Cannes Agrees: Che Is ... Long

Del Toro grabs Bests Actor for Che

(NEWSER) - Laurent Cantet's The Class walked away with Cannes' prestigious Palm D'Or today, the final day of competition, reports the Hollywood Reporter. It was the first time a French film had claimed the prize since 1987. Cannes Jury President Sean Penn followed the announcement with a list of largely sleeper candidates. Among them: More»

Marion Cotillard, Kate Winslet star in Steven Soderbergh film

(NEWSER) - Critics applaud Steven Soderbergh’s latest effort, Contagion, a deeply disturbing imagining of a global pandemic that features an all-star cast (Matt Damon, Gwyneth Paltrow, Marion Cotillard, Kate Winslet, Jude Law, Laurence Fishburne):

• It’s “easily the scariest of the disaster films” since 9/11, writes Lou Lumenick in the New York Post . What’s more, it “takes great pains to present its situations realistically, and includes a lot of intelligent speculation about what sort of political, economic, and ethical questions would be raised by such a disaster.”

After lousy 'Blindness' opening, Bashir shakes up festival

(NEWSER) - Now that's more like it. After a typically lousy opening—allegorical disaster Blindness—the Cannes Film Festival shook things up yesterday with Waltz with Bashir, a ferocious animated documentary from Israel recounting the 1982 massacre at Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon. It’s “stunning,” writes Manhola Dargis in the New York Times, “at once a furious act of conscience and a lament.” More»

Tearjerker garners mixed reviews

(NEWSER) - Things We Lost in the Fire, the weepie opening today and starring Halle Berry as a newly bereaved widow and Benicio Del Toro as her heroin-addicted comforter, draws mixed reviews. Most agree with the Chicago Tribune that it's "consistently well acted," awarding special praise to Del Toro. But the movie gets no points for originality. More»

But Nicolas Cage seems to get it: critics

(NEWSER) - Critics agree: Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance is ridiculous. But they're divided over whether the silliness of the sequel, once again starring Nicolas Cage as the devilish superhero, is funny or just bad.

• In the Merced Sun-Star , Roger Moore calls the movie "a profoundly silly mash-up of comic book and quasi-religious 'prophecy' about a motorcyclist who sold his soul to the devil." It beats the original: "This time around, Cage and everybody else on board are in on the joke," and that makes it "almost a great bad movie."