#Palme d’Or winner

[tvseries420]

Anora 2024

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“Anora,” a 2024 American comedy-drama directed by Sean Baker, delves into the tumultuous life of Anora “Ani” Mikheeva, a 23-year-old stripper from Brooklyn���s Brighton Beach. The film intricately portrays Ani’s whirlwind romance with Ivan “Vanya” Zakharov, the 21-year-old son of a Russian oligarch, and the subsequent challenges they face due to familial opposition.

Plot Summary

Ani, portrayed by Mikey Madison, leads a modest life in Brighton Beach, a Russian-American enclave in Brooklyn. Her routine is disrupted when she meets Vanya Zakharov (Mark Eydelshteyn), the son of affluent Russian businessman Nikolai Zakharov. Vanya, ostensibly in the U.S. for academic pursuits, prefers indulging in parties and video games at his family’s opulent mansion.

Their relationship begins on a transactional note, with Vanya hiring Ani for several encounters, eventually offering her $15,000 for a week-long companionship. This arrangement leads them to Las Vegas, where Vanya proposes marriage, partly to secure a green card and avoid returning to Russia. Despite initial skepticism, Ani is swayed by Vanya’s declarations of genuine affection, and they elope in a spontaneous wedding ceremony. Following the marriage, Ani quits her job and moves into Vanya’s mansion, embracing her new life.

However, their union faces immediate challenges. Upon learning of the marriage, Vanya’s mother, Galina, dispatches his godfather, Toros, along with henchmen Garnick and Igor, to annul the marriage and bring Vanya back to Russia. The situation escalates when Ani confronts Garnick and Igor, leading to a physical altercation where she is overpowered and restrained. Toros offers Ani $10,000 to consent to an annulment, but she remains steadfast, asserting her love for Vanya.

The narrative intensifies as Ani collaborates with Toros and his men to locate Vanya, who has gone on a reckless spree. They find him intoxicated at Ani’s former workplace, indifferent to the unfolding crisis. A subsequent court attempt to annul the marriage fails due to jurisdictional technicalities, further complicating matters.

At the airport, Ani’s attempt to connect with Vanya’s parents is met with disdain, particularly from Galina. Under familial pressure, Vanya coldly dismisses Ani, declaring their marriage untenable. Galina threatens Ani with severe repercussions if she pursues a divorce, leading Ani to reluctantly agree to the annulment. In a poignant moment, Ani confronts Vanya and Galina with sharp words before departing, while Nikolai reacts with unexpected laughter.

The film concludes with Ani and Igor returning to the Zakharov mansion to collect her belongings. A complex interaction unfolds between them, culminating in a moment of intimacy initiated by Ani. However, when Igor attempts to kiss her, Ani breaks down, revealing the emotional toll of her experiences. This ending leaves audiences contemplating Ani’s future and the resilience of her spirit.

Critical Reception

“Anora” premiered at the 77th Cannes Film Festival on May 21, 2024, where it won the prestigious Palme d’Or and received universal critical acclaim. Critics lauded Baker’s direction and screenplay, as well as the performances of Madison and Borisov. The film was released theatrically on October 18 by Neon and was named one of the top 10 films of 2024 by the National Board of Review and the American Film Institute. It received five nominations at the 82nd Golden Globe Awards, including Best Motion Picture — Comedy or Musical, Best Actress in a Motion Picture — Comedy or Musical for Madison, and Best Director. The film grossed $31.2 million worldwide on a $6 million budget, becoming Baker’s highest-grossing film.

Wikipedia

Mikey Madison’s portrayal of Ani has been particularly praised, with critics highlighting her ability to convey both vulnerability and strength. The film’s exploration of themes such as socioeconomic disparity, the complexities of sex work, and the pursuit of the American Dream has resonated with audiences and critics alike.

“Anora” stands as a testament to Sean Baker’s commitment to telling nuanced stories about marginalized communities, offering a poignant and unflinching look at the intersections of love, power, and identity.

Tags: Anora 2024, Anora movie, Anora trailer, Sean Baker, Mikey Madison, Mark Eydelshteyn, Russian drama movie, American Dream movie, love and identity, Brighton Beach, Palme d’Or winner, critically acclaimed movie, 2024 movies, Anora movie review, Anora film analysis, emotional drama, movie trailers 2024, fair use policy, Oscar buzz 2024

[savage-kult-of-gorthaur]

"...WINNER OF THE PALME D'OR AT THE 1961 CANNES FILM FESTIVAL, "VIRIDIANA" IS AS AUDACIOUS TODAY AS EVER."

PIC(S) INFO: Spotlight on Criterion box art to "Viridiana," a 1961 Spanish-Mexican comedy-drama film directed & co-written by Luis Buñuel, and starring Silvia Pinal in the title role. It was released on the Criterion Collection as Spine #332. Box art/graphic art by Eric Skillman.

MINI-OVERVIEW: "Banned in Spain and denounced by the Vatican, Luis Buñuel’s irreverent vision of life as a beggar’s banquet is regarded by many as his masterpiece. In it, novice nun Viridiana does her utmost to maintain her Catholic principles, but her lecherous uncle and a motley assemblage of paupers force her to confront the limits of her idealism. Winner of the Palme d’or at the 1961 Cannes Film Festival, "Viridiana" is as audacious today as ever."

-- CRITERION COLLECTION, c. spring 2006

Source: www.criterion.com/films/373-viridiana.

[maiapoetica]

palme d’or winner ~ directed by sean baker

[architect-2015]

living the fast life - Alexia Putellas

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‘la reina’ and ‘il prescelto’ two women dominating their chosen sport.

Alexia Putellas a two-time ballon d’or winner Carmen Blanc the current formula one world champion.

Two women compared in the media could not be any close together.

