AFI FEST 2009: A SINGLE MAN, THE SINGULARITY

Colin Firth, Julianne Moore in A Single Man (top); Steve Evets, Eric Cantona in Looking for Eric (bottom)

AFI FEST 2009 highlights on Thursday, Nov. 5:

Robert Barry Ptolemy’s The Singularity sounds fascinating: Futurist Ray Kurzweil discusses the just-around-the-corner impact of human technology, which has been growing exponentially. Imagine a world without death, hunger, disease. (Well, I’m assuming all those great things will happen if humans don’t self-destruct first. After all, all lab studies indicate that human imbecility is growing even faster than the species’ technological advances — talk about a scientific paradox; someone should come up with a documentary about that.)
Directed by Tom Ford, A Single Man stars Venice 2009 winner Colin Firth, who’ll quite likely receive an Oscar nod come [...]

by Andre Soares | November 4, 2009   
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Cannes 2009: Best Screenplay Favorites

Best Screenplay
Any of those listed for best film, in addition to:
Marco Bellocchio’s Vincere (co-written by Bellocchio and Daniela Ceselli), about how Benito Mussolini mistreated his first wife (Giovanna Mezzogiorno, top photo) and son while millions of Italians thought he was just the greatest guy around.
Ken Loach’s Looking for Eric (written by Paul Laverty), about a postman who gets soccer player Eric Cantona (middle photo) to become his life coach.
Writer-director Xavier Giannoli’s In the Beginning (bottom photo), in which a con man gets a small town to build a highway.
 
Photos: Courtesy Festival de Cannes
 

by Massimo David | May 22, 2009   
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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 [...]

by Massimo David | May 20, 2009   
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Cannes 2009: Palme d’Or Line-Up II

Cannes Film Festival 2009: Competition Line-Up
Palme d’Or Line-Up: Part I
Click on the photos to enlarge them.

Looking for Eric, Ken Loach, UK

Kinatay, Brillante Mendoza, Philippines

Visage (Face), Tsai Ming-liang, France/Taiwan

Soudain le vide (Enter the Void), Gaspar Noé, France

The Time that Remains, Elia Suleiman, Palestine

Inglourious Basterds, Quentin Tarantino, USA

Vengeance, Johnnie To, France/Hong Kong

Antichrist, Lars von Trier, Denmark

Les herbes folles (Wild Grass), Alain Resnais, France

Spring Fever, Lou Ye, China

by Deborah Arthur | May 13, 2009   
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