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This is Your Soundtrack: The Master
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
Read More2012 Cannes Film Festival: 70 Predictions
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
Read More2012 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Roman Coppola’s A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charlie Swan III
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
Read More2012 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Nick Cassavetes’ Yellow
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’
Read More2012 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Bogdan Mustata’s Wolf
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
Read More2012 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Pablo Trapero’s White Elephant
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
Read More2012 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: James Clauer’s When The World’s On Fire
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
Read More2012 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Michel Gondry’s The We and I
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
Read More2012 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Terrence Malick’s Voyage of Time
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
Read More2012 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Alain Resnais’ Vous n’avez encore rien vu
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
Read More2012 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Juan Diego Solanas’ Upside Down
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.
Read More2012 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Pedro Gonzalez-Rubio’s Tree Shade
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
Read More2012 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Xavier Giannoli’s Superstar
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
Read More2012 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Patrice Leconte’s The Suicide Shop
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
Read More2012 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Park Chan-wook’s Stoker
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
Read More2012 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Olivier Assayas’ Something in the Air
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.
Read More2012 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Antonio Campos’ Simon Killer
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
Read More2012 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Jacques Audiard’s Rust & Bone
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
Read More2012 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Rodney Ascher’s Room 237
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
Read More2012 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Marina Zenovich’s Roman Polanski: Odd Man Out
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
Read More2012 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Bahman Ghobadi’s Rhinos Season
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
Read More2012 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Carlos Reygadas’ Post Tenebras Lux
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
Read More2012 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Kim Ki-duk’s Pieta
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
Read More2012 Cannes Film Festival Predictions: Pablo Agüero’s Petit’ Argentina
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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"Ron and I wanted to make a film that looked at what it means to be an outsider and we wanted to explore what it takes to reach out to someone whose life is very removed from your own."










SXSW 2013: Behind the Eight Ball
Eric Lavallee March 8, 2013 0This 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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