The Screengrab : cannes film festival

Cannes Winners Announced

Scott Von Doviak — Mon, 25 May 2009 14:30:00 GMT

Lars von Trier caused the biggest stir, but it was Michael Haneke who took the top honors as The White Ribbon was awarded the Palme d'Or at this year's Cannes Film Festival. There was mild controversy over the choice, given that jury president Isabelle Huppert had starred in an earlier Haneke film, The Piano Teacher. Von Trier's Antichrist did pick up a major award, as Charlotte Gainsbourg took Best Actress honors. The full roster of awards follows the jump.

PALME D'OR

The White Ribbon, dir. Michael Haneke

GRAND PRIX

A Prophet, dir. Jacques Audiard

SPECIAL CAREER PRIZE

Alain Resnais

BEST ACTOR

Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds

BEST ACTRESS

Charlotte Gainsbourg, Antichrist

BEST DIRECTOR

Brillante Mendoza, Kinatay

BEST SCREENPLAY

Mei Feng, Spring Fever

JURY PRIZE (shared)

Fish Tank, dir. Andrea Arnold, Thirst, dir. Park Chan-Wook

CAMERA D'OR

Samson and Delilah, dir. Warwick Thornton

BEST SHORT FILM

Arena, dir. Joao Salaviza

Cannes Roundup: Day Eight

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 21 May 2009 18:30:00 GMT

Today’s Cannes auteur du jour is Michael Haneke, whose latest, The White Ribbon, didn’t cause quite the same stir as fellow provocateur Lars von Trier’s Antichrist. Mike Goodridge of Screen says Haneke is “on top form in The White Ribbon, a meticulously constructed, precisely modulated tapestry of malice and intrigue in a rural village in pre-World War I northern Germany.” Eric Kohn of Indiewire calls it a “dour, Bergmanesque black-and-white portrait of enigmas and familial discord,” while David Bourgeois at Movieline dubs it “a serious Palme d’Or contender.”

Five Romanian directors join forces to bring us Tales from the Golden Age, written by Cristian Mungiu (4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days). As The Hollywood Reporter explains, “Each segment recreates an urban myth that flourished during the repressive regime of dictator Nicolai Ceausescu, the so-called 'Golden Age' of Romanian history.” Wesley Morris of the Boston Globe: “It’s witty, its contents succinct and entertaining.” Mike Goodridge of Screen calls it “another notch in the country’s film-making renaissance.” IFC has picked up the distribution rights.

So does Cannes still matter? Eugene Hernandez of Indiewire thinks so. “What I’ve always loved about this fest is that people take cinema so seriously here. Movies ignite debates and stir arguments. Where else but in Cannes would moviegoers booing a film by a Danish art film director stir international media attention… Industry insiders, film critics and festival programmers are constantly pondering the merits of both the art and industry, but from my vantage point, in a year where there is an apparent decline in attendance, the festival and market here in Cannes are still delivering on both fronts.”

Cannes Roundup: Day Seven

Scott Von Doviak — Wed, 20 May 2009 19:00:00 GMT

Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds has finally been unveiled, and now it’s time for all of us to put our expectations in check. Mike D’Angelo at the AV Club calls it “a shambling mass of contradictions that’s likely to divide QT partisans like nothing since Jackie Brown. Conceptually, this is easily the strangest film he’s ever made, as well as the least commercially viable.” J. Hoberman of the Village Voice is a bit more enthused: “Perhaps one should call Inglourious Basterds--a sort of World War II spaghetti western, even more drenched in film references than blood--quintessential Tarantino. A little long, a bit too pleased with itself, it's a movie of enthusiastic performances, terrific dialogue, amoral, surprisingly crude, mayhem, and mind-boggling juvenile fantasy.” Eric Kohn of Indiewire is not: “Basterds lacks the crackly excitement of Tarantino’s other efforts, mainly because he can’t seem to tie the whole package together.”

We’ll all get our chance to experience the..er…wonders of Lars von Trier’s Antichrist for ourselves, courtesy of IFC Films. Per Entertainment Weekly, “IFC will release the same controversial cut of the film that recently screened at the Cannes Film Festival. In the movie, Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg play a couple who retreat to a wooded cabin to overcome the grief of losing their only child.” At the other end of the spectrum, IFC has also acquired Ken Loach’s soccer comedy Looking for Eric.

Alan Resnais is not retired. “Declaring himself 'too lazy' to spice up his famously cerebral films with blood and thunder, the 86-year-old director, who brought Hiroshima mon Amour to the Cannes film festival 50 years ago, nonetheless said he always hoped to win audiences,” per Reuters. “‘If I knew that by putting the camera a bit more to the right or a bit more to the left, moving it about or fixing it in place, there would be more people watching it, I would do it straight away,’ he said after a press screening of his film Les herbes folles (Wild Grass) at the Cannes festival. ‘But it's completely unpredictable.’”

Trailer Review: Face (International Trailer)

Paul Clark — Wed, 20 May 2009 16:00:00 GMT

One of my most anticipated films in competition at the currently-in-progress Cannes Film Festival is the latest from the great Taiwanese filmmaker Tsai Ming-liang, which will premiere later this week. Face marks the first time that Tsai has set a story largely outside of Asia, but despite the new setting, this definitely has a Tsai feel to it. More specifically, this feels like the surreal Tsai of movies like The Wayward Cloud, with the trailer highlighting the strange imagery and musical numbers that distinguished that memorable film. In addition, longtime Tsai watchers should appreciate this as the latest installment in the ongoing adventures of Lee Kang-Sheng, in which Tsai’s favorite leading man finds himself transplanted to Paris and into the path of the lovely Laetitia Casta. The super-cool supporting cast of talented French performers- Jean-Pierre Leaud, Fanny Ardant, Jeanne Moreau, Nathalie Baye, Mathieu Amalric- should attract some francophilic moviegoers, which ought to at least get Face the American release that Wayward Cloud deserved but never got.

Cannes Roundup: Day Six

Scott Von Doviak — Tue, 19 May 2009 16:30:00 GMT

They still love Jerry Lewis in France. Lewis was working the press at Cannes, talking up his latest project, and Manohla Dargis of the New York Times was on hand. “‘Jerry’s here to announce the film he will be starring in next October,’ the French translator said. ‘We’re going to do Mutiny on the Bounty again,’ Mr. Lewis said, as laughter filled the room. ‘I’m playing the Christian part, and we need an Arab so we can beat’ the stuffing ‘out of him.’ Silence fell like a lead curtain. Being an old nightclub performer, he didn’t use the word stuffing. Being an old nightclub guy, he also recovered fast, but he clearly wasn’t going to make himself especially loveable. I wonder if he ever had.”

Pedro Almodovar’s Broken Embraces looks a bit too familiar to some critics. “Pedro Almodovar offers nothing new in his latest feature, Abrazos Rotos (Broken Embraces), but that’s probably enough for his devout followers,” writes Eric Kohn in Indiewire. The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw finds it “a richly enjoyable piece of work, slick and sleek, with a sensuous feel for the cinematic surfaces of things and, as ever, self-reflexively infatuated with the business of cinema itself. Yet I wonder if Almodóvar isn't in danger of retreading old ideas.”

“Von Trier and the festival's standout, Police, Adjective, notwithstanding, the energy has so far come mainly from Asia,” J. Hoberman writes in the Village Voice. “Chinese, Filipino, Iranian, Japanese, and South Korean movies have stoked the most anticipation and inspired the most heat. Both the Competition and Un Certain Regard gave prime early slots to movies that, as taboo-breaking as they are, were shot on the QT and are unshowable in their homelands--China and Iran.”

Cannes Roundup: Day Five

Scott Von Doviak — Mon, 18 May 2009 17:00:00 GMT

It’s all about Lars von Trier, who made few friends with the premiere of his latest outrage at Cannes. “Antichrist=Fartbomb,” writes Jeffrey Wells at Hollywood Elsewhere, and that’s one of the kindest things he says. “There's no way Antichrist isn't a major career embarrassment for costars Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg, and a possible career stopper for Von Trier. It's an out-and-out disaster -- one of the most absurdly on-the-nose, heavy-handed and unintentionally comedic calamities I've ever seen in my life.” Writes Lisa Schwarzbaum in Entertainment Weekly: “Blood spurts, bones are broken, genitals are mutilated...hellooo? Are you still with me?” Todd McCarthy in Variety: “"Lars von Trier cuts a big fat art-film fart with Antichrist.” Again with the fart talk? Anthony Kaufman of Indiewire offers a dissenting view: “While there’s no doubt that the place he goes is off a precipitous edge, one can’t deny the film’s continuing primal power.”

