The 2000s had been difficult for Robin Williams who was found dead yesterday at his home in California at age 63. That decade did not yield any major successes for the actor who wore bittersweetness on his sleeve and made poetry out of life’s daily vexations.

He earned one Oscar in 1998, a feat that happens rarely, if not at all, for most actors and directors (it took Scorsese forty years

"Golan-Globus ..." To this critic who grew up in the eighties in France in a decade when "La Boum" and "Un homme et une femme" where big, the hyphenated combo held the promise of cinematic thrills and brash entertainment: high stakes cop-vs-bad guys intrigues, meatheads in military gear knocking doors down and car chases aplenty. This was Hollywood at its best, making money without the obscenely outsize budgets

What can you do when you know that death is approaching? Joaquim Pinto contracted HIV and hepatitis C twenty years ago. In this film-diary which he directed he reveals his innermost thoughts as he lines up one difficult day with another, powerless to do anything about his debilitating afflictions. And yet, his documentary is less about the philosophical implications of life and death as it is, more simply, about how to live with

For those of you in the New York area look for this new documentary about sculptor and painter Bahman Mohassess, an artist from Iran who's lived in exile and seclusion in Italy for thirty years until his untimely passing in 2010. "Fifi howls from happiness" is slated for release tomorrow Friday. Paris-based filmmaker Mitra Farahani spent time at his Italy-based studio discussing his opus, his triumphs and his failures

As a critic it’s important to remember that there have always been bad movies. While Godard was at his peak and Arthur Penn and Warren Beatty were making "Bonnie and Clyde," Hollywood was unrolling horrible Cold War spoofs and beach blanket movies. The bad fade. The good last. It gets really hard sometimes. I tried to keep that in mind while suffering through "Guardians of the Galaxy," the latest Marvel Comic books adaptation.