Festival Circuit 2018

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Omensetter
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Re: Festival Circuit 2018

#101 Post by Omensetter » Wed May 02, 2018 7:53 pm

Here is a link to the screenings guide.

Blackkklansman and The House That Jack Built halfway on the 14th is shrewd programming as the sleep deprivation starts to truly kick in. I imagine we'll see many article pairing them together as well, and not because they screen on the same day.

A.B. Shawky screening first is confidence and perhaps a nice gesture to not have tired critics lash out on the unfamiliar face as the festival progresses. The word is that Farhadi's film is terrible, so he may even see nicer notices.

Gonzalez's film seems slotted conveniently to play catch-up.

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Omensetter
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Re: Festival Circuit 2018

#102 Post by Omensetter » Wed May 02, 2018 8:28 pm

Speculative predictions:

Palme d'Or: Jia Zhangke, Ash is Purest White
Grand Prix: Eva Husson, Girls of the Sun
Director: Jafar Panahi, The Three Faces
Screenplay: Alice Rohrwacher, Happy as Lazzaro
Actress: Samal Yeslyamova, Ayka
Actor: Marcello Fonte, Dogman
Jury: Spike Lee, Blackkklansman

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Ribs
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Re: Festival Circuit 2018

#103 Post by Ribs » Tue May 08, 2018 5:09 pm

Everybody Knows is, weirdly, getting positive notices. Not, like, raves or anything, but that people like it, which is weird as it's the movie that had the worst buzz out of anything.

There was a rumor IndieWire was reporting that Netflix is seriously considering acquiring several if not quite a bit of the mostly ripe for the picking competition line-up just to stick it to Cannes which is hilarious and I want them to do it even though I'm so on Cannes' side for this stuff.

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Re: Festival Circuit 2018

#104 Post by Cremildo » Tue May 08, 2018 6:06 pm

Asghar Farhadi films tend to get positive notices. Not sure why it's so weird.

But actually, based on Twitter reports, early reaction ranged from lukewarm to outright disastrous.

Variety
THR
David Ehrlich
Jordan Ruimy
Cine Vue
Alex Billington
Last edited by Cremildo on Tue May 08, 2018 7:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Ribs
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Re: Festival Circuit 2018

#105 Post by Ribs » Tue May 08, 2018 6:15 pm

Because, as I said in my post, it had really bad buzz?

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Omensetter
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Re: Festival Circuit 2018

#106 Post by Omensetter » Tue May 08, 2018 7:48 pm

Labaki's film has massive buzz, but I suspect it's more Oscar friendly buzz than great Cannes film buzz, if I can put much stock into its embarrassing official synopsis. We'll see in a few days whether she can pull off a fable about a boy who sues his parents for existing...

Everybody Knows definitely feels like a film you get over with, something you watch before you go to sleep---in other words, an opener.

It definitely feels like the festival starts tomorrow with Shawky, Serebrennikov, and Loznitsa.

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Omensetter
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Re: Festival Circuit 2018

#107 Post by Omensetter » Wed May 09, 2018 9:58 am

Focus picked up Everybody Knows.

Meanwhile, Donbass sounds like a blast.

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Re: Festival Circuit 2018

#108 Post by Omensetter » Wed May 09, 2018 6:06 pm

Here are some nice resources:

http://jury.critic.de/cannes/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.todaslascriticas.com.ar/cannes/2018" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

https://www.ioncinema.com/news/film-fes ... body-knows" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

https://icsfilm.org/features/cannes-201 ... ics-panel/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
----
We'll obviously get better reads on Loznitsa's film as we move forward, but Farhadi's seems like a flop---at best, a shrug, and Wang Bing's latest long documentary is getting praise for those who had a spare eight hours in the middle of a festival. Shawky's is trending toward one of those films you only recall once you check the Wikipedia entry for the Cannes competition for a random year.

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Omensetter
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Re: Festival Circuit 2018

#109 Post by Omensetter » Thu May 10, 2018 7:09 pm

Birds of Passage---from the Embrace of the Serpent team---seems to be receiving great praise in Fortnight, but Blake Williams elucidates my concerns with this brand of ethnographic filmmaking here.

Border, in UCR, also seems to be getting decent notices and seems genre-y enough to travel well. It's from the writer of Let the Right One In.

