News Wall Top News Page: 1

The 66th Annual Cannes Film Festival is quickly coming to a close In fact, the Un Certain Regard winners were just announced a short while ago (you can see them all right here). But this year's line-up, unlike year's past, placed a lot of heavy weights near the end of the festival like Roman Polanski's "Venus In Fur" (which screened today) and Jim Jarmusch's deadpanned, odd and deeply enjoyable vampire movie, "Only Lovers Left Alive" which screened last night (you can read our review right here). The film centers on a deeply depressed underground musician (Tom Hidd...

Ever had the feeling, when the credits roll and the lights go up, that you've been watching a completely different film to everyone else? Welcome to our morning, which was spent at a screening of the last Cannes 2013 competition film, Roman Polanski's adaptation of the David Ives broadway play "Venus in Fur." Sure, there were laughs to be had, for which the delightful surprise of leading lady (and Polanski's wife) Emmanuelle Seigner's performance was largely to thank, and the witty inventiveness of the first act or so had us quite on board. But the overwrought twists and ...

Before J.C. Chandor could fully soak in the experience of premiering his sophomore feature "All is Lost" at Cannes this week -- which was met with rapturous praise (read our review here) -- he had already lined up his next project. And it's shooting later this year. His third feature, A Most Violent Year," is planning to cast a bunch of big names, but none of them have been revealed as of yet. Given the buzz for 'Lost,' however, names may not be so difficult to Plot details are being kept under wraps, but considering how well he handled an ensemble cast with his...

From the very first opening titles, written in a Germanic font that immediately conjures everything from "Triumph of the Will" to images of big-busted ladies screaming in campy close-up in 1970s cheapie horrors (it may be the only time in Cannes that a film got a big laugh for a typeface) it's perfectly clear that the Jim Jarmusch in whose company we're about to spend a couple of hours is not the wilfully obscure surrealist of "The Limits of Control," nor the considered, melancholic philosopher behind "Dead Man," nor even the oddball ragtag troubadour of "Down By Law." In...

It almost feels like J.C. Chandor is showing off. In what is only his second feature film, after the chalk-and-cheese financial collapse movie "Margin Call," he sets himself a kind of exercise in filmmaking rigor, in the bare-bones, one-man survival-at-sea story "All Is Lost" and delivers. From the strong but talky, pointing-at-screens-spouting-financial-mumbo-jumbo of his debut, it's initially hard to see how we could have predicted the filmmaker's ability to deliver a much more visceral, physically gruelling, dialogue-free experience. But hindsight is 20/20 and what b...

In a few weeks the fifth annual BAMcinemaFest at the Brooklyn Academy of Music kicks off, bringing a wide away of stellar content to New York's hippest borough. Today, the full line-up has been revealed for the festival, which runs from June 19th to the 28th, which includes the New York premiere of the documentary "Peaches Does Herself" about punky synth pop star Peaches (complete with a live performance by the star) and the New York premiere of "I Used to Be Darker," the new film by Matthew Porterfield. Get your subway tickets ready: it's going to be a good one.On Tues...

There are plenty of traditions associated with Memorial Day: barbeques, the return of white pants, massive sales, and, of course, the release of long-awaited blockbuster flicks. We get two this weekend, both hailing from impressively resilient franchises. Plus, there's the highly anticipated next chapter in the "Before [insert time of day]" series. But maybe you're not a sequel person, in which case you can indulge in a 3D animated feature for the kiddies (in all of us), probing documentaries, dark comedies, and a biopic. Because what's more American tha...

Hailed as an incredible piece of documentary work, Joshua Oppenheimer's "The Act of Killing" -- after hitting festivals in the past year including Telluride, Toronto, Berlin, Sydney and more -- is on its way to theaters and a brand new trailer has arrived.Presented by Errol Morris and Werner Herzog (no slouches in the field themselves), this imaginative documentary explores the celebrity status of death squad leaders in Indonesia. The film studies the men behind countless killings by presenting them with the task of recreating their killings in the style of the American...

By now, you've heard the praise for David Lowery's outlaw tale "Ain't Them Bodies Saints." Premiering at Sundance in January to all sorts of good word and then hitting Cannes to play the Critics' Week sidebar, the movie continues it's march toward the big screen with a brand new trailer that's as beautiful as all get out. The story seems simple enough: After a crime spree leaves an officer wounded, Bob (Casey Affleck) takes the blame and heads to prison, leaving his girl Ruth (Rooney Mara) behind, and pregnant. Four years later, he breaks out and makes his way to back t...

This week George Lucas' "Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi" turns 30. The conclusion to what was then imagined to be the end of the "Star Wars" saga concerned the Rebellion going up against the evil Galactic Empire, which has constructed a second, planet-destroying Death Star that is about to go online. It had a whole bunch of thrills, chills, and fussy robots, but, as we look back on 'Return of the Jedi' (and look forward to whatever J.J. Abrams' "Star Wars: Episode 7" will be), it's interesting to note what the sequel could have contained - and how it could h...

