Day: May 14, 2015

Last night’s 10 pm screening of Laszlo Nemes‘ Son of Saul shook me out of my end-of-the-day fatigue. This is an immediate Palme d’Or contender, I told myself. No day at the beach but one of the most searing and penetrating Holocaust films I’ve ever seen, and that’s obviously saying something. Shot entirely in close-ups (and occasional medium close-ups), this is a Hungarian-made, soul-drilling, boxy-framed art film about a guy with a haunted, obliterated expression who works in an Auschwitz Birkenau concentration camp as a Sonderkommando (i.e., prisoners who assisted the Germans in exterminating their fellow inmates in order to buy themselves time). His name is Saul Auslander (Geza Rohrig — a slamdunk Best Actor nominee), and the film is basically about this guy foolishly risking his life in order to properly bury a young boy who’s been exterminated — a boy he plainly doesn’t know but whom he claims in his son. I have to catch an 8:30 am Lobster screening but everyone — Variety‘s Justin Chang, The Hollywood Reporter‘s Todd McCarthy (with whom I conversed last night by email), Indiewire’s Eric Kohn, TheWrap‘s Steve Pond, Washington Post critic Ann Hornaday, Toronto Star‘s Pete Howell — is flipping out about this film, and you can include me.

The harrowing lead performance by Son Saul‘s Geza Rohrig could conceivably win Best Actor by festival’s end.

Late Thursday afternoon elite press and international distributors viewed the Weinstein Co. preview reel that unspools at the Cannes Film Festival every year. During pre-screening remarks honcho Harvey Weinstein indicated that Todd Haynes‘ Carol, the allegedly Brokeback Mountain-like, early-50s-era lesbian heartbreaker starring Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara, may be the company’s hottest Oscar pony. Maybe. He also made a bold declaration about Southpaw star Jake Gyllenhaal being in line for a vigorous Best Actor campaign while lamenting that Jake should have been nominated last January for Nightcrawler. (Which is true — Jake totally deserved a nomination and had generated lots of heat but was edged out all the same.)

(l. to r.) Cannes Film Festival juror Jake Gyllenhaal, star of forthcoming Weinstein Co. release Southpaw; fellow juror Sienna Miller, costar of Weinstein Co’s Adam Jones; and Alicia Vikander, star of Weinstein Co’s Tulip Fever.

Weinstein stated that Southpaw had been selected for screening at Cannes, but it had to be withdrawn from competition after Gyllenhaal was announced as a jury member. Harvey also mentioned that a Southpaw screening will happen soon in Cannes but for buyers and not journalists

After the clip reel Gyllenhaal, Sienna Miller and Alicia Vikander came on stage and delivered some of the old soft sell. Miller is a costar of John Wells‘ Adam Jones (Weinstein Co., 10.2.15). Vikander is, of course, “Ava” in Ex Machina and the star of Justin Chadwick and Tom Stoppard‘s forthcoming Tulip Fever, which the Weinstein Co. has not decided when to release just yet.

Carol looks like a quality package, all right. This may sound weird coming from me but I admired the dated grainy look of it, due to Ed Lachman‘s having shot it in Super 16mm. Old-fashioned film grain is different than digital grainstorms, which are more specific and emphatic.

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Earlier today I attended the Palais press conferences for Matteo Garrone‘s Tale of Tales (11 am) and George Miller‘s Mad Max: Fury Road (1 pm). Then I went home and crashed for an hour before beginning to write and post again. The next event is a Steve McQueen racing doc at 5:30 pm, followed by the annual Weinstein Co. preview gathering at the Majestic, which starts around 5:30 and will run until 7 or so. Then it’s a toss-up between Radu Montean‘s One Floor Below or Laszlo Nemes‘ Son of Saul, both showing at 10 pm.

Mad Max: Fury Road star Tom Hardy at close of today’s 1 pm press conference,or sometime around 1:35 pm.

Tale of Tales costar Selma Hayek at close of press conference.

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On 9.28.12 Deadline‘s Mike Fleming reported that Fox Searchlight was “courting” Natalie Portman to play Jackie Kennedy in a film about the former First Lady’s ordeal in the immediate aftermath of JFK’s assassination. The project, Jackie, began life as a 2010 script by Noah Oppenheim, which I read and discussed on 4.15.10. Two and a half years later Fox Searchlight is temporarily out but Portman has finally committed to star in the pic under director Pablo Lorrain (No, The Club) with funding from The Wild Bunch, Variety is reporting.

So Portman is now locked into playing the most celebrated First Lady of the 20th Century along with with Supreme Court Justice Ruder Bader Ginsberg. Depending on the breaks, both performances will probably emerge as Oscar-worthy or certainly Oscar-baity.

Jackie was originally going to be directed by Darren Aronofsky with his then-wife Rachel Weisz as Jackie, but that went south when they broke up. Aronofsky will now produce the Portman version with his Protozoa Pictures partner Scott Franklin along with Chile’s Juan de Dios Larrain. Jackie will roll at the end of this year and probably be released by late ’16. Fox Searchlight will probably get back in the game as a distributor and Portman will be campaigned as a Best Actress contender — all pretty much set in stone.

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I’ve more or less said it already: George Miller‘s Mad Max: Fury Road (Warner Bros., 5.15) is one of the finest action films ever made — phenomenal, triple-A, pulse-pounding, perfectly performed by a live-wire cast topped by Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron, occasionally hilarious and superbly cut, timed, captured and choreographed…a grand slam if there ever was one for this type of thing. And what would that be? Call it an apocalyptic chase thriller with heart and humanity (underneath the rubber and fire and flying bodies it’s about wounded characters rediscovering their compassion and trust). And it’s extra special, I feel, because of the respect and allegiance it shows for women as leaders, fighters, nurturers, survivors. Without taking anything away from Hardy, who brings the legendary Max Rockatansky to life just as winningly as young Mel Gibson did 30-plus years ago, Fury Road is very much a woman’s action film, and all the richer for that.

I saw this epochal film for the second time this morning and was studying Miller’s schemes (visual, structural, thematic) all the more closely this time. It’s just brilliant, dawg — almost too much to fully appreciate in a single setting.

A few weeks ago the deranged Vin Diesel declared that Furious 7 is Best Picture material; Fury Road actually is that. Fury Road so puts Furious 7 to shame that if director James Wan is any kind of man he’ll collapse in sobs after seeing it and do the usual-usual (put on a fishing hat and dark shades, drive out to Palm Springs and register in a nondescript hotel under a fake name for the next three or four weeks). Miller has probably forgotten more than Wan knows about how to make a great action film.

And yet a fair-sized portion of those who worshipped Furious 7 are reportedly hesitant or undecided about seeing Fury Road. You can lead a horse to water…

This is one of the most visually striking action flicks I’ve ever seen. Each and every shot is exquisitely balanced and radiantly artful in a way that Vittorio Storaro will probably appreciate more than most, as Fury Road uses a deliciously robust (some would say intense) color scheme. Many of the all-desert, all-the-time images (particularly the nocturnally-tinted blues) reminded me of Storaro’s work on The Sheltering Sky (’90). The great John Seale definitely earns consideration for a Best Cinematography Oscar. Each and every shot has been painted by a master.

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