62nd Festival de Cannes

The line up for this year's Cannes Film Festival features some interesting U.S. and International films. Last year's winner of the top prize, the Palme d'Or, went to France's own Entre les murs/The Class. It was France's first win since 1987s Under the Sun of Satan. The Class got a proper US release and was nominated for an Oscar as Best Foreign Language Film. Now the Cannes winners have always been a little odd, but other than the Foreign Film Oscar, they shine the strongest spotlight on international cinema.

For this year's festival, Quentin Tarantino was able to finish Inglorious Basterds based on a timetable that would allow him to premiere the film at Cannes-- so let's hope he doesn't get any criticisms for rushing the job. What I'm mostly interested in this year is the reception of Inglorious Basterds , Ang Lee's Taking Woodstock, and Pedro Almodovar's Broken Embraces, as well as "sidebar" film Tales from the Golden Age (from Cristian Mungiu and three other directors) and out of competition films Drag Me to Hell from Sam Raimi, L'Epine dans le Coeur from Michael Gondry, and Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (forever to be known as the last film of Heath Ledger).

Notably among the out of competition films is Pixar's Up (which opens the festival). Other films competeting include: Looking for Eric (Ken Loach) [according to the Los Angeles Times, this is Loach's ninth film to compete], Antichrist (Lars von Trier), Enter the Void (Gaspar Noe), The White Ribbon (Michael Haneke), Les Herbes Folles (Alain Resnais), Spring Fever (Lou Ye), and Bright Star (Jane Campion), among others.

Link to Los Angeles Times article.

Official site.

Cannes '08 Winners

The Cannes Film Festival has wound up. For me, the most exciting news was that Woody Allen's newsest film Vicky Cristina Barcelona was very well received and we're getting it soon (late August). The Hollywood Reporter commented that Woody Allen "rediscovers his comic and romantic side" and People said Allen "scored big" with this "irresistible comedy."

Eastwood's Changling was also apparently well-received even if it didn't win any awards.

The festival will be remembered for the splashy premieres of two US popcorn flicks— Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Kung-Fu Panda (People reported that Kung-Fu Panda "proved a cheerful palate cleanser between the grimmer, slice-of-downbeat-life films dominating Cannes' roster.")

The winner of the Palme d'Or? The Class aka Entre les murs. We'll see if this gets US distribution as a result of its win (it's general release in France begins on October 15th).

Other winners included:

Grand Prize: Gomorrah
Jury Award: Il Divo

Best Actor: Benicio del Toro for Che
Best Actress: Sandra Corveloni for Linha de Passe
Best Director: Nuri Bilge Ceylan for Three Monkeys
Best Screenplay: Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne for Lorna's Silence

Link to AP article via CNN.com.

61st Festival de Cannes

The line up for this year's Cannes Film Festival features some interesting U.S. and International films. When I looked up last year's winner and found that it had been 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days, I was reminded at how shabbily that brilliant film was received in the U.S.— not even garnering an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign language film. Now the Cannes winners have all been a little odd, but other than the Foreign Film Oscar, they shine the strongest spotlight on international cinema.

What I'm mostly interested in this year is the reception of screenwriter Charlie Kaufman's directorial debut: Synecdoche, New York. Will this be a Pulp Fiction-like debut? On the other side of the spectrum, could Clint Eastwood's Changeling give him a late career competitive win at the Festival (he won the Golden Coach award for Mystic River), with this, his fifth film in competition? And then there's Steven Soderbergh's epic Che Guevara film.

U.S.A. out of competition films include: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Kung Fu Panda, and Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona.

Official site.

Variety article.