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It’s pretty hard to say something bad about Charles Eames—or at least make it stick. This lively, informative, and exceedingly reverent documentary doesn’t really, but it leaves enough suspect dots for the viewer to connect. Apparently, Charles and Ray Eames are commonly mistaken to be brothers, when in fact the legendary designers were man and wife. Charles left his first wife and child for Ray. He proposed to a third woman while still married to Ray, but she declined....

Boris Vian holds the distinction of being the only author who was so outraged by a film adaptation of his work that he died during its screening. Before keeling over from a heart attack while watching Michel Gast’s 1959 take on I Spit on Your Grave, Vian stood up and shouted: “Those guys are supposed to be American? My ass!” Although I don’t pretend to be a Vian scholar, Michel Gondry’s adaptation of Vian’s 1947 novel L’Écume des jours (here given the English-language title Mood Indigo) is truer to the original than those attempted by Charles Belmont (in 1968) and Go Riju (under the title Chloe in 2001), in terms of visuals, spirit, and critical eye....

Like the superb psychodrama Fear Me Not (08) before it, Danish director Kristian Levring’s The Salvation digs deep into the devastating destruction of a family. In the Wild West of 1870s America, a former Danish soldier, Jon (Mads Mikkelsen), is reunited with his wife and son after seven years—but before they can even make it home, the child is murdered by two rogues who board their stagecoach, and his mother is raped and killed shortly thereafter....

The futureworld of The Zero Theorem is so chaotic, gaudy, aggressively high-tech, and lonely—and not much of a stretch from where we’re heading—that it’s no wonder Qohen Leth (Christoph Waltz) wants to stay indoors permanently. The Gollum-like Qohen (that’s Co-hen)—all neuroses and no hair, and even prone to referring to himself as “we”—is a corporate number cruncher so skilled that he is granted permission to work from home, a cavernous former church he shares with pigeons, rats, and many layers of dust, tasked with solving the unsolvable title equation, pertaining to the meaning of life....

Don’t miss all of our daily Cannes podcasts and festival coverage.

On our latest episode from sunny shores of Southern France, critics Jonathan Romney and Giovanni Marchini Camia join FC co-deputy editor Devika Girish to discuss two of the festivals most fascinating films: Jonathan Glazer’s much-anticipated The Zone of Interest, and Lisandro Alonso’s mysterious western Eureka. Listeners be advised: spoilers abound—along with our critics’ typically insightful, in-depth analysis. Subscribe to the Film Comment Letter today for a steady stream of Cannes coverage, providing everything you need to know about the 2023 edition....

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The Late George Apley Think about this for a moment. Herman Mankiewicz was calling his brother, then the president of the Screen Directors Guild, to warn him that Cecil B. DeMille and his cronies were clandestinely visiting the homes of Guild members urging them to sign a recall petition against him. (During the Communist scare in 1950, DeMille and his loyalists wanted the Guild members to adopt a loyalty oath, about which Mankiewicz had shown insufficient enthusiasm; there was also the matter of DeMille using open rather than closed ballots for voting on the issue, which Mankiewicz strongly opposed....

Manakamana Two feature-length nonfiction films that couldn’t be more radically different, Leviathan and Manakamana are visually stunning cinematic works of what one might (or might not) call ethnography. Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel’s Leviathan (12) throws us into a tumultuous journey on a commercial fishing boat off the coast of New Bedford, Massachusetts; Stephanie Spray and Pacho Velez’s Manakamana (13), on the other hand, gently transports us by cable car, up, up, up and then down, down, down a Nepalese mountain that is home to a Hindu temple, long a site of pilgrimage....

Metro Manila Sean Ellis, U.K./Philippines Ain’t Them Bodies Saints David Lowery, U.S. Emanuel and the Truth About Fishes Francesca Gregorini, U.S. The East Zal Batmanglij, U.S. Before Midnight Richard Linklater, U.S. Circles Srdan Golubovic, Serbia It Felt Like Love Eliza Hittman, U.S. Fruitvale Ryan Coogler, U.S. The Future Alicia Scherson, Italy/Chile In a World… Lake Bell, U.S.

Increasingly burdened by a near-senile mother (played by a striking Edith Scob) and her equally skittish cat, Nathalie remains a dedicated teacher of philosophy even amidst rising student protests in Paris. She finds comfort, stability, and endless pleasure in the world of letters and ideas. Writer-director Hansen-Løve draws on her experiences growing up with philosophy professors as parents and portrays the inner workings of academics—a world which can often feel stilted and alienating both onscreen and in real life—with a mix of admiration and lighthearted absurdism....

No Country for Old Men Joel & Ethan Coen, U.S. There Will Be Blood P.T. Anderson, U.S. Zodiac David Fincher, U.S. Syndromes and a Century Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Thailand/Austria/France I’m Not There Todd Haynes, U.S./Germany Killer of Sheep Charles Burnett, U.S. Lady Chatterley Pascale Ferran, France/Belgium Eastern Promises David Cronenberg, U.K./Canada 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days Cristian Mungiu, Romania 10. Colossal Youth Pedro Costa, France/Portugal/Switzerland The Lives of Others Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, Germany...

Jurassic Park: The Lost World In “Walkin’ on the Sun,” the first of a string of charting singles of almost unprecedented awfulness, Steve Harwell, front man of the soon-to-be-Shrek-soundtracking pop act Smash Mouth, offered a rosy-hued glimpse into the annals of history: “Twenty-five years ago they spoke out and they broke out / Of recession and oppression and together they toked.” It should go without saying that the very act of remembering this harmonious moment was a recrimination to the fallen present....