Competition-wise, Serebrennikov's Leto appears to be the first across-the-board beloved film. Nothing on the level of an Amour, one might imagine, but well-positioned for perhaps a Jury Prize.

Reviews trickling in for the Honore and Pawlikowski...

Then Godard and Jia.

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Re: Festival Circuit 2018

#110 Post by DarkImbecile » Fri May 11, 2018 10:19 am

Sounds like Pawlikowski’s Cold War is the new front-runner...

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Finch
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Re: Festival Circuit 2018

#111 Post by Finch » Fri May 11, 2018 5:14 pm

The pieces that I have read about the Farhadi film were almost exclusively from the US and England, with one review from an Irish critic and a German reviewer's reaction, and of all those only the German critic was outright negative. But the constant that did come up across every piece was that Farhadi's structuring of his films is starting to feel a bit formulaic and that Everyone Knows was a bit like a soap opera in its twists and developments. Is it Screen International that tallies up all the global critics' reactions? Always fascinating to see those snapshots.

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Omensetter
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Re: Festival Circuit 2018

#112 Post by Omensetter » Fri May 11, 2018 7:07 pm

NEON picked up Border from UCR.

Bleecker Street snagged the Mads Mikkelsen survivalist starrer Arctic.
---------------
Farhadi's been operating from the same template since A Separation; I suppose there might be some novelty in the Spain setting, but I'd rather see his own country.

On the Screen grid, Everybody Knows and Yomeddine are sitting at 1.8. and Leto at 2.4. I also apparently used all my free articles, so I guess I'll have to defer to other grids.

It seems the current tiers are as follows:

Cold War
-----
Leto
Sorry Angel
-----
Everybody Knows
Yomeddine

I haven't encountered any reviews that are effusive and overflowing on Cold War like I'm seeing on the Godard (mainly from those predisposed to anything he puts out, though), but a lot of these grids don't lie. It seems the current frontrunner for favorite out of Cannes. I didn't much care for Ida, but it did a lot for Music Box and now he's with Amazon.

I'm more surprised of the acclaim for Honoré, not that he's incapable of making a good movie; I just haven't seen it.

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Re: Festival Circuit 2018

#113 Post by JabbaTheSlut » Sat May 12, 2018 3:44 am

But again juries are juries and critics are critics.

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Omensetter
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Re: Festival Circuit 2018

#114 Post by Omensetter » Sat May 12, 2018 2:25 pm

I don't think anyone is disputing that. Although, just to use the ScreenDaily grid as a metric: Eighteen of the twenty-four films that finished in the top three from this decade went on to win a prize. The six that did not either debuted at the 2016 edition or were Another Year, Le Havre, or Rust & Bone. So, there seems to be a very solid correlation between reception and winning a prize, although I'm curious if that's more unique to Cannes since the press is significantly heightened. There would seem to be pressure in "getting it wrong" if you're a jury member, although George Miller clearly didn't care.
----
Vanessa Filho's Cotillard-starrer Angel Face is getting panned in UCR.

Jia continues to receive the same positive Jia notices.

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Omensetter
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Re: Festival Circuit 2018

#115 Post by Omensetter » Sun May 13, 2018 1:48 pm

SPC picked up Capernaum.

The Orchard picked up Birds of Passage
----------------

Alice Rohrwacher's Lazzaro Felice is getting major praise.

Obviously I've yet to see it, but good for her. The Wonders had a lovely wistfulness before overstaying its welcome.

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Ribs
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Re: Festival Circuit 2018

#116 Post by Ribs » Mon May 14, 2018 8:55 am

lol A24 bought Climax

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Re: Festival Circuit 2018

#117 Post by mfunk9786 » Mon May 14, 2018 10:49 am

Ribs wrote:lol A24 bought Climax
Perfect fit, and the fact that it's A24 and not IFC or whoever makes me think it's actually good and [maybe even] marketable.

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Re: Festival Circuit 2018

#118 Post by colinr0380 » Mon May 14, 2018 12:11 pm

Did Love ever get picked up for US distribution? (It came out on Artificial Eye in the UK)

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DarkImbecile
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Re: Festival Circuit 2018

#119 Post by DarkImbecile » Mon May 14, 2018 12:24 pm

Omensetter wrote:Here are some nice resources:

http://jury.critic.de/cannes/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.todaslascriticas.com.ar/cannes/2018" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

https://www.ioncinema.com/news/film-fes ... body-knows" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

https://icsfilm.org/features/cannes-201 ... ics-panel/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
To add to this list, I've recently discovered and found this site quite useful as a meta-compiler of several of the review tabulations listed above; it also goes back to at least 2010 and includes Berlin and Sundance ratings as well.