(whenever they are speaking english besides in posts is spoke in spanish, it’s easier to write it this way than to translate everything!)

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June 23rd 2024 (day of the Spanish Grand Prix)

@alexiapnews

alexiapnews: Alexia Putellas seen walking to the ferrari motorhome a head of the 2024 Spanish Grand Prix!

Carmen Blanc (ferrari driver) and the Barcelona midfielder have been linked multiple times during the duration of the last two years, no comments have been made in these rumours.

@yn.alexia: OMG THEY HAVE TO BE TOGETHER!

@fanusername1: girl let them live their lives.

@fanusername2: if they are together imagine the f1 x barcelona crossovers we could have!

@ferrarixfootball: 💙❤️🏎️

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January 31st 2021 (Day of El Clásico)

It was winter break for Carmen Blanco, coming off the back of another successful season in Formula One, second in the Drivers Championship and Ferrari coming third in the Constructors Standings.

Unlike the other drivers on the grid, the Spaniard like to return home to her beloved home city of Barcelona instead of travelling to all four corners of the world.

Being born and raised in Barcelona, her love for football was a big factor in her off season. The Estadi Johan Cruyff might as well be her second home during the winter and summer off season.

Due to her status in the sport community, specifically women in sport, Carmen had been invited to meet the teams after the game.

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Following a staff member towards the locker rooms, the young lady began to feel her palms sweat. She would be meeting one of her idols.

Carmen had always admired Alexia, her loyalty to Barcelona mirrored that of Carmen’s towards Ferrari. Both women being part of breaking the barriers for women in male dominated sports.

Once she had reached the door, she reached up and knocked three times on the painted wood. Cheers and shouts of joy were heard from inside the changing room as the door was ripped open.

Standing face to face with ‘la reina’ was something she couldn’t believe she would be doing.

“Hola, you must be Carmen. I’m so happy we finally get to meet!”

@carmen.blanco

liked by alexiaputellas, marialeonn16 and 231,567 others

carmen.blanco: always a joy to be back home, this team has my heart. Forca Barca! ❤️💙

alexiaputellas: thank you for your support, it was amazing to meet you.

carmen.blanco: you too alexia, i was completely star struck!

fanuser1: ALEXIA AND CARMEN CROSSOVER!

carmenxf1: the two best women to do it.

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Over the past three months since being introduced Carmen and the players of Fc Barcelona Femení have all stayed in touch, but specifically the spanish captain and the driver.

Having met on multiple occasions for coffee and dog walks with Alexia’s pomeranian Nala and Carmens Dalmatian Lulu. The two had grown increasingly closer to each other.

Currently laid out on a sun lounger in the backyard of her Barcelona home, Carmen was trying to soak up the last of the Spanish sun before her race season begins. A ding interrupts her peace and she leans over to check her phone.

a delicate blush spreads across her cheeks as she rushes into the house to begin getting ready for the night, nervous for what the future holds for her and Alexia.

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oops i realised that for the amount of social media posts i’ve made this is going to have to be a multiple part series.

This spans from January of 2021 to June if 2024 so we’ve got a lot to cover!

i can’t wait to get to Alexia’s first ballon d’or win and Carmen claiming for first formula 1 world championship. 

I’m a sucker for a secret romance so 🤭

[mrs-stans]

Sebastian Stan Talks ‘The Apprentice’s Uphill Battle, Double Golden Globe Nomination, Lily James Reteam ‘Let The Evil Go West’ & Upcoming Cristian Mungiu & Justin Kurzel Projects

By Matt Grobar

On Monday, Sebastian Stan pulled off a rare feat, scoring Golden Globe nominations for Lead Actor in both Drama and Musical/Comedy categories. Following the announcement, Stan got candid about upcoming projects with Cristian Mungiu, Christian Tafdrup and Justin Kurzel, his experience on the awards circuit with his nominated turn as Donald Trump in The Apprentice, and more.

In discussing his upcoming slate, Stan seemed particularly excited about a project not yet announced with Cristian Mungiu, the Romanian filmmaker behind Palme d’Or winner 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, which he expects to shoot next year.

“I was born in Romania. I still speak the language, and I’ve been trying to find a project where I can go back and tap back into that history that I have,” said the actor, “so I’m excited about working with him, and hopefully that’s going to come together.”

A second project on the docket is Let the Evil Go West, a horror thriller from buzzy Danish filmmaker Christian Tafdrup, which reunites him with Pam & Tommy‘s Lily James. The film centers on a railroad worker driven to madness after coming upon a fortune, and his wife, who believes an evil presence has attached itself to their family.

Stan came to the project after seeing Tafdrup’s “unbelievable” horror thriller Speak No Evil, which Universal just remade. “This is a project that’s been going on for a while, and it always gets tricky. It’s about finding the right scheduling and the right time to do it,” said the actor. “But that’s something I’m really excited about.”

While he didn’t get into details, Stan also confirmed that he’s attached to star in Burning Rainbow Farm, a film that The Order‘s Justin Kurzel has in development. Plot details are unconfirmed, but we hear it’s inspired by true events, involving two marijuana advocates who face off against the FBI in a tense five-day standoff in Michigan, culminating in tragedy just days before 9/11.

Stan’s Globe nominations this morning came for Briarcliff’s The Apprentice, which examines Trump’s rise in the 1970s and 1980s New York real estate scene, as well as A24’s A Different Man. Hailing from filmmaker Aaron Schimberg, that title has him playing a man with a disfigurement who undergoes an experimental facial reconstruction surgery, before spiraling into a psychological crisis.

