★★★★☆ Following the success of last year’s In the House (2012), acclaimed French director François Ozon returns to cinema screens this week with Palme d’Or nominee Jeune & Jolie (2013), a stylish, well-crafted and intelligent study of a young woman coming of age through the space of four seasons, and Continue Reading
★★★★☆ Asghar Farhadi first burst onto the international scene with his 2011 Silver Bear/Oscar winner A Separation, the most recent of several astute Iranian dramas. Farhadi returns this year with Palme d’Or nominee The Past (Le passé, 2013), a film equally as riveting as those that came before. This nuanced, Continue Reading
★★★★★ Based on the real-life 2009 shooting of Oscar Grant in Oakland, California, Ryan Coogler’s feature debut Fruitvale Station (2013) is an uncompromising, original and movingly humane piece of American political cinema. Michael B. Jordan plays Oscar, who, on New Year’s Eve, has already committed himself to fulfilling his annual Continue Reading
★★☆☆☆ Opening the Un Certain Regard section of the 66th Cannes Film Festival comes Sofia Coppola’s The Bling Ring (2013), a teen crime movie/wannabe satire based on the true story of a gang of over-privileged kids (with serious entitlement issues) who burgled a succession of Hollywood celebrity abodes several years Continue Reading