After opening up at the Cannes Film Festival this past May (where James felt Kirsten Dunst's wigs were "far better-developed than her character") to a slew of boos from the French crowd, Marie Antoinette (writer-director Sofia Coppola's follow-up to the critically acclaimed Lost in Translation) finally hit the streets of the Big Apple on Friday as part of the New York Film Festival. Would Coppola, Dunst and the gang find more success here in the States? Well, Netscape's Karina Longworth loved the film so much after two viewings, she's even thinking about checking it out for a third time. And she's not alone. According to The IFC Blog, "There's no way around it -- [the film] just looks so good," while Aaron from Out of Focus felt Antoinette "will be unfortunately and unfairly criticized as being not much more than anachronistic eye candy."
Karina attended the screening this past Friday and managed to record the press conference that followed where Coppola, Dunst and Schwartzman had a chance to defend their film. Marie Antoinette hits theaters October 20. Enjoy!
Not many directors could take a film built around the theme of death and make it as funny, thoughtful, and deeply meaningful as Pedro Almodóvar has with Volver, now officially Spain's nominee for the Oscar for Best Foreign Picture. The film revolves around three generations of women: Raimunda (Penélope Cruz) and her daughter Paula (Yohana Cobo) live with Raimunda's husband, an unemployed laborer who spends his spare time checking out his daughter's blossoming body. Raimunda's sister, Sole (Lola Dueñas) supports herself by running an unlicensed beauty shop out of her apartment. As we meet Raimunda, Sole and Paula, they are at the cemetery cleaning the graves of Raimunda and Sole's parents, who died in a fire.
In La Mancha, where Raimunda's parents lived, the east wind blows incessantly, driving people to the brink of insanity. This is a superstitious culture, where the dead are respected, graves are kept clean and tombstones well-polished, and the dead occasionally walk among the living -- especially if they have unfinished business. When Raimunda and Sole go to visit their elderly aunt, they are surprised to find that she refers to their dead mother, Irene, as though she has just seen her. It doesn't take long for Abuela Irene (Carmen Maura) to appear to Sole and Paula, though she conceals her presence from Raimunda. It is with Raimunda, and with Raimunda and Sole's friend Agustina (Blanca Portillo) that Abuela Irene has unfinished business to resolve.
The foreign-language Oscar race is heating up, as a good deal of high-profile names are being added to the list of contenders. Earlier Kevin reported that Guillermo Del Toro's Pan's Labrynthis Mexico's submission, and Kim has pointed out that other familiar names like Deepa Mehta and Ari Kuarismaki plus the much buzzed-about The Lives of Others are all up for nominations, as well. The best odds of a guaranteed spot in the noms, however, has to be Volver, which has just been announced as Spain's official entry. This was a bit of a surprise considering Pedro Almodóvar's past couple films were not submitted by Spain (Talk to Her ended up being nominated for ,and winning, the Best Original Screenplay award), but seeing as the Academy loves him (he also won the foreign-language Oscar for All About My Mother), the country must have realized it is in their favor to let the filmmaker represent them.
Not only will Volvercertainly be nominated, I figure it also has the best chance to win. Of course, the Academy could also give another director a shot this time around. No matter who gets the prize, this category is going to be a lot more interesting (and better filled) in 2007 than it was in 2006.
There are few surprises in the initial slate of submissions for Best Foreign Picture. Last year's submissions were fraught with controversy, as Austria's French-language entry, Caché was deemed ineligible by the Academy along with Italy's entry, Private, which was dinged for featuring Arabic and Hebrew but no Italian. This year a rule change has gone into effect that allows foreign picture submissions to feature any combination of languages (not just the dominant language of the submitting country) so long as the primary language is not English.
Canada's submission, the first to take advantage of the new rule, is Deepa Mehta's Water, a Hindi-language film starring Canadian-born actress Lisa Ray. Mehta, though born in India, is herself a Canadian resident. Water was the third in Mehta's controversial and political "elements" trilogy that started with Earth and Fire, and features a story centered around the plight of widows in India, who are often relegated to life of poverty. The tale of what Mehta went through just to make this film could be a movie in and of itself. Initially set to film in India, the set was shut down after numerous death threats when the Indian government determined it could not ensure Mehta's safety, and didn't start filming again for over three years.
