The year’s most anticipated Oscar players are set to debut at Venice, Telluride or Toronto, but there is already high drama in the International Film (formerly known as Foreign Language Film) race. Of course, there is always drama in this category. Landing a nomination means more to the film community and general public of many of these nations than most casual American awards watchers realize. And the news today that Amazon Studios acquired U.S.

Continue reading Tough Choices For France & Brazil In Oscar’s International Film Category Race at The Playlist.

CANNES – It was a long night for Chloë Sevigny and the cast of Jim Jarmusch’s “The Dead Don’t Die.“ A late night premiere led to a late night afterparty and an official press conference that was perhaps a bit too early for everyone involved. Despite her claims of barely making it through the last 24 hours, you would have never known how tired Sevigny was. A fashion and indie film icon, Sevigny looks like she’s ready to sit down and take in a runway show at Paris Fashion Week.

Continue reading Chloë Sevigny May Be A Fashionista But She Wants To Make Movies First [Interview] at The Playlist.

CANNES – Imagine you wake up, but something is missing. In fact, a lot is missing. You are, simply, your hand.  That is, in effect, the first scene of Jérémy Clapin’s animated marvel “I Lost My Body,” which debuted at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival less than 10 days ago. As a sentient “hand,” you are compelled to find your arm and it’s going to be a perilous journey getting there.

Continue reading ‘I Lost My Body’ Is A Spectacular Animated Achievement [Cannes Review] at The Playlist.

It consumed, delighted, and maddened many of us, even from afar, but the 2019 Cannes Film Festival is finally done. South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-Ho‘s social satire “Parasite” won the coveted Palme d’Or prize (a first for South Korea), and Mati Diop’s “Atlantique,” won the runner-up Grand Prix prize, becoming the first Black female director to win a Cannes prize (after 72 years, she was also somehow the first Black female director in competition).

Continue reading Best & Worst Of The 2019 Cannes Film Festival at The Playlist.

The 2019 Oscars were very good to the programmers of the Cannes Film Festival. After an almost desolate 2018 where it was represented by just a few Foreign Language Film nominations, the French mainstay saw a major turnaround as “BlacKkKlansman” earned a Best Picture nomination, “Cold War” landed Best Dictor and Cinematography nods (outside of an FLF nod) and a historic win for Spike Lee in the Adapted Screenplay category.

Continue reading Cannes: Oscar Gets A Jolt From Tarantino, ‘Parasite,’ Banderas & More at The Playlist.

An overstuffed, stylish crime story about an unpredictable underground world, impressive visual poetry might be on display again in Yinan Diao’s “The Wild Goose Lake,” his latest action-noir, but narrative cohesion is sorely lacking. Following the visually-dazzling 2014 Berlinale-winning, “Black Coal, Thin Ice,” Diao’s most recent, ‘Goose Lake,’ is similarly themed. But it’s ultimately a less successful film with one almost entirely drowned by its overly-complicated and convoluted narrative about a gangster on the lam from both the cops and a rival gang.

Continue reading ‘Wild Goose Lake’: A Stylish Crime Noir Could Still Use More Narrative Cohesion [Cannes Review] at The Playlist.

CANNES – Being a part of a film festival jury means you will never satisfy everyone. It’s part of the gig. For the jury of the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, they were lucky enough to be handed a slate that featured few outright “bad” films and a bunch of worthy Palme d’Or contenders. The president of the jury, Alejandro G. Iñárritu, spoke to the press after the ceremony about the process the members went through to determine what turned out to be a unanimous selection of Bong Joon-ho’s “Parasite” for the top prize.

Continue reading Cannes Jury On Their ‘Unanimous’ Palme d’Or Decision & Elle Fanning’s Surprise Contributions at The Playlist.

The 72nd Cannes Film Festival has come to an end and, as expected, the competition jury made many of the media who had reviewed and screened the film both exhilarated and exhausted.  The Palme d’Or went to Bong Joon-ho‘s masterpiece, “Parasite” (our review). It was always a three-way race from those looking from the outside in, but the awards given to Pedro Almodovar’s “Pain and Glory” and Celine Sciamma’s “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” may have been slightly disappointed in what they went home with.

Continue reading Bong Joon-Ho’s ‘Parasite’ Wins Palme D’Or & Antonio Banderas Takes Best Actor [Cannes] at The Playlist.

28-year-old writer-director Kantemir Balagov shocked and astonished many at Cannes just two years ago with his startlingly assured debut feature, “Closeness,” which won a FIPRESCI prize in the Un Certain Regard section. He returns in UCR selection again, with another challenging and bleak statement set in his native Russia, and has earned the section’s Best Director prize for his efforts.

READ MORE: 2019 Cannes Film Festival: The 21 Most Anticipated Movies

In “Beanpole,” Balagov focuses his vision on a post-WWII world where two female friends, fresh off the battlefield where they fought as soldiers, try to cope with the severe PTSD inflicted on them by the war.

