Monthly Archives: May 2008

Since Cannes began, many have wondered whether friendships will play a part in the decision-making, the same way they wondered when Brad Pitt won Best Actor in Venice for Jesse James when Alejandro González Iñárritu was on the jury that year (Babel director). To that end, Penn told the AP: The topic was recently covered in an AP story: Having Eastwood in competition...

Nathaniel over at The Film Experience has a list of the films he think will do well on Sunday. Check it out. It’s easy for us to fall into the trap of thinking the Palme will go to the films we hear the most about in the press, which usually means films that have the highest wattage of star power. If you read most of the mainstream press, the Palme d’Or...

Variety’s Todd McCarthy doesn’t quite know what to make of Charlie Kaufman’s Synecdoche, New York – he seems to be saying that it is admirably ambitious yet a painful sit. Either way, it looks strong on writing and acting: Despite the general air of unpleasantness and anxiety, and the general feeling that the film, like Caden, could explode from...

Not sure how long this is going to be around but Cinematical has just posted this Benjamin Button trailer (dubbed in Spanish). They say it looks like a cross between Burton and David Fincher – to me, it looks like Terry Gilliam all the way. Slashfilm first posted it. We all agree it will be pulled before too long so have a look while you can: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjnd0wsISY0[/youtube] Oh,...

Or schmuck for a lifetime! Richard Dreyfuss in talks to play tricky Dick Cheney, aka The Dark Lord. Is Dreyfuss sinister enough? He’s been sinister in the past – he played a Rush Limbaugh-type, mean conservative in Rob Reiner’s The American President. ...

The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw (not to mention the folks at Cinematical) seem to think that the one true film has emerged: The Cannes film festival now has a serious contender for the Palme d’or. Steven Soderbergh’s four-and-a-half hour epic Che, about the revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara, was virile, muscular film-making, with an effortlessly...

Thanks to the readers who pointed out that, indeed, Che was panned by Variety’s Todd McCarthy, who writes: Neither half feels remotely like a stand-alone film that would satisfy audiences on its own, while the entirety offers far too many aggravations for the paltry rewards it offers. Scattered partisans are likely to step forward, but pic in its current form is...