SIN NOMBRE, THE WHITE RIBBON, SUMMER HOURS: Foreign Language Film Favorites of 2009

Paulina Gaitan, Edgar Flores in Cary Fukunaga’s Sin Nombre (Focus Features)(top); The White Ribbon by Michael Haneke (Films du Losange / Sony Pictures Classics) (middle); Penelope Cruz in Pedro Almodóvar’s Broken Embraces (Emilio Pereda & Paola Ardizzoni / El Deseo / Sony Pictures Classics) (bottom)

Sin Nombre, a Mexican-American co-production directed by Cary Fukunaga and featuring Stockholm Film Festival best actor winner Edgar Flores, has thus far been the US-critics’ favorite foreign-language film of 2009, with six wins. Additionally, Fukunaga’s drama about a Honduran family’s dramatic trek north to the United States, has landed Critics Choice and Spirit Award nominations.
Michael Haneke’s European Film Award winner The White Ribbon, about strange occurrences in a small German town shortly before the outbreak [...]

by Steve Montgomery | December 29, 2009   
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UP IN THE AIR, George Clooney, Carey Mulligan Win in Washington

George Clooney, Vera Farmiga in Up in the Air (top); Alfred Molina, Cara Seymour, Carey Mulligan, Peter Sarsgaard in An Education (middle); Anthony Mackie, Jeremy Renner in The Hurt Locker (bottom)

Carey Mulligan, playing a 1960s London teenager eager to lose her virginity with the help of a man more than twice her age (Peter Sarsgaard) in An Education, won her third award today: she was voted best actress by the Washington D.C. Film Critics. Earlier this evening, Mulligan had won a British Independent Film Award and a couple of days ago she was honored by the National Board of Review. Meryl Streep had better watch out.
Jason Reitman’s Up in the Air, about a tin-hearted downsizing expert who rediscovers his humanity, [...]

by Anna Robinson | December 6, 2009   
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Susan Sarandon, Luc Besson: 2009 Stockholm Film Festival

Best actress Oscar winner Susan Sarandon (for Dead Man Walking back in 1995) was at the 2009 edition of the Stockholm Film Festival, where she was handed the festival’s Lifetime Achievement Award. (Photo: Kalle Mörck.)
Among Sarandon’s screen credits, which span nearly 40 years, are Atlantic City, Thelma & Louise, Lorenzo’s Oil, and The Client. She was nominated for best actress Academy Awards for those four films.
Susan Sarandon will next be seen in Peter Jackson’s supernatural murder thriller/psychological drama The Lovely Bones, in which Sarandon plays Saoirse Ronan’s grandmother. Also in the film’s cast are Mark Wahlberg, Academy Award winner Rachel Weisz (for The Constant Gardener in 2005), and Stanley Tucci.
While in Stockholm, Sarandon also introduced [...]

by Joan Lister | November 29, 2009   
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Sundance 2009: US Dramatic Competition

Sundance 2009: US Dramatic Competition
 

Pierce Brosnan, Susan Sarandon in The Greatest
 
Adam (Director-screenwriter: Max Mayer)
A strange and lyrical love story between a somewhat socially dysfunctional young man and the woman of his dreams. Cast: Hugh Dancy, Rose Byrne, Peter Gallagher, Amy Irving, Frankie Faison.
Amreeka (Director-screenwriter: Cherien Dabis)
When a divorced Palestinian woman and her teenage son move to rural Illinois at the outset of the Iraq war, they find their new lives replete with challenges. Cast: Nisreen Faour, Melkar Muallem, Hiam Abbass, Yussuf Abu-Warda, Alia Shawkat.
Big Fan (Director-screenwriter: Robert Siegel)
The world of a parking garage attendant who happens to be the New York Giants’ biggest fan is turned upside down after [...]

by Deborah Arthur | December 3, 2008   
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