Editor of FILMdetail
I didn’t really get Twitter the first time I used it – only second time around did I realise how useful it was.
This video does a good job of explaining why it is such a good web app:
Twitter in Plain English from leelefever on Vimeo.
> Subscribe to my Twitter feed
> Find out more about Twitter at Wikipedia
> Official site
> Jeff Jarvis on the benefits of Twitter and how it can help newsgathering
Here is the first trailer for Burn After Reading, which is the new film from The Coen Brothers starring Brad Pitt, Frances McDormand, John Malkovich, George Clooney and Tilda Swinton.
The story is about the memoir of an ousted CIA official (John Malkovich) that falls into the hands of two gym employees (Pitt and McDormand) who then try to exploit their find.
You can download the HD trailer via iTunes by clicking here.
It is due for release in the US on September 12th and in the UK on October 17th.
> Official site at Working Title
> Burn After Reading at the IMDb
> More on the Coen Brothers at Wikipedia
There were quite a lot of films about the current war on terror to come out last year but the best from a major Hollywood studio was In the Valley of Elah.
Written and directed by Paul Haggis it is the story of a retired soldier (Tommy Lee Jones) who is searching for his missing son, who has just returned from duty in Iraq.
When he arrives at his military base in Texas, no-one seems to know what has happened and he enlists the help of a local detective (Charlize Theron) to find out what exactly is going on.
Whilst it didn’t make any waves at the box office, it earned Jones an Oscar nomination for Best Actor and managed to be a quietly subversive film about the effects of the current war on terror on those soldiers asked to fight it.
Based on true events described in a Playboy article by Mark Boal, the film explores many of the hot button issues brought up by the recent Iraq conflict such as: post-traumatic stress, the abuse of prisoners, the recording of the war by soliders and the nature of American patriotism.
Although the main plot ticks along like a procedural police thriller, it actually proves a clever way of uinearthing the disturbing fallout from the recent conflicts and how they relate to how wars are fought.
Optimum have done a nice job with the DVD putting on some extras which inlcude:
Back in December I spoke to Paul Haggis about the film and you can listen to the interview here:
[audio:https://www.filmdetail.com/podcast/get.php?fla=podcast-2008-01-23-29394.mp3]You can also download this interview as an MP3 file by clicking here.
In the Valley of Elah is out now on DVD from Optimum Releasing
> Buy the DVD at Amazon UK
> In the Valley of Elah at the IMDb
> Death and Dishonour – The Playboy article by Mark Boal that inspired the film
> CBS article about the same events that inspired the film
> Paul Haggis at the IMDb
> Official website for In the Valley of Elah
> Reviews of the film at Metacritic
This week we review Sex and the City and Zoo.
Listen to the review podcast here:
[audio:https://www.filmdetail.com/podcast/get.php?fla=podcast-2008-05-30-85225.MP3]Download and subscribe to the review podcast via iTunes by clicking here.
> Download this review podcast as an MP3 file
> Get local show times for your area via Google Movies
> Check out other reviews at Metacritic
Rupert Murdoch was interviewed at the All Things Digital conference yesterday by Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher.
The News Corporation boss made some revealing comments about technology, the media and US politics.
Here is the video and some key quotes:
On movies and the future of distribution:
I would love to see all windows closed …but there are lots of people’s interest to consider.
The theater owners are powerful, but we will try and move to close that gap as much as possible.
On whether newspapers have a future in a digital world:
I’m totally technically neutral – I don’t care what platform our news appears on, if it’s on printed paper, or the web or mobile or whatever.
If you look at the last 6 months, the average newspaper is down 10 to 30 per cent in advertising revenue.
They [newspapers] are going to deteriorate tremendously
On the change that is needed at the Wall Street Journal:
Every story at the moment [in the WSJ] is worked on by 8.3 people [on average]. That is ridiculous.
On MySpace:
We came to [the Internet] late. We’d been asleep.
We found they [MySpace] were like 3 days away from being bought by Viacom, so we said ‘what does it cost for you to lock yourself in a room with us for the weekend?’.
They said ‘an extra $50 million’ and …we came out with a company.
Facebook came in an did a brilliant job – went past us all.
On Google:
Google is so good. They’ve established the best search engine by far.
It’s gushing money and you can see exactly why Microsoft is worried.
You’ve got all these bright people at Google with unlimited ambition.
On Yahoo:
There was a possibility at one stage that we’d add to the portal.
Here is the second part:
On Hulu:
It is changing every week. We are putting more and more [content] on each week.
As far as we were concerned we want to control our own copyrights and we thought this was the way to do it.
On choosing not to sue YouTube like Viacom have done:
We had mixed feelings about it. We felt it was doing more to promote our shows than it was to hurt them.
On Fox News:
People laugh when I say fair and balanced. All it does is give both sides, which the others (media) haven’t done in the past.
On Barack Obama:
I think you’ve probably got the making of a complete phenomenon in this country.
Politicians in Washington …are despised by 80% of the public.
You’ve got a candidate who has put himself above that and said he’s not the average politician.
And he’s become a rock star – its fantastic.
On John McCain:
He’s been in Congress a long time and you’ve got to make too many compromises.
What does he really stand for?
He’s a very decent guy. I say this sympathetically [but] I think he’s got a lot of problems.
On Apple:
They are brilliant marketers and beautiful designers.
On the recession:
The average family is [being] squeezed to death.
On the energy crisis:
I’d let people drill off the west coast. We didn’t buy Alaska to save a couple of elk.
You can read more detailed notes on the interview at the AllThingsD website here.
> All Things Digital conference
> Find out more about Rupert Murdoch at Wikipedia
For the chance to win a new filmmakers computer kit from HP, register now at 3 Minutes 2 Launch.
One of the most startling and accomplished films to come out in the last year was 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days.
This Romanian drama set in 1987 about a woman trying to get an illegal abortion scooped the Palme D’Or at Cannes last year and it was a surprising but worthy winner.
Although the subject matter might put some viewers off it is a truly remarkable film from director Cristian Mungiu that deserves a wider audience than just the arthouse circuit.
The achievement here is that it takes what appears to be a simple situation (the difficulty of abortion in Communist Romania) and manages to wring out the intense human emotions and drama that lie below.
From the young woman who is pregnant (Laura Vasiliu), her loyal friend (Anamaria Marinca) who helps her and the abortionist (Vlad Ivanov) who performs the operation, all are complicit in a highly dangerous situation.
What elevates it above many contemporary dramas is raw power of the narrative, the terrific lead performances from Marinca and Vasiliu and the clever cinematography from Oleg Mutu that utilises long takes that draws us deeper into the characters lives.
Although it is only his second film, director Mungiu has scored a major achievement and created a film that explores the terrible dilemas facing people in a particularly dark corner of Europe’s recent past.
Artificial Eye have done an excellent job with the extras, most of them interesting and insightful.
They include:
This is one of the best films of the year and an essential purchase for any discerning viewer.
Here is the trailer:
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days is out now on DVD from Artificial Eye
> Buy the DVD at Amazon
> 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days at the IMDb
> Official website
> Reviews of the film at Metacritic
> Screen shots from DVD Beaver
Have you ever laughed or sighed when a film on TV has a ridiculous piece of editing to replace ‘offensive’ language?
This Basic Instinct video that compares the original film with the badly dubbed version altered for sensitive TV audiences.
Check out the differences between Scarface and the US TV cut (“this town is like one big chicken, just waiting to get plucked!”):
How about the safe-for-TV version of Die Hard 2? (“Hey turkey!”):
Or what about this scene from the TV edit of The Big Lebowski, with possibly the strangest substitute line ever? (“This is what happens when you find a stranger in the Alps!”)
And what about Casino, where the f-word is said 422 times?
This scene with De Niro and Pesci in the desert finds a way of avoiding it completely (“You better get your own fighting army pal!”):
Den of Geek has noted some other TV dubbing disasters:
Goodfellas: “Go fu*k your mother” bizarrely becomes “Go feel your mother”.
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off: “Pardon my French but you’re an AARDVARK!'”(????)
Field of Dreams: “We were going to ask Ty Cobb to play, but none of us could stand that son of a squid”
Robocop: “You’re gonna a bad mothercrusher…”
Lethal Weapon: “We bury the funsters!”
The Last Boy Scout: “I POPPED your wife, and later I’m gonna POP her again”
If you know of any others, just leave them in the comments below.
> Melon Farmers reprint an official BBC response as to why Thelma and Louise was cut for TV
> Bad TV Edits
> More edited-for-TV movies at Den of Geek
Director and actor Sydney Pollack has died in Los Angeles aged 73.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Academy Award-winning director Sydney Pollack, a Hollywood mainstay who achieved commercial success and critical acclaim with the gender-bending comedy “Tootsie” and the period drama “Out of Africa,” has died.
He was 73.
Pollack died of cancer Monday afternoon at his home in Pacific Palisades in Los Angeles, surrounded by family, said publicist Leslee Dart.
Pollack had been diagnosed with cancer about nine months ago, said Dart.
Pollack, who occasionally appeared on the screen himself, worked with and gained the respect of Hollywood’s best actors in a long career that reached prominence in the 1970s and 1980s.
“Sydney made the world a little better, movies a little better and even dinner a little better. A tip of the hat to a class act,” George Clooney said in a statement from his publicist.
“He’ll be missed terribly,” Clooney said.
Last fall, he played Marty Bach opposite Clooney in “Michael Clayton,” a drama that examines a law firm’s fixer. The film, which Pollack co-produced, received seven Oscar nominations, including for best picture and a best actor nod for Clooney. Tilda Swinton won the Oscar for supporting actress.
He will be best remembered for directing films such as They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (1969), Jeremiah Johnson (1972), Three Days of the Condor (1975), Absence of Malice (1981), Tootsie (1982) and Out of Africa (1985).
As an actor he appeared in titles such as Husbands and Wives (1992), Eyes Wide Shut (1999), Changing Lanes (2002) and the aforementioned Michael Clayton (2007).
His producing work helped numerous films get off the ground with involvement in The Fabulous Baker Boys (1989), Sense and Sensibility (1995), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Iris (2001), The Quiet American (2002), Cold Mountain (2003) and Michael Clayton (2007).
His illness had come to public attention after he withdrew in August 2007 as the director of the HBO television movie Recount for unspecified health reasons.
