After the excellent "District 9," Neil Blomkamp is back with "Elysium." This time around, it's not about aliens raising hell in a shanty but part of mankind just trying to survive on a planet that's been devastated while a few 1 percenters live comfortably in a space station.

In this new sci-fi feature film featuring piquant political subtext Matt Damon portrays the hero who accepts a mission which

“Violet & Daisy” is more conceit than film. It steals a little from “Pulp Fiction” (both before and after a bloody hit, two nonchalant assassins discuss unrelated things, in this case bestiality), a tad from “Suicide Kings” (criminals in way over their head are outsmarted by their hostage), a smidgen from “The Professional” (a troubled girl finds a daddy figure in an older criminal). The soundtrack is, course, incongruously light and

Seen from the outside the situation in the Middle East conflict—the plight of Palestinians in the Territories, the sense of insecurity of Israelis, the second-rate status of Arab Israeli citizens--may seem both hopeless and distant. Hopeless it may be but distant it certainly is not for the millions who live it every day. The point is forcefully brought home by the excellent film “The Attack” by Lebanese-born director Ziad Doueiri, based on

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

Forty years ago, Jep Gambardella (Toni Servillo ) wrote a book that became an instant best-seller and is still read and more or less remembered—by some as a frothy and irrelevant intellectual joke, by others as a life-changing and profound work of literature. What Gambardella himself is reminded of when people mention the book is that he hasn’t written another one since, not for lack of wanting to but more for lack of time

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

Abdelatif Kechiche’s "Blue Is the Warmest Colour," a graphic but incredibly haunting and beautiful lesbian love story, has won the Palme d’Or, as was just announced during today's closing ceremony. The jury, presided over by Steven Spielberg (the other members: Daniel Auteuil, Vidya Balan, Naomi Kawase, Nicole Kidman, Ang Lee, Cristian Mungiu, Lynne Ramsay, and Christoph Waltz), presented the following awards as well:

This 66th Cannes Festival was a genuinely social affair. No, I don’t mean the bacchanalian soirees and the private parties which happened relentlessly during the eleven days or so of the festival. I’m referring to social media. Cannes’ Twitter ecosystem really came into its own this year, with people (“les tweetos” as the French like to call them) taking to the bandwidths to comment on everything from the selection to the celebs (les “pipoles”)

The Cannes Festival is also at its best when it serves our interests through the rewarding of serious works that have a strong historical and social component.

During a brief ceremony in the Theatre Claude Debussy tonight Thomas Vinterberg and the rest of the Un Certain Regard jury handed out prizes to films presented in that section. Of note, Rithy Panh’s “The Missing Picture,” an

A Jim Jarmusch movie is rare and mysterious. Today in Cannes his latest film “Only Lovers Left Alive” starring Tilda Swinton, Tom Hiddleston, Mia Wasikowska and Anton Yelchin was shown as a part of the competition program.

“Lovers” is your average love story between centuries-old people (Swinton and Hiddleston). One lives in Detroit and the other, Tangier. Jarmusch threw in