Cannes Tidbits: The Tribe, White God, and Sils Maria

A few more notes from the festival. The big prizes are revealed tomorrow and the festival closes Sunday.

Juliette, Chloe, and Kristen
Sils Maria sometimes referred to as Clouds of Sils Maria  focuses on an actress and her personal assistant and the actresses decision to play a part in a remake of a property deeply connected to her life (which weirdly also exactly describes, at least in part, Maps to the Stars with Julianne Moore and Mia Wasikowska!!!). Early word is that it's a Kristen Stewart showcase.  This turn of events by no  means surprise me. It's long been a thing which amuses and annoys in equal measure that people ALWAYS lose their shit when a non-prestigious actor suddenly holds their own in a substantive role or movie. (Hell, it's so common that this is even the second time this week following Channing Tatum's raves in Foxcatcher) Of course this "surprise" factor would be significantly reduced if more people paid attention to the actual quality of the acting in any actors career and not just that thing they did one time in a movie or franchise that made them famous. Foxcatcher is hardly the first time Channing has been good and if more people had actually watched and tried to absorb Stewart as Joan Jett in The Runaways, rather than treating it as a indie curio inbetween Twilight movies, they'd know that Stewart had some talent, too. That said I object to the subhheadline in Jordan Hoffman's review in Vanity Fair that says "sticks it to anyone who ever slammed her for Twilight"

....no, no, no. You don't get to erase your bad work as soon as you choose to do good work. Yes, those movies are terrible but she needn't have been terrible in them. Good committed actors rise above bad material all the time, so her dead-eyed numbingly dull performance in that franchise? That's on her. 

Critics Week Winner
The Ukranian film The Tribe has no subtitles, but then it's not in Ukranian either. The ambitious movie is completely in sign language and populated by deaf actors. The audience has to decipher the intricacy by watching the gestures of and emotion of the actors. Just to make sure you're paying attention it also contains graphic sex. Here's a review from Indiewire... and consider our interest highly piqued. 

The Winners of Critics Week
This is a sidebar featuring emerging talent so the features are also eligible for the Camera d'Or

Grand Prize - The Tribe (Ukraine)
Gan Foundation Support for Distribution Prize - The Tribe (Ukraine)
Visionary Award - The Tribe (Ukraine)
Screenplay - Hope (France)
Canal Plus (Short Film) - Crocodile (UK)
Sony CineAlta Discovery Prize (Short Film) - A Ciambra (Italy)

Palme D'og & Un Certain Regard
A Cannes tradition that got very popular when the The Artist broke out big in 2011, this year's winner was a Hungarian feature directed by Kornél Mundruczó called White God and we all know what "God" spells backwards. The movie is about a pack of wild dogs on a rampage and keeps being compared to Hitchcock's The Birds -- I wonder if that's just a snap judgement comparison or a qualitative comparison? Here's a feature at Artsbeat on the well-received film. Apparently Jean Luc Godard's Farewell to Language stars his dog Mieville had to settle for runner up.

White God also took top honors for the Un Certain Regard jury and, like Critics Week, most of the films are from emerging talent and some (though not the winner) are eligible for the Camera D'Or which honors first time filmmakers

The Winners of Un Certain Regard
Best Film - White God (Hungary)
Jury Prize - Force Majeure (Sweden
<-- For what it's worth Ruben Östlund has previously been submitted for Oscar consideration by Sweden 
Special Jury Prize - The Salt of the Earth (USA)
Ensemble - Party Girl (France)
Best Actor -David Gulpilil, Charlie's Country (Australia)
Gulpilil previously collaborated with the same director Rolf de Heer on the Australian Oscar submission Ten Canoes (2006) 

P.S. I do not know why there is not a Best Actress award. I assume the exact makeup of the prizes each year is up to that particular jury.

Top Ten Biggest Money-Making Actresses Right Now

For today's Tuesday's Top Ten we're using Forbes numbers for discussion lift-off We recently discussed their list of the top paid actors from the past twelve months and came to the conclusion that they don't challenge themselves much at all. The women are a slightly different story. While it's true that no one would mistake this for a list of 'The Best Actresses Working' or 'The Actresses Who Are Currently Testing The Limits of Their Range,' this list does have slightly more variety in filmography though far less in terms of beauty and age as is always the case with the men and the women of Hollywood

01 Angelina Jolie $33 
Tops the list by way of signing on to Maleficent for Disney. The Sleeping Beauty prequel is a surefire hit, both because it's presold -- branding being everything -- and because it's Jolie who rarely falters at the box office. 

nine more ladies and an actress poll after the jump

Click to read more ...

Red Carpet Convo: My So-Called "Punk"

In Red Carpet Convos, we discuss what the actresses are wearing. Which is really an elaborate excuse (not that we need another) to talk actresses. Today's returning guest is Courtney Enlow Hall from Pajiba.

NATHANIEL: Hi Courtney! Welcome back to Red Carpet Convos. This time I will try not to ask you to draw any pigs dressed as Janell Monae.

COURTNEY: Well as you know I'm exceptionally good at that, so I'm sad about this.

NATHANIEL: This week the celebs came out for the annual MET GALA and the theme was "Punk". Because The Met is SO counter-culture, you know.

COURTNEY: The Met is punk as fuck, Ryan Adams-style.

Ginny, Diaz, JLo, Kerry, and Angela Chase

NATHANIEL: Actually maybe it is rebellious to go to a museum instead of sitting at home watching reality tv. I rescind my comment. The interesting thing to me about the looks we're about to see is it seems like only some actresses have any working knowledge of what "punk" is. Let's start with Ginnifer Goodwin. I think she gets it.

