In Cannes 78, it’s as if the team led by Thierry Fremaux, the delegue general, director of programming, compiled a list of films from Totalitarian Hell—all different angles on what happens when Totalitarianism in its various guises take over.

Cannes edition #78 is a whole nuther kettle of soupe de poisson / fish soup from last year. it’s as if Thierry Fremaux, the delegue general, director of programming, compiled a list of films from Totalitarian Hell—all different angles on what happens when the bad guys take over.

With everything that is French about the Cannes film festival, the location, the films, the celebration of France itself, the 78th Cannes film festival notably made room on opening night, May 13, for a strong American presence.

The 78th Cannes Film Festival opens next Tuesday night, the 13th, through Saturday the 24th and the awarding of the Palmes D’Or. Our film critic Harlan Jacobson will be reporting in. What are you looking forward to this year, Harlan?

James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown traces the arrival from the Minnesota Range of 20 year-old Bob Dylan in Morris Plains, NJ to sing “Song to Woody” at Woody Guthrie’s hospital bed, attended by Pete Seeger in 1961—all the way to the infamous day Dylan would’ve have blown the doors off the Newport Folk Festival in...

James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown traces the arrival from the Minnesota Range of 20 year-old Bob Dylan in Morris Plains, NJ to sing “Song to Woody” at Woody Guthrie’s hospital bed, attended by Pete Seeger in 1961—all the way to the infamous day Dylan would’ve have blown the doors off the Newport Folk Festival in...

James Mangold’s A Complete Unknown traces the arrival from the Minnesota Range of 20 year-old Bob Dylan in Morris Plains, NJ to sing “Song to Woody” at Woody Guthrie’s hospital bed, attended by Pete Seeger in 1961—all the way to the infamous day Dylan would’ve have blown the doors off the Newport Folk Festival in...

Wicked, the Universal Studios film of the monster Broadway musical hit, has come roaring down the pike bigger than a Kansas twister and is finding all those Wicked fans who’ve been waiting for two decades for the film to be made.

When Our Town opened on Broadway in February 1938, playwright Thornton Wilder had written it 20 years after WWI had ended, nine years into the Great Depression and in a time that probably felt a bit like now, watching the world slide toward another war, and wondering how caught up in it America would be.

Some years ago, I was with my family at the Marrakesh International Film Festival, where I took my daughter to the world premiere of Body of Lies, an espionage thriller by master intrigue and action director, Ridley Scott. Events this week brought that screening back to me.