Cannes 2009

anonymous1980
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Post by anonymous1980 »

MovieWes wrote:
Eric wrote:
Sabin wrote:One of the best films I've seen here is Lee Daniels' "Precious," the story of a physically and mentally abused poor black girl from the ghetto, who summons the inner strength to fight back for her future. It contains two great performances, by Gabourey "Gabby" Sidibe, in the title role, and Mo'Nique as her pathetic mother. Sidibe is the life force personified. Mo'Nique has a closing monologue that reduced some of us to tears. I would write more, but Barbara Scharres, programmer for the Siskel Film Center, has just featured it in the blog she's writing for this site.
Go, Ebert! Make the Academy take notice!
They're pushing this movie over at the Awards Daily site, but it's executive produced by Tyler Perry and I seriously doubt that the Academy is going to go anywhere near anything with Tyler Perry's name on it.
People who have seen it says Mo'Nique will be the Best Supporting Actress front-runner this year.
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Post by MovieWes »

Eric wrote:
Sabin wrote:One of the best films I've seen here is Lee Daniels' "Precious," the story of a physically and mentally abused poor black girl from the ghetto, who summons the inner strength to fight back for her future. It contains two great performances, by Gabourey "Gabby" Sidibe, in the title role, and Mo'Nique as her pathetic mother. Sidibe is the life force personified. Mo'Nique has a closing monologue that reduced some of us to tears. I would write more, but Barbara Scharres, programmer for the Siskel Film Center, has just featured it in the blog she's writing for this site.
Go, Ebert! Make the Academy take notice!
They're pushing this movie over at the Awards Daily site, but it's executive produced by Tyler Perry and I seriously doubt that the Academy is going to go anywhere near anything with Tyler Perry's name on it.
"Young men make wars and the virtues of war are the virtues of young men: courage and hope for the future. Then old men make the peace, and the vices of peace are the vices of old men: mistrust and caution." -- Alec Guinness (Lawrence of Arabia)
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Post by Sabin »

I have a buddy named RoZe, a fledgling crazy-artist filmmaker, who went to Cannes with his first feature and he saw some movies. This is a rough transcript of our conversation. He's the biggest mumbler on the planet. Take from it what you will -


Vengeance – “pretty bad ass. No subtitles but I hear it was pretty funny. Good action movie. I followed it.”

Kinatay – “very disturbing. The final scene was very disturbing. Didn’t know what was happening with this one because there weren’t any subtitles.”

Fish tank – “didn’t dig it.”

Agora – “really good movie. Just epic. Big, still has an artistic statement…it was the ‘Man, Christians are bad people’ movie of the year. The opposite of The Passion. Jews got their asses beat and you feel sorry for them. But there are some moments where the Jews get crazy, and so do the Pagans. Overall, it felt pretty fair to the religions.”

Enter the Void – “slow but it’s kinda brilliant. This one’s not as violence of Irreversible but the underworld is very there and very presence. The basic concept is a kid dies and his soul watches the rest of the movie. The soul’s main goal is to reincarnate into a new child, a new baby. To say the least, ther’es probably twenty minutes to a half hour montage of solid, hardcore sex. Pornographic. You see gay sex, straight sex, group sex, every kind of sex possible, you get to see…pretty graphic nature. I’m not even joking. There’s easily twenty minutes of it. He needs an editor. This one’s good. It’ll be edited down and maybe that’s a good thing. You won’t lose the story. You’ll just lose hours of sex.”

Antichrist – “…any kind of editing and you’ll lose the story. You won’t like it as much if you don’t see all the graphic.” – I can confirm that this film graphically conveys baby death. The baby falling. The baby splatting. Holy shit. – “He shoots [baby death] in a way that, compared to the rest of the film, it’s not [the worst thing on the planet]. Compared to the rest of the film. The prologue is pretty amazing. He breaks it up into chapter. The prologue is amazing. Shot on the red camera. Just epic. And so, it was shot in this way where I guess it was too beautiful. It wasn’t the graphic Von Trier handheld. It’s slow-motion beautiful cinematography of the baby dying. I feel like I’m witness to one of those pieces of cinema that is going to have changed it forever, changes our game.”

Holy Water – “great little Irish movie.”
"How's the despair?"
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Post by Zahveed »

Haha, let me change that.

Fixed.




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Post by flipp525 »

Zahveed wrote:I saw a few clips for the Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. It looks like it could be Gilliam's best work since Brazil.
Check your link, Zahveed. Something's not right about it.
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Post by anonymous1980 »

I'd like to say BRAVO and congratulations to Brilliante Mendoza for scooping the Best Director award despite scathing reviews. Hopefully, this will lead to more international visibility of Philippine cinema.
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Post by Zahveed »

I saw a few clips for the Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus. It looks like it could be Gilliam's best work since Brazil.

