"Les Saveurs du Palais" (France)—no release date yet. Now that Ferran Adrià’s El Bulli in Barcelona, the “world’s best restaurant,” has closed, gastronomes with deep pockets have no option but to fly to Copenhagen and gather at René Redzepi’s Noma, newly crowned with the title. Farewell molecular cuisine and turnip petals with iced peanut foam, hello foraging—moss, spruce-tree bark and wild asparagus. All this

“The Words” is a nested film with three intertwined stories about writers and as such will be followed with rapt attention by any writer in the audience. Whether anyone else will be interested in a movie filled with good intentions but whirring on empty, I’m not sure. For starters, Montreal once again trying to pass off as Paris once again feels off. But then, the entire movie—by first-timers Brian Klugman and Lee Sternthal—feels off. It

According to this documentary that hit the screen just in time for the Republican Convention, what fuelled Obama’s meteoric rise to the White House was his rage against the white man and the influence of the colonialist-hating worldview of his father (never mind that Obama’s father left his wife and son to go back to Kenya when our future President was all of two). If you add to this already volatile mix the burden of other psychological

Fanciers of period pieces, stay away. The Marie-Antoinette of Benoît Jacquot’s film is no dimpled and fashionable clueless Austrian princess busy trying on new wigs. Instead, she (Diane Kruger) is red-eyed with distress and worry, not so much out of awareness of gathering storms but because her bosom friend, the haughty Duchess of Polignac (Virginie Ledoyen) is not present enough. The time is 1789, the date, July 15. History

Scroll down too quickly YouTube’s movie list and you might miss hidden gems such as “Detour,” the 1945 Edgar G. Ulmer B-movie about a loser struggling to free himself, without much conviction, from the successive traps he falls into. About “Detour,” Roger Ebert had this insightful comment: “The difference between a crime film and a noir film is that the bad guys in crime movies know they're bad and want to be, while a noir hero thinks he's

What is there about social climbers that makes their stories irresistible? Guy de Maupassant’s Bel Ami, published in installments in nineteenth century-France, enthralled readers and has been adapted for the screen a number of times. The present version stars Robert Pattinson as Georges Duroy. It is filled with descriptions of the world of journalism, politics and banking which Duroy skims for maximum profit in his ascent

The French title of the movie Délicatesse by the Foenkinos brothers has been translated by Delicacy, in the process losing its je-ne-sais-quoi. Delicacy brings food to mind rather than the subtle concept of thoughtfulness. Yet délicatesse is what makes classy, sophisticated and altogether charming executive Nathalie (played by Audrey Tautou, no less) sit up and notice a humble co-worker, Markus (François Damiens). Damiens is a schlub