Taking Woodstock didn’t provoke quite so much outrage, but Ang Lee’s latest didn’t win many friends either. Schwarzbaum calls it “undergroovy and overplotted.” Eric Kohn of Indiewire says “Even with the ever-versatile Ang Lee behind the camera, this messy historical fiction plays like a two hour 'Saturday Night Live' sketch, and not a very good one, either.”

Roger Ebert is blogging his every move. “This is how Cannes works. At home, you read about the films and directors, but the moment you arrive in town the buzz takes over. I have been here scant hours and already am tapped directly into central intelligence.”

Cannes Roundup: Day Two

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 15 May 2009 17:00:00 GMT

Francis Coppola takes another shot at a comeback with Tetro, but the response at Cannes was mixed at best. “The debut of a new Coppola stirred hope and foreboding; and both were warranted,” writes Richard Corliss in Time. “The great news is that this unquestioned giant of American cinema, who sired the Godfather films, The Conversation and Apocalypse Now in the '70s, is still making independent-minded movies three decades later. The bad news is that he made this one.” Eric Kohn of Indiewire chimes in: “Neither complete misfire nor triumphant return to form, Francis Ford Coppola’s Tetro works as a competent family drama right up until the messy final act.”

Jane Campion finds a champion for her comeback effort Bright Star in Allan Hunter at Screen Daily: “Bright Star deftly avoids the stilted, starchy quality often found in lesser period dramas. Characters appear comfortable in their clothes and settings, the dialogue flows easily from their lips and there is a quiet, everyday intimacy to the way events unfold.” The Telegraph is high on Fish Tank. “Shot with a terrific eye for pointillist detail and panorama, Arnold opens up the council estates of Essex, revealing the myriad ways in which they cramp but never entirely extinguish the spirit and imaginations of the people who live there.”

If your tastes run toward Korean vampire movies…well, the word is not so good on Park Chan-wook’s Thirst. “New settings and characters are introduced so willy-nilly, and consecutive scenes have so little formal or tonal consistency, that you’re generally floundering even as you’re gasping,” writes Mike D’Angelo in the AV Club. Variety calls it “an overlong stygian comedy that badly needs a transfusion of genuine inspiration.”

Cannes Roundup: Day One

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 14 May 2009 16:30:00 GMT

The Cannes Film Festival kicked off last night with the latest from Pixar, Up, and the early word is predictably positive. “Up possesses all the aesthetic and philosophical values that audiences have come to expect from Pixar: rich, intricately detailed visuals, un-snarky humor and a genuinely affecting story,” writes Ann Hornaday of the Washington Post. Eugene Hernandez of Indiewire calls it “a grand visual spectacle on a big screen, pulling viewers into a striking three dimensional world and eschewing the sort of visual sight gags found in typical 3-D movies.” The Telegraph reports a minor quibble: “I'm not convinced it needs to be seen in 3-D: the images are less distinct than is ideal. But the quality of writing, its delicious sound design, and the emotional punch it packs all make this one of Pixar's finest achievements to date.”

Charlotte Higgins of the Guardian does her best to reassure us that we aren’t missing anything by not being there. “Most news journalists I know have a love hate relationship with it. My day (I'm writing this Wednesday evening) is far from over – but at least I wasn't sitting up till 3am, like my colleague at the BBC Razia Iqbal, putting together a package for the Today programme. Mostly it consists of queuing, with some occasional shoving or sweaty rushing, spliced with trying to ask questions in enormous press conferences – but the mic rarely gets passed to you, because there are hundreds of reporters, from everywhere from Iceland to Hong Kong, also competing to get a word in.”

As he prepares for the Cannes premiere of The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus on May 24, Terry Gilliam speaks to The Independent about completing the project without Heath Ledger. “I suppose I’m in an interesting position because while I’m cutting the film I’m basically working with him every day and he’s fine; he’s in good shape…Ideas are floating around. Then finally we decided, ‘OK, let’s get three other people to take over the part’. And we were lucky because we have a magic mirror in this movie. Not every movie has a magic mirror. So you can very genuinely say that these other actors are different aspects of the character that Heath plays. And it works.”

Tales from the Golden Age, which will have its premiere in the Un Certain Regard section, has secured distribution from IFC. “I am very glad that IFC Films decided to stay close to me and continue the difficult work of presenting Romanian films in US,” said director Cristian Mungiu (4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days).

Screengrab’s Five to Watch at Cannes

Scott Von Doviak — Wed, 13 May 2009 17:00:00 GMT

Greetings from the Croisette on the beautiful French Riviera! The entire Screengrab gang has convened over croissants and café au lait at Le Grande Bleu, and we’re hashing over our picks to click for the fabulous festival kicking off with tonight’s screening of the opening night film, Up. Wait until the crew back at Nerve headquarters gets a look at these expense reports!

OK, so we’re not actually in France. But why should a little technicality like that prevent us from bringing you the best in Cannes coverage? Or at least linking to the best in Cannes coverage, which we’ll do when we launch our daily Cannes Roundup tomorrow. For now, here’s a look at five movies I’d be sure to check out if I actually were on the Riviera instead of sitting at my desk in my underwear.

INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS

Maybe Death Proof wasn’t all you dreamed it would be, and Brad Pitt’s cracker accent may not fill you with all the confidence in the world, and it’s just possible I’m describing myself here. Still, I have enough good will stored up for Quentin Tarantino as a filmmaker (if not as a personality) that I can’t help but be excited for his World War II epic, bad spelling and all.

TAKING WOODSTOCK

“It’s 1969, and Elliot Tiber, a down-on-his-luck interior designer in Greenwich Village, New York, has to move back upstate to help his parents run their dilapidated Catskills motel, the El Monaco…When Elliot hears that a neighbouring town has pulled the permit on a hippie music festival, he calls the producers, thinking he could drum up some much needed business for the motel.” Ang Lee’s take on the ‘70s (The Ice Storm) worked out pretty well, so let’s see what he can do with the ‘60s.

THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS

Granted, Terry Gilliam’s track record of late has not been stellar. He couldn’t get Don Quixote off the ground, The Brothers Grimm was underwhelming, and I already regret leaving Tideland off my top ten list of the worst movies ever. But judging from the brief clips above, Imaginarium has more of an early Gilliam feel, and the curiosity factor of Heath Ledger’s last ever (partial) performance is definitely a draw. Plus: Tom Waits as the Devil!

PANIQUE AU VILLAGE (A TOWN CALLED PANIC)

I’d never heard of this Belgian film before this morning, but the description certainly intrigues. “Animated plastic toys like Cowboy, Indian and Horse have problems, too. Cowboy and Indian's plan to surprise Horse with a homemade birthday gift backfires when they destroy his house instead. Surreal adventures take over as the trio travel to the center of the earth, trek across frozen tundra and discover a parallel underwater universe where pointy-headed (and dishonest!) creatures live. Each speedy character is voiced -- and animated -- as if their very air contains both amphetamines and laughing gas.”

ANTICHRIST

“A grieving couple retreat to ’Eden’, their isolated cabin in the woods, where they hope to repair their broken hearts and troubled marriage. But nature takes its course and things go from bad to worse...” Hey, I’m always up for a good ol’ scary cabin-in-the-woods movie, and with Lars Von Trier at the helm, this one is sure to either terrify or infuriate – or more likely, both.

Basterds in the Imaginarium: Cannes Lineup Unveiled

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 15:30:00 GMT

Quentin Tarantino, Ang Lee, Terry Gilliam, Pedro Almodovar, Lars von Trier and Jane Campion are among the big-name directors with films set to screen at the 2009 Festival de Cannes. Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds will have its premiere at the festival, where it will compete with von Trier’s Antichrist, Lee’s Taking Woodstock, Almodovar’s Broken Embraces and Campion’s Bright Star. Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus will screen out of competition.

“More recent Palme d’Or recipient Ken Loach will appear once again in Cannes with Looking for Eric, about a troubled young soccer fan and Gallic soccer sensation Eric Cantona. The film will vie for the Palme d’Or against Johnny To’s French-made Vengeance starring pop sensation Johnny Hallyday as a hitman out to avenge his daughter’s death,” per The Hollywood Reporter.

