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Luc Besson’s Dogman is in search of some kind of distinctive armature on which to hang its psychoanalytical and philosophical ramblings. Which is ironic considering that Douglas Munrow (Caleb Landry Jones), the paralyzed “Dogman” of the film’s title, makes much ado about having discovered his voice through drag, pontificating on the value of disguises and lip-synching while dressed as Édith Piaf, Marlene Dietrich, and Marilyn Monroe. All the while, Jones plays the dog-loving avenger as a puzzling riff on Heath Ledger and Joaquin Phoenix’s Oscar-winning performances as the Joker. It’s a performance that, like much of the film, flits between telegraphing seriousness and wanting to be understood as camp.

Doug was abused and abandoned as a child, and after embracing his ostracization as an adult, he began taking in stray dogs and playing the part of the Pied Piper by having his “babies” burglarize the wealthy and take down criminals.

Paris-based Urban Sales has acquired Jean-Claude Monod’s queer period drama Girl For A Day and Jul and Jean-Paul Guigue’s hybrid animation Silex And The City and is launching sales for both films at Unifrance’s Paris Rendez-Vous next week,

Set in the 18th century, Girl For A Day is Monod’s debut feature and is based on the true story of a person called Anne Grandjean who was urged to dress as a man and change her name due to her attraction to women, and was then brought to trial. Marie Toscan stars alongside Call My Agent’s Thibault de Montalembert,...

There’s something off about Mama Weed. On a more superfluous level, there’s the translation from La daronne—the original French title and the street name its protagonist comes to earn, itself an informal term for “mother”—to the title and nickname used in its United States release. Textually, problems emerge from the myriad supporting characters, virtually all of whom play like narrative props. The script seems uninterested in its conflict; the filmmaking lacks the style to glue its pieces together. That shines a light on, and strands, our title character.

She’s Patience (Isabelle Huppert), an Arabic-fluent French translator working for the police’s narcotics unit. At first, she’s humble: a woman proficient in her professional life but underpaid, a widow and mother to two daughters (Iris Bry and Rebecca Marder). She’s behind on her rent and hopes to afford her own mother (Liliane Rovère) better...

Mama Weed (La daronne) Brainstorm Media/Music Box Films Reviewed for Shockya.com & BigAppleReviews.net linked from Rotten Tomatoes by: Harvey Karten Director: Jean-Paul Salomé Writer: Hannelore Cayre, Hannelore C;ayre, Jean-Paul Salomé, based on Hannelore Cayre’s novel “The Godmother” Cast: Isabelle Huppert, Hippolyte Giradot, Farida Ouchani, Liliane Rovère, Iris Bry Screened at: Critics’ link, NYC, 6/10/21 Opens: […]

The post Mama Weed Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.

"What are you, small-timers?" Music Box Films has released an official US trailer for an indie drug dealer dark comedy called Mama Weed, originally known as La Daronne (or The Mum) in French. This already opened in France last year, and is finally getting a US release this summer. The German title for this is also Eine Frau mit berauschenden Talenten, which translates to A Woman with Intoxicating Talents - a much more enticing title, too. Ha! A translator working for the police gets involved in the other side of drug dealing. Her involvement in his business quickly escalates and she finds herself in possession of a huge store of hash and the insider knowledge required to move it. So she switches sides and gets the nickname "Mama Weed". Isabelle Huppert stars as Patience Portefeux, with a cast including Hippolyte Girardot, Farida Ouchani, Liliane Rovère, Iris Bry, and Nadja Nguyen.

With Drift Away, director Xavier Beauvois––known internationally for his masterful monastery-set Of Gods and Men––juxtaposes the picturesque scenery of northern France with a policeman’s inner turmoil, and the community’s social unrest lying beneath the surface, in an intriguing if frustrating policier.

Jérémie Renier plays Laurent, a police officer in Normandy, and sturdy figurehead of the community, soon to be married to his long-term girlfriend Marie (co-writer Marie-Julie Maille). We ride along with the veteran member of the Gendarmerie’s tight-knit team, including Laurent’s partner Quentin and principled new recruit Carole (Iris Bry) as they patrol the area. Countryside disputes and drunk bar patrons (including director Beavois in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo) paint a documentary-like picture of small-town life.

