Week of « Prev | Next »
1-20 of 23 items « Prev | Next »
Cannes Fest Diary: Le Weekend, from Compelling 'Jimmy P.' to Toback's Doc and 'Jodorowsky's Dune'
12 hours ago
It was a weird, wooly and wet weekend in Cannes. And it began with what has to be one of the stranger ideas ever put forward for a film: “Jimmy P.: Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian” from Arnaud Desplechin (the wonderful “A Christmas Tale”). Based on a book by French anthropologist/psychotherapist George Deveraux, it’s the more or less true story of a Native American WWII vet, played by Benicio del Toro, who winds up in a military hospital suffering from post-war injuries, real or imagined. When the staff decides the problems are not physical, but don’t have a grasp on the potential mental issues an Indian might face, they call in Deveraux, who is also an expert in Native American culture. I found the film itself quite strange, the imagery flat, the editing choppy, many of the performances unconvincing, some of the relationships unsatisfying. Even the »
- Tom Christie
Boston's Best Dennis Lehane Adapts Beach-Bum Pi Travis McGee for Producer-Star Leonardo DiCaprio
12 hours ago
John D. MacDonald’s paperback hero Travis McGee was the protagonist of twenty-one Gold Medal Originals, all with color words in their titles, beginning with "The Deep Blue Good-Bye" in 1964. McGee is a six-foot-plus sun-baked blonde hunk with a heart of gold, a lady-killer with a sentimental streak and a houseboat in Fort Lauderdale. He gets around, but he truly is God's gift. His sexual ministrations can be downright therapeutic for the troubled, abandoned women who seek his services as an unlicensed “salvage consultant,” recovering missing or stolen property in exchange for half its value. As strange as it may sound, we have no particular problem with the recent announcement that Leonardo DiCaprio will be playing McGee, in an upcoming adaptation of "Deep Blue" that Boston-noir novelist Dennis Lehane ("Gone Baby Gone") is currently writing. Clearly DiCaprio has a potential franchise in his sights. Leo may be slightly less apt »
- David Chute
Casting Watch: Angelina Jolie May Play Her Late Mother, Actress and Charity Founder Marcheline Bertrand, in Biopic
19 hours ago
Following last week's news that Angelina Jolie underwent a preventative double mastectomy to drastically lower her likelihood of developing breast cancer, Brit tabloid The Daily Mail has reported that Jolie will play her mother actress and charity founder Marcheline Bertrand, in a biopic based on her life. Bertrand died in 2007 at age 56 to cancer, and Jolie sites the traumatic loss of her mother as a reason behind her recent medical procedure. No further details on the project at the moment, but if true, The Mail reports that it could go into production in 2014. In the upcoming pipeline, Jolie has Disney's "Maleficent" in 2014, in which she plays the title role of the nefarious evil witch originated in 1959's animated "Sleeping Beauty." In costume and makeup, Jolie is a ringer for the part. "Salt 2" has been announced, in which Jolie also plays the eponymous lead, and a "Kung Fu Panda 3" is in the works, »
- Beth Hanna
Interview: Brit Marling Writes and Toplines Anarchist Thriller 'The East,' "an action film for a girl" (Exclusive Video)
19 hours ago
Brit Marling is a fascinating example of a brainy talent who in 2009 turned her back on the financial security of Wall Street to follow her yen to make movies. She and her Georgetown buddy Zal Batmanglij, while they were unable to get work in film, spent that first summer trawling around the country with backpacks living off the grid with anarchist collectives, direct action groups and freegans, dumpster diving and train hopping, which later became rich fodder for their current film, their second together, the terrorist thriller "The East." See our flipcam interview and trailer below. After co-directing a 2004 documentary with Mike Cahill ("Boxers and Ballerinas"), Marling broke out at Sundance 2011 as the co-writer-producer-star of two provocatively watchable indie features directed by Georgetown grads, Cahill's haunting sci-fi film "Another Earth" and Batmanglij's "The Sound of My Voice," in which she held the screen as a mesmerizing cult leader. The films proved yet again that. »
