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SXSW 2013: Behind the Eight Ball

SXSW 2013: Behind the Eight Ball

Eric Lavallee March 8, 2013 0

This is one of the rare moments in one’s life when jury duty calls…. you emphatically say, yes. Yours truly is headed to the 2013 edition of the SXSW Film Festival as one-third of

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This is Your Soundtrack: The Master

This is Your Soundtrack: The Master

Mathieu Coates September 27, 2012 0

The Master marks the second collaboration between Paul Thomas Anderson and highly respected progressive composer/RadioHead guitarist multi-instrumentalist Jonny Greenwood. Back in 2007, There Will Be Blood saw Greenwood compose an orchestral score (Academy ruled it ineligible due

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2012 Cannes Film Festival: 70 Predictions

2012 Cannes Film Festival: 70 Predictions

Eric Lavallee April 12, 2012 0

On April 19th of next week, Cannes Film Festival’s Thierry Frémaux will squash rumors, confirm what we already know and essentially pluck a handful of filmmakers from obscurity in announcing what titles, what filmmakers

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2012 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Roman Coppola’s A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charlie Swan III

2012 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Roman Coppola’s A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charlie Swan III

Eric Lavallee April 12, 2012 0

Gist: This loosey-goosey script plays with Charlie Sheen’s public persona  setting him up as a famous graphic designer whose life takes a nosedive after his girlfriend leaves him. Prediction: Is there room on the

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2012 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Nick Cassavetes’ Yellow

2012 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Nick Cassavetes’ Yellow

Eric Lavallee April 12, 2012 0

Gist: An addiction dramedy noir ensemble featuring Lucy Punch, Sienna Miller, Ray Liotta, Max Thieriot, David Morse, Daveigh Chase, Brendan Sexton III, Melanie Griffith, Elizabeth Daily, Riley Keough and Cassavetes’ mom, Gena Rowlands. Featuring Cassevetes’

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2012 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Bogdan Mustata’s Wolf

2012 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Bogdan Mustata’s Wolf

Blake Williams April 12, 2012 0

Gist: Wolf is a lonely, silent, sixteen-yearold boy. He tries to hide his emotions, but sometimes he is overwhelmed by the smell of a girl’s hair, or when trying to peek under Clara’s short

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2012 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Pablo Trapero’s White Elephant

2012 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Pablo Trapero’s White Elephant

Eric Lavallee April 12, 2012 0

Gist: Belonging to the huge family of films featuring the drug trade corrupting Latin America, in the vast, poverty-stricken and highly dangerous Buenos Aires slum that is the Villa Virgen, two men – bothfriends, both Catholic priests, both deeply respected

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2012 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: James Clauer’s When The World’s On Fire

2012 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: James Clauer’s When The World’s On Fire

Eric Lavallee April 12, 2012 0

Gist: Javier, a Guatemalan immigrant, finds himself homeless and living on the fringes of society in a hardscrabble Southern town. With a loyal dog for a companion, Javier encounters a revolving cast of characters

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2012 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Michel Gondry’s The We and I

2012 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Michel Gondry’s The We and I

Blake Williams April 12, 2012 0

Gist: Gondry has stumbled a bit under the pressure of following up one of the most whimsical rom-coms ever made, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. His subsequent attempts at recapturing the quirky intelligence

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2012 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Terrence Malick’s Voyage of Time

2012 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Terrence Malick’s Voyage of Time

Eric Lavallee April 12, 2012 0

Gist: Birth of the universe and the origin of life — think The Tree of Life floor clippings. Prediction: I think Voyage of Time taking over the Palais is highly likely, but with a

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2012 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Alain Resnais’ Vous n’avez encore rien vu

2012 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Alain Resnais’ Vous n’avez encore rien vu

Blake Williams April 12, 2012 0

Gist: Loosely translated to ‘You Haven’t Seen Anything Yet’ – or, hopefully, the hipper and smoother ‘You Ain’t See Nothin’ Yet’ – when it comes to Resnais and his kitty munchies, we can only

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2012 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Juan Diego Solanas’ Upside Down

2012 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Juan Diego Solanas’ Upside Down

Eric Lavallee April 12, 2012 0

Gist: Juan Diego Solanas’ sci-fi romance’s storyline centers on a young man (Jim Sturgess) from the down-trodden version of Earth named Adam falling for a woman named Eve (Kirsten Dunst) from the paradise Earth.

