It's too rare that we get to bring the tunes around here, so Movieline is extra-pleased to debut three songs from the soundtrack to the SXSW premiere Daylight Savings — all featuring singer/songwriter (not to mention the film's leading man) Goh Nakamura.
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Talking about Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard’s savvy and surprising genre deconstruction Cabin in the Woods, the opening night film of SXSW 2012, is a tricky thing partly because nobody involved wants any part of the film spoiled for their opening weekend audience and also, more importantly, because those surprises really are best left discovered by virgin eyes. So rest assured: All spoilery plot details, character developments, casting choices, kills, and surprises that follow in this piece have been redacted for the preservation of discovery, leaving only all the vital bits of information up for discussion. Like, after filming in 2009 and being delayed for so long that star Chris Hemsworth is now kind of famous, is Cabin in the Woods actually any good?
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Each year SXSW plays host to a slate of risk-taking fare of all kinds, from true indie offerings to upcoming studio releases geared to a slightly more open crowd, and the 2012 film line-up features no shortage of movies poised to earn that precious film festival commodity: Positive buzz. But some projects have more at stake than others -- say, Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard's long-awaited Cabin in the Woods, Will Ferrell's Spanish-language comedy Casa de mi Padre, or the directorial debut of actor Matthew Lillard. On the eve of SXSW 2012 (which runs March 9-17 in Austin, Texas), check out the ten SXSW titles with the most to prove going into their festival debuts.
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Tribeca time already? Believe it: The 11th edition of the Manhattan-based film festival has announced the first half of its 2012 program, led in part by James Franco's General Hospital behind-the-scenes psychodrama (!), the loooonnnng-gestating lesbian-werewolf romance Jack and Diane (!!), a hipster-crisis apocalypse thriller (!!!) and a fairly awesome-sounding Val Kilmer/Harmony Korine collaboration (swoon... faint... thud) — all joined by nearly four dozen other dramatic and documentary selections in three categories. They will follow the April 18 opening-night world premiere of The Five-Year Engagement. Read on for the full Competition and Viewpoints selections, and keep an eye on Movieline for more about Tribeca 2012 as events warrant.
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Congrats to the Taviani Bros. (who?), the inveterate sibling filmmakers whose Shakespeare-in-prison semi-doc Caesar Must Die has claimed the top prize at this year's Berlinale. Stephanie Zacharek has more about the Golden Bear winner in her review from Berlin — along with more about Barbara, whose own helmer, Christian Petzold, won the festival's Best Director award. (Tabu and Sister nabbed hardware as well.) As Stephanie predicted, Caesar Must Die secured U.S. distribution in this week in Berlin and will be Stateside later this year; stay tuned to Movieline for details about how and when you can see it, and read on for the complete list of winners. Congrats to all!
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Poor Robert Pattinson: The weight of proving himself, in a movie that doesn’t have the words “Twilight” and “Saga” in the title, is shaping up to be heavier than a vampire’s curse. In last year’s Water for Elephants, he had a charming naivete, a seemingly natural shyness that was wholly inoffensive, if not exactly memorable. And as social schemer Georges Duroy in Bel Ami, playing here at the Berlinale out of competition on the festival’s next-to-last day, he works harder to redeem himself than any actor should have to: He applies a scowl from Column A with an eyebrow furrow from Column B to express displeasure; Smirk No. 4 denotes a moment of extreme hubris. The effect is like watching an athlete trying not to break a sweat – you might want to root for him, but there’s a part of you that just wants him to let it all out already.
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Today is the next-to-last day of competition screenings here at the Berlinale, which means people are speculating about a possible winner – to the extent that speculation is ever possible. This year’s jury is headed by Mike Leigh, and at dinner the other night some friends and I were playing the “WWMLL” – What Will Mike Leigh Like? – game.
