James Franco has been dabbling in directing for a while now at New York University's film school, where he has acknowledged the influence of poetry on his early short work. Not just any poetry, though -- we're talking about Anthony Hecht's blisteringly homoerotic piece The Feast of Stephen, Franco's adaptation of which screened here at CineVegas. And when it comes to nailing the tone, vitality and flopping penises of his source material, the fledgling filmmaker is unquestionably in a league of his own. Let's break down the festival's gayest film (with spoilers!) after the jump.
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The CineVegas Film Festival concluded a raucous weekend of screenings and events Sunday evening, hosting an awards ceremony to honor Jon Voight, Willem Dafoe, the Kuchar Brothers and this year's jury prize winners. Voight seemed especially touched by his recognition as this year's Marquee Award honoree, a lifetime achievement prize accompanied by the shiniest Tiffany bowl you'll ever see and 10 minutes' worth of remarks about his late friend and peer, the director Hal Ashby.
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You could quantify the ongoing poker boom in any number of ways, from the ratings surge for the World Series of Poker to the billion-dollar industry orbiting the explosion of Texas Hold 'Em to card shark Annie Duke's recent second-place finish on Celebrity Apprentice. But the phenomenon hit hardest for me Thursday night at CineVegas, where the red carpet for the terrific documentary All In: The Poker Movie drew more obsessive fans than any of the more conventionally star-studded events here to date. Sure, it's Vegas, and we were a few yards removed from the Palms's poker room. Still, when you can't even conduct an interview with two-time WSOP champion and all-around gambling celebrity Howard Lederer without swatting away fans, that's an eye-opener.
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The 2009 CineVegas Film Festival kicked off Wednesday with the world premiere of St. John of Las Vegas, filmmaker Hue Rhodes's quirk-addled feature debut. A low-key (for Vegas, anyway) red carpet preceded the screening, where leading man Steve Buscemi was a no-show, co-star Sarah Silverman rocked cargo pants and a backpack, and we joined Holly Madison of all people on a stroll down art-house memory lane. And -- bonus -- we awoke with all our teeth! A full recap follows the jump.
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Greetings from fabulous Las Vegas, where the sweet smell of cash and Galafiankis lingers in the desert air and Movieline has established base camp for the 11th annual CineVegas Film Festival.
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After glamming it up last year with the Angelina Jolie thriller Wanted, the Los Angeles Film Festival has downsized its opening-night gala premiere for 2009: Paper Man, an undistributed indie featuring Jeff Daniels and Ryan Reynolds as the imaginary superhero "who's lived inside his head since second grade." And it gets better!
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Two of the less well-received films at Cannes this year were Kinatay, Brillante Mendoza's driving-and-dismemberment saga, and Spring Fever, Lou Ye's extended Chinese drama. So of course they won big awards! Mendoza's Best Director prize and Spring Fever's Best Screenplay award shocked even the most experienced Cannes observer, and Variety claimed that the jury that produced those winners was riven with discontent.
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Word just over the transom reports that the Los Angeles Film Festival will host the US premiere of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen on June 22. It makes the festival two-for-two as the launching pad for Michael Bay's explodey toy-adaptation epics, promising the year's single biggest concentration of star power and massive robot statues on the streets of Westwood. And the best part: You can get tickets.
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Against the backdrop of one of the most serious economic crises the world has ever known, the 62nd annual Cannes Film Festival has come to a close on Sunday. This year's festival was slated to be more austere than in year's past, and that prediction proved true. There were fewer journalists -- a third less by some estimates -- and a far smaller Hollywood presence: No Vanity Fair party, fewer and smaller parties, and far fewer distributors in the marché.
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As the Cannes Film Festival winds down amidst some of the hottest weather yet, it couldn't be a better time to look at the slate of contenders and their wholly subjective odds of winning the prestigious Palme d'Or.
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Much in the style of his previous work like The Adventures of Baron Munchausen and The Fisher King, Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus screened for the press this morning. While the film fails to overwhelm, the standout performances by Tom Waits and Christopher Plummer make it an exceptionally fun ride.
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No shortage of Inglourious Basterds news has made the rounds since yesterday's Cannes premiere, but one nugget prompted some particularly interesting speculation from Quentin Tarantino: How close did his new WWII epic come to being scuttled entirely? That fate was nearer than the filmmaker expected at this time last year (or so he said Wednesday), at least until an unlikely hero came to his rescue.
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Taking a well-deserved break from the Spider-Man franchise, director Sam Raimi screened his new horror flick Drag Me to Hell last night at the Cannes Film Festival. Shown here at this morning's press conference, where he had some fun with the festival's official name tags, Raimi joked further -- maybe -- about another bloody fest sensation making the rounds this week.
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While Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds takes a look at how World War II could have turned out if his characters had actually existed, wildly inventive Austrian auteur Michael Haneke's brilliant The White Ribbon takes a look at how World War I saved a German town from self-destruction.
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· Almost a full day after Ann Curry supplanted Antichrist as the Croisette's must-see horror show, dispatches from Cannes continue to summon little interest in anything but Inglorious Basterds. Among them are a fistful of clips thrust forth by Harvey Weinstein and Quentin Tarantino like so many bloody Nazi scalps; you'll find three here, and a new one -- with Tarantino introduction direct from the Riviera -- after the jump.
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