THE CANNES AFTERGLOW

The Cannes Film Festival (CFF) wrapped 23 May. Scroll down for my post of the top winners, 24 May. Since then, there have been further discussions about them.

The world-wide economic slowdown impacted Cannes this year. There were far fewer yachts, stars, press, and attendees. In the U.S., film critics are considered a luxury, and many newspapers have cut then from their staff. That is not true in Europe. For example, a newspaper in France, even though it may be experiencing a financial slowdown, will not ever think of cutting its film critic.

Biggest disappointment among the films in competition was Ang Lee's, TAKING WOODSTOCK. John Powers says the movie is “dinky”. Others made comments such as, “. . . highly anticipated, yet underwhelming.” Powers feels it is not very good cinematically, and probably should not have been in the Festival. He says it is fun to watch, and thinks Cannes accepted it because the Festival turned down BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN (2006). Judging by the Jury picks, this could have been the Festival for Lee’s LUST, CAUTION (2007).

The biggest surprise about a film that did not get an award at the Festival is Jane Campion's BRIGHT STAR. It received great reviews by critics viewing the film at the Festival. Apparently, it did not impress the Jury. Powers dubbed this years Cannes Festival, a Festival of Violence and Extremes.

The most deliberately provocative movie is Lars von Trier’s ANTICHRIST. Entertainment Weekly’s critic pulled no punches when he wrote, “Scenes of sexual mutilation in this gruesome story of a couple in [marital] hell elicited involuntary groans and then boos.” Most of the other critics left out “involuntary,” adding jeers, foot pounding, and many leaving the theater.

It has been widely reported that Trier suffered a bout of deep depression before embarking on this film. Despite the huge outcry against the film, Austrian Charlotte Gainsbourg won Best Actress for her role.

There was much buzz about Heath Ledger’s final performance in Terry Gilliam’s THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS, which screened out of competition. As usual, the critics didn’t get the film at all. They seldom get a Gilliam movie, but many die-hard fans do. When Ledger died about halfway through the filming, the role was recast to have Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell portray "physically transformed versions" of Tony.

No one else has speculated on this but I am going to. Could the Joker role followed by the mysterious stranger Tony in this “the Devil will have his due, if I don’t undo my mistakes” movie, coupled with Ledger’s recent divorce, and drug use, all have united to seal Ledger’s fate? It is the Doctor’s daughter, Valentina, who is in peril because of what her father has done, and Ledger had a young daughter. Just speculating.

Most critics were kind to Pedro Almodóvar’s latest with Penélope Cruz, BROKEN EMBRACES, praising her performance, but lukewarm to the movie. Poor Penélope had a bad cold, or flu, and missed most of the festivities.

Almodóvar and Lee are losing their mojo, according to the majority of the critics. Perhaps, both need to take a break to unwind and recharge.

On the other hand, critics and viewers generally praised Quentin Tarantino’s INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS, which is the name of a gang slaughtering Nazis. Powers calls it an amazing film because it takes us back to the 1960s WW II Nazi movies, with glimpses reminding one of the TV show, Hogan’s Heroes, but BASTERDS is 100 times more violent. Brad Pitt stars, but Australian Christopher Waltz as a "Jew hunter" in Nazi Germany, won Best Actor for the role, stealing Pitt’s thunder.


Michael Haneke ***** Christopher Waltz ***** Charlotte Gainsbourg

As to the winner, award-winning Austrian writer/director Michael Haneke's black and white drama, THE WHITE RIBBON (Das Weisse Band, Austria), basically little negative has been written about this stark film, which won both the FIPRESCI Prize and the Golden Palm. In an over-baring patriarchal society, strange and brutal things happen at a rural school in northern 1913 Germany just prior to WW I, which seem to be ritual punishments. How will this affect the school system, and will what happens at school and in the community sew the seeds for fascism?

Haneke's THE PIANO TEACHER (La pianiste, 2001) vaulted him onto the world cinema scene. That award-winner was followed by another critically acclaimed movie, HIDDEN (Caché, 2005), winning the FIPRESCI Prize, and a Best Director for Haneke.

At the Munich Film Festival on 3 July, Haneke will be honored by his peers with the CineMerit Award. Munich Festival kicks off on 26 June and runs until 4 July. I look for THE WHITE RIBBON to do extremely well in Munich, the beautiful city with a sinister past.

To help you wrap the afterglow of Cannes, here are some great links:
1. John Powers, "On the Ground at Cannes, " Part I - Fresh Air, PBS, Tuesday, 26 May.
2. John Powers, "On the Ground at Cannes, " Part II - Fresh Air, PBS, Wednesday, 27 May.
3. “Violence Reaps Rewards at Cannes Festival,” Manohla Dargis, The New York Times, 25 May.
4. ”The Ballyhooed, the Magical and All that Mutilation: Cannes ‘09 Winds Down,“ Eric Kohn, Indiwire, 24 May [The link is wrong, but works as 06].