Other notable films screening in competition include Les herbes folles, directed by Alain Resnais, The White Ribbon, directed by Michael Haneke, and Enter the Void, directed by Gaspar Noe. The opening night film will be Pixar’s Up and the closer will be Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinski. The festival kicks off on May 13.

Related:
Tarantino's Ingluourious Basterds Unleashed
Terry Gilliam Bites Back

Trailer Review: Antichrist (International Trailer)

Paul Clark — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 16:00:00 GMT

The official competition slate for Cannes is going to be announced tomorrow morning, and a film most are predicting will be included is this, the latest from galvanizing Dane Lars Von Trier. From the looks of this trailer, I’d say this is at least partly a throwback to Von Trier’s earlier films- the theme of hypnosis runs throughout his first three features, as well as his miniseries The Kingdom, and the rigorous style of the visions early in the trailer hearken back to the visual look he often employed in his pre-Breaking the Waves days. At the same time, his more recent style is in evidence here too, not only in the insistent handheld camera shots but also in the deteriorating psyche of his heroine, played by Charlotte Gainsbourg. When I first heard that Von Trier was working on a movie called Antichrist, I wasn’t sure what he was up to, but I have a pretty good idea now, and I’m fascinated. If nothing else, this should tide this long-standing Von Trier fan over until he finally gets around to making Wasington.

Screengrab Q&A: James Toback

Nicole Ankowski — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 11:00:00 GMT

By Emily Wilson

It's been over twenty years since Mike Tyson became boxing's youngest-ever Heavyweight Champion of the World. In the decades since, his demons outnumbered his titles, and the former bruiser became better known for his addictions, ear-biting and uncontrollable temper than for his victories in the ring. Filmmaker James Toback (The Pick-up Artist, Fingers, Bugsy) aims to bring some nuance to that image with his new documentary, Tyson. And he may succeed; the film was lauded at Cannes and Sundance, with Tyson himself saying, "I'm afraid of how much money and how much pussy I'm gonna get."

A self-styled provocateur, Toback has always been able to raise a tempest around himself and his extensive network of celebrity associates — perhaps because the line between him and his subjects, between his art and his life, has never been clear. As a young journalist in 1971, he was assigned a piece about Jim Brown; he ended up moving in with the football-legend-turned-actor and writing a memoir about the endless orgies at Brown's house. His film career, in many ways, has continued to blur that line, with extra provocation whenever possible. One scene in 1999's Black and White finds Tyson himself — as himself — politely deflecting the advances of a pushy Robert Downey Jr., before suddenly and shockingly punching him in the face.

The same charisma Tyson displays in that unforgettable moment animates Toback's new documentary, essentially one long interview with a very willing subject, interspersed with impressive archival footage. Tyson opens up about his childhood, turbulent relationships, addictions, prison, and the intimate, twenty-year-long relationship he and Toback have shared. It's a mesmerizing film, and perhaps Toback's best. Nerve spoke with Toback about friendship with a man whom many consider a monster.

You've known Mike Tyson for over twenty years. How did you first meet?
It was quite unexpected. He came to the set of The Pick-up Artist to meet Robert Downey Jr. He and I started talking, and we hit it off. We took a long, long walk at five in the morning through Central Park. He'd just met Jim Brown, and I had lived up at Jim's house for a couple of years. He was fascinated to find out about all the wild activities there. I told him about my flip-out on LSD when I was his age, nineteen. He was very interested in the whole notion of madness and what it meant to go crazy. His mind was very curious, in particular about that subject. I wasn't all that surprised when, years later, he flipped out, when he was in solitary confinement. In fact, he told me the first thing he thought was, "This is what Toback was talking about."

How did you stay in touch? Did you meet up or call one another?
I'd call him out of the blue. Or I'd get a call at four in the morning and he'd say, "Jim Toback, Mike Tyson." And two hours later we'd say goodnight.

Did you always talk about heavy subjects?
Yes. There was no small talk ever. Not a syllable. Very much like in the movie.

How did you decide to make this film?
It was clear to me we'd have some extremely interesting episodes together, and over the years we did. They just happened organically. There was this constant sense of invention and renewal. I felt when he came out of prison after the long stay, that would be a great time to use him because he was — and still is — an icon in the hip-hop world. I was doing [this movie about hip-hop] with the Wu-Tang Clan, Black and White. He fit very naturally within the framework of the film.

In Black and White there's a scene in the gym where he speaks in a self-reflective, meditative way about murder and humiliation in prison. I thought that voice, if I find the right cinematic style, would make a great self-portrait, filtered through my own aesthetic. I talked to him about it right away and he was all for it. It was just a question of finding the right time.

And what made this the right time?
The death of my mother, which made me feel I had to get to work on something right away or I'd have a real problem functioning at all. And he'd just been arrested for cocaine possession and was in rehab. I thought: this is going to be a period of time he can indulge in self-analysis and reflection, without having the kind of fractured, frantic life he usually has.

Do you feel you had a lot in common?
In some odd way, by making a movie about him, it raised all these subjects that all of my movies deal with: identity, and the loss of it; madness; sex; love; crime; money; death. The less likely the scenario, the more interesting it is to me. So to take a subject, namely Mike Tyson, where the backgrounds and the origins and any number of [other] superficial differences would suggest a lack of communion — and then to find there are these rather fascinating connections — made it all the more interesting.

Some of the film is painful for Tyson; he cries at certain points. Why did he agree to make this film?
First of all, clearly, he is shy on one level. But he's one of the most famous people in the world, and it's not by accident. He has a need to be known and to be understood. I think that was part of it, but I think he has a confessional nature, too. Strict Catholics find a confession booth sufficient to answer that need. Maybe Tyson's needs are a bit more unusual.

In the movie he talks about his tumultuous relationships with women.
Numerically he's had so many experiences with women, you'd almost have to say the law of averages would suggest there'd be a certain amount of problems. If your life revolves around five or ten women, you might be able to get away with a pretty tranquil existence. But at five or ten thousand, you're gonna have some mistakes.

How will this film changes people's preconceptions of Mike Tyson?
There are quite a few people who go in with a conception of him as a convicted rapist and ear-biter. And when they come out, they feel a sense of shock — that he has moved them the way he has, and that they feel that they know him in a way they didn't expect to.

Did you consider interviewing Tyson's friends, or critics, for the film?
No. It only could have been this kind of movie. I had no interest at all in making the movie that was a poll of various people's views. The whole idea was to take advantage of this opportunity, to have a special, personal perspective about himself.

You say you think of him as a figure out of Greek tragedy.
Well, he's the one who said, "It's like a Greek tragedy; the only problem is, I'm the subject." As in classic Greek tragedy, you have a large-scale figure who has risen against all odds by dint of his own capacity, strength and ability — and then has brought himself down by an act of hubris.

What was his act of hubris?
Thinking he could get away with anything — handle problems and challenges that needed rigorous discipline [without that discipline]. Thinking he could get away with succeeding in the way he had, because of his [past] discipline.

How do you feel about the film?
You know, you have a general feel for what a movie is supposed to be when you start it — and [afterwards] you might feel you fulfilled it, or almost fulfilled it or, didn't come close to fulfilling it.

In this case, I think it's probably the first time it actually went beyond what I could have imagined. I didn't know it was possible to feel that. I look at it, and my imagination of what it might be is less than what it is. Whereas in previous films, I felt like this is what I wanted, or this isn't quite what I wanted. Or, in the case of Love and Money, this isn't close to what I wanted.

Tyson opens in select cities this Friday. James Toback is being honored, along with Robert Redford and Francis Ford Coppola, at the San Francisco International Film Festival, running April 23 to May 7.

Trailer Review: Hunger

Paul Clark — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 17:00:00 GMT

Steve McQueen’s debut feature has been getting raves ever since it first premiered at Cannes last year, where it took home the Camera d’Or. Since then, the film has built up sizable word of mouth among serious critical types, not only for its unflinching portrayal of the 1981 hunger strike by imprisoned IRA leader Bobby Sands (which would surely explain why Mel Gibson’s Icon Productions is distributing), but also for the artistic rigor which McQueen brings to the film. Visual-artists-turned-directors have a somewhat spotty record, but word is that McQueen’s work is closer, quality-wise, to Julian Schnabel than, say, David Salle. Overall, I’m pretty taken with this trailer, not only for its imagery but likewise for its minimalist score, perhaps the best example I’ve seen since Eyes Wide Shut. I’ll finally have the chance to see the film later this spring, but this trailer has racheted up my anticipation for the movie itself.