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2012 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Pedro Gonzalez-Rubio’s Tree Shade

2012 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Pedro Gonzalez-Rubio’s Tree Shade

Blake Williams April 12, 2012 0

Gist: There are very few details on Gonzalez-Rubio’s follow-up to his arthouse hit Alamar (To the Sea), but the vegetal title suggest another breezy doc/fiction hybrid will be in store. Prediction: Tree Shade landed

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2012 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Xavier Giannoli’s Superstar

2012 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Xavier Giannoli’s Superstar

Eric Lavallee April 12, 2012 0

Gist: Starring Mathieu Amalric, Kad Merad, Cécile de France and Louis-Do de Lencquesaing, this appears to cover Truman Show-esque territory focusing on the instant fame of the ordinary joe. “When he tries to find

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2012 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Patrice Leconte’s The Suicide Shop

2012 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Patrice Leconte’s The Suicide Shop

Blake Williams April 4, 2012 0

Gist: “Imagine a store where for ten generations they have been selling anything available to commit suicide. This small mom and pop shop profits from the sadness and somber moods of desperate individuals until

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2012 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Park Chan-wook’s Stoker

2012 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Park Chan-wook’s Stoker

Eric Lavallee April 4, 2012 0

Gist: This Blacklist mentioned screenplay co-written by Wentworth Miller and Erin Cressida Wilson centers around India (Wasikowska) who after her father dies in an auto accident, her Uncle Charlie (Goode), who she never knew

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2012 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Olivier Assayas’ Something in the Air

2012 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Olivier Assayas’ Something in the Air

Blake Williams April 4, 2012 0

Gist: Set to be the French film everyone is talking about, Assayas’ follow-up to the mini series Carlos features the talents of rising superstar Lola Créton (Goodbye First Love), accompanied by newbie Clement Metayer.

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2012 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Antonio Campos’ Simon Killer

2012 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Antonio Campos’ Simon Killer

Eric Lavallee April 4, 2012 0

Gist: The antithesis of Woody Allen’s postcard image, this plants us firmly in off the tourist map areas of the City of Lights (we also get landmarks and skylines, but Antonio Campos dresses them

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2012 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Jacques Audiard’s Rust & Bone

2012 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Jacques Audiard’s Rust & Bone

Eric Lavallee April 4, 2012 0

Gist: The shot in the Antibes, bigger budgeted thriller for Audiard pits an unemployed 25-year-old man (Matthias Schoenaerts) who falls in love with a killer whale trainer (Marion Cotillard). Prediction: It’s an oddball year for

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2012 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Rodney Ascher’s Room 237

2012 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Rodney Ascher’s Room 237

Blake Williams April 4, 2012 0

Gist: From the Sundance catalogue: “In 1980 Stanley Kubrick released his classic horror film, The Shining. Loved and hated by equal numbers, the film is considered a genre standard by many loyalists, while other

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2012 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Marina Zenovich’s Roman Polanski: Odd Man Out

2012 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Marina Zenovich’s Roman Polanski: Odd Man Out

Eric Lavallee April 4, 2012 0

Gist: A fitting title (Roman Polanski: Odd Man Out) as a sequel (Polanski has repeatedly cited the pic as his fave), Marina Zenovich explores the recent legal battle to bring Roman Polanski back to

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2012 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Bahman Ghobadi’s Rhinos Season

2012 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Bahman Ghobadi’s Rhinos Season

Blake Williams April 4, 2012 0

Gist: Could this be this year’s hot topic Iranian political rebellion? With Kiarostami doing his own thing over in Japan, last year’s one-two punch of This is Not a Film and Good Bye may

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2012 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Carlos Reygadas’ Post Tenebras Lux

2012 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Carlos Reygadas’ Post Tenebras Lux

Blake Williams April 4, 2012 0

Gist: Childhood and adolescence memories, dreams of life, emotions and thoughts of the present existence. It’s a feature film with a loose plot link in its discourse but really clear in its poetics. It

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2012 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Kim Ki-duk’s Pieta

2012 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Kim Ki-duk’s Pieta

Blake Williams April 4, 2012 0

Gist: Ki-duk picks up the pieces and follows up his dismal Arirang with what he’s good at: melancholic, contemplative dramas (I guess the aforementioned self-help doc did do its job, justifying it’s unfortunate raison

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2012 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Pablo Agüero’s Petit’ Argentina

2012 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Pablo Agüero’s Petit’ Argentina

Blake Williams April 4, 2012 0

Gist: Protagonist Lisandro is a moody and hyperactive Argentinian architecture student. He comes to Paris for a graduation trip and submits a project proposal for the reconstruction of the city centre, though he has

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