Cannes: Round-Up #5

Javier Bardem in Biutiful.

Around the web reactions to the hotly contested and divisive competition heavyweight, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's Biutiful. Reactions from yesterday:

Brad Brevet, Rope of Silicon: Review (positive)
Eric Kohn, IndieWire: Review (negative)
Justin Chang, Variety: Review (mixed)
Kirk Honeycutt, HollywoodReporter: Review (positive)
Jonathan Romney, ScreenDaily: Review (negative)
Dave Calhoun, Time Out London: Review (mixed)
Kevin Jagernauth, The Playlist: Review (negative)
Sasha Stone, AwardsDaily: Review (positive)
Jeff Wells, Hollywood Elsewhere: Review (positive)
Guy Lodge, InContention: Review (mixed)

Meanwhile, just after the Biutiful screening was Stephen Frears' comparatively springy Tamara Drewe, playing out of competition. Reactions were mixed, but nobody is exactly laying down for it:

Gemma Arterton in Stephen Frears' Tamara Drewe.

Jeff Wells, Hollywood Elsewhere: Review (negative)
Mark Adams, ScreenDaily: Review (positive)
Ray Bennett, HollywoodReporter: Review (positive)
Leslie Felperin, Variety: Review (mixed-positive)
Geoff Andrew, Time Out London: Review (mixed)
Brad Brevet, Rope of Silicon: Review (negative)

Abbas Kiarostami's Certified Copy, as part of the competition portion of the festival and which screened later in the day, has a willing and loyal group of followers already, despite a spattering of boos after the screening. Reactions:

Tuscan romance in Abbas Kiarostami's Certified Copy.

Brad Brevet, Rope of Silicon: Review (positive)
Geoff Andrew, Time Out London: Review (positive)
Kevin Jagernauth, The Playlist: Review (positive)
Deborah Young, HollywoodReporter: Review (positive)
Lee Marshall, ScreenDaily: Review (positive)
Jeff Wells, Hollywood Elsewhere: Review (negative)
Guy Lodge, InContention: Review (positive)

That's it for now. Still much more to come from Cannes and I'll be updating as soon as I can.

Cannes: Round-Up #4

The Cannes Film Festival certainly picked up a bit over the weekend, although according to some, it wasn't exactly the quality level that was peaking, but rather the quantity.

First off we have the objectionably quality of Bertrand Tavernier's The Princess of Montpensier, a French-language 16th-century costume drama screening as part of the festival's 18-film competition portion. Going by early word, the reactions are mixed, but it does have its fair share of fans.

Bertrand Tavernier's The Princess of Montpensier.

Rope of Silicon's Brad Brevet found it a "repetitive misfire," while InContention's Guy Lodge called it a "Harlequin-grade love triangle," giving it two measly stars. IndieWire's Todd McCarthy found much to admire, calling it a "fine film," while ScreenDaily's Dan Fainaru called it a "lavish production" with a "powerfully emotional love story". Time Out London's Geoff Andrew expressed his love for any medieval costumer that flies in the face of Ridley Scott's Robin Hood. And finally, Variety's Leslie Felperin called it a "compelling period drama."

Meanwhile, Takeshi Kitano's Outrage, a hyper-violent yakuza crime film, and another anticipated film screening in competition at Cannes, was a dud with reviewers.

Takeshi Kitano's Outrage.

Variety's Rob Nelson was one of the few admirers, calling it "visually stunning," while ScreenDaily's Dan Fainaru considers it a mild return to form, further explaining that "Kitano is back at what he does best." IndieWire's Todd McCarthy, however, believes that the "well has indeed run dry." Rope of Silicon's Brad Brevet found it one-note and "assuredly violent," while InContention's Guy Lodge called it "thin, obstinately single-minded."

That's it for now, I'll be back later in the day for a round-up of Mike Leigh's Another Year and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's Biutiful.

Review: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2010)

Ugly and mean-spirited, this Swedish-language adaptation of Steig Larsson's worldwide bestseller counters its brutal sadism with a dose of its own medicine. Titled Man som hatar kvinnor ("Men Who Hate Women") in its native language, Tattoo is too unremarkable as a horror-mystery and too oppressive as a feminist revenge-fantasy.