Claude Berri, 1934-2009

Leonard Pierce — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 21:45:00 GMT

The French filmmaker Claude Berri passed away this week at age 74. One of the most esteemed figures in the national cinema of the 1980s, Berri was a total package as a filmmaker: he was a highly celebrated director, who won an Oscar and was nominated for a dozen Cesar awards, though he won none; he was an actor of no small talent; he was a skillful screenwriter; and even in the days when his best days as a director were behind him, he served as a producer for a number of influential and important films.

Berri was born to a Jewish family in Paris, and his entire family was immersed in the film industry. His sister, Arlette Langmann, is a notable French screenwriter and film editor; his brother-in-laws are director Jean-Pierre Rassam and producer Paul Rassam; and two of his sons (Julien Rassam and Thomas Langmann) and one of his nephews (Dmitri Rassam) are actors. Best known for his films Jean de Florette and Manon of the Spring, he won his Academy Award for the short film Le Poulet when he was 32 years old. As a producer, he worked on a range of projects, from Roman Polanski's Tess to Abdel-Latif Kechiche's The Secret of the Grain.

In addition to his extensive resume as a filmmaker, Berri served as a judge at the Cannes Film Festival, oversaw several animated films, and nurtured the careers of a number of actors, including Gerard Depardieu and Emannuelle Beart. After his death from a stroke caused by a degenerative neurological condition on Monday, French president Nicolas Sarkozy eulogized him as "the most legendary figure of French cinema".

Trailer Review: Che

Paul Clark — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 17:00:00 GMT

Most trailers, even really good ones, do little more than to provide a snapshot of the movie- what it’s about, its cast, sometimes the tone it’s going for. Rare is the trailer that actually has a trajectory to it in a way that encapsulates the journey taken by the film itself. What’s most impressive about the trailer for Steven Soderbergh’s epic Che is that it begins just the way one would expect it to only to switch gears, almost imperceptibly, to something difference and less endearing to many audiences. Perhaps the most useless thing a Che bio could do at this point is to simplify and lionize its hero like so many t-shirts and dorm room posters have before, and I was somewhat put off by the early scenes in this trailer, in which it looks like the film is painting Che (Cannes prizewinner Benicio Del Toro) as a romanticized revolutionary. However, later on the trailer switches gears to make him much less idealized, and the war he’s fighting is much uglier (love the aspect ratio shift too). And the final exchange is perfect. Che has gotten wildly diverging reviews since its premiere at Cannes, but I’m still hopeful that it’ll be one of this year’s significant films.

Trailer Review: Waltz With Bashir

Paul Clark — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 17:00:00 GMT

Last year’s Persepolis was a Cannes-anointed animated drama that turned out to be an audience favorite, and Sony Pictures Classics must certainly be looking for another sleeper hit in that vein. Yet I’m not sure Ari Folman's Waltz With Bashir will be what they’re looking for. For one thing, Persepolis was a popular graphic novel prior to its big-screen version, whereas Bashir doesn’t have that built-in recognition. But more importantly, the animation isn’t as impressive this time around. Persepolis made use of the expressively stylized black and white drawings of the original comic, but Bashir’s animation isn’t nearly so impressive. Most of the negative reviews from Cannes focused not only on the quality of the animation but also its necessity, and based on the trailer, I’m not sure this story really required animation to be told. Based on the positive reviews from some critics I respect, my misgivings could be unfounded, but for now, I’ll just wait and see.

Dimwitted Sharon Stone Comment Somehow Considered Big News

Andrew Osborne — Fri, 30 May 2008 14:00:00 GMT

Okay, look...can we all agree that tragedies are tragic? Yes? And terrible? Okay...we agree: nobody likes tragedies. Especially natural disasters, where there’s nobody to blame (except in the case of tragic government incompetence, but let’s not go there).

And can we also agree that many celebrities are vacuous and dimwitted? Okay.

If it please the court, may I further stipulate that dimwitted celebrities (by which I mean dimwits without influential government posts and/or vast congregations of credulous worshippers and/or daily radio shows where they can hammer home the same nonsensical arguments over and over and over again) are likely to say dimwitted things which are, at worst, annoying and insensitive, but not...I repeat NOT...especially newsworthy, in that they don’t actually affect public policy, public opinion, government relief efforts, plate tectonics or anything else?

No? We don’t agree? I may not stipulate? You’re outraged? Or you don't know what the heck I'm talking about? Okay, then...watch the following clip of Sharon Stone talking out her ass at Cannes and be grateful we finally have someone to blame for all the recent sorrow in China (and, uh...Tibet?).

Hey, Baby, It's Miranda July

Leonard Pierce — Tue, 27 May 2008 17:30:00 GMT

One of the most exciting bits of news to come out of Cannes this year is that Miranda July has finally snagged financing for her next fim, Satisfaction. That is, it's exciting if you like Miranda July. The Screengrab is aware that she's got more than her fair share of haters, and to them, this news -- reported in Screen Daily by the wonderfully named Nancy Tartaglione-Vialatte -- is likely to be as welcome as the news that there's a new shipment of Lee Press-On Nails down at the chalkboard factory. Whatever the case, Satisfaction -- which will again star the director -- will be a co-production with Film 4, which oversaw the making of Me and You and Everyone We Know, which made such a splash at Cannes in 2005.

For such a widely celebrated young director, July took her time in getting Satisfaction off the ground (or, given its modest box office and critical backlash, maybe the time was taken for her), but she hasn't remained idle in the subsequent three years; in 2007, she published No One Belongs Here More Than You, a highly praised (though equally backlashed) collection of engaging short stories, a few of which are rumored to form the backbone of Satisfaction's multiple narrative of romantic disaffection. She also collaborated on another book of stories, put a few music videos in the can, made a number of short films, and starred in an off-Broadway performance piece titled Things We Don't Know and Are Definitely Not Going to Talk About.

Indeed, regardless of how her next project is received -- and despite all the Haterade passed out at her media ubiquity a few years ago, we're still pretty excited about it -- Miranda July is in no danger of running out of things to do. She's been involved in so many projects in her 34 years, calling her a triple threat is selling her considerably short: in addition to being an acclaimed director, videographer, actress and author, she's also a fashion designer, a visual artist, an essayist, and a recording artist with two albums on the hipster favorite Kill Rock Stars label, and a third rumored to be in the works. She even designed and directed the highly amusing internet ad campaign for No One Belongs Here More Than You. Showing as much promise as she did with her first feature-length movie, we're kind of pulling for her to make it as a director, but with everything else she's got going on, maybe we should just hope she gets a good night's sleep.

Cannes Rundown- The Winners!

Paul Clark — Mon, 26 May 2008 02:24:00 GMT

Laurent Cantet’s The Class (Entre les Murs) won the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, an award that was bestowed on the film earlier today. A last-minute addition to this year’s Competition lineup, Cantet’s film took home the top prize in a year that saw a number of notable titles but no clear frontrunner. The Class was announced as a unanimous Palme winner, and was praised by jury president Sean Penn for its “generosity.”

Due to Penn’s political leanings, many predicted Steven Soderbergh’s Che to be a contender for the Palme, but the film had to make do with a Best Actor award for star Benicio Del Toro. Taking home Best Actress was Sandra Corveloni for Walter Salles and Daniela Thomas’ Linha de Passe.

Here’s the complete list of winners:

Palme d'Or: Entre Les Murs (The Class), directed by Laurent Cantet
Grand Prix (runner-up): Gomorra, directed by Matteo Garrone
Prix de la Mise en Scene (best director): Nuri Bilge Ceylan for Three Monkeys
Prix du Scenario (best screenplay): Jean Pierre and Luc Dardenne for Le Silence de Lorna
Camera d'Or (best first feature): Hunger, directed by Steve McQueen
special mention: Ils mourront tous sauf moi, directed by Valeria Gai Guermanika
Prix du Jury (jury prize): Il Divo, directed by Paolo Sorrentino
Prix d'interpretation feminine (best actress): Sandra Corveloni for Linha de Passe
Prix d'interpretation masculine (best actor): Benicio del Toro for Che
Prix de 61st Festival de Cannes: Catherine Deneuve (Un Conte de noel) and Clint Eastwood (The Exchange)
Palme d'Or (short film): Metron, directed by Marian Crisan
special mention: Jerrycan, directed by Julius Avery

Cannes Rundown, Days 10 and 11- I'd be the screenwriter who speaks Chinese and plays the oboe. That would be cool.