- Anne Thompson
Cannes: James Toback Talks 'Seduced and Abandoned,' Double Act with Alec Baldwin on the Croisette and More
20 hours ago
Last year, James Toback descended on Cannes with cohort Alec Baldwin to shoot the documentary "Seduced and Abandoned." This year, Toback is in town to screen the film and discuss its contents with interested parties. Of which I am one, having thoroughly relished his supremely entertaining and frequently illuminating portrait of the sorry state of the film business today. If "Seduced and Abandoned" meanders and strays off course throughout, it matters not a jot because Toback and Baldwin form a magnificent double act, and the talent they’ve rounded up to spout off includes Bertolucci, Scorsese, Polanski, Coppola, Chastain and Gosling. They all prove willing accomplices for Baldwin and Toback’s canny probing, yielding endlessly fascinating nuggets about the industry and their own careers. The nuts and bolts of the doc, though, are Baldwin and Toback’s efforts to raise the financing for a fictional (we think) sex romp to »
- Matt Mueller
Cannes Deal: Kino Lorber Nabs Jia Zhangke's Palme d'Or Competitor 'A Touch of Sin' (Trailer)
20 hours ago
-Kino Lorber has snapped up all Us rights to Chinese helmer Jia Zhangke's competition entry "A Touch of Sin," a four-part tale inspired by real-life, unsettlingly violent Chinese news stories. Toh! loved it, as did the New York Times' Manohla Dargis, who said it's Zhangke's best film since 2006's "Still Life." Watch the trailer for "A Touch of Sin" below.-Sony Pictures Classics has won Us rights to "The Past," the new film by Asghar Farhadi (director of 2012 Best Foreign Language Oscar winner "A Separation") starring Tahar Rahim, Berenice Bejo and Ali Mosaffa. The film, which centers on the complex divorce between a French woman and an Iranian man, premiered in competition at the festival on May 17, and has garnered rave reviews. (Toh! "A Separation" Q & A with Farhadi here; Anthony Kaufman discusses "The Past" as Palme d'Or frontrunner here.) -Mongrel Media has nabbed all Canadian rights to »
- Beth Hanna
Cannes: First Clip from 'Max Rose,' Marking Jerry Lewis' Return to Movies After 18 Years (Video)
21 hours ago
Check out this first clip from writer-director Daniel Noah's "Max Rose," which premieres at Cannes on May 23 and marks the big-screen return of legendary comedian Jerry Lewis. The film centers on an octogenarian jazz pianist (Lewis) who discovers an unsettling secret upon his wife's death. Claire Bloom ("The King's Speech"), Kevin Pollak ("The Usual Suspects") and Kerry Bishe ("Argo") also star. This is Noah's second feature film, following 2001's "Twelve." Though he's done the occasional TV and voice actor work over the past two decades, Lewis' last onscreen role was in 1995's "Funny Bones." The film should go over swimmingly at Cannes, as the country's love for Lewis is so well-known it's long been the stuff of cultural jokes. Lewis recently told the Hollywood Reporter that when he arrives in Paris, "the front page of the biggest paper says, 'Jerry Is Here.'" Here's a more detailed synopsis:87-year-old »
- Beth Hanna
Review Roundup: Critics Go Ga-Ga for Soderbergh's Outrageously Mesmerizing 'Behind the Candelabra'
22 hours ago
Critics are over the glittering, bedazzled moon for Steven Soderbergh's Cannes competition entry "Behind the Candelabra," set to premiere on HBO on May 26 and starring a no-holds-barred Michael Douglas and Matt Damon as the famed pianist Liberace and his younger lover, Scott Thorson. The Telegraph refers to it as a "gay Pygmalion myth: call it My Fair Laddie," while the Guardian raves that "the film is mesmeric, riskily incorrect, outrageously watchable and simply outrageous." Roundup below. The Hollywood Reporter:Behind the Candelabra is fabulous -- so much so that, were it not for the fact that it reveals everything about his private life that he worked so hard to conceal, Liberace himself might well have loved it. The big screen’s loss is HBO’s gain in what is billed as Steven Soderbergh’s farewell to the cinema, at least for the time being. Superbly scripted, brilliantly directed, smart but »
