Down... on the Ground

This post was intended to analyze the similarities and differences between Up in the Air, Fish Tank and An Education, but unfortunately it proved to be a rather uninteresting exercise in surface observations and difficult prose. So I scrapped the idea, but salvaged the only thing worth taking from it: my disdain for Up in the Air. So apologies for the jumpiness and inconclusive arguments, but I thought it might be of some interest regardless. For those who haven't seen the films, I wouldn't recommend reading as this is infested with “spoilers.”

As we’re nearing the half-way point in 2010, I took a look back at what few ’09 releases I actually saw, and one trend really stood out: marital and parental escapism. In three of the notable award contenders of 2009—Jason Reitman’s Up in the Air, Andrea Arnold’s Fish Tank and Lone Scherfig’s An Education—the very same third act revelation appears as the protagonists make an uninvited visit to the homes of their respective lovers, discovering that their romantic flames are not only frauds, but frauds with spouses and children.

For Up in the Air’s Ryan Bingham (George Clooney), a man whose views of romance are mirrored (of course) by his on-the-go career which keeps him in transit for the majority of his time, a hotel bar encounter with a woman like Alex Goran (Vera Farmiga) leads to the most ideal of no-strings-attached affairs. Alex is a woman, seemingly, like Ryan: professional, mature, horny and uninterested in anything related to our traditional notions of maintaining a romantic relationship with someone. Through several different scenarios where Ryan is forced to interact with people whose notions of relationship stability greatly differ from his own, he undergoes a change of heart and falls for Alex in a way he’s likely never felt for anyone else.

In an attempt to compare/contrast An Education and Fish Tank, I hit a dead end, as they’re almost too similar. Both feature teenage girls as protagonists, their older love interests (Peter Sarsgaard, Michael Fassbender) are deceptively charming and both films happen to be directed by women. The only thing truly dividing them from a narrative perspective is their place in time and the issue of class. An Education’s Jenny (Carey Mulligan) comes from a typical middle class English family in the early 1960s, while Fish Tank’s Mia (Katie Jarvis) lives in the outskirts with her young, hot, single mother (Kierston Wareing) and little sister (Rebecca Griffiths). Their differences in quality, which is a steep one, can best be chalked up to the flatness and dryness of Scherfig’s images against the vividness and vibrancy of Arnold’s.

With surprising consistency, Jenny, Mia and Ryan’s worlds are all crushed through uninvited visits to their respective lovers’ homes. It was, after all, too good to be true for each of them, but the lessons aren’t all the same. For Up in the Air, Alex’s “other life” becomes just one of the film’s infuriatingly heavy-handed views of the traditional family structure. Alex is not only villainized through the revelation but all of the refreshing qualities that Ryan found in her morph into the traits of an unhappy wife and mother acting out. While it seemed relatively clear that Ryan’s young co-worker/traveling companion Natalie Keener’s (Anna Kendrick) function in the film was to give (false) validation to Ryan’s beliefs, Natalie’s purpose changes when the film places its scarlet letter upon Alex, as she starts to work as a defense for the screenwriters (and novelist, I suppose, though I haven’t read the book) in showing us that all women aren’t cruel, manipulative, heart-stomping adulteresses. It’s hard to determine whether the simple, vile justification of Alex’s away-from-home behavior or the nauseating placement of the interview footage of the real people laid off from their jobs where they all emphasize the importance of family is what ultimately destroys Up in the Air, but both elements certainly succeed in ridiculing the protagonist… or maybe we should have never trusted a filmmaker who tried to garner sympathy for a character who crushes other people’s lives as a trade.

All three films are available on Blu-ray and DVD in the UK. Up in the Air and An Education are available on Blu-ray and DVD in the US, and Fish Tank will be released by Criterion later in the year.

Le joli mai

Yeah, yeah... I know I've pulled the post-a-photo-of-Grace-Jones-as-Mayday-on-May-1st business before, but when you've found something that works, stick with it (as my father always said). Now that the weather has improved, my mental well-being has ventured out of the red, and I'll be returning full-ish time to the blog. What you can expect from me this month: reviews of Kentucker Audley's two latest films, Holy Land and Open Five, which both premiered last month; the early stages of a new regular feature on the blog; more DVD updates (Mulholland Drive is supposedly making its way to Blu-ray this fall by the way); a rather messy criticism of Up in the Air, which started as an unsuccessful side-by-side-by-side comparison of that piece of shit, another overpraised turkey (An Education) and Andrea Arnold's magnificent Fish Tank (portions of the latter films still show up, but it really didn't work as a whole); likely some links to writings about the films screening at Cannes (as I won't be in attendance); the Cannes poster update (which is looking grim so far, but it usually isn't until halfway through the festival that the posters start showing their faces); many unnecessary references to Liz Lemon; an appreciation post for Téa Leoni; some press for a good friend's NYC show coming up; a belated 2009 music post; some of this; and hopefully plenty of other (quasi-)exciting things. Getting back into "the swing of things" is more difficult than I had imagined, but the (non-breeding-related) post-partum depression is slowly vanishing...