But it’s not just a rustic slice of France’s profonde. The area’s picturesque white cliffs overlooking the Atlantic are a regular spot for suicides,...

Xavier Beauvois’s tenderly drawn film sees a French policeman abandon all his certainties after a tragic misjudgment

Xavier Beauvois is the actor-turned-director whose Of Gods and Men in 2010 is one of the great French movies of the 21st century; he also has the honour of a cameo, as himself, in the final series of the Netflix comedy Call My Agent. His new film is really intriguing, a film deeply rooted in a close-knit community, with excellent performances, a sophisticated control of narrative tempo and – at least initially – a tragic force that could almost be compared with Elia Kazan. Yet I have to say that this power is dissipated by a disappointing ending in which the film, as its English title warns us, drifts away.

Jérémie Renier plays Laurent, a small-town cop in Normandy in northern France, devoted to his partner, Marie, played by Marie-Julie Maille – Beauvois’s own partner...

Albatros

Director Xavier Beauvois will be ready with his eighth feature, Albatros in 2021. Produced by Sylvie Pialat and Benoit Quainon via Les Films du Worso, this stars stars Jérémie Renier, Victor Belmondo, Olivier Pequery, Madeleine Beauvois, and a pair from his 2017 The Guardians cast, Marie Julie Maille and Iris Bry. Beauvois received a Cesar nomination for his 1993 debut Nord, he went straight to the Cannes competition in 1995 with Don’t Forget You’re Going to Die, which received the Jury Prize. He returned to Cannes competition in 2010 with Of Gods and Men, which took home the Grand Prize and won the Cesar for Best Film.…...

La Daronne

Director Jean-Paul Salomé’s international reputation should expand significantly with his eighth feature, La Daronne aka Mama Weed, adapted from a celebrated novel by Hannelore Cayre and starring the inimitable Isabelle Huppert. The crime comedy, produced by Jean-Baptiste Dupont and Kristina Larsen is scored by Bruno Calais (Oscar nominated for 2004’s The Chorus) and features a noted supporting cast, including Hippolyte Girardot, Liliane Rovere, Iris Bry (a recent Cesar nominee for The Guardians), Jade Nadja Nguyen, Youssef Sahraoui, Kamel Guenfoud and Farida Ouchani.…...

Un petit-fils

Director Xavier Beauvois will be ready with his eighth feature, Un petit-fils (A Grandson) in 2020. Sylvie Pialat (we featured the producer as part of our The Conversation series) and Benoit Quainon are producing through Les Films du Worso and the project is being shot by Julien Hirsch. Beauvois’ latest starts Jeremie Renier, Victor Belmondo, Olivier Pequery, Madeleine Beauvois, and a pair from his 2017 The Guardians cast, Marie Julie Maille and Iris Bry. Beauvois also scripted with his Guardians writers Maille and Frederique Moreau.…...

La Daronne

Director Jean-Paul Salomé nets Isabelle Huppert for his eighth feature, La daronne, which is based on a novel by popular crime writer Hannelore Cayre. Produced by Kristina Larsen from Les Films du Lendemain and Jean-Baptiste Dupont from La Boetie Films, the film will feature Dp Julien Hirsch (a mainstay of Andre Techine who also recently filmed Huppert in 2018’s Eva), composer Bruno Calais of 2011’s The Artist, and Marite Coutard as costume designer (of Bercot’s 2015 My King). Huppert will be joined by Hippolyte Girardot, Liliane Rovère, Farida Ouchani, Jade Nadja Nguyen, Youssef Sahraoui, Kamel Guenfoud and Iris Bry.…...

You want an old fashioned drama? Look no further, The Guardians is here.