- Beth Hanna
Review: Rama Burshtein's Luminous 'Fill the Void' Looks at the Strange, Painful Romance of Choice
21 May 2013 3:05 AM, PDT
Rama Burshtein’s “Fill the Void,” Israel’s official Oscar entry earlier this year, is set in the Haredi Orthodox Jewish community in Tel Aviv. It focuses on one young woman’s turbulent experiences with traditional matchmaking -- a custom which, it should be noted, differs from arranged marriage, and is abundantly foreign to many of us Westerners. Yet Burshtein renders a portrait that is universal: of the necessity of choice, and its connection to putting away childish things. Everything’s going well for 18-year-old Shira (Hadas Yaron). She’s been matched for marriage with a boy who sets butterflies aflutter in her tummy, at least upon her first fleeting glance of him in the dairy section of her local grocery store, and her sister, Esther, is pregnant with her first child. But when the unthinkable happens and Esther dies during childbirth, Shira is left at emotional -- and social -- loose ends. »
- Beth Hanna
Cannes Review: Douglas and Damon Shine in Soderbergh's Funny, Poignant Melodrama 'Behind the Candelabra'
21 May 2013 1:30 AM, PDT
The Cannes Film Festival accorded Steven Soderbergh's lush period melodrama "Behind the Candelabra" a prime competition slot (his fourth) for a reason. While it's not the first time an HBO movie has played in the mainbar (Stephen Hopkins' "The Life and Death of Peter Sellers" was in competition in 2004), it will be Soderbergh's last, if he sticks to his planned retirement from making films. With "Behind the Candelabra," the 50 year-old filmmaker is coming full circle at Cannes. He landed in competition with his first film in 1989, "sex lies and videotape," even though it had played Sundance, and took home the Palme d'Or. "It's not often you get the opportunity to arrange that kind of symmetry," Soderbergh told The Huffington Post. "It's funny to think about how long ago that was." If "Behind the Candelabra" is his final film, it's a winner, easily among the best of his 26 features »
- Anne Thompson
Cannes Review: James Franco's 'As I Lay Directing'
20 May 2013 11:35 PM, PDT
Back in her “Pretty Women” days, I interviewed the young Julia Roberts and at one point she mentioned her dog, which she called Faulkner. Well, that’s one way to add some intellectual heft to your resume. Is it so different with James Franco? He says he loved the book when he first read it back in high school. Well, I loved a girl named Becky but I didn’t make a film about her. Honestly, I root for James Franco, but he exhausts with his incessant need to produce every little thought into something for our consumption. His recent art exhibition in Berlin included some fairly lame paintings he did in college of his high school yearbook photos; you know, things like sitting on the bleachers at a swim meet. Yes, of course that’s better than the guy who sits on his ass and never produces anything. Although »
- Tom Christie
Cannes Film Fest Diary 3: Seduced by 'The Past,' Abandoned by a Brazilian Beach Bikini Party
20 May 2013 8:11 PM, PDT
At 8:30am Friday morning, I got it. What Cannes is truly all about. You get something in theory, and then there’s the moment you get it through experience. Asghar Farhadi’s “The Past” had just begun, and I thought back to what a friend said was the real reason to attend Cannes: because you see the best films in the world. Literally, according to one of the money men in James Toback’s new documentary about Cannes, “Seduced and Abandoned” – more on that later – half of the year’s supply of big films debuts at the festival. Farhadi won the Oscar for best foreign film with his last, “A Separation,” and as the new film began, the audience just relaxed into their seats as the film, with its first shot, took over. It’s a wonderful feeling when you realize you are in very, very, very good hands. »
- Tom Christie