Continue reading ‘Beanpole’: Kantemir Balagov’s WWII Drama Is Bleak, But A Deserving UCR Best Director Winner [Cannes Review] at The Playlist.

With her third film “Sibyl,” French director Justine Triet explores the transgression of boundaries. These barriers exist between the home and the workplace, they separate fiction and reality and regulate the flow of memories from the past to the present. This time around, Triet uses the thriller genre as a vehicle for this exploration of a woman’s experience. One of four female directors selected for the Main Competition of this year’s Cannes Film Festival, Triet, unfortunately, delivers a flimsy, unremarkable story of obsession unlikely to reach much further than local cinemas.

Continue reading ‘Sibyl’: Justine Triet Explores Psychotherapy, Boundaries & Obsession [Cannes Review] at The Playlist.

CANNES – Elia Suleiman has made very few films over his career. In truth, “It Must Be Heaven,” which premiered at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, is only his fourth film since 1996. When he does release new work, however, it’s always a reminder of what wondrous filmmaking talents he posses. That’s what makes the end result of his latest film so puzzling.

READ MORE: 2019 Cannes Film Festival: The 21 Most Anticipated Movies

Suleiman plays himself in the picture, but unless you recognized him from an interview or previous films you wouldn’t realize that until about halfway through.

Continue reading Elia Suleiman’s Message Is Lost In Often Magical ‘It Must Be Heaven’ [Cannes Review] at The Playlist.

The female ass is the main character of “Mektoub, My Love: Intermezzo,” and that’s not an exaggeration. After auctioning off the Palme d’Or statuette he won for “Blue Is the Warmest Color” in order to finance this film, director Abdellatif Kechiche returns with —  judging by its title — the second installment in a godforsaken trilogy. The rumors are true: “Mektoub, My Love: Intermezzo” clocks in at around four hours, each hour more excruciatingly mind-numbing than the last.

Continue reading ‘Mektoub, My Love: Intermezzo’: Abdellatif Kechiche’s Torturous, Four-Hour Sequel Is the Butt of the Joke [Cannes Review] at The Playlist.

The Cannes Film Festival is coming to an end tomorrow, as the closing ceremonies are expected to begin on Saturday. However, before the festival ends and the Palme d’Or is awarded, the event decided to honor those special selections that were chosen by the jury in the Un Certain Regard section of Cannes.

READ MORE: Bruno Dumont’s Absurd ‘Jeanne’ (‘Joan of Arc’) Is A War Of Attrition [Cannes Review]

Leading the way is Karim Ainouz’s latest film, “The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmao.” The drama about two sisters in 1950’s Rio de Janeiro on separate paths, longing to be reunited took home the section’s top prize.

Continue reading ‘The Climb,’ ‘Joan Of Arc,’ ‘The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmao’ & More Chosen As Cannes Un Certain Regard Award Winners at The Playlist.

There’s a lot of chatter about Quentin Tarantino’s film “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.” After it’s Cannes premiere, reviews tend to be favorable, with many saying that the film is a love letter to a bygone era of Hollywood. However, not all of the talk has been positive, with many criticizing the filmmaker’s revisionist sensibilities and his treatment of female characters. But one thing that is undeniable is that ‘Once Upon a Time’ is a long film.

Continue reading Quentin Tarantino Considering Making ‘Once Upon A Time In Hollywood’ Even Longer & Will Have Special 35mm Screenings at The Playlist.

Classics like “The Godfather” and “GoodFellas” have written the Mafia into cinematic legend. So iconic are these images of mobsters that their reference point—a tradition of violence with real-world consequences—tends to be forgotten. This is something that veteran Italian filmmaker Marco Bellocchio seeks to redress with “The Traitor,” competing for the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

Continue reading ‘The Traitor’: Marco Bellocchio’s Mob Film Is Handsome, But Muted [Cannes Review] at The Playlist.

“Matthias and Maxime” ticks almost every checkbox of a Xavier Dolan movie: Canadian slang, which often takes the form of idiomatic English; plentiful shouting and stylized aesthetic flourishes set to synth-heavy soundtrack backing.

READ MORE: 2019 Cannes Film Festival: The 21 Most Anticipated Movies

But perhaps truest to Dolan’s form, the film, is a story of a complicated, evolving male friendship and sexual relationship between two friends.

Continue reading Xavier Dolan’s ‘Matthias Et Maxime’ Sparks A Magnetic Love Story [Cannes Review] at The Playlist.

What’s black and red all over? A noir-tinged yakuza film by Japanese iconoclast Takashi Miike, of course. With Miike, you never quite know what you’re going to get, both in terms of the movies’ unpredictable content and the wild range in quality. The director’s recent highlights have been the result of a productive collaboration with celebrated British producer Jeremy Thomas: “13 Assassins,” “Hara-kiri: Death of a Samurai” and “Blade of the Immortal.” It’s no surprise then that Miike’s latest Thomas production “First Love“—a selection of the Directors’ Fortnight program at Cannes—finds the filmmaker at his most engaged, playful and coherent.

