Inspired by the 2001 Dos Palmas kidnapping of foreign tourists and missionaries by the Islamic separatist group Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines, Philipino director Brillante Mendoza, a Cannes Festival favorite (Kinatay, Serbis) Captive excruciatingly follows the twenty hostages as they are dragged at gunpoint from their hotel, spirited onto a fishing boat and led through various towns and jungles for over a year. Isabelle Huppert

In Berlin for a while, everyone talked about Caesar must die, a historical and literary reenactment filmed by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani in superb documentary style--but it's a feature film documenting a jail bound theater production. The Tavianis (Padre Padrone, Kaos), who are now in their eighties, entered a high-security prison near Rome to film a production of Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar.” Mixing footage of the final production with

Halfway through the 62nd installment of the Berlin Film Festival, no single film has emerged to carry the fest’s top prizes. The international jury, this year’s headed by British director Mike Leigh, will have a difficult time distributing the Gold and Silver bears if the competition fare remains this lackluster. Benoît Jacquot’s French-Revolution drama, Les Adieux à la Reine was the firing shot in a festival year that is taking a hard look

Director Ti West's feature debut, “The House of the Devil” (2009), was a deftly executed homage to both classic haunted house flicks and the great female-centered horror films of the sixties and seventies (particularly Rosemary's Baby, 1968). Fanatically aware of the conventions of the genre, its titles were ever lovingly rendered in a classic seventies burnt-orange which matched the nostalgia expressed through its

“Judy, Judy,” Jimmy Stewart famously told Kim Novak in Vertigo, as he forced her to change her appearance to that of his dead lover. “It can’t make that much difference to you.”This was Alfred Hitchcock’s most famous and revealing line in his 1958 classic, a meditation on the male gaze. I thought of it when I read about Haywire’s post-production. Director Steven Soderbergh deepened the voice of star Gina Carano

Carnage tells the story of two couples who meet to discuss in as civilized and understanding a manner as possible the schoolyard spat of their sons that resulted in broken teeth and harsh words. One pair of parents comes to the other pair’s apartment to discuss the situation. After they come to an agreement about the wording of a document describing the incident, things start going downhill. For an excruciating hour and a half

Directed by Frenchman Xavier Gens (Frontier(s), Hitman), The Divide follows a disparate group of tenants who find shelter in their New York City apartment building's basement during an unspecified nuclear disaster. As the motley group assembles underground the building superintendent, Mickey (Michael Biehn), becomes its de facto leader. This doesn't necessarily bode well; a 9/11-obsessed nut, Mickey seems like