For Greater Glory: Film Review

The sort of lumbering epic drama that went out of fashion by the late 1960s, For Greater Glory is mainly notable for shedding light on a little-known historical conflict, namely the Cristero War that took place in 1920s Mexico. This elaborate production about that countrys persecution of the Catholic Church crams in an endless number of battle scenes and real-life historical figures into its overlong 143-minute running time, with increasingly...

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U.N. Me: Film Review

A damning account of institutional dysfunction whose ability to stoke indignation is undercut by its filmmakers' misguided comic antics, Matt Groff and Ami Horowitz's U.N. Me is armed with enough evidence to make its case but is unlikely to attract the viewers it hopes to convince. Though former investment banker Horowitz (who narrates and is the film's Michael Moore-like protagonist) has contributed to National Review and The Weekly Standard,...

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Snow White and the Huntsman: Film Review

A bold rethinking of a familiar old story and striking design elements are undercut by a draggy mid-section and undeveloped characters in Snow White and the Huntsman. After the campy family farce of Mirror, Mirror, this second revisionist take of the year on the 19th century fairy tale strides out deadly serious and in full armor, not to mention with more costume changes for Charlize Theronthan a Lady Gaga concert. Designed to appeal to teen...

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Renoir: Film Review

The story of the young woman who was the final muse to painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir and the first one to filmmaker Jean Renoir is artistically pivotal and possessing of a lovely symmetry, but it's only mildly dramatic as rendered in the gently observant Renoir. Gilles Bourdos' sun-soaked look at the flame-haired teenager who showed up one day in Cagnes-sur-Mer in 1915 and became the subject of the aged sensualist's ripe final works plausibly...

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Prometheus: Film Review

Be careful what you wish for, especially if it involves figuring out who invented humankind. That's the warning at the heart ofPrometheus,a visual feast of a 3D sci-fi movie that has trouble combining its high-minded notions about the origins of the species and itsAlien-based obligation to deliver oozy gross-out moments. Ridley Scott's third venture into science-fiction, afterAlienin 1979 andBlade Runnerin 1982, won't become a genre benchmark...

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Dangerous Liaisons: Cannes Review

A womanizing playboy and his scheming ex-lover play destructive power games in this ravishing relocation of an 18th century French literary classic to 1930s Shanghai. Already adapted for the big screen multiple times, Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos clearly has evergreen appeal across cultural, language and age barriers. Premiered at the Directors Fortnight in Cannes, this latest remake by the Chinese-Korean director Hur...

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Wallander: The Revenge: Film Review

Scandinavian crime fiction continues its American invasion with the Henning Mankell adaptation Wallander: The Revenge, originally made for Swedish TV. Considering the Stateside exposure already given to the BBC series in which Kenneth Branagh plays the hero, theatrical prospects here are limited. But fans of the character should appreciate Krister Henriksson's dry take on the role, and will be happy to learn that 13 of his made-for-TV outings...

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Fogo: Cannes Review

A superb calling-card for the skills of cinematographer Diego Garca, hour-long docu-fiction hybrid Fogo is otherwise austere high-art cinema of the most exquisitely patience-sapping kind. A Canadian-Mexican co-production about the Newfoundland/Labrador island which provides its title, this third picture by Yulene Olaizola will enjoy a measure of festival exposure thanks to the success of her widely-screened 2008 debut Intimacies of Shakespeare...

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The Music According to Antonio Carlos Jobim (A Musica Segundo Tom Jobim): Cannes Review

This freewheeling tribute to the Brazilian music legend Antonio Carlos Tom Jobim offered one of the most effortlessly enjoyable screening experiences in Cannes, but also one of the most insubstantial. Showcasing the songs of the late composer, singer and multi-instrumentalist credited with popularising the bossa nova sound worldwide, it was co-directed by Jobims 36-year-old daughter Dora and the 83-year-old Brazilian veteran Nelson Pereira Dos...

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La Playa D.C.: Cannes Review

Three decades after unknown film-student Spike Lee unveiled Joe's Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads, writer-director Juan Andrs Arango emerges straight outta Bogot with his own auspicious, tonsorially-themed debut La Playa D.C. Focusing on a teenage apprentice barber coping with the city's forbiddingly mean streets, it's a minutely-observed peek into hardscrabble lives that pours intoxicatingly fresh aguardiente into a rather dusty old bottle....

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The Oath of Tobruk (Le Serment de Tobrouk): Cannes Review

CANNES - A FIRST-PERSON DOCUMENTARY ESSAY about last years Libyan uprising presented by the globe-trotting French intellectual Bernard-Henri Lvy, The Oath of Tobruk brought a whiff of the Parisian Left Bank to the closing weekend of Cannes. A late addition to the festival program, Lvys film was co-produced by the French-German culture channel Arte and seems most likely to find a home on similar prestige TV networks. However, the Weinstein Company...