UPDATE:
Here is Sydney talking to Charlie Rose in 2007 about his documentary Sketches of Frank Gehry:
Here he is talking to John Gallagher in the early 80s about Three Days of the Condor and Bobby Deerfield:
This is a clip from Michael Clayton where Sydney, playing the law firm’s senior partner Marty Bach, tells Michael (George Clooney) how he feels about the case:
Michael Clayton – What If Arthur Was On To Something
> Original AP article
> Obiturary at the New York Times
> Sydney Pollack at the IMDb
> Sydney’s 10 favourite films in a 2002 Sight and Sound poll
> Guardian interview from 2002
German director Wim Wenders is perhaps best known for his acclaimed films in the 1980s such as Paris, Texas, and Wings of Desire.
Back in the early 1970s he was part of a group of directors such as Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Werner Herzog and Volker Schlöndorff, who were bracketed under the banner of the ‘New German Cinema‘.
One of his most notable earlier films is Alice in the Cities (1974), a thoughtful and poignant road movie about a journalist named Philip Winter (Rüdiger Vogler) who ends up trying to help a little girl (Yella Rottländer) find her grandmother.
The film starts with Winter on an assignment in the US but he finds the experience dispiriting and ends up with a bout of writer’s block, only finding solace in taking polaroid photos.
When he decides to go home to Germany, a plane strike delays his flight and he meets up with a German woman and her daughter Alice (Rottlander), who are also stuck until normal service is resumed.
When Alice’s mother misses the flight and fails to appear in Amsterdam as planned, Winter finds himself responsible for the young girl and they both travel across Europe, trying to find Alice’s grandmother.
Driven by the charming chemistry between Vogler and Rottlander, it has a pleasingly meandering narrative and is free of the twee life lessons and sentimentality that could have crept in.
Shot in grainy black and white on 16mm by Wenders’s regular cinematographer Robby Muller, it is a captivating work that establishes themes which would surface in Wenders’ later films: alienation, lonlieness and a fascination with America.
The DVD has some solid extras which include:
Alice and the Cities is out now on DVD from Axiom Films
> Buy the DVD from Amazon UK
> IMDb entry
> Find out more about Alice and the Cities at Wim Wenders official site
> An essay on Wim Wenders at Senses of Cinema
This is director Laurent Cantet with a group of Paris junior high school students after The Class won the Palme d’Or award last night at the 61st Cannes film festival.
Here are the winners in full:
IN COMPETITION
UN CERTAIN REGARD
CINEFONDATION
> Official site of the festival
> Listen to the winners press conference
> Reviews of the festival from BBC News, Reuters, The Guardian and the New York Times
(Photo Credit: EPA/Guillaume Horcajuelo
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The winner of this year’s Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival is The Class (the French title is ‘Entre les Murs’).
In typical Cannes style, the favoured films (Waltz with Bashir, Che, Gomorrah) lost out to an underdog and this is also the first time since 1987 that a French film (Maurice Pialat’s Under the Sun of Satan, in case you were wondering) has won the top prize at Cannes.
Directed by Laurent Cantet, it is the story of a teacher in a tough Paris school based on an autobiographical novel by Francois Begaudeau (who plays himself in the film) about his life as a young teacher.
Sean Penn, as head of the nine-member jury, said:
It is an amazing, amazing film. It was our second unanimous decision.
Here are some critical reactions to the film, which screened quite late in the festival.
Justin Chang of Variety thought it was substantive and entertaining:
Talky in the best sense, the film exhilarates with its lively, authentic classroom banter while its emotional undercurrents build steadily but almost imperceptibly over a swift 129 minutes.
One of the most substantive and purely entertaining movies in competition at Cannes this year, it will further cement Cantet’s sterling reputation among discerning arthouse auds in France and overseas.
A.O. Scott of the New York Times praises the ‘freshness and precision’:
The film, Mr. Cantet’s fourth feature, concerns a young teacher dealing with a tough class in an urban high school.
It’s hardly a new idea for a movie — from “To Sir With Love” to “Dangerous Minds” and beyond, Hollywood has always had a soft spot for melodramas of pedagogical heroism — but Mr. Cantet attacks it with freshness and precision, and without a trace of sentimentality.
Mike Goodridge of Screen Daily says it offers a ‘rich microcosm’ of today’s French society:
The film focuses tightly on the dynamics and concerns of the classroom, never straying into details of the lives of kids or adults outside.
Yet even though it takes place entirely “entre les murs”, it offers a rich microcosm of today’s multi-ethnic French population and fascinating insights into the complicated dil emma s and misunderstandings which teaching – and indeed learning – can entail.
Geoff Andrew of Time Out thinks it is ‘engrossing’, ‘lucid’, ‘subtle’ and ‘thought provoking’:
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.
At the end, in a delightfully unexpected allusion to Plato’s ‘Republic’, the filmmakers drop a hint as to what they’ve been up to; 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.
Artificial Eye have bought the UK rights to the film.
Here is the trailer (in French):
> Official site of the Cannes Film Festival
> BBC News report on the win
> Variety reports on the brisk sales of the film
> The Class at the IMDb
> Green Cine with the rest of the Cannes winners
In just a couple of hours Sean Penn will announce which film has won the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.
Predicting what will win is extremely difficult.
Not only do you have predict the tastes of the jury (not easy in itself) but you also have to factor in the various compromises amongst the different members as they settle upon a winner.
Penn in the opening press conference said:
When we select the Palme d’Or winner, I think we are going to feel very confident that the film-maker who made the film is very aware of the times in which he or she lives.
With that in mind, here is a run through of the contenders and why they may – or may not – win the big prize?
My prediction to win?
Waltz with Bashir (although Gomorrah is a very close second).
* UPDATE *: The Class has won.
> Official site for the Cannes Film Festival and the full list of films competing in the official selection
> Past winners of the Palme d’Or
A couple of weeks ago Peter Jackson and Guillermo Del Toro asked fans to submit questions about the upcoming film version of The Hobbit which they would answer via a live webchat.
Nearly 6,000 fans asked almost 4,000 questions before the chat began and during the session they came in at nearly a question per second.
In the end Peter (in New Zealand) and Guillermo (in London) sifted through all the questions and answered about 60 of the most popular ones.
Here are some selected highlights:
WHICH OF THE ACTORS FROM LOTR WILL BE BACK TO REPRISE THEIR ROLES IN THE HOBBIT AND ITS COMPANION FILM?
Guillermo del Toro: Obviously, at this stage, the second film is still being figured out- so the actors that have been approached may or not have appeared in the HOBBIT as a literary work but still may appear in the second film as it “blends” into the Trilogy and expands.
Therefore what can be said is: Unequivocally, every single actor that originated a role in the Trilogy will be asked to participate and reprise it. If Health, availability or willigness become obstacles – and only in that case recasting would be considered.
Peter Jackson: Like Guillermo says, apart from extreme circumstances, we would never recast a character who appeared in the LOTR trilogy. You can read The Hobbit and pretty much see which characters play a part. The unknown facter is Film Two, which we are still developing. If we wished to write one of the LOTR characters into the narrative of Film Two, we would only do that with that actors blessing, and willingess to take part. Otherwise we’d take the writing in another direction.
WHEN DEL TORO HAS ACKNOWLEDGED HIS DISDAIN FOR HOBBITS AND “SWORD AND SANDALS” FANTASY, HOW CAN HE DO JUSTICE TO THE MOVIE? WHY CAN’T PETER DIRECT IT HIMSELF AFTER THE LOVELY BONES?
Guillermo del Toro: Okay- If by “Sword and Sandal” you mean “Sword and Sorcery” I stand by the general lines of my statement in 2006.
When that statement was made- at different times during PANS LABYRINTH’s promotion, many a time I made the distinctive call to say that althought I had not read Tolkien outside THE HOBBIT I had been fascinated by the Trilogy films. A statement that I already had the chance to make in 2005 when PJ, Fran and I met about HALO.
So, no, generally I am NOT a “Sword and Sorcery” guy or a “Fantasy” guy- By the same token, I’m not a sci-fi guy but I would make a film based on Ellison in a second- or on Sturgeon or Bradbury or Matheson.
I’m not into Barbarians with swords but i would kill to tackle Fafhrd and Grey Mouse… and so on and so forth… I’m a believer but not a Dogmatic.
Allow me to put a final, finer point to our discussion. The aesthetics of HELLBOY II are completely Pop and color-saturated, much more comic book / modern than I would ever use in THE HOBBIT but- I spend two years creating a world of Fairies, Elves, Trolls, etc
Two Years. A career / creative decision that precedes any inkling of THE HOBBIT. I wrote the script years before I met with PJ or Fran. In other words I dedicated the last 6 years of my career (between PL and HBII) to create Fantastical world inhabited by Fairies, Fauns, Ogres, Trolls, Elves, etc
In that respect- I guess I am a Fantasy guy when the particular world appeals to me. Back in the Jurassic Period (1992 / 1993) when CRONOS won the Critic’s Week at Cannes I was referred to as an “art house guy”- I followed that with a giant cockroach movie that proved successful enough to spawn two sequels and allow me to co-finance THE DEVILS BACKBONE which send me back to being an “art house guy”.
Then I did BLADE II and people thought of me as an “Action guy”- PJ went through a similar mercurial career with HEAVENLY CREATURES, BAD TASTE, DEAD ALIVE, etc I squirm away from a tag and I hope I can avoid being just a “Fantasy guy” after PL, HBII and H…
I do the tales I love (regardless of what shelf Barnes & Noble classifies the book under) and I love the HOBBIT.
I love it enough to give it half a decade of my life and move half a world away to do it.
Peter Jackson: Having directed the LOTR Trilogy, I really felt that I put my heart and soul into dramatising this world and story, only a few years ago. The idea of going back in and essentially competing against my own movies, seemed to be an unsatsifying way to spend the next 5 years.
However, I love Tolkien and care deeply about the movies we made. I couldn’t bear the idea of somebody else making them without our involvement. Being a writer and producer is the perfect way for me to work here.
Guillermo has the ultimate responsibility of directing, and for him it’s easier to make these movies feel different, simply because he’s not me, and he therefore has an original vision, with new ideas to offer.
Believe me, I thought long and hard about this, and what we’re doing here will result in better movies, I promise you. And that’s all that counts!
WILL WE NOTICE A SIGNIFICANT SHIFT IN VISUAL STYLE FROM LOTR TO THE HOBBIT DUE TO GUILLERMO’S UNIQUE ASTHETIC?
Guillermo del Toro: The basic designs, the preestablished designs will be only “updated” insofar as the epoch difference.
Half a century more or less which in Middle Earth terms is not that much but- think about how much our world has changed from – say 2001 to now…
The new settings and designs should blend in enough not to feel like a completely different world but yes, the movies are bound to have some distinctive stylistic imprint.
WILL GOLLUM PLAY A ROLE IN THE NEW FILM?
