dylan The setting for Valerie Bruni Tedeschi’s Forever Young is the renowned drama school Ecole des Amandiers in Nanterre (the film is titled Les Amandiers in France) in the 1980s, but […]

AN 11-YEAR-OLD FACES HIS OWN ARMAGEDDON IN U.S. FILM AT CANNES

There is no reason for James Gray to have set his semi-autobiographical movie Armageddon Time in 1980 other than the fact that it’s about a time in the life of an 11-year-old boy in Flushing, Queens, New York and Gray himself was 11, growing up in Flushing in 1980. Yes, there are references to Ronald Reagan’s […]

TCHAIKOVSKY’S WIFE’S SWAN SONG

If you should go to a theater showing Tchaikovsky’s Wife expecting from the title to hear much of the great composer’s music and to learn how his wife supported his career at great sacrifice and love, you’ll be sorely disappointed. Not a strain of the composer’s music is heard in Russian director Kirill Serebrennikov’s film, […]

CANNES OPENER “FINAL CUT” (COUPEZ!) IS BLOODY FUNNY

Michel Hazanavicius’s Final Cut is arguably the funniest, bloodiest opening film at the Cannes film festival since, well, ever. Not that there have been many comedies, let alone, zomby comedies, that have opened the prestigious cinema soirée in the past. On the other hand, movies about the making of movies have frequently made their international […]

BILL MURRAY’S “CRADLE” AND ALL

The final movie screened at this year’s Cannes Film Festival (out of competition) was not a movie at all. It was a concert video of a performance by Bill Murray and a trio of classical musicians headed by famed cellist, Jan Vogler. It resembled, albeit on a more imposing scale, one of those hip coffee-house shows […]

CANNES 2021 ENDS IN A COMPLETE MESS

Who could have expected less? The 2021 film festival, which did not take place a year ago due to the raging pandemic and was delayed from May to July this year in the (unrealized) hope that the threat would have been quashed by now, ended in virtual shambles Saturday. Destroying any suspense over who the […]

FULL-FRONTAL SEX COMEDY PREMIERES IN CANNES

Back in the 1940s and ’50s — before television entered our lives — many families purchased 16mm sound projectors and rented movies to show at home. In those days, possession of pornography was a crime, and the shops that sold and rented films generally kept their porno merchandise in the rear of the stores. Customers […]

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