Continue reading ‘First Love’: Takashi Miike Delivers A Classic Shaggy Noir-Tinged Yakuza Film [Cannes Review] at The Playlist.

“There are eight million stories in the naked city; this has been one of them.” This line, which closes film noir classic “The Naked City,” would fit comfortably among the dialogue of Arnaud Desplechin’s latest work, “Oh Mercy!,” making its debut in the Official Competition of the Cannes Film Festival. Best known for his unwieldy family dramas, the film is a genre swerve for Desplechin.

Continue reading ‘Oh Mercy!’: Arnaud Desplechin Tackles The Crime Genre With Léa Seydoux & Sara Forestier [Cannes Review] at The Playlist.

“For men, identity comes from work,” Michael Hainey says in the Esquire cover story interview with the stars of Quentin Tarantino’s new film, Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt, as well as the controversial auteur himself.

READ MORE: 2019 Cannes Film Festival: The 21 Most Anticipated Movies

Seated around Hainey, the stars and their director agree. “To be a young leading man is to be macho and masculine and sexy and handsome and chiseled,” Tarantino says, of the previous expectations for leading men, which undergo a major transformation in the 1960s.

Continue reading ‘Once Upon A Time In Hollywood’: Quentin Tarantino’s Obsession With Revisionist History Continues [Cannes] at The Playlist.

This article contains spoilers for “The Lighthouse.”

Despite what the Batman backlash might indicate, Robert Pattinson has come a long way from his sparkly vampire days. Pattinson made his first major appearance as Cedric Diggory in “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire,” but it wasn’t until his leading role in the “Twilight” saga in 2008 that he became a household name.

Continue reading Enough Already, ‘The Lighthouse’ Performance Proves Robert Pattinson Is More Than Worthy Of Respect [Cannes] at The Playlist.

Just recently, after its highly-anticipated, and critically successful, premiere at Cannes, Terrence Malick’s World War II drama, “A Hidden Life,” was snatched up by Disney-owned Fox Searchlight for a deal worth a reported $14 million. That’s big money for any film, let alone an almost-3-hour arthouse love story with the backdrop of WWII from a critically-acclaimed, but experimental, filmmaker. And according to a new report, the immediate financial success was never a guarantee for Malick’s latest.

Continue reading ‘A Hidden Life’ Producer Talks Production Hurdles & Years-Long Editing Process For Terrence Malick’s Latest at The Playlist.

A few great family dramas mark recent Cannes history — last year’s Palme d’Or winner “Shoplifters” comes to mind, as well as Bong Joon-ho’s “Parasite,” in competition this year. Ira Sachs’ “Frankie” is unfortunately not among them.

READ MORE: 2019 Cannes Film Festival: The 21 Most Anticipated Movies

Sachs’ meandering, slow-to-develop, and slower-to-finish family drama introduces Isabelle Huppert as Françoise, an aging French movie star whose terminal illness means the remaining days with her (confusingly fractured) family are limited.

Continue reading Ira Sachs’ ‘Frankie’ Is An Overstuffed Family Drama That Somehow Stifles The Great Isabelle Huppert [Cannes Review] at The Playlist.

Judging by the buzz coming out of Cannes, it appears that many people really enjoyed filmmaker Xavier Dolan’s latest film “Matthias & Maxime.” Dolan is a filmmaker that has a lot of success at the French festival, and perhaps his latest competition film will add to his already impressive number of accolades. And while speaking at a Cannes press conference (via Deadline), Dolan discussed his latest film and why he doesn’t necessarily like people calling it a “gay” film.

Continue reading Xavier Dolan Says ‘Matthias & Maxime’ Isn’t A “Gay” Film: “We Never Talk About Heterosexual Films” at The Playlist.

Can fiction be a more powerful vehicle to express one’s lived experience than the documentary form? In the late period of his career, “Bad Lieutenant” director Abel Ferrara has become unexpectedly introspective, in part a consequence of his difficulty in financing ambitious projects. “Tommaso“—premiering as a Special Screening at the Cannes Film Festival—is the director’s first “fiction” effort since 2014 but undoubtedly an extension of his nonfiction work in recent years.

Continue reading ‘Tommaso’: Willem Dafoe In A Creative Funk In Abel Ferrara’s Navel-Gazing Self-Portrait [Cannes Review] at The Playlist.

There’s a lot of buzz surrounding the new film “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” from filmmaker Quentin Tarantino. And after yesterday’s world premiere, the hype has somehow increased. But that doesn’t mean the film isn’t without criticism, and during a press conference, the filmmaker was asked some critical questions, and he didn’t have the best responses.

Don’t worry, we’re not going to get into specific spoilers about the film, per Mr.

Continue reading ‘Once Upon A Time’: Tarantino Gets Upset After Being Asked About Violence Against Women & Margot Robbie’s Limited Role at The Playlist.