By Barry Paris Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Anybody need a Cannes opener?

The French did, and Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris" lifted the lid quite nicely last month. Out popped a bon-bon of a rom-com that should now charm Yankee audiences as much as the Euro-chic.

The last Allen movie to kick off France's big annual film festival was his hilarious "Hollywood Ending" back in 2002. This Cannes opener is a bit more electric, equipped with a cameo appearance by the French first lady.

"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it for religious conviction."---Pascal

The eight monks at the Cistercian monastery live in -- if not the Garden -- at least a little Oasis of Eden.

As a teen, my head was always spinning. Figuratively. The teenage heads of the Akkouch siblings are spinning literally -- and not just because they're virtuoso hip-hop dancers. They are also dancing around the daily threat of deportation.

"Neukolln Unlimited," a wonderful documentary about an extraordinarily talented German-Lebanese family, is one of the best offerings in the Carnegie Mellon Filmfest's ongoing "Faces of Migration" series, focusing on the agonies and ecstasies of immigrants all over the globe.

 A terrific Eleanor Roosevelt anecdote -- and a timely one, today -- is how she opened her address to those blue-blooded DAR dames (Daughters of the American Revolution): "My fellow immigrants ..."