Reviews & News

Harlan Jacobson’s Reviews and Interviews

Reviews & News by Harlan Jacobson

Harlan Jacobson and guest contributors provide film reviews, festival and film industry coverage, along with interviews and which can regularly be heard on WBGO.org.

CANNES OVERVIEW 2025

,

Film Critic Harlan Jacobson shines like the movies at the 78th Cannes Film Festival

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...
Read More
June 26, 2022

Harlan Jacobson On Tár Starring Cate Blanchett, Directed by Todd Field

The life span of a film is comparatively short—6 months if it’s a star performer, six weeks if it’s got some backing, down to 6 days or 6 minutes if...
Read More
June 26, 2022

Harlan Jacobson Considers 2021 Film Standouts

In a year that promised to be chock full of eagerly anticipated film titles held over from 2020 – In the Heights, West Side Story, The French Dispatch — the air went out of...
Read More
July 28, 2021

Harlan Jacobson reports on Sundance Film Festival 2021

Like Toronto, NY and other film festivals, Sundance in the Plague Year was virtual.  It reduced its scope and crammed 73 films into six days. Nothing unspooled, it all streamed...
Read More
July 26, 2021

Harlan Jacobson reports from The Cannes Film Festival 2021: Julia Ducournau’s Titanium

In some respects, Titane, or Titanium, is why I go to film festivals. Or one of the reasons. This second film by French film director Julia Ducournau (Raw) is an encounter I’d...
Read More
July 21, 2021

Harlan Jacobson reports from The Cannes Film Festival 2021: Arnaud Desplechin’s Deception

Arnaud Desplechin’s Deception, which showed in the new, non-competitive Cannes Premieres section, is everything you wanted to know about Philip Roth and more. Way more. At least more than I wanted...
Read More
July 20, 2021

Harlan Jacobson reports from The Cannes Film Festival 2021: Sean Penn’s Flag Day

Flag Day, directed by Sean Penn, concerns the Family Vogel, late 20th century Minnesotans, played by the Family Penn, Sean as John Vogel, his daughter Dylan as Jennifer Vogel and...
Read More
July 19, 2021

Harlan Jacobson reports from The Cannes Film Festival 2021: Sean Baker’s Red Rocket

Red Rocket stays right inside Sean Baker’s wheelhouse — the sex industry workers, professional, amateur, haphazard, casual or casualties that inhabited Starlet, Tangerine and The Florida Project before. There’s just no victory or dignity in the...
Read More
July 18, 2021

Harlan Jacobson reports from The Cannes Film Festival 2021: Eva Husson’s Mothering Sunday

Over at the high end of the marketing continuum is Mothering Sunday. The story is set post World War I.  In service to the Nivens, (Olivia Colman and Colin Firth), is...
Read More
July 17, 2021

Harlan Jacobson reports from The Cannes Film Festival 2021: Wes Anderson’s The French Dispatch

Waiting for The French Dispatch, which held over for a year from the Cannes that wasn’t in 2020, has been talked about in some circles as one of the key cinema...
Read More
July 9, 2021

Harlan Jacobson Reports from The Cannes Film Festival 2021: Todd Haynes’ and Christine Vachon’s The Velvet Underground

The early ‘80s Brown University Semiotics crew of Todd Haynes, writer-director, and Christine Vachon, producer reached back and pulled together a doc that more than simply captures the renegade Velvet...
Read More
July 8, 2021

Harlan Jacobson Reports from The Cannes Film Festival 2021: At the End of the Plague Year

Having missed for the last two years—2019 for my daughter’s graduation, 2020 for the collapse of civilization—the most obvious thing to talk about is not my return but the 74th...
Read More
June 30, 2021

Harlan Jacobson reports from on holiday releases

Film Critic Harlan Jacobson reports on new films you don’t want to miss Read Full Review
Read More
1 2 3 4 5 6 … 10

Proceed Booking