CANNES, France — I have an ear-to-ear smile plastered on my face as I just watched the trailer for "Coupez!" the next-day refresher after taking in the movie last night here in Cannes, where it opened the 75th edition of the festival. At the screening I laughed and I laughed and I laughed again. Because the film is brilliant and handled with maestria by Michel Hazanavicius (“The Artist”) and it's not afraid to be an honest-to-goodness comedy, one that shows the mishap potential

In his latest film "Le Redoutable" Michel Hazanavicius looks at Jean-Luc Godard’s life at the peak of his career, a period that coincides with a time of great upheaval in France. The backlash from the Vietnam war could be felt from afar, the French had their Mai 68 and many a filmmaker, including Godard, led the rebellion against symbols of power, whether it was the state, the big corporations or even a certain kind of cinema. The times were a-changing and Godard

"The Search," which screened for the press yesterday morning is a two-and-a-half hour-long war drama set in war-torn Chechnya in 1999. In this new film by "The Artist" director Michel Hazanavicius we follow four different people as they contend with the vagaries of war, the main one being about a woman who's separated from her brother after a bombing attack and goes on the search of the title. The director’s wife Bérénice Bejo plays

American audiences who would pass on Michel Hazanavicius’s The Artist because a) it’s a silent movie and b) it’s in black and white, will be missing one of the best films in decades. Just like some of its unforgettable elders in the silent-film era, The Artist is funny, touching without being sentimental, with story line and feelings perfectly conveyed without words. If you ever wondered how the great stars of day before yesterday