Review: The Kids Are All Right in 'The Kings of Summer,' A Sappy Coming-of-Age Romantic Comedy
20 May 2013 2:35 PM, PDT
The fine young summer romance -- that time in the short months between spring and fall when love gets idealized and love gets messy -- is an idea so entrenched in pop culture and particularly in film that we tend to forget to ask if such an impossible thing actually exists? It never existed for me, but then again I didn't go to summer camp or work at a theme park -- and I certainly didn't flee the parental tyranny of home for the lawless yonder of the woods as three teenage friends do in "The Kings of Summer." Directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts from a screenplay by Chris Galletta, "Kings" is a sweet yet fleeting trifle of a film. It puts this specific brand of love on the highest of cinematic pedestals, featuring plenty of montage, scorching lens flares and young people mulling over absolutely nothing amid the gauzy wisp of wheat fields. »
- Ryan Lattanzio
Three Weddings Before a Bunch of Funerals: 'Game of Thrones' 3.8: 'Second Sons'
20 May 2013 2:15 PM, PDT
Appreciative fans welcomed the return this week of "Peter Drunklage," a reference to a character created to universal acclaim by "Game of Thrones" star Peter Dinklage during a recent "Saturday Night Live" appearance. Only three episodes to go, HBO has reminded us in their recent "Games" commercials, and in the first of these countdown chapters we got the first of the three weddings that form the centerpiece of George R.R. Martin’s source novel, "A Storm of Swords," the forcible unification of doe-eyed Sansa Stark with Tyrion Lannister, the crafty schemer Dinklage plays so entertainingly. (The patterns in Martin’s storytelling aren’t so over-neat that there will eventually be one wedding for each of the three leeches, swollen with the blood of a king, or anyway of the bastard offspring of a king, that Melisandre dropped sizzling this week onto a sacrificial BBQ grill. But almost.) This wedding was »
- David Chute
Cannes: Asghar Farhadi Talks Fest Favorite 'The Past,' Starring Tahar Rahim and Berenice Bejo
20 May 2013 12:34 PM, PDT
In what’s turning out to be a very strong year for the Cannes Competition, it’s hard to pick a front-runner at the festival’s midway point. As many critics rate the chances of Hirokazu Kore-Eda’s “Like Father, Like Son” (not least because of a family-ties dynamic many assume will appeal to Jury president Steven Spielberg’s sensibilities) they also rate highly previous Cannes winners the Coen brothers’ “Inside Llewyn Davis." And this is before the Competition entries from Steven Soderbergh, Nicolas Winding Refn, Paolo Sorrentino, Alexander Payne, Roman Polanski and Jim Jarmusch have even screened. But one man sure to be in the fray for the Palme d’Or this weekend is Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi with “The Past.” Nicole Kidman reputedly emerged from the film in tears and while the reception for Farhadi’s sixth feature appears more muted than the nearly unanimous praise that greeted “A Separation, »
- Matt Mueller
Ron Howard and Bryce Dallas Howard's 'Project Imaginat10n' Contest Underway, Jamie Foxx's Short Film Goes Into Production Update
20 May 2013 11:50 AM, PDT
Director Ron Howard and daughter/actress Bryce Dallas Howard have teamed up to jump on the user-generated content bandwagon with the new film contest for Canon, "Project Imaginat10n." A number of celebrity directors are getting involved in the project, including Eva Longoria, James Murphy, Georgina Chapman and Jamie Foxx, who recently starting shooting his short film in Brooklyn.The film stars Tyrin Turner, Foxx's longtime friend and the star of "Menace II Society," and Foxx's "Django Unchained" co-star Nichole Galicia. Howard, along with Foxx's mentor on the set, David West, paid on-set visits during shooting.Beginning June 4, filmmakers of all skill levels can submit up to five photographs per 10 storytelling prompts -- among them, "setting," "mood," "backstory" and "the unknown." Submissions close in the fall and after a judging panel selects finalists in mid-October, Ron Howard and a public vote will determine 91 winning photographs. Then, directors will choose 10 photos, »
