Ever since the “Twilight” franchise the label “vampire film” seems to invite derision or at the very least weariness, from viewers who believe that stories of vampires have long outstayed their welcome. And yet, regardless of the ambivalence towards vampire films there's no shortage of filmmakers willing to take a stab at them. The results run the gamut from the painfully mediocre to the prodigiously inventive.

Damian Chazelle’s opening is simple, economical, bursting with information. In short: powerful. Andrew, the story’s teenaged hero, is practicing alone at night at the world’s top music school. Enter Fletcher, the sole decision-maker on who gets to be a great jazz musician (a goal that is clearly and painfully central to our hero’s life). From the first scene, we know who our hero is, what his goal is, what he must do to get it

Today, after a six month-press war launched by filmmaker Abel Ferrara against his chief financier, Vincent Maraval (French distributor Wild Bunch's head honcho) and IFC Films, the R-rated cut of Ferrara’s originally unrated “Welcome to New York” is opening theatrically—to Ferrara’s chagrin—in the US.

It is, however, only showing at one theater: The Roxie, in San Francisco.

The slyest aspect about Lone Scherfig’s “The Riot Club” is also its most maddening one. Structurally, the whole production is a come-on, a tease, a manipulative stunt. It begins in lusciously ribald fashion as we are treated to nineteenth-century sexual shenanigans amid the upper classes at Oxford University: white wigs, splashy capes and all. A beloved hedonist is murdered after cuckolding an older man; to pay heed to his decadence, his peers vow to start a club

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June 1996 - “Independence Day” slain the monster, bringing in more than $ 300 million in sales. Its director, Roland Emmerich, has planned a sequel, called "ID2," and pre-production is to begin in the next few weeks. But that’s not really all that exciting anymore. What’s interesting, and rather weird, is the fact that French actress Charlotte Gainsbourg will have a leading role in “ID2.” Yes, Gainsbourg

(PARIS) Here’s guessing you’re not going to see French cinéaste Abdellatif Kechiche (at left in picture) and producer/distributor Marin Karmitz enjoying onion soup together at Le Sélect anytime soon. A court in France ruled that Palme D’Or recipient Kechiche (“Blue is the warmest color,” a.k.a. “La vie D’Adèle” in the original French title) did not fulfill the terms of the contract that bound him to MK2