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Entries in Cannes (330)

Friday
Feb232024

Review: "About Dry Grasses" has a Novelistic Scope

by Nick Taylor


Are you, like the rest of us here at The Film Experience, furiously racing to catch up with some of last year’s most celebrated films before March 10th? Depending on where you live, there’s another certified banger making its way across the US and Canada this weekend. Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s About Dry Grasses likely made its biggest headlines out of Cannes for Merve Dizdar’s semi-surprising Best Actress prize against more internationally recognizable competition like the May December gals and newly Oscar-nominated Sandra Hüller. If you can believe it, Dizdar’s win is wholly deserving, and the film itself is remarkable…

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Thursday
Feb222024

A Very French Scandal

by Cláudio Alves

The César Awards ceremony happens tomorrow, with Anatomy of a Fall poised for a sweep befitting its status as an Oscar darling. For some, its victory will taste like justice after what many have decried as a scandalous snub. After all, despite its acclaim, Justine Triet's film wasn't selected to represent France in the Best International Film race. Instead, the selection committee went with Trần Anh Hùng's The Taste of Things, which competed against Anatomy in Cannes, losing the Palme d'Or but nabbing the Best Director prize. The decision generated much press, with people decrying it as undue punishment toward Triet, who criticized Emmanuel Macron's government in her Palme acceptance speech.

However, this perceived indignity has led to its own backlash. Hùng's film has been belittled nonstop, including by Triet on social media. It all culminated with the César nominations, where France's Oscar submission got three "below-the-line" nominations and nothing else…

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Wednesday
Aug302023

My Helen Mirren Top Ten

by Cláudio Alves

It's hard to believe Helen Mirren hasn't been nominated for an Oscar since The Last Station, way back in 2009. The shock comes not from her fate's unfairness, mind you. Instead, it stems from how Mirren seems to be actively chasing gold, nabbing essential precursor support for projects like Hitchcock, The Hundred-Foot Journey, Woman in Gold, Trumbo, and The Leisure Seeker. This year, the actress may be going down the same road with Golda, the recently released biopic about Golda Meier, "the Iron Lady of Israel.". To mark the occasion, let's look away from the failed Oscar buzz and consider the peak of Helen Mirren's work as a big-screen legend.

As with Angela Bassett, Gwyneth Paltrow, Sigourney Weaver, Marilyn Monroe, and Maggie Smith, TV performances will be set aside for another day, and so will her Academy-anointed turns. Caveats out of the way, this is my Mirren top ten…

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Friday
Jul072023

Happy Birthday, Shelley Duvall!

by Cláudio Alves

Shelley Duvall is one of a kind. Upon seeing her work in Altman's 3 Women, Andrew Sarris compared her to "a young Katharine Hepburn," while Pauline Kael said she was the "closest thing we've ever come to a female Buster Keaton." And yet, the critic would also inevitably arrive at the same conclusion that she was unique. "There are no forebears or influences that would help to explain Shelley Duvall's acting; she doesn't seem to owe anything to anyone." And so, it's a tragedy that, nowadays, she's mostly remembered as the woman broken by Stanley Kubrick during The Shining's grueling shoot, a pop psychology misreading that's spread through social media despite Duvall's own words on the matter.

Infuriating, it's condescending to a great multi-hyphenated artist whose independence and ambition defined a decades-spanning career in entertainment. Let's keep the wonders of Duvall's work alive and bright, let's remember and honor. I invite you to celebrate the iconoclast on this special occasion, the actress' 74th birthday in a year marked by her return to cinema in The Forest Hills

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Saturday
May272023

Cannes Review: Palme d'Or winner "Anatomy of a Fall"

Elisa Giuidici reporting from Cannes...

I can name a very short list of actresses who can portray a silver screen character with the level of charisma and ego as Cate Blanchett in the already iconic role of Lydia Tár. That short list has now grown by one. The amazingly talented Sandra Hüller, best known for Toni Erdmann, does not lack for “big dick energy”. After seeing her from a strange distance in The Zone of Interest by Jonathan Glazer, we can fully grasp her icy, domineering attitude in the wonderful Anatomy of a Fall. It's a legal thriller by French director Justine Triet (who also co-wrote the screenplay with her partner Arthur Harari).

The movie is another take on the classic procedural dilemma: did a person die by accident or were they killed by their partner?

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