Essentially an icy Swedish backwoods whodunit, this 152-minute thriller has enough sexual abusers and Nazi dungeon-dwellers to please a genre fan who gets off on the torture-porn of the more recently broad variety.

When it isn't testing its audiences tolerance, it's holding our face up to a computer screen or a stack of paperwork, apparently attempting to get us to play along with the Vanger family mystery of a beautiful young girl who went missing 40 years ago. For most of the time, the film seems to consist of people just staring at pictures set to loud, overbearing music.

And it's unfortunate, yet painfully clear, that director Neils Arden Oplev has no keen sense for pulling any kind of meaning or substance out his frames. (The catharsis of our heroine purging the world of woman-abusers needs the touch of a filmmaker who knows how to handle the confused emotions more clearly than through a barrage of flashbacks.)

This obviously isn't the case, and thus is The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo's fatal flaw. Oplev is just along for the ride, his job simply to construct Larsson's 600-page novel into a reasonably coherent big-screen illustration. [C-]

Review: The Secret in Their Eyes (2010)

It's certainly disconcerting that, when pitted against Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon and Jacques Audiard's A Prophet, this well-acted piffle from Argentina emerged as the 2009 Oscar winner for Best Foreign Language Film.

It's respectable in certain areas, but Juan Jose Campanella's decades-spanning drama about a tragic murder case and the effect it has on the people involved - chiefly a non-committal federal justice agent (Ricardo Darin) called to the scene - is a phonily momentous mystery-thriller.

Told in an expansive series of flashbacks before playing out in the present, The Secret in Their Eyes does a fine job of keeping a grip on its characters, while allowing any semblance of logic to slip right through its fingers.

The chase-for-the-killer diversion takes up a good portion of the first part of the film, and while allowing the audience the ability to dive right in to these characters (including a wonderful Soledad Villamil), it plays out about as conveniently and authentically as an hour-long primetime CBS procedural.

Even looking past a contrived lead involving an old photograph, the film takes a turn for the worse with a loopy one-shot take through a filled-to-capacity soccer stadium. Sure, it showcases remarkable camerawork, but it serves no logical purpose other than perhaps to conceal the severely questionable believability of two makeshift detective spotting their suspect (whom they've only seen in photgraphs) amongst a sea of thousands.

While themes of unfulfillment and a delicate little romance lead to a haunting portion of the finale, a big zinger of a twist, endlessly shrouded in flashbacks, further illustrates the film's lack of pointedness and its propensity for artificiality. [C]

Cannes: Round-Up #3

Stealthily beneath the glamor of Oliver Stone's Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps premiere were two films playing out of competition on the third day of the Cannes Film Festival. One a Romanian slow-burner and the other a British-backed horror film from the Japanese helmer of Ringu starring that guy from Kick-Ass.

The former is Cristi Puiu's Aurora, the Romanian director's follow-up to the much-beloved The Death of Mr. Lazarescu ('06). A three-hour exercise in minimalist character depreciation, some may argue its more of an exercise in patience. Nevertheless, reviews are in and it appears that most really dig it.

Time Out London's Geoff Andrew called it audacious and intelligent and IndieWire's Eric Kohn found that it seeps under your skin, while Variety's Jay Weissberg described it as the "product of a master filmmaker". InContention's Guy Lodge, however, was not impressed, calling it "perversely languid".

Personally, out of all of the films described so far, the one I would most likely pay to see tomorrow would, in fact, be Aurora - sounds fascinating.

Cristi Puiu's Aurora - at three hours long - will (and has) divided critics.

Depending on who you talk to, Hideo Nakata's Chatroom is either the worst film of the festival or one of the worst. Widespread disdain abounds for this out-of-competition horror effort, starring Aaron Johnson (Kick-Ass) and Hannah Murray ("Skins").

InContention's Guy Lodge despised it, calling it bafflingly misguided, while Variety's Leslie Felperin notices that it has "major bugs in its system." Time Out London's Dave Calhoun was mostly okay with it, it seems, admitting that it gets "a little hysterical". And Total Film's Matthew Leyland calls it terribly po-faced.

