Cannes Film Festival Winners May 28, 2008
Posted by movies in : Cannes Film Festival 2008 , add a commentAfter a disappointing opening from Fernando Meirelles Blindness it looked like the Cannes Film festival was going to be nominated by the presence of the world premieres for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Kung Fu Panda.
But the In Competition films pulled up their metaphorical socks and Eastwood’s Changeling, Soderburgh’s Che and Ari Folman’s Waltz with Bashir have all done well with the critics.
Despite Clint Eastwood being the favourite for his missing child drama starring Angelina Jolie it is French picture The Class that has scooped the prestigious Palme d’Or.
Directed by Laurent Cantet the film used real students and real teacher to depict a year in their lives.
Cantet was presented with the award by head of the jury, and Oscar winner, Sean Penn and the director was joined on stage by his students.
The runner up prize, the Grand Prix, was won by Gomorrah, an Italian mafia film that is based on the novel by Roberto Saviana.
The jury prize or third place was awarded to Paolo Sorrentino’s Il Divo, a depiction of Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti.
Academy Award winning actor Benicio Del Toro won the Best Actor prize for his role as revolutionary Che Guevara in Soderburgh’s epic Che.
And Line of Passage’s Sandra Corveloni scooped the best actress prize for her portrayal of a pregnant mother of four in Sao Paolo.
Despite missing out on the Palme d’Or there was a lifetime achievement award for actor turned director Clint Eastwood as well as for Catherine Deneuve.
The festival that has been invaded by giant pandas, Hollywood royalty as well as a sting of high quality movies was rounded off with the premiere of Barry Levinson’s What Just Happened?
Starring Robert De Niro, Bruce Willis and head judge Sean Penn What Just Happened? follows a fading Hollywood director who is desperate to revitalise his career.
Fill list of winners:
Palme d’Or - The Class
Grand Prix - Gomorrah
Special prizes - Clint Eastwood and Catherine Deneuve
Best director - Nuri Bilge Ceylan for Three Monkeys
Jury prize - Il Divo directed by Paolo Sorrentino
Best actor - Benicio Del Toro (above) in Che
Best actress - Sandra Corveloni in Line of Passage
Best screenplay - Lorna’s Silence by Jean Pierre and Luc Dardenne
Camera d’Or - Hunger
Star Spotting At Cannes May 23, 2008
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Lisa Voice with director Quentin Tarantino
Lisa Voice with P-Diddy
Martin Scorsese Leaves Bob Marley Project May 22, 2008
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- <b>Martin Scorsese</b> has dropped out of the Bob marley project according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The Academy Award winning director has quit the project due to ’scheduling conflicts’.
Taking his place in the director’s chair is The Silence of the Lambs and Philadelphia filmmaker Jonathon Demme.
The film is expected to be released early 2010 and will commemorate the 65th anniversary of Bob Marley’s death.
- Iron man writing team <b>Art Marcum</b> and <b>Matt Holloway</b> will pen the new Highlander screenplay.
Summit Entertainment have picked up the remake rights and will have Peter Davis, producer on the original film, returning in a production role.
Filming is expected to get underway in 2009 and Summit Entertainment hopes that the new film will revitalise the Highlander franchise.
-Academy Award winner <b>Ang Lee</b> has signed on to direct 1949, an epic love story set in the final years of the Chinese Civil War.
The $40 million Chinese language production will star Chang Chen and Korea’s Song Hye-kyo and shooting will start in December.
- <b>Dreamworks</b> are jumping on the Pirates band wagon as they bring the story of legendary pirate Blackbeard to the big screen.
Gladiator writer David Franzoni has been bought in to pen the script and Enchanted’s Barry Josephson is also aboard the project to produce.
- Hellboy director <b>Guillermo Del Toro</b> will co-produce the big screen adaptations of David Moody’s 2006 novel Hater.
The story revolves around an epidemic of random violence that breaks out where people are lashing out without warning.
Del Toro was originally expected to direct the project but his new commitments in New Zealand on The Hobbit has forced them to look elsewhere.
Cannes Film Festival Day 8 May 22, 2008
Posted by movies in : Cannes Film Festival 2008 , add a commentPop star Madonna made her debut at Cannes Film Festival as a filmmaker last night as she graced the red carpet for the screening of her documentary I Am Because We Are.
Directed, written, produced and narrated by the star I Am Because We Are shows the devastating effects of Aids in Malawi.
In southeastern Africa, the landlocked and densely populated country of Malawi is under severe distress.
In a country of 12 million people, an unprecedented one million-plus children have been orphaned by AIDS, and malnutrition and inadequate medical treatment still run rampant.
The film features interviews with former U.S. president Bill Clinton and shows children living in desperate poverty as well as highlighting how the education system can ease the situation.
Madonna was joined on the red carpet by a whole host of stars on the red carpet including director husband Guy Richie. Sharon Stone and ex-husband Sean Penn.
Madonna and Guy are currently in the middle of court proceedings to adopt a three-year-old Malawian boy.
Entering the theatre to a round of applause she said: “To say that this film is a labour of love is true, but that’s kind of trivial because really what it is, is a journey of a lifetime.”
