Criterion + IFC...

After cluing a release of Steven Soderbergh's Che in an earlier newsletter, it looks official that Criterion and IFC have struck a pack, announcing two IFC titles for November: Arnaud Desplechin's A Christmas Tale [Un conte de Noël] and Matteo Garrone's Gomorrah [Gomorra]. Surprisingly though, Gomorrah is the only Blu-ray release set for November. Also announced Michael Ritchie's Downhill Racer (which continues Criterion's irritating trend toward putting actors' names on the box!) and a box-set entitled The Golden Age of Television, which includes eight tele-plays originally aired on PBS. I'll be fine with the IFC deal as long as that means I never have to see Alexander the Last on their coming soon list.

Also be sure to check out Nathan Lee's Top 10 Criterion releases which gives the company kudos for "putting the bone in bonus since 1984."

César Nominees 2009

The nominees for this year's Césars, better known as the French equivalent to the Academy Awards, were announced over a week ago, and for some reason I'm only just now getting a chance to go over them. A French copaine of mine tells me that, similar to several of my favorite Gallic films (Betty Blue, anything by Assayas), the French don't seem to care much for Laurent Cantet's The Class, even though it won the Palme d'Or, was France's official submission for the Oscars and is apparently nominated in several categories at the Césars. Obviously, I haven't seen most of the year's nominees, but I think it's a bit criminal to have ignored both Mathieu Amalric and Emmanuelle Devos for A Christmas Tale in favor of Jean-Paul Roussillon and Anne Cosigny. I'd put my money on Guillaume Depardieu for best actor, à la Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight. You can see the full awards via the Alternative Film Guide, and the ceremony will be held on 27 February. The nominees are as follows:

Meilleur film français [Best French Film]

Entre les murs [The Class] - dir. Laurent Cantet
Il y a longtemps que je t'aime [I've Loved You So Long] - dir. Philippe Claudel
Mesrine (Mesrine: L'instinct de mort; Mesrine: L'ennemi public n° 1) - dir. Jean-François Richet
Paris - dir. Cédric Klapisch
Le premier jour du reste de ta vie [The First Day of the Rest of Your Life] - dir. Rémi Bezançon
Séraphine - dir. Martin Provost
Un conte de Noël [A Christmas Tale] - dir. Arnaud Desplechin

Meilleur réalisateur [Best Director]

Rémi Bezançon - Mesrine
Laurent Cantet - Entre les murs
Arnaud Desplechin - Un conte de Noël
Martin Provost - Séraphine
Jean-François Richet - Mesrine

Meilleur acteur [Best Actor]

Vincent Cassel - Mesrine
François-Xavier Demaison - Coluche, l'histoire d'un mec
Guillaume Depardieu - Versailles
Albert Dupontel - Deux jours à tuer
Jacques Gamblin - Le premier jour du reste de ta vie

Meilleure actrice [Best Actress]

Catherine Frot - Le crime est notre affaire
Yolande Moreau - Séraphine
Kristin Scott Thomas - Il y a longtemps que je t'aime
Tilda Swinton - Julia
Sylvia Testud - Sagan

Meilleur acteur dans un second rôle [Supporting Actor]

Benjamin Biolay - Stella
Claude Rich - Aide-toi, le ciel t'aidera
Jean-Paul Roussillon - Un conte de Noël
Pierre Vaneck - Deux jours à tuer
Roschdy Zem - La fille de Monaco

Meilleure actrice dans un second rôle [Supporting Actress]

Jeanne Balibar - Sagan
Anne Consigny - Un conte de Noël
Edith Scob - L'heure d'été
Karin Viard - Paris
Elsa Zylberstein - Il y a longtemps que je t'aime

Meilleur premier film [Best First Film]

Home - dir. Ursula Meier
Il y a longtemps que je t'aime - dir. Philippe Claudel
Mascarades - dir. Lyes Salem
Pour elle - dir. Fred Cavayé
Versailles - dir. Pierre Schoeller

Meilleur scénario original [Original Screenplay]

Séraphine - Marc Abdelnour, Martin Provost
Le premier jour du reste de ta vie - Rémi Bezançon
Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis [Welcome to the Sticks] - Dany Boon, Alexandre Charlot, Franck Magnier
Il y a longtemps que je t'aime - Philippe Claudel
Un conte de Noël - Arnaud Desplechin, Emmanuel Bourdieu

