Berlinale - Which films will Meryl Streep soon be judging?

Murtada here to talk Berlinale which runs February 11th through the 21st. The Berlin Film Festival just announced titles for its Panorama section. These are possibly movies we will be talking about all through 2016, as we are still talking about 45 Years which made its debut there all the way back in February.

Gerwig and Hawke in Maggie's Plan

Among the titles is TIFF and NYFF entry Maggie’s Plan from director writer Rebecca Miller and starring Greta Gerwig, Ethan Hawke and Julianne Moore. Gerwig has admitted during a Q&A at NYFF that she based her character’s look on Miller’s style. That got us fantasizing that the movie is a roman a clef about how Miller married Daniel Day Lewis soon after he was involved with Isabelle Adjani. After all Moore is playing a sorta crazy European.

Another interesting title is John Michael McDonagh’s War on Everyone with Michael Pena, Alexander Skarsgard and Theo James. All you fans of The Guard should be excited. Other titles include films from Ghana, Morocco and of course France. The full list is here.

Firth and Law in Genius

But more importantly who does Meryl get to judge as president of the jury?

First is Michael Grandage’s Genius which stars the man who presented her with that 3rd Oscar and her co-star from The Hours. Genius tells the true story of the relationship between famous American novelist Thomas Wolfe (played by Jude Law) and iconic editor Max Perkins (Colin Firth). Nicole Kidman is playing Aline Bernstein a costume designer who was in a romantic relationship with Wolfe. Other literary greats depicted in the film are Ernest Hemingway (Dominic West ) and F Scott Fitzgerald (Guy Pearce).

Previously thought to be premiering at SXSW, Jeff Nichols' Midnight Special will now premiere first at Berlin. Starring Michael Shannon, Joel Edgerton and Kirsten Dunst, it’s the tale of a boy who may have supernatural powers and all the bad guys in his pursuit.

Actor/Director Vincent Perez (Queen Margot) rallied up Brendan Gleeson and Emma Thompson to play a couple who start working against the Nazis after the death of their only son during WWII in Alone in Berlin. Daniel Bruhl is the SS Officer on their tail in the first of two 2016 movies where he plays a member of that infamous group, the other being the Jessica Chastain vehicle The Zookeeper’s Wife. (Not at Berlinale).

These titles join the previously announced opening film “Hail, Caesar!” which will be playing out of competition. Yes it's the latest from Joel and Ethan Coen but more importantly has Tilda Swinton giving Dame Helen Mirren (Trumbo) a run for her money by playing a version of Hedda Hopper. Who will be Capote and who becomes Infamous?

Kidman, Thompson, Moore, Swinton. Who’s first on your list based on these descriptions?

Women's Pictures - Celine Sciamma's Water Lilies

Those who say, "I wish I was young," probably don't remember just how painful being young can be. French female filmmaker Celine Sciamma remembers, and she brings the hopes and pains of early teenagers to the screen in her 2007 directorial debut. Water Lilies is an uncomfortable movie to watch as an adult. Teenagers are sometimes naked and often sexual; two things American try to avoid in our mainstream depictions of 14 and 15 year old girls. However, though Water Lilies is about young female sexuality, the young females are not sexualized. At least, not by Celine Sciamma's camera. It's an important distinction, because the film will be uncomfortably familiar to anyone who remembers their first friends, first loves, first lusts, and the heartbreaks that come from each.

Water Lilies circles around the awakening of two girls from the French suburbs. Anne (Louise Blachere) is a big-boned synchronized swimmer whose weight and clumsiness put her in the lowest ranks of the team, socially and competitively. Her best friend is Marie (Pauline Acquart), a slight, mousy tomboy who says little but watches everything. They play with Happy Meals with toy spyglasses and spit water at each other for fun like kids do, but they're also beginning to develop feelings: Anne for Francois, the captain of the boy's water polo team, and Marie for the star of the synchronized swimmers, a beautiful girl with a bad reputation named Floriane (Adele Haenel). Unlike Marie and Anne, Floriane understands what desire is, or at least how to recognize when someone desires her. She's known since the adult swim coach started chasing her around the room. What Floriane doesn't know is what she herself wants.  [More...]

