Joe Strummer was a mensch. That's one thing the makers of "London Town," which opened Friday in New York and Los Angeles, want you to know about the late frontman of The Clash. Set in 1979 in working-class London, the film, directed by Derrick Borte ("The Joneses") and written by Matt Brown, Sonya Gildea and Kirsten Sheridan ("In America"), is a coming-of-age story laced with the political upheaval circumstances of the time: the rise of Thatcherism, hate

Kiarostami, that filmmaker who spoke in a sweet and elegant voice and made the slow films that have, for long, been part of the pantheon, died nearly two weeks ago. Remembering an article that was published about twenty years ago I dug through an old box and found a Chanteh, a lit quarterly published in the D.C. area that was about Iranians. A special issue on Iranian cinema came out in spring of 1996 . One of the sections

PRESS RELEASE - Roger Corman will be paid tribute during the 69th edition of the Festival del film Locarno via screenings of two of his films. Guest of honor at the Filmmakers Academy, the training project for young directors, Corman has long been considered a cult filmmaker who helped change the way films are conceived, produced and directed. As director and screenwriter he made a long series of films

CANNES FESTIVAL - Film critics and festival jurors: two divergent forces that make the weather for the eleven days that the festival lasts. And yet, there's hardly any consensus between the two, with nary an exception. Last night, "I, Daniel Blake" won the Palme D'Or. I'll venture that this is the film both jurors and press met each other halfway on. With last night's win Loach joins that small club whose members--eminent directors

The press conference for the new Nicholas Winding Refn film [...]

The second part of the Cannes Festival is turning out to be more challenging, quality-wise, than the first where “Ma Loute” and “Mal de Pierres,” an off-kilter comedy and a love drama respectively, were easy to stamp as good cinema. Week two, on the other hand, isn’t all gems. Yesterday, the Dardenne Brothers’s “La fille inconnue” (“The Unknown Girl”) received a lukewarm response. It's a drama about a young woman doctor who, overcome

Like in many of his previous films every scene of “Julieta,” the new Almodovar that premiered in Cannes today, is visually perfect: flawless lighting, pristine combinations of color, evocative sculptures, colorful fabrics that stand in as metaphors for love, aging, masculinity, all of which are a part of the rich ecosystem symbols that propel Almodovar’s films. The venerable, La Mancha-born Almodovar turns 68 next September.