Meilleur scénario adaptation [Adapted Screenplay]

Deux jours à tuer - Eric Assous, Jérôme Beaujour, Jean Becker, François d'Épenoux
Le crime est notre affaire - François Caviglioli, Pascal Thomas
Entre les murs - François Bégaudeau, Robin Campillo, Laurent Cantet
Mesrine - Abdel Raouf Dafri, Jean-François Richet
La belle personne - Christophe Honoré, Gilles Taurand

Meilleure photographie [Best Cinematography]

Séraphine - Laurent Brunet
Mesrine - Robert Gantz
Un conte de Noël - Eric Gautier
Home - Agnès Godard
Faubourg 36 [Paris 36] - Tom Stern

Meilleur film étranger [Best Foreign Film]

Eldorado - dir. Bouli Lanners - Belgium
Gomorra [Gomorrah] - dir. Matteo Garrone - Italy
Into the Wild - dir. Sean Penn - USA
Le silence de Lorna [Lorna's Silence] - dir. Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne - Belgium
There Will Be Blood - dir. Paul Thomas Anderson - USA
Two Lovers - dir. James Gray - USA
Valse avec Bashir [Waltz with Bashir] - dir. Ari Folman - Israel

Meilleur film documentaire [Best Documentary]

Elle s'appelle Sabine [Her Name Is Sabine] - dir. Sandrine Bonnaire
J'irai dormir à Hollywood [Hollywood, I'll Sleep over Tonight] - dir. Antoine de Maximy
Les plages d'Agnès [The Beaches of Agnès] - dir. Agnès Varda
Tabarly - dir. Pierre Marcel
La vie moderne [Modern Life] - dir. Raymond Depardon

Meilleur espoir masculin [Best Male Newcomer]

Ralph Amoussou - Aide-toi, le ciel t’aidera
Laurent Capelluto - Un conte de Noël
Marc-André Grondin - Le premier jour du reste de ta vie
Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet - La belle personne
Pio Marmai - Le premier jour du reste de ta vie

Meilleure espoir féminin [Best Female Newcomer]

Marilou Berry - Vilaine
Louise Bourgoin - La fille de Monaco
Anaïs Demoustier - Les grandes personnes
Déborah François - Le premier jour du reste de ta vie
Léa Seydoux - La belle personne

Meilleur court métrage [Best Short Film]

Les miettes - dir. Pierre Pinaud
Les paradis perdus - dir. Hélier Cisterne
Skhizein - dir. Jérémy Clapin
Taxi Wala - dir. Lola Frederich
Une leçon particulière - dir. Raphaël Chevènement

Slumdoggin'

Despite posting the Independent Spirit Award nominations and the National Board of Review's awards, I think I'm going to stray from reproducing all of the critics' awards and best of's for 2008, as you can easily find them on IndieWire, GreenCine or MovieCityNews if you so desire. Instead, I'll post a link here and there to the sites.

The Washington DC Critics Association named Slumdog Millionaire the best film of 2008. Kyle Smith and Lou Lumenick of the NY Post concur.

Gomorrah swept the European Film Awards, winning Best Picture, Director, Actor, Screenwriter and Cinematographer. Roger Ebert lists 20 of the best (narrative) films of 2008, and five docs, in no particular order.

Sight & Sound in the UK has posted their 50-critic poll of the best films of 2008, per UK release date (sort of). With three UK films on the list, the top 10 is as follows:

1. Hunger - dir. Steve McQueen
2. There Will Be Blood - dir. Paul Thomas Anderson
3. WALL·E - dir. Andrew Stanton
4. Gomorrah - dir. Matteo Garrone
5. (tie) A Christmas Tale [Un conte de Noël] - dir. Arnaud Desplechin
5. (tie) The Class [Entre les murs] - dir. Laurent Cantet
7. Of Time and the City - dir. Terence Davies
8. Happy-Go-Lucky - dir. Mike Leigh
9. (tie) The Headless Woman [La mujer sin cabeza] - dir. Lucrecia Martel
9. (tie) Let the Right One In [Låt den rätte komma in] - dir. Tomas Alfredson

