From what I’m hearing, the only guaranteed solid-crack, down-on-your-knees home run at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival (5.13 to 5.24) will be George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road, which will screen on Thursday, 5.14, in an out-of-competition slot. I’ve heard second-hand from a guy who knows a guy who’s worked on the sound effects (or … Read more
You’ve got your lean cuisine and fatty, high-calorie meals, some nutritional and some less so, and then your salads and fruits and fine desserts, and finally the icing and sugar fizz and whipped cream. Glenn Ficarra and John Requa‘s Focus, a superficially alluring but dismissable February programmer about a couple of con artist thieves (Will … Read more
Synopsis for Glenn Ficarra and John Requathe‘s Focus (Warner Bros., 2.27.15): “Nicky Spurgeon (Will Smith) is a seasoned con-man, who becomes romantically involved with a young attractive woman (Margot Robbie) while introducing her to the tricks of his con man trade. She gets too close for comfort and he abruptly breaks it off. Three years … Read more
“I was writing at a table in a sports bar last night, and there was a group of five sitting nearby — four guys and a lady — who couldn’t stop laughing uproariously. Every time it felt like someone had exploded an aural fart grenade….’hah-hah-hah-hahhhh!’ After a while I got out my watch and started … Read more
I was half-watching a DVD last week of Alan Parker‘s Evita (1996), and it looks like hell on a 50-inch screen. For its upcoming 15th anniversary, Hollywood’s best all-singing musical opera (yes, better than Sweeney Todd) needs to be Bluray-ed. For me Darius Khondji‘s widescreen cinematography is compositional heaven — each and every frame has … Read more
I’m having a late breakfast at a cafe near my place, and there’s this jabbering Hispanic guy sitting two tables away who’s louder than hell. To be heard by his tablemate he’d need to talk at a level 4 or 5 (which is how I do it — I talk to someone like I’m having … Read more
In his just-posted review of Francis Coppola‘s Tetro, which will open the Director’s Fortnight program in Cannes, Variety‘s Todd McCarthy has at least one unqualified thing to say, which is that the film will “likely be most remembered for introducing a highly promising young actor, Alden Ehrenreich. 18 year-old Tetro costar Alden Ehrenreich. “Allegedly first … Read more
I don’t own Con Air (why is that?) but I’ve always loved the double-tracking thing it has going on — a blend of ultra-slick action-movie chops along with an attitude of subversive genre parody. I’ve said before that Con Air is primarily a wickedly funny and (at times) almost surreal conceptual comedy, and secondarily an … Read more
Francis Coppola‘s Tetro wrapped today after 63 days of principal photography in Buenos Aires and Patagonia. Additional shooting of an original ballet will be required in Madrid, Spain. Post-production will be based in Buenos Aires, Valencia, Spain and Italy, anticipating a spring 2009 release. I don’t mean to sound reactionary, but Coppola’s Youth Without Youth … Read more
Vincent Gallo has the lead part in Francis Coppola‘s upcoming Argentine drama Tetro, but less than a month ago it was Matt Dillon‘s role. What happened? Gallo will play the title character, “a brother in a family torn apart by rivalries and betrayal.” (Good God.) Javier Bardem will play an Argentine literary critic, Alden Ehrenreich … Read more
Bielinsky’s Spooker Having finally seen Fabian Bielinsky’s The Aura Saturday night, I understand why IFC Films picked it up and will open it in early September. Quiet, low-key and haunting in the manner of a half-awake dream, it’s a very unusual hybrid by the standards of American films — a heist film mixed with a … Read more
A moment of mourning for Fabiane Bielinsky, the 47 year-old Argentine director of Nine Queens and The Aura, who died today in Sao Paolo, reportedly while working on a TV commercial. We were friendly acquaintances. We first met in Toronto in September 2000 during a Nine Queens interview, and we kept in touch from time … Read more