The surprise winner of the 68th Venice Film Festival was [...]

Writer/director Leon Ford's feature debut “Griff The Invisible” is a cute, quirky film that, for all its good intentions, just doesn't quite come together the way it should. Starring Ryan Kwanten (“True Blood”) and Maeve Dermody (“Black Water”), this all-Aussie production takes its cues from beloved awkward-rom-coms like “Amelie” and “Benny & Joon.” Like Depp's character in that film, Kwanten's character, Griff, seems to suffer from some sort of vague mental

Marjane Satrapi’s “Poulet aux Prunes” (“Chicken with Plums”) is the French-Iranian filmmaker’s live-action adaptation of her namesake graphic novel. Co-directing once more with Vincent Paronnaud, who also worked on the 2007 film adaptation of “Persepolis,” Satrapi creates a fairly-tale 1950s Tehran as the backdrop for the story of Nasser Ali, a violinist (Satrapi’s uncle, or so she claims) who resolves to die

Costume dramas and fairy tales set the tone for the opening days of the 68th Venice Film Festival. David Cronenberg’s hotly-awaited A Dangerous Method details the collaboration and rivalry between Carl Jung and Sigmund Freud and set on the eve of World War One. “A Dangerous Method” arrived on day three of the festival and has been one of the stronger entries in the 22-film-strong main competition program.

Renée (superbly played by comedienne, actress and director Josiane Balasko) is the fifty-something short, squat and always grumpy super of one of those buildings in Paris qualified as “standing,” meaning of understated luxury. Paloma (Garance Le Guillermic) is a precocious, nerdy and observant twelve-year-old who lives in that building. Determined to commit [existential] suicide on her thirteenth birthday,

Dying to Do Letterman, the documentary directed by married couple Joke Fincioen and Biagio Messina, chronicles five tumultuous years in the life of Steve Mazan, an average-Joe comedian whose lifelong dream is to perform on Late Show with David Letterman. That goal was expedited once Mazan was diagnosed with liver cancer and told, in early 2005, that he may have just five years to live.

Phnom Penh Lullaby is a John Cassavetes-style documentary—about a bickering couple, no less—but one will not find amusingly rambling scenes of middle-class drunkards quaintly skirting their troubles. Here, the handheld, jerky camera lingers on sad babies, sad prostitutes, trash-strewn streets and some of the saddest domestic squabbles ever recorded on film. Depending on your personal taste, you will either be riveted or exhausted—even bored