The Film Experience™ was created by Nathaniel R. All material herein is written by our team. (This site is not for profit but for an expression of love for cinema & adjacent artforms.)
Whew that took me too long this year? I'm working on a new system for 2011, building templates already so we'll see if it pans out. I can't promise anything but I really want something smooth and daily next December/January with the medals handed out before the Oscars. I can dream. I'll wrap up with gold silver and bronze medals Monday or Tuesday but for now...
Best Sex Scenes, Best Kiss, Openings, Endings, Title Sequences, & Best Scenes... Featuring achievements from 127 Hours, Black Swan, Somewhere, Mother, The Kids Are All Right, I Am Love and many more... all of which are now available on DVD. If you live in a city that doesn't get the movies on time, are you finally all caught up on your 2010 viewing? Was Blue Valentine your lone holdout?
Enjoy and please comment. But don't fall in love with married lesbians.
The 64th annual Cannes Film Festival wrapped up today with the jury awards.
Some awards announcements feel like deflations to robust film festivals but not this year. Major conversation pieces won big, extending the buzz if not adding much in the way of a surprise element that can sometimes send hype spinning in new directions.
First and foremost I, personally, must let out a whoop of joy at the news that Kirsten Dunst took Best Actress. I've long been a champion of her underappreciated gifts. She's one of those rare actresses who is just as skilled at both comedic and dramatic roles and her filmography will eventually have the last laugh over her many detractors. Her "comeback", artistically speaking, probably started with All Good Things this December. She won very complimentary reviews and a last minute Oscar campaign even though the film itself didn't get much attention. [The Film Experience Interview from Kirsten Dunst if you missed it.]
Gif via Rich at FourFour
Main Jury(Robert DeNiro was Jury President) This jury, the jury that gets all the attention, hands out the prizes for the films in the main competition roster. But Cannes has several sidebars as well. PALME D'OR The Tree of Life by Terrence Malick. GRAND PRIX (runner up) The Kid With The Bike by the Dardenne Brothers who seem to win something each and every year and Once Upon a Time in Anatolia by Nuri Bilge Ceylan
Camera D'Or (Jury President Bong Joon Ho, of Mother and The Host fame) GOLDEN CAMERA (Best First Feature) Las Acacias directed by Pablo Giorgelli [Argentina]
Un Certain Regard (Jury President Emir Kusturica of Underground and Black Cat White Cat fame) PRIZE OF UN CERTAIN REGARD (tie)Arirang by Kim Ki-Duk and Stopped on Track by Andreas Dresen
SPECIAL JURY PRIZE Elena by Andrey Zvyaginstev DIRECTING PRIZE Mohammad Rasoulof for Bé Omid é Didar
Critics Week (Jury President Chang-dong Lee of Poetry and Secret Sunshine fame) This jury concentrates on new directors (meaning first or second timers) FEATURE Take Shelter (which played at Sundance) starring Michael Shannon & Jessica Chastain. SPECIAL MENTION Snowtown (a controversial choice) CID/CCAS and the OFAJ Las Acacias (which also won the Camera D'Or)
The Skin I Live In wins a Cinematography Prize. Notice the poster on the wall is the one they've been using for the film's teaser poster
C.S.T VULCAN PRIZE (for an artist technician) went to cinematographer José Luis Alcaine for Pedro Almodóvar's The Skin I Live In (previous posts) SPECIAL DISTINCTION went to Sound Designer Paul Davies and Editor Joe Bini for Lynne Ramsay's We Need To Talk About Kevin
Cross-CountryCinefondation and Short Films(Jury President Michel Gondry) SHORT FILMS PALME D'OR Cross-Country by Maryna Vroda JURY PRIZE Swimsuit 46 by Wannes Destoop
CINEFONDATION 1ST PRIZE Der Brief (The Letter) by Dorotyea Droumeva 2ND PRIZE Drari by Kamal Lazraq 3RD PRIZE Fly By Night by Son Tae-gyum
In terms of the Oscar race, which rarely correlates with Cannes and doesn't need to, this still adds a helpful sheen of prestige to The Tree of Life, Melancholia and Take Shelter which will all see the US marketplace. Given the multiple prizes for the Argentinian debut film Las Acacias one also wonders if it will be Argentina's Oscar submission?