Previous 10: 5 November - Fest Overload 1

Thanks to the Saint Louis International Film Festival, I've fared a lot better on seeing decent films, as six of these ten will be playing there this year. As for Pierre Morel's Taken, you can sort of group that with Steve McQueen's Hunger as 2008 films that probably won't get their official release until 2009; 20th Century Fox delayed its fall release to January. Wendy and Lucy, the new film from Kelly Reichardt (Old Joy), was just as wonderful as I had hoped, and perhaps the biggest surprise was Mary Bronstein's Yeast, another m*mblecore flick that actually displayed tone, albeit one of utter frustration. I expect I'll have another ten by the weekend.

La Crème

A Christmas Tale [Un conte de Noël] - dir. Arnaud Desplechin - France - IFC Films - with Jean-Paul Roussillon, Catherine Deneuve, Mathieu Amalric, Anne Consigny, Melvil Poupaud, Chiara Mastroianni, Laurent Capelluto, Emile Berling, Emmanuelle Devos, Hippolyte Girardot, Françoise Bertin

Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father - dir. Kurt Kuenne - USA - Oscilloscope Pictures

Let the Right One In [Låt den rätte komma in] - dir. Tomas Alfredson - Sweden - Magnet Releasing - with Kåre Hedebrant, Lina Leandersson, Per Ragnar, Henrik Dahl, Karin Bergquist, Peter Carlberg, Ika Nord, Mikael Rahm

Wendy and Lucy - dir. Kelly Reichardt - USA - Oscilloscope Pictures - with Michelle Williams, Wally Dalton, Will Patton, Larry Fessenden, John Robinson, Will Oldham

Yeast - dir. Mary Bronstein - USA - Frownland - with Mary Bronstein, Greta Gerwig, Amy Judd, Ignacio Carballo, Sean Price Williams

Les Autres

Shelter - dir. Jonah Markowitz - USA - here! Films - with Trevor Wright, Brad Rowe, Tina Holmes, Jackson Wurth, Katie Walder

Taken - dir. Pierre Morel - France - 20th Century Fox - with Liam Neeson, Famke Janssen, Maggie Grace, Xander Berkeley, Lelard Orser, Olivier Rabourdin, Gérard Watkins

Untouchable, The [L'intouchable] - dir. Benoît Jacquot - France - Strand Releasing - with Isild Le Besco, Bérangère Bonvoisin, Parikshit Luthra, Marc Barbé

The Bad

Humboldt County - dir. Darren Grodsky, Danny Jacobs - USA - Magnolia - with Jeremy Strong, Chris Messina, Brad Dourif, Frances Conroy, Fairuza Balk, Peter Bogdanovich, Madison Davenport

Nights & Weekends - dir. Joe Swanberg, Greta Gerwig - USA - IFC Films - with Joe Swanberg, Greta Gerwig, Jay Duplass, Elizabeth Donius, Lynn Shelton, Kent Osborne

You Move Me / Like Music

With the Saint Louis International Film Festival starting in just about ten days, I’ve got a stack of screeners I need to pile through which may keep my writing/blogging to a minimum in the upcoming week or so. However, I thought I’d throw a few unorganized thoughts about three films out there before I glue myself to the television. Firstly, I’ve seen the end of the so-called mumblecore movement/trend in the face of Joe Swanberg and Greta Gerwig’s Nights and Weekends. If the Duplass’ brothers Baghead showed even the faintest signs of progression, Nights and Weekends has solidified the “on the road to nowhere” fate of its contemporaries. It’s probably most disheartening that with the quickness in which Swanberg makes and releases his films, we haven’t even gotten to witness follow-ups from the two most skilled filmmakers of the movement, Andrew Bujalski (Mutual Appreciation) and Aaron Katz (Quiet City). With unfortunate backing from IFC (their website also showcases his webserial, which just proves that his work is even annoying in small doses), the end appears to have arrived. I wish I could see a progression of maturity or craft with each passing, now-indistinguishable Swanberg film I see, but instead, I find just the opposite. With each stroke swinging in the very same direction, my tolerance diminishes at alarming rates.