Clips




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Post by Precious Doll »

Here's the report from Variety on the Cannes prizes.

'White Ribbon' wins Palme d'Or

By DEREK ELLEY, JUSTIN CHANG

In awards that ran the gamut from the widely predicted to the jaw-dropping, Michael Haneke's "The White Ribbon," a stark, black-and-white drama set in a rural German village on the eve of WWI, received the Palme d'Or from the jury of the 62nd Cannes Film Festival on Sunday.
Haneke, who had previously won the director award for "Cache" (2005) and the Grand Prix for "The Piano Teacher" (2001), received his first Palme from a visibly delighted Isabelle Huppert, president of the jury. Huppert had won Cannes' actress gong for "The Piano Teacher."

"Happiness is a rare thing, but this is a moment in my life when I am truly happy," Haneke said in his acceptance speech.

The Grand Prix went to French helmer Jacques Audiard's tough prison drama, "A Prophet," which had been a frontrunner for a major prize since screening early on in the fest.

The top two prizes rep a coup for Sony Pictures Classics, which acquired North American rights to “The White Ribbon” before the festival and will distribute “A Prophet” in multiple territories including the U.S.

Sole kudo to an American-helmed film, in a competition light on U.S. fare, was the actor prize for Christoph Waltz for his multilingual tour de force as the Nazi "Jew Hunter" in Quentin Tarantino's German-U.S. production, "Inglourious Basterds." The 52-year-old, Vienna-born thesp was previously unknown outside Germany, where he's spent most of his career in TV.

"I owe this award to (my role as) Col. Landa," said Waltz in his acceptance speech, "and his unique and inimitable creator, Quentin Tarantino."

To a standing ovation in the Grand Theatre Lumiere, French vet Alain Resnais, who turns 87 next month (and was in competition with the elegant tragicomedy "Wild Grass"), received a lifetime achievement award for his work and contributions to the history of cinema. The visibly frail helmer declared it "completely surprising," a possibly ironic reference to his stormy past relations with the fest (starting with 1974's "Stavisky ... "), from which he's previously won only one award, the Grand Prix for "Mon oncle d'Amerique."

While many other Cannes fave auteurs were completely passed over by the jury -- including Pedro Almodovar, Ang Lee and Palme laureates Ken Loach and Jane Campion -- Danish maverick Lars von Trier's latest headline-grabber, "Antichrist," at least walked away with an actress kudo for Charlotte Gainsbourg's performance as a mother whose grief over her child's death takes a psychotic turn.

Sharing the jury prize were Brit director Andrea Arnold's slice-of-lifer "Fish Tank" and South Korean helmer Park Chan-wook's vampire meller, "Thirst." Arnold scooped the same award three years ago with her debut feature, "Red Road."
Australian helmer Warwick Thornton’s well-received Aboriginal teen drama, “Samson and Delilah,” nabbed the Camera d’Or for first film.

Though several of the awards had largely been predicted and were generally seen as well deserved, many of the others were seen as among the quirkiest in recent memory.

All three of the Asian kudos drew heavy booing from the assembled press corps. Biggest scorn was reserved for the director prize for Filipino Brillante Mendoza's rape-and-dismemberment drama "Kinatay" (of which even admiring jury member Hanif Kureishi admitted, "I don't ever want to see it again, myself"), followed by jeers for "Thirst" and mainland Chinese director Lou Ye's "Spring Fever," which copped screenplay (generally seen as its weakest element).

These awards appeared to have reflected deep divisions within the nine-member jury, which, apart from Huppert, included directors James Gray, Nuri Bilge Ceylan and Lee Chang-dong, writer Kureishi, and actresses Robin Wright Penn, Shu Qi, Asia Argento and Sharmila Tagore.

Before the awards ceremony, rumors were already circulating that jury discussions had been particularly fraught. One member described it as the worst jury experience he'd ever had, while another was said to have described Huppert as a "fascist." Onstage, Huppert, looking visibly tense, referred to "an unforgettable week" and "several hours, uh, several moments of deliberation."

Show's host, comedian Edouard Baer, jokingly suggested that the onstage jury might "perhaps exchange telephone numbers and addresses" before parting. However, at the press conference afterward, several members went out of their way to stress that deliberations were "harmonious" and democratic."

Somewhat less harmoniously, the ecumenical jury, which gave its annual award for spiritual values in filmmaking to Loach's "Looking for Eric," bestowed an "anti-prize" on von Trier's "Antichrist." Cannes fest director Thierry Fremaux was quick to denounce the dubious honor, calling it a "ridiculous decision that borders on a call for censorship," particularly from a jury headed by a filmmaker, Romania's Radu Mihaileanu.