Guillermo del Toro: Yes! As all of you know, Gollum has a rather fascinating arch to go through and his alliance to Shelob or his period of imprisonment in Thranduil’s, etc but it is early still- so early in fact that to reveal more would tie our hands and be counterproductive.
PETER, COULD CLARIFY WHAT YOUR ROLE WILL BE IN THE PRODUCTION OF THESE FILMS: WHAT EXACTLY DOES AN EXECUTIVE PRODUCER DO?
Peter Jackson: Truth is “Executive Producers” do a range of things on movies from a lot to virtually nothing! I see myself being one of a production team.
My interest is helping Guillermo make the very best films he can. I love writing and I’m looking forward to that. Guillermo will be writing, along with Fran, Philippa and myself.
As a director, I could never direct something I didn’t have a hand in writing, and we’re not expecting Guillermo to do that either.
If the director is part of the writing, it means he was there when the discussions took place, story decisions were made … he knows why things are the way they are, and what they need to achieve.
Everything is in a script for a reason, and only by being part of a writing team (or writing it yourself), do you really understand the intention of every beat.
I see my role as being part of that writing team, which will create the blueprint, and then helping Guillermo construct the movie.
I want Guillermo to make his movies, and I want to make sure we end up with a 5 movie series that’s as good as it can possibly be.
WILL YOU BE USING THE SAME PRODUCTION TEAM (AS THE LOTR TRILOGY)?
Guillermo del Toro: Many of them will be back. I will supplement the FX departments, the design departments (with very interesting names), but the crew will utilize as many of the original elements as possible.
WHAT WAS IT ABOUT GUILLERMO THAT MADE YOU FEEL HE WAS THE RIGHT GUY TO CONTINUE ON THE SAGA OF MIDDLE-EARTH? ARE THE TWO OF YOU ON THE SAME PAGE FOR THE VISION, DIRECTION, AND STYLE THAT THESE MOVIES WILL HAVE? IF THE TWO OF YOU DISAGREE ON A POINT, WHO WINS OUT?
Peter Jackson: I’ll talk more about this in a later question, but watching his films, he has respect for fantasy. He understands it, he’s not frightened by it.
Guillermo also understands character, and how the power of any movie is almost always linked to how closely we empathize with characters within the story.
His work shows great care and love for the main characters he creates. He also has supreme confidence with design, and visual effects.
So many film makers are scared of visual effects – which is no crime, but tough if you’re doing one of these movies!
If we disagree, the director has to win, because you should never force a director to shoot something they don’t believe in.
But we’re both reasonably practical and ego-free, and I believe that if we disagree, we both have the ability to express our differing theorys – state our case, like lawyers – and between us, work out what’s best for the movie.
WHEN DO YOU EXPECT FILMING TO BEGIN?
Peter Jackson: At this point in time the plan is to write for the rest of this year and start early conceptual designs.
2009 will be dedicated to pre-production on both movies and 2010 will be the year we shoot both films back to back.
Post production follows one film at a time with The Hobbit being released Dec 2011, and F2 release Dec 2012.
That is the schedule in about as much detail as we have ourselves at the moment.
Check out the full transcript of the webchat at WETA’s official site.
> Peter Jackson, Guillermo del Toro and The Hobbit at the IMDb
> Find out more about The Hobbit at Wikipedia
Tomorrow night this year’s winner of the Palme d’Or will be announced at the Cannes Film Festival.
When the festival began in 1939 the top prize at the festival was known as the Grand Prix.
But in 1955 the Festival started to award the best film a golden palm, in tribute to the coat of arms of the City of Cannes.
Here is a list of winners since 1955:
1955 Marty (Dir. Delbert Mann)
1956 The Silent World (Dir. Jacques-Yves Cousteau and Louis Malle)
1957 Friendly Persuasion (Dir. William Wyler)
1958 The Cranes Are Flying (Dir. Mikhail Kalatozov)
1959 Black Orpheus (Dir. Marcel Camus)
1960 La dolce vita (Dir. Federico Fellini)
1961 The Long Absence (Dir. Henri Colpi) and Viridiana (Dir. Luis Buñuel)
1962 O Pagador de Promessas (Dir. Anselmo Duarte)
1963 The Leopard (Dir. Luchino Visconti)
From 1964 to 1974 the festival temporarily resumed awarding the Grand Prix, due to ‘copyright problems’ with the Palm:
1964 The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (Dir. Jacques Demy)
1965 The Knack …and How to Get It (Dir. Richard Lester)
1966 A Man and a Woman (Dir. Claude Lelouch) and The Birds, the Bees and the Italians (Dir. Pietro Germi)
1967 Blow-Up (Dir. Michelangelo Antonioni)
1968 Cancelled due to events of May 1968
1969 If…. (Dir. Lindsay Anderson)
1970 MASH (Dir. Robert Altman)
1971 The Go-Between (Dir. Joseph Losey)
1972 The Working Class Goes to Heaven (Dir. Elio Petri) and The Mattei Affair (Dir. Francesco Rosi)
1973 The Hireling (Dir. Alan Bridges) and Scarecrow (Dir. Jerry Schatzberg)
1974 The Conversation (Dir. Francis Ford Coppola)
From 1975 to the present, the award switched back to the Palme we all know and love:
1975 Chronicle of the Years of Fire (Dir. Mohammed Lakhdar-Hamina)
1976 Taxi Driver (Dir. Martin Scorsese)
1977 Padre Padrone (Dir. Paolo Taviani and Vittorio Taviani)
1978 The Tree of Wooden Clogs (Dir. Ermanno Olmi)
1979 Apocalypse Now (Dir. Francis Ford Coppola) and The Tin Drum (Dir. Volker Schlöndorff)
1980 All That Jazz (Dir. Bob Fosse) and Kagemusha (Dir. Akira Kurosawa)
1981 Man of Iron (Dir. Andrzej Wajda)
1982 Missing (Dir. Costa-Gavras) and The Way (Dir. Yılmaz Güney and Şerif Gören)
1983 The Ballad of Narayama (Dir. Shohei Imamura)
1984 Paris, Texas (Dir. Wim Wenders)
1985 When Father Was Away on Business (Dir Emir Kusturica)
1986 The Mission (Dir. Roland Joffé)
1987 Under the Sun of Satan (Dir. Maurice Pialat)
1988 Pelle the Conqueror (Dir. Bille August)
1989 sex, lies, and videotape (Dir. Steven Soderbergh)
1990 Wild at Heart (Dir. David Lynch)
1991 Barton Fink (Dir. Joel and Ethan Coen)
1992 The Best Intentions (Dir. Bille August)
1993 Farewell My Concubine (Dir. Chen Kaige) and The Piano (Dir. Jane Campion)
1994 Pulp Fiction (Dir. Quentin Tarantino)
1995 Underground (Dir. Emir Kusturica)
1996 Secrets & Lies (Dir. Mike Leigh)
1997 Taste of Cherry (Dir. Abbas Kiarostami) and The Eel (Dir. Shohei Imamura)
1998 Eternity and a Day (Dir. Theo Angelopoulos)
1999 Rosetta (Dir. Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne)
2000 Dancer in the Dark (Dir. Lars von Trier)
2001 The Son’s Room (Dir. Nanni Moretti)
2002 The Pianist (Dir. Roman Polanski)
2003 Elephant (Dir. Gus Van Sant)
2004 Fahrenheit 9/11 (Dir. Michael Moore)
2005 The Child (Dir. Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne)
2006 The Wind That Shakes the Barley (Dir. Ken Loach)
2007 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (Dir. Cristian Mungiu)
2008 The Class (Entre les Murs) (Dir. Laurent Cantet)
> Official site of the Cannes Film Festival
> IMDb section for the Palme d’Or Winners
Charlie Kaufman is best known as the screenwriter of Being John Malkovich, Adaptation and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
His directorial debut is Synecdoche, New York and it screened today in competition at Cannes.
It stars Philip Seymour Hoffman as a theatre director in Schenectady, New York who has to cope with his wife leaving him and a mysterious illness.
Worried about his life, he moves his theater company to a warehouse where he attempts to create a life-size replica of New York as part of his new play. Catherine Keener, Michelle Williams, Samantha Morton and Hope Davis co-star.
Here is a summary of the critical reaction:
Todd McCarthy of Variety praises it as ‘wildly ambitious’ and ‘overreaching‘:
Like an anxious artist afraid he may not get another chance, Charlie Kaufman tries to Say It All in his directorial debut, “Synecdoche, New York.”
A wildly ambitious and gravely serious contemplation of life, love, art, human decay and death, the film bears Kaufman’s scripting fingerprints in its structural trickery and multi-plane storytelling.
At its core a study of a theater director whose life goes off the rails into uncharted artistic territory, it’s the sort of work that on its face appears overreaching and isn’t entirely digestible on one viewing.
A.O. Scott of the New York Times enjoys the ideas, invention and humour of the film:
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 though the ideas that drive “Synecdoche, New York” are difficult and sometimes abstruse, the feelings it explores are clear and accessible.
These include the anxiety of artistic creation, the fear of love and the dread of its loss, and the desperate sense that your life is rushing by faster than you can make sense of it.
A sad story, yes, but fittingly for a movie bristling with paradoxes and conundrums, also extremely funny.
Allan Hunter of Screen Daily raves about the film’s ‘staggering imagination‘:
Charlie Kaufman is a past master of ingenious conceits and wild flights of fantasy as witnessed particularly in Being John Malkovich and Enternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
His talent has always been filtered through the vision of a sympathetic director but with Synecdoche, New York he assumes the director’s role for the first time.
The result is a film of staggering imagination, more daring in content than form as it explores the unbearable fragility of human existence and the sad inevitability of death.
James Rocchi of Cinematical thinks it is a ‘sprawling, messy work of inspired brilliance‘:
The directorial debut of screenwriter Charlie Kaufman (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Adaptation), Synecdoche, New York is a sprawling, messy work of inspired brilliance and real humanity, a film that enthralls and affects even as it infuriates and confounds.
…Synecdoche, New York is bolder and bigger and weirder than the movies that sprang from Kaufman’s scripts for Spike Jonze (Being John Malcovich, Adaptation) and Michel Gondry (Human Nature, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind); it’s also colder and crueler than those films.
Jeffrey Wells of Hollywood Elsewhere says the film is a:
…semi-nourishing, semi-tortured Fellini-esque Chinese box mindfuck-dreamscape…
Anne Thompson of Variety reported recently that the fim screened for buyers earlier in the week:
Sidney Kimmel Entertainment and UTA decided to invite all the top buyers to an early Saturday market screening, well before all the critics and press would pass judgement.
