ScarJo Snubs Woody Premiere

US snubs relentless mediocrity, but director is still welcome abroad

(NEWSER) - America may have spawned Woody Allen, but “the perpetuation of Allen's zombie-like career is one atrocity for which we refuse to be held accountable,” Joe Queenan argues in the Guardian. The diminutive director’s recent films have bombed stateside; when eight people showed up for a New York screening of Hollywood Ending, Queenan writes, it signaled that “Allen was finished as a driving force in US cinema.” More»

The latest from Woody Allen, Gus Van Sant, Pedro Almodóvar, and more

(NEWSER) - Cannes kicks off on Wednesday, and the Daily Beast rounds up 10 of the most buzzed-about movies featured at the 64th annual film festival:

• The Tree of Life: From filmmaker Terrence Malick, the story of a Texas boy (played in adulthood by Sean Penn) torn between the worldviews of his father, played by Brad Pitt, and his mother, played by newcomer Jessica Chastain.
• Melancholia: Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier's version of an Armageddon story, which centers around two sisters (played by Kirsten Dunst and Charlotte Gainsbourg) who are drifting apart.

Festival has more alcohol, drugs, sex than films

(NEWSER) - The name “Cannes” once conjured up images of Hollywood glamor and French sophistication, but no more. The film festival has turned into a marathon of binge drinking and sleazy sex, attended by high-heeled, fake-tanned partiers who are “not interested in the films, only the party scene,” one tells the Daily Mail. “During the festival it’s all sex, sex, sex,” frowns a local. More»

Allen's latest tragicomedy splits critics

(NEWSER) - Critics are sharply divided over Woody Allen’s latest flick, Vicky Cristina Barcelona. The story of two women’s romantic adventures in Spain—“as much a tragedy as a comedy,” Mahnola Dargis writes for the New York Times—carries “a sun-drenched splendor that never falters,” David Denby writes in the New Yorker. Allen, he says, “works everything out with a stringent thoroughness that still allows room for surprise.” More»

Johansson dating ad exec Nate Naylor: sources

(NEWSER) - Her post-divorce fling with Sean Penn didn't last long, but now Scarlett Johansson has a new man. She was spotted looking cozy with a "mystery man" in Manhattan this weekend, and the gossip mill quickly figured out who he is: Nate Naylor, a 38-year-old advertising exec who lives in Manhattan, reports the New York Post , which puts the age of their relationship at six months. Naylor is reportedly an "avid art collector" who "keeps to himself." (And, the New York Daily News points out, has a "macabre" but artistic website .) More»