64th Cannes Film Festival

The official selection of films to be screened at the 64th Cannes Film Festival was released today! The festival will take place from May 11 to 22. I'm super excited! Here are some of the films I'm looking forward to (slash these are pretty much all the trailers that I could find and I pretty much like all of them...):

Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris will be opening the festival and be Out of Competition.

This seems like a very fun, spontaneous film. I love the ensemble cast. In case you were wondering, yes! French First Lady, Carla Bruni, is in this film! I love how Woody Allen is making these beautiful cities the backdrop of his films; Barcelona in 2008 and now Paris.

Australian novelist Julia Leigh makes her debut as a director with Sleeping Beauty which will be In Competition.

With Jane Campion's name attached to it, this shall be amazing! I must know what happens in this film!

American director, Terrence Malice's The Tree of Life will be In Competition.

Absolutely stunning! Stupendously cerebral! Of all these trailers, this one is definitely my favorite. Just from the trailers, I will be placing my bets on Terrence Malice winning the Palme d'Or. I'm a bit surprised by Brad Pitt's involvement in this film. I always think of him as a box office superstar but never an award winning actor. But the choices he has made lately are phenomenal! Babel, Benjamin Button, and now this.

Habemus Papam (We Have a Pope) by Italian director Nanni Moretti will be In Competition.

Not quite certain what this film is about without a synopsis or subtitles. But I appreciate what seems to be a whimsical, lighthearted, and touching film on an institution that is all too serious.

The Yellow Sea by South Korean director Na Hong-jin will be competing in Un Certain Regard.

A dramatic, intense trailer that had me on the edge of my seat. Seems to be a heart gripping thriller. If you, like me, is still interested in the film after the trailer please read the synopsis here!

Jodie Foster's The Beaver will be screened Out of Competition.

I like Jodie Foster. I really do, mainly because of her role in The Silence of the Lambs. Let's just face it--she's probably never going to be as great as when she starred as Clarice, but I'm still rooting for her. This could be a comeback from both Jodie and Mel!

One last film that I am looking forward to is called We Need to Talk about Kevin directed by British film director Lynne Ramsay and starring Tilda Swinton. Although it has yet to release a trailer it sounds to be a promising film. The premise of the film, as taken from Wikipedia, is about "a mother recount[ing] the events leading up to and following her son's massacre of students and teachers at his high school." Intriguing, right? The film will be In Competition.

And so that is that! Looking forward to May 11!

It's been a while...

Dear all,

As I write this post on this nearly forgotten blog, I am drinking chicken noodle soup. I have a very unfortunate cold. Since my last post, many things have changed. I am now in Boston in hopes of finding a job (that very very elusive job. My dear readers in Boston, if you know of any job opportunities please let me know). I am not longer subscribed to Netflix. And I am eating a lot more canned soup and frozen food that are on sale. To follow my journey through chronologically organized photos, please click here!

On the movie front, we all know that the Golden Globes and SAG Awards took place. Congrats to my favorites in winning: Laura Linney, Glee, Modern Family, Temple Grandin. And although I put my Netflix account on hold, I have seen a few movies since moving away from home.

The Savages

Such wonderful performances by both Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman. It's a quietly emotional and subtly funny film. A more polished, well-scripted version of The Squid and the Whale.

The King's Speech

Fantastic performance by Colin Firth. Absolutely loved Helena Bohnam Carter. Her performance as the Queen Mother really puts into perspective what a wide range of roles she can play. I loved the lightheartedness that Geoffrey Rush brought to the film. But I can see how this film won't win the Best Picture at the Oscars this year.

Scott Pilgrim vs the World

What an imaginative film! Totally not what I expected. Love the displacement of time and live-action animation. The closest film I can think of similar to Scott Pilgrim is (500) Days of Summer, but it really doesn't even come close.

Looking forward to

The King's Speech directed by Tom Hooper, starring Colin Firth, Helena Bonham Carter, and Geoffrey Rush won the People's Choice Award at this year's Toronto Film Festival.

This seems like one of those semi-epic, kind of serious but with a dry wit, slightly romantic, a bit inspirational, Best Picture-nominated but don't win, and, ultimately, highly polished and well-directed films. Think The Young Victoria, Atonement, An Education, The Reader, The Queen, Finding Neverland, and Elizabeth: The Golden Age. Funny that they are all British films.

The Duchess

Netflix recently added a lot of films that I've been waiting to watch to its Watch Instantly section. (Let me take a moment to say how great Netflix is. If you are bored, on an "extended summer break"/taking forever to find a job, I highly recommend you subscribe to Netflix. At around $9 a month for unlimited Watching Instantly online, it's pretty worth it. And their Watching Instantly section is growing and getting much much better. If you are skeptical, you can always do the free month trial.) The last film I reviewed, Mother, is a newly added one. The Cove, the awarding documentary, was also added so I shall be watching that soon. I decided to watch The Duchess as I felt I needed to watch a period film, and I always love films about aristocrats, kings and queens.

(I really don't like the Princess Diana reference in the beginning of the trailer. But the rest of it is better than others.)

I wouldn't say this is a period film about nobilities that is particularly groundbreaking or memorable. Honestly, I didn't even like Keira Knightley in her role as Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. I thought she lacked the gravitas, weight to play such a role. There are a few moments, however, where she is pretty good. I also find the casting of Dominic Cooper questionable. On the other hand, I thoroughly liked Ralph Fiennes, as the Duke, and Hayley Atwell, as his mistress Lady Bess Foster. (Hayley Atwell is Lady Julia Flyte in Brideshead Revisited, another great role that I really enjoyed watching.)