Or at least her eye makeup does...

"my so-called punk", weeping ex-boyfriends, and eyeliner mantras after the jump

Click to read more ...

Morning After Links

BuzzFeed "The 16 Most Epic Faces Jennifer Lawrence Made on Oscar Night" ...my favorite (pictured below) is the "i can't remember your name" face
Slate who was wrongest in their Oscar predictions?
Gawker all of Seth MacFarlane's sexist, racist and homophobic jokes collected
i09 Twilight Breaking Dawn Part 2 wins all the Razzies... speaking of did we ever figure out why Kristen Stewart was on crutches... was it the crushing weight of her own celebrity?

Salon on why Lincoln lost
Nick's Flick Picks I think in the Oscar Glut yesterday, a lot of you missed this fun group party wherein a bunch of us picked our favorite wins from past years. Super fun. And more to come. 
Nick's Flick Picks also live-blogged the whole show. I haven't read this yet but since it's Nick, you know it'll be good. 
Pop & Hiss Adele and Dame Shirley Bassey saved the Oscars
The Great Showdown celebrates the Best Pics in Scott C's wonderful way 
Hulu for the first time you can watch the Oscars online in full (for a limited time)
IndieWire watch Quvenzhané Wallis get down at the after party!  

And behold, my favorite photo I've yet seen from the After Parties

Answer me these questions three:

• How much do you love both of these men?
• What do you suppose they were saying to each other here? 
• Which Ang Lee movie do you think Daniel Day-Lewis loves most? 

Kristen Stewart is a Rock Star and Other "On The Road" Discoveries

The Scene: September* 2012, NYC. An industry screening and cocktail party for On the Road.

Kristen Stewart stood at the front of the crowded screening room in a white oversized dress shirt and black slacks. Director Walter Salles and co-star Garrett Hedlund stood beside her and she shifted nervously while they all spoke to the assembled Academy and Guild members and small pockets of press types like me. The "stop looking at me" vibe, already familiar from her many public appearances rippled outward. One wants celebrities to enjoy the rarified air they breathe, both because success is a beautiful coveted trophy and because careers in the public eye require being looked at to achieve any degree of it. I've written about my discomfort with her discomfort before in a piece that was provocatively called "Jodie Foster is Wrong: On the Mandatory Price of Fame." Yet, through the course of the evening I found myself reconsidering her particulars.

Kristen Stewart does her randiest (and maybe her best) work ever in "On the Road".

*Yes, this scene I've set took place in September.

I foolishly didn't write about the party immediately thereafter though it happened to be the first awards season get together of 2012 as "the Doyenne of Buzz" Peggy Siegal reminded us in welcome. Even then On the Road (The Movie) seemed to be as lost in time as its protagonists were on the map as they drove and drove, searching for connection, energy, sex, thrills, drugs, music -- anything that felt alive. I knew the film wouldn't open until the tail end of the year in limited release (possibly near you) and I wondered, as I often do, what I'm to do as a film blogger about movies that remain so elusive, movies with strange and distant release dates. Films, like movie stars, are invented to be looked at, but many of them hide despite the best efforts of publicists, filmmakers and journalists who are eager to embrace them and discuss them with moviegoers.

[I worried, even then, that this moody sweaty retro film would be utterly ignored in the crush of Shiny Noisy Awards-Baiting Behemoths. The Adult-Oriented Christmas Multiplex Glut is simply no place for a film that so pointedly craves wide open spaces and young hormonal surges. I'm mystified that the distributor (Sundance Selects) didn't choose to open this one somewhere between July and October, much more comfortable climates for its subject matter and appeal.]

Very briefly at the after-party I spoke with Kristen Stewart about the green splint on her finger which I had mistaken for an oversized piece of costume jewelry. She told me I wasn't the first and held it up, not for my benefit but for her own 'why do people keep mentioning that?' contemplation. I never learned how she'd hurt her finger and that's all we said to each other. But in the little circles that form themselves around The Talent at these industry parties, she seemed perfectly content, if still a bit restless, to be talking to other people in her profession. As I left the party I felt a little bad about my impatience with her celebrity unease because up close and impersonal, I suddenly saw it from a different and I assume clearer perspective. Kristen Stewart isn't, in spirit, a movie star but a rock star. Rock stars are allowed more antagonistic friction between themselves and the world. Sometimes they're even rewarded for it.

...all of those smashed-up guitars.

Hedlund & Stewart. True Lust Forever.

This is, quite obviously, why Stewart's previous best performance to date was as Joan Jett in The Runaways. And it has to be why she's so mesmerizing again as the untamed teenage bride "Marylou".

Stewart's fame far outstrips that of her male leads but for all her screen magnetism in this particular role, the true star of On the Road is Garret Hedlund as "Dean Moriarty" the object of nearly everyone's affection. Hedlund made his way through that same September party with an eager friendliness in amusing unintentional direct contrast to his co-star. It's remarkably easy to fall in deep like with him and in the film it's impossible not to fall in deep love. Were On the Road to be more widely seen, Hedlund's explosive sexuality as Dean coupled with the quality of his acting would make him an instant 'cast him in everything!' sensation. On the Road doesn't always work but Hedlund's star turn definitely does.

I recently screened the film a second time and left with the same impression. The same impression that the film wisely underlines. The classic book and this film version both conclude with a confessional mantra: 

I think of Dean Moriarty. I think of Dean Moriarty. I think of Dean Moriarty."

I dare you to see the film and leave thinking of anything else.

previously
more Kristen Stewart
more Garrett Hedlund