“Stunned and incredibly ecstatic,” Stan shared that the nominations are gratifying given the risks he took with each project and the uphill battles faced with each — The Apprentice, in particular, which struggled to secure financing, and later, distribution, amid the threat of a lawsuit from Trump himself. The project is one Hollywood didn’t seem to know what to do with, both leading up to and in the aftermath of a polarizing, pivotal election.

Sharing that he had “extreme trepidations” about playing Trump — in part, because many in the industry advised him not to — Stan reflected this morning about a disclosure of his that went viral: that while he intended to appear on Variety’s video series Actors on Actors in support of The Apprentice, no actor would step up to talk with him about his project, presumably out of fear of saying the wrong thing.

“For me, the Variety thing was just unfortunately another example of the uphill battle that the movie had been facing since Cannes, that there was some hesitancy and some fear around it…But it wasn’t my intention to point a finger or blame anybody else,” Stan said. “It was just simply saying, ‘Hey, we should be mindful of things that feel fearful.’ Because as artists, we have to hold ourselves as sort of the ambassadors of the truth, in a way…Today, of course, is a big day, in terms of hopefully allowing people to feel like they have permission, to talk about this film, and look at the work and have a conversation about it.”

From Stan’s perspective, we as a society need “all kinds of movies” and “have to try to not ever discriminate against any movie,” even if it’s something as polarizing as The Apprentice. In terms of the current climate of fear among Hollywood stars, when it comes to addressing certain topics, Stan’s feeling is that “there’s always a conversation that we can have about the work and what goes into it.”

A recent speech on Stan’s mind, when it comes to this, is the one given by honoree Richard Curtis at the Governors Awards. “He went up there and said, ‘Look, I am grateful to be standing up here and be recognized this evening. Buts also, I want to say, we love good ideas and we love embracing good ideas, but we also have to follow through on the action of it, even when you get to the last one-yard line, trying to get past it,'” the actor recalls. “Because I know the intentions are always good, and I believe that movies can inspire. I think they can reveal things sometimes that we have a hard time maybe understanding or communicating about in day-to-day life.”

In reflecting on the bold and diverse resume he’s carved out over the last decade-plus, Stan gave credit to his “Marvel family” for being an “incredibly supportive,” consistent presence in his life over the last 15 years, which has allowed him to “go out there and find other projects that allow me to kind of change it up and challenge myself.”

This, he says, is what he wants more than anything. “I’ve always tried to find other actors to learn from and grow from, and I want to be part of something meaningful,” Stan says, “and maybe that’s just me getting older. You want the work to have meaning and to stand for something.”

[whileiamdying]

All the Films in Competition at Cannes, Ranked from Best to Worst

The twenty-two films that premièred in the 2024 festival’s main program offered much to savor and revile.

By Justin Chang May 26, 2024

The seventy-seventh annual Cannes Film Festival came to a startling and joyous conclusion on Saturday night, when the competition jury, chaired by Greta Gerwig, awarded the Palme d’Or, the festival’s highest honor, to “Anora,” a funny, harrowing, and finally quite moving portrait of a sex worker’s madcap New York misadventures. It was startling because the movie, though one of the best-received in the competition, had not been widely tipped for the top prize, which seldom goes to a U.S. film; with “Anora,” Sean Baker becomes the first American director to win the Palme since Terrence Malick did, for “The Tree of Life” (2011), thirteen years ago. And it was joyous not only because the award was bestowed on a worthy and remarkable film but because Baker used the occasion to deliver the best, most eloquent and impassioned acceptance speech I’ve ever heard a Palme winner give.

Reading from prepared remarks, Baker singled out two other filmmakers in the competition, Francis Ford Coppola and David Cronenberg, as among his personal heroes. He dedicated the award to sex workers everywhere, a fitting tribute from a filmmaker who has put their lives front and center, with drama, humor, and empathy, in movies like “Starlet” (2012), “Tangerine” (2015), and “Red Rocket” (2021). He tossed some exquisite shade in the direction of the “tech companies” behind the so-called streaming revolution—including, presumably, Netflix, which came away as one of the night’s big winners; its major acquisition of the festival, Jacques Audiard’s musical “Emilia Pérez,” won two prizes. And, in a moment that drew rapturous applause, Baker delivered a plea on behalf of theatrical films, declaring, “The future of cinema is where it started: in a movie theatre.”

I was fortunate to see all twenty-two films in the Cannes competition on the big screen, projected under superior conditions in houses packed with fellow movie lovers. It’s my hope that, when these movies are released in the U.S., as the great majority of them likely will be, you will seize the chance to see them on the big screen as well—even “Emilia Pérez,” which Netflix may not keep in theatres for long, but whose bold dramatic and stylistic risks have the best chance of winning you over if they have your undivided, wide-awake attention.

I have ranked the movies in order of preference, from best to worst. Here they are:

1. “Caught by the Tides”

Jia Zhangke, a Cannes competition veteran, has long been the cinema’s preëminent chronicler of modern China (“Mountains May Depart,” “Ash Is Purest White”), mapping its social, cultural, and geographical complexities with great formal acumen, and also with the longtime collaboration of his wife, the superb actress Zhao Tao. Jia’s latest work, drawing on an archive of footage shot in the course of roughly two decades, unfurls a story in fragments, about a woman (Zhao) and a man (Li Zhubin) who fall in love, bitterly separate, and have a melancholy reunion years later. It’s an achievement by turns fleeting and monumental: a series of interlocking time capsules, a wrenching feat of self-reflection, and a stealth musical, in which Zhao dances and dances, standing in for millions who have learned to sway and bend to history’s tumultuous beat.

