CANNES, France — Diamonds, schmiamonds—all it takes to dazzle the luxe black-tie Cannes crowd are simple harmonies, acoustic guitars and a wayward tabby cat. Greenwich Village rocked the Riviera over the weekend, as Joel and Ethan Coen’s 1961-set folk drama Inside Llewyn Davis charmed festgoers with a beguilingly buoyant tale of a talented musician Read More
CANNES, France — Who needs movies? Within a 24-hour period, street gunfire and a hotel heist have kept the masses entertained here in Cannes. In the early hours of Friday morning, $1.4 million in Chopard jewelry was stolen from a Suite Novotel when company reps from the U.S. had their room safe Read More
CANNES, France — Gloomy skies may be hanging over the south of France, but psychedelic philosophizing is lighting up the screens indoors. Ari Folman’s The Congress opened up the Director’s Fortnight section of Cannes last night with a loopy dose of future shock featuring Robin Wright as a washed-up variation of herself who sells Read More
CANNES, France — It’s official: Steven Spielberg just watched a man set someone’s genitals on fire. The Cannes International Film Festival, which kicked off its 66th edition Wednesday night with the rain-drenched international premiere of Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby, is notorious for art-house auteurs pushing cinema to its extremes. But Amat Escalante’s ham-fisted Read More
Just when we were sick and tired of cinema screenings and movie premiere parties (Hello nomination-baiting season!), The Cinema Society alongside Dior and Vanity Fair hosted one of its best shindigs yet, at the legendary Indochine restaurant following a showing of the Rust and Bone, Jacques Audiard’s 2012 French-Belgian film, which stars Marion Cotillard and dizzyingly sexy Matthias Schoenaerts.
“I’m gonna need eight glasses of Champagne to lift myself up from that one!” one power publicist bellowed to The Observer over the roaring crowd.
“But Marion Cotillard was just amazing!”
This writer unfortunately missed the screening in order to support wounded U.S. servicemen and women uptown for Stand Up For Heroes event, which featured performances by John Mayer, Roger Waters and Bruce Springsteen.
We were hoping for a sighting and perhaps to bavarder with the Oscar-winner.
“Marion had to immediately catch an international flight,” one social stalwart dutifully informed us. Of course she had plenty of time to pose for the cameras in her Dior couture, flashing her wondrous baby-bump. Read More
We might have guessed that eventually, Alec Baldwin and Harvey Weinstein–two of show business’s hottest heads–would end up clashing, and indeed, Mr. Baldwin called Mr. Weinstein a “douchebag” this week. It all went down at Cannes, the annual event at which Michael Haneke films coexist sweatily with the continued existence of Paris Hilton; Mr. Read More
Cannes has selected Marilyn Monroe as the official “icon” of its upcoming 65th Festival–the bombshell is to be featured in advertising for the fest. In a statement printed on Deadline, the French cinephiles noted: ““Fifty years after her death, Marilyn is still a major figure in world cinema, an eternal icon, whose grace, mystery Read More
The Cannes Film Festival is over for another year, with Terrence Malick’s Tree of Life winning the top prize, the Palme d’Or. (The film opens on our shores May 27; full list of Festival winners is here.) But the big story for a certain demographic of filmgoers may be Kirsten Dunst’s Best Actress win Read More
American actors and European directors can make a funny combo: one aims for highbrow legitimacy, the other wants a wider audience. And when they get together, the results can be blissful hybrids or horrible mutants. Just ask Ryan Gosling and Sean Penn, both of whom debuted new movies here in Cannes that hit both ends of the spectrum like Read More
If the best way to critique a film is to make a film, then The Tree of Life officially has its soul-crushing rebuke. With this morning’s world premiere of Lars Von Trier’s Melancholia, the dour Dane punched a hole into the buoyant spirituality of Terrence Malick’s hymn to existence. Punched a hole? More like stuck Read More
