Driver and Cotillard SING!

by Eric Blume

In other surprising/weird/interesting film projects ahead for us in 2020, filming just wrapped on Annette, a musical featuring Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard, and directed by French auteur Leos Carax. Apparently Driver plays a stand-up comedian and Cotillard an opera singer, whose lives take a twist with the birth of their daughter Annette, who is born with a "special gift".

The movie sounds gloriously bananas.  Is it in French or English, or both?  Leos Carax is, without hyperbole, one of the most idiosyncratic directors alive.  It's almost thirty years ago that he had Juliette Binoche waterskiing down the Seine in Les Amants du Pont-Neuf, and eight years ago that he mystified everyone with the accordions and role play of Holy Motors.  The man does not have a commercial bone in his body.

We know from Marriage Story that Driver can carry a tune. It's thrilling that at essentially the most pivotal time in his career, he's chosen to take a left turn with a movie like this.  And it's been far too long since Cotillard has had a great role.  She's utterly magnificent in Nine (not sorry, haters), and her two numbers in that film demonstrate her ability to both keep it simple / honest AND to fly into full-blown performance mode.  But...she's playing an opera singer?  Sounds iffy.   Still, Driver and Cotillard are two of the greatest actors working today, and matching them sounds wonderfully inspired.

This movie on paper truly earns the letters WTF.  Even if it doesn't land, it should at least be interesting!

Does Box Office Matter to Best Actress Hopefuls?

by Nathaniel R

Helen Mirren's The Queen was in many ways a completely standard win... a solid success before the nomination and an even bigger hit afterwardsDoes Box Office matter to Oscars? It does and it doesn't. And how much it matters varies from year to year and from category to category. It obviously matters, regardless, if you're either a flop or a big hit but anything inbetween (where most movies fall) is up for speculative debate.

For instance, just this year people have debated whether The Wife's box office take is strong enough for a Best Actress nomination for Glenn Glose (hint: it totally is... though winning will be harder) and whether it will matter that Roma won't really have that much of a theatrical presence (it might. it might not. The streaming only/mostly thing is relatively uncharted territory) or if the major success of A Star is Born will make a win possible for Lady Gaga (it won't hurt!)

For fun let's look at how much the Best Actress nominees films made before they were nominated for the past fifteen years and see what patterns emerge. The films in red won Best Actress Oscars.

BOX OFFICE RANK OF BEST ACTRESS FILMS
BEFORE THE NOMINATIONS (2003-2017)
AND WHERE THIS YEAR'S LEADING ACTRESSES CURRENTLY FIT...

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Reason No "355" to Love Jessica Chastain

by Nathaniel R

If the future really is female as protest signs and t-shirts so often prophesy, the movies are going to be getting sooo good. This just in: Jessica Chastain's production company Freckle Films is mounting a film called 355 which is a spy thriller based on an idea by and starring Chastain herself. Her co-stars will be Marion Cotillard, Penelope Cruz, Fan Bingbing, and Lupita Nyong'o. Excuse us while we faint...

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Red Carpet Lineup: Cannes '17, French Actress Heaven

It's been a little overwhelming looking at all the gowns on display at Cannes but before we get 10 whole days behind, let's celebrate the Gallic glory of French actresses. The 70th Anniversary Cannes party that the festival threw itself in the middle of its week long party had the biggest collection of international stars imaginable including these nine giants of French cinema after the jump...

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Cannes Day 1: The Netflix Battle and "Ishmael's Ghost"

by Nathaniel R

Maren Ade, Will Smith, Agnes Jaoui, and Pedro Almodóvar at the Jury Press Conference today

Though we aren't in the South of France we'll try to keep an eye on the proceedings across the pond there these next two weeks. If you're relatively new to movie obsessing (We keep hoping more young people will tune in to TFE. We used to attract baby cinephiles... not sure where they congregate now!) Vox has a terrific heavily expository overview of why Cannes is so important, how to pronounce it ("can" not "cans" or "cahn"), why so many famous people go, why everyone is so dressed up, and some other myths and mysteries that surround the festival.

Jury Press Conference & the Netflix Divide
Because juicy click-bait headlines drive traffic most websites are framing the Jury Press Conference as a bloody war between the president Pedro Almodóvar and his most famous juror Will Smith. They may well eventually come to artistic blows in jury deliberations (who knows) but this is already grossly overstated. They merely have different feelings about Netflix, a famous "disruptor" as a company. Will Smith is very pro Netflix (basically because he has kids who like it). Almodóvar is very pro theatrical exhibition, because you know, he's a filmmaker who cares about movies. That's about the extent of the "war"...

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