On the flip-side, Arnaud Desplechin is a director who has taken a turn for the better. Coming from tepid feelings about his English-language Esther Kahn and wildly mixed feelings for Kings & Queen (Rois et reine), he’s refined just about everything in his latest, A Christmas Tale (Un conte de Noël). Kings & Queen certainly brought him to the attention of the film elite, as most people agreed that the film’s faults made for better cinema than most director’s successes. In A Christmas Tale, he retools his more daring decisions into absolute magnificence. The camera addresses, the fades, the lengthy running time… all seem less the product of an ambitious director than a director who truly knows what the fuck he’s doing. I couldn’t help but think of Jules and Jim during the film’s early moments with Desplechin’s joyous pacing and energy, all of which are matched by the amazing Mathieu Amalric and Emmanuelle Devos, both regulars for the director. Melvil Poupaud, one of the few actors in the film who hadn’t worked with Desplechin prior, is also remarkable, emitting the ferocity that Christophe Honoré keeps trying (and failing) to get out of both himself and Louis Garrel.

Though I can’t recommend A Christmas Story any higher, I’ve also found myself rather smitten with Jonathan Demme’s Rachel Getting Married, of which I haven’t gotten the chance to speak properly yet. Though most talk of the film surrounds Anne Hathaway, I almost feel all the Oscar buzz (I hate that term) for her performance as a recovering addict is overshadowing the fact that the film is quite wonderful. Yeah, she’s good, but she’s playing the role that actors wet dream about; as the titular Rachel, Rosemarie DeWitt takes on the bigger challenge as the thankless, “normal” sister and is absolutely radiant. But enough about the actors, Rachel Getting Married, like A Christmas Tale, moves in a way that seems so absent in cinema these days. While orchestral in some ways, A Christmas Tale resembles a brilliant novel, one whose small decisions and characterizations illuminate the delicacies of the tale at hand. On the other side, I couldn’t help but hear PJ Harvey’s voice in the song “Rope Bridge Crossing” while watching Rachel Getting Married (“you move me / like music”). Demme displays, at once, a swarming opus, the first time he’s been able to convey this in his fiction work after Heart of Gold, Stop Making Sense and music videos for New Order, Bruce Springsteen and The Pretenders. Of course, it would then make sense that TV on the Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe would play DeWitt’s fiancée, in addition to small appearances by Fab 5 Freddy and Robyn Hitchcock. It’s been too long since a film has hypnotized me by its rhythm.

From Cannes, With Love

Have you been wondering what’s become of all those films you were reading about back in May when the Cannes Film Festival was underway? Since neither you nor I could attend, it can tend to be a bit disappointing discovering films that we probably won’t be able to see for months or, as is sometimes the case, even in over a year. For both of our benefits, I’ve done my research and found out where all of the In Competition titles stand in their post-festival limbo. I hope this provides helpful, and I intend to do the same for this year’s Venice and Toronto, even though they contain a bunch of duplicates and even though neither fest seemed to impress much of anyone. I will also take a look at some of the more notable out-of-competition films from Cannes.

Fernando Meirelles’ Blindness, the opening film of the festival, was only one of two In Competition films that had a distributor going in (Miramax). The film, which stars Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Gael García Bernal, Alice Braga and Danny Glover, will be released on 6 October in a cut different from the one that premiered to some pretty lousy reviews at Cannes. The new version received a similarly mixed reaction at Toronto.

Atom Egoyan’s Adoration, which stars Arsinée Khanjian, Scott Speedman and Rachel Blanchard, was the other, getting picked up by Sony Pictures Classics a few weeks before the festival began. I had initially read that Sony was planning a fall release for the film, but their website now states that the date is to be announced. No doubt the film’s negative reception didn’t help, though I have to believe it’s better than Egoyan’s last film, Where the Truth Lies.

Clint Eastwood’s Changeling, starring Angelina Jolie, John Malkovich and Amy Ryan, was produced by Universal and will begin its limited run on 24 October.

Laurent Cantet’s Entre les murs, the Palme d’Or winner this year at Cannes, was picked up by Sony Pictures Classics with the bland title The Class. It opens on 12 December in New York and on Christmas in Los Angeles, so if you don’t live in either city, you’ll probably have to wait until January.

