As the Cannes hits the midway point, only a handful of films either in or out of competition have excited critics. And some big-name directors who were supposed to excite instead left their audiences racing for the exits.
Alejandro González Iñárritu, who rankled critics with his films 21 Grams and Babel (especially), has directed the best film shown so far at the festival. Biutiful stars Javier Bardem as a financially struggling, cancer-stricken father of two ensnared by his illness, a bipolar wife and his bleak day-to-day existence.
Former CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson has been hardly covert in her appearances at the Cannes Film Festival. In the Doug Liman film Fair Game, screening for the press on Thursday, she's played by Naomi Watts. But today, she's doing press for a documentary film in which she appears, Countdown to Zero.
more »
Though early in the festival, Mike Leigh's touching drama Another Year, looks poised to grab an award after it received the most positive reviews so far from any film in competition. It's his best work since 1996's Secrets and Lies.
more »
Enough with the desperate starlets trying to make a name for themselves on the Croisette in skimpy bathing suits -- chickens, really. The sexiest breakout star on the Riviera this year is a 101-year-old Portuguese man. Film-snob circles have deified Manoel de Oliveira for years, since he was an nonagenarian at least. For all you Hollywood power types looking to sign the next big thing, here's your cheat sheet on who is arguably the biggest story of Cannes thus far.
more »
We told you not long ago about Rubber, the Cannes title about a homicidal radial tire on the loose in the California desert. Here's another juicy morsel from this year's program to tide you over until something more palatable (or even more ridiculous than Rubber) is served on the Riviera.
more »
Screening out of competition, Woody Allen's latest film You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger added some welcome levity amid the festival's myriad screenings involving murder, hostage standoffs, self-immolation and suicide.
Screening out of competition at Cannes, Oliver Stone's Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps was shown to journalists this morning -- and yet again another gargantuan Hollywood movie gets a drubbing from the press. But hey, at least this film is timely and opened up an Oliver Stone lecture on economics.
After the self-indulgent and ludicrous Robin Hood, which screened out of competition, the real festival competition began with a healthy dose of zaftig T&A. Although the press gave actor/director Mathieu Amalric's English/French-language burlesque film Tournée (On Tour) a ho-hum reaction, they surely couldn't be caught sleeping through the myriad striptease scenes.
more »
The Cannes Film Festival officially opened today with the 10 a.m. press screening of Ridley Scott's nearly two-and-half-hour epic Robin Hood. The film, a sort of Robin Hood Begins, attempts to retell the familiar story of how Robin Hood (a chiseled Russell Crowe) and his Maid Marian (Cate Blanchett) became the archenemies of the pusillanimous and pugnacious British King John.
Between volcanic ash clouds and towering waves, the Cannes Film Festival this year has endured a succession of setbacks to its unparalleled glamour and beauty. And now this: Russell Crowe has taken to Twitter to shatter yet another Hollywood illusion as he prepares to promote his opening-night film Robin Hood. Speaking of which: Did you hear how much that movie cost?
A convalescing Ridley Scott will miss Wednesday's opening-night world premiere of Robin Hood at the Cannes Film Festival. "I recently underwent knee replacement surgery, and my recovery has been slower than I'd hoped," the director said today in a statement. "Truly, doctor's orders are the only thing that could keep me from being there." Scott added his blessing of Russell Crowe, Cate Blanchett, producer Brian Grazer and the rest of the Hood-ies in attendance, then reurned to developing his next nine films. [THR]
Noted auteur and indefatigable foot fetishist Quentin Tarantino has been named the head of the Venice Film Festival's competition jury, Variety reports. Expected films in the mix include Sofia Coppola's Somewhere, Julian Schnabel's Miral, and Monte Hellman's out-of-retirement Road to Nowhere, starring Dominique Swain and Shannyn Sossamon (!!!). All those filmmakers are rushing to add barefoot close-ups as we speak. [Variety]
The sold-out Tribeca Film Festival premiere of James Franco's documentary Saturday Night boasted at least two inconsistencies -- it screened on a Sunday afternoon in midtown Manhattan, some 70 blocks north of the fest's namesake neighborhood. But at least the film itself was unambiguous and even-handed. Mostly.
What do a kufi hat-wearing James Cromwell, Jeffrey Wells and thousands of Heineken bottles have in common? They were all present at the 2010 Tribeca Film Festival Awards Wrap Party last night. And while the name of the event was a bit misleading -- the main Tribeca awards were announced Thursday -- there was one piece of hardware handed out: the Heineken sponsored audience award, which went to the rock documentary Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage. Because if there's one thing everyone knows about New Yorkers, it's their fierce love of prog rock. After the jump, the top-ten audiences choices -- congrats to all the winners.
more »
FILM NEWS 