(CANNES, France) - A family of grifters hustles the perfect family in Bong Joon-Ho's meticulously-directed "Parasite." And they go all the way to Cannes gold! This is the beauty of the Cannes Festival, the jury and the results can be full of surprises--even bad ones. This is a year, also, when the press and the jury are aligned--on who should win top gold. For the rest, who knows what went on in the villa above Cannes, in between gulps

Matthias and Maxime have been friends since childhood. Matthias (Gabriel D’Almeida Freitas, in his second role for the big screen) tries to gain a foothold in the business world while Maxime makes a living as bartender, caring for his mother, a recovering addict.The two young men give off slight reticence, an awkwardness, it becomes clear very quickly in the film that these two aren’t just in a friendship. The tight-knit group of friends

Bong Joon-Ho has directed "Parasite," a comedy about an elaborate con that glistens with irony. The material ambitions of the poor are pitted against the dull indulgence of the wealthy in a manichean fight for supremacy. Will the world one day see an all-out war between the classes? Occupy Wall Street, the Yellow Vest movement, were those harbingers? They’ve all come and gone but what’s next? Will there be something else

An exotic locale in beautiful Portugal, an unaffected and powerful performance by a star actress and existential worriment. This is what you can expect from “Frankie,” an ensemble film directed by Ira Sachs that’s asthmatic and lacks energy but fascinated me, nevertheless, because of its main actress Isabelle Huppert and her incredible on-screen presence.Huppert is one of France’s biggest names.

It’d be understandable to interpret the new Dardenne Brothers movie as finger pointing at the insidious and virulent strain of religiosity that’s going around the world right now, that is, Islamism. But enslavement, of the mind, a boxing in, seems more like the point of this pleasurable new opus by the directors of “Kid with the bike.” Enslavement to someone else’s viewpoint, a submission to a code of beliefs that’s toxic

Terrence Malick has directed “A Hidden Life,” a very enjoyable contemplation on World War II, on freedom, on good and evil, and on God. His film asks, where was God during WWII?Radegund, a beautiful village in the Austrian Alps . Franz Jägerstätter, a conscientious objector, refuses to fight for the Nazis or to pledge allegiance to them. Franz has a farm in these beautiful mountains that he tends to with his wife, Franziska

THIS JUST IN: “The Dead Don’t Die” will open this year’s Cannes Festival (April 10th, 2019). After the dead rise from their graves, the tranquil town of Centerville has no choice but to battle the hordes of zombies come threaten their way of life. "The dead don't die" was written and directed by Jim Jarmusch, produced by Joshua Astrachan and Carter Logan and produced by Animal Kingdom (they produced Jarmusch's previous film, 2016's "Patterson").