If there was ever a movie perfect for Cannes it is this one, which is, according to those who have read the script and seen it, ambitious, arty and brilliant, if not entirely accessible.
This is the first one sheet poster:
Here are three clips from the film:
And finally the issue of how to actually pronounce the film’s title has been the subject of much speculation as this video from Variety’s Mike Jones suggests:
Apparently the first word of the title is pronounced “Syn-ECK-duh-kee”.
The film is probably going to get released in the US later this year.
> Watch the press conference at the official Cannes site
> Reuters report on the film from Cannes
> Synecdoche, New York at the IMDb
Weezer have done a video for their single Pork and Beans which features a number of people who became famous on YouTube.
Look out for:
> Official site for Weezer
> A timeline of Internet Memes at Dipity
My Kid Could Paint That is a documentary that follows a young girl named Marla Olmstead, who gains fame as a child prodigy who can seemingly paint abstract art.
By the age of four, critics were comparing Marla’s work with Jackson Pollock’s and sales of her paintings were reaching $300,000.
But after 2005 profile by ‘60 Minutes‘ suggested that Marla had help from her parents – in particular her father – the story became more complex. Was Marla a genuine child prodigy or the innocent victim of a hoax?
Directed by Amir Bar-Lev (who made 2000’s Fighter) it is a fascinating film that deals with a number of interlocking subjects such as childhood, the nature of art and the mystery of authorship.
The DVD has a number of extras that help flesh out the mysteries of this intriguing tale including:
The film is out now on DVD from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Watch the trailer here:
> Buy the film from Amazon UK
> Official site
> My Kid Could Paint That at the IMDB
This week we take a look at Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
Listen to the review here:
[audio:https://www.filmdetail.com/podcast/get.php?fla=podcast-2008-05-23-27371.MP3]Download and subscribe to the review podcast via iTunes by clicking here.
> Download this review podcast as an MP3 file
> Brush up on various Indy facts, videos and trivia at our extensive ‘Countdown to Indy 4’ post
> See what the critics in Cannes made of the film
> Get local show times for your area via Google Movies
> Check out other reviews at Metacritic
YouTomb is some kind of research project by the folks at MIT Free Culture that shows videos taken down from YouTube for alleged copyright violation.
If you look at the stats section you can see which companies are asking for their clips to be taken down from the world’s biggest video sharing site.
How long before this actual site gets taken down?
Or will it be an interesting test case of the limits of fair use?
Steven Soderbergh’s ambitious two film project about Che Guevera screened at Cannes last night as Guerilla and The Argentine were shown back-to-back in competition.
Would critics get cranky at sitting through 4 hours and 18 minutes of Che or could we see a repeat of 1989 when a young Soderbergh scooped the Palme d’Or for Sex, Lies and Videotape?
Just a quick note about the film – I doubt very much that it will be commercially released as a four hour double bill. Surely two separate movies released within a reasonable time frame is what’s going to happen.
Here is a summary of what the critics thought:
Todd McCarthy of Variety calls it ‘intricately ambitious’ but ‘defiantly nondramatic’:
No doubt it will be back to the drawings board for ‘Che’, Steven Soderbergh’s intricately ambitious, defiantly nondramatic four-hour, 18-minute presentation of scenes from the life of revolutionary icon Che Guevara.
If the director has gone out of his way to avoid the usual Hollywood biopic conventions, he has also withheld any suggestion of why the charismatic doctor, fighter, diplomat, diarist and intellectual theorist became and remains such a legendary figure; if anything, Che seems diminished by the way he’s portrayed here.
Neither half feels remotely like a satisfying stand-alone film, while the whole offers far too many aggravations for its paltry rewards.
Scattered partisans are likely to step forward, but the pic in its current form is a commercial impossibility.
Jeffrey Wells of Hollywood Elsewhere thinks differently, calling the two films ‘incandescent’ and ‘gripping’ :
The first half of Steven Soderbergh’s 268-minute Che Guevara epic is, for me, incandescent -a piece of full-on, you-are-there realism about the making of the Cuban revolution that I found utterly believable.
Not just “take it to the bank” gripping, but levitational – for someone like myself it’s a kind of perfect dream movie.
The second half of Che, also known as Guerilla, just got out about a half-hour ago, and equally delighted although it’s a different kind of film — tighter, darker (naturally, given the story). But I’ve been arguing with some colleagues who don’t like either film at all, or don’t think it’s commercial.
What does it say about people who see a film like this and go “meh” ? You can’t watch a live-wire film like Che and say “give me more.” It is what it is, and it gives you plenty. Take no notice of anyone who says it doesn’t.
James Rocchi of Cinematical is also a big fan, calling the two films ‘a rare pleasure’:
There will be arguments about the politics of the films; there will be discussions of whether or not the films have any emotional center; there will be questions of if, when the film gets some kind of U.S. distribution deal, exactly how they should be released — two films released staggered throughout the last half of the year or cut down to one three-hour film or shown as a long, big double bill that presents the separate films back-to-back.
I can’t predict how all of these questions and possibilities will play out, but I can say — and will say — what a rare pleasure it is to have a film (or films) that, in our box-office obsessed, event-movie, Oscar-craving age, is actually worth talking about on so many levels.
Allan Hunter of Screen Daily salutes an ‘absorbing, thoughtful marathon’:
It is hard to imagine another American director of his generation with the clout or all-round ability to pull off a two film, five hour portrait of revolutionary icon Ernesto Che Guevara.
His measured approach eschews grand, crowd-pleasing gestures or any temptation to adopt the sweep of a David Lean-style epic.
Instead, he has created an absorbing, thoughtful marathon in which the focus is firmly on the personalities and the political arguments that forged the revolutionary ideals of the 1950s and 1960s.
Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian says it is ‘virile, muscular film-making’:
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.
…Che was gigantic without being precisely monumental.
It is such big, bold, ambitious film-making: and yet I was baffled that Soderbergh fought shy of so many important things in Che’s personal life.
Of course, it could be that he avoided them to avoid vulgar speculation, and felt that the two spectacles of revolution incarnate were more compelling: a secular Passion play.
Whatever the reason, Che is never boring and often gripping.
Anne Thompson of Variety admires parts of the film(s) but questions Soderbergh’s decision to screen it at Cannes in it’s current form:
Benecio del Toro gives a great performance, but Soderbergh’s roving HD camera keeps its distance as Che trains guerillas in the jungle, leads his troops through various skirmishes and the takeover of Santa Clara, talks to TV interviewers and gives moving speeches at the U.N.
The movie is well made and watchable.
Soderbergh didn’t think he could finish the film in time for Cannes. Why don’t these guys ever learn? Remember Richard Kelly’s Southland Tales, Wong Kar Wai’s 2046, Vincent Gallo’s The Brown Bunny, and Edward Norton-starrer Down in the Valley?
DON’T TAKE AN UNFINISHED MOVIE TO CANNES!!!! Wait. Give the film the time you need.
The good news: there is plenty of fine material here to be edited into one releasable long dramatic feature and hopefully French producer/sales co. Wild Bunch, which paid for 75 % of the $61 million film, and Telecinco, which came up with 25%, will give the filmmaker the time he needs to find this promising film’s final form.
Jonathan Dean of Total Film says it is ‘superb’:
Che is superb, pretty much a masterpiece, by far Soderbergh’s best film, definitely the greatest of the festival so far and, incredibly, a film that despite being the best part of five hours, leaves you wanting much more.
Yeah. It is that good.
Pete Hammond writing for the LA Times says Del Toro ‘completely inhabits the role’ of Che:
Del Toro completely inhabits the role as you might expect. He was born to play Che.
But immediately afterward one distributor proudly related that he stayed awake thru the whole thing but told us it’s a very tough sell at that price.
‘Che’, if it indeed remains split into two parts, is a true marketing challenge for whoever picks up domestic rights and most of the buyers were there last night to check it out for the first time.
Award season chances clearly depend on critical reaction and how it is presented. Best shot would be for Del Toro who might stand a chance in the actor race depending on which of the two films they push. Overall at this juncture it could be a tough academy sell but the film itself may still be a work-in-progress.
Glenn Kenny of indieWIRE appears to be praises it’s ‘detachment’ and ‘intellectual curiosity’:
Che benefits greatly from certain Soderberghian qualities that don’t always serve his other films well, e.g., detachment, formalism, and intellectual curiosity.
Benicio del Toro, despite being ten real years older than anybody playing the part in any period should be, …works almost demonically at making Che’s appeal palpable. But his performance is just a remarkable cog in Soderbergh’s meticulous examination of process.
…critics of my acquaintance were arguing its merits and faults on the side streets of Cannes even as I dragged myself off to my residence here to write this up.
The film does not yet have a UK or US release date.
> Official link to the film at the Cannes festival site
> Watch the press conference with Steven Soderbergh and Benicio del Toro
> Find out more about Guerilla and The Argentine at Wikipedia
Movie marketing isn’t an exact science but have you ever seen a film that was crying out for a tie-in or some kind of clever hook?
Here are some light hearted movie marketing ideas that never happened.
MAY THE 4th BE WITH YOU
This is a phrase I’ve heard from several people as kind of a gag, but the question needs to be asked. Why on earth has George Lucas never released a Star Wars film on May 4th?
In 1977 the first film came out on May 25th, in 1980 The Empire Strikes Back was released on May 21st, whilst in 1983 Return of the Jedi was unleashed on May 25th.
So, what about the prequels? Maybe they didn’t need the publicity, but let’s see. The Phantom Menace came out on May 19th 1999, Attack of the Clones on May 16th 2002 and Revenge of the Sith on May 19th 2005.
According to Wikipedia, May 4th is even known as ‘Star Wars Day‘ – so why have there never been any Star Wars movies released on this date?
I sense a missed opportunity in the Force.
DIGG DiG!
DiG! is a 2004 documentary about two rival bands: The Dandy Warhols and The Brian Jonestown Massacre. It won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival and is a highly entertaining look at two very different approaches to life in the music industry.
The same year, Kevin Rose was starting the social news website called Digg, which is now pretty big. How about a tie-in for a future DVD release? Maybe users could Digg DiG…
HASTA LA WINDOWS VISTA, BABY
Microsoft launched their latest operating system with a rather confusing campaign using the word Wow. Given that they spent an estimated $500 million on the campaign and people actually want to go back to XP, surely they should have spent some money on a big name?
How about someone famous and not afraid of making a fool of himself in Japanese beer adverts? Yes, why not get Arnold Schwarzenegger to reprise his famous Terminator 2 catchphrase? Hasta La Windows Vista, Baby.
