More Cannes '08 Forecastings

• email this story
• read comments (7)
• post a comment
• 
  
  

A recent Agence Press article predicted that Steven Soderbergh's The Argentine, the first of his twin Che Guevara movies with Benicio del Toro in the lead role, would play at the '08 Cannes Film Festival. That may have been half-wrong. A 3.21 Hollywood Reporter forecast piece by Stephen Zeitchik is reporting that both The Argentine and Guerilla, the second Che pic, will likely show there as a team.

Sam Riley in Gerald McMorrow's Franklyn

If this is true (and it seems like it might be with two disparate trade publications saying close to the same thing), it'll be good to be able see and contemplate these films among liberal-minded elite journalists and the leftie European intelligentsia without having to deal with complaints from right-wing blowhards that these films glorify Guevara instead of rightly portraying him as a dogmatic fiend who presided over firing squads, etc. (I know for a fact that October '06 versions of the two scripts don't depict Guevara in a glorified light -- here's my report.)

The tempest will kick in once the films open in the U.S., of course -- cue Fox News! -- but thank heaven there'll be at least a brief period of Mediterranean calm beforehand.

Zeitchik is also hearing that the following films may be Cannes '08 selections: Bertrand Tavernier's In the Electric Mist with Tommy Lee Jones; I Come With The Rain with Josh Hartnett; Fernando Meirelles' Blindness, Walter Salles' Linha de Passe; and Wim Wenders' The Palermo Shooting with Dennis Hopper and Milla Jovovich in an Italian-based setting.

Italian and French entries may include Paolo Sorrentino's Il Divo, Matteo Garrone's Gomorra (about organized crime in Italy); Michel Houellebe's La Possibilite d'un Ile, Souad el Bouhati's Francaise, Arnaud Desplechin's Un conte de Noel with Catherine Deneuve, Francois Dupeyron's Aide-toi, le ciel t'aidera, and Bertrand Bonello's De la guerre with Asia Argento and Mathieu Amalric.

English titles may include Saul Dibb's The Duchess with Keira Knightley, John Maybury's The Edge of Love, a Dylan Thomas biopic with Matthew Rhys in the title role and costarring Knightley, Sienna Miller and Cillian Murphy; Gerald McMorrow's Franklyn with Sam Riley, Ryan Phillippe and Eva Green and possibly Julian Jarrold's new adaptation of Brideshead Revisited.

Hey, what about Beeban Kidron's Hippie Hippie Shake, about a counter-culture rag published in late '60s London? Perhaps it won't be ready until Toronto. I'm detecting a whiff of difficulty on this one.

comment #1

AndrewOwens says ...

Having just read the novel and watched the "every word on the screen" mini series version of Brideshead Revisited, I'm actually dying to see how they approach the two hour movie version. It's only a 300 odd page book but the mini series is almost 12 hours long.

comment #2

actionman says ...

What about Burn After Reading?

comment #3

gruver1 says ...

That story went away. Burn After Reading is for Toronto, apparently.

comment #4

JD says ...

Burn After Reading is a very entertaining -- if way too convoluted and coincidence-oriented screenplay -- but it's lightweight Coens in the same vein as Intolerable Cruelty or The Big Lebowski. Sure, those two movies are worlds apart in terms of quality, but they have one thing in common: they are two of the only Coen films not to appear in the competition at Cannes. I'd be surprised if BAR makes it there...

comment #5

fielding says ...

Vicky Cristina Barcelona - which is also mentioned in the article - will almost certainly screen at Cannes.

comment #6

gruver1 says ...

Wells to Fielding: I already acknowledged/reported the Vicky Cristina Barcelona thing in that earlier posting about Cannes that was linked to that Agence France prediction piece.

http://www.hollywood-elsewhere.com/2008/03/cannes_08_lineu.php

comment #7

filmfan says ...

I bet that Vicky Cristina Barcelona will screen out of competition. I don't think that Woody Allen believes in putting films against each other.

Post a Comment