The Guardians (Les Gardiennes) is a film set during World War I about love and loss. While the men are out fighting the war, the women of the Paridier farm have to maintain the land as they also have to worry if their husbands, brothers and sons will return home. The drama begins to pick up when an outsider, Francine (Iris Bry), comes in to help with the workload and the men come home for a short leave.

To get this out of the way, I usually do not watch many subtitled films. I’m just a slow reader and I can’t keep up with reading the subtitles while trying to watch what is going on. That being said, I did not have a problem with keeping up with this film.

For being a two hour plus film,...

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Tully

Charlize Theron stars as a new mother overwhelmed by baby care who bonds with her night nanny (Mackenzie Davis). Written by Diablo Cody. (male director)

my review | find cinemas

limited

Angels Wear White [pictured]

Vivian Qu writes and directs this drama about how a teenaged girl (Vicky Chen) and a tween (Meijun Zhou) react when one of them suffers a sexual assault.

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Rbg

Julie Cohen and Betsy West direct this documentary biography of pioneering judicial activist and Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg.

my review | find cinemas

Everything Else

Natalia Almada writes and directs this drama about a woman (Adriana Barraza) who reawakens herself to life in her 60s.

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The Desert Bride

Cecilia Atán and Valeria Pivato direct and cowrite this adventure drama about a woman (Paulina García) whose life is upended when her job is threatened.

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Altered Perception

Kate Rees Davies directs...

The Magnolia Pictures-Participant Media documentary Rbg already has lured crowds with targeted buyout screenings and looks ready for a strong debut as it begins its regular run in theaters this weekend. Julie Cohen and Betsy West’s Sundance premiere about U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is opening Friday in nearly three dozen locations, ready to peel off some audiences looking for an alternative to the second weekend of Avengers: Infinity War and other big holdovers. New limited releases this weekend also include foreign-language fare. Music Box Films is opening The Guardians, a drama starring Nathalie Baye from French filmmaker Xavier Beauvois that begins its stateside run with an exclusive showing in New York this weekend before heading to select markets. And KimStim is opening Vivian Qu’s Angels Wear White at New York’s Metrograph before heading to other cities. The film was the only feature...

How many films about World War I have omitted female characters, or else relegated them to the margins, reduced to a face in a worn photograph or the scrawl in a tattered love letter? An austere corrective to more than a century of under-representation, “The Guardians” tells the other side of the story, focusing on the home front and the women — characters so often defined in relation to male soldiers, as mothers, wives, girlfriends, and children — who shouldered the burden of keeping French farms running while the men were away.

Inspired by prize-winning French author Ernest Pérochon’s 1924 novel, director Xavier Beauvois’ emotionally devastating adaptation — which some may find as arduous as the wartime chapter it depicts — dispenses with a fair amount of the suffering to be found in the book, forgoing the contemporary tendency toward gritty, handheld realism in favor of a more timeless, almost painterly aesthetic. Set in the Limousin region of France,...

The Guardians (Les Gardiennes) Music Box Films Reviewed by: Harvey Karten Director: Xavier Beauvois Screenwriter: Xavier Beauvois, Frédérique Moreau, Marie-Julie Maille, based on the novel by Ernest Pérochon Cast: Nathalie Baye, Laura Smet, Iris Bry, Cyril Descours, Gilbert Bonneau, Olivier Rabourdin, Nicolas Giraud Screened at: Critics’ link, NYC, 4/22/18 Opens: May 4, 2018 How ya […]

The post The Guardians Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.

"She's a hard worker. As good as any man." Music Box Films has released the official Us trailer for the Us release of Xavier Beauvois' new French film The Guardians, which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival last year. This indie drama is set during World War I, otherwise known as "The Great War" at the time, and it's about the few local women who are left behind to work on a family farm. Everything gets disrupted when the sons return on leave, and "Francine becomes the center of a familial disturbance." Oh boy. Romance always messing things up. The cast is lead by Nathalie Baye and Iris Bry, and also includes Laura Smet, Cyril Descours, Gilbert Bonneau, Olivier Rabourdin, Nicolas Giraud, Mathilde Viseux-Ely, and Xavier Maly. This looks like a very moving, meaningful film about the power of "love, loss, and resilience." Here's the official Us trailer (+ poster) for Xavier Beauvois' The Guardians,...