What do you make of all this? Did anything surprise you?
*Sniffle* Take one long last longing look. You might not see this much glittery movie talent assembled again until the Golden Globes. Today there is no red carpet conversation for the lineup -- all of my blogging friends have vanished (was it The Rapture?) -- other than what you bring to the comments.
Twenty-three more to wrap up.
Left to right: Audrey Dana who was so awesome in Roman de Gare - remember that?, Ultimate being Milla Jovovich, statuesque jury queen Uma Thurman, and sexy French bitches Ludivine Sagnier & Raphaël Personnaz.
Left to right: Antonio Banderas had a good fortnight, didn't he? Ryan Gosling went blue but Drive was red hot, Jude Law juried (winners coming at'cha tomorrow), and Saïd Tagmaoui walked the red carpet (he'll finally be back on the big screen in Conan the Barbarian but given that he speaks four languages and is a very good actor he should be in like 5 or 6 big movies a year, don't you think?)
Left to right: Jessica Chastain (Tree of Life), Slumdog lovers Dev Patel & Freida Pinto, leaning tower of Gwen Stefani, and Goldie Hawn who hasn't changed her hairstyle, sleeve or neckline preference in about 26-27 years now.
Left to right: Zhang Ziyi is still alive, Zoe Saldana is the most delicious candy cane we've seen in years, the hilarious Missi Pyle is in The Artist (Yay!), Courtney Love is still alive and Linda Cardellini is looking more like a movie star than we remember her ever looking before.
Left to right: Janet Jackson, our favorite constantly absent filmmaker (female division) Jane Campion and her 17 year old (?) actress daughter Alice Englert, and the incomparable Tilda Swinton who might possibly win Best Actress tomorrow for We Need To Talk About Kevin.
Andreas from Pussy Goes Grrr here, with one of the most disturbing cinematic uses of pop music.
From his controlled demolition of the nuclear family in Eraserhead to his grotesque send-up of Hollywood in Mulholland Drive, David Lynch has always delighted in savaging American institutions. Through the S&M-tinged surrealism of Blue Velvet, he pried the bland surface off of suburbia and illuminated the perverse secrets underneath.
The darkest of those secrets is Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper), an abusive, foul-mouthed gangster who holds sultry chanteuse Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini) in his thrall. Hopper is a villain unlike any other, snapping from relative calm to strung-out psychosis without warning. But Frank's most terrifying tendency isn't his hair-trigger temper or his torrents of profanity: it's the unexpected well of emotion festering inside him.
Read more about Dennis Hopper in David Lynch's America after the jump.
Steven Spielberg has two movies coming out this year, a twin trick he's performed five other times: 1989, 1993, 1997, 2002 and 2005. Christmas break brings us The Adventures of TinTin: The Secret of the Unicorn and a week later on December 28th, War Horse opens.
The TinTin Teaser (International)
Yes No or Maybe So ? ;)
Aside from Spielberg's trusted collaborative team (composer John Williams, editor Michael Kahn, cinematographer Janusz Kaminski and the rest), his reliably huge box office results, his male protagonists, and child actors in lead or prominently featured roles, what other commonality do we often see in his work?
Here's one to consider...
If you want Spielberg to direct your script, have an element of chase in it. From his TV movie Duel, his megahits Jaws and E.T., the Indiana Jones franchise, through the two movies starring Tom Cruise and Catch Me If You Can (the title alone!), Spielberg's characters have been on the run. They've been out of breath for four decades. Where are they going? Who is chasing them? Why?
