The new trailer for Ari Folman‘s The Congress, which will screen within hours under Un Certain Regard in Cannes. Now this — this! — is the kind of animation I can roll with. Animation built upon a narrative that clearly says “digital animation is an artificial bullshit reality, visually mesmerizing but sterile” and makes no bones about it.
“Life comes with many challenges. The ones that should not scare us are the ones we can take on and take control of.” And so ends Angelina Jolie‘s 5.14 N.Y. Times Op-Ed piece, “My Medical Choice,” in which she reveals she underwent a double mastectomy operation last February. The motive was to guard against a high likelihood that she would one day succumb to breast cancer due to a “faulty” inherited gene called BRCA1.
“I wanted to write this to tell other women that the decision to have a mastectomy was not easy,” Jolie explains. “But it is one I am very happy that I made. My chances of developing breast cancer have dropped from 87 percent to under 5 percent. I can tell my children that they don’t need to fear they will lose me to breast cancer.
In an interview with Cannes topper Thierry Fremaux, Variety critic Scott Foundas asks (a) if there’s a prevailing theme at this year’s festival, and (b) what’s with the apparent name-brand prestige-factor uptick in Un Certain Regard this year?



“Not happening…way too laid back…zero narrative urgency,” I was muttering from the get-go. Basically the sixth episode of White Lotus Thai SERIOUSLY disappoints. Puttering around, way too slow. Things inch along but it’s all “woozy guilty lying aftermath to the big party night” stuff. Glacial pace…waiting, waiting. I was told...
I finally saw Walter Salles' I'm Still Here two days ago in Ojai. It's obviously an absorbing, very well-crafted, fact-based poltical drama, and yes, Fernanda Torres carries the whole thing on her shoulders. Superb actress. Fully deserving of her Best Actress nomination. But as good as it basically is...
After three-plus-years of delay and fiddling around, Bernard McMahon's Becoming Led Zeppelin, an obsequious 2021 doc about the early glory days of arguably the greatest metal-rock band of all time, is opening in IMAX today in roughly 200 theaters. Sony Pictures Classics is distributing. All I can say is, it...
To my great surprise and delight, Christy Hall's Daddio, which I was remiss in not seeing during last year's Telluride Film Festival, is a truly first-rate two-hander -- a pure-dialogue, character-revealing, heart-to-heart talkfest that knows what it's doing and ends sublimely. Yes, it all happens inside a Yellow Cab on...
7:45 pm: Okay, the initial light-hearted section (repartee, wedding, hospital, afterlife Joey Pants, healthy diet) was enjoyable, but Jesus, when and how did Martin Lawrence become Oliver Hardy? He’s funny in that bug-eyed, space-cadet way… 7:55 pm: And now it’s all cartel bad guys, ice-cold vibes, hard bullets, bad business,...

The Kamala surge is, I believe, mainly about two things — (a) people feeling lit up or joyful about being...
Unless Part Two of Kevin Costner's Horizon (Warner Bros., 8.16) somehow improves upon the sluggish initial installment and delivers something...
For me, A Dangerous Method (2011) is David Cronenberg's tastiest and wickedest film -- intense, sexually upfront and occasionally arousing...