News

★★★★★One of the most iconic French offerings of the eighties, Jean Jacques Beineix's Betty Blue (1986) not only filled cinemas and earned itself BAFTA and Oscar attention, but its César Award-winning poster found itself adorning the bedroom walls of those mesmerised by the astounding central performance of Béatrice Dalle. Reissued on Blu-ray in a deluxe box set, this stunning transfer will delight revisiting fans as well as a whole new league of admirers. Betty (Dalle) and Zorg (Jean-Hugues Anglade) have been dating for a week and they live in a shack on the beach, with the latter working as a handyman to pay the bills.

Two warring Arabian leaders – Nesib (Antonio Banderas) and Amar (Mark Strong) – agree a shaky detente when the former “adopts” the sons of the latter in a traditional peace deal. However, when Nesib breaks the conditions of the treaty and allows American prospectors to drill for oil in the disputed ‘Yellow Belt’ the boys – one a red-blooded warrior, the other a mousy academic - must decide whose side they are on. Quest For Fire director Jean Jacques-Annaud brings a widescreen sensibility to this complex story of intrigue and double-dealing, fired by the coveted "black gold" of the title.

It’s the common rule of thumb in Hollywood that as soon as you are awarded one of those little golden statuettes, people come a rapping on your door with all kinds of lovely treats for you to choose from and it seems that one such Oscar winner has picked an absolute doozy of a project. Fresh off from winning his Oscar for his turn in ‘The Artist’, French actor Jean Dujardin is in talks to join the cast of Martin Scorsese’s ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’.

Adapted by ‘Boardwalk Empire’ showrunner Terence Winter from Jordan Belfort’s best selling memoir , the film chronicles Belfort’s dramatic rise and fall on Wall Street, including his hard partying lifestyle and highly tumultuous personal life, which included (as these things do) drug and alcohol addiction.

According to Variety, Dujardin is in talks to take the role of Jean Jacques Handali, a...

Ivory Coast, the competition favourites, led on the pitch by powerhouse forward Didier Drogba brushed hosts Equatorial Guinea aside in their quarter-final thanks to two goals from their talismanic front-man, as well as a stunner from Yaya Toure that took the much fancied Elephants into the semi-finals in style.

Drogba had already missed one chance from the penalty spot before opening the scoring, and adding a second before Toure rounded off the result in spectacular fashion.

The match saw six changes to the Ivory Coast starting line-up, with Barry, Gosso Gosso, Zokora, Toure, Gervinho and captain Drogba coming back into the team, after being rested for the final superfluous group game, and two changes to the Equatorial Guinea team who looked to change tactically and limit the attacking threat of the opposition through a more conservative approach.

The game started very much in Ivory Coast’s favour, with some good early chances from Drogba,...

Generally speaking, fashion ads, no matter how high class, glossy and star studded they are, tend to be a bore. And while folks Jean Jacques-Annaud (starring Charlize Theron), Darren Aronofsky, Martin Scorsese and Sofia Coppola have all done work for fashion houses in the past little while, we can't say we remember them all that well. Leave it to "Shortbus" and "Rabbit Hole" helmer John Cameron Mitchell to create something actually worth watching. The lovely Marion Cotillard is the current face of Lady Dior, a job which in addition to being a nice little bonus in the bank account, has allowed her to work previously with David Lynch, and with all due to respect to him, we think Mitchell has him beat. In "L.A.dy Dior The Film" (yes, the spelling is intentional), we find both the director and Cotillard sending up the outrageousness of fashion shoots to begin with.

Just a few words to inform you all of Vanity Fair’s interesting looking Fashion in Film festival upcoming this weekend at the Museum of Arts and Design in New York. We would say lots more but are too grumpy that Clothes on Film cannot attend (3,500 miles to travel is a bit much).

The event is essentially in honour of NY Fashion Week so all of the screenings are tied to that theme in some way or have inspired catwalk trends from the screen. However, the line-up is surprisingly diverse, featuring a few you may have seen, Eyes of Laura Mars (1978), Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965) and Qui Êtes-Vous, Polly Magoo? (1966) for example, and some you may have not, such as Jean Jacques Beinei’s cult thriller Diva (1981) and Hermès fashion house documentary Hearts and Crafts (2011).

All screenings take place at the Mad theater, New York.

British born Simon Doonan has...

Puppet Makers is a romp through a steampunk version of 17th Century France. The tale centers on the mysterious disappearance of the Sun King, Louis Xiv, and is told from the view of Father Jean Jacques who investigates the disappearance. This review was a number of firsts for me: I had never read anything by Levitt and Crabapple, and I had never read a comic on an iPhone. To me, both experiences were mixed but worth continuing.

We know that Antonio Banderas is a very busy these days.

After Woody Allen’s You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, he works with Steven Soderbergh on Haywire.

He will star in Pedro Almodovar’s The Skin I Inhabit, Jean Jacques-Annaud’s Black Gold, Simon West’s Salvador Dali

biopic and he will voiced Puss in Boots again.

But his next film also is is a psychological thriller Solo and he will not be just the star of the movie, he will also direct it.

Ok, that’s not his first time. He already directed two movies: Crazy in Alabama (1999) and Summer Rain (El camino de los ingleses 2006).

According to Variety, Solo is “a psychological thriller with sci-fi touches turning on a Spanish colonel suffering post-conflict trauma.”

Banderas will play the colonel and direct from an orginal screenplay by Erik Jendresen.

Banderas’ third film as a director will...

Throughout the year we've heard about quite a few different projects for Antonio Banderas. In addition to appearing in You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger from Woody Allen, he also still has Steven Soderbergh's Haywire (formerly known as Knockout), Jean Jacques-Annaud's Black Gold, Pedro Almodovar's The Skin I Live In and a biopic of Boabdil, the last Muslim ruler of Granada, Spain. Now Variety reports Banderas will next direct and star in Solo, a psychological thriller with a touch of science fiction. The story focuses on a Spanish colonel suffering post-traumatic stress disorder but it's not clear where the sci-fi comes into play. The original screenplay comes from writer Erik Jendresen who previously wrote The Big Bang for Banderas as well as Goleor: The Scales and the Sword, an animated film for the actor's Spanish animation studio Kandor Moon. I wouldn't expect the sci-fi portions of...

The Class has been picked up by France for the Best Foreign language film for the 81 st Academy Awards.

The film won the Palme D’Or at Cannes and opened the New York Film Festival. The film was directed by Laurent Cantet and produced by Haut et Court.

The film is adapted from Francois Begaudeau’s novel; the film chronicles the experienced of a teacher in an underprivileged Paris neighborhood.

The film was chosen by Thierry Fremaux, Alain Terzian, president of the Cesars Academy, actor Jeanne Moreau, and directors Jean Jacques Annaud, Costa Gavras and Regis Wargnier.

The film will be released in France on September 24 th and will be taken up by Sony Pictures Classics.

Most Popular Posts ...

(more...)...