IFC Films picked up Matteo Garrone’s Gomorrah (Gomorra), winner of the Grand Prix, just after the festival wrapped, though no date has been set. You may notice with the way the market has been lately Sony Pictures Classics and IFC Films pretty much have first dibs on all the notable international titles (which, in my book, makes it all-the-more disappointing when they do occasionally release pedestrian films).

New Yorker purchased Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Three Monkeys, which took home the Best Director Prize. No date has been set, but I wouldn’t expect them to get the film out there until sometime next year.

Paolo Sorrentino’s biopic of Italian prime minister Giulio Andreotti Il divo, winner of the Jury Prize, is still without a distributor, although there’s still a chance that it may get one soon as it also played at Toronto this year. Il divo played in Italian theatres just a few days after its premiere and will be released theatrically in France and the UK around January through Studio Canal and Artificial Eye, respectively.

Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne’s Le silence de Lorna (Lorna’s Silence), which won the Best Screenplay award, should be out this winter from Sony Pictures Classics. The film, which stars Jérémie Renier, was released in August in France through Diaphana Films and will hit theatres in the UK in November through New Wave. Keep in mind though, as there is no firm date set, that we may have to wait until 2009, as SPC took just as long to put out the brothers’ L’enfant, which won the Palme d’Or in 2005.

Steven Soderbergh’s epic four-plus-hour-long two-parter Che finally found a home, after leaving Cannes with no takers, in IFC after its North American premiere in Toronto. Che won the Best Actor prize for Benicio del Toro.

Walter Salles and Daniela Thomas’ Linha de Passe, which won the Best Actress prize for Sandra Corveloni, is also still without US distributor. It will, however, hit theatres in the UK on Friday through Pathé.

Kornél Mundruczó’s Delta appears to be without a distributor just about everywhere. It was one of the least popular films at this year’s festival and may simply remain one of the ever-unpopular “festival movies.”

Jia Zhang-ke’s 24 City, which stars Joan Chen, was picked up by The Cinema Guild recently. They will be releasing it sometime in the first part of 2009.

Philippe Garrel’s La frontière de l’aube, which stars his son Louis, is also without distribution outside of its native France, where it will hit theatres on 6 October through Les Films du Losange.

Pablo Trapero’s Leonera, or Lion’s Den, has no US buyers, though it has a December release date in France from Ad Vitam and an UK distributor through Halcyon Pictures; no date is set for the UK.

Lucrecia Martel’s La mujer sin cabeza (The Headless Woman) is still without any takers in the US, although it has a March 2009 date set in France through Ad Vitam. The film will also screen at this year’s New York Film Festival.

Eric Khoo’s My Magic will be in French cinemas this November, but no buyers from the UK or the US have been secured.

Wim Wenders’ The Palermo Shooting, another low-rated entry this year, has a November date set for Wenders’ native Germany, but nothing has been set for the US. The German theatrical release may be a different version than the one that screened at the fest, but I couldn’t find any further details. The Palermo Shooting stars musician Camino, Dennis Hopper, Giovanna Mezzogiorno and Sebastian Blomberg, as well as Milla Jovovich and Lou Reed as themselves.

Regent Releasing and here Films acquired Brillante Mendoza’s Serbis and plan to release the film sometime this year.

After numerous months without a distributor, Sony Pictures Classics finally took hold of Charlie Kaufman’s directorial debut Synecdoche, New York, starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener, Samantha Morton, Michelle Williams, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Emily Watson, Dianne Wiest and Hope Davis. The film opens in New York and LA on 24 October. No dates have been set for either the UK or France.

As a result of lack of outside interest, James Gray’s Two Lovers is going to be released through Magnolia in early January. The film, which stars Joaquin Phoenix, Gwyneth Paltrow, Vinessa Shaw, Isabella Rossellini and Elias Koteas, will be released by Wild Bunch in France in November.

Arnaud Desplechin’s A Christmas Tale (Un conte de Noël) was one of the first acquisitions of the festival, finding its home with IFC, who will have it out in time for Christmas on 14 November. BAC Films released in the film in France just days after the festival. Among many others, A Christmas Tale stars Catherine Deneuve, Mathieu Amalric, Emmanuelle Devos, Chiara Mastroianni, Hippolyte Giradot and Melvil Poupaud.

And finally, Ari Folman’s animated Waltz with Bashir will open in the US the day after Christmas through Sony Pictures Classics.