Features
Quentin Tarantino is obviously quite the epistolarian. Just yesterday, I mentioned the sincerely admiring letter that he wrote to controversial “Kinatay” director Brillante Mendoza, praising the brutally violent and widely unpopular Filipino film for its daring and authenticity. Evidently, that wasn’t the only letter QT wrote in his Cannes hotel suite. And while it’s not […]
Tarantino’s love letter to ‘Bright Star’
Posted by Guy Lodge · 11:26 am · October 21st, 2009
Filed in: Daily
Tarantino cheers ‘Kinatay’
Posted by Guy Lodge · 9:00 am · October 20th, 2009
Some of you may have read my defense last week of Brillante Mendoza’s grimly violent “Kinatay,” a film that provoked mass hostility at Cannes in May for portraying the rape, murder and dismemberment of a young woman in unrelenting detail. Roger Ebert declared it the worst film ever to play at the festival, and the […]
Filed in: Daily
LONDON: ‘Dogtooth,’ ‘Kinatay,’ ‘Burrowing’
Posted by Guy Lodge · 7:14 am · October 17th, 2009
Once more, Friday’s major festival screenings covered ground I’d already trod in Venice — the day’s glossiest gala slot was reserved for “The Road” (which you know did little for me), with a less prominent early evening slot for Tom Ford’s “A Single Man” (which did rather more). Given the current buzz levels for each […]
Filed in: Reviews
VENICE: ‘Mr. Nobody,’ ‘Lola’
Posted by Guy Lodge · 5:55 am · September 11th, 2009
The Lido finish line beckons, as this morning saw the press screening of the final film in Competition, Tom Ford’s “A Single Man.” Ford’s debut (which I’ll deal with in a separate Short Take) surpassed my expectations, completing a slight upswing in the standard of films on display that began with yesterday’s second Surprise Film […]
Filed in: Reviews
Haneke lands Palme d’Or, Gainsbourg takes Best Actress
Posted by Guy Lodge · 10:41 am · May 24th, 2009
As it turned out, the most logical on-paper prediction turned out the be the right one. After emerging as the bridesmaid from several festivals past — winning the Grand Prix in 2001, Best Director in 2005 — the venerable Austrian auteur Michael Haneke has finally won the Palme d’Or for his stark moral drama “The […]
Filed in: Daily
Cracks show in Cannes lineup
Posted by Guy Lodge · 7:12 am · May 17th, 2009
After surveying the reviews of Johnnie To’s “Vengeance” and Brillante Mendoza’s “Kinatay,” it seems safe to assume that neither film is a contender for the Palme d’Or — in the latter, we may even have our first real critical punchbag of the Competition. ScreenDaily dismisses “Vengeance,” an action effort teaming Hong Kong genre lord To […]
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Cannes: sizing up the Competition, part two
Posted by Guy Lodge · 5:54 am · May 12th, 2009
Continuing yesterday’s survey of the runners and riders in the race for the Palme d’Or… “ANTICHRIST” (Lars Von Trier) The pitch: You’ve seen the trailer. Charlotte Gainsbourg and Willem Dafoe star as bereaved parents who retreat to a remote woodland cottage to nurse their grief, only to be terrorised by unnamed forces of evil. (English […]
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