Tommy Lee Jones made his Cannes directorial debut in 2005 with "The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada" and was awarded best screenplay for it (Guillermo Arriaga was scribe) and the best actor nod. It's taken him nine years to turn out his new opus "The Homesman," as director. After Faulkner, he's adapted a novel by Glendon Swarthout and revisits the Western genre. The resulting film, a moral and social fable from a different era, is excellent

(CONTAINS SPOILER ALERTS) Atom Egoyan’s to-catch-a-child-abductor caper “The Captive” was the third competition entry to arrive here. The motif of young ones in distress amid snow-clogged landscapes will no doubt bring to mind the director’s harrowing “The Sweet Hereafter,” which was a big prizewinner here in 1997. Sadly “Captive” does not come close to “Hereafter” in emotional force and restraint. Instead it brings to

Good, marketable cinema usually comes from the same continents over and over again. Countries in those continents have support structures that ensure that out of the lot some film school graduates are going to become great filmmakers. The reverse of this seems to be true, too. People desirous of becoming filmmakers but who have the misfortune of being born in countries such as Laos, Nigeria or North Korea and who have

Kelly Reichardt likes uncomplicated. As early as when “Wendy and Lucy” came out her films have testified to her ultra-sharp minimalism and efficiency. “Night Moves,” a genre film in which three environmentalists (they're David Koresh league, but for the tree-hugger set) conspire together to blow up a dam follows the same ethos of subtlety. In lieu and place of a psychological drama about eco-terrorism Reichardt ventures

Alba Rorhwacher, an Italian actress whose Audrey Hepburn-like grace matches her exceptional qualities as actress became known to American audiences for playing Tilda Swinton's daughter in "Amore." She will be coming to the Cannes Festival next week to support "Le Meraviglie" ("The wonders," in Italian) a film in which she has the leading role, and which was directed by her sister Alice Rohrwacher. It's the end of summer, a village in the Umbria

Two directors from Russia are bringing their films to Cannes this year. One, Andrey Zvyagintsev, will be competing, while the other, Sergei Loznitsa, will get to show his film in one of the special, non-competitive sections. One of the films that’s being talked about in anticipation of the Cannes Festival's launch next week year is Zviagintsev’s

"Disillusioned youths groping for self-worth in the teenage wastelands of California." This could be the long-form title of newcomer Gia Coppola's directorial debut, adapted from a collection of short stories by James Franco. In a particularly lucid moment Franco said that he only wanted a woman to direct this adaptation, and that was the right move. She's been able to turn the violent environments of Franco's novels into tender

A collaboration grew from inside a New York University graduate […]

The Johnny Depp science fiction film “Transcendence” has been kicking around theaters for the past two weeks, but there’s a smaller gem of a movie—independently co-written and co-produced by Kate Cohen, one of “Transcendence’s” producers that's only available for streaming.

It’s called “Away from Here,” and like “The Woodsman,” it treats a normally sensational subject, adult sex with minors, with refreshing

The mystery of geopolitical consensus: China, a major economic ally of the U.S., regularly tramples on human rights, imprisons journalists and artists and runs forced labor camps.

This is good, where cinema is concerned at least. Because of the latest shenanigans