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Re: Festival Circuit 2018

#120 Post by shootingstar » Mon May 14, 2018 2:47 pm

DarkImbecile wrote:
Omensetter wrote:Here are some nice resources:

http://jury.critic.de/cannes/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.todaslascriticas.com.ar/cannes/2018" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

https://www.ioncinema.com/news/film-fes ... body-knows" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

https://icsfilm.org/features/cannes-201 ... ics-panel/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
To add to this list, I've recently discovered and found this site quite useful as a meta-compiler of several of the review tabulations listed above; it also goes back to at least 2010 and includes Berlin and Sundance ratings as well.
It is quite strange of this website doesn't have data for Venice, instead it has sundance...

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Finch
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Re: Festival Circuit 2018

#121 Post by Finch » Mon May 14, 2018 4:30 pm

Last time I checked Screen International's stats, Girls of the Sun was the worst reviewed film in the Competition yet, with the Godard a notch ahead of Cold War as the best reviewed though I noticed that the French critics polled only gave strong reviews to the Godard and the Honore (intentional or accidental bias?).

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Finch
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Re: Festival Circuit 2018

#122 Post by Finch » Mon May 14, 2018 5:22 pm


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Omensetter
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Re: Festival Circuit 2018

#123 Post by Omensetter » Mon May 14, 2018 5:35 pm

It's of note that the praise for Hirokazu Kore-eda's Shoplifters has been staggering. Yet another Palme contender in what appears to be a great festival.

Notices are still trickling in, but it seems that those who loved Asako I & II loved it, etc. The overall trajectory of its reception seems to be trending upward, though.

People are just plain loving BlacKkKlansman, though.

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Re: Festival Circuit 2018

#124 Post by Omensetter » Wed May 16, 2018 7:40 pm

The debut of yet another Star Wars movie has made me yearn for non-blockbuster premieres. I suppose if they cannot land most American films because of the Oscars, they have to turn to these splashy events. I'm ultimately just complaining since there aren't many reviews for At War and Under the Silver Lake at the moment.

----

It got buried under the American films, but Brizé's film received polite enough notices. I'll see it because of its subject matter, Lindon, and liking The Measure of a Man, but it seems it suffered from not being basically any other film at Cannes. Seriously, the jury will have to try very hard to activate a sort of George Miller-swerve; at this point, previous frontrunner Three Faces might be considered a surprise winner.

Burning is currently playing to the best reviews of the festival after what seems the previous film had the best reviews of the festival. It's all very exciting stuff and point towards potentially great films in the months ahead. Fremaux really curated the hell out of this festival, although the Yomedinne inclusion remains baffling over Bi or even Loznitsa, even accounting for the notion that UCR needs good films as well, like in 2007 when they had Hou's Binoche-starring masterpiece there.

I suppose the one valid complaint one could lob is the silly French quota, which won't go anywhere. All of them have been pretty much been non-starters or easily eclipsed, with tomorrow's being a midnight movie essentially. Could they really, truly not have found room for another Spanish language film?

The American films and Lars are behind us, fortunately, and there is still Ceylan and Dvortsevoy to come.

Just cross-checking multiple polls, here's where I have the tiers:


Burning
Cold War
Lazzaro felice
Ash is Purest White
Shoplifters
The Image Book
-----
Three Faces
Leto
BlacKkKlansman
-----
Asako I & II
Under the Silver Lake
Sorry Angel
-----
At War
Yomeddine
Everybody Knows
-----
Girls of the Sun

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Omensetter
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Re: Festival Circuit 2018

#125 Post by Omensetter » Wed May 16, 2018 7:48 pm

Addendum: It's frustrating that there have been essentially no pick-ups!

Limited to competition, here is current distributor status:

Amazon --- Cold War
Kino Lorber --- The Image Book
Focus --- BlacKkKlansman
A24 --- Under the Silver Lake
SPC --- Everybody Knows, Capernaum

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