Thompson on Hollywood

Outfest Opens with Sedaris Adaptation 'C.O.G.,' Kimberly Peirce Gets Achievement Award

Festivals

L.A.'s oldest film festival, Outfest, will open its 31st annual LGBT film fest on July 11 with writer-director Kyle Patrick Alvarez’s “C.O.G.,” the first film adaptation of David Sedaris’s work, which stars Jonathan Groff, Denis O'Hare, Corey Stoll, and Dean Stockwell. Outfest will be held July 11 – 21, 2013.

By Anne Thompson
|
May 17, 2013 9:19 PM
|
0 Comments

More:

Cannes Review: Ari Folman's Hybrid 'The Congress' Befuddles More than It Bedazzles

Reviews

Ari Folman’s “The Congress” begins well enough, with the sheer physical presence of Robin Wright center screen, tears popping from her eyes. The actress, who in real life has aged gracefully into strength – or maybe it’s just bitterness -- plays “Robin Wright,” an aging actress who has made many “lousy choices.” We know this from her agent, played with sweet understatement by Harvey Keitel, who spares nothing and no one, including the “lousy men” Wright has chosen. Is that one of the movie’s many in-jokes?

By Tom Christie
|
May 17, 2013 8:43 PM
|
0 Comments

More:

Harvey Weinstein Previews Awards Slate at Cannes

Festivals

Harvey Weinstein took advantage of Cannes' many attendees to gather some of them together in order to tease TWC's upcoming films and get a head start on the next round of Awards season. That has been the modus operandi of The Weinstein in recent years, which had held more intimate affairs at swanky flats off the Croisette and today opted for a make-shift screening room.

By Brian Brooks
|
May 17, 2013 5:02 PM
|
0 Comments

More:

Cannes News: Music Box Snags Competition Mikkelsen Starrer 'Michael Kohlhaas'

News

Ahead of its first Cannes market screening, Chicago-based Music Box Films has picked up all US and Canadian rights to Arnaud des Pallières' competition title "Michael Kohlhaas," starring Mads Mikkelsen and adapted from the 1811 Heinrich von Kleist classic Romantic novel. Films du Losange is selling the film, which is Des Pallières' fourth feature, at Cannes.

By Anne Thompson
|
May 17, 2013 2:24 PM
|
0 Comments

More:

Cannes Virgin Festival Diary 1: From 'Gatsby' to 'Heli' and Back

Festivals

The first indication that things at Cannes weren’t going to be quite as I imagined them to be – red carpet and champagne, rinse and repeat – was the crush trying to get on the express bus from the Nice airport. The bus was 20 minutes late in arriving from Cannes, and there was a lot of jockeying going on, which is a nice way of saying butting in line, except there were no real lines, not to mention not enough seats. As the harried driver pulled away a woman in the back began yelling for him to stop, exclaiming, “You didn’t take my husband or my bags. I need both.” The driver stopped and the woman exited to general laughter.

By Tom Christie
|
May 16, 2013 8:56 PM
|
5 Comments

More:

Cannes Exclusive! Jim Mickle Talks Smart Horror Remake 'We Are What We Are'

Interviews

Just three years after Jorge Michel Grau's 2010 Mexican film "We Are What We Are" played at the Cannes Festival market (see trailer below), Jim Mickle's American remake, which debuted well at Sundance, is playing in the festival proper, in the Director's Fortnight, which sometimes welcomes smart well-made horror films such as this one. EOne will open the elegantly shot, well-acted film--which deals with a small town religious family maintaining their long tradition of ritual cannibalism-- this September.

By Anne Thompson
|
May 16, 2013 4:29 PM
|
1 Comment

More:

Image Entertainment Snaps Up 'Winnie Mandela' Starring Jennifer Hudson; Up Against Weinsteins' 'Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom'

News

Image Entertainment has picked up all US rights to "Winnie Mandela," starring Oscar-winner Jennifer Hudson as Nelson Mandela's long-time partner. The film, which is written and directed by Darrell J. Roodt from Anne Marie de Preez Bezdrob's biography, is slated for a fall 2013 release, which puts it up against the Justin Chadwick/William Nicholson biopic "Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom," starring Idris Elba in the title role and "Skyfall" star Naomie Harris as Winnie (November 29, limited).

By Beth Hanna
|
May 16, 2013 1:27 PM
|
0 Comments

More:

IFC Goes On Cannes Buying Spree

Festivals

IFC Films is on a buying tear. They happen to be at Cannes, but they obviously had been talking about acquiring U.S. rights to Ari Posin's "The Face of Love" since its well-received debut (under the title "The Look of Love") at SXSW. The romantic mystery stars Annette Bening as a widow who falls hard for an art teacher (Ed Harris) who doesn't know that he happens to be a dead ringer for her late husband.

By Anne Thompson
|
May 16, 2013 1:14 PM
|
1 Comment

More:

Cannes: Scarlett Johansson to Direct Adaptation of Truman Capote's Near-Lost Novel 'Summer Crossing'

News

Scarlett Johansson has signed on to helm an adaptation of Truman Capote's near-lost novel "Summer Crossing," which centers on a teenage debutante who falls in love with and pursues a Jewish parking attendant instead of traveling to Paris in the summer of 1945. This will be Johansson's first feature as a director.

By Beth Hanna
|
May 16, 2013 12:42 PM
|
0 Comments

More:

Cannes Review: Coppola's 'The Bling Ring'

Reviews

Confession: going into "The Bling Ring," opening film for this year’s Un Certain Regard, I was hopeful that I’d find the Sofia Coppola of "Marie Antoinette" rather than the Sofia Coppola of "Somewhere" parked behind the camera. Surely, a true-life Hollywood tale as fundamentally ludicrous as fame-and-celebrity-obsessed hipster teens targeting freebie-laden homes of the rich and famous cried out for the leering (but not sneering) pop-art approach Coppola brought to her portrait of the pampered French queen, rather than the deadpan, going-round-in-circles approach she applied to her tale of an alienated movie star.