FIREFOX: MOZILLA EDITION
Firefox is a 1982 thriller starring Clint Eastwood as pilot who steals a highly advanced Soviet fighter plane (code named “Firefox”) which carries weapons controlled by thought (yes, really).
Although it grossed $46,700,000 at US cinemas, I think we can safely say it isn’t one of Warner Home Video’s biggest ever titles.
How about bundling a revamped special edition DVD with the latest version of Mozilla’s Firefox browser?
YOU’VE GOT GMAIL
In 1998 Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan reteamed for a romantic comedy called You’ve Got Mail after the success of Sleepless in Seattle in 1993. The title of this film was based on the – now rather dated – greeting that AOL users heard when they received new e-mail.
How about Nora Eprhon doing a Google funded director’s cut where Hanks and Ryan use the much cooler Gmail?
BOURNE IN THE USA
Last year I remember seeing some smart comments on Hollywood Elsewhere about the marketing of The Bourne Ultimatum. The first one sheet poster was based around the idea of Jason Bourne returning to the US (‘This summer Jason Bourne is coming home’), so someone suggested the phrase ‘Bourne in the USA’.
Given that the Bourne movies and Bruce Springsteen are both popular and politically savvy, what ever happened to the tie-in album? 😉
Any other ideas? Leave them below.
The World Cinema Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving and restoring neglected films from around the world.
Established by Martin Scorsese, it supports and encourages preservation efforts to save the worldwide patrimony of films, ensuring that they are preserved, seen and shared.
They announced today in Cannes that they are teaming up with the Ingmar Bergman Foundation for a joint project to preserve, restore and reveal rare behind-the-scenes footage from the Swedish director’s extensive personal archive.
Newly restored and never seen before footage of Bergman on the set of Sawdust and Tinsel (1953), was screened yesterday in front of the Cannes Classics presentation of the World Cinema Foundation’s restoration of Metin Erksan’s Turkish classic Susuz Yaz (1964).
The World Cinema Foundation is going to fund the restoration, editing and commentary of more than 14 hours of behind-the-scenes footage for a total of 18 Bergman titles, ranging from Sawdust and Tinsel in 1953 through The Seventh Seal, Persona, Cries and Whispers and After the Rehearsal in 1984.
The majority of the footage is of Ingmar Bergman at work, but also included are scenes of a more personal matter.
> For more information visit the official website of the World Cinema Foundation
> Cannes Film Festival
> The Ingmar Bergman Foundation
> Ingmar Bergman at the IMDb
Changeling is the latest film directed by Clint Eastwood to screen in competition at Cannes after previous efforts such as Mystic River (2003), White Hunter Black Heart (1990) and Pale Rider (1985).
Set in LA in 1928 and stars Angelina Jolie as a woman whose young son goes missing. When the child is found months later, she suspects it might not be him.
Clint was also president of the jury in 1994 when Pulp Fiction scooped the Palme d’Or. Can this film win the big prize?
Here is a summary of the critical reaction:
Todd McCarthy of Variety is highly impressed, says it is ‘far-reaching’ and ‘powerful’:
A thematic companion piece to “Mystic River” but more complex and far-reaching, “Changeling” impressively continues Clint Eastwood’s great run of ambitious late-career pictures.
Emotionally powerful and stylistically sure-handed, this true story-inspired drama begins small with the disappearance of a young boy, only to gradually fan out to become a comprehensive critique of the entire power structure of Los Angeles, circa 1928.
Graced by a top-notch performance from Angelina Jolie, the Universal release looks poised to do some serious business upon tentatively scheduled opening late in the year.
Mike Goodridge of Screen Daily says it is ‘beautifully produced’ and an early Oscar contender:
Beautifully produced and guided by Eastwood’s elegant, unostentatious hand, it also boasts a career-best performance by Angelina Jolie who has never been this compelling.
Like Mystic River in 2003, it should go all the way from the Palais to the Academy Awards next March.
Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter feels it is compelling and praises Jolie’s performance:
A true story that is as incredible as it is compelling, “Changeling” brushes away the romantic notion of a more innocent time to reveal a Los Angeles circa 1928 awash in corruption and steeped in a culture that treats women as hysterical and unreliable beings when they challenge male wisdom.
Jolie puts on a powerful emotional display as a tenacious woman who gathers strength from the forces that oppose her. She reminds us that there is nothing so fierce as a mother protecting her cub.
Richard Corliss of Time praises it as ‘taut, twisty and compelling’:
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.
….The movie becomes an ensemble piece, with a dozen or so character actors carrying the storyline. In other words, Changeling is exactly as good as its makings.
By the end, with its purposeful accumulation of depravities, both individual and institutional, Eastwood’s non-style has paid off…
Kim Voynar of Cinematical thinks it is riveting and that Jolie excels:
Clint Eastwood’s Changeling (which may or may not be now known as The Exchange), is a riveting drama about a missing boy and the undying constancy of a mother’s love.
Angelina Jolie excels in a powerful performance as Christine Collins, whose nine-year-old son, Walter, disappeared in 1928.
Glenn Kenny of Some Came Running says it is a ‘strong’ and ‘angry’ picture:
The result is not as perfect a film as Eastwood has made, but it’s damn strong, both as a story and an exploration of the parent-child bond and a polemic.
Because despite the fact that it deals with the corruption and venality of a past era, Changeling is at times a very angry picture; Eastwood’s angriest, I think, since Unforgiven.
Incidentally, Andrew Hehir of Salon has posted some useful thoughts on the confusion surrounding the film’s actual title:
For weeks the film has been listed in official festival materials under the title “Changeling,” but a few days ago that title began to evaporate, almost as mysteriously as young Walter Collins does in the movie.
It screened on Tuesday morning in the Grand Théâtre Lumière under the French title “L’échange,” with no English translation given.
That means “the exchange” — there’s no clear French equivalent to the word “changeling” — and as the post-screening press conference was breaking up, host Henri Béhar said to Eastwood in tones of puzzlement, “We were all assured in writing that the title in English was now ‘The Exchange.'”
Breaking out one of his trademark sphinx-like smiles — the mouth smiles, but the eyes don’t — Eastwood replied, “It’s in writing, but is it the truth?”
We all laughed, he got up and left the room, and we were stuck with a movie with no name, made by the Man With No Name.
The IMDb lists it as Changeling and I’m sticking with that until it, er, changes…
> Changeling at the IMDb
> See Eastwood and Jolie at the press conference on the official Cannes site
I just posted my immediate reaction to tonight’s London screening of the new Indiana Jones movie on Friction.tv.
Here are my intial thoughts outside the Odeon Leicester Square:
If you want to respond by video or text just sign up at their site.
UPDATE: Here is that comment on Digg I quoted in the video:
> More debates at Friction.tv
> Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull at the IMDb
> Official Indiana Jones site
> See more links and videos on our Countdown to Indy 4 post
> A summary of the critical reaction at Cannes to Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Two Lovers is the latest film from director James Gray and it screened in competition yesterday.
It is a drama set in Brooklyn about a bachelor (Joaquin Phoenix) who is torn between two women (Gwyneth Paltrow and Vinessa Shaw).
Here is a summary of the critical reaction:
Todd McCarthy of Variety says it is ‘involving’ and ‘touching’:
An involving, ultimately touching romantic drama about a young man’s struggle deciding between the two women in his life, ‘Two Lovers’ reps a welcome change of pace for director James Gray from his run of crime mellers.
Well acted by Joaquin Phoenix, Gwyneth Paltrow and Vinessa Shaw, this very New York tale is old-fashioned in good ways that have to do with solid storytelling, craftsmanship and emotional acuity.
Developing an audience will be another matter altogether; its central romantic dynamic would be entirely accessible to a mass audience, but pic’s smallish nature and lack of real B.O. names suggest that interest will need to be built among discerning viewers via fest exposure and critical support, leading into gradual platform release by a dedicated distrib.
Ray Bennett of The Hollywood Reporter predicts it will ‘please many’ and ‘may win awards’:
Shot, paced and scored like a 1950s kitchen-sink romance, the film spurns the school of Judd Apatow with a complete disdain for adolescent contrivance and stupid gags.
Boxoffice will depend on audiences in the “Grand Theft Auto” era deciding that the fate of three little people adds up to more than a hill of beans. Lacking a larger context such as a world war, odds are they won’t, but the film will please many and it may win awards.
Allan Hunter of Screen Daily is not too impressed, dubbing it ‘well crafted’ but ‘maudlin’:
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.
Neither eye-catching indie nor surefire blockbuster, it will struggle to find a comfortable commercial berth, leaving its future dependent on the drawing power of Gray regular Joaquin Phoenix.
Jeffrey Wells of Hollywood Elsewhere says it is ‘too earnest’ but ‘not half bad’:
…an attractively composed, persuasively acted but slightly too earnest and on-the-nose drama about romantic indecision.
But it’s not half bad — a little Marty-ish at times, maybe a bit too emphatic here and there, but nonetheless concise, reasonably well-ordered and, for the most part, emotionally restrained and therefore believable.
Glenn Kenny of Some Came Running was ‘frequently moved’:
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.
Anne Thomspson of Variety thinks it is a ‘gem’ :
Two Lovers played well not only for the black tie crowd at the Lumiere but for the U.S. buyers who haven’t been rocked by anything so far and have been looking bedraggled (by constant rain) and gloomy.
It’s specific to its New York borough locale. It features a vulnerable, touching performance by Joaquin Phoenix as an unhappy young man who is in love with a good girl beloved by his family (Shaw) and a bad girl (Paltrow) who dangles escape from his limited prospects.
It’s a gem.
The film hasn’t yet secured US distribution but that is likely to change in the next couple of days.
> Two Lovers at the official Cannes site
> James Gray at the IMDb
This is an amusing Indiana Jones mashup of an early Harrison Ford film called The Frisco Kid and Brokeback Mountain:
[Link via MCN]
> See more links and videos on our Countdown to Indy 4 post
> A summary of the critical reaction at Cannes to Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Le Silence de Lorna (Lorna’s Silence) screened today in Cannes and is the latest film from Luc Dardenne and Jean-Pierre Dardenne.
It deals with a young Albanian woman living in Belgium who becomes an accomplice to a local mobster’s plan.
The Belgian duo have already won the Palme d’Or twice (with Rosetta in 1999 and L’Enfant in 2005) but what did critics make of their latest?