Elsewhere in Cannes Angelina Jolie walked down the red carpet for a second time as she turned out with Brad Pitt and director Clint Eastwood for their new picture The Changeling.
Los Angeles, 1928: On a Saturday morning in a working-class suburb, Christine said goodbye to her son, Walter, and left for work.
When she came home, she discovered he had vanished. A fruitless search ensues, and months later, a boy claiming to be the nine-year-old is returned.
Dazed by the swirl of cops, reporters and her conflicted emotions, Christine allows him to stay overnight. But in her heart, she knows he is not Walter.
Day 7 at Cannes Film Festival May 21, 2008
Posted by movies in : Cannes Film Festival 2008 , add a commentYesterday Spike Lee descended on Cannes to unveil the first images and outtakes from his new picture miracle at St. Anna.
Lee showed eight minutes of the film, which is written by James McBride, and shows the forgotten contributions to the Second World War by African American soldiers.
Miracle at St. Anna chronicles the story of four black American soldiers who are members of the US Army as part of the all-black 92nd Buffalo Soldier Division stationed in Tuscany, Italy during World War II.
They experience the tragedy and triumph of the war as they find themselves trapped behind enemy lines and separated from their unit after one of them risks his life to save an Italian boy.
But not content on just promoting his movie he took a swipe at several of his directing peers including this year’s Cannes favourite Clint Eastwood and Joel and Ethan Coen.
Lee heavily criticised Eastwood’s war effort Flags of our Fathers and Letters From Iwo Jima for not showing, in the two films collective time of four hours, ‘one negro actor on the screen’.
He also had some harsh words for the Coen brothers, who won the Best Director Oscar for No Country for Old Men at this year’s ceremony, claiming that they ‘treated life like a joke’.
He went on to claim that in his movies he treats both life and death with respect.
Spike Lee wasn’t the only one on Cannes with something to protest about as five Myanmar monks marched through movie fans gathered in the town for the festival.
The monks were demanding that the Southeast Asian government open the Burmese boarders to allow foreign aid into the country to help those left wounded and homeless by the cyclone that killed millions.
Two Lovers was also on show last night, but there was no Joaquin Phoenix on the red carpet after his doctor refused to let him fly due to ill health.
Also starring Gwyneth Paltrow, who attended Cannes for the first time, Two Lovers centres around a depressed young man’s life is turned around after he moves back in with his parents and two women enter it a beautiful volatile neighbour trapped in an affair and the lovely daughter of a close family friend.
The film is the third time that Phoenix has teamed up with American director James Gray and this is the third consecutive In Competition film for the director after The Yards and We Own the Night.
More Stars at Cannes May 21, 2008
Posted by movies in : Cannes Film Festival 2008 , add a commentLisa Voice meets Andy Garcia
Lisa and Mick Jagger
And with man of the moment Harrison Ford
Cannes Day 6 May 21, 2008
Posted by movies in : Cannes Film Festival 2008 , add a commentWe are half way through the festival and still there is not front runner to claim this year’s Palme d’Or.
There have been a select few good entries, after the disappointing festival openeer Blindness, including Arnaud Desplechin’s Un Conte De Noel and 24 City by Jia Zhang ke.
But tomorrow witll see the big names in the In Competition category get their long awaited screenings.
Clint Eastwood presents his new picture Changeling, his first picture since his Oscar winning Million Dollar Baby, starring Angelina Jolie, her second picture at the festival after Kung Fu Panda.
Los Angeles, 1928: On a Saturday morning in a working-class suburb, Christine said goodbye to her son, Walter, and left for work.
When she came home, she discovered he had vanished. A fruitless search ensues, and months later, a boy claiming to be the nine-year-old is returned.
Dazed by the swirl of cops, reporters and her conflicted emotions, Christine allows him to stay overnight. But in her heart, she knows he is not Walter.
Also being screened tomorrow night is Steven Soderburgh’s two Che guevara movies, starring benicion Del Toro, The Argentine and Guerilla, all four and a half hours playing in one sitting.
Part One On November 26, 1956, Fidel Castro sails to Cuba with eighty rebels. One of those rebels is Ernesto “Che” Guevara, an Argentine doctor who shares a common goal with Fidel Castro - to overthrow the corrupt dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista.
Che proves indispensable as a fighter, and quickly grasps the art of guerrilla warfare. As he throws himself into the struggle, Che is embraced by his comrades and the Cuban people. This film tracks Che’s rise in the Cuban Revolution, from doctor to commander to revolutionary hero.
Part Two After the Cuban Revolution, Che is at the height of his fame and power. Then he disappears, re-emerging incognito in Bolivia, where he organizes a small group of Cuban comrades and Bolivian recruits to start the great Latin American Revolution. T he story of the Bolivian campaign is a tale of tenacity, sacrifice, idealism, and of guerrilla warfare that ultimately fails, bringing Che to his death.
Through this story, we come to understand how Che remains a symbol of idealism and heroism that lives in the hearts of people around the world.