2. “All We Imagine as Light”

As the first Indian feature invited to compete at Cannes in nearly three decades, Payal Kapadia’s narrative début (after her 2021 documentary, “A Night of Knowing Nothing”) would be notable enough; that the movie is so delicately felt and sensuously textured is cause for outright celebration. Winner of the festival’s Grand Prix, or second place, it tells the story of two roommates, Prabha (Kani Kusruti) and Anu (Divya Prabha), who work as nurses at a Mumbai hospital. It teases out their personal circumstances—Prabha’s estrangement from her unseen husband, Anu’s frowned-upon romance with a young Muslim man (Hridhu Haroon)—with a quiet truthfulness that, like the glittering lights of the city, lingers expansively in the memory. (A forthcoming Sideshow/Janus Films release.)

3. “Grand Tour”

The Portuguese director Miguel Gomes (“Tabu,” “Arabian Nights”) delivered some of the most virtuosic filmmaking in the competition—as the jury recognized by giving him the Best Director prize—with this characteristically yet extraordinarily playful colonial-era travelogue. Shifting between color and black-and-white, set in 1917 but full of fourth-wall-breaking anachronisms, the movie tells a story of sorts about a roving British diplomat (Gonçalo Waddington) and a fiancée (Crista Alfaiate) he’s in no hurry to marry. But its true fascination lies in the humid atmosphere and wanderlust-inspiring splendor of its East and Southeast Asian locations, ranging from Singapore and Bangkok to Shanghai and Rangoon. It’s a movie to get lost in.

4. “The Seed of the Sacred Fig”

It’s impossible to absorb this blistering domestic drama without thinking of its dissident director, Mohammad Rasoulof, who recently fled Iran after being sentenced to prison and a flogging. (His appearance at his film’s première made for one of the most emotional moments in recent Cannes memory.) Shot entirely in secret, the story follows a Tehran-based husband (Missagh Zareh) and wife (Soheila Golestani) who are increasingly at war with their progressive-minded young-adult daughters (Mahsa Rostami, Setareh Maleki) during nationwide political protests led by women. The result is a thriller of propulsive skill and blunt emotional force, marrying the muscularity of an action film to the psychological intensity of a chamber drama. (A forthcoming Neon release.)

5. “Anora”

The director Sean Baker is near the height of his storytelling powers with this dazzling (and now Palme d’Or-winning) portrait of a Manhattan strip-club dancer (a revelatory Mikey Madison) who impulsively marries the ultra-spoiled son (Mark Eydelshteyn) of a Russian oligarch. Much comic chaos ensues, some of it pushed past the brink of plausibility, but Baker’s multifaceted love for his characters proves infectious and sustaining, as does his belief that acts of unexpected kindness can redeem even the darkest nights of the soul. (A forthcoming Neon release.)

6. “The Shrouds”

Early on in this elegantly sombre yet mordantly funny new movie, which stars Vincent Cassel, Diane Kruger, and Guy Pearce, the director David Cronenberg, a master of cerebral horror, unveils his latest invention: a technologically advanced burial shroud that allows people to watch a loved one’s body decomposing in the grave. So begins a drolly fluid inspection of classic Cronenberg themes—the deterioration of the flesh, the instability of the image, the paranoia-inducing incursions of technology into every aspect of life—but imbued with a nakedly personal dimension that the director has noted in interviews; the story was inspired by his wife’s death, in 2017, from cancer.

7. “Megalopolis”

In this legendarily long-gestating passion project, which I’ve written about at length, Francis Ford Coppola posits that our fragile, battered civilization is headed the way of the Roman Empire. The grimness of that prospect is unsurprising from a director accustomed to peering deep into the heart of American darkness (the “Godfather” movies, “The Conversation,” “Apocalypse Now”). For all that, the filmmaking here glows with a particularly hard-won optimism, even a welcome sense of play—borne out by an ensemble of actors, including Adam Driver, Giancarlo Esposito, and especially Aubrey Plaza, who fully embrace Coppola’s rhetorical and conceptual flights of fancy.

8. “The Substance”

Sympathetic or sadistic? Feminist or misogynist? Coralie Fargeat’s body-horror bonanza, which won the festival’s award for Best Screenplay, has been one of the competition’s more polarizing hits, which is unsurprising; divisiveness should be expected from a story about an aging actress and TV fitness guru who, desperate to regain her youthful bod of yesteryear, effectively splits herself in two. Whether the outlandish premise (think “The Picture of Dorian Gray” by way of “Death Becomes Her”) and its blood-gushing fallout withstand intellectual scrutiny, there’s no doubting the ferocity of the two leads, Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley, or Fargeat’s sheer filmmaking verve as she pushes her ideas to their sanguinary conclusions.

9. “Motel Destino”

Just a year after the Brazilian director Karim Aïnouz appeared in competition with a surprisingly stiff-corseted English period drama, “Firebrand,” it was bracing to watch him rebound with the competition’s most sexually uninhibited and flagrantly horny title; corsets don’t apply here, and even underwear proves blissfully optional. Set at a seedy roadside motel where the clientele never stops moaning, it’s a feverishly shambling erotic thriller starring three very game actors (Iago Xavier, Nataly Rocha, and Fábio Assunção) in a romantic triangle that plays like James M. Cain with sex toys—“The Postman Always Cock Rings Twice,” as it were.

10. “Emilia Pérez”

A trans-empowerment musical set against the backdrop of Mexico’s drug cartels might sound like a dubious proposition on paper, and, for the many detractors of this genre-melding big swing from the French director Jacques Audiard (“A Prophet,” “The Sisters Brothers”), what actually made it onto the screen was no better. But I was disarmed from the start by Audiard’s quasi-Almodóvarian vibes, his touchingly imperfect embrace of song-and-dance stylization, and, most of all, his three leads: the remarkable discovery Karla Sofía Gascón, a scene-stealing Selena Gomez, and a never-better Zoe Saldaña. All three (along with Adriana Paz) were recognized with the festival’s Best Actress prize, awarded collectively to the movie’s ensemble of actresses; Audiard also won the Jury Prize. (A forthcoming Netflix release.)

