Film

Russian film Loveless landed with a wallop, representing the first serious contender for this year’s Palme d’Or. It’s a weighty, heavy, compellingly grim look at modern Russia and confirms its director Andrey Zvyagintsev as one of the top film makers around, even if Putin might not see it that way. Like his recent Cannes entry […]

Cannes celebrated the opening of the 70th edition of its film festival with a knotty, indulgent film about a knotted, indulgent film maker Marion Cotillard in Ismael’s Ghosts – Credit: Archant Here on the Croisette, at least, they know their audience. Ismael’s Ghosts, by Arnaud Desplechin, premiered at Cannes before wider release across France, its […]

The unfailing brilliance of some of Europe’s greatest ever exports: cinematic villains, and villainesses Jeremy Irons in Die Hard With A Vengeance (1995) – Credit: Cover Images I blame Alan Rickman. The late British actor practically trademarked the sneering villain role back in the 1980s, first as Hans Gruber in Die Hard, then as the […]