Hollywood Elsewhere's Jeffrey Wells, who hates Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette with a passion, has an interesting link up this morning to a fascinating Camille Paglia piece on how Marie Antoinette is back in vogue these days, with a PBS documentary (with subtitles, no less!) set to air September 25, three books in the last year alone -- two works of historical fiction, The Hidden Diary of Marie Antoinette by Carolly Erickson and Abundance: A Novel of Marie Antoinette, by Seta Jeter Naslund, plus a scholarly work titled Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution, by Caroline Weber. All this, of course, leads up to Coppola's exploration of "teenagers in the French court," Marie Antoinette, starring Kirsten Dunst as the young queen, which opens October 20.
I haven't yet seen the film (Cinematical's James Rocchi reviewed it during Cannes), but I'm intrigued by both the resurgence of scholarly interest in Marie Antoinette as a historical figur and how that interest might reflect our own current state of political affairs, as well as the virulence of the backlash against the film (which reportedly was booed at Cannes) by some critics. The film is currently sitting at 63% on the Rotten Tomato meter, but that could change as the film screens more widely. Leading up to finally seeing Coppola's take on the queen, and Kirsten Dunst's performance in the lead role, I'm now determined to watch the documentary next week to school myself a bit on the historical side of things before seeing the fictional view. It will be interesting to see how audiences take the film. Once the film opens, we'll look to Cinematical readers to share their views of the film. If you've already seen it at a fest, though, feel free to weigh in now. Is is as bad as Wells seems to think? Or has Coppola made deliberately shallow film in order to reflect our own shallowness?
Hot off its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival and its North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, Magnolia Pictures has nabbed the English-language rights to Johnny To's action thriller, Exiled. As part of a three-way pact (with Optimum Releasing for UK rights and Madman Entertainment for rights in Australia and New Zealand), pic marks the second acquisition for the three companies, after teaming up to snag The Host this past May at Cannes, where Magnolia also picked up the genre title Severance.
Set in Hong Kong's underworld and modeled after To's 1999 hit The Mission, Exiled packed its cast with folks like Roy Cheung, Francis Ng, Anthony Wong and Simon Yam. Says Magnolia's President Eamonn Bowles, "A lot of people thinking that the Hong Kong gangster film ran its course in the nineties are going to be pleasantly surprised by the freshness and innovation of Exiled. Now comes the more (or less) important question: How long before an American filmmaker decides to orchestrate a remake?
There's nothing like the moment of anticipation before you've seen the half-baked, crucially compromised or mortally flawed film in question. Still, when given the choice between summer's poorly animated CGI beasts and fall's Oscar-pimping cat-tearing* among our sweatier over-actors and over-actresses, you don't know which season to worry about more.
Despite the Venice Film Festival's chilly response to The Fountain, I'm going to be waiting for it. The film festival audiences were right about The DaVinci Code, but they're not right about everything. I'm curious why The Black Dahlia (Brian De Palma's new film) didn't get booed, despite its rep as a chestnut-stuffed Joss Harnett-basted turkey. Is it because of a lingering tolerance in Italy for badly-written giallos?
Chinese filmmaker Lou Ye did a bad, bad thing. He showed his movie Summer Palace at Cannes earlier this year, and he did so without permission from the Chinese government. Now the director is not permitted to make another film in his home country for five years. Sure, for some filmmakers (like Terrence Malick and the late Stanley Kubrick, were he alive), this wouldn't be that horrible a punishment, except that the whole consequence part includes the government's confiscation of the film and seizing of any income it has generated. Lou Ye has already been the victim of a filmmaking ban; he made Suzhou River without the authorization to do so in 2000 and then couldn't make another film for two years. The producer of Summer Palace, An Nai, has also been put on a five-year suspension.