This is probably not how Warner Bros. wanted to head into the Memorial Day weekend. With the studio seemingly finally getting their long developing "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." movie going, with Guy Ritchie directing, and Armie Hammer and Alicia Vikander coming in supporting roles, they've just lost their leading man.That's right, Tom Cruise has bailed on the movie, with Deadline revealing he's focusing on "Mission: Impossible 5" instead. It seems Paramo...

If you thought there was a chance you might see Jeff Bridges don his iconic bathrobe one more time we've got some troubling news for you. Joel and Ethan Coen are attending the Cannes Film Festival to promote their latest film "Inside Llewyn Davis," and the duo sat down to answer questions at a press event. Inevitably the conversation turned to their cult classic "The Big Lebowski" and whether or not they would want to take on a sequel. Over the years actors,...

Imagine it: you've taken off from school and waited in line all day to see "Star Wars: Return of the Jedi," the last installment (ever!) in the "Star Wars" saga. You've wearing your favorite "Star Wars" shirt, have your bucket of popcorn and jumbo-sized soda, and have chosen a primo seat in the auditorium, the best possible vantage point to watch the end of the trilogy unfold. And no more than twenty minutes into the movie lovable rogue Han Solo (Harrison Ford) dies fighting the evil Galactic Empire, sacrificing himself for the good of the Rebellion. The shockwaves from...

The fact that Alejandro Jodorowsky -- coming off the double whammy of 1970s cult favorite mind benders "El Topo" and "The Holy Mountain" -- even got near bringing Frank Hebert's "Dune" to the big screen perhaps speaks to the wackiness of the 1970s movie world. That it actually got as far as it did, hiring an insane set of collaborators, an equally ambitious cast and actually reaching the stage where sets were going to be built, its even more miraculous. But alas, it fell apart and has become one of the great unmade movie stories in cinema history. The mind still reels a...

Want to see Michael Cera troll YouTube's Comedy Week? I don't want to say too much about his latest project from JASH, the YouTube comedy channel he co-founded with Reggie Watts, Tim & Eric, and Sarah Silverman, but you can check it out below. Written and directed by Janicza Bravo, "Gregory Go Boom" stars Michael Cera as a parap...

Believe it or not, "Return of the Jedi" turns 30 this year. Now before you start to think about how old you are, why not enjoy this interesting little nugget? Author J.W. Rinzler's book "The Making of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi" comes out later this year and The Huffington Post has gotten their hands on a little excerpt that will definitely perk the interest of any "Star Wars" fan. The excerpt is from a "Revenge of the Jedi Story Conference" that was attended by George Lucas, writer...

James Gray's long-awaited period drama, "The Immigrant," finally screened in Cannes early this morning. Starring the excellent cast of Joaquin Phoenix, Marion Cotillard and Jeremy Renner, "The Immigrant" centers on a conniving pimp (Phoenix) who manipulates a destitute Polish immigrant (Cotillard) into a life of prostitution. Saddled with a sick sister, she works to pay for her medicine and her dismal life seems hopeless until a curious magician (Renner) enters her life. Our reviewer called the film "carefully poised and slowly building to a resonant climax," and that so...

It's Friday and a long holiday weekend is just around the corner. Why not start it off right with a couple of cool documentaries on a couple of cool directors? After all, the new season "Arrested Development" doesn't come until Sunday, so you've got some time.First up is a two-part documentary -- nearly 100 minutes total -- on John Cassavetes, "Anything For John." It features interviews from many key collaborators like his wife/muse Gena Rowlands, Peter Falk and Seymour Cassel and focuses as much on his films as it does on the man himself. It's a hugely informative film...

The name Van Vlahakis might not be well known, but his is the immigrant success story that perhaps we don't hear of often enough. The Greece native landed in America with only $22 dollars to his name and wound up founding Earth Friendly Products, a multi-million dollar company. And perhaps completing the circle of the American dream, his tale has now inspired the biopic, "A Green Story." Ed O'Ross, Annabella Sciorra, Shannon Elizabeth, Malcolm McDowell, Billy Zane, Louis Mandylor and Debbie Matenopoulos are among the ensemble cast in writer/director Nick Agiashvili's fi...

With today's release of "The Hangover Part III," our national nightmare ends and the Wolfpack rides off into the sunset (we hope). Because fans of the "The Hangover" films are also readers of Vanity Fair, director Todd Phillips was interviewed by the magazine and had a few choice words for his critics.Talking about the origins of the third film, Phillips revealed that he was tempted to "do another wake-up movie." Why? We'll let him explain: "The criticisms [of 'The Hangover Part 2'] were really about the structure -- they didn't know how this could happen to the same gu...