CANNES, France -- A trip to Le Marche, the film market at Cannes, is always a tonic experience. The energy created by the unabashed desire to make large sums of money is a refreshing change of pace after the more rarefied experiences of other parts of the festival.

Le Marche is where you can see hijab-wearing women working for an Iranian production company next to a booth where Japanese horror producers are selling “Cult” (“from the producers of ‘Ring' and ‘The Grudge'”). It’s that kind of a place.

Some things never change about Le Marche. There’s always an almost inexplicable title (“A Girl, a Guy and a Space Helmet”) as well as a big action star like Thailand’s Tony Jaa with a new film (“TYG2: This Time the Fight Goes Beyond”).

PHOTOS: The scene at Cannes Film Festival 2013

There are also always wacky plot lines that defy rationality. From the U.K. comes “Grey Wolf: The Escape of Adolf Hitler,”...

True to its title, "The Hangover Part III" has left many film critics wishing they'd abstained from the R-rated comedy's destructive misadventures.

Those keeping score will recall that the first "Hangover" was an unexpected hit in 2009, while the Bangkok-set second installment was derided as a tired retread. "Part III" tweaks the premise of its predecessors: This time, the trio played by Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms and Zach Galifianakis don't black out during a drug-fueled pre-wedding mishap, but rather are forced by a gangster to commit their infamous hijinks. According to reviewers, however, it just makes for another headache.

The Times' Betsy Sharkey scolds that whoever is responsible for the film "should be made to pay. Or forced to suffer the fate of the giraffe in the ubiquitous trailers — the one whose long, lovely neck won't clear the low clearance bridge."

The first mistake, Sharkey says, was getting rid of the original writers, Jon Lucas and Scott Moore. Craig Mazin and...

As Socrates so sagely suggested when he stopped by the set of "Fast & Furious 6" — "Yo, know thyself..."

Dom and crew certainly took the words to heart. For all the excess in the latest installment of the adrenaline-injected street-racing action franchise, its humble, low-budget 2001 beginnings are still visible today in the rear-view mirror of Dom's super souped-up 1969 Dodge Daytona Charger.

Buildings topple, bridges crumble and speed limits are shamelessly broken as "Fast & Furious 6" roars through the streets of London. But the ties that bind are stronger than ever.

PHOTOS: Scenes from "Fast & Furious 6'

True, the movie doesn't know when or how to put the brakes on. It does, however, understand precisely what it is. No pretensions to greatness, it demonstrates total dedication to "badassness," which I believe is the technical term.

Even though Vin Diesel's Dom insists, "I don't do cold," the entire crew is in the British Isles, having been hijacked by noble ideals, a lost...

With "Fast & Furious 6" roaring into theaters this week, guests at the U.S. premiere of the film at Universal CityWalk got an early taste of the franchise's signature, over-the-top style -- including slick cars, tough characters and a grill-wearing panda.

The scene along the red carpet exemplified the kind of amiable culture clash that results when a big-money franchise is built upon the tastes of a young urban fan base.

The "Fast & Furious" movies star Vin Diesel as ex-con street racer Dominic Toretto, whose familial criminal crew includes former cop Brian O'Conner (Paul Walker), gearhead Tej Parker (Ludacris), former gang member Han (Sung Kang) and former Mossad agent Gisele Harabo (Gal Gadot).

At the premiere Tuesday night, suit-clad agents, producers and car company executives made their way down the carpet as a fog of pot smoke wafted in from the adjacent, pre-movie fan concert featuring the rappers 2 Chainz and Wiz Khalifa, who appear on the movie's soundtrack.

Actor Tyrese...

CANNES, France — Visitors exiting the Carlton hotel's front door on this city's beachfront main street this week can't help but see a giant map of France with Cannes listed as being a "Safe Zone." "This Is the Safest Place to Be," one poster insists, though another implores the public, "Stay Off the Streets."

Turns out, the display is for the forthcoming Brad Pitt zombie epic "World War Z," but the advertising taglines are taking on a strange resonance, or dissonance, amid a drumbeat of reports about robberies, assaults and other crimes.

First, a man fired a gun with blanks as French TV journalists were interviewing actor Christoph Waltz. Then thieves made off with $1 million in Chopard jewels. A top Chinese film executive, the co-president of Hollywood mainstay Silver Pictures and employees at a company called Film Tree have all reported that their hotel rooms have been broken into. Gersh agent Jay Cohen said he was walking home with two others Saturday night when they were...

Some called it “Life of Pi” without the tiger.

Others compared it to Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea.”

But most critics liked what they saw in “All Is Lost,” an almost dialogue-free narrative feature starring Robert Redford as a sailor alone and in distress.  

PHOTOS: The scene at Cannes Film Festival 2013

The film premiered Tuesday at the Cannes Film Festival. Directed and written by “Margin Call’s” J.C. Chandor, “All is Lost” will be released by Lionsgate in theaters in October.