I can hardly wait for next year.

Here Comes Cannes

The world-renown Cannes Film Festival will open in Cannes, France, 13 May, and run through 24 May 2009, 16 days away at the time of this post. This year is the 62nd edition. Gilles Jacob is president.

Significant Festival history will be made beginning on opening day with the computer-generated animated movie UP (Disney-Pixar, directed by Peter Docter), opening the Festival with its international premiere. This is the first time an animated movie has opened the Cannes Festival, and UP is not just any animated movie, it is in digital 3-D. The top prize is the Golden Palm (Palm d'Or). It could make more Festival history if UP won it, but UP is screening out of competition. The movie is scheduled to release in the U.S. 29 May.

French actress Isabelle Huppert is the jury president at this year's Festival. Only three other women have helmed the panel in the six decades of the Festival. The other women so honored: Liv Ullmann, Jeanne Moreau and Françoise Sagan.

The director lineup in the main competition of 20 strong films will include directors Quentin Tarantino (INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS), Ang Lee (TALKING WOODSTOCK), Pedro Almodovar (BROKEN EMBRACES), Jane Campion (BRIGHT STAR) [won as director of THE PIANO, the first woman to win the Golden Palm for directing], Ken Loach (LOOKING FOR ERIC), and Lars von Trier (ANTICHRIST).

Asian films are strong this year. Chinese movies joining Ang Lee's, are Hong Kong director Johnny To's VENGENCE, Park Chan-wook's (THIRST), and Ye Lou's and SPRING FEVER.

One of the Festivals' special screenings will be for HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR by French director Alain Resnais, one of the outstanding French New Wave directors. This year, the Festival commemorates the 50-year anniversary of the film's first screening at Cannes, and Resnais (86) brings his latest film, WILD GRASSES, to Cannes. Two of his fellow countrymen will join him to represent France, Jacques Audiard (A PROPHET) and Xavier Giannoli (IN THE BEGINNING).

Another showcase will be the last film performance of Heath Ledger in the Terry Gilliam fantasy THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS. Ledger died mid-shoot last year and his part was completed by Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell. Ledger was awarded a posthumous Oscar® this year for his supporting-actor performance as The Joker in THE DARK KNIGHT.

One of the biggest galas associated with the festival, is actually a benefit gala held outside the main Festival, but in conjunction with it - - the annual European fundraiser sponsored by the American Foundation for AIDS Research (AmFAR). American actress Sharon Stone will host it again on 21 May. Former U.S. President Bill Clinton and the likes of Harvey Weinstein, Carine Roitfeld, Michelle Yeoh and Donatella Versace will be among 800 personalities attending.

This year for the first time, the benefit gala will be held at a Riviera palace, the Eden Roc, at Cap d'Antibes. Singer Annie Lennox will give a special performance. Last year's event raised $10 million.

The closing night film is Dutch-born, now French director, Jan Kounen's COCO CHANEL & IGOR STRAVINSKY, screening out of competition. I shall be following the Festival from now until it closes 24 May.

SLUMDOG Tops Golden Globes 2009

SLUMDOG is Top Dog at Globes


SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE, the Hollywood Bollywood-inspired fantasy movie filmed in Mumbai, India, received four Golden Globes at the Hollywood Foreign Press Association's (HFPA) Golden Globes Gala Sunday night. Not only did SLUMDOG win the Best Motion Picture Award, drama, the director (Danny Boyle), screenwriter (Simon Boufoy), and musical score composer (A.R. Rahman), all took home a Globe.

This is what I wrote about SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE in my post on this blog 12/12/2008, exactly one month before the Golden Globes Gala, in regards to the nominations: "In addition, the 'little movie that might,' SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE, received a best picture (drama) nomination, and the director Danny Boyle received a best director nomination. SLUMDOG also received a best original score nomination for composer A. R. Rahman. This movie has been picked up by Fox Searchlight. Pay attention to it."

SLUMDOG could be the mighty little independent movie in the Oscar race this year. Think LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE, JUNO, etc. SLUMDOG bested the heavyweight nominees THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJIMIN BUTTON (Brad Pitt), FROST/NIXON (directed by Ron Howard), REVOLUTIONARY ROAD (Winslet and DeCaprio), and THE READER (Winslet, again).