Summer Palace is a sexually explicit film set in 1989 amidst that year's pro-democracy demonstrations, which ended with the infamous Tiananmen Square massacre. And, according to Lou, it is somewhat autobiographical. Now, while you may be happy to not be living in a communist country, like Lou Ye, surely there are some directors out there that you wish could be given such a ban. My pick: Shawn Levy.
At that time, Kelly was apparently re-editing the film "on his own terms" after critics at Cannes bashed the poor thing to pieces. Well, now Kelly is speaking out -- and he's pissed. According to Female First via Hotdog Magazine, the Donnie Darko (which, while we're on the subject, I absolutely hated) director is upset that distributors want to cut one hour of footage from Southland Tales before releasing it. Says Kelly, "Maybe it will [be released], but potentially it could be shown with almost an hour of it missing. I don't quite know what that film is. It was intended to be this epic LA story. I just don't know if I have the energy anymore." Will it hit theaters? Will it go straight to DVD? Will Kelly realize that audiences may not be down for an epic 3-hour LA story? The saga continues ...
UPDATE: Apparently, the above quote from Kelly was old and taken out of context. According to the director himself via a recent announcement on his MySpace page, "As many of you know, the film has been bought by Sony and I have been finishing A SHORTER cut of Southland Tales under their supervision. It has been a great experience and I feel like the film is now in better shape than ever. The film will absolutely be released in theaters, and Sony is still deciding on an appropriate release date and strategy."
IFC Films and The Weinstein Co. have teamed up again (last time was for Wordplay) to distribute the French war movie Indigènesin the U.S., where it will be known as Days of Glory. The WWII-set film tells the story of North African soldiers fighting in the French army against the Nazis, focusing specifically on four men played by Jamel Debbouze, Samy Naceri, Roschdy Zem and Sami Bouajila. The ensemble cast collectively won best actor honors at this year's Cannes Film Festival.
American moviegoers (me, especially) should be attracted to the film by Debbouse, my favorite one-handed actor, who is best known here for his role in Amelie, in which he played the handicapped grocery delivery boy, Lucien. He also appeared in Spike Lee'sShe Hate Me. Or, there's always the attraction of the war genre, which never gets old. Jay Weissberg at Variety points out in his review the comparison between this film and Glory, though, in that they both focus on peoples dealing with being treated as second-class soldiers rather than on action-packed battle scenes. Why were the North Africans being treated this way? They fought for the freedom of a country they've never seen and that was itself ruling over their own country. Obviously their allegiances were often questioned.
The release date hasn't been set but is expected to be sometime in late 2006. The film, which also won the François Chalis Award at Cannes (for "best film that captures life"), will get its North American premiere at Toronto next month.
Last month I got pretty excited about seeing Jindabyne, the new film from Australian director Ray Lawrence (Lantana), which premiered earlier this year at Cannes. On a few sites around the internet, its release date was listed as July 20, but it turned out that the date was only for distribution Down Under. At the time, I couldn't even get a response from producer April Films about when or how it would be brought to the U.S. Now, though, it has been announced that Sony Classics will be releasing the title here some time in the spring of 2007. For those who can't wait until then, it will also be screening at the Toronto International Film Festival.
The film tells the story of four men who discover a body while on a fishing trip, an incident which consumes their lives. If the plot sounds a little familiar, that's because it's based on a short story by Raymond Carver, which was also adapted as part of Robert Altman'sShort Cuts (the part with Huey Lewis' penis). This version stars Gabriel Byrne and Laura Linney, whose talent seems to be deteriorating from film to film, and shows promise of being a terrific psychological drama (watch the trailer). It's already a big hit in its homeland and has a strong rating on the IMDb.
Hopefully Sony will have a more specific release date soon.
Paramount digs murder and the mob after acquiring an untitled action drama, in which they've brought on Max Makowski (who took the Sundance and Cannes scene by storm with his crime thriller, One Last Dance) to serve as director. Written by Dave Callaham, the noir-style pic is said to revolve around the murder of a mob boss and the current and former bodyguards who look to avenge his death.