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Sofia's Last Ambulance: Cannes Review

Its misleadingly alarmist - and inaccurate - title aside, Sofia's Last Ambulance is an admirably solid slice of old-school cinma-verit that chronicles and celebrates a team of Bulgarian EMS personnel. Debuting in the International Critics' Week at Cannes, it landed the sidebar's inaugural "Visionary Award" for the Sofia-born London-trained director/camera-operator/co-editor Ilian Metev, and will be a very popular pick for non-fiction festivals...

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For Love's Sake (Ai To Makoto): Cannes Review

Love and social classes tangle dangerously in For Loves Sake, a delirious if overly long and repetitive high school musical spoof, contaminated with indigenous Japanese genres like anime cartoons and the action film. It would be a reckless leap to call the constant fist fights, coupled with absurd song and dance numbers, a send-up of classical Broadway musicals like West Side Story. Directed by Japans one-man film factory Takashi Miike, whose...

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Aquí y Allá: Cannes Review

An ostentatiously downbeat peek into the life of a poor Mexican family, Antonio Mndez Esparza's Spanish-US co-production Aqu y All is attracting international attention after taking top honours in the Critics' Week sidebar at Cannes. But prospects for this patience-taxingly boilerplate example of current Latin American art-cinema are much closer to that of relatively little-seen 2009 Grand Prix winner Goodbye Gary than to 2010 scorer Armadillo...

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Camille Rewinds (Camille Redouble): Cannes Review

CANNES - AN EMOTIONALLY DISTRESSED woman goes in search of her lost youth in this bittersweet French time-travel comedy, which owes more to Marty McFly than Marcel Proust. A strong local crowd-pleaser in Cannes, Camille Rewinds closed the Directors Fortnight and picked up a minor prize, the Prix SACD. A writer, actor and film-maker with a large fanbase in France, Nomie Lvovskys track record should guarantee the film solid local business and a niche...

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Mud: Cannes Review

The story of a sympathetic fugitive who forges a bond with two teenage boys near a mighty river down south, Mud is shot through with traditional qualities of American literature and drama. Jeff Nichols much-anticipated follow-up to his breakthrough second feature Take Shelter feels less adventurous and unsettling but remains a well carpentered piece of work marked by some fine performances and resilient thematic fiber. A shrewd and determined...

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Maniac: Cannes Review

CANNES - Theres nothing cuddly or Frodo-ish about Elijah Woods psycho killer in French director Franck Khalfouns haute-horreur remake of the low-budget 1980 William Lustig movie thats become something of a grubby touchstone among genre fans. Woods limpid saucer eyes are used here to telegraph unhinged blood-lust and insanity, even if only sporadically, as he plays a sicko with mommy issues who scalps his female victims. The twist, and what helps...

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The Suicide Shop (Le magasin des suicides): Cannes Review

Theres a whiff of a Tim Burton shroud here, but the humorous creepiness of Edward Gorey and the Addams family are better references to the black comedy feature animation The Suicide Shop, a tongue-in-cheek Parisian-set romp in which the warm humanism of eclectic director Patrice Leconte shines through. Based on Jean Teuls novel, oft adapted for the stage, this film version is full of musical numbers (the French lyrics rhyme in the subtitles) and has a cheery, old-fashioned look that could appeal to young teens attracted to skull motifs, though...

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Chernobyl Diaries: Film Review

A basic monster movie that benefits greatly from its unique setting, Chernobyl Diaries again demonstrates Oren Pelis ability to wrest scares with minimal production values and a clever premise. The wunderkind behind Paranormal Activity came up with the story for this effort, which he also produced and co-scripted. While unlikely to match that franchises unworldly successbarring a Fukushima Diaries, there seems little prospect for a sequelthis...

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Cosmopolis: Cannes Review

After a strong run of films during the past decade, David Cronenberg blows a tire with Cosmopolis. Lifeless, stagey and lacking a palpable subversive pulse despite the ready opportunities offered by the material, this stillborn adaptation of Don DeLillos novel initially will attract some Robert Pattinson fans but will be widely met with audience indifference. DeLillos short, chilly 2003 book adopted a Ulysses-like format of a mans journey across...

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Sightseers: Cannes Review

The most consistently hilarious Brit-com for a good half-decade - probably since Edgar Wright's Hot Fuzz - Sightseers cements director Ben Wheatley's reputation among his generation's smartest and edgiest filmmakers. A pitch-black and sometimes gorily violent laugh-riot in which a nerdish holidaying couple semi-inadvertently embark on a killing spree, it was snapped up for North American release by IFC just before bowing - out of competition, bizarrely - in Cannes' Director's Fortnight sidebar. PHOTOS: Cannes Day 10: 'Cosmopolis' Premiere, 'Hemingway...

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