Cannes Poster Unveiled

Claudia Cardinale is this poster girl for the 70th edition of the Cannes Film Festival (May 17th-28th). 

The Italian star, whose credits include classics like 8½, Once Upon a Time in the West, The Leopard, Big Deal on Madonna Street, and Rocco and His Brothers is 78 now. She's still a regular on film festival red carpets. This photo of her was taken in 1959 when she was just 21 (and people are not happy that it's been reportedly airbrushed to make her thighs smaller.)

More news: Another Italian goddess Monica Bellucci has been named the Mistress of Ceremonies; Romanian auteur Cristian Mungiu (4 Months 3 Weeks and 2 Days,  Beyond the Hills) will preside over the Cinéfondation and Short Films Jury; and the Main Competition Jury president is Spain's Pedro Almodóvar. We don't yet know what the films he'll be judging are (and who will be on his jury) but speculated titles include Alexander Payne's Downsizing, Todd Haynes Wonderstruck, Michael Haneke's Happy End, and Sofia Coppola's The Beguiled. 

Well, Hello Linky

Playbill Cate Blanchett and Richard Roxburgh got their Sardi's caricatures this week
BFI Pedro Almodóvar recommends 13 Spanish films, some classics and some recent, including Jamon Jamon, Blancanieves (♥︎), and Peppermint Frappé
McCarter want to see Murder on the Orient Express on stage before the big screen remake later this year? A new production just opened in Princeton with a pretty great cast that includes Veanne Cox, Julie Halston and gorgeous Max Von Essen who should've won the Tony two years back for An American in Paris

Jezebel "Carol Without Women" boring crap or still beautiful abstraction? Must watch!
MNPP Sam Claflin will costar in the next film from brilliant Babadook director Jennifer Kent
Interview talks to the new Iron Fist Finn Jones
Ashlee Marie shows you how to make a standing Lego Batman cake
Shudder a new streaming service for horror fans is streaming Ken Russell's notorious and brilliant and often banned The Devils (1971). It's so hard to get in the US so see it while you have a chance!
Coming Soon Jennifer Aniston will costar in Anne Fletcher's YA adaptation Dumplin' about child beauty pageants
Tom & Lorenzo judge the "stylists & stars" Hollywood Reporter covers. Fun 
Queerty did you hear that RuPaul got married? He and his boyfriend of 23 years tied the knot in January
Variety Kleber Mendonça Filho, who gave us the great Aquarius last year, will preside over the Critics Week jury at Cannes this summer 
Coming Soon Married actors John Krasinski and Emily Blunt will co star for the first time in the horror thriller A Quiet Place. Krasinski will also direct

Exit Tweet
Bette Midler reminding us that she's back but we're too poor to see her do Dolly Levi on Broadway. Thanks, Bette!

Here I am for the first time as Dolly! Performances begin tomorrow #HelloDolly! pic.twitter.com/ipr1rTjWhI

— Bette Midler (@BetteMidler) March 14, 2017

Goya Awards and Gowns

The 31st annual Goya Awards (Spain's Oscars) were held over the weekend in Madrid and we'd be remiss if we didn't share the winners -- particularly considering we recently posted statistics about their all time favorite actresses. This year's big winners were Raúl Arévalo's revenge drama The Fury of a Patient Man (which took Best Film and 3 other prizes) and A Monster Calls (which took Best Director and swept the technical categories with 9 wins). 

Ana Alvarez, Penélope Cruz, and Belen Lopez

Spain's Oscar submission, Almodóvar's Julieta, won only Best Actress for Emma Suarez who plays the older version of the titular character. Incredibly Suarez also won Best Supporting Actress for another film (The Next Skin) so Spain really worships her this year.  (After the jump a complete list of winners as well as other gowns and tuxes...)

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Box Office Boom for Best Pictures...

Hidden Figures and La La Land both crossed the $100 million mark this weekend.

This weekend saw three Best Picture nominees re-expanding (Moonlight, Fences, Arrival) to capitalize on their Oscar nominations each adding a million plus to their already successful grosses. Arrival is so close to $100 million now ($97.3) but it will be still be a stretch to hit that milestone with its Blu-Ray release just two weeks away. In fact every Best Picture nominee that's still in theaters experienced a boost at the box office this weekend except Hidden Figures (which was already roaring) but that drama's neglible 11% drop continues to suggest a very long run to come.

The shadow side of this equation? That's what's happening to the prestige pictures that weren't nominated...

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Subtitles Fading But These Soldiers March On...

Year in Review. Every afternoon, a new wrap-up. Today an exhaustive list of how foreign films performed at the US box office...  

Perhaps no film is a more perfect encapsulation of the 2016 reality for foreign films in the US marketplace than Netflix's Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon sequel. The first was an international theatrical phenomenon and a true blockbuster delivering over $100 million in the United States alone. The sequel sixteen years later was in English and went straight to streaming. 

Despite the inhospitable 21st century climate nowadays, specialty distributors fight on to deliver some variety to the US marketplace. Here's how they fared this year. These numbers were pulled from Box Office Mojo and we tried to be as thorough as possible (though we did skip documentaries and animated features which are sometimes screened in both dubbed and subtitled versions in the same marketplace)

TOP 100 FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILMS FOR 2016
By US Box Office Gross - final numbers. Title links go to reviews. 

01 Dangal $12.3 (India)

02 No Manches Frida $11.5 (USA) available to stream on IMDb

03 Sultan $6.2 (India)
Bollywood films account for a big portion of each year's foreign film grosses in the US. Up until the release of Dangal at Christmas, none were mightier for most of 2016 than the sports drama starring Salman Khan (pictured above).

Oscar Finalists, Isabelle Huppert, and buzzy Korean hits after the jump...

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