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Oscar's Eligible Original Scores for 2015

Thomas Newman has 12 nominations but has never won. Can this be the year? The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (our much obsessed over AMPAS) has released the list of this year's original score contenders. The music branch is one of the most controversial laden in the Academy and they regularly make rulings that make people crazy. This year the most high profile scores that have been disqualified due to pre-existing material are The Revenant and Love and Mercy. Now, a lot of films use pre-existing material  -- particularly if they part of franchises like this year's Creed, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, The Man From UNCLE, which are all eligible -- it's just a question of "how much?" pre-existing they use. And that's where the annual controversies spring from, as when AMPAS let Babel slide (despite a score that had much much less original music than pre-existing music) and it won the category!

In a strange turn of events given Oscar darling Alexandre Desplat's typical yearly work load, he's not even the most eligible contender this year with only two scores.

The complete list of eligible scores (and more info) is after the jump. I've highlighted 15 my favorites but which are you rooting for? 

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Interview: Director Roar Uthaug on Making the Disaster Film Feel Fresh in 'The Wave'

Director Roar Uthaug

Jose here. The fact that Norway’s Oscar submission this year is a disaster film, should be reason enough to warrant attention. It also happens that The Wave is quite a fun ride to sit through! Rather than trying to reinvent the wheel, director Roar Uthaug, delivers a film that demands you get the largest bag of popcorn available, some candy and a giant soda. It’s a film meant to be enjoyed, something which Hollywood often forgets to provide when focusing on CGI extravaganzas that always put the effects before the people.

Uthaug’s film centers on a family led by sensitive geologist Kristian (Kristoffer Joner) and his pragmatic wife Idun (Ane Dahl Topr, the star of last year's Norwegian Oscar submission 1001 Grams), who are preparing to leave their charming little town, when everything that can possibly go wrong, does indeed go wrong. The issue in this case is disastrous landslide that causes a tsunami in the fjord! To say that Uthaug excels at creating tension and induces nail-biting (my cuticles resent him) would be an understatement. What is surprising is how fresh the film feels by the end. Uthaug was kind enough to answer some questions I had about his film.

Read the interview after the jump.

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Cinematography Outsiders

The creative leaps forward we've been seeing in the past decade have been staggering with our prominent cinematographers constantly developing new ways to experiment with visual storytelling and reinventing old tricks. Each year we also get exciting new voices added to the fray, but the Academy's cinematography branch has been reticent to include such future legends as Bradford Young and Greg Fraser.

This year is no different, with the heavyweight directors of photography set to dominate the category once again. Previous winners and perenial nominees Emmanuel Lubezki (The Revenant), Robert Richardson (the 70MM UltraPanivision The Hateful Eight), Janusz Kaminski (Bridge of Spies) and John Seale (Mad Max: Fury Road) are all possible candidates, with the still Oscar-less Roger Deakins (pictured above, Sicario) is always a threat. Our likeliest first-time nominee Edward Lachman for Carol is an example of how hard it can be to break through while delivering brilliant work.

But why so exclusive? This isn't a category that hugs close to the Best Picture lineup typically, and while they've rewarded creative risks, it is typically for a seasoned vet rather than a fresh voice. None of this is meant to diss these veteran artists - they're the elite for a reason. However, here are some non-frontrunner candidates worthy of more discussion:

Creed - Maryse Alberti

While the ballyhooed single take shot is a perfect example of the furious energy Alberti visually brings to key story moments, it's the more subtextual moments that shine - like the shot above or Adonis shadowboxing to stock footage of his father. Her work here is like a less taxing companion to what she did with The Wrestler, but just as potent. With female cinematographers unrecognized by the branch, I dare you to see her work and claim that the lack of female nominees is because there are no worthy candidates.

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