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You know it when you see it. A star on the rise.

Casting “Magic Mike,” Steven Soderbergh saw an audition tape for then-22-year-old model-actress Riley Keough—whose genetic blessings from grandfather Elvis Presley and mother Lisa Marie are self evident—and hired her sight unseen for a small role as stripper Nora, where she learned all about “underwear and spray tans,” she told me in our video interview. She first met Soderbergh at a “Magic Mike” staff dinner with her co-stars Channing Tatum, Matthew McConaughey and her romantic interest Alex Pettyfer, to whom she was briefly engaged.

Five years later, “The Girlfriend Experience” producer Soderbergh cast Keough to carry the 13-part Starz half-hour series “The Girlfriend Experience,” now adapted from his 2009 film by indie writer-directors, Amy Seimetz (“Sun Don’t Shine”) and Lodge Kerrigan (“Claire Dolan”). Reviews and Emmy buzz are strong.

Keough had some discomfort after reading the...

You know it when you see it. A star on the rise.

Casting “Magic Mike,” Steven Soderbergh saw an audition tape for then-22-year-old model-actress Riley Keough—whose genetic blessings from grandfather Elvis Presley and mother Lisa Marie are self evident—and hired her sight unseen for a small role as stripper Nora, where she learned all about “underwear and spray tans,” she told me in our video interview. She first met Soderbergh at a “Magic Mike” staff dinner with her co-stars Channing Tatum, Matthew McConaughey and her romantic interest Alex Pettyfer, to whom she was briefly engaged.

Five years later, “The Girlfriend Experience” producer Soderbergh cast Keough to carry the 13-part Starz half-hour series “The Girlfriend Experience,” now adapted from his 2009 film by indie writer-directors, Amy Seimetz (“Sun Don’t Shine”) and Lodge Kerrigan (“Claire Dolan”). Reviews and Emmy buzz are strong.

Keough had some discomfort after reading the...

No film buff wants to see a promising, or prominent filmmaker pull a disappearing act a la Terrence Malick, (though it seems he isn’t keen to repeat another lapse like the one between Days of Heaven to The Thin Red Line), but whether they’re dealing with unforeseeable professional (endless pre-production woes, writer’s block) or personal issues, sometimes there is a considerable time between projects.

With John Cameron Mitchell, Charlie Kaufman, Rebecca Miller, Patty Jenkins, Kenneth Lonergan and more recently, Barry Jenkins recently moving out of the so called “inactive” period, we decided to compile a list of the top ten American filmmakers who, for the most part, we’ve lost sight of and would like to see get back in the director’s chair again. Most of the filmmakers listed below have gone well over half a decade without a substantial movement in this category. Here is...

How would you program this year's newest, most interesting films into double features with movies of the past you saw in 2014?

Looking back over the year at what films moved and impressed us, it is clear that watching old films is a crucial part of making new films meaningful. Thus, the annual tradition of our end of year poll, which calls upon our writers to pick both a new and an old film: they were challenged to choose a new film they saw in 2014—in theatres or at a festival—and creatively pair it with an old film they also saw in 2014 to create a unique double feature.

All the contributors were given the option to write some text explaining their 2014 fantasy double feature. What's more, each writer was given the option to list more pairings, with or without explanation, as further imaginative film programming we'd be lucky to catch...

Keane

Directed by Lodge Kerrigan

Written by Lodge Kerrigan

USA, 2004

Given his latest role in Showtime’s acclaimed Homeland has pushed Damian Lewis firmly back into the limelight of public awareness after some mixed success post-big break in Band of Brothers, it seems a good time to revisit his finest work to date. The Eton alumni, who Steven Spielberg once pledged to make the first “ginger star” in Hollywood, has been involved in some duds and some diamonds in the rough in the past, but his defining performance comes in Lodge Kerrigan’s barely seen 2004 flick Keane.

Only Kerrigan’s third film, the nightmarishly realistic and documentary-like Keane is perfectly in keeping with the uncomfortably authentic melancholy of previous efforts Clean Shaven and Claire Dolan, a firmly rooted character study of an irredeemably flawed and damaged protagonist whose existence challenges our every emotion. William Keane (Lewis) is a New Yorker...

Updated through 5/25.

"Like his last two films, Claire Dolan (1998) and Keane (2004), Lodge Kerrigan's Rebecca H. (Return to the Dogs) is named for its protagonist," writes Dennis Lim, introducing his interview with the director for the New York Times. "The French actress Géraldine Pailhas appears as a mentally unstable Grace Slick fan named Rebecca H. and also as herself, playing an actress starring in a Grace Slick biopic — or is it a film about a Grace Slick biopic? — shot in France by a director named Lodge Kerrigan (played by Mr Kerrigan)."...

The days dwindle down to a precious few. At 6 p.m.on Friday, Cannes is oddly silent. The tumult on the streets a week ago today is forgotten. There are empty seats at some screenings. The locals of Cannes know this is the time to stand in the ticket lines. The daily editions of Varsity and Hollywood Reporter ceased Thursday. Friends are in Paris, or London, or home. Some few diehards stay for the award ceremony Sunday night.

As we walked over to the Palais Friday morning, there were crowds in the streets, to be sure: Crowds of uniformed officers of the national gendarmerie. Their ominous black buses, the windows covered with grates, were lined up along the curbs. Hundreds of cops.

One of the day's official entires was "Hors la Loi" ("Above the Law"), a film by Rachid Bouchareb about the Algerian War. It included footage of massacres in Algeria by the French,...