Here is a summary of reaction to the film, which is in competition:
Justin Chang of Variety praises the ‘immaculate construction’ and ‘fine lead performance’:
A resolutely naturalistic portrait of a young Albanian woman having second thoughts about a cold-blooded immigration scam, the film doesn’t pack the same cumulative wallop as the brothers’ earlier work, but its low-key artistry, immaculate construction and fine performance by relative newcomer Arta Dobroshi should rouse the usual fest acclaim and arthouse interest.
Mike Goodridge of Screen Daily says it starts well, but ultimately disappoints:
Fake marriages undertaken to get Belgian citizenship are the subject of the Dardenne brothers’ latest drama, which starts as rivetingly as any of their films and then, an hour in, spins into an unexpected and unsatisfying direction.
Set in the city of Liege, a far less gloomy location than the industrial grime of their hometown Seraing, the film will disappoint fans of their last few films, notably L’Enfant which won the Palme d’Or in 2005 and was a strong arthouse seller around the world.
Joanthan Romney of The Independent praises the ‘intensely gripping narrative’:
The story of a young Albanian woman married to a heroin addict in an effect to get Belgian citizenship, the film is the brothers’ usual blend of low-key realist cinematography and intensely gripping narrative.
Glenn Kenny of Some Came Running praises it as being ‘surprising’ and ‘deeply moving’:
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 (which IS, you know, “conscious of the world that we’re living in” and all, but in a way that’s likely too quiet to please self-righteous jury president Sean Penn), I think it’s every bit as nuanced, surprising, and deeply moving as that film.
Here is a clip from the film:
Lorna’s Silence will open in the UK on October 10th
> Le Silence de Lorna at the IMDb
> Watch the press conference The Dardenne Drothers gave earlier today
>
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Here are some photos of the Cannes premiere of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
THE AFTERNOON PRESS CALL
Actors Cate Blanchett, Shia LaBeouf, Harrison Ford, Karen Allen, director Steven Spielberg and producer George Lucas attend the press call in the afternoon.
Producer George Lucas, director Steven Spielberg, actors Karen Allen, Harrison Ford, Shia LaBeouf and Cate Blanchett pose at the press call outside the Palais du Festivals.
THE RED CARPET
Later the cast and filmmakers walk the red carpet outside the Palais.
Photographers taking photos that will be seen around the globe.
Cast and filmmakers line up with their partners on the red carpet.
Steven Spielberg, Kate Capshaw, Karen Allen, Cate Blanchett and Shia LaBeouf walk the red carpet.
Kathleen Kennedy, Frank Marshall, Kate Capshaw, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Melody Hoffman, Calista Flockhart and Harrison Ford pose on the steps of the Palais des Festivals.
Kate Capshaw, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Harrison Ford, Karen Allen, Cate Blanchett and Brad Grey on the Palais steps.
THE AFTER PARTY
![](/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/the-after-party.jpg "General view of the atmosphere at the \\"Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull\\" party")
The after party on the beach.
Brad Grey (CEO of Paramount Pictures), George Lucas (producer), Steven Spielberg (director) and Cate Blanchett (actress) at the after party.
Actors Shia LaBeouf, Harrison Ford and Karen Allen at the after party
Actress Karen Allen, director Steven Spielberg and actor Harrison Ford at the party
> Check out our countdown to the release of Indy 4
> See what the critical reaction was to the film in Cannes
> Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull at the IMDb
> The Raider.net – a terrific Indy fansite
> Lower res photos from Flickr
[Photos from Getty Images & WireImage © 2008 / Gareth Cattermole / Pascal Le Segretain / Sean Gallup / Dominique Charriau / Tony Barson]
Yesterday, The Guardian’s Jemima Kiss managed to ask Steven Spielberg and cast members of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (including Harrison Ford and Karen Allen) a bunch of questions via the new video site Seesmic.
She explains:
Seesmic, the video discussion site, has gone wild this morning as Steven Spielberg, Harrison Ford, George Lucas and more big names from Indiana Jones 4 join a Q&A session on the site.
It’s a simple enough idea but incredibly exciting; I just posted a few direct questions to Spielberg and Karen Allen (Marian was always one of my favourite heroines) and it’s quite a buzz watching them reply directly to your own questions.
Seesmic is quite intimate too – like most people, I just use my webcam and was still wearing my pyjamas when I recorded. But hey, pyjamas have a good internet heritage.
Here is Jemima asking him about his plans for the small screen and the interactivity of the web:
And Spielberg then replied:
Jemima also asked Steven how the Indy films fit into his wider body of work:
Harrison Ford talks about the first day on the set of the latest movie:
Karen Allen discusses the return of her character, Marion Ravenwood:
Great work from Jemima and it is good to see a major studio like Paramount and A-listers like Spielberg embracing this kind of technology.
As someone who has done my fair share of interviews with actors and filmmakers this looks like a really exciting development.
> The full interviews over at the Guardian’s PDA blog
> Jemima’s blog
> Official site for Seesmic
> Loic Le Meur blog with more details on how the interviews worked
> Techcrunch on Seesmic
Earlier today, the world’s press in Cannes finally got to see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
Would it be a Da Vinci Code style descent into a snake pit of critical derision or would Indy triumph whilst the doubters melted away like the Nazis at the end of Raiders?
On the whole, the reaction coming out of Cannes seems to be positive with a few naysayers here and there.
Here is a summary of the critical reaction:
Anne Thompson of Variety sets the scene outside the screening and says the film is ‘good enough’ and ‘fun’:
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull had its world premiere at Cannes at 1 PM May 18; the press anxiously streamed into the Lumiere early, afraid they would be shut out–and many were.
There were whoos and whistles before the screening started. The movie unspooled without the usual Cannes logo. The first hour plays like gangbusters and is really fun.
Harrison Ford has Indy down, even as a grizzled “gramps” dealing affectionately with Shia LaBeouf as a 60s greaser with a pompadour.
The movie will do blockbuster boxoffice, and whatever critical brickbats are still to come…
Her Variety colleague Todd McCarthy says it ‘delivers the goods’:
One of the most eagerly and long-awaited series follow-ups in screen history delivers the goods — not those of the still first-rate original, 1981’s “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” but those of its uneven two successors.
“Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” begins with an actual big bang, then gradually slides toward a ho-hum midsection before literally taking off for an uplifting finish.
Nineteen years after their last adventure, director Steven Spielberg and star Harrison Ford have no trouble getting back into the groove with a story and style very much in keeping with what has made the series so perennially popular. Few films have ever had such a high mass audience must-see factor, spelling giant May 22 openings worldwide and a rambunctious B.O. life all the way into the eventual “Indiana Jones” DVD four-pack.
Kim Voynar of Cinematical is also positive, saying it is ‘nicely satisfying’:
Indy 4 is a nicely satisfying continuation of the franchise, and will please most Indy fans.
Though the first act drags a bit, the latter two-thirds of the film pick up the pace, and the film is packed with all the familiar elements fans have come to expect from Indiana Jones.
Harrison Ford is older, of course (aren’t we all), but still brings the role all the charm, daring and humor Indy should have.
However, her Cinematical colleague James Rocchi is very disappointed though, deeming it ‘self-conscious and self-satisfied’:
Loaded with moments referencing the earlier films and full of action sequences that don’t measure up to past highlights of the series, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crustal Skull feels simultaneously self-conscious and self-satisfied, as if a little warm glow of past glory will soothe our bumps and blows from the clumsiness of the script.
The action sequences are nothing to write home about, either; there’s nothing here with the inspired delight of the mine chase in Temple of Doom, or the sheer, guts-and-glory greatness of the truck chase in Raiders.
I think most of us want Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull to be good, which it, sadly, is not.
Jeffrey Wells of Hollywood Elsewhere is mostly admiring, saying he was ‘more than delighted at times’:
Sections of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull are a great deal of fun.
I felt jazzed and charged during a good 60% or even 70% of it. I was more than delighted at times.
What a pleasure, I told myself over and over, to swim in a first-rate, big-budget action film that throws one expertly-crafted thrill after another at you, and with plotting that’s fairly easy to understand, dialogue that’s frequently witty and sharp, and performances — Harrison Ford, Shia LeBouf and Cate Blanchett’s, in particular — that are 90% pleasurable from start to finish.
I heard some guys say as they left the theatre, “It’s okay…it’s fine…it’s good enough.”
I talked to a guy who kind of wrinkled his face and went, “Not really…not for me.” But nobody hates it. It gave me no real pain, and a healthy amount of serious moviegoing pleasure. (Although I was, from time time, slightly bothered.) Fears of a DaVinci Code-styled beat-down were, it turns out, unfounded.
Allan Hunter of Screen Daily says ‘the old magic still works’:
The world can rest easy – the old magic still works in Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull.
It may take some breathless, helter-skelter action to redeem the opening hour’s clunky storytelling, but the first Indy adventure in almost twenty years is like a fond reunion with an old friend and will not disappoint diehard fans or deter a new generation from embracing it as a summer blockbuster adventure ride.
This is money in the bank as far as exhibitors are concerned, but the relief of some critical support will do no harm to what is destined to stand as one of the year’s top moneymakers.
Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter feels it is ‘charmless’:
Director Steven Spielberg seems intent on celebrating his entire early career here.
Whatever the story there is, a vague journey to return a spectacular archeological find to its rightful home — an unusual goal of the old grave-robber, you must admit — gets swamped in a sea of stunts and CGI that are relentless as the scenes and character relationships are charmless.
Glenn Kenny at Some Came Running says it is the ‘most fun’ of the series since Raiders:
…the fourth Indy installment isn’t really an attempt to retroactively create a Spielberg omniverse.
But David Koepp’s script, from a story by George Lucas and Jeff Nathanson and Herge and Edgar Rice Burroughs and Erik von Daniken and Carl Stephenson and…well, you get the idea…does tie together a good number of Spielbergian themes into an eventually pretty nifty package.
Yeah—this is, by my sights, the most fun and least irritating installment of the series since the first one.
Charles Ealy of the Austin Movie Blog says the film is ‘no Da Vinci Code’, likes the new characters and also describes the chaotic scramble of journalists getting into the screening :
There were plenty of justifiable reasons for such savagery toward “The Da Vinci Code.” There are few reasons for such a reaction to the new Indy.
The scene outside the Palais before the premiere was chaos. Dozens of journalists from top-flight publications — with the highest credentials possible for festival access — were shut out of the theater until just before the movie started. And many had to sit in uncomfortable, fold-down seats at the ends of the aisles.
Fans of the Indy series will enjoy the reunion of Harrison Ford and Karen Allen, as well as the introduction of Shia Labeouf.
Labeouf, who has stunts involving knives, vines, swords and motorcycles, is believable as the naive sidekick who is drawn into Indy’s wild world.
