Last year in Cannes I remember seeing a youngish filmmaker [...]

“Midnight in Paris” a new film by Woody Allen, will [...]

By ALI NADERZAD – January 7, 2011 As a longtime [...]

In a noted moment of chutzpah the Italian press, led by Paolo Mereghetti (pictured), has been up in arms about the American raid on the most consequential awards at the Venice Biennale with Sofia Coppola winning for “Somewhere” and Monte Hellman for “Road to nowhere.”

I admit, I knew that neither film was a shoo-in for the top nods, especially with the wealth of prime cinema on the Lido this year. Coppola, who was previously in a relationship with jury president Quentin Tarantino, makes watchable movies but is often afraid of scratching beyond the surface; characters sometimes appear smaller under her microscope. Monte Hellman was an early mentor of Tarantino's (video store geekdom oblige) whose place in cinema history next to Roger Corman is secure--as a cult-movies director.

Today I spent almost half the day inside movie theatres. I started with Korean director Lee Changdong’s "Poetry," competing for the Palme D’Or. Even though I will confess to being less inclined to liking Korean films lately, this was an important film to watch because it is in competition and also I’ve never missed the 8:30am screening. “Poetry” did not disappoint. As much as I did not appreciate the other Korean film in Cannes this year, “House Maid,” the aptly-named “Poetry” is a winner. Mija lives with her grandson in a provincial town—she’s slightly eccentric, dresses chic and takes a poetry course at the city’s cultural center. In her quest for beauty (since that’s the class assignment ) she finds cruelty and deviance. Top honors for best feminine interpretation for Yun Junghee? Bet.

James Franco’s short film “The Clerk’s Tale” will close Critics’ Week at Cannes. Screen Comment’s Ali Naderzad did a close reading with Franco on the Spencer Reece poem it is based on.

Ali Naderzad - “The Clerk’s Tale” has a hint of sweet hopelessness. It reminds me of Thoreau’s famous sentence “the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”I found the following sentence especially striking:

He does this because his acceptance is finally complete—and complete acceptance is always bittersweet. And then, there’s the extraordinary. We are changed when the transactions are done— older, dirtier, dwarfed."

“Dog Pound,” twenty nine year-old French director Kim Chapiron’s account [...]