Paul Clark — Sun, 25 May 2008 04:01:00 GMT

As the Cannes Film Festival enters its final days before the announcement of awards on Sunday, here’s one final roundup of reviews. We begin with Charlie Kaufman’s highly-anticipated (by me, anyway) directorial debut Synecdoche, New York. Would Kaufman’s inexperience behind the camera cause him to become timid and soften his edge? If reviews are any indication, don’t bet on it.

AO Scott in the New York Times- “Mr. Kaufman, the wildly inventive screenwriter of “Being John Malkovich” and “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” has, in his first film as a director, made those efforts look almost conventional. Like his protagonist, a beleaguered theater director played by Philip Seymour Hoffman, he has created a seamless and complicated alternate reality, unsettling nearly every expectation a moviegoer might have about time, psychology and narrative structure.”

But not all were so impressed. J. Hoberman in the Village Voice- “Collapsing in sodden self-reflexivity after a promising 40 minutes, Kaufman’s arch, interminable phantasmagoria—with Philip Seymour Hoffman as a Job-like theater director—retroactively improved all but the most miserablist movies I saw at Cannes.”

Other competition titles:

Jeff Wells on Paolo Sorrentino’s Il Divo- “I knew I was seeing something intensely audacious and stylistically exciting, but the political arena it depicts is so dry and complex and wholly-unto-itself that gradually the film makes you feel as if you're lying in an isolation tank.”

Laurent Cantet’s The Class/Entre Les Meurs, according to Time Out’s Geoff Andrew- “Everything rings absolutely true in this film, and everything is utterly engrossing from start to finish, despite the apparent lack of a straightforward narrative during the first hour… There are no easy answers proffered to the various questions raised about education, schools and society, but the film makes for admirably lucid, subtle and thought-provoking drama throughout. And the kids are terrific.”

Cinematical’s James Rocchi tears into Wim Wenders’ latest, The Palermo Shooting- “After Palermo Shooting ended (with a title card offering the film as a tribute "To Ingmar (Bergman) and Michelangelo (Antonioni)," which made me imagine Bergman and Antonioni saying Uh, thanks, but. ... from the next world), the Cannes press audience booed and laughed and stumbled out into the streets for detailed digressions and discussions on how, exactly, Wenders had, as our British friends say, lost the plot. Palermo Shooting goes fairly off the mark, or fires blanks, or has a damp fuse; I'm not sure about which firearm metaphor applies here, and if Wenders can't be bothered to have any cohesion to his signs and symbols, why should I?... It's still a little sad to see a major filmmaker make such a series of major mistakes in the name of a fairly minor film.”

While I certainly admire Cannes’ devotion to Wenders, perhaps the competition would be better served if, instead of reserving spots for ex-Palme winners past their prime, the selectors would give some love to gifted up-and-comers who deserve a higher profile People like, say, Kelly Reichardt, whose Wendy and Lucy played in Un Certain Regard. Here’s ScreenDaily’s Mike Goodridge- “Reichardt's films are quiet and detailed, and in Wendy And Lucy , she provides an all too believable picture of how fine is the line between getting by and becoming homeless and destitute… Unlike Old Joy, which was a two-hander, Wendy And Lucy is told entirely from the point of view of one character - and her dog, of course. The beauty of the film is not only in telling a story with so few words but in showing the wordless tenderness that exists between woman and dog in a society which has cast her onto its fringes. “

Also of note was the Un Certain Regard prizewinner, Tulpan. Here’s ScreenDaily’s Jonathan Romney on the film- “Shy courtship, stark landscapes and a spirited supporting cast of livestock make Tulpan a vivid, intensely enjoyable debut feature from former documentarian Sergei Dvortsevoi. The Kazakhstan-set film hardly breaks new ground, in both setting and mood pitching its tent very close to The Story Of The Weeping Camel. But it similarly blends intimate, gentle fiction with a strong dose of ethnographic observation, to immensely charming effect.”

Justin Chang in Variety on Albert Serra’s Birdsong- “Patience was no doubt required of the Three Wise Men as they made their way toward Bethlehem, and the same will be required of auds who seek out "Birdsong," Albert Serra's minimalist reinterpretation of the Magi's journey. Hushed, contemplative but often quite droll experiment offers beautifully sculpted images on a black-and-white canvas across its sometimes hypnotic, sometimes tedious runtime.”

Wendy Ide praises Eldorado in the London Times- “This off-beat tragicomic road movie from Belgium is one of the sleeper hits of the festival. Screening in the Director’s Fortnight sidebar, it’s a far cry from the dour, grey perception of Belgian cinema fostered by the work of people like the Dardenne brothers…The landscapes and soundtrack choices evoke American road movies of a bygone era; the sensibility is definitely European.”

Abel Ferrara’s Chelsea on the Rocks, according to Dennis Lim in the Los Angeles Times- “Abel Ferrara's new film, "Chelsea on the Rocks," represents a kind of homecoming for the Bronx-born director and longtime chronicler of the New York City underbelly. Ferrara, best known for urban tales of damnation such as "Bad Lieutenant" and "King of New York," moved to Italy several years ago, fleeing a city transformed by the Rudolph W. Giuliani regime and the Sept. 11 attacks, not to mention a cultural and economic climate that had grown more hostile to maverick filmmakers.”

Finally, here’s a link to Karina Longworth’s live-blogging of Quentin Tarantino’s Film Lecture at Cannes. I’ve seen how fast that dude talks, and my fingers are hurting just thinking about it. Bang-up job, Karina.

The Screengrab Highlight Reel: May 17-23, 2008

Scott Von Doviak — Fri, 23 May 2008 22:05:00 GMT

Here we are on the verge of a three-day weekend – the perfect opportunity to catch up with the week in Screengrabbin’. Take that laptop out to the beach and dig in to one of our finest weeks ever in film-related snarkery:

All the Cannes news you can eat, including review roundups for Steven Soderbergh’s Che and Clint Eastwood's Changeling.

Speaking of Eastwood, Spike Lee has some words for him.

Something you may not know about Prince Caspian: It’s Some Goofy-Ass Shit.

Those guys in the raincoats in the back row of the theater? That’s us taking in The Sweet 16 Jailbait Movies.

Flashbacks to summers past: Yesterday’s Hits looks at Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Summerfest ’08 launches with A Summer Place, and Summer of ’78 kicks off with Thank God It’s Friday.

Our Unwatchable journey through the IMDb Bottom 100 continues with the Aussie werewolves of Howling III, the strangely middle-aged juvenile delinquent of I Accuse My Parents, and the horny bikini babes of Horrors of Spider Island.

Grumpy Old Actresses square off in a 90-year feud.

Which giant ape movie is truly the King of Kong?

That sound you hear isn’t fingernails on a chalkboard – it’s OST: There Will Be Blood.

What’s Three More Terminator Movies between friends?

Whatever happened to Better Off Dead auteur Savage Steve Holland?

And finally, forget Uwe Boll – the worst filmmaker of our time is Albert Pyun.

Cannes Rundown, Day 9: Shoot, coward. You're only going to kill a man.

Paul Clark — Fri, 23 May 2008 04:11:00 GMT

Steven Soderbergh’s mammoth two-part epic Che may not be the most universally loved film in competition this year, but it’s certainly become the most talked-about so far. Here’s a small smattering of reactions to the film, which stars Benicio Del Toro.

Glenn Kenny- “for better or worse… in terms of pop iconography, nothing says "overthrowing the system" better than the iconic image of Che. Good thing then, as far as my opinion is concerned, that Soderbergh doesn't have a rabble-rousing bone in his body. Che benefits greatly from certain Soderberghian qualities that don't always serve his other films well, e.g., detachment, formalism, and intellectual curiosity.”

