Cannes: Peter Jackson

by Elisa Giudici 

Peter Jackson. Photo by Elisa Giudici

At the end of the ’80s Peter Jackson arrived in Cannes for the first time as a self-taught splatter filmmaker from New Zealand and immediately got thrown out of the Palais for wearing shorts. Nearly four decades later, he returns to the Croisette as the director behind one of the most successful trilogies in cinema history. The director is still talking about movies with the enthusiasm of somebody who never stopped being the kid borrowing his parents’ Super 8 camera to film homemade monsters. Across an unusually relaxed and funny conversation at the festival, Jackson moved freely from King Kong to The Beatles, from Andy Serkis to artificial intelligence, from Tintin 2 to the collapse of DVD culture. What emerges most clearly is how little of his career feels planned in retrospect. Again and again Jackson describes cinema as a chain of accidents, obsessions, and strange coincidences somehow turning into films...

Click to read more ...

Meet the Cannes Jury: What they revealed about the festival to come?

by Elisa Giudici

Park Chan Wook and Chloe Zhao © Elisa Giudici

What kind of festival the 79th Annual Cannes Film Festival will be is something the films in Competition and the side sections will ultimately determine. But there’s little doubt that the final perception of Cannes - and the line between winners and losers - will also be shaped by the jury presided over by Park Chan-wook, who today faced the traditional opening press conference.

What became immediately clear is how prepared every juror was to answer politically charged or potentially controversial questions. After the turbulence of Berlin earlier this year, publicists and agents clearly did their homework: politics, Gaza, artificial intelligence and representation were all addressed with awareness and, in most cases, notable intelligence. It also helped that Paul Laverty quickly positioned himself as the most openly political voice on the panel, absorbing much of the pressure around the more sensitive topics...

Click to read more ...

Cannes at Home: “Moulin Rouge!” @25

by Cláudio Alves

The 79th Cannes Film Festival is upon us and, as ever, Elisa is on the ground to report directly from the Croisette. Sadly, most of us can only watch from afar. For years, I struggled with festival-related FOMO, but one little annual series here at The Film Experience has helped combat it. Obviously, I’m referring to “Cannes at Home,” the rubric I’m happy to revive once more, perusing past films from the various cineastes in the Main Competition that are widely available. Alas, it’s very rare for a title vying for the Palme to open celebrations at Cannes, and this year is no different. Pierre Salvadori’s The Electric Kiss marked the fest’s official start, but it’s playing Out of Competition so the director’s work won’t be showcased here, in “Cannes at Home.”

Instead, let’s rewind to 2001, when the Cannes Film Festival celebrated its 54th edition. A quarter century ago, the Opening Film was actually among the competition lineup. It was none other than Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge!, the best movie musical yet produced since the millennium changed. Damn, 21st century cinema peaked early…

Click to read more ...

Tony Nominations ~ The Plays

by Nathaniel R

While I made a real effort to catch all the musicals this season I'm weaker on the plays having seen only 5 of the 18 that opened this past season. Let's talk about the nominees. I'll be sure to mention any film connections to keep the less theater-inclined interested...

Click to read more ...

Review: Elliot Tuttle’s “Blue Film” is a transfixing transgression

by Cláudio Alves

© Obscured Releasing

Every year, so-called provocateurs come out of the woodwork with films that promise to shock audiences, challenge norms and push boundaries, leaving behind broken taboos in their wake. And yet, true transgressions are few and far between. More often than not, viewers are met with the pretension of risk-taking on the part of artists too timorous to take any actual risk. When a picture comes about and honestly earns these descriptors, one should take note. So, please note Elliot Tuttle’s Blue Film. It’s the sordid yet simple story of the night spent between a gay camboy and the stranger who paid for his company. 

During those hours, perversity takes on another meaning as actors Kieron Moore and Reed Birney playact a scenario in which nothing feels more verboten than a show of affection, empathy extended toward those who would rightfully revolt us. Blue Film forms a lewd poem of broken hearts and sad monsters, a mural of cumstains and razor burns, topped by a secret song that you listen to while feeling like you shouldn’t, like you’re encroaching on something so private that to witness it is a violation. All throughout, there’s this pervading sense one is peeking into what ought to remain unseen…

Click to read more ...