Cate Blanchett, as usual, is pitch-perfect as a villainous Soviet parapsychologist.
And to finish, just a quick note on a ‘review’ today published by John Harlow of The Sunday Times (be careful if you don’t want the plot ruined as there are spoilers there).
It is – as I understand it – the first newspaper review of the film, but did Paramount really give the exclusive first look to a UK newspaper (albeit a big one)?
David Poland has some thoughts on this over at The Hot Blog:
After the embarrassingly misreported story on how dangerous Cannes is to Indiana Jones yesterday, The Times Online today offers an alleged first newspaper review of the film… that is nothing close to being a review!!!
All they do is drop a few spoilers and indicate that they liked the movie more than the buzz… the buzz that didn’t much exist and that they propagated!!!
Really… there is nothing much to read here, especially if you don’t want to read spoilers, albeit fairly minor ones. There is nothing approaching a single graph of critical argument about the film… not even hack level criticism.
I just don’t get it. Isn’t The Times Of London supposed to be Traditional Media? Aren’t they supposed to act like adults?
My guess – just a guess – is that they feared printing a full review before the Cannes screening because they had made an agreement with Paramount in order to get early access to the movie.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull has a gala premiere tonight and if you aren’t there you can follow the action via IFC’s Cannes webcam.
The film opens worldwide on Thursday.
> Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull at the IMDb
> Have a look at our countdown to Indy 4 with various facts, pictures and videos
> Check out a video of the Indy 4 press conference over at Anne Thompson’s Variety blog and an interview with Karen Allen
> IFC’s Cannes webcam
> Official Indiana Jones site
Today sees the world premiere in Cannes of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
It is one of the most eagerly awaited releases of the summer and likely to be the highest grossing film at the box office this year.
I thought I’d post a few things in anticipation of the opening, ranging from images, videos and snippets of information related to the series.
THE CREATION OF INDIANA JONES
George Lucas created the character of Indiana Jones as a homage to the 1930 serials and pulp magazines he used to watch as a kid, such as those by Republic Pictures and the Doc Savage series.
The serial of Zorro Rides Again was a particular touchstone:
But the movie started to become a reality when, in 1977, Lucas was on holiday in Hawaii with his friend Steven Spielberg. The director of Jaws told him that wanted to make a Bond film, but Cubby Broccoli (then producer of the franchise) had turned him down twice.
Lucas said that he had his own concept for a hero (then called ‘Indiana Smith’) along similar lines – an archaeologist and adventurer inspired by the serials and comics he – and Spielberg – had enjoyed as children.
The visual look of Indiana Jones was created by comic book artist Jim Steranko. Lucas suggested the flight jacket, the fedora (a nod to Humphrey Bogart in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre) and a whip (reminiscent of Zorro’s weapon of choice).
The costume designer Deborah Nadoolman Landis admitted that Indy’s look was inspired by Charlton Heston’s character in the 1954 film Secret of the Incas:
Lawrence Kasdan was recruited to write the script on notes from Lucas and Philip Kaufman.
Indiana Jones was born, but who would play the role?
Harrison Ford had worked with Lucas on American Graffiti (1973) and Star Wars (1977) but the original choice for the role was actually Tom Selleck, who had recently been cast in the TV series Magnum, PI.
However, Selleck couldn’t get out of his contract with Universal television and had to pass on the role.
Ford was then cast just three weeks before production began on Raiders of the Lost Ark in the summer of 1980.
RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK
The first film saw Indiana Jones searching for the Ark of the Covenant in 1936. In his search he discovers the Nazis are also keen to find and harness the Ark for their own ends.
Assisted by an old girlfriend named Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen) he ends up in Egypt, where a rival archealogist named Belloq (Paul Freeman) is helping the Nazis.
Production was based at Elstree Studios just outside of London and also shot in various locations around the world including La Rochelle (for the Nazi submarine base), Tunisia (for Egypt section ), Hawaii (for the opening jungle sequence) and the United States from June to September of 1980.
The film was a huge hit when it was released in June 1981 and became the biggest film of that year, eventually grossing $384 million worldwide.
It was also nominated for 8 Oscars (including Best Picture) and ended up winning for Sound, Editing, Art Direction and Visual Effects.
Here are some quick facts about Raiders:
INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM
Given the huge success of the first film, a sequel was an inevitability. In 1982 Spielberg made E.T., which even outstripped Raiders to become the biggest grossing film of all time.
When he unveiled E.T. at Cannes that year he was interviewed by Wim Wenders about the future of cinema:
Despite the financial pressures on studios and filmmakers in the early 80s, Spielberg had already established himself as the most successful filmmaker of his generation.
Anticipation for his next film was huge and all the more so because it would be the follow up to Raiders, entitled Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
The film was technically a prequel as it is set in 1935, a year before the action in Raiders begins.
It opens with Indy in a Shanghai nightclub attempting to trade artifacts with a local gangster, only for it to go wrong. Indy escapes with the club’s singer, Wilhelmina “Willie” Scott (Kate Capshaw), with the help of a young sidekick called Short Round.
They get on a cargo plane and after it crashes in the Himalayan mountains they bail out and end up in a village in India ravaged by evil forces nearby. The villagers persuade Indy to retrieve the Sankara Stone and the kidnapped children of the village who are held captive at nearby Pankot Palace.
The production was again based at Elstree Studios and location shooting was done in Sri Lanka. However filming was disrupted when Harrison Ford injured his back. Despite this setback, Spielberg found a way to shoot around it, with stuntman Vic Armstrong as a stand in.
Here is the original theatrical trailer:
It was released in May 1984 amidst a blizzard of hype and expectation as this report from Ted Koppel’s Nightline shows:
Although it was the third highest grossing film of that year (behind Ghostbusters and Beverly Hills Cop), some were taken aback by the darkness of the story, which included human sacrifice and a distateful dinner table sequence.
Although it was rated PG, the violence on display led to the creation of the new PG-13 rating as the MPAA came up with a category that covered the area between the PG and R ratings.
Some facts about the Temple of Doom:
INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE
After the second Indiana Jones film, Spielberg ventured into more serious and literary subject matter, directing The Color Purple (1985) and Empire of the Sun (1987).
However in 1989 he reunited with Lucas and Ford for what everone expected to be the final chapter of the trilogy with Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
Spielberg, Lucas and screenwriter Jeffrey Boam came up with a more humourous film that featured an extended prologue of the young Indy (played by River Phoenix), a story that saw him hunt down the Holy Grail and Sean Connery cast as his father.
It was shot in a variety of locations including Spain, London, Germany, Jordan, Venice and the US.
When it opened in May 1989 it broke box office records by grossing $50 million in a single week and was the second highest grossing film that year behind Tim Burton’s Batman.
Here is the original theatrical trailer:
Here are some facts about The Last Crusade:
After the film’s release Spielberg reportedly said in an interview:
I built every clue into this movie I possible could think of to let George know that we should retire this guy’s number. I did all I could. But at the moment I think I’d like to quit.
At this point we all feel pretty much have a nice first, second and third act. Why go and create a forth act? We don’t need one.
However, rumours of another Indiana Jones film would surface from time to time over the next 15 years.
INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL
During the 90s Spielberg made some of his most successful (Jurassic Park) and personal (Schindler’s List) films, winning his first Oscar for the latter.
He also made Amistad, Saving Private Ryan (for which he won another Oscar), Artificial Intelligence: AI, Minority Report, Catch Me If You Can, The Terminal, War of the Worlds and Munich.
Reports of another Indy movie persisted through the 90s but despite several attempts, none of the principals could agree on a script or story idea.
Amonsgst the roster of screenwriters hired to take a crack at a script were M. Night Shyamalan, Stephen Gaghan, Tom Stoppard and Frank Darabont.
Darabont had written several episodes of The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles tv series and between 2002 and 2004 wrote a script set in the 1950s, with surviving Nazis pursuing Jones.
Lucas rejected the draft despite Spielberg reportedly liking it. Jeff Nathanson was then hired in late 2004 to write a new draft, which was then passed over to David Koepp who is the credited writer for the new film (Lucas and Nathanson have story credit).
Finally in January 2007, Lucas and Spielberg announced that the fourth installment of Indiana Jones would definitely begin production that summer.
Shooting finally began on Indy 4 in New Mexico in June 2007 and the first image of Ford (taken by Spielberg) was officially released:
Footage of the first day’s filming in New Mexico was also released:
Shooting was mostly done in the US with some scenes shot in New Haven, Connecticut:
During Paramount Pictures’ presentation at Comic-Con in July, the audience got a special live video greeting from Hawaii as Steven Spielberg – along with Harrison Ford, Shia LaBeouf and Ray Winston – announced Karen Allen would be back as Marion Ravenwood:
Shooting then continued and on September 9th, Shia LaBeouf revealed (at the MTV Video Music Awards in Las Vegas) that the title would be:
Principal photography finished in October 2007 and this was the first trailer:
Yesterday in Cannes, the stars and Spielberg did a full day’s press at the Carlton Hotel and in the evening threw a small press cocktail party where the actors mingled with journalists.
According to Anne Thompson of Variety, producer Kathleen Kennedy explained why Spielberg wanted to do all the press before they had seen the film:
He really wants to try to preserve the experience for the audience, so they don’t know everything before they see the movie, like it was on the first three Raiders pics.
“If you learn everything, no one can get surprised anymore,” said Kennedy. “You can’t discover this movie until we let them discover it.”
Today, the film will get a world premiere at Cannes and on Thursday will be released worldwide.
> Official site for Indiana Jones
> Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull at the IMDb
> The Raider.net – a terrific Indy fansite
> Indy 4 reports in Cannes from Jeffrey Wells of Hollywood Elsewhere and Anne Thompson of Variety
Linha de Passe is the new film from director Walter Salles (who made Central Station and The Motorcycle Diaries) and screened in competition on Saturday.
Co-directed by Daniela Thomas it explores the the lives of four brothers in São Paulo struggling to find a better life.
** UPDATE 18/09/08: Listen to our interview with Walter Salles **
Here is a summary of the critical reaction from Cannes:
Todd McCarthy of Variety thinks it is engrossing, but not gripping:
Engrossing if not gripping effort possesses the quality and seriousness to make limited inroads on the international art circuit.
Deborah Young of The Hollywood Reporter admires the film, especially the acting:
‘Linha de passe’ (a soccer term) has a great deal of strength and sincerity going for it, which should attract the kind of audiences who admired the sociological line of “Central Station.”
Hats off to the fine ensemble acting, which is never over-stated and renders each family member intensely individual.
