Dailies is a round-up of essential film writing, news bits, and other highlights from our colleagues across the Internet — and, occasionally, our own writers. If you’d like to submit a piece for consideration, get in touch with us in the comments below or on Twitter at @TheFilmStage.
Iranian actress Leila Hatami (A Separation) is potentially facing a public flogging as punishment for violating Islamic laws due to kissing Cannes president Gilles Jacob at the festival, The Telegraph reports.
Watch a video tribute to the films of Jean-Pierre Melville:
A 12-day Spike Lee retrospective is coming to BAMcinématek in June.
At Film School Rejects, Kate Erbland asks if we really need a new crop of romantic comedies:
Yet the themes of Blended echo a new trend in the world of the romantic comedy — more mature storylines for more mature talents. The traditionally youth-focused rom-com genre has been circling the drain for quite a while now (it doesn’t help that no one has really stepped in to fill the shoes left vacant by talents like Meg Ryan, Billy Crystal, Tom Hanks, Kate Hudson, and Matthew McConaughey from the height of their rom-com years), and while that might initially seem like a bad thing, maybe we really don’t need a new crop of rom-coms about ditzy twentysomethings, perhaps these more adult outings are actually better.
Watch Richard Brody‘s video essay Monte Hellman’s Two-Lane Blacktop, thanks to New Yorker: