“Parasite,” directed by Bong Joon-Ho, is a comedy that glistens with irony about an elaborate con. The covetous greed of the poor is pitted against the dull indulgence of the wealthy in a manichean duel for supremacy, to realistic effect. Will the world one day see an all-out war between the classes? Occupy Wall Street, the Yellow Vest movement, are those harbingers? These movements have come and ... more >
NEWS
CANNES FESTIVAL – The grifter family versus the perfect family in the entertaining PARASITE
This film is competing for the Palme D'Or
CANNES FESTIVAL – Moving and magical PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE
This film is competing for a Palme D'Or
The year is 1770. Marianne (Noémie Merlant), the daughter of a renowned painter and a painter herself travels to an island off the coast of Brittany, tasked with painting the portrait of a noblewoman, Héloïse (Adèle Haenel). Héloïse has recently left the convent where she led a life of seclusion because of a family tragedy: Her sister has met a tragic end on the verge of marrying a Milanese ... more >
CANNES FESTIVAL – Diao Yinan’s WILD GOOSE LAKE
"Wild Goose Lake" is competing for the Palme D'Or
A gang leader on the lam in search of redemption. A prostitute eager to gain her freedom back. Together they will decide to play one last gamble with their fate, the proverbial last big hit. Within this narrative proposition, a discrete romantic plot that will come to fit within the film’s dramatic structure. This is “Wild Goose Lake,” by Chinese director Yi'nan Diao, a film that’s inferior to his ... more >
CANNES FESTIVAL – Almodovar delivers moving tribute to cinema and love in Palme D’Or-worthy “Dolor y gloria”
This film competes for the Palme D'Or
CANNES, France - This is me breathing a sigh of relief. Almodovar has made another masterpiece, a work of art. “Dolor y Gloria" is sublime! I’d become disillusioned with the work of the El Deseo chief filmmaker. “Broken embraces,” “La Piel que lo habito” were colorful, if shoddily-written films that lacked substance and were saturated with fabricated emotions. Those were films, I deduced, made by ... more >
TRIAL BY FIRE, our interview with Edward Zwick
"I’m seeing people come out of this almost transcendent"
Given his background in journalism, it’s little wonder that director Edward Zwick turned to an investigative reporter’s work as the basis for his latest film, “Trial by Fire.” The film is based on an article of the same name by David Grann published in the New Yorker in 2009 about a Texas man who was almost certainly wrongfully executed for the murder of his three children; DNA evidence exonerated ... more >
CANNES – A day in the life, Franco Lolli’s LITIGANTE
Franco Lolli's last feature film is "Gente de bien" (2014)
Carolina Sanin and Leticia Gómez
Directed by Franco Lolli
Life sometimes requires us to swallow our ego, put out fires and resolve crises on a variety of fronts--family, work, children. What if you were in crisis mode all the time? How do we confront these adversities, but more to the point, where do we find the gumption to do so? In Franco Lolli’s very personal film “Litigante,” there’s something almost invasive about watching Silvia (Carolin Sanin) go ... more >
CANNES FESTIVAL – “The Dead Don’t Die,” a manichean take on our unraveling society
Film came out in French theaters today
Bill Murray, Adam Driver and Chloe Sevigny
Directed by Jim Jarmusch
After planetary disaster strikes the planet one naturally turns to country-music for solace. Wouldn't you? I would. The country song used in Jim Jarmusch's "The Dead Don't Die" was written by Grammy-nominated country music singer Sturgill Simpson for the movie and keeps making an encore throughout the film. The song is a mantra, something for the inhabitants of a small American town named ... more >