BENJAMIN BUTTON, FROST/NIXON and DOUBT all tied with five nominations, but went home sans statuette. So did actress Meryl Streep, having been nominated for best actress in DOUBT (drama) and MAMA MIA! (musical/comedy). However, there were delights with some of the other winners such as actress Kate Winslet. Nominated five times before in the acting category she had won nothing, and this year she hit a double. She received Globes in the drama category for best supporting actress as a Nazi concentration camp guard in THE READER, and the best actress for REVOLUTIONARY ROAD, the latter directed by her husband Sam Mendes.

Two other big winners for the evening were actors Collin Farrell and Mickey Rourke. Farrell won best actor, musical/comedy, for his portrayal of a hit man in the weakly distributed, IN BRUGES. It is available now on DVD. I saw it and highly recommend it.

Rourke, who makes a spectacular comeback in the comeback drama THE WRESTLER, won best actor, drama. I was not surprised that Rourke knocked out the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio (Revolutionary Road), Frank Langella (Frost / Nixon), Sean Penn (Milk), and Brad Pitt (The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button). In the before-mentioned post I wrote, "However, the one to watch in this category is Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler)."

Director Woody Allen, in my humble opinion, richly deserves VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA'S win as best musical/comedy motion picture, while the big surprise of the evening was British actress Sally Hawkins' win as best actress, musical/comedy, for her Pollyanna-like role in HAPPY-GO-LUCKY, directed by Mike Leigh.

The win by the animated movie from Israel, WALTZ WITH BASHIR, is an odd choice for Best Foreign Language Film, but the HFPA may not be out in left field about this award-winning animated movie.

The late actor Heath Ledger was honored posthumously for the Joker in THE DARK KNIGHT. There is speculation about an Oscar repeat for Ledger. Only one actor has won a posthumous best-actor Oscar, and that is Peter Finch for NETWORK, 1976.

Of, course, I can't forget Bruce "The Boss" Springsteen who won the best song in a motion picture for THE WRESTLER'S "The Wrestler".

Congratulations to director / producer Stephen Spielberg, this year's recipient of the prestigious Cecil B. DeMille Award! Now, the big question is, "Are the winners of the Gold Globe Awards precursors of the upcoming Oscars?"

Motion Picture Winners (Sunday, 11 January 2009)

Best Motion Picture - Drama: SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE
Best Motion Picture - Musical/Comedy: VICKY CRISTINA BARCELONA
Best Animated Feature: WALL-E
Best Foreign Language Film: WALTZ WITH BASHIR, Israel, Animated

Best Performance by an Actress - Drama: KATE WINSLET (Revolutionary Road)
Best Performance by an Actor - Drama: MICKEY ROURKE
Best Performance by an Actress - Musical/Comedy: SALLY HAWKINS (Happy-Go-Lucky)
Best Performance by an Anctor - Musical/Comedy: COLIN FARRELL (IN BRUGES)
Best Performance by an Actress in a supporting role: KATE WINSLET (The Reader)
Best Performance by an Actor in a supporting role: HEATH LEDGER (The Dark Knight)

Best Director - Motion Picture: DANNY BOYLE (Slumdog Millionaire).
Best Screenplay - Motion Picture: SIMON BEAUFOY (Slumdog Millionaire).
Best Original Musical Score - Motion Picture: SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE, Composed by A. R. Rahman.
Best Original Song - Motion Picture: THE WRESTLER, Music & Lyrics by: Bruce Springsteen.

To see all the winners and nominees for motion pictures and television CLICK.

Snubs at 80th Academy Awards®

There was one glaring omission during the 80th Academy Awards® presentation show Sunday night. Whoopi Goldberg was not included in the montage of former hosts of the Academy Awards.

The Oscar®-winning actress (GHOST, 1990) hosted the Awards in 1994, 1996, 1999 and 2002. Plus, she has two nominations, including one for THE COLOR PURPLE.

She was consoled yesterday by her The View television co-hosts, Barbara Walters, Joy Behar, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, and Sherri Shepherd. Will AMPAS® offer an explanation?

The Academy did not give an explanation for the omission of actor Brad Renfro (THE CLIENT) in the Academy Awards tribute to 43 Hollywood figures who died this past year. Renfro died in January of a morphine overdose, but they did include Heath Ledger, who died from an overdose of prescription drugs one week later.

Speculation is rife that Renfro was omitted because his drug of choice was morphine, or because he was not considered as big a star as Ledger. Leslie Unger, Academy spokeswoman, offered only that they could not include everyone.

Oscar-nominated Roy Scheider (JAWS) was not included, but it was explained that Scheider's death, on 10 February, fell outside the time frame of the tribute video, which covered 1 February 2007 to 31 January 2008. No mention was made as to whether or not Scheider would be included next year.