Alain Guiraudie’s film, shown in the “Un certain regard” section at the last Cannes Film Festival, is a perfect illustration of why European cinema works while American cinema is drowning in a sea of either loud, big productions wrapped in close-ups of interchangeable actors (Brad Pitt or Leo di Caprio? Nicole Kidman or Jessica Chastain?) and special effects or self-indulgent, quirky indies where one almost hears the whirring of the

About the restored “Desert of the Tartars” (“Tartar Steppe” in the English title) screened at the last Cannes Film Festival as part of Cannes Classics, Beatrice de Mondenard quotes in the “Cannes Festival Daily” Angelo Cosimano of Digimage Classics, the company that carried out the restoration:

"From the first tests, the richness of the content on the negatives deeply astonished us, almost

This photo of James Gandolfini waving suddenly looks eerily ominous. Gandolfini who just died far too early at age 51 will be sorely missed. If ever there was a natural, he was it. No matter what the part, no matter if an entire series like the Sopranos or a Broadway play rested on his shoulders or if he appeared onscreen or onstage in a supporting role, he occupied the space so stupendously—and not because of his girth—that anyone one

Sofia Coppola’s latest is about as interesting as the vapid microcosm in which it takes place: the small world of a bunch of half-wit Louboutin- and Vuitton-obsessed rich kids in L.A. They come up with the brilliant idea of finding out on the internet when this or that celebrity is out of town so they can sneak in the empty house and get their hands on the objects of their dreams. It’s mansion after mansion, gaudy and kitsch and

Can anyone be considered absolutely unique in a field as crowded as cinema? Definitely, if you’re Esther Williams who died this week at age 91. Swimming is how the Californian brunette with the athletic body and easy smile made her mark and found her way into the hearts and lockers of innumerable servicemen. No one will remember any of her movies made in the 1940s and 1950s but to a public old enough to have been around in her heyday, her

During one of the tamer scenes of “Cleopatra” Elizabeth Taylor’s Queen of the Nile leads Julius Caesar to the tomb of Alexander the Great. Staring down at the (pretend) grave of Western Civilization’s greatest conqueror, what could Taylor be thinking? Is she thinking “Amateur!”? What Alexander tried and failed to take with force – the entire world – Taylor was accomplishing that moment with overwhelming fame and

A film based on Nelson Mandela's bestselling autobiography "Long Walk to Freedom" will be released in November, producers said on Monday. The biopic, entitled "Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom", is to star British actor Idris Elba as the iconic anti-apartheid hero and will trace his life from childhood to imprisonment and presidency in 1994. "We are honoured to have had Madiba license us the film rights to his fascinating life story