Wednesday, May 11, 2011

The Cannes Film Festival is underway...

...and while none of us are over in Europe for the fest (the dream scenario is the year after next being able to attend) this year, we'll be doing our best to cover the fest as fully as we can. At this point, Woody Allen's newest movie 'Midnight in Paris' has debuted as the Opening Night film to some acclaim. The flick has generated very good buzz (check out a review here and an Entertainment Weekly article here), with some even mentioning the word Oscar...so we'll see what comes next for Allen. Suffice to say, it's always exciting to hear that he's doing something that people are enjoying. I for one can't wait to see it...

As for the films I'm most interested in hearing the response to, they include 'Sleeping Beauty', 'Melancholia', 'Drive', 'We Need to Talk About Kevin', and of course 'The Tree of Life'.

Right off the bat, I'll throw out some completely arbitrary picks for some of the awards at the end of the fest (we'll see how they compare to the winners, and even just my predictions right before the festival ends)...here goes nothing:

Palm d'Or: Drive or We Need to Talk About Kevin
Grand Prix: Sleeping Beauty or We Have A Pope
Best Director: Lars von Trier (Melancholia) or Terrence Malick (The Tree of Life)
Best Actor: Ryan Gosling (Drive) or Sean Penn (This Must Be The Place)
Best Actress: Kirsten Dunst (Melancholia) or Tilda Swinton (We Need to Talk About Kevin)
Best Screenplay: The Skin I Live In or The Tree of Life

-What are you looking forward to about the Cannes Film Festival as it unfolds?

13 comments:

  1. I'm sure I won't get any of my picks right, but who knows?

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  2. I'll throw in my predictions here as well:

    Palm d'Or: Hanezu or Once Upon a Time in Anatolia
    Best Director: Naomi Kawase for Hanezu or Aki Kaurismäki for Le Havre
    Best Actor: Michel Piccoli in We Have a Pope or Yilmaz Erdoğan in Once Upon a Time in Anatolia
    Best Actress: Tilda Swinton in We Need to Talk About Kevin or Hafsia Herzi in The Source
    Best Screenplay: Footnote or The Skin that I Inhabit

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  3. Well, we have a decent amount covered now, so we'll see how it all goes down...

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  4. Am the only one who thinks that this year the sudden appearance of the Oscar crowd will generate maybe another Cannes vs Oscar match? We haven't seen one since Waltz win for "Inglorious Basterds" and we came close last year with Barden. But idk, this year things are so much more exciting already.

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  5. It could happen...there are contenders this year in Drive, We Need to Talk About Kevin, and The Tree of Life that could translate to Oscar in a number of places potentially.

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  6. Actually, I think your predictions are rather agreeable for me. That being said, I think Banderas might win for Best Actor.

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  7. It's quite possible. There's a lot of avenues this jury could take, though right now everything is site unseen...

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  8. To be completely honest, I'm just waiting to see what the reaction to Tree of Life is. So much hype for so long and we finally get to see if it's been worth it.

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  9. My gut tells me I'm off on a lot, except maybe Swinton, but we'll see.

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  10. Early word is that "Midnight in Paris" is one of Allen's best. But the French sweat him so we'll see how America responds. "Sleeping Beauty" is receiving mixed to negative reactions which is not good. A lot of people feel lacks the sexual appeal the trailers promised.

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  11. The latest word has Midnight in Paris getting good reviews from the American critics as well, Sleeping Beauty being mostly dismissed as elegant but boring, and We Need to Talk About Kevin being an interesting film with a great performance by Swinton.

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  12. The comments got deleted here by Blogger...apologies!

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