Variety’s Todd McCarthy- ““Che” is too big a roll of the dice to pass off as an experiment, as it’s got to meet high standards both commercially and artistically. The demanding running time also forces comparison to such rare works as “Lawrence of Arabia,” “Reds” and other biohistorical epics. Unfortunately, “Che” doesn’t feel epic -- just long.”

Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian- “The Cannes film festival now has a serious contender for the Palme d'or. Steven Soderbergh's four-and-a-half hour epic Che, about the revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara, was virile, muscular film-making, with an effortlessly charismatic performance by Benicio del Toro in the lead role. Perhaps it will even come to be seen as this director's flawed masterpiece: enthralling but structurally fractured - the second half is much clearer and more sure-footed than the first - and at times frustratingly reticent, unwilling to attempt any insight into Che's interior world. We see only Che the public man, the legendary comandante, defiant to the last.”

Believe it or not, there were actually other films at Cannes along with Che. We begin with Atom Egoyan’s Adoration. Screen Daily’s Howard Feinstein- “Following the failed effort to cross over into conventional, commercially viable film-making with Where The Truth Lies (2005), Canadian auteur Egoyan returns to his signature style with Adoration… Unfortunately, the stories here are thin, unnecessarily complicated and glibly cryptic; some sections are difficult to follow, even annoying in their self-consciousness.”

Also in competition, Philippe Garrel’s Frontier of Dawn. Here’s Karina Longworth of SpoutBlog- “There are shots in this film’s second half that are scarier than anything I’ve seen in a horror film in recent years––without the aid of any effect more special than a basic optical print––and simultaneously, incredibly moving in their invocation of a love that won’t die. Or, at the very least, refuses to abide by traditional boundaries of love and death.”

AO Scott on the out-of-competition film Delta- ““Delta,” as much as any so-so Hollywood romantic comedy, seems content to live inside the bubble of its limited ambitions. It is hard to imagine an audience for this film except in places like Cannes. That is not necessarily because the outside public is incurious or unsophisticated, but rather because “Delta” makes no particular effort to reach beyond the international coterie of critics and programmers who see it out of duty and devotion.”

On Johnny Mad Dog, here’s Jonathan Romney of Screen Daily- “Sauvaire gives us some of the most terrifying and feral militia forces ever seen on film. The young soldiers rarely speak beneath a furious yell, terrifying their victims and barking out slogans and morale-boosting chants apparently culled from Vietnam movies. There's a certain Lord Of The Flies horror in the suggestion that these are still children at play in the most murderous way, their battle garb suggestive of a nightmarish carnival.”

Finally, since many of you seem concerned with the whereabouts of Jennifer Chambers Lynch, here’s Time’s Richard Corliss on her new film Surveillance- “it's an authentic, systematically annoying weirdie about the investigation of a roadside homicide. Five were brutally killed by a couple of maniacs in leatherface masks. Now the three shaken survivors are being questioned in a police station by two outside agents (Bill Pullman and Julia Ormond) who are skeptical of the variations in the stories they hear. Think Rashomon meets The Texas Chainsaw Massacre in Twin Peaks, and give lots of leeway for the gooniest improv overacting, and you may get on the warped wavelength of this semi-comic parable of social anarchy.”

Cannes Rundown, Day 8: Headless Women and Aging Footballers

Paul Clark — Thu, 22 May 2008 02:47:00 GMT

As we wait for reviews for Steven Soderbergh’s mammoth two-part epic Che to filter in, let’s take a look at the reaction to today’s other competition entry, Lucretia Martel’s La Mujer Sin Cabeza. The film was handicapped by some as a possible Palme d’Or contender before the fest began, but reviews today were fairly mixed.

Here’s the Hollywood Reporter’s Peter Brunette: “If Martel's narrative and character exposition are skimpy, her cinematic technique can be breathtaking. She knows how to evoke a barely-registered undercurrent of existential dread through repetitive, barely discernible noises or off-beat, insistent music on her soundtrack, in the manner of Russian master Sokurov. Children loudly cavort in the background of scenes in a way that puts us edge without our really understanding why... Now, if only Martel would become a little more generous with story details, our pleasure would be complete.”

However, Glenn Kenny is much more willing to give Martel another shot: “while Mujer is a far quieter film than Martel's sardonic 2001 feature debut La Cienega, not to mention it's followup, 2004's The Holy Girl. Mujer doesn't lack for stuff—but the register of the film's nuances is so narrow that unless you're paying proper attention, the image will disappear before your eyes. A fancy way of saying that I need to see this story of the discreet guilt-trip of one particular bourgeoisie again.”

Playing out of competition is the documentary/profile Maradona by Kusturica, which is pretty much what it sounds like. The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw weighs in: “Kusturica deserves credit for revealing Maradona to be more articulate and thoughtful than he usually appears, but what a strange, blustering, macho film this is. Kusturica contrives to get himself into almost every shot, and all-too-obviously thinks he is a testosterone legend to match his subject. He repeatedly shows clips from his own movies - allegedly because they mirror Maradona's tough home life. It is pure penis-envy cinema.”

Finally, some thoughts on The Bastards, Amat Escalante’s Un Certain Regard entry, expressed by Variety’s Todd McCarthy: “From the bold opening credits, the simplicity of his conceptions, the stripped-down refinement of his widescreen framing and the rich sound mix, it's clear Escalante possess a strong talent. What he does with it is another matter… The worst cliches about Mexicans are furthered by the guys front and center here: Jesus looks like a prison-hardened hombre who'd rather stare you down than talk to you, and the resentful Fausto serves up repeated slurs against gringos. When Jesus pulls his compact shotgun out of his backpack, the negative portrait is complete.”

Cannes Rundown, Day 7: Featuring Angelina Jolie as George C. Scott

Paul Clark — Wed, 21 May 2008 01:34:00 GMT

So far this year, Cannes has served primarily as a spotlight for the best of world cinema, featuring new films by masters like Arnaud Desplechin, the Dardenne brothers, Jia Zhang-ke, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, and an out-of-competition bonus from Terence Davies. But today, American directors finally got their moment in the Croisette sun, with works by Cannes favorites Clint Eastwood and James Gray premiering.

Eastwood, making his first fest appearance since 2003’s Mystic River, opened Changeling to mostly positive notices. Here’s Variety’s Todd McCarthy on the film- “"Changeling" impressively continues Clint Eastwood's great run of ambitious late-career pictures. The outstanding screenplay… has deceptive simplicity and ambition to it, qualities the director honors by underplaying the melodrama and not signaling the story's eventual dimensions at the outset. Characters and sociopolitical elements are introduced with almost breathtaking deliberation, as dramatic force and artistic substance steadily mount across the long-arc running time.”

Time’s Richard Corliss, also on Changeling- “Changeling is an epic, fact-based story — depicting sadistic, systematic corruption in the municipal government, the police department and the medical establishment of 1920s Los Angeles — that has the novelty of being virtually unknown today… At its center are the heartache and heroic resolve of a woman who has lost the one person she loves most and is determined to find him, dead or alive, against all obstacles the authorities place in her way. In that sense the movie is a companion piece to last year's Cannes entry A Mighty Heart, in which Jolie played the wife of kidnapped journalist Daniel Pearl — except that Changeling is far more taut, twisty and compelling.”

Meanwhile, the reaction to James Gray’s Two Lovers was somewhat less universally positive. ScreenDaily’s Allan Hunter- “Two Lovers is the third successive James Gray feature to play in Competition at Cannes and it has become harder to discern why the selectors keep such resolute faith with this particular American auteur. Two Lovers is a maudlin, melancholic tug at the heartstrings that marks a welcome break from Gray's preoccupation with crime and corruption. It is well-crafted and ably acted but never especially moving and winds up feeling like something from the classier end of the American TV movie spectrum.”

But Glenn Kenny has a soft spot for Gray’s film- “Most of my U.S. colleagues here hated James Gray's new film even more than they did last year's booed-right-here We Own The Night, which I wasn't too crazy about myself. But I gotta give it up—as earnest and awkward as this loose rethink of Dostoevsky's "White Nights" can get, it frequently moved me… Turning away from the crime-steeped milieus of his previous features, Gray aims for a kind of deliberately ache-filled romanticism that no other filmmaker I can think of is particularly interested in today. Good for him, says I.”