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Portuguese director Miguel Gomes’s inventive, playful black-and-white Tabu — part drama, part romance, part malaria-induced fever dream — has turned out to be a favorite among critics at the Berlinale this week, alongside Christian Petzold’s Barbara, and it’s not hard to see why. Tabu was one of the few movies here to be heralded by a ripple of excitement — it seemed to be the one competition film everyone was curious to see. In the movie’s first section — despite an intriguing reference to a “sad and melancholic crocodile” — I feared the buzz would amount to nothing. And what if this crocodile never actually appeared? I wasn’t leaving without my crocodile, I decided, and luckily, I wasn’t disappointed.
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Billy Bob Thornton’s Jayne Mansfield’s Car, screening in competition here at the Berlinale, is a sprawl of a movie, wonderful in some small, intimate ways but confounding when you step back to look at the bigger picture.
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No one, as far as I know, has come to the Berlinale in search of Gillian Anderson, the strawberry-blonde vixen who set millions of hearts aflutter -- and not just male ones -- with her role in the supernaturally beloved ’90s show The X-Files. But Anderson has surprised those of us who love her by showing up -- in small roles, but still -- in two films here, James Marsh’s Shadow Dancer and Ursula Meier’s Sister. In Shadow Dancer, a thriller set in early-‘90s Belfast, she’s a British secret-service officer who squares off against a colleague (played by Clive Owen). In Sister, she’s the well-heeled patron of a tony Swiss ski resort -- and a mom -- who befriends a young thief and rapscallion who barely knows what it means to be a child.
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Nothing says “international film festival” like a 9 a.m. goat flaying, as I was reminded at Sunday morning’s screening of Spiros Stathoulopoulos’s Metéora, which is being shown here in competition. Though I wasn’t too happy about the onscreen animal suffering -- the actual slaughter of the poor beast may have been simulated, but I’m not sure -- I did find the picture bewitching in other ways.
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There were many happy faces among critics on Saturday, the third day of the Berlinale. Because despite what I wrote yesterday about the criticism the festival has faced in recent years, particularly in terms of the films chosen for competition, nearly everyone I’ve spoken to thinks this year’s festival is off to a promising start. Of the six competition films that have been screened so far, not one has set any of my random sampling of critic friends howling with derision, or walking around wearing a perpetual scowly-frowny face.
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The Berlinale is the baked potato of European film festivals, and I don’t mean that as an insult, or even a backhanded compliment. A few months back, I was asked by David Hudson, of the superb movie-resource website Mubi, to offer a few observations about the Berlinale, which I’ve been attending since 2008. That year and every year since, the Berlinale has paid my way to participate in the Talent Press arm of the Talent Campus: Along with three other mentors, I coach young critics from all over the world (there are eight participants every year) as they cover the festival through assignments they’re given each day. While I’m here, I also see as many movies as I can and write about them. Hudson was putting together a sampling of opinions from festival attendees from all over the world, in preparation for a daylong symposium that was held by the German Film Critics Association in October. One of the issues the symposium hoped to address was the festival’s diminishing reputation: In recent years, the German and international press hasn’t exactly showered the festival with kindness. (Shane Danielsen’s Indiewire report from last year was particularly damning, if highly entertaining, though I disagree with him about the smell of the venues.)
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Film festivals have emerged as one of the best, most fertile grounds for discovering new voices in genre filmmaking, so much so that just about every fest these days has a midnight sidebar for edgier, darker fare. Among the just-announced midnight selections at this year's SXSW Film Festival (held March 9-17 in Austin, TX): Tales of killer lady bartenders, faceless spooks, space-traveling Nazis, a deadly virus, VHS tapes, and the most evil kind of nightmare-inspiring villain imaginable, feral children. (Shudder.) Let's rundown the freakiest-sounding offerings of the SXSW Midnight slate!
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SXSW routinely boasts the most varied and neverending film line-up of the year, and the just-announced 2012 behemoth of a roster is no exception. So let's make it a wee bit easier to take in, shall we? After the jump find the buzzworthiest titles among the 100+ features and documentaries debuting this March in Austin, from major upcoming studio peeks (21 Jump Street) to docs (a new Jessica Yu!) and much smaller (but potentially completely awesome) fare.
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