DUEL (1971 TV movie, released theatrically in Europe) A truck driver chases down a driver who had the nerve of passing him.
THE SUGARLAND EXPRESS (1974) Lou Jean and her husband Clovis (Goldie Hawn and William Atherton), an escaped convict, on the run from the law, chased by dozens of police cars.
JAWS (1975) After a shark and a police captain (Roy Shrieder) run people out of the water, three men (including the police captain) go after the killer shark.
RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981) The search for the lost coven of god. A big boulder chases Indiana Jones, our adventurous archeologist, right to the hands of his enemies, who chase him all the way to his awaiting seaplane, etc. Includes a chase in the crowded streets of Cairo.
E.T. (1982) The government is after the kids hiding the long-fingered alien who just wants to go home. Cue bicycle chase.
INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM (1984) It's one chase after another kicking off with Indy's frenzy to find the antidote to his poisoning, then the leap from a plane - snowy slope - river rapids sequence and finally the Sankara Stones and a chase on mine car tracks.
INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE (1989) The search for the holy grail. Nazis once again. Chases on boats, biplanes and tanks.
HOOK (1991) The boy who never grows up grew up to be Robin Williams. Peter Pan returns to Neverland after Captain Hook kidnaps his children. And the crocodile still haunts Captain Hook with his ticking stomach.
JURASSIC PARK (1993) The dinosaurs cut loose and it's a two-way chase: Dinosaurs vs. Humans, Humans vs. Dinosaurs. As is the case in the horrible sequel THE LOST WORLD: JURASSIC PARK (1997).
SAVING PRIVATE RYAN (1998) Captain John Miller (Tom Hanks) and troupe race to find a single soldier (Matt Damon) behind enemy lines in WW2.
A.I. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (2001) Android David (Haley Joel Osment) joins Gigolo Joe (Jude Law) who is running from the police on murder charges, and they seek the Blue Fairy.
CATCH ME IF YOU CAN (2002) FBI agent Carl Hanratty (Tom Hanks) chases conman Frank Abagnale Jr. (Leonardo DiCaprio).
MINORITY REPORT (2002) John Anderton (Tom Cruise) is continually on the run after being charged with a murder he has yet to commit.
MUNICH (2005) The hunt for the murderers of 11 Israeli athletes in the 1972 Olympic games in Munich.
WAR OF THE WORLDS (2005) Ray (Cruise again) and his kids run from murderous killing machines from outer space.
Spielberg loves a good chase
INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL (2008) Harrison Ford, no stranger to marathon runs (see also The Fugitive) is continually on the run when he's playing the world's most famous fictional anthropologist. This is the only movie in the franchises that I've seen but once but I remember a chase involving jeeps in the jungle.
In Saving Stablemate Joey AKA WAR HORSE, a horse named Joey is sold to the cavalry and sent to France. Albert, too young to enlist, goes out to save his horse (Matt Damon?) behind enemy lines in WWI.
And TIN TIN? We'll see. Did I miss any chases in these other pictures? 1941, Close Encounters, The Color Purple, Empire of the Sun, Always, Schindler's List, The Terminal?
Though Spielberg is not at prolific as Clint Eastwood or Woody Allen, he is known as a speedy director. He likes to shoot in more than one setting a day and apart from possibly Jaws (?) he finishes his movies ahead of schedule. Take War of the Worlds for an example of his post-production speed. Filming wrapped in March and the movie was in theaters by June! despite being heavy on the visual effects. This sense of urgency comes through in his movies, which could be one reason he's such a strong action director (I'd argue he's better with action than drama).
Spielberg's cameo in The Blues Brothers
Even when Spielberg isn't directing, he's producing big budget tent poles -- many with chase elements, even non-human ones like Twister (storm-chasing!). Even his rare cameo in The Blues Brothers fits in: he ends the police chase after the brothers.
Always on the run, the search and chase continue.
Sunday, May 22, 2011 at 7:00PM 