Also, playing out of competition:

A.O. Scott writes on Raymond Depardon’s Modern Life for the Paper of Record- “Mr. Depardon, from a rural background himself, is more interested in details and personalities than in generalizations. It is nonetheless impossible to ignore the fatalism that hovers over both the elders and their would-be inheritors as they have their taciturn, matter-of-fact say. At the end, Mr. Depardon promises to return, and you can’t help but wonder what will be left of this noble, difficult and ancient form of life when he comes back for the next film in the series.”

Pierre Scholler’s Versailles elicited this reaction from The Hollywood Reporter’s Kirk Honeycutt- “The abandoned child is a sure-fire dramatic devise, and it is to writer-director Pierre Schoeller's credit that in "Versailles" he uses it to explore true sentiment rather than mere sentimentality. Indeed the child character is essentially abandoned twice in the movie, yet no violins sob on the soundtrack.”

Finally, the reaction of The Boston Globe’s Ty Burr to Lisandro Alonso’s Liverpool is hardly the consensus, but it’s worth repeating all the same- “It's my first encounter with Alonso, and I'm told his earlier movies, "La Libertad" in particular, are quite good. This one struck me as a Bela Tarr movie left to die in a snowbank.”

Sounds like my kind of movie, actually…

1949 vs. 2012: John Woo/Roland Emmerich Deathmatch!

Scott Von Doviak — Tue, 20 May 2008 17:30:00 GMT

It’s deal-making time on the Croisette in Cannes, and while some deals are more ill-advised than others, we’ve rounded up a few notables worthy of mention.

John Woo is set to direct 1949, which we are assured is not a sequel to Steven Spielberg’s 1941. Variety reports it is a “big budget romancer that will crank up as soon as he has finished his epic Red Cliff.” A Chinese-language epic “based on true events at the end of WWII and the final years of the Chinese Civil War, pic will star Chang Chen and Korea's Song Hye-kyo.”

Leap ahead 63 years and you’ll find Roland Emmerich’s 2012. Once again, Variety is on the case, reporting that John Cusack and Redbelt’s Chiwetel Ejiofor will star in the apocalyptic thriller, “whose title refers to the end days of human civilization as foretold by the ancient Mayan calendar. Story kicks off with a global cataclysm, which brings an end to the world as we know it, and chronicles the heroic struggle of the survivors.” Emmerich has already ended the world once, of course, with The Day After Tomorrow. We’re beginning to think he has issues.

And what the hell, since we’re already plundering Variety for this post, we might as well pass on the news that Steve Buscemi is joining the cast of Youth in Revolt, playing the father of Michael Cera in the film based on a novel by C.D. Payne. “Cera plays teenager Nick Twisp, who meets the girl of his dreams on a family vacation and destroys the trip trying to be with her.”

Cannes Rundown, Day 6: Deneuve, Davies, and the Dardennes

Paul Clark — Tue, 20 May 2008 05:06:00 GMT

Along with A Christmas Tale (which has already played) and Synechdoche, New York (which hasn’t), my most-anticipated title in competition at Cannes this year was the latest film from Belgian masters Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne, The Silence of Lorna. Judging by the reviews so far, the film seems more galvanizing than their previous work. Let's join the debate, now in progress...

Taking the affirmative is Glenn Kenny, who writes: “Le Silence De Lorna… is their followup to the 2006 Palme d'Or winner L'Enfant, and while I doubt that the Cannes prize is gonna go to this film, I think it's every bit as nuanced, surprising, and deeply moving as that film… Lorna is an entirely accessible film, one that moviegoers who like a nice juicy tale ought not be scared of.”

On the other side of the argument is Andrew O’Hehir, who contends that “[Arta] Dobroshi gives a brave and affecting performance, but there's something mechanistic and even cruel about "Lorna's Silence," which is more like a thriller than any previous Dardenne film, and correspondingly a lot less plausible. Whatever moral points it's trying to make about the underside of European affluence are uncharacteristically murky.”

Stepping in for the rebuttal is the Independent’s Jonathan Romney, writing: “The sense of revelation may not be there as it was with Rosetta, however, and the jurors may well be looking for something bigger and more of a statement - and there’s no shortage of films like that in competition this year. But as a film that’s very much about the new Europe, and the street-level problems that rarely get covered in film, Lorna certainly commands attention.”

And what’s this? A negative review from Jeff Wells: “I was close to enraged by the actions of Arta Dobroshi's main character in La Silence de Lorna, which I saw this morning. Which means I felt strongly irked by the Dardenne brothers' screenplay. Which means, despite the feeling and focus that went into it, that I didn't care for the film. At all.”

Finally, leaving us on a positive note is Variety’s Justin Chang: “Few directors offer the patient viewer such consummate rewards as Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, longtime documakers whose uncompromising, beautifully observed studies of Belgium's urban poor (including Palme d'Or winners "Rosetta" and "L'Enfant") reveal a peerless talent for conjuring drama out of the mundane and wresting emotion from determinedly unsentimental material.”

What does it say about me that this debate makes me all the more excited for the film?

Other films playing today out of competition:

The Hollywood Reporter’s Peter Brunette on Tony Manero- “Not for the faint of heart, or for those who like their protagonists all warm and cuddly, this second feature of Chilean director Pablo Larrain, despite its various forms of crudeness, is vital and strangely arresting. Even better, its political critique of the Pinochet dictatorship is indirect and subtle, and thus all the more welcome and fresh.”

Variety’s Alissa Simon on Je veux voir- “What becomes a legend most? Surely not being a figurehead in a self-consciously arty pseudo docu-cum-road movie. Still, Catherine Deneuve’s iconic presence lends some commercial appeal to "I Want to See”… An uneasy mix of scripted scenario, improvisation and surprising reality, pic professes to want to show destruction wrought during Lebanon's 2006 summer war through the French star's eyes, but seems more concerned with capturing her image as she's trundled about.”

Finally, the most universally acclaimed today was Terence Davies’ long-awaited return to filmmaking, Of Time and the City. Time Out’s Geoff Andrew: “Watching the film, you realise that Britain has no other filmmaker to match Davies in terms of his purely cinematic sensibility. Fine as our other far-from-inconsiderable big names are, it’s hard to imagine any of them creating sheer filmic poetry as may be found here. Davies’s juxtapositions of music and image, especially, are consistently audacious, original and exhilarating, whether the compositions reflect and reinforce each other or whether they make more complex by way of superbly sharp irony.”

And for good measure, Time’s Mary Corliss: “a dreamy documentary of Davies' home town of Liverpool. Shots of working-class Liverpudlians from the '30s, '40s and '50s doing the wash, or playing with school-friends, or preparing dinner, offer a fascinating, poignant glimpse of the rhythm of ordinary life — so precious because it is so rarely seen in documentaries.”

Shaping up to be a pretty darn good Cannes after all, wouldn’t you say?

Cannes Rundown, Day 5

Paul Clark — Mon, 19 May 2008 03:46:00 GMT

A little Indy film premiered today on the Croisette, but since you’ll all be seeing that later this week anyway, I figured we’d give it a miss and move straight on into the artsy stuff. Sound good? Okay…

First up is Matteo Garrone’s crime saga Gomorrah, playing in competition. Here’s ScreenDaily’s Lee Marshall’s take on the film- “Probably the most authentic and unsentimental mafia movie ever to come out of Italy , Gomorrah is a courageous, bruising and harrrowing ride. But the film suffers from its own bravery… Like the white powder used and traded by many of its protagonists, Gomorrah provides a kick-in-the-head rush but no lasting buzz.”

Next, here’s Jay Weissberg in Variety on Brilliante Mendoza’s Serbis, also in competition- “Presumably Mendoza is looking to use one family’s economic struggle and indifference to the sordidness around them as a metaphor for Filipino society as a whole, though his slice-of-life realism often feels more exploitative than enlightening, unlike his superior “Foster Child.””

Moving to films outside of competition, Tom Mes weighs in on Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Tokyo Sonata in Midnight Eye- “Anyone familiar with Kurosawa's body of work will know that it is often the very real ills of society and its people that give his films their power and their chill… Tokyo Sonata is the ultimate expression of this quality of Kurosawa's cinema. As mentioned, it contains no supernatural elements, no ghosts, killers or monstrous flora and fauna. Yet it is without doubt the most terrifying film Kiyoshi Kurosawa has ever made. It is terrifying because it is about us.”