11. “Oh, Canada”

After a tense trilogy of dramas about male redemption through violence (“First Reformed,” “The Card Counter,” “Master Gardener”), the writer and director Paul Schrader has taken a gentler turn with an adaptation of “Foregone,” a 2021 novel by the late Russell Banks. (It’s his second Banks adaptation, after the 1997 drama “Affliction.”) In exploring the fragmented consciousness of an aging documentary filmmaker (played at different ages by Richard Gere and Jacob Elordi), Schrader bravely forsakes the narrative fastidiousness of his recent work and takes on grand themes of memory, mortality, and artistic self-reckoning, to formally ragged but sincerely moving effect.

12. “The Girl with the Needle”

This stark and terrifying black-and-white drama from the Swedish-born, Polish-based director Magnus von Horn (“Sweat”) was perhaps the competition’s bleakest entry. Set in Copenhagen immediately after the First World War, it pins us so mercilessly to the hard-bitten perspective of Karoline (an excellent Vic Carmen Sonne), a factory seamstress who becomes pregnant out of wedlock, that we scarcely notice her story shifting in a different, more sinister direction. It’s a bitterly hard-to-stomach brew of a movie, at once hideous and beautifully made, with a chilling supporting turn by Trine Dyrholm as a friend whose interventions turn out to be anything but benign.

13. “Three Kilometres to the End of the World”

The setting of this well-observed but emotionally opaque drama, from the Romanian actor turned director Emanuel Pârvu, is a small rural village where a closeted teen-age boy, Adi (Ciprian Chiujdea), is brutally beaten after being caught in an intimate moment with a male traveller. Pârvu teases out the legal, psychological, and moral fallout with the pitch-perfect performances and laserlike formal focus that have become hallmarks of new Romanian cinema. But, though the movie is persuasive enough as an indictment of small-town religious fundamentalism and homophobia, it proves curiously incurious about Adi’s perspective, to the detriment of its own human pulse.

14. “Kinds of Kindness”

After his Oscar-winning period romps “The Favourite” (2018) and “Poor Things” (2023), the Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos scales back—but goes long—with a sprawling, increasingly tedious compendium of comic cruelty. My favorite of the film’s three disconnected stories, all featuring the same actors, is the one where Jesse Plemons (the ensemble M.V.P., as the jury recognized with its Best Actor award) plays Willem Dafoe’s Manchurian candidate; my least favorite is the one where Emma Stone joins a sweat-worshipping sex cult. The one where Stone slices off her finger and cooks it for Plemons falls—much like the movie in Lanthimos’s over-all œuvre—somewhere in the middle. (A Searchlight Pictures release, opening June 21st in theatres.)

15. “Bird”

My admiration for the English filmmaker Andrea Arnold (“American Honey”) is such that I’m eager to revisit her latest rough-and-tumble coming-of-age story and find that I undervalued it. Arnold is certainly skilled at integrating recognizable actors, which in this case includes Barry Keoghan and Franz Rogowski, into her grottily realist frames, and she has an appealing lead performer in Nykiya Adams, as a twelve-year-old girl who overcomes persistent abuse and neglect. But the story may lose you—as it lost me—with a magical-realist turn that magnifies, rather than minimizes, the tortured-animal symbolism that has often dogged Arnold’s work.

16. “Beating Hearts”

An exchange of insults at a high-school bus stop provides a saucy meet-cute for a good girl (Mallory Wanecque) and a ne’er-do-well boy (Malik Frikah); so begins a raucous and endearing love story for the ages, in which the director Gilles Lellouche, with outsized glee and little discipline, merrily appropriates the conventions of classic Hollywood musicals and gangster flicks. The result is much too long at nearly three hours—the story spans several years, with Adèle Exarchopoulos and François Civil playing older versions of the two leads—but I can’t say I didn’t warm to its rambunctious cornball charm.

17. “Limonov: The Ballad”

Why make a film about Eduard Limonov, the globe-trotting Russian dissident poet and punk provocateur reviled for his pro-fascist sympathies? The filmmaker Kirill Serebrennikov never musters a satisfying answer in this muddled English-language bio-pic, despite an energetically uninhibited central performance by Ben Whishaw and a cheeky panoply of filmmaking techniques—jittery camerawork, lengthy tracking shots—meant to catch us up in the épater-la-bourgeoisie exuberance of Limonov’s revolt. Considering his earlier work, I prefer the rebel-youth vibes of “Leto” (2018) and the dazzling cinematic assaults of “Petrov’s Flu” (2021), both of which also screened in competition here.

18. “Parthenope”

Nearly every new picture from the Italian auteur Paolo Sorrentino could be reasonably called “The Great Beauty,” the title of his gorgeous 2013 cinematic tour of Rome. (It left that year’s Cannes empty-handed, but won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.) His latest work remains most intriguing for its ambivalent but still sensually overpowering vision of the director’s home town, Naples, from which springs a modern-day goddess, named after Parthenope, a Siren from Greek mythology. She’s played by Celeste Dalla Porta, a great beauty indeed and an empathetic screen presence, though only fitfully does her character seem worthy of this movie’s epic enshrinement.

19. “Wild Diamond”

Another disquisition on beauty and its discontents, this time from the débuting French writer and director Agathe Riedinger. She hurls us the life and busy social-media feed of a nineteen-year-old, Liane (a terrific Malou Khebizi), who has nipped, tucked, and tailored every part of herself to realize her dream of being selected for a hot new reality-TV series. Part influencer-culture cautionary tale, part bad-girl Cinderella story, the movie glancingly suggests the soul-rotting effects of beauty worship, but it falls victim to the trap that Liane is trying to avoid: in a sea of worthy candidates, it doesn’t especially stand out.

