An overview of twelve films in the 2019 Venice Film Festival that get my thumbs-up vote.
The latest on Blu-ray and streaming, including Blaze, The Heiress, and Dragged Across Concrete.
The staff choices for the best films of 2018.
With another Police Story film opening this week, 30 years after the original, Simon Abrams offers a primer.
"Only Lovers Left Alive" is Top 5 Jim Jarmusch for sure; a long, warm bath in sensuality, with flashes of Wong-Kar Wai amid the ennui. In its deliberate slowness, it also ends up feeling like requiem for 20th century film storytelling, and for the pre-digital world.
• Grace Wang of TorontoIt's my last day in Hong Kong and I'm spending it indoors - specifically - at a Starbucks in Kowloon Station across from the cross-border bus terminal, of which I'm booked to get on a bus in 3 hours back to Mainland China.
Across from me in the cushy tan sofa, a woman is dozing over an English newspaper. The headlines reads "EU summit puts off the tough decisions"... Hmm, not exactly light Sunday afternoon readings (or is it Saturday? I lose count). She has long curly dark brown hair that is half-dry and is dressed fashionably in jeans and a black leather jacket. She looked a little anxious when asking whether the seat was taken, and a little taken aback when I blurted out "no" in English (caffeine hasn't quite sank in then yet). Is the newspaper part of an effort to brush up on her English? I wonder. Did she have a rough night? Is she waiting for someone?
TORONTO, Ont. -- This kid David Gordon Green is 29 years old, and he is a great filmmaker. He walked onto the stage at the Toronto Film Festival wearing jeans, a T-shirt and flip-flops, and said he'd gotten worked up over the premiere of his new film and stubbed his little toe on his coffee table and broken it. "It's twice the size it was an hour ago," he said morosely, peering down at the injured digit. And then he showed us "Undertow," and this film is a masterpiece.
CANNES, France -- The Cannes prize for Chicago actress Irma P. Hall was explained, sort of, at the jury's press conference Sunday. The jury gave its best actress award to Maggie Cheung for "Clean," and then broke with precedent by giving a special jury prize to Hall for her work in "The Ladykillers."
CANNES, France -- Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11," a documentary denouncing the presidency of George W. Bush, won the Palme d'Or here Saturday night as the best film in the Cannes Film Festival. It was the first documentary to take the Palme since 1956, and was a popular winner; at its official screening it received what the festival director said was the longest ovation in Cannes history.
CANNES, France -- Quentin Tarantino, Charlize Theron, Tom Hanks, Michael Moore, Brad Pitt, Sean Penn and Shrek are converging on this balmy Riviera resort town today, and there may be trainloads of striking French show-biz workers to picket them. The 57th Cannes Film Festival is open for business.
CANNES, France -- Why did they save the best for last? "Songs From The Second Floor" and "In The Mood For Love," two brilliant final entries in this year's Cannes Film Festival, played over the weekend, as the hotels were emptying and the traffic jams clearing.
Great Movies