INTL. COMPETITION JURY PRIZES

Palme d'Or

"The White Ribbon" (Michael Haneke, Germany-France-Austria-Italy)

Grand Prix

"A Prophet" (Jacques Audiard, France)

Lifetime achievement award

Alain Resnais, "Wild Grass" (France)

Director

Brillante Mendoza ("Kinatay," France-Philippines)

Jury prize

"Fish Tank" (Andrea Arnold, U.K.), "Thirst" (Park Chan-wook, South Korea-U.S.)

Actor

Christoph Waltz, "Inglourious Basterds" (U.S.-Germany)


Actress

Charlotte Gainsbourg, "Antichrist" (Denmark-Germany-France-Sweden-Italy-Poland)


Screenplay

Mei Feng, "Spring Fever" (Hong Kong-France)

UN CERTAIN REGARD JURY AWARDS

Main Prize

"Dogtooth" (Yorgos Lanthimos, Greece)

Jury Prize

"Police, Adjective" (Corneliu Porumboiu, Romania)

Special Prize

"No One Knows About Persian Cats" (Bahman Ghobadi, Iran), "Father of My Children" (Mia Hansen-Love, France)

OTHER MAIN JURY AWARDS

Camera d'Or

"Samson and Delilah" (Warwick Thornton)

Special Mention

"Ajami" (Scandar Copti, Yaron Shani, Israel-Germany)

Critics' Week Grand Prix

"Farewell Gary" (Nassim Amamouche, France)

FIPRESCI AWARDS

Competition

"The White Ribbon" (Michael Haneke, Germany-Austria-France-Italy)

Un Certain Regard

"Police, Adjective" (Corneliu Porumboiu, Romania)

Directors' Fortnight

"Amreeka" (Cherien Dabis, Canada-Kuwait-U.S.)

SHORT FILMS JURY PRIZES

Palme d'Or

"Arena" (Joao Salaviza, Portugal)

Special Mention

"The Six Dollar Fifty Man" (Mark Albiston, Louis Sutherland, New Zealand)

CINEFONDATION

First Prize

"Baba" (Zuzana Kirchnerova-Spidlova)

Second Prize

"Goodbye" (Song Fang)

Third Prize

"Diploma" (Yaelle Kayam)

"Don't Step Out of the House" (Jo Sung-hee)

ECUMENICAL PRIZE

"Looking for Eric" (Ken Loach, U.K.-France-Italy-Belgium-Spain)

PRIX VULCAIN TECHNICAL AWARD

Aitor Berenguer, sound mixer ("Map of the Sounds of Tokyo," Spain)
"I want cement covering every blade of grass in this nation! Don't we taxpayers have a voice anymore?" Peggy Gravel (Mink Stole) in John Waters' Desperate Living (1977)
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Post by The Original BJ »

Eric wrote:As long as there's a mildly passionate minoritarian contingent. Manderlay was ignored.

Even I thought Manderlay was a torturous nightmare to sit through, and my tolerance for von Trier runs pretty high.

Charlotte Gainsbourg has been a lovely presence this decade in 21 Grams, The Science of Sleep, and I'm Not There. Here's hoping she hits the highs Emily Watson, Björk, and Nicole Kidman did in their much-ballyhooed collaborations with von Trier.




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Post by Okri »

Eric wrote:Hands up anyone who doesn't think Huppert made this happen by force...

http://www.indiewire.com/article/cannes_09_the_winners_in_progress/

Palme d'Or: Michael Haneke
I'd be more inclined to think she forced the Gainsborg win if any. After all, she won her Cannes prize for surviving a bout with a sadistic director.
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Post by Eric »

As long as there's a mildly passionate minoritarian contingent. Manderlay was ignored.
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Post by Mister Tee »

It's fairly rare for the top two prizes to go to films widely thought to be the strongest contenders -- especially in a year with little enthusiasm.

So is it official now -- no matter how reviled a von Trier movie is, it'll have a pocket of support at Cannes?
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Post by flipp525 »

Sabin wrote:I'm most surprised about the acting prizes. I thought that Katie Jarvis had it in the bag. Nothing against Charlotte Gainsbourg.
Charlotte Gainsbourg. Damn! There's yet another supporting actress contender from 2007 (I'm Not There).
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Post by Sabin »

I'm most surprised about the acting prizes. I thought that Katie Jarvis had it in the bag. Nothing against Charlotte Gainsbourg.
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Post by Eric »

Hands up anyone who doesn't think Huppert made this happen by force...

http://www.indiewire.com/article/cannes_09_the_winners_in_progress/

Palme d'Or: Michael Haneke
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