20. “The Apprentice”

Donald Trump’s attorneys have threatened legal action to block the release of this drama about his early rise to fame and wealth under the mentorship of the attorney Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong). It speaks to the useless proficiency of Ali Abbasi’s movie that the prospect of such censorship provokes more indifference than outrage. Shot to evoke cruddy nineteen-eighties VHS playback, the movie is well acted by Strong, Maria Bakalova as Ivana Trump, and an increasingly makeup-buried Sebastian Stan as Trump himself, depicted from the start as a sack of shit that gets progressively shittier. It’s not dismissible, but it’s hardly the stuff of revelation, either.

21. “Marcello Mio”

In this trifling meta-comedy from the French filmmaker Christophe Honoré (previously in the 2018 Cannes competition with the lovely “Sorry Angel”), the actress Chiara Mastroianni embarks on a strainedly whimsical personal odyssey to examine the legacy of her late father, the legendary Italian actor Marcello Mastroianni, and her own conflicted place therein. To that end, she spends much of this overstretched movie in “8½” and “La Dolce Vita” black-suited drag as she navigates a roundelay of industry in-jokes; among the French cinema luminaries making appearances are Fabrice Luchini, Nicole Garcia, and, most welcome, Chiara’s mother, Catherine Deneuve.

22. “The Most Precious of Cargoes”

The French director Michel Hazanavicius continues his uneven post-“The Artist” run with this animated Second World War fable, adapted from a 2019 novel by Jean-Claude Grumberg (and narrated by the late Jean-Louis Trintignant). It has an affecting opening stretch, in which a baby girl, thrown by her desperate father from an Auschwitz-bound train, is rescued and raised in secret by a woodcutter’s kindhearted wife. But when the child’s provenance is discovered, stoking local antisemitism, the movie becomes a bathetic wallow in Holocaust imagery, drowned in an Alexandre Desplat score whose every surge turned my heart increasingly to stone. ♦

[musette22]

https://x.com/sebstan44/status/1869648346199253339?t=lfgIz2nVswIczPOGeKAORg&s=19 Sebastian's movie with Romanian director Cristian MUNGIU will be filmed in Norway in the spring of next year!!! (Which side eye because doomsday (marvel) will be filmed in the spring too so he might not be in that one after all OR he will be only a little (let's hope!) 🤭

Oh wow!!! This is amazing news, I am LOVING the sound of this! YAY more Sebastian as a dad! And Norway, how cool is that!! (hoping Seb isn't actually in doomsday because of various reasons but also because marvel does not get to get in the way of Sebastian's passion projects ever again thanks very much). This all sounds great, very excited for this project (and for Sebastian!) 😊

[supercalifragipopculturevomit]

Daniel Brühl with Kirsten Dunst and Keanu Reeves in a Ruben Östlund film?? INCREDIBLE. So looking forward to this project — it sounds like the meaty dark comedy Daniel's been manifesting. If it's anything like The Triangle of Sadness, it's gonna be absolutely wicked.

This is from Deadline:

"Set on a long-haul flight where the entertainment system fails, the film will see passengers forced to face the horror of being bored.

In preparing the movie, the Swedish filmmaker was inspired by a social psychological study at Virginia University called ‘The Challenge Of The Disengaged Mind.’ The experiment found that participants did not enjoy spending 6 to 15 minutes in a room by themselves with nothing to do but think. To take the experiment one step further, the researchers added a twist: With the touch of a button, the test subjects could, if desired, give themselves a harmless but very painful electric shock. It turned out that a quarter of all women and two-thirds of all men chose to press the button. One man even found being alone with his thoughts so unbearable that, during the 15 minutes, he gave himself 190 electric shocks."

This is from The Hollywood Reporter: "The filmmaker has stated he aspires for Entertainment System to cause the biggest walkout in Cannes history when it inevitably plays at the fest. Östlund famously included a lengthy vomiting scene in Triangle of Sadness, the 2022 Palm d’Or winner that skewered 1 percent culture amid the backdrop of yachting for the ultra-wealthy. While that scene tested audiences’ ability to handle a gross-out scenario, he has said that Entertainment System will challenge audiences’ ability to sit with their own thoughts with a scene that will show a child wait five minutes (in real-time) until an iPad becomes available to play with. (It’s unclear if this scene will indeed make it into the film.)"

[anothersebastianblog]

New casting announcement for Seb!

www.filmneweurope.com/news/romania-news/item/126509-sebastian-stan-to-star-in-cristian-mungiu-s-new-film

Yep, well he kinda told us last week

www.filmneweurope.com/news/romania-news/item/126509-sebastian-stan-to-star-in-cristian-mungiu-s-new-film

[maximumwobblerbanditdonut]

System Is Down Expected to Film in Hungary 🇭🇺 in 2025

The Entertainment System Is Down - drama, comedy cast just keeps getting better for Ruben Östlund’s next film with Tobias Menzies joining Keanu Reeves, Kirsten Dunst, Daniel Brühl, Nicholas Braun and Samantha Morton. Tobias Menzies replaced Joel Edgerton who had to part ways with the film due to scheduling conflicts.

Menzies is coming off the Apple TV+ limited series Manhunt as well as the A24 pic You Hurt My Feelings. Next up he has the highly-anticipated Apple film F1 starring Brad Pitt.

The project will be Östlund’s second English-language film and seventh feature after The Guitar Mongoloid (2004), Involuntary (2008), Play (2011), Force Majeure (2014), The Square (2017) and Triangle of Sadness (2022). The last two of these won the director the Palme d’Or in Cannes, meaning he is one of only a handful of filmmakers to have won the accolade twice.