Here’s Ty Burr on the seniors-fucking drama Cloud 9- “If you saw this story cast with 20-year-olds or 40-year-olds, it would taste like stale soap, but played out with characters in the evening of their lives -- when none of them expected an erotic thunderbolt to knock the table over -- the drama seems fresh and freshly lived.”

Finally, the one and only Glenn Kenny on Na Hong-jin’s The Chaser- “The plot twists to mount tragedy on tragedy (did I mention the captive woman has an adorable seven-year-old daughter), along the way upending genre conventions that even the most seasoned moviemaker messes with at his or her own peril. Without giving too much away, the last twenty minutes had my seatmates and I muttering “Jesus!” over and over.”

Cannes Rundown, Day 4

Paul Clark — Sun, 18 May 2008 06:06:00 GMT

Cannes continued today with a number of notable films, including the premiere of the latest film by acclaimed Chinese filmmaker Jia Zhang-ke, entitled 24 City. Here’s Time’s Mary Corliss on the film:

“24 City is eloquent testimony to a China that is vanishing with each swing of the wrecking ball. But the memories of the workers in their factory microcosm, and telling documentaries like these, keep the past alive, so that later generations will know what once was, and what's been lost.”

Also in competition is Linha de Passe, the latest film from Walter Salles (The Motorcycle Diaries) and collaborator Daniela Thomas. ScreenDaily’s Jonathan Romney writes: “The sheer hustle of Sao Paolo comes across vitally in the traffic scenes, with Denis risking his neck - and eventually others' - on the city highways. Brazil 's polarity between rich and poor is subtly handled in the scenes set in the household where Cleuza works as a maid. Above all, the film comes across as a film about religion - that is, Brazil's true religion of football. Salles and Thomas use on-field action to urgent effect.”

Boyd van Hoeij on Moscow, Belgium- “Especially during its first hour, the Flemish boxoffice sensation toys with cliché material with such an assured sense of direction and such a strong screenplay that it simply is a pleasure to watch. The closing 40-odd minutes do not sustain this sense of wonderment over the near-perfect almost-familiar, but thanks in large part to a wonderful cast led by Barbara Sarafian the film is still something that might light up screens elsewhere in Europe.”

Finally, Variety’s Leslie Felperin on Soi Cowboy- “As it happens, "Cowboy" is chock-full of allusions to Clay's pantheon of auteur heroes, including not just Antonioni and Lynch and many other Europeans, but also notable and newer Asian helmers like Hou Hsiao-hsien… and Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Although Clay manages, just about, to keep these references in service of his story, it not yet clear what his own directorial voice looks like, or what exactly it is he wants to say.”

Cannes Rundown, Day 3: A Christmas Tale and more!

Paul Clark — Sat, 17 May 2008 02:21:00 GMT

Of all the films in competition this year at Cannes, the one that has me most excited was A Christmas Tale, the latest film by the masterful Arnaud Desplechin, whose Kings and Queen was one of the finest films of recent years. Not wanting to have everything spoiled for me before I see it myself, I’ve tried to avoid reading the reviews coming from Cannes too much or too deeply, but based on the little I’ve read my hopes for the film are well-founded. Here’s the one and only Glenn Kenny:

“The creation of such a vivid, individualized group of characters and such a compelling roster of dilemmas is a staggering enough feat. But what makes this movie such a darkly exuberant feast is Desplechin's storytelling. Calling his directorial style "eclectic" simply doesn't do. He has packed himself an almost inexhaustible kit bag of cinematic techniques that he deploys here with an ease that makes his previous film, the incredibly impressive Kings and Queen, look relatively forced. Not only is there not a single dull moment in this two-and-a-half-hour family drama; the film practically teems with ferocious moments, and the novelistic detail offered by Desplechin (here collaborating on the screenplay with longtime writing partner Emmanuel Bourdieu) is always spot-on.”

Thanks, Glenn. Let’s see what others have to say…

Andrew O’Hehir: “Rather than supplying the holiday healing suggested by the title, Desplechin (and co-writer Emmanuel Bourdieu) have constructed a tale as emotionally challenging, fragmentary and unresolved as family life itself. At the press conference after the film, Desplechin said he always aimed to make films that were "strange and personal," and that were singular rather than generic. He has succeeded, perhaps at the cost of demanding too much from his viewers.”

Attaboy, Arnaud! And of course, this being Cannes, several other films screened today as well, though none as intriguing (to me anyway) as Arnaud’s. Let’s check out the rundown:

Time Out London’s Geoff Andrew gives us a second opinion on Three Monkeys- “This fifth feature is arguably the most ambitious film yet from the maker of ‘Uzak’ and ‘Climates’. It has the dry humour, assured pacing, astute psychological insights and sharp sense of moral and dramatic irony that has been conspicuous in all his work, but in many respects the film feels like an expansion upon ‘Climates’, not only in extending that film’s clear-eyed, unsentimental assessment of male-female relationships from a couple to a whole family and its acquaintances, but in exploring the rich potential afforded by digital technology; if you thought Ceylan’s photographer’s eye produced stunning images in ‘Climates’, ‘Three Monkeys’ pushes the envelope still further.”

ScreenDaily’s Lee Marshall weighs in on the out of competition omnibus film Tokyo!- “One out of three ain't bad for this Tokyo-themed directorial three-hander. Whimsical Michel Gondry delivers a thirty-minute segment that resonates, while compatriot Leos Carax spoils an otherwise tasty genre exercise by pressing it into service as a message film. Korea's Bong Joon-ho, meanwhile, delivers an artsy rom-com that is too slight even for its half-hour running time.”

Finally, two opinions on Scarlett and Penelope making out Vicky Cristina Barcelona, a pro from Variety’s Todd McCarthy- “Just as London did when Allen went there for "Match Point," the Catalan capital serves as an evident stimulus for the director. Even if the film provides a strictly tourist's view of the city (a perspective justified by the scenario, in fact), and one just as upscale and heedless of money as ever for Allen, "VCB" is by several degrees more hot-blooded than his usual norm, thanks especially due to the palpable chemistry of Bardem and Cruz in the second half.”

… and a con from (who else?) Jeffrey Wells- “I haven't the time to write any kind of comprehensive review of this sometimes unintentionally comedic, frequently cliche-ridden parody of a Woody Allen film, but it dawned on me early on that it plays exactly like a Ben Stiller Show parody of a typical Allen effort. Allen has been accused of parodying himself for years, but now he's really done it. And it pains me to say this. No one filmmaker has given me greater pleasure for a longer period of time than Allen. I worship the guy, but VCB is agony to sit through at times.”

Ouch. Let’s leave on a high note, shall we? Any positive press for Desplechin’s film counts as good news in my book. So here’s Cineuropa’s Fabien Lemercier on A Christmas Tale- “This exploration of a family – made of viciousness, a tormented past and a painful present – goes straight to the heart, in particular those psychologically unpleasant zones that Desplechin loves to depict. The result is a high-class feature that is both complex and subtle.”

Woohoo!

Cannes Rundown: Day 2

Paul Clark — Fri, 16 May 2008 04:36:00 GMT

Let’s run down the selection from Day 2, shall we?

Jeffrey Wells on Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Three Monkeys- “I was in a fairly excited state because I knew -- I absolutely knew -- I was seeing the first major film of the festival. Three Monkeys is about focus and clarity in every sense of those terms, but it was mainly, for me, about stunning performances -- minimalist acting that never pushes and begins and ends in the eyes who are quietly hurting every step of the way.”

Salon.com’s Andrew O’Hehir on Waltz With Bashir- “Dredging up these dreadful memories may have been therapeutic for the men involved, but the point of "Waltz With Bashir" is bigger than that. It's a provocative, strange and arresting film, whose unusual blend of style and substance should reach a large worldwide audience.”

Jay Weissberg in Variety on Leonora- “Confirming the superb compositional eye he revealed in "Born and Bred," helmer Pablo Trapero creates a suitably enclosed world focused on an accused pregnant murderess through jail and childbirth, witnessing the development of mother and child as the rusty wheels of Argentinean justice creak slowly along.”

And finally, Allen Hunter of ScreenDaily on Kung Fu Panda- “The storyline of finding the hero inside yourself is no less obvious but is given a sprightly freshness by the breathless pace, attention to detail and sheer good fun on offer. It might not be an instant classic but it is extremely entertaining and a definite crowd-pleaser.”