César Winners: Cate Blanchett, 'Annette', and 'Lost Illusions'

by Nathaniel R

Cate Blanchett and Isabelle Huppert backstage at the Césars (that's Ronald Chammah, Isabelle's man, between them)

France's top awards, the Césars, were held last night. The historical costume drama Lost Illusions which had led the nominations took home the most prizes including Best Film. But all was not lost for its competition since all but one of them won at least one César. The thorny musical tragedy Annette was the runner up in terms of wins even repeating the Best Director win at Cannes for Leos Carax. And of course Cate Blanchett took the Honorary César and was introduced by Isabelle Huppert herself.

The winners and comments and a few videos from the show are after the jump. (If we've written about the film, it's linked up)...

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Podcast: West Side Story, The Tender Bar, Don't Look Up... and Faye Dunaway?

Nick and Nathaniel reunion finale (part 3 of 3). Dear readers we hope you've enjoyed this epic talk between your host here and the long lost Nick Davis. Here's the final part in which we talk more 2021 movies plus a discussion of Gena Rowlands and Faye Dunaway due to the new class Nick is teaching.

 

78 minutes
00:01 Lana Wachowski going full meta in Matrix Resurrections
10:15 Nick's trouble with Leos Carax's Annette  (with some Pola X history)
17:50 Tony Kushner's reworking of West Side Story and its redux performances. Plus a bit of In the Heights thrown in for reasons Nathaniel objects to
32:00 France's Petite Maman  and Austria's Great Freedom 
39:30 Adam McKay's Don't Look Up and its limitations as well as the harsh critical response
47:00 An extremely odd double feature: Wes Anderson's The French Dispatch and George Clooney's The Tender Bar 
          BIG ACTRESSEXUAL FINISH
1:01:06 Nick is teaching a class called "Female Performance in Modern Hollywood" so we discuss our favourite Faye Dunaway and Gena Rowlands performances (with very brief asides to several other post-Method actresses)

You can listen to the podcast on iTunes, Stitcher or Spotify or download the attachment below. If you missed our previous recent discussion covering a full dozen 2021 movies, that's here. 

West Side Tender Bar with Faye

FYC: "So May We Start" for Best Original Song

by Cláudio Alves

On December 21st, the Academy will announce their shortlists in several categories, including Best Original Song. As usual, some mainstream triumphs feel like locks already, maybe not for the final lineup but certainly the roster of 15 finalists. Even before the movie was released, Billie Eilish had already won a Grammy for her Bond theme, "No Time to Die." Beyoncé seems like an inevitable nominee thanks to King Richard's "Be Alive." As for Lin-Manuel Miranda's work for Encanto, it's never a good idea to bet against Disney. In the midst of it all, the weird glory of Leos Carax's Annette may be forgotten, despite its vast score of original songs by the Sparks (Ron Mael and Russell Mael). Please, dear reader, allow me to make the case for that musical's first and best tune…

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Is 2021 the year of Adam Driver?

by Cláudio Alves

Leos Carax's Annette hits streaming today. You can watch this year's Cannes Best Director prize-winning feature on Amazon Prime Video and bask in all its insanity. The picture has proven pretty divisive, which is no surprise. Many of the director's anti-naturalistic choices and the Sparks' off-kilter music have been at the center of praise and pans. But, along with them, the most contested element of Annette seems to be its leading man, Adam Driver, whose performance goes to extremes of operatic grandeur intersected by American realism, aggressive anti-comedy, a guttural plunge into the depths of self-hatred. It's a big performance, maybe the biggest in the actor's career, so vast in risks and pitfalls, one can't help but admire the ambition. Annette also represents the first of three major projects the actor has coming out in 2021, marking this year as one of the potential high points in Driver's ever-growing career…

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Posterized: one of a kind auteur Leos Carax

"Posterized" returns for a new season. Every Friday!

by Nathaniel R

If you've followed the career of French director Leos Carax over the years than the response to his latest picture, Annette, which opened Cannes last month and hits theaters today, did not surprise you. He's always been a director who left some scratching their heads while leaving others thrilled or even reverently besotted. If you haven't yet experienced any of his movies we urge you to try them out to see which camp you fall into. 

How many of his 7⅓  pictures have you seen?  The posters are after the jump...

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