Cannes 77 -The Winners !

***But the best is the Honorary Palme d'Or ceremony, Francis Coppola gives it to his "younger Brother", George Lucas. Nice speech too. 

And the Romanians got a Queer Palm now- 3 Kilometri pina la capatul lumii.

Congrats Emi Parvu & all involved !PALMares Cannes @77

Feature Films Palme d'or ANORA Sean Baker Grand Prix ALL WE IMAGINE AS LIGHT Payal Kapadia Jury Prize EMILIA PÉREZ Jacques Audiard Best Director MIGUEL GOMES for Grand Tour Special Award MOHAMMAD RASOULOF for The Seed of the Sacred Fig Best Performance by an Actor JESSE PLEMONS in Kinds of Kindness directed by Yórgos Lánthimos Best Performance by an Actress ADRIANA PAZ in Emilia Pérez directed by Jacques Audiard ZOE SALDAÑA in Emilia Pérez directed by Jacques Audiard KARLA SOFÍA GASCÓN in Emilia Pérez directed by Jacques Audiard SELENA GOMEZ in Emilia Pérez directed by Jacques Audiard Best Screenplay THE SUBSTANCE Coralie Fargeat Short Films Palme d'or THE MAN WHO COULD NOT REMAIN SILENT Nebojša Slijepčević Special Mention BAD FOR A MOMENT Daniel Soares Un Certain Regard Un Certain Regard Prize BLACK DOG by Guan Hu Jury Prize L'HISTOIRE DE SOULEYMANE by Boris Lojkine Best Director Prize ex-aequo ROBERTO MINERVINI for The Damned RUNGANO NYONI for On Becoming a Guinea Fowl Best Performance by an Actress ANASUYA SENGUPTA in The Shameless Best Performance by an Actor ABOU SANGARÉ in L’Histoire de Souleymane Youth Award HOLY COW by Louise Courvoisier 1st film Special Mention NORAH by Tawfik Alzaidi 1st film Caméra d'or ARMAND Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel Un Certain Regard Special Mention MONGREL Wei Liang Chiang & You Qiao Yin La Cinef First Prize SUNFLOWERS WERE THE FIRST ONES TO KNOW…  Chidananda S Naik Joint Second Prize OUT THE WINDOW THROUGH THE WALL Asya Segalovich THE CHAOS SHE LEFT BEHIND Nikos Kolioukos Third Prize BUNNYHOOD  Mansi Maheshwari The Higher Technical Commission for Sound and Images  The 2024 jury of the CST Artist-Technician prize awarded the prize to Daria d'Antonio, cinematographer on Paolo Sorrentino's Parthenope. Daria d'Antonio's images give Parthenope perfect cinematography with grace and beauty. The 2024 jury of the CST Young technician Prize is proud to award this year's prize to Evgenia Alexandrova, cinematographer on Noémie Merlant's The Balconettes, for the quality of her photography, with its saturated colors and assertive lighting direction that transports us from comedy to genre film.

Sugar (2024)

Sugar is described as "a genre-bending contemporary take on the private detective story set in Los Angeles".

Apple tv+ new noir series SUGAR by Mark Protosevich (The Cell) divided people because of its gimmick.  It's L.A. Noir with a Twist. And it's a show for cinephiles with a cinephile dick and lots of classic noir films quoted directly on the screen (Kiss Me Deadly, Double Indemnity, Night of the Hunter, The Big Heat, Sweet Smell of Success, Sunset Blvd. and many many more -see the whole list here.).  

Colin Farrell is great as John Sugar, a private eye roaming LA in his superb blue 1966 convertible Chevrolet Stingray Corvette, but there's more than meets the eye (sic) in this 8 parts neo-noir series (short episodes, 30 mins.) as opposed to Ripley or Fallout or The Sympathiser's 1 hour + durations-named here the series I enjoyed this year so far, plus The Gentlemen). And I was waiting for each epsidode, so I watched this every week, for a period of two months, having heard from before starting it that it had a twist, quoted by The Guardian as terrible. Well, it's quite the opposite, great and new and brave.

Well, I for one, enjoyed it very much. Maybe because I so much like Colin Farrell and his (sad) smile, and his gaze. Farrell is great whatever he's in, either being Alexander, The Way Back, In Bruges or its L.A. version,  Seven Psychopats, even a lesser London Boulevard.. arthouse: Lanthimos' The Lobster but better in The Killing of a Sacred Deer, Ondine, Triage, The Beguiled, up to the grand summit- The Banshees of Inisherin,   

in True Detective season 2 -or unrecognizable (great too!)  in the new Batman (waiting to see his turn as The Penguin in his own series), even aa a cameo (in Gilliam's Parnassus).

And Amy Ryan  (which I recentley rediscovered in Gone Baby Gone), as an old rocker (Patti Smith, Blondie, Joan Jett style- who would believe her as that? ), was great, mature, warm.

Plus the dog is fabulous (and the cat).

And mr. James Cromwell, as an old Hollywood tycoon.

Series directed by Brazilian Fernando Meirelles (which went from his Cidade de Deus to great American TV)-5 eps. & Adam Arkin (Alan Arkin's son, an expert streaming series director- Succession, The Offer) -3 eps.

Great soundtrack too, with cool songs, some known, some obscure. Whole list here. Very nice use of Iggy's The Passenger.

“I believe movies are a conspiracy. They you set up from the time you are a little kid. They set you up to believe in everything, from ideals, and strength, and good guys.”

(Minnie in Minnie & Moskowitz by John Cassavettes-1971)* 

* I mean Gena Rowlands in the film Sugar goes to see in a cinema on ep. 2

RIP Costel Constantin

Drum lin, Costel Constantin!