The Swedish director Ruben Östlund two-time Palme d’Or winner and his anticipated next feature “The Entertainment System Is Down”, is produced with Erik Hemmendorff through their banner Plattform Produktion based in Goteborg, Sweden, and Philippe Bober’s Coproduction Office, that also handles international sales on the film 🎬

Plot: When the entertainment system suddenly stops working onboard a long-haul flight, the passengers are stuck with no screens to look at and are forced to endure 15 hours of life without digital distraction. Chaos ensues.

#TheEntertainmentSystemIsDown #newfilm #RubenÖstlund #director #KeanuReeves #KirstenDunst #DanielBrühl #NicholasBraun #Samantha Morton #TobiasMenzies #drama #comedy

Posted 22nd January 2025

[keanuquotes]

Set on a long-haul flight where the entertainment system fails, the film will see passengers forced to face the horror of being bored. We hear that a bunch more well known cast will be joining the project, which is scheduled to shoot in early 2025.

In preparing the movie, the Swedish filmmaker was inspired by a social psychological study at Virginia University called ‘The Challenge Of The Disengaged Mind.’ The experiment found that participants did not enjoy spending 6 to 15 minutes in a room by themselves with nothing to do but think. To take the experiment one step further, the researchers added a twist: With the touch of a button, the test subjects could, if desired, give themselves a harmless but very painful electric shock. It turned out that a quarter of all women and two-thirds of all men chose to press the button. One man even found being alone with his thoughts so unbearable that, during the 15 minutes, he gave himself 190 electric shocks.

The project will be Östlund’s second English-language film and seventh feature after The Guitar Mongoloid (2004), Involuntary (2008), Play (2011), Force Majeure (2014), The Square (2017) and Triangle of Sadness (2022). The last two of these won the director the Palme d’Or in Cannes, meaning he is one of only a handful of filmmakers to have won the accolade twice.

The film will be a Swedish-German-French co-production, and will reunite the director with his longtime colleagues, producer Erik Hemmendorff of Plattform Produktion and producer Philippe Bober from Paris-based Coproduction Office, which is also handling world sales.

Interest is understandably high and pre-sales are expected to close at this week’s Cannes market, the project’s first. Reeves was first reported to be in talks last month by Variety.

[lonelydragon62]

Dublin Film Critics Circle awards 2024: The Zone of Interest and Kneecap big winners – The Irish Times

A million of awards to you!! 💙

[disastardly]

After the defeat of Octomus, Chip Thorn tries a lot of things, and he’s pretty good at most of them. Freelance wizard, knight errant, alchemist-for-hire: you name it, he’s tried it, but the one most people don’t expect to stick is actual-play TTRPG content creation.

Given the timing of Mystic Force, he’s in a good position to get in on the ground floor and doesn’t even realize it when he starts. He just likes playing games with his friends, and records them so he can make sure he never misses anything. Putting them out as one of these new ‘podcast’ things makes sense when he’s already got all the audio and Vida offers to edit.

Of course it takes off - he’s creative, high energy, a really involved and thoughtful GM that seems to have an endless well of fantastical ideas to draw on. It’s word of mouth at first, but soon there are articles and blog posts and requests to livestream and the whole thing is spinning out of control too fast for even him to manage. That’s where Xander steps in, takes over production, and helps build an empire.

The Mystics all play, naturally; their entire first campaign is the five of them, nicknamed the Rowdy Rangers for their shenanigans at the table and an inscrutable in-joke about each multiclassing in Ranger. (Their character sheets do not reflect this and it’s a constant point of consternation among the fanbase to this day.)

They develop a bit of a retroactive fandom as their names grow; did you know Palme d’Or considered documentarian Madison Rocca also played D&D? Oh and what about her sister, 2007′s “Best New Artist” Grammy-winner Vida Rocca?

The buzz that really breaks containment stems from how Chip manages to get so many disparate, big-name folks to play at his table: pro motocross rider Dustin Brooks, director and stuntman Dax Lo, the highly entertaining and highly abrasive combo of Air Force Captain Taylor Earhardt and Silver Guardians Commander Eric Myers (they always play together), the list goes on and on. They all seem to get along like a house on fire despite having absolutely nothing in common, and Chip brings out the absolute weirdest, wildest, best in each of them, no matter how uncrackable they seem.

The fandom likes to joke that Chip is secretly a wizard (or maybe a bard) to get all these people to show up and play such incredible, heartfelt games together. A few anonymous posters online enjoy encouraging this rumor, maybe a little too much.

[turbobyakuren]

the current shitshow that occurs among Macronists because of what Cannes Festival’s Palme d’Or winner said in her speech is SO fucking incredible i’m loving how they’re SEETHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!! they’re fucking M A D!!!!!!!!!!!!! GOOD!!!!!!!

[femtober]

FEMTOBER BLOG: Shorts 2024

Every year for Femtober, I watch up to 5 short films. Shorts are always kind of a mixed bag for me. I’ve watched some really interesting shorts from up-and-coming directors like Chloe Okuno, Mariama Diallo, and Nikyatu Jusu. However, shorts tend to also be some of the weaker entries year to year. When it comes to low budget short films, unfortunately horror seems to be the biggest weak spot. Many filmmakers also tend to fall into the trap of creating parts of a narrative film instead of a fully fleshed out story and idea. Let’s take a look at the shorts I watched in 2024.