But on the sixth day, after the hype of the Indiana Jones premiere had calmed down, it was back to the serious stuff as Hong Kong director Wong Kar Wai, who opened the festival last year with My Blueberry Nights, previewed his new picture Ashes Of Time.
Ashes Of Time is a reworking of a 1994 picture and is is inspired by Louis Cha’s novel The Eagle-Shooting Heroes.
It centers on a man named Ouyang Feng. Since the woman he loved rejected him, he has lived in the western desert, hiring skilled swordsmen to carry out contract killings.
His wounded heart has made him pitiless and cynical, but his encounters with friends, clients and future enemies make him conscious of this solitude…
Also on show yesterday was Walter Salles’ Linha De Passe which depicts a chaotic and congested Brazil where people have little hope of breaking out of the cycle of poverty in which they and generations before them have found themselves.
Indiana Jones Cannes Premiere May 19, 2008
Posted by movies in : Cannes Film Festival 2008 , add a commentThe most anticipated screening of the Cannes Film Festival 2008 of the new Indiana Jones movie Kingdom of the Crystal Skull finally took place last night.
Harrison Ford, Cate Blanchett, Karen Allen, Shia Labeouf, Spielberg and Lucas all graced the red carpet at Cannes for the world premiere of the long awaited movie.
However it received mixed reviews from the critics with some praising the fourth picture in the Indiana Jones franchise with other failing to be impressed by the movie.
The cast received a standing ovation as they entered the theatre as thousands of Indy fans lined the streets in an attempt to get a glimpse of the stars.
Harrison Ford returns to the role of teacher turned adventurer Jones after a nineteen year hiatus supported by young rebel Mutt (Shia LaBeouf) and former partner Marion, karen Allen reprising her Raiders of the Lost Ark role.
The film is set in 1957, the Cold War era, and Indy is battling evil Russians, in the form of Cate Blanchett, in an adventure that takes him from Area 51 in Nevada to South America.
However on the whole the film seems to have weathered the storm after reports of a negative buzz towards the film surfaced on the internet last week.
The film’s real test will come later this week when it opens to a worldwide audience and Spielberg suggested that of the Indy faithful enjoy the film and want more then there could be an Indiana Jones number 5.
Else where in Cannes another out of competition movie Woody Allen’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona did well with the critcs after it’s screening.
The film stars Penelope Cruz, Scarlett Johansson and recent oscar winner Javier Barderm. Barcelona is the setting for the romantic adventures of Vicky and Cristina.
These two young Americans spend a summer in Spain and meet a flamboyant artist (Bardem) and his beautiful but insane ex-wife (Cruz).
Vicky (Hall) is straight-laced and about to be married. Cristina (Johansson) is a sexually adventurous free spirit. When they all become amorously entangled, the results are both hilarious and harrowing.
While Penelope Cruz and Woody Allen graced the red carpet there was no sign of Scarlett Johansson who reportedly wanted to high an attendamce fee than the studio was willing to pay.
Star Spotting at Cannes May 19, 2008
Posted by movies in : Cannes Film Festival 2008 , add a comment- Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie soaking up the atmosphere at Hotel Du Cap. They’re staying away from the centre of Cannes in their private villa to escape prying eyes
- Franco-Arabic actor Omar Sharif enjoying a long lunch with 2 mystery companions at The Carlton Hotel
- Jack Black is in town for Panda-monium and is staying at the prestigious Hotel du Cap throughout his stay
- Harrison Ford and friends staying at Hotel Du Cap - Harrison is in town for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
- Legendary actor Sean Penn spotted at The Carlton Hotel
- Lily Allen at GQ party at MINT
Cannes Day 3 May 17, 2008
Posted by movies in : Cannes Film Festival 2008 , add a commentCannes Film Festival is famed for bringing hard hitting movies to a wider audience with such a film last year 4month, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, a Romanian picture about illegal abortion.
And after the hype of Kung Fu Panda has ebbed away this year is no different as Friday featured two pictures that may hit a raw nerve with Cannes cinema go-ers.
First up Sean Penn used his position as head of the Film Festival jury to back new documentary The Third Wave.
With the likes of Natalie Portman and controversial filmmaker Michael Moore at it’s premiere on Friday The Third Wave, directed by Alison Thompson is a low budget documentary filmed by those who went to volunteer in Sri Lanka in 2004 after the tsunami.
The film focuses on three volunteers who, without the aid of the government, began the clean-up operation by looking for bodies and setting up their own infirmary.
The second film to shake up the Cannes audience was Ari Folman’s animation Waltz With Bashir.
This Israeli picture depicts the massacre of the Sabra and Shatila Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon in 1982.
The film’s main character is director Ari Folman himself who realises that there are major parts of his life, his experience as an Israeli soldier during the Lebanon war of the eighties, missing from his memory.
Ari decides to meet up with old friends and comrades to discover the truth about this time and about himself.
Folman unflinchingly depicts what young men do in a time of war and the atrocities of which humans are capable as well as pointing the finger at those he deems responsible.
Despite not having American distribution when premiered Waltz With Bashir is in the running for the Palme d’or.