Set during the Sikh separatist movement of the eighties CHAUTHI [...]

Director Yorgos Lanthimos's fourth feature-film, and second one at the Cannes Festival, can be divided into two parts: the first, good one, and the second half, which takes place in a woodsy area. There are trees, lots of them, and people living in them who attempt to alternatively break away from, and comply with, some complicated social constructs governing celibacy and marriage. How does THE LOBSTER succeed? Let me count the ways.

Sentaro (Nagase Matasoshi) runs a small bakery that serves dorayakis, Japanese pastries filled with sweet red bean paste called “an”. When an old lady, Tokue (Kiki Kirin), offers to help in the kitchen he reluctantly accepts. But Tokue proves to be quite skilled at making “an." Thanks to a recipe she's taken half a century to perfect, the dorayaki counter takes off. But not everything is coming up roses. Tokue's past slowly comes into view, an old affliction that will have a serious impact on their newfound success.

DAY 1 got off to a strong start with two films that are hopefully a harbinger of things to come in this 68th edition of the Cannes Festival. I just finished watching the Matteo Garrone THE TELLER OF TALES, which was screened before the press at 7pm. I will talk about that film in a later post. French filmmaker Emmanuelle Bercot's LA TETE HAUTE is an uncensored and deftly-lensed look at youth in perdition. Her portrait of Malony

In a recent interview that she gave to French magazine [...]

This year’s last Tribeca Film Festival featured some great offerings in the entertaining-yet-underrated short film category, films by female filmmakers particularly. Filmmaker Heather Jack presented her directorial debut LET’S NOT PANIC, an apocalyptic comedy about love and neuroses in fest's NY: Double Expresso program. Jack, a recent N.Y.U. graduate who also wrote the script, tells the story of a woman

Chaos, wrath and bucketfuls of drumming. The movie score that Dutch-born musical artist Junkie XL composed for MAD MAX: FURY ROAD punches up the film’s post-apocalyptic scenery like nobody’s business. The Grammy-nominated producer and composer was approached by Warner Bros. Pictures and Village Roadshow Pictures to stamp his sonic signature unto the George Miller-directed action-thriller that stars Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron