Is Covid19, a.k.a. novel coronavirus, going to spell the death of the Cannes Festival this year? I say, I sure hope not. And, I really don't think so. But the signs, they're worrisome. According to the powers-that-be, France is currently in what is known as Phase Two. That's when a virus has entered the country and efforts are underway at containing it. Sibeth Ndiaye, President Macron's spokesperson, has hinted that a French coronavirus

Before Weinstein and before Epstein and a myriad lesser-known sexual predators, there was Roger Ailes. The story of the CEO of Fox News and others like him, much discussed in the last few years as illustrations of how the ugly and mighty fall is now brilliantly illustrated in “Bombshell.” Jay Roach gives us the tremendously entertaining story of a watershed moment at Fox, predating the #Metoo movement, portraying the stance of a number

“Color Out of Space” is director Richard Stanley’s first feature film since his attempt at adapting “The Island of Dr. Moreau” back in 1996. Stanley was fired from that cursed production and replaced with John Frankenheimer. That firing would put a dark cloud over Richard Stanley’s career, reputation, and self-image, presumably, for quite some time.

Now here he is

Santa Barbara International Film Festival is up against Sundance this year, so the demands for top independent films are especially heightened this season, as are the demands on stars like Brad Pitt (bestowed an honor in California) to choose one or the other.

As always, there are unexpected gems, including a rather offbeat comedy from South America I was able to see (review below)

In the last decade twin sisters Jen and Sylvia Soska have doggedly pursued film ventures in the horror genre. Armed with ingenuity, a DYI ethos and a pledge to frighten honest, hard-working people, the Soskas have acted in, directed, screenwritten and produced movies that would give Lloyd Kaufman and Eli Roth a run for their money.

The Soskas have directed such films as “Dead Hooker

“Church & State” examines the remarkable true story of an inexperienced gay activist who, in partnership with a Salt Lake City law firm and members of the local LGBTQ community, successfully ended Utah's ban on gay marriage.

Mark Lawrence, a middle-aged gay man, led the charge for gay marriage equality in Utah. He’s a bit of an acquired taste (he’s so off-putting to some that it made him

Sam Mendes’s name for his film is right. It hits you in the face with the mud, blood and gloom that was there, heavily, relentlessly, during that terrible year following three years of horror and followed by an even worse one. Out of this war that Mendes described as “a chaos of mismanagement and tragedy,” he has made a war movie like none other. Eschewing regular scripts for war films, the storyline is about how to stop a battle

The circle is now complete. Forty-two years after George Lucas forever changed Hollywood (and the lives of moviegoers around the world!) with the original “Star Wars,” director J.J. Abrams brings it all home with “Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker.”

I was there opening weekend in 1977. When the music blared and the opening crawl began to roll, I knew I was in for

This Israeli film by Sameh Zoabi, an Arab Israeli, comes to us boasting a number of awards but that doesn’t prepare us for the treat of this thoroughly enjoyable and unpretentious story. “Tel Aviv on Fire” is one of those gems––think “The Band’s Visit” or “Tony Erdmann”––that grab and delight from the opening scene to the very end, with nary a slackening of rhythm. Salam (Kais Nashif, a well-known Palestinian actor) works

All week our film critics weigh in on a year that (almost) was by naming their favorite films. The filmmaker Michael Apted has been checking in on a group of British folks every seven years since they were children of seven, with the initial mission being to discover both A) if Great Britain still had a class system; and B) if the aphorism “give me a child and I’ll show you the man” still holds true. Those fresh-faced English youths