Cannes 2009: Ken Loach, Ang Lee, Andrea Arnold, Jacques Audiard
Derek Elley on Looking for Eric (above, Ken Loach and Eric Cantona) in Variety:
"… helmer Ken Loach and writer Paul Laverty’s ninth feature together is a curious hybrid: Three movies — boilerplate, socially aware Loach; personal fantasy; romantic comedy — wrap around a central core of a hopeless soccer fanatic who’s given a second chance to sort out his life. As in many of Laverty’s scripts, problems of overall tone and character development aren’t solved by Loach’s easygoing direction, though when it works, Eric has many incidental pleasures."
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Anthony Kaufman on A Prophet at indieWIRE:
"If James Toback’s petty-criminal tale Fingers inspired Jacques Audiard’s previous The Beat That My Heart Skipped, it’s Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas that looms over his latest A Prophet. Successfully balancing art-film portraiture with a gangster picture’s plot, the film may be one of the more conventional movies in this year’s Cannes competition, but judging from the sustained applause after its Cannes premiere on Saturday morning, it’s also been one of the more satisfying."
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Allan Hunter on Taking Woodstock at Screen Daily:
"Taking Woodstock is a sweet, meandering salute to the transformative power of three days of peace and music that took place in the summer of 1969. A defining moment in American cultural life is seen through the conventional prism of a young man’s coming of age and assertion of his individuality. The underlying themes of family tensions and personal epiphanies are quintessential Ang Lee [above, with Emile Hirsch] territory but this is a slender anecdote compared to the award-winning reach of more recent Lee ventures like Brokeback Mountain (2005) or Lust, Caution (2007)."
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Dave Calhoun on Fish Tank at Time Out:
"It’s hugely satisfying to report that Fish Tank shows [director Andrea] Arnold going from strength to strength, offering new depths of filmmaking while at the same time building on a view of the world and a way of telling stories that are distinctly her own. She also coaxes a performance of extraordinary emotion from young British newcomer Katie Jarvis. Fish Tank is another intimate portrait of a female character living on the margins of a city."
Photos: Courtesy Festival de Cannes
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Tags: A Prophet, Allan Hunter, Andrea Arnold, Ang Lee, Anthony Kaufman, Brokeback Mountain, Cannes 2009, Cannes Film Festival, Dave Calhoun, Derek Elley, Emile Hirsch, Eric Cantona, Film Festivals, Fingers, Fish Tank, Goodfellas, indieWIRE, Jacques Audiard, James Toback, Katie Jarvis, Ken Loach, Looking for Eric, Martin Scorsese, Paul Laverty, Taking Woodstock, The Beat That My Heart Skipped, Time Out, Variety
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a strong year at cannes
i wonder if the same will happen nxt year
theyve had two or three good yers ain a row