Well that's it for Day 3. If you can't find a review for Oliver Stone's Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, you're terrible at navigating the web. (That's why I left it out of the round-up.) Tomorrow apparently looks big, with films from Mike Leigh and Woody Allen taking center stage in the morning. Until then.

The Playlist Nation: Ridley Scott

I love the idea of this Ridley Scott retrospective/reevaluation and The Playlist Nation doesn't disappoint with their harsh criticisms at turns, yet noble reverence when needed and deserved. From top-to-bottom, the crew quickly revisits the filmography of much-disputed American action filmmaker Ridley Scott, from Alien to Body of Lies.

Here are their rankings, in order from highest-graded to lowest:
Blade Runner [A+], Alien [A+], Thelma and Louise [A-], Gladiator [B], Legend [B], Matchstick Men [B], Body of Lies [B-], Black Rain [B-], 1492: Conquest of Paradise [C], American Gangster [C], A Good Year [C], Kingdom of Heaven [C-], G.I. Jane [C-], Black Hawk Down [D+], Hannibal [F].

For the most part, they get it right. Blade Runner ('82) and Alien ('79) are undisputed masterworks, two of the most influential, fully-formed and expertly-designed science-fiction films of the last thirty some-odd years.

Kingdom of Heaven ('05) is a slog. I know the director's cut has a sparkling reputation these days, but until they can edit out any scene that Orlando Bloom is in, it still sucks, I'm sorry. Gladiator ('00) is a ripe piece of entertainment to this day, nearly impossible not to enjoy on some level despite a clear-cut Hollywood presence at every turn. It's not a "great" film so-to-speak, but it clearly works because the scale matches its emotional pull.

Legend ('85), which I reviewed a few months ago, is quite remarkable in many ways despite the fluttering, fairy-tale syrup. Like his previous films, it's a visual marvel, and despite the elementary simplicity to the tale, there is genuine dread and darkness in Tim Curry's evil Lord - it's certainly one of Ridley's most underrated and undervalued films.

Mia Sara and Tom Cruise in Ridley Scott's Legend (1985).

And finally, American Gangster ('07) and Body of Lies ('08) should be flipped. The latter is a middling, uncontentious spy thriller and the former actually works on a narrative level. I know I'm in the minority, but I actually liked American Gangster when I saw it in theaters three years ago and I still like it today.

Once again, for the full list of The Playlist's Ridley Reevaluation - including grades - go here.

Cannes: Round-Up #2

Day 2 at the Cannes Film Festival saw the premieres of two films from the significant Asian presence in this year's main competition slate. Bright and early in the morning (8:30am local time), the patrons were treated to the familial sludge of Wang Xiaoshuia's Chongqing Blues. Despite a few words of encouragement, the Palme d'Or temperature gauge is deathly chilly.

Variety's Justin Chang calls it plodding, affecting. Hollywood Reporter's Maggie Lee describes it as "average father-son angst". Awards Daily's Sasha Stone radically thinks it's a Palme contender. Total Film's Jamie Graham believes it to be solid, but "never truly gripping". InContention's Guy Lodge meanwhile, calls it "drab and maudlin". Hollywood Elsewhere's Jeff Wells hated the "grimness" and the "slow pace".

The early start time of Wang Xiaoshuia's Chongqing Blues didn't seem to help its glacial pacing win over reviewers.

The other half of the double-edged Asian sword, screening a bit later in the day, was Im Sang-soo's The Housemaid, a loony-sounding erotic thriller (think Brian De Palma), which seems to have been received a touch more warmly around the web.

Rope of Silicon's Brad Brevet liked the twisted eroticism to a certain extent. Total Film's Jamie Graham calls it demented and over the top. Hollywood Elsewhere's Jeff Wells described it as broad and lurid, but was more or less okay with it. Hollywood Reporter's Maggie Lee was enamored with its operatic sensuality. ScreenDaily's Lee Marshall, however, found it smart but shallow.

The twisty eroticism of Im Sang-soo's The Housemaid won over a few willing viewers.

Those were the highlights for Day 2 at Cannes. Reviews are starting to pour in for Oliver Stone's Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps kicking off Day 3, I'll have more info on that film and more in the next round-up.