22 mai 2024, avea 81 de ani. Juca inca la National, in Omul care a vazut moartea :()

via premiile Gopo

Costel Constantin a jucat în zeci de spectacole de-a lungul carierei sale, printre acestea se numără și ”O scrisoare pierdută” de I.L. Caragiale, ”Cui i-e frică de Virginia Woolf?” de Edward Albee, ”Regele Lear” de William Shakespeare sau ”Alexandru Lăpuşneanu” de Virgil Stoenescu.

A fost distins cu Premiul Gopo pentru Întreaga Carieră în 2021.

iata clipul de atunci

eu l-am vazut la National in Zbor deasupra unui cuib de cuci, unde l-a jucat pe Randle McMurphy, cu Florin Piersic in rolul indianului.

In film il tin minte din Revansa, Editie speciala, De ce trag clopotele Mitica?, Balanta.

ma intilneam cu el si il salutam, avea magazinul Nic pe Batistei si unul mai mare la Amzei.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024)

 #furiosa

"Do you Think you have it in you to make it EPIC?"

Yes, they do. Und they did;) And what an Epic. Oh, what a lovely day continues...

Here are my previous two posts on FURIOSA, 1st one when the trailer came out on Dec. 1st last year, then when on 21st March 2024 was announced to be in Cannes (as I surely expected). Six to seven minutes of standing ovation, depending on who you read ;)

Now, I just saw it and not only IT ROCKS, it also ROLLS. As a in a Rolls Royce of a film. Well, more like a Harley ;)

Film of the year and one of the best of this decade, scout's honor (film scout that is ;)

*

Furiosa Is ‘David Lean, But With Motorbikes Instead Of Camels’ 

Says New Immortan Joe, Lachy Hulme who took over from Hugh Keays-Byne (d. 2020-Vale)

Mithologically this is also based on the Word Burgers of the History Men and eyewitness accounts of those who survived."
Actually The History Man also appears in this one. Played by George Shevtov. And it's his voiceover. 

The film is told in Five epic chapters, very different than all the other films. And it's basically about a Peach ;) Also it has an epic length, 2h28 min, which went so fast, I personally wished to be longer. 

Fifth installment of the Mad Max Universe, born 45 years ago in Oz (Australia). As Mad Max: Fury Road happened in sequence, in 3 days and nights, this one happens over the timeline of 18 years.  

Also Fury Road took over 20 years to be made and 15 years of changes in the script, this one took 9 years in the Max Universe, but much less in terms of development and production (Miller did his Three Thousand Years of Longing in the meanwhile). George Miller is 79 now, so even for his terrific shape, I would hold my fingers crossed for a Sixth film, as I guess both Furiosa and Max have ended their character arcs). Heard in a Miller interview he has also the story of Max's year before the events in Fury Road. I would love to see that, with Tom Hardy. There's even a page and a title for this (The Wasteland). Surely WB would milk this cow forever and there's comic books and so on, but this is Miller's verse and vision, and I don't think anyone can follow up. But this is not the issue at hand. Haters and detractors will go on about sloppy CGI (really????), 'Woman Power' concessions and length, but it's their loss (as it always is and will B.)

*

The casting of Anya Taylor Joy came into the production of Three Thousand and the pandemic and is due to Edgar Wright who showed Miller a rough cut of Last Night in Soho (playing now on netflix, stream it now !). It worried me at first but now, seeing the film I think she's great !  Great eyes, also very few lines, physical acting (she's got to drive a lot and the actrees didn't drive at all!)

Also it worried me a bit that Chris Hemsworth is given such a heavy burden, being a villain, a nemesis and a mad father figure (Dementus, aptly named). And he's great too. The Teddy Bear surely helps. And the makeup, Oh, what a nose (Charlton Heston's Ben Hur?). He plays like a cross between Peter O'Toole in Lawrence, a mad messianic biker in a chariot of bikes in a Roman swords & sandals epic, and every Mad Gary Oldman performance of your choice. "oh what a day, what a deal, what a day"...

And then there's Brit Tom Burke as Praetorian Jack, who played Orson Welles in Mank (my faved film of 2020), looking like a young Stacy Keach. 

And a fabulous child Furiosa, played by Aussie Alyla Browne. 

And Angus Sampson returns as The Organic Mechanic as John Howard does as The People Eater.

Plus Rictus Erectus is here again (Nathan Jones) ;) - and so is his bro, Scabrous Scrotus (Josh Helman), who played a different part in 2015's MM: FR.

More infos on Mad Max Fandom wiki.

**

"There were 264 women and men on that stunt department. One of the sequences took 79 days to shoot. Every day, you're subjected to bad weather, covid, and exhaustion. Our one priority, led by George, is not to injure anybody. The second is to make the film that we enjoyed" (producer Doug Mitchell)

***

The music score is a revision on Fury Road score, done also by Tom Holkenborg (formerly Junkie XL), more emotion and drama and a diggeridou. And a duduk (which gets it closer to the sound of Gladiator).

The cinematography in magnificent scope is by new zeelander Simon Duggan (Live Free or Die Hard, The Great Gatsby, Hacksaw Ridge), who took over from Aussie Johan Seale, who came out of retirement to make Fury Road (& then Longing).

Should I say something about the set design, costumes, art, the VFX, the stunts, the amazing craft. No. Just Kudos. Exceptional. 

Miller wrote this with Nick Lathouris (same as Fury Road), but there are seven story contributors, including Action designer and 2nd unit director Guy Norris.

****

-The best prequel ever (Godfather 2 included !), no s*it...

As Mad Max: Fury Road (whose prequel to the key this is), is one of the best films ever made-and surely I have seen in this century and millennium !

Also helps it's Rated R.

*****

5 stars+=Eleven out of Ten -yes,this one goes to Eleven ;)

Empire 5 star review here.