Junior dir. by Julia Ducournau

Junior doesn’t reinvent the wheel when it comes to puberty body horror, but as an early Julia Ducournau project, it is fascinating to watch. Like Raw (2016) and the Palme d’Or winner Titane (2021), Junior doesn’t shy away from being…well, disgusting. It’s an unflinching look at a teen girl’s body, told in an appropriate, relatable way. And its themes definitely carry over into her later works, though Junior never feels incomplete. In fact, unlike Ducournau’s feature-length works, Junior finishes with a surprisingly sweet conclusion. An acceptance of one’s body, like in Raw and Titane, but also a new beginning. This was my second favorite of the shorts this year…

Marta dir. by Lucía Forner Segarra

…and Marta was my favorite. As I stated in the intro, horror shorts can be so difficult, and so can comedy. Forner Segarra smartly and succinctly combines the two genres with ease. Often when it comes to horror comedy, the comedy tends to win out. This is not the case in Marta, which delivers an appropriate gut punch of terror at the end. Forner Segarra hasn’t yet made any feature films, but I’m definitely interested in seeing what she puts out later in her career. She also has made two other shorts starring Thaïs Blume, so I’ll absolutely be checking those out in a later Femtober as well.

The King and Queen of Halloween dir. by Anna Maguire, Stuart Spears

I thought this was going to be a cute little short, something sweet and Halloweeny while also being fun. This is not what that was. The King and Queen of Halloween is fine if you’re into more meanspirited Halloween fare, but I can’t say I’m always a fan. It also lacks a lot of substance, and ultimately feels generic. Very middle-of-the-pack in this year’s shorts.

Used Body Parts dir. by Venita Ozols-Graham

I don’t want to be too harsh on Used Body Parts, but I also don’t have anything positive to say about it. Watching the film and looking at the rest of her filmography, it’s obvious Venita Ozols-Graham has a passion for the genre and filmmaking as a whole. But creativity sometimes means pulling back when you know your own limitations. I get the Texas Chainsaw reference when I watch Used Body Parts, but its bad acting and nonexistent story don’t really do its decent special effects work any favors. Clearly Ozols-Graham likes blood and gore, which is no crime, but the rest of the film just hasn’t caught up yet with that vision.

Seeing Green dir. by Chelsea Stardust

Lastly is Seeing Green, directed by a name you may recognize, Chelsea Stardust. While I haven’t seen Stardust’s feature length debut Satanic Panic (2019), which I’ve heard good things about, I have seen her Hulu Into the Dark anthology episode, which I was…less than impressed with. It’s obvious what Seeing Green is paying homage to with its not-so-subtle Evil Dead dialogue and imagery. The problem, once again, is the lack of complete storyline or impressive effects. Most of the short is three women sitting on a couch talking, which is not interesting in the least. I’ll likely check out Satanic Panic at a later date, and I’ll keep an eye out for whatever Chelsea Stardust may have planned in the future. You may also know her as Jason Blum’s former personal assistant. So while I have no love for everything I’ve seen from her so far, I do think Chelsea Stardust has worked hard, and I would like to see her succeed!

[mrs-stans]

EXCLUSIVE: Cristian Mungiu to Shoot Fjord in Norway with Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve

BUCHAREST: Romanian Palm d’Or winner Cristian Mungiu is preparing to shoot his new feature Fjord entirely in Norway as of March 2025. This Romanian/French/Norwegian/Danish/Finnish/Swedish drama starring Sebastian Stan and Renate Reinsve has already been acquired by GoodFellas.

In January 2025, Stan and Reinsve flew to Romania for rehearsal and costume tests before leaving together with Cristian Mungiu and part of the team to Norway. It was in Romania that Stan found out about the Academy Award nomination for his leading performance in The Apprentice by Ali Abbasi.

Written by Mungiu, Fjord tells a story about the encounter between two neighbouring families living in a remote Norwegian village. Mihai (Sebastian Stan) is Romanian and Lisbet (Renate Reinsve) is Norwegian. In the other couple, Mats is Norwegian while Mia is Swedish. Their children go to the same school. The families will have to admit, handle and resolve their different views about family, education and progress. What are the limits of personal freedom and from which moment onwards the society compels you to conform?

“Fjord is a story about irreconcilable views of the world, about conformity, tolerance and the limits of freedom and intimacy”, said Cristian Mungiu in a statement.

He is producing through Romania’s Mobra Films in coproduction with Why Not Productions (France), Eye Eye Pictures (Norway), Snowglobe Film (Denmark), Aamu Film Company (Finland) and Filmgate Films (Sweden).

“The financing is still in progress, and so far the project is supported by the Romanian Film Centre (CNC), Creative Europe - MEDIA, Film i Vast, and Western Norway Film Commission”, executive producer Tudor Reu from Mobra Films told FNE.

The project received the biggest amount of 703,538 EUR / 3.5 m RON at the latest batch of the grants contest organised by the Romanian Film Centre, whose results were announced at the end of October 2024.

For Fjord Mungiu will be working with some of his usual collaborators, including Romanian DoP Tudor Vladimir Panduru and editor Mircea Olteanu.

The approximately 40-day shooting will start in March 2025 in Møre & Romsdal, Norway, and the premiere of the film is set for 2026.

This is the first film in Romanian for Stan (42), who left Romania as a child, and the second meeting on screen between him and Renate Reinsve after A Different Man by Aaron Schimberg, which brought Stan the Best Leading Performance award at the Berlinale 2024, as well as the Golden Globe in the Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Motion Picture, Musical or Comedy category.

Production Information:

Producer: Mobra Films (Romania) info@mobrafilms.ro

Coproducers: Why Not Productions (France) Eye Eye Pictures (Norway) Snowglobe Film (Denmark) Aamu Film Company (Finland) Filmgate Films (Sweden)

Credits: Director: Cristian Mungiu Scriptwriter: Cristian Mungiu DoP: Tudor Vladimir Panduru Editor: Mircea Olteanu Production designer: Marius Winje Brustad Costume designer: Kirsi Gum Sound: Constantin Fleancu, Pietu Korconen, Kristian Eidnes Cast: Sebastian Stan, Renate Reinsve