The French connection From cult to mainstream, rich offerings at this year's fest Posted: November 18, 2009 By James Walling This year's French Film Festival brings a wide selection of contemporary French films to Prague, featuring everything from festival circuit favorites that will be entirely new to audiences in this country to mainstream fare scheduled to enter wider distribution after the festival...
The St. Louis International Film Festival has kept me busy, so I'm just now getting around to posting the February Criterion additions, which were announced on Friday. Through IFC, Steve McQueen's Hunger will make its way to DVD and Blu-ray; Max Ophüls' Lola Montès will be upgraded from the old (lousy) Fox Lorber disc on DVD and Blu-ray; Janus Films' first-run release of Götz Spielmann's...
By Ed Howard Claude Chabrol has always been especially interested in the dynamics of class power, examining the nature of class with a dry, caustic wit. In La cérémonie , this examination plays out in a remote small town where the isolated lower-class maid Sophie (Sandrine Bonnaire) is hired by the Lelievre family. They're a typical bourgeois family, aloof and condescending. The father,...
Claude Chabrol has always been especially interested in the dynamics of class power, examining the nature of class with a dry, caustic wit. In La cérémonie , this examination plays out in a remote small town where the isolated lower-class maid Sophie (Sandrine Bonnaire) is hired by the Lelievre family. They're a typical bourgeois family, aloof and condescending. The father, Georges (Jean-Pierre...
Queen to Play, a French film (with English subtitles) where chess is portrayed as a means to personal fulfillment, is set to be released November 24th on DVD. When it premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in April, it was described by Genna Teranova as follows: An inquisitive French Riviera hotel maid (Sandrine Bonnaire) becomes entranced by a vacationing couple (Jennifer Beals, Dominic Gould) as...
FORT LAUDERDALE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL Review Queen to Play (Unrated) *** Pawn becomes a queen in a tale of self discovery Posted on Thursday, 10.22.09 BY RENE RODRIGUEZ Attention all nerds and former high-school science-club members: Finally, there is a movie that shares your belief that chess should be a magnet for hot babes and sex. The French drama Queen to Play (Joueuse) is more eloquent...
Samuel Maoz's Lebanon , which is set during the First Lebanon War in 1982, took home the Golden Lion in Venice today, wrapping up the annual festivities. Ang Lee, who's won two Golden Lions himself in the past five years (for Brokeback Mountain and Lust, Caution ) was the head of this year's jury, which also included Sandrine Bonnaire, Sergei Bodrov, Liliana Cavani, Joe Dante, Anurag Kashyap and Luciano...
US actor/cast member Viggo Mortensen (R) and young Australian actor/cast member Kodi Smit-McPhee attend the photocall for 'The Road' during the 66th Venice Film Festival, in Venice, Italy, 03 September 2009. US actor/cast member Viggo Mortensen attends the photocall for 'The Road' during the 66th Venice Film Festival, in Venice, Italy, 03 September 2009. US director Angela Ismailos poses for photographers...
Sandrine Bonnaire in Maurice Pialat´s film Sous le soleil de Satan from 1987, also featuring Gerard Depardieu. Note: the movie of choice for this week is mainly directed to French and/or Chinese speaking cinephiles and book lovers who don't necessaril...
Moore's other films include Sicko and Bowling for Columbine Capitalism, the latest documentary from Fahrenheit 9/11 director Michael Moore, features in the official competition at this year's Venice Film Festival. The film, in which Moore looks at the global economic meltdown, is one of 23 titles up for the Golden Lion award. Others include Werner Herzog's remake of The Bad Lieutenant, starring Nicolas...
I should point out a few things about the releases below. Firstly, IFC announced another few titles for DVD release, all of them genre flicks (of what quality, I'm not sure, as I haven't seen any of them), and I wonder when they're going to get around to their theatrical releases, instead of their VOD titles. Secondly, I've only mentioned Anchor Bay's re-release of the film Where the Day Takes You...
Throughout his career, Jacques Rivette has always flirted with the thriller genre, evincing a fascination with the shadowy conspiracies and labyrinthine plots that twist and turn behind the scenes, their contours hidden, their surprises held back. In spite of this, Rivette's cinema has been in many other ways the antithesis of the thriller, trading in slow, languid character development and a patient...
Film Review #201: Vagabond 1985/2008 Director: Agnes Varda Cast: Sandrine Bonnaire, Yolande Moreau, Macha Meril From the start she has liked these tracking shots that seem to go rogue. Agnès Varda had no formal training in cinema when she made her first feature in 1954, but in the opening moments of La Point Courte she turns a seaside village’s sleepy summer ambiance to sudden visual exhilaration...
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