“Bpm” triumphed at the César Awards, taking home the prizes for Best Film, Best Original Screenplay, Best Supporting Actor (Antoine Reinartz), Best Male Newcomer (Nahuel Pérez Biscayart), Best Original Score, and Best Editing. Robin Campillo’s drama about AIDS activists in Paris also won the Grand Prix at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, but wasn’t nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign-Language Film — a snub that was met with some controversy.

Andrey Zvyagintsev’s “Loveless,” which is nominated for the Oscar, won the equivalent award. Albert Dupontel’s “Au revoir là-haut” also had a big night, taking Best Director, Best Actress (Jeanne Balibar), and three other prizes. Full list of winners:

Best Film

“Bpm,” Robin Campillo

“Au revoir là-haut,” Albert Dupontel

“Barbara,” Mathieu Amalric

“Le Brio,” Yvan Attal

“Patients,” Grand Corps Malade, Mehdi Idir

“Petit Paysan,” Hubert Charuel

“C’est La Vie,” Eric Tolédano, Olivier Nakache

Best Director

Robin Campillo,...

The Us premiere of Mathieu Amalric’s Barbara will open the 23rd Rendez-Vous With French Cinema, set to run in Hollywood from March 8-18.

The Us premiere of Mathieu Amalric’s Barbara will open the 23rd Rendez-Vous With French Cinema, set to run in Hollywood from March 8-18.

The annual French cinema showcase will showcase 24 films from both emerging and established filmmakers, Film Society of Lincoln Centre and UniFrance announced on Wednesday (February 7).

Amalric and his leading lady and co-star Jeanne Balibar will attend the screening of his drama, which was recently nominated for nine Cesar awards including best film, actor, and actress.

Other films in the 2018 series include: Léonor Serraille’s Montparnasse Bienvenue, which received the Camera d’Or award in Cannes; Jean-Paul Civeyrac’s A Paris Education (Mes Provinciales); Noémie Lvovsky’s Tomorrow And Thereafter; (Demain Et Tous Les Autres Jours); Xavier Legrand’s Custody (Jusqu’à La Garde); Xavier Beauvois’ The Guardians (Les Gardiennes); and Nobuhiro Suwa...

Nathalie Baye and Xavier BeauvoisThe strength of women left alone to fend for themselves is the communal focus of actor and director Xavier Beauvois’s The Guardians. After directing Of Gods and Men (2010), Beauvois’s excellent neo-western set among French monks in Algeria, we lost sight of this under-estimated director—his next was a quasi-comedy I’m dying to see about ruffians stealing Chaplin’s corpse—though it was a delight to encounter him earlier this year before the camera as one of Juliette Binoche’s many love (and sex) interests in Claire Denis’s Let the Sunshine In. I am very glad indeed that Beauvois is back in the director’s seat and in the international spotlight with The Guardians, adapted from an obscure 1924 novel by Ernest Pérochon about a struggling farmstead on the home front of the First World War, and one of the exceptional films of the year.

Dear Kelley and Fern,I'm sorry your initial schedule has been thrown off, Kelley. Logistics and mindspace are always major challenges at film festivals, where so many have to juggle venues, runtimes, jet lag, walk-speed, hunger-levels, memory recall, wifi-access, note legibility, awkward conversation time-sinks, and many other disparate variables. As a Tiff-newcomer, I wonder what your impression is of the festival event so far? A more vivid festival contrast could not be better made than between Fernando’s distaste, which I share, for Darren Aronofsky’s mother! and its false audacity, and the earthy mystery in Strangely Ordinary This Devotion, with its sublimely suggestive and tactile cosmogony of birth and motherhood.No surprise that the latter is programmed in the Wavelengths’ section curated by Andréa Picard, who has made a name for herself, her program, and Toronto's festival for spotlighting such boldly challenging and invigorating films. As I mentioned in...