The 72 Greatest Gowns of the 72nd Cannes Festival (Part 1)

by Nathaniel R

How did we ignore the gowns from Cannes red carpets for the entirety of this year's run in the South of France? As penance we've collected our favourite gowns (i.e. anything that isn't pants) in two giant red carpet posts. Herewith the 72 greatest gowns from the Cannes Festival ranked in rough order of our appreciation. The order is for entertainment purposes only and we shan't stand by the arbitrary rankings if grilled about them. The order would change every five minutes as this was pieced together bit by bit over several days and our favourite color might be champagne in five minutes whereas at this very second it happens to be red (weird) and usually it's blue or purple.

72 ELLE FANNING 

Click to read more ...

Cannes Winners 2019

With the 72nd Cannes Film Festival wrapped up in the beautiful south of France, it's time to see what the jury selected. Their winners were as such...

PALME D'OR

Bong Joon-ho receiving his Palme from Catherine Deneuve

PARASITE (Bong Joon-Ho, South Korea)
Bong Joon-Ho already has major fans all over the world given the success of his Korean pictures like Memories of a Murder, The Host, and his internationally minded films Okja and Snowpiercer. Our favourite by him is definitely the mesmerizing Mother (2009). Can't wait to see this one! More on Parasite...

GRAND PRIX

ATLANTIQUE (Mati Diop, France/Senegal)
Diop, is as we've noted, the first black female director ever selected for the Cannes competition and her film walks away with the Grand Prix. That's quite a debut film experience...

Click to read more ...

Cannes: 'Un Certain Regard' and 'Cinéfondation' Winners

At Cannes the "Competition" titles get most of the press but there's another competition that runs parallel each year which often hides films that are just as strong --some years critics argue that they're stronger. Nadine Labaki (Capernaum) presided this year over the jury judging the 19 films in "Un Certain Regard." That's the program Cannes officials often throw distinctive or high quality films from newer filmmakers in since they reserve the main competition for (mostly) legendary auteurs or Cannes mainstays. 

UN CERTAIN REGARD PRIZE

THE INVISIBLE LIFE OF EURIDICE GUSMAO (Karim Aïnouz, Brazil)
We first started tracking this picture because it's from the queer Brazilian director Karim Aïnouz who made Futuro Beach, a movie that we liked at the time but obviously undervalued as it really lingers in the memory (I still find myself thinking about it regularly 5 years later). His new film, which won the hearts of Labaki and her jury, also features the legendary Fernanda Montenegro but hers is, alas, a supporting role...

Click to read more ...

Cannes winds down. What's winning the Palme?

by Nathaniel R

Margot Robbie at Cannes for "Once Upon a Time in..."There are 21 titles competing for the Palme d'Or at Cannes this year. We've already talked about seven titles. Pedro Almodovar's Pain & Glory (Spain) is a potential prize winner (and a legit Oscar hopeful) and Mati Diop's Atlantique (France/Senegal), and Celine Sciamma's Portrait of a Lady on Fire (France) could be the key films in ensuring prizes to female directors (something Cannes has historically been bad at) since they were both extremely well-received.

In addition to those three potential Palme d'Or or Best Director winners (Cannes most important prizes), Ladj Ly's contemporary French drama Les Misérables and Kleber Mendonça Filho's Brazilian oddity Bacurau are also threats for jury love.  Diao Yinan's The Wild Goose Lake and Jim Jarmusch's The Dead Don't Die got decent notices but we don't expect prizes there.  

With Cannes ending this weekend we've run out of time so here are quick notes on responses to the other 14 Competition titles and our predictions after the jump...

COMPETITION TITLES

Click to read more ...

Cannes: Female directors making waves...

by Nathaniel R

Leyna Bloom at Cannes

Cannes buzz never ends. So after the jump let's talk about how a handful of new films directed by women have been received including but not limited to Un Certain Regard titles like the trans drama Port Authority, and two very buzz competition titles (Atlantique and Portrait of a Lady on Fire) that sound like Palme contenders. Exciting times ahead...

COMPETITION TITLES

Click to read more ...