Jonathan Romney of Screen Daily welcomes it as an alternative to recent Brazilian cinema:
Reunited with his co-director on 1996’s Foreign Land, Salles offers a well-knit multi-strander that vividly evokes the rigours of keeping body and soul together in Brazil’s biggest city, while offering a down-to-earth alternative to the more romantic and stylistically flashy films (City of God, Lower City, Berlin winner Elite Squad) with which Brazilian cinema has been identified lately.
Anthony Kaufman of indieWire has mixed feelings:
…an accomplished, though unremarkable competition film that never rises above its familiar tale of a poverty-stricken family.
Ty Burr of the Boston Globe admires the filmmaking but is taken aback by the bleakness of it:
An expertly filmed slice of Sao Paulo kitchen-sink realism, it tells of a family of poverty-stricken brothers who between them represent the many aspects of Brazil’s soul: soccer, sin, Jesus Christ, etc.
Also bleak, bleak, bleak. Salles can really make movies, and he just lovingly ground my face in this one.
Xan Brooks of The Guardian thinksit is a fine film (but had issues with the out-of-sync subtitles):
…the film marks a return to the soulful, socially conscious style he patented in Central Station, focusing on a trio of brothers hunting a route out of poverty, whether that be through football or gangsterism.
It’s a fine movie but the English subtitles keep slipping out of synch, so that they relate to action that’s already been and gone.
Eric Lavelee of IonCinema thinks it is a noteworthy drama:
A return to sources for Walter Salles and Daniela Thomas, this is a noteworthy drama without superficial story structures or overly complex characters.
> Linha de Passe at the IMDb
> Find out more about Walter Salles at Wikipedia
Woody Allen’s latest film Vicky Cristina Barcelona is having it’s out of competition premiere at Cannes tonight.
The film is about two young American women named Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and Cristina (Scarlett Johansson) who come to Barcelona for a summer holiday only to get involved with a local painter (Javier Bardem) and his tempestuous wife (Penélope Cruz).
Todd McCarthy of Variety thinks it is sexy and funny:
‘Vicky Cristina Barcelona’ is a sexy, funny divertissement that passes as enjoyably as an idle summer’s afternoon in the titular Spanish city.
With Javier Bardem starring as a bohemian artist involved variously with Scarlett Johansson, Penelope Cruz and Rebecca Hall, pic offers potent romantic fantasy elements for men and women and a cast that should produce the best commercial returns for a Woody Allen film since “Match Point.”
And, in the bargain, if Barcelona wants even more visitors than it already attracts, this film will supply them.
Richard Corliss of Time rates it as Woody’s most engaging since Crimes and Misdeameanors (which by my reckoning is high praise indeed):
It’s hard not to feel warmly toward Allen after VCB, his first vital movie since Match Point three years ago (we quickly throw the veil of oblivion over Scoop and Cassandra’s Dream), and maybe his most engaging large-scale effort since, let’s say, Crimes and Misdemeanors nearly 20 years ago.
It doesn’t percolate with the inventive comic situations or quotable one-liners of the films that established his meta-movie credentials, Annie Hall and Manhattan; but, like them, this one is about people whose jobs are incidental to their real vocations of falling in love and messing things up.
Jeffrey Wells of Hollywood Elsewhere was less impressed:
The only parts of Woody Allen’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona that feel truly alive and crackling are the Spanish-language scenes between Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz.
I never thought I’d see the day when one of the great comedy writers of the 20th Century would write unintentional howlers, but this happens every so often in VCB, and I was not happy to witness this.
Ty Burr of the Boston Globe enjoyed it, despite some reservations:
I think I enjoyed Woody Allen’s new movie, “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” a lot more than I should have. Certainly more than the people who gave it scattered boos after its Out of Competition screening here last night.
…In other words, the movie’s inordinate, even ridiculous fun, despite an overly chatty narrative track (not sure by whom at this writing) that I wanted to slap down after about five minutes.
An even bigger problem is a persistent, obnoxious and thoroughly unwanted narration track that makes this story of overlapping, off-and-on love affairs in present-day Barcelona so on-the-nose and over-explained that I was feeling actively hostile less than 15 minutes in.
Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter was admiring, especially of the performances by Bardem and Cruz:
…the film belongs to Bardem and Cruz. This is a Spanish version of “Private Lives,” a couple that cannot live apart or together, whose love will always burst into fiery combat.
Their scenes are some of the funniest Allen has ever put on film, and the culmination of this love/hate tango is not to be missed.
A voice-over narration for once actually works, urging the story on and slipping us past talk of art and poetry.
Javier Auirresarobe’s cinematography and Alisa Lepselter’s editing are unusually sharp, even by Allen’s high standards.
Kim Voynar of Cinematical feels it is one of Allen’s best films in years:
Cruz turns in a performance that’s better, even, than her Oscar-nominated turn in Volver; her Maria Elena is on-the-edge crazy, but is also very funny and engaging.
Mike Goodridge of Screen Daily thinks its his best film since 1994’s Bullets Over Broadway:
Vicky Cristina Barcelona, his first of several Spanish ventures, is as close to consistently delightful as Allen has been able to deliver since 1994’s Bullets Over Broadway.
Given a dramatic boost by the vitality and charisma of Spanish superstars Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz, this sunny romantic comedy could well be the director’s biggest audience-pleaser in years.
Allen has created one of his best works in years, a film that is funny, philosophical, and imaginatively explorative of the meaning of love and desire.
The film is going to be distributed in the US by The Weinstein Company and gets a release there on September 5th.
Here is the international trailer:
And here is Woody, Rebecca Hall and Penelope Cruz sitting down for the press conference:
> Vicky Cristina Barcelona at the IMDb
> Cinematical report on today’s press conference
> Stills from the film
Here is MUTO – the latest wall painted animation by the street artists known as Blu:
MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.
It was made in Buenos Aires and Baden.
Un conte de Noel (A Christmas Tale) screened last night and is the latest film from director Arnaud Desplechin, who made Kings and Queen in 2004.
It is a drama about a dysfunctional family who gather together for the first time in years after a tragedy and stars Catherine Deneuve and Mathieu Amalric.
Here is a summary of critical reaction to the film:
Kim Voynar of Cinematical is impressed:
This could have been an emotionally wrenching film, but Desplechin keeps the tone light, infusing the drama with humor in the most unexpected places…
This kind of familial tale, interwoven with classic literary elements and philosophical questions, is something that Desplechin excels at, and A Christmas Tale is a perfect example of why both international and independent cinema — and a festival like Cannes, which showcases such films — are still important today.
I hope the film will secure distribution in the United States as well, so that American audiences might also get to appreciate its humor, beauty and depth.
Lisa Nesselson of Screen Daily is impressed by the cast as well as the craft of the film:
A beautifully-cast, tragic-comic ensemble piece in which an extended family gathers for the title holiday, Arnaud Desplechin’s A Christmas Tale is an intricate, accomplished patchwork of sometimes nutty but always believable human behaviour.
Lengthy but never dull, this lively tale is sufficiently engrossing to interest even those who don’t usually go for Desplechin’s frank and discomfiting approach to interpersonal and intergenerational relationships.
Lou Lumenick of the New York Post is impressed by the performances:
Excellent performances, including Mathieu Almaric as the ne’er-do-well eldest son and Anne Cosigny as the uptight sister who banished him, will make “A Christmas Tale” a holiday treat when it gets released in the U.S. later this year.
Kenneth Turan of the LA Times is a huge fan of the film and even feels that this could be the first French entry in over 20 years to scoop the Palme d’Or:
It’s been more than 20 years since a hometown French film won the Palme d’Or at the Festival de Cannes, but there is definitely a strong contender in Arnaud Desplechin’s marvelous “A Christmas Tale,” which screened here Friday morning.
Desplechin has created a multigenerational drama around a gorgeously fractious family that comes together for a memorable Christmas week reunion, a film that critics here are comparing to a Gallic “Fanny and Alexander.
Unexpected but still made squarely in the French humanist tradition, this is a film you don’t want to see end, not because the people are so happy but because they are so human and so alive.
Derek Elley of Variety is more restrained and doubts it will do much business outside fo France:
Performances and direction, rather than the yards of inconclusive dialogue, are what keep Arnaud Desplechin’s ‘A Christmas Tale’ from curdling in its own juices.
Dysfunctional family ensembler, just about held in focus by Catherine Deneuve’s regal perf as a mother who’s been diagnosed with liver cancer, is more tolerable and less pretentious than some of Desplechin’s previous talkfests, like ‘How I Got Into an Argument’ or ‘In the Company of Men’, but beyond Gaul faces only minimal business from hardcore addicts of the helmer and gabby French cinema.
Ty Burr of The Boston Globe finds it very French and very funny:
…very French, very engrossing, often very funny, like a good, long novel you can’t put down.
One of the jokes is watching Almaric and his ‘Diving Bell’ co-star Anne Consigny as a brother and sister who detest each other; one of its joys is watching Deneuve play opposite her daughter Chiara Mastroianni — playing a daughter-in-law Denueve’s character doesn’t much like.
Mastroianni is looking more and more like her late father, and her performance is one of the many gems in this rambunctious, imperfect joy of a movie.
Fabien Lemercier of Cineuropa is impressed by many aspects of the film:
The film is as brilliant as it is cruel, and brings together the sweetness of intelligence and cinematic know-how with its characters’ overflowing bitterness.
Its explosive elegance is near perfect, yet it successfully manages to keep the audience at an emotional distance.
Andrew O’Hehir of Salon is another huge fan of the film:
If this is not the obvious masterpiece on first viewing that “Kings and Queen” was, I found “A Christmas Tale” a marvelously rich visual, intellectual and emotional experience, one that I expect will grow deeper with repeat viewings.
IFC have acquired the US distribution rights for the film.
Here is the trailer (in French):
> Un conte de Noel (A Christmas Tale) at the IMDb
> IHT article on the film
> Reuters report on Mathieu Amalric and the film
Here is the insane red band trailer for Tropic Thunder.
> Tropic Thunder at the IMDb
> Find out more about Tropic Thunder at Wikipedia
Just days after Bill O’Reilly’s timeless meltdown was leaked all over the web, here comes another contender for the YouTube Hall of Fame.
MSNBC’s Chris Matthews is having a debate with a conservative radio host named Kevin James.
The subject was President Bush’s recent comments in the Knesset, that compared Barack Obama to Nazi appeasers like Neville Chamberlain.
A couple of moments to look out for:
> The Huffington Post on Bush’s comments about Obama
> More on Neville Chamberlain at Wikipedia
> Official site for Hardball with Chris Matthews
