Cannes at Home: Day 8 – The Beautiful People

by Cláudio Alves

Sean Baker's ANORA looks like a top contender for the Palme d'Or.

After much divisiveness in the Main Competition, the Cannes critics finally have something to fawn over in collective uproar. Sean Baker's Anora was a hit with press and audiences alike, standing out in a selection of otherwise derided titles. Indeed, Christophe Honoré's Marcello Mio met critical rejection on the same day of Grand Tour's world premiere, while Paolo Sorrentino's Parthenope inspired another wave of dissenting opinions. Some love it, while many others decry the Neapolitan director's obsession with objectified female bodies, beauty above everything else, even cinematic meaning. Considering his last few projects, this shouldn't come as a surprise.

That shall be the theme of this Cannes at Home program—the beautiful people. Let's explore the siren calls of Baker's Tangerine, Honoré's The Beautiful Person, and Sorrentino's Oscar-winning The Great Beauty…

Click to read more ...

Review: "One Fine Morning" is the gentlest of gut punches

by Cláudio Alves

Autofiction isn't a new phenomenon, whether in film or other arts. Nevertheless, more and more directors are dipping their toes into pools of navel-gazing introspection. For some auteurs, however, there has never been another way of making art. Take Mia Hasen-Løve as an example. Her cinema has always manifested as a reflection of lived experience, pulling from personal details in gradations of openness, extrapolating narrative honesty as a conduit for building humanistic pieces. Empathy is the tenet of her cinema, not just between audience and characters but between the filmmaker and her creation. At least, that's the feeling that persists after one leaves the theater, still dazed by the director's work. 

Within this context, it means a great deal to state that One Fine Morning, Mia Hansen-Løve's latest, might be her most personal project to date…

Click to read more ...

Cannes Gown Round 9: Red & Black Song

It's a DOUBLE-SIZED poll tonight/this morning (depending on when you're seeing this) since the stars have been out out en masse for various premieres. One question begs to be asked: Do stylists and designers all have meetings cross-clients to decide on the trends for each major festival...not just general trends but day-to-day shifts. If not why is it all of a sudden blacks and reds? Earlier in the festival metallic gowns and pink were all the rage. The fashion hive-mind has such mood swings!

You know what to do!

online polls

You can still vote on the earlier polls. Vote again if you'd like.

YNMS: Crimes of the Future (New Trailer)

by Mark Brinkerhoff

NEON, the enfant terrible of indie film distributors (Parasite, Titane, The Worst Person in the World, etc.), has released a full trailer for the new David Cronenberg film, Crimes of the Future, so you know what that means! Let’s roll…

Click to read more ...

Yes No Maybe So: No Time to Die

by Deborah Lipp

The twenty-fifth official James Bond movie, No Time to Die, was originally scheduled for release in April, and was the first major movie to suffer delay due to the coronavirus pandemic. It is now scheduled for release on November 21st and a new trailer recently dropped.

How badly do we want to see it? Let’s break it down…

Click to read more ...