Leopards, Deserts and Trains: Criterion in June

Criterion announced their June titles yesterday, with a DVD and Blu-ray of Michelangelo Antonioni's first color feature Red Desert [Il deserto rosso], starring a brunette Monica Vitti, among the releases. Red Desert, easily one of my favorite films, will hit shelves on the 22nd. Luchino Visconti's lavish historical epic The Leopard [Il gattopardo], which stars Burt Lancaster, Claudia Cardinale, Alain Delon and Pierre Clémenti among others, will hit Blu-ray on the same date. Jim Jarmusch's Mystery Train, one of the two "episodic" Jarmusch films I like, is bowing on DVD and Blu-ray on the 15th. Abbas Kiarostami's Close-Up is set for the 8th; the DVD only release includes Kiarostami's The Traveler from 1974. Strangely the release doesn't include Nanni Moretti's short doc Il giorno della prima di Close Up, which was featured on both the UK and French editions. It is however available on Cinema 16's European Shorts collection. The other two DVD releases are Jan Troell's Everlasting Moments [Maria Larssons eviga ögonblick] on the 15th and Carol Reed's 1940 thriller Night Train to Munich on the 22nd. Correction: (Thanks Blake) Everlasting Moments and Close-Up will also be Blu-ray releases (they weren't listed yesterday).

On the horizon from Criterion, I've been told two more Ozu films are coming. Also, they mentioned in the February newsletter that Andrea Arnold would soon be included in the Collection later this year, which must be in reference to Fish Tank through their partnership with IFC Films. It'd be great to see the two shorts Arnold made before her Oscar-winning Wasp (Dog and Milk) on their release.

Well, Kathryn Bigelow Is Hotter Than James Cameron...

While The Hurt Locker isn't exactly my favorite film of last year, it's the perfect "I'm okay with _____ winning so long as ______ and _______ doesn't." I think that's pretty much how most people are with the Oscar nominees this year. Kathryn Bigelow's war drama took home six BAFTAs today (for those not acronym savvy, it's the British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards), setting it as the likely frontrunner for the Best Picture race at the Oscars. Andrea Arnold's wonderful Fish Tank won the prize for Outstanding British Film. The major awards are below; the nominees are here; and the full list of awards are here.

Film: The Hurt Locker, d. Kathryn Bigelow
British Film: Fish Tank, d. Andrea Arnold
Film Not in the English Language: Un prophète [A Prophet], d. Jacques Audiard, France
Animated Film: Up, d. Pete Docter, Bob Peterson
Director: Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker
Leading Actor: Colin Firth, A Single Man
Leading Actress: Carey Mulligan, An Education
Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds
Supporting Actress: Mo'Nique, Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire
Original Screenplay: Mark Boal, The Hurt Locker
Adapted Screenplay: Jason Reitman, Sheldon Turner, Up in the Air
Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer: Duncan Jones, director, Moon

The Decade List: Wasp (2003)

Wasp – dir. Andrea Arnold

[I’m going to try to highlight some of the excellent shorts of the ‘00s today and tomorrow, but they hardly represent the best of the world of short subject filmmaking, as nearly all the examples I have are from filmmakers better known for the features. This is a reworking of a piece I wrote on Andrea Arnold’s Wasp for a Short Film Blog-a-thon two years ago. You can find Wasp on either Tartan’s DVD release of Red Road or on Warp Films’ release of Cinema16’s European Short Films.]

It’s a rare path for a filmmaker to have won an Academy Award, for a short film no less, before embarking on a successful career of feature-length films, but Andrea Arnold, whose near-brilliant Red Road and absolutely incredible Fish Tank, can make such a claim. Like nearly all the sectors of the Academy, the short film committee doesn’t always get it right (that musical about competing falafel joints West Bank sucks hard), but they did in 2005, giving the prize to Wasp, a perfectly succinct twenty-six-minute-long look at a young single mother of four named Zoë (the excellent Natalie Press, who also starred in Arnold’s Red Road, as well as Pawel Pawlikowski's My Summer of Love) and her failed attempts to balance a party-girl social life and the expected role of caregiver to her young children.

On one level, Wasp functions as a look into the world of celebrity obