Perhaps the two main stories that emerged from this year’s Cannes Film Festival were the jewelry heists (who knew Brian De Palma’s Femme Fatale was so prescient?) and the praise and immediate backlash heaped on the Palm d’Or winner Blue Is the Warmest Color, namely Elaine Sciolino’s piece in the New York Times in which […]
The main difference that sets the Cannes Film Festival apart from other fests is the anticipation: you want to see the films debuting in the competition, especially if they are directed by the likes of the Coen brothers, Alexander Payne, Roman Polanski, and Asghar Farhadi, to name four. Few shots in the dark here. There […]
Written & Directed by Terrence Malick Produced by Sarah Green & Nicolas Gonda Released by Magnolia Pictures USA. 112 min. Rated R With Ben Affleck, Olga Kurylenko, Rachel McAdams, Javier Bardem, Tatiana Chiline & Romina Mondello To the Wonder is a surprise. Even with all of his hallmarks and impressionistic flourishes, Terrence Malick’s new film […]
Brazil has been well represented throughout the years at the annual New Directors/New Films series, and this year Marcelo Lordello’s They’ll Come Back arrives, following last year’s Neighboring Sounds, which made quite a splash. Here’s hoping for more of a Brazilian new wave offering engaging, clear-eyed, and varied vivisections of contemporary life, of both rich […]
As usual, the mid-winter Film Society of Lincoln Center mini-fest is strong in variety—an animated film here, a biopic there, some audience pleasing and others inscrutable—but it doesn’t necessarily represent the best of what France has to offer. Conspicuously missing in the lineup are the latest from star sourpuss Jean-Pierre Bacri in the droll rom-com […]
Film Comment Selects, now in its 13th edition, is a typically eclectic and wide-ranging selection of films chosen by the editors of Film Comment, the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s magazine. Think of it as the rambunctious, unruly younger sibling of the New York Film Festival. With a program encompassing challenging art-house films, genre exercises, […]
The British Film Institute’s 56th London Film Festival has just closed with its new director, Australian Clare Stewart, shaking it up with some of the strategies she introduced in her five-year tenure at the Sydney Film Festival. Based on her first LFF, Stewart’s committed to increasing accessibility, expanding the audience, and enhancing the festival’s national […]
With two extra screens at its disposal, the New York Film Festival has added more sidebars to its programming, which means additional events have been packed into its 17 days. It was once possible to see a generous slice of what the festival had to offer. Now it’s an uphill battle just to see many […]
At first glance, this year’s New York Film Festival is almost unrecognizable—a departure from its slimmer, more restrictive, and less glitzy programming of only a few years ago. What was once a small, curated festival has expanded, thanks to more screening space, but also perhaps due to an organizational objective to wedge itself as a […]