French authorities are investigating claims that Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the former head of the International Monetary Fund, may have committed a rape during 2010 sex party at the W Hotel in Washington. more ›

A detective walks into a bar wearing a black suit, hat, tie, and trenchcoat, carrying nothing but a pineapple. No, that's not the setup for a joke. Rather, that is the joke, or at least the source of laughs in once scene from Aki Kaurismäki's Le Havre. It's a deadpan and strange little sight-gag, and typifies the kind of offbeat humor the Finnish director is known for. Showing the absurd in a stripped-down, matter-of-fact fashion is how Kaurismäki gets his laughs, even as he tells a story with serious themes. more ›

Fred Cavayé's French thriller Point Blank has exactly the kind of no-frills, highly focused, adrenaline-fueled action that is missing or obscured in American summer thrill rides. more ›

A movie this thematically scattered, this unapologetically artificial, shouldn't be so enjoyable. But through the magical touch of cinematic alchemist François Ozon, it is. more ›

Not a single note of incidental music plays on the soundtrack to Of Gods and Men. But just because every sound we hear is generated onscreen doesn't mean that director Xavier Beauvois isn't using sound just as strategically as the most grandiosely scored films. Like the best musicians, in fact, Beauvois knows the power of silence, and employs it liberally. The result are long, languorous stretches in which the eight Trappist monks at the center of the story go about their daily tasks, or roam the countryside contemplatively. more ›

Word spread fast through the Twitterverse, and now the French Embassy's own Twitter account confirms -- French President Nicolas Sarkozy, in town for meetings with President Barack Obama, ate lunch today at Ben's Chili Bowl. He was joined by his wife Carla Bruni and his two sons from a prior marriage. more ›

Such is the famous Chinese-boxes construction of Peter Weiss's The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade, mercifully abbreviated as Marat/Sade. more ›

While celebrating Independence day on July 4 may mark the pinnacle of American patriotism, what else could be more party-worthy than honoring the storming of a prison by a mob of Parisiens - otherwise known as Bastille Day. more ›