- Ryan Lattanzio
MacFarlane Opts Out of 2014 Oscar Gig, Recommends Joaquin Phoenix as Host
20 May 2013 11:23 AM, PDT
Some have speculated that because the motion picture Academy is happy with the ratings of the last Oscar show, and therefore wanted to bring back musically-oriented producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron, that their 2013 Oscar host Seth MacFarlane would be part of the 2014 show package. But not so fast. Update: MacFarlane reiterates yet again on Twitter that his Oscar gig was a one-time thing.First, this is no surprise. He has never sounded too eager to return after the way critics beat him up. Even if he did lower the age demo. Second, the Academy says they aren't anywhere near to hiring a host yet. “Given the fact that we just confirmed Craig Zadan and Neil Meron to produce," says an Academy spokesperson, "we understand how people might speculate in that fashion, but it's really way too early to have any idea who our host might be in 2014." Who would you like to see host? »
- Anne Thompson
As Restored 'Cleopatra' Hits the Cannes Croisette, Film Critics Look Back at the 'Most Notorious Epic Ever' (Trailer)
20 May 2013 11:15 AM, PDT
Cannes Classics previously announced that Joseph L. Manciewicz's four-plus-hour epic "Cleopatra," celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, will screen on the Croisette May 21 in a newly restored print alongside other giant classics such as Bertolucci's "The Last Emperor" in 3-D and "Vertigo." The restoration will expand worldwide the next day, May 22, screening in the Cinemark Classic Film Series among other theater chains. Starring Elizabeth Taylor (the eponymous siren of the Nile) and her swain Richard Burton in full-on Egyptian headdress as Marc Antony, "Cleopatra" is the bloated magnum opus that nearly sunk the Fox studio in 1963 after failing to make back its colossal budget -- which adjusted for inflation totaled over $323 million in 2013 dollars -- and failing to garner much in the way of critical acclaim. Susan King of the La Times highlights the film, discussing the lasting interest in Taylor and Burton, who were having an adulterous affair during the shoot. »
- Beth Hanna and Ryan Lattanzio
Watch: New Clips from 'Only God Forgives,' with Ryan Gosling as Stoic Badass and Kristin Scott Thomas as Ruthless Drug Lord
20 May 2013 10:40 AM, PDT
Prior to the world premiere of Nicolas Winding Refn's "Only God Forgives" on Wednesday, TWC-Radius has been tempting the Cannes crowds with clips from the Thailand-set thriller, which stars Kristin Scott Thomas and Ryan Gosling as a mother and son heading a drug ring in the Bangkok underworld. The four clips below highlight their unsettling relationship following the death of Gosling's brother, as well as establishing Scott Thomas' character as a Momma Not to Mess With. (Toh's interview with Scott Thomas is here.) "Only God Forgives" is in the competition section, and hits Us theaters on July 19. Winding Refn and Gosling previously collaborated on 2011's "Drive." »
- Beth Hanna
Trailers from Hell: Dan Ireland on Hitchcock's Masterpiece 'Vertigo'
20 May 2013 10:11 AM, PDT
Femme Fatales Week! begins at Trailers from Hell, with director Dan Ireland introducing "Vertigo," Alfred Hitchcock's masterpiece and last year's Sight & Sound top-ranked film of all time, starring James Stewart and Kim Novak. Stewart was born on May 20, 1908. "Hitchcock's masterpiece to date and one of the four or five most profound and beautiful films the cinema has yet given us". That was critic Robin Wood's astute 1968 evaluation ten years after Alfred Hitchcock's final collaboration with James Stewart had been released to indifferent box office and unappreciative reviews. Tragic, obsessive and backed by an unforgettable Bernard Herrmann score, it's one of the director's most mesmerizing accomplishments. It knocked Citizen Kane off its nearly 50 year perch as the #1 picture of all time in the 2012 Sight and Sound decade poll of critics and filmmakers. »
- Trailers From Hell
1-20 of 23 items « Prev | Next »
company.