J. Hoberman

As a documentarian, Errol Morris is less a humanist than a connoisseur of "human interest," and Tabloid, his queasily entertaining new movie, is not so much a return to form as a reminder of his ongoing fascination with the freak-show fringe of American life. Morris revels in the grotesque saga......

Terri, directed by Azazel Jacobs, concerns an obese 15-year-old, a de facto orphan, living in a ramshackle home with a dispirited, perhaps mentally ill uncle for whom he has to care. Although a near-pariah at school, Terri (Jacob Wysocki, in an impressive debut) is comfortable with himself, or at least......

Cobbled together from a six-part BBC2 miniseries telecast last fall, The Trip is a talkative faux-reality road film largely improvised by funnymen Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon, playing versions of themselves, under the direction of Michael Winterbottom. When his American girlfriend cancels, Coogan — who has supposedly been hired by......

A big-bang demolition derby, J.J. Abrams' much-anticipated, greatly enjoyable Super 8 seems bound for box office glory. Opening three weeks before the Fourth of July, this Steven Spielberg–produced, kid-centric 21st-century disaster flick could well stay in theaters till the 10th anniversary of 9/11 — an event that haunts Abrams' surefire......

CANNES, FRANCE -- The 64th Cannes Film Festival provided an exceptionally rich and varied slate and the jury -- headed by Robert De Niro--proved both gracious and judicious in dividing their prizes among eight films......

CANNES, FRANCE -- The fun is winding down and the sad thing is, there could have been even more. Cannes's programmers had carefully contrived a Palme d'Or celebrity death match between two wildly polarizing contenders with Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life in the white trunks and Lars von Trier's......

CANNES, FRANCE -- Big news day on La Croisette: First, the only outside story with any traction here became a bit more intense when reports of Dominique Strauss-Kahn's resignation fueled the conspiracy stories to which some French subscribe: Had the IMF chief been set up by Sarkozy? The Russians? The......

Midway through the Cannes Film Festival in France, the competition has been all about family — more specifically, all about parents (and parent surrogates) and their troubled children, many of both types pretty much from hell. Brad Pitt seems a good bet for red-carpet glory as the domineering autocrat atop......

CANNES, FRANCE -- The second shoe dropped -- or rather exploded -- this morning in Cannes. A combination of luck and programming genius contrived to have Lars von Trier's Melancholia screened for the press a mere 48 hours after the first showing of Terrence Malick's Tree of Life. On Monday......

CANNES, FRANCE -- Much improved since I last posted, the Cannes Film Festival celebrated its midpoint in train-wreck fashion, its wagon to hitched to The Tree of Life. The first screening of Terrence Malick's long-awaited new movie, three years in the editing, ended with a moment of near total silence,......