Ramin Bahrani is part of the Iranian diaspora called second generation. Having lived in America most of his life, his first film Man Push Cart got him major nods on the festival circuit. And the festival buzz is a good buzz. It sustains a filmmaker. It helps that his sophomoric work opus Chop Shop was well received at the Director's Fortnight in Cannes two years ago, too. Bahrani is off to Venice to present Goodbye Solo, you could say the final chapter of his trilogy about men who surrender themselves to a half-contented life of work and solitude.

As William Shakespeare said, “The play’s the thing,” right? So [...]

Woody Allen’s Vicky Christina Barcelona runs from promising to intriguing to agreeably incoherent to disagreeably incoherent to utter anarchy.

A little frustrating as film, yes, but one might say it successfully mirrors the pathway of romance. It certainly mirrors the pathway of the volcanic marriage of artists Maria and Juan Antonio (Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem), a disturbed, bickering couple for whom “shooting from the hip” can have uncomfortable meanings. The film traces the sensuous adventures of two American college grads Vicky and Christina (Rebecca Hall and Scarlett Johansson) as they summer in Spain and become romantically entangled with the couple.

Is The Office becoming to today’s movie culture what Friends was to the 1990s? Is Steve Carell transforming into the new Jennifer Aniston, appearing in mass-appeal star vehicles of varying quality, with the occasional indie effort thrown in for credibility? Possibly. Jenna Fischer has played supporting roles in comedies such as Judd Apatow’s Walk Hard. A Lisa Kudrow starter kit? Mmmmm, sort of.

The Hollywood career of Robert Downey Jr. has been something [...]

Judd Apatow, the king of the American raunch-com, and David [...]

When on Aug. 7, 1974, Philippe Petit stepped out onto [...]