Here’s what the critics had to say:

Geoffrey MacNab in the Independent:

"You wonder just how Chandor can manage to make a feature film about a man stuck on a damaged and sinking boat seem dramatic. It’s the detail and precision of his storytelling style that makes 'All Is Lost' so engrossing. As viewers, we are entirely caught up in the sailor’s struggle."

Justin Chang in Variety:

"As close to pure existential...

Who let the dogs out?

In 2009 the Baha Men's lyrics felt caustic, clever, comical and slightly subversive, perfect for the debauched Las Vegas bachelor party that was about to unfold. Phil, Stu and Alan — a.k.a. the Wolfpack, played by Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms and Zach Galifianakis — were about to begin their politically incorrect, impossibly irreverent and consistently perverse struggle to reconstruct the night and figure out where they lost the groom.

Side-splittingly hilarious, it used a heady blend of Mike Tyson, a Bengal tiger, a hooker, a baby, a chicken and a crazed, screaming and sometimes naked Mr. Chow to incredible comic effect. The movie came out of the blue. It was blue — its hard-R edge took the summer by surprise.

And then it took the summer.

PHOTOS: Scenes from "The Hangover Part 3"

Ah, those were the days, historic even, when "The Hangover" stood for something. For better or worse a cultural threshold had been crossed, the raunch rules rewritten.

And...

A delightful summer quirk can be found in the new comic drama "Frances Ha." Shot in black and white and filled with nuance, the film is directed with great affection by Noah Baumbach, who wrote it with his star — actress Greta Gerwig. Frances is a few years past college and still trying to make her way in New York. She's already struggling to afford the apartment in trendy Brooklyn when her best friend and roommate Sophie (Mickey Sumner) announces she's moving out. While Frances' fortunes take a nose-dive, Gerwig makes it all rather charming. The comedy is both situational — nearly everything Frances tries turns out badly — and physical. Gerwig has a distinctive style, always a beat behind everyone else. It's a slight story and Frances' arc isn't terribly deep, but it's a great deal of fun to watch her scramble. During a stop off in Gerwig's real hometown of Sacramento, her real parents, Christine and Gordon, step in to play Mom and Dad. It makes "Frances Ha" feel...

Helen Mirren was pretty persuasive playing Queen Elizabeth in “The Queen,” winning the best actress Oscar. But she may just have given an even more compelling performance as the English monarch for a terminally ill 10-year-old boy.

Oliver Burton, who has Down syndrome and has been diagnosed with cancer in his spine and bone marrow, wanted as a dying wish to meet the real Queen of England at Buckingham Palace, but the queen’s schedule prevented a get-together.

According to a report in London’s Sun, the National Children’s Tumour Leukaemia Cancer Trust notified Mirren of the boy’s wishes.

PHOTOS: Celebrities by The Times

The actress, who is playing the queen in the play “The Audience” in a London theater, sent a car to fetch Burton. Mirren brought him to a performance of the play and remained in character afterward, knighting him backstage and letting him play with the queen’s stage corgis.

“It was a pleasure and a privilege to...

At the Cannes Film Festival this week, Ryan Gosling's new film "Only God Forgives" inspired a divisive reaction among critics. Some audience members even booed the violent movie, directed by Nicolas Winding Refn.

But Gosling, who is busy filming his directorial debut "How to Catch a Monster" thousands of miles away in Detroit, doesn't seem to be losing any sleep over the negative response. 

"He never would have gone to Cannes and left this set -- this is his baby," said Saoirse Ronan, who has a role in Gosling's film, which stars Christina Hendricks as a single mother whose teenage son stumbles across an eerie underwater town.

FULL COVERAGE: Cannes 2013

Ronan spoke via phone from Michigan on Wednesday morning, where she was taking a few hours off from the set to promote her upcoming crime drama "Violet & Daisy."

"It's different working with an actor as a director," the 19-year-old said of Gosling. "So much of his approach is character-based, and he has a lot of respect for how we feel...

With Joss Whedon's low-budget, modern retelling of Shakespeare's romantic comedy "Much Ado About Nothing" opening June 7, the American Cinematheque's Aero Theatre is getting into the Elizabethan spirit with a new series, "Much Ado About Shakespeare: The Bard on Film."

The six-day festival opens May 29 with Franco Zeffirelli's boisterous 1967 adaptation of the Bard's battle-of-the-sexes-comedy  "The Taming of the Shrew," one of the better post-"Cleopatra" vehicles starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. The film marked the feature directorial debut of Zeffirelli, who would earn a best director Oscar nomination for his next Shakespearean extravaganza, 1968's "Romeo and Juliet."

A "Macbeth" double bill is set for May 30. The program kicks off with Roman Polanski's R-rated 1971 version of "Macbeth," the first feature he made after the murder of his wife, Sharon Tate. Jon Finch and Francesca Annis star. Rounding out the bill is Akira Kurosawa's "Throne of Blood," his masterful 1957...