16.4.09

Once upon a year, in the south of France...

While the "official" list of Cannes selections hasn't been released yet, Variety has emerged with a probable list of titles to be shown. The consolidated list below is thanks to Awards Daily.
  • Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, the Nazi-hunter saga with Brad Pitt
  • Ang Lee’s Taking Woodstock, about 1969 music fest, with Emile Hirsch
  • Francis Ford Coppola’s Tetro, an Argentine family drama with Vincent Gallo
  • Werner Herzog’s Bad Lieutenant remake with Nicolas Cage
  • Sam Raimi’s Drag Me to Hell, horror-thriller with Alison Lohman
  • Pete Docter’s Up, the 3D Pixar adventure with Ed Asner
  • Jane Campion’s Bright Star, a John Keats bio with Ben Wishaw
  • Lars von Trier’s Antichrist, horror in the woods with Willem Dafoe & Charlotte Gainsbourg
  • Ken Loach’s Looking for Eric, about a troubled teen soccer fan
  • Johnny To’s Vengeance, a hitman-turned-chef in Hong Kong to avenge his daughter’s murder, with Johnny Hallyday
  • Andrea Arnold’s Fish Tank, teen troubles with Michael Fassbender
  • Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon, about incipient fascism at a rural school in 1913
    (Tetro and The White Ribbon are both shot in black and white)
  • Pedro Almodovar’s Broken Embraces, a noirish melodrama with Penelope Cruz
  • Marco Bellocchio’s Vincere, about Mussolini’s secret lover
  • Bong Joon-ho’s Mother, a thriller about a ghastly murder
  • Park Chan-wook’s Thirst, about a small-town priest who turns into a vampire
  • Lou Ye’s Spring Fever, about a young threesome overcome with erotic longings
  • Lu Chuan’s City of Life and Death, epic about the 1937 massacre of Nanking by the Japanese army
  • Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Air Doll, about the love affair between a videostore clerk and an inflatable sex doll
  • Tsai Ming-liang’s Face, about a Taiwanese director in Paris to make a film about Salome, with Mathieu Amalric, Jeanne Moreau, Fanny Ardant, Nathalie Baye, Laetitia Casta and Jean-Pierre Leaud
I feel like a giant yipee would be in order, only there is no feasible way for me to attend this festival of fabulousness. That is of course unless someone feels like flying me to the south of France and renting me a cabana to sleep in.... I mean, I wouldn't say no to such an offer.

The films highlighted in green are the ones I am especially psyched for. Air Doll sounds like Lars and the Real Girl Pt. 2. Any of my lovely readers going to this fiasco? What are you looking forward to? (That fly poster on the left is from last year's festival, and I want it.)

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

'Thirst' sounds interesting, and I am eagerly anticipating 'Up'. I'm worried 'Drag Me To Hell' is going to be as straight-to-DVD-quality as the first trailer looked.

And 'Inglorious Basterds' - that new spot with Mike Myers doing his woeful British accent is just another nail in the coffin. Quention Tarantino looks like he has descended from being an interesting filmmaker to a peddlar of adolescent guff. I think this one's going to get a kicking, and so far I've seen no reason to suggest that it shouldn't recieve one.

blake said...

I have a weird love for Lars von Trier's work, as well as Michael Haneke. Can't wait for their stuff.

do you have a flag? said...

I am excited for Antichrist, but I am also scared that it will frighten me too much. But in re-thinking I should have highlighted it in green. I know nothing of Haneke but White Ribbon sounds pretty rad.

Is there any chance Inglorious is supposed to be a joke?

Ranielle said...

You must, must check out Haneke's FUNNY GAMES. Both versions.

blake said...

Ranielle's right. The original version of Funny Games had the most profound effect on me than any other film I can think of.