But The Duchess is a pretty interesting film while it lasted. The plot and the relationships between the characters have some very good complexity. There are many moments in the film where I felt sympathetic towards a character while disliking others. And there are moments of redemption where I started to like the characters who I previously hated. Moreover, there is one slightly scandalous scene where Georgiana and Lady Bess' relationship is darkly explored.

To sum it up, The Duchess is slightly better than The Other Boleyn Girl, not as good as The Young Victoria, and a watered down, less creative Marie Antoinette. But I still love Keira Knightley and I am looking forward to her next film Never Let Me Go. Can you believe she's only 25?

Lastly, she's so well spoken in this interview!

The Wind that Shakes the Barley

(Meh, the trailer is a bit too Hollywood. Yuck.)

Raw. Powerful. Enlightening. The Wind that Shakes the Barley is one of the best Palme d’Or winners that I have seen, and it is so deserving of the Palme d’Or for its thought-provocation. It is so well written, edited, and delivered. It is also one of more uncomfortable films I have seen given its graphic scenes and ending. In one of the earlier scenes, I was sweating; I thought I was going to faint.

The character, Damien, played by Cillian Murphy is well developed. His beliefs, actions, emotions, and devotion to the war make the film what it is. This character gives the film substance, power, and structure. And there's such a unjust irony that happens to the character.

The Wind that Shakes the Barley is truly a gripping film that shares with the audience a story not often told. While I was studying in London, I heard of the Irish Republican Army (which is the army that the main characters of the film are in). All I know is that there are very few trash cans on the streets of London because during the 70s and 80s the IRA placed bombs in trash cans. And of course after learning about this, my impression of the IRA is that they are, in a way, terrorists. But after watching this film, I learned that everything happens for a reason. Not that placing bombs in trash cans is right, but obviously the IRA is getting the English back for something that happened many many years ago. Thus, this film is very enlightening, and I even learned that Irish is a language.

The Young Victoria

The Young Victoria won the Best Costume and Make Up awards at the Academy Awards 2010 so you can expect some very beautiful visuals during the movie. The costumes and palaces are equally stunning throughout the film. Emily Blunt plays the young Victoria who would become the Queen of England, and Rupert Friend is Prince Albert in the film.

The film depicts Princess Victoria before she became Queen, her struggle to rebel against her mother, and her love story with Prince Albert of Belgium. There are some great scenes that rise out of her rebellion against the control of her mother and her mother's lover who both try to manipulate Victoria into giving up her right to the reign.

I loved the camera work of the movie; it conveyed the authority and status of Queen Victoria. This camera work is used in two scenes that I really like: when Queen Victoria first meets with her Privy Chamber and when is she crowned Queen at Westminster Abbey. So watch out for these two scenes.

An Education

For some reason, An Education did not intrigue me. I first heard of it back in London. It was one of the movies shown at the British Film Institute's London Film Festival. The title, for starters, is kind of mundane, and I did not know much about the storyline. Nonetheless, I watched it in preparation for Oscar weekend.

It turned out to be quite a nice movie. In many ways, An Education is like a toned down version of Atonement. It's a British coming-of-an film about Jenny (Carey Mulligan), a high school student on the track to go Oxford. Jenny is intelligent, diligent, and independent but her desire to be adventurous and to be herself is often stifled by her strict father. After meeting David (Peter Sarsgaad), a random stranger who offered to take Jenny home on a rainy day, Jenny plunges head first into adult life.

Throughout the movie, I kept guessing what is coming for Jenny who is bewitched by David, a much older man, and all the material goods that come with money. I wanted Jenny to realize her mistake early on or fall really hard at the end. Regardless what I was hoping to see, the best part of the movie was when she discovers her mistake and the problem of her relationship with David.

As British as it gets, the emotions of the movie are restrained. Sadness is expressed through quite weeping; happiness expressed through a smile. The set and the quality of the film are surprisingly beautiful with a low budget of $7.5 million. When I finished watching the film, I thought it was nice . It was not specular. It is not a film that lingers with me. But it was a nice film to watch with some good lessons to take away.

Vera Drake

Vera Drake is a must see film. It is one of my favorites long with In the Mood for Love. Unlike ITMFL, though, VD's pace is faster and the color scheme is earthy and bit depressing. It received the highest honor, the Leone d'Oro, at the 2004 Venice Film Festival, and its leading actress, Imelda Staunton, won the Volpi Cup.

The story is intense and dark, and the end will resonate during the hours after watching the film (at least it did for me. haha). Vera Drake, played by Staunton, is a middle-class, working woman, mother, and wife who cleans the homes of wealthy family. Despite her profession, living condition, and low income, she is a respected individual in her community and is grateful for what she is. She helps out her elderly neighbor and invites a single, lonely neighbor to dinner at her humble home. She has a heart of gold.

Behind her family's back and outside of her work, she provides back alley abortions to young ladies. During the 1950s, the time period when the film is set in, abortions are illegal. She is not paid for performing the abortions. She does it purely to help the young women who seek her help. I will stop the synopsis here since the film is one that you really must watch.

The set of the film is beautiful. Everything about the film feels really authentic. I did a research paper for my film class that talked briefly about VD. British cinema has long been trying to differentiate itself from Hollywood films. One of the ways in which British cinema does this is to deglamorize its actors, sets, and costumes. By doing this, realism is shown as opposed to the flamboyance, "scriptedness" of Hollywood movies. Mike Leigh, who directed VD, does this especially well by capturing real emotions, real settings of the time period. Many of the scenes were even improvised with only Staunton knowing what is to happen next. Leigh was able to capture the shock that the other actors left as the plot revealed.

P.S. The film is heartbreaking.