While camping over the weekend, the group I was with decided to play one of those board games where you ask a question and then, based on the answers, one person has to guess who said what. One of the questions was, "In your opinion, what's the worst way a person can die?" Lovely game, huh? Especially when you're in the middle of the woods and just recently watchedThe Blair Witch Project for the umpteenth time.
Being the creative genius that I am, I believe I came up with an elaborate answer that involved some sort of adult-sized shredder. Damn, would that suck. Ever since 9/11, our society has been plagued by the 'what ifs'. What if it happens again? What if they bomb a train, a plain, a bus, a building or a school? What if they use toxic gas? What if they pollute our water? Each and every single day, we're forced to walk around with the belief that, at some point in the near future, all of our worst fears will come true ... again.
The following films all examine the fear of death, placing their characters in situations where tough choices need to be made ... and fast. Now, I don't think we have to worry about a monster rising out of a lake, destroying the nearest town. Yet, a dirty bomb going off in the middle of Los Angeles, no matter how it plays out on screen, is still a very real threat. What are your worst fears? Welcome to this week's Trailer Park:
While I'm sure most of you are die hard Justin Timberlake fans and refuse to hear anything bad about the singer-turned-actor, so far all of the films he has starred in have one thing in common -- no theatrical release. After premiering at Sundance to lukewarm reviews, Alpha Dog was supposed to debut at some point this past spring, but with the controversy surrounding the film's plot and differing opinions regarding its release schedule, there's a good chance we won't see this puppy hit theaters until winter.
Ah, and then there's Richard Kelly's Southland Tales. In the pic, Timberlake plays an Iraq war veteran who narrates through the scope of his machine gun. After critics at Cannes went all Brown Bunny on this sucker, calling it a "sloppy mess" and a "major disappointment," Kelly was forced back into the editing room to try and find some way to salvage the film. Recently, Sony Pictures acquired all American theatrical and home video distribution rights with hopes to debut it sometime next year ... if that ever happens.
Okay, so that's Timberlake's second and third film -- what about his first? Perhaps you'll remember way back in September 2005 when Edison (later changed to Edison Force) closed the Toronto Film Festival. Pic, which featured a nice-looking cast of Kevin Spacey, Morgan Freeman, Dylan Mcdermott and, our hero, Justin Timberlake was, like Alpha Dog, supposed to hit theaters this past spring. However, we now have word that, due to extremely negative reviews, Edison Force is heading straight to DVD. This leads to an interesting question: Does a Justin Timberlake curse really exist? If so, what does this mean for the upcoming Black Snake Moan and Shrek the Third, both of which feature Timberlake? Will something go wrong? Probably. We'll keep an eye out and let you know as soon the curse strikes again.
Shanghai Dreams, directed by "Emerging Master" Wang Xiaoshuai, centers on 19-year-old Qinghong (Gao Yuan-yuan), who lives in the rural province of Ghizhou with her parents and younger brother. Qinghong's parents came to this poor region at the behest of the Communist Chinese government, which encouraged workers to leave the cities in order to settle in, and build up, the poorer regions. They were promised a better life, and instead have had a decade or more of poverty, factory work, and dismal rural living conditions. Qinghong's father, who was initially optimistic and happy to serve China by making the move, has in the ensuing decade grown angry and bitter, blaming his wife for talking him into leaving Shanghai. Qinghong's parents, and the other adults who came to this remote village with them, still think of themselves as being "from Shanghai", to differentiate themselves socially from the locals. The parents dream longingly of the day they will return to Shaghai, while their children have grown up in this place and consider themselves locals, thus adding an interesting layer of conflict to the t ypical teenager-parentual unit head-butting present in almost any film that has an adolescent character.
The foreign-language Oscar race is heating up, as a good deal of high-profile names are being added to the list of contenders. Earlier 
There are few surprises in the initial slate of 
Hollywood Elsewhere's Jeffrey Wells, who
Hot off its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival and its North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, Magnolia Pictures has nabbed the English-language rights to 
Chinese filmmaker 
Last time we checked in on 
IFC Films and The Weinstein Co. 
Last month I got pretty excited about seeing 
Odds and ends from Tuesday:
While I'm sure most of you are die hard 
