In Contention

Tag: On Tour

  • ‘Of Gods and Men,’ ‘Ghost Writer’ lead César nominations

    The film may be smarting from its widely (if not, ahem, entirely) unexpected omission from the Oscar foreign-language shortlist earlier this week, but Xavier Beauvois’s sombre religious drama “Of Gods and Men” found more love in its home country, where it scooped a leading 11 nominations for the César Awards.

    The so-called “French Oscars” also unsurprisingly took a shine to Roman Polanski’s “The Ghost Writer,” which has dominated the European awards circuit and is angling for a surprise Oscar nod or two on Tuesday. Expect these two films to battle it out for the gold; I’d bet on the weighty prestige veneer of Beauvois’s film winning out, but sentimental loyalty to Polanski shouldn’t be underestimated — he is, after all, a previous winner for both “Tess” and  “The Pianist.”

    Beyond those two frontrunners, I’m pleased to see a strong showing for Mathieu Amalric’s scrappy burlesque comedy “On Tour,” though their other choices suggest the Césars can be as frustratingly MOR as their US counterpart.

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  • Ruiz’s ‘Lisbon’ takes Louis Delluc prize

    Well, here’s an awards announcement a million miles away from “The Social Network” — the Louis Delluc Prize, the single most prestigious award in French cinema. (Yes, loftier than the César Awards.) And I do mean “single”: awarded to one film from a shortlist of eight by a jury of French journalists and industry types, it’s one of the simpler ceremonies on the block.

    While last year’s award went to the ubiquitous crossover hit “A Prophet,” this year’s jury (headed by Cannes festival president Gilles Jacob) threw a slight curveball: the award was handed this morning to Raul Ruiz’s epic Portuguese-French production “Mysteries of Lisbon,” a dreamy 272-minute period puzzle piece that I was thoroughly bewitched by at the London Film Festival. (Rebecca Zlotowski’s “Belle Epine” received debut filmmaker honors.)

    The film beat out one hell of a heavyweight shortlist, listed after the cut.

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  • ‘On Tour,’ ‘Of Gods,’ ‘HaHaHa’ take early Cannes prizes

    The big guns, the Competition jury, announce their prizewinners tomorrow night, but ahead of that, there are a host of smaller, independent juries making their voices heard.

    I’ve just returned from the Un Certain Regard award ceremony, a short, sweet tuxedoes-and-sneakers affair presided over by UCR jury president Claire Denis. As delighted as I was to see one of our greatest living filmmakers in the (tiny) flesh, I was less pleased with her team’s selection — by handing their top prize to Hong Sangsoo’s wispy romcom “HaHaHa,” they continued an increasingly disconcerting trend whereby films that I walk out of at major festivals are handsomely rewarded. (Hey, I wasn’t alone: James Rocchi bailed too.)

    The Ecumenical Jury got that memo, too, handing their top prize to another film I didn’t finish, Xavier Beauvois’s “Of Gods and Men.” Of course, that was a gimme — if you don’t know, the Ecumenical Jury Prize was established in 1974 by a group of Christian film professionals to reward expressions of faith and/or humanism in Competition. How was the true-life tragedy of monk massacre in Algeria not going to win?

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  • Of notes and diaries on the Croisette

    While Guy is doing a bang-up job handling Cannes for us this year, I thought I’d poke around and see what some of the other usual suspects of the Oscar season are covering things on the ground.  When I clicked over to Awards Daily, I wasn’t the least bit disappointed.

    Sasha Stone, attending the fest for the first time in the 11 years she’s been on the film awards beat, has charted her experience in a series of diary entries that uniquely — and smartly — aims to assess the psychology of a place so wonderfully bizarre as a cosmopolitan film festival.  Her coverage is armed with cheeky barbs such as this:

    There are obscure screenings and high profile screenings and many variations therein. But it does give one a warped sense of things when you see crowds begging for tickets to Wall Street 2. If it were any ordinary Friday in the states you’d be thinking, “do I really want to go see another sequel?” Maybe you would and maybe you wouldn’t, but it is pressing here. It is a must-do.

    Pete Hammond, meanwhile, kicked the tires on his Notes on a Season column over at The Envelope to piece together one of his typical “Notes on the Town” features from the fest.

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  • CANNES: ‘Robin Hood,’ ‘On Tour’

    I spent a good long time trying to think of some glib, pithy way to link the pair of titles served up on the first day of the Cannes Film Festival, but must admit defeat — they have no common points whatsoever, apart from the fact that they both, like, feature French people. In lieu of such an intro, then: two films screened today. This is what they were.

    “ROBIN HOOD” (**1/2)

    It’s a fairly rote critical bitchslap to say that the closing credits are the best part of a movie, but that’s quite literally the case in Ridley Scott’s “Robin Hood.” I say this not in snark, but in praise: it’s a genuinely remarkable credit sequence, animated in rich-hued, painterly style, presumably by the same artists behind the Scott Free company logo (a personal favorite). It’s rather a shame it couldn’t be stuck at the front of the film instead. Perhaps Scott thought its color palette would show up the actual film’s symphony of camouflage tones.

    Okay, that’s 100 words spent on the credits. If you think I’m stalling before delivering a damning verdict on the film, you’d be wrong, but I can’t find much of substance to say about it either. For the second summer blockbuster in a row, I must part ways with my esteemed editor in finding “Robin Hood” a sturdy if resolutely unfashionable entertainment, one crafted and performed by A-grade talent with more commitment than passion – but enough of the former to keep things on the rails.

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  • When the stars go blue

    It’s a quiet first day at Cannes, with only two films screening and little besides a pair of unremarkable press conferences (which, dingy yellow-carder that I am, I couldn’t directly attend anyway) to report on — the highlight of which was Cate Blanchett’s curt answer to a dim-bulb journalist asking her how heavy the film’s chainmail costumes were to wear. “It’s all plastic,” she said drily, before waving on the next question.

    “Robin Hood” served as this morning’s entertainment — Kris has spared me having to review it at any length, but I’ll gather a few thoughts later this evening. (Hint: I like it more than Kris and less than Empire.) Tonight offers Mathieu Amalric’s burlesque-troupe comedy “Tournée (On Tour)” which I’m rather looking forward to. However the film turns out, at least, it plainly boasts the best poster of any film in the festival this year. Or out of it, for that matter.

  • CANNES PREVIEW: Sizing up the Competition, part two

    Continuing the breakdown of the 18 titles in contention for the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival, which begins Wednesday. (Catch up with yesterday’s preview here.) Among them is the film I’ve put a sneaky wager on to take the gold — though given the foolhardiness of predicting festival awards, I don’t encourage you to do the same.

    As we learned this morning, one additional title will be added to the Competition lineup over the course of the weekend; I will update accordingly. Let’s get back into it:

    “ON TOUR” (Mathieu Amalric)

    The pitch: Better known to most audiences as one of France’s finest actors, sometime filmmaker Amalric brings some lighter fare to the lineup, directing himself as the down-at-heel manager of a touring group of American burlesque dancers. Christina Aguilera does not star.

    Past form: Though his 2003 feature “Public Affairs” played Cannes in 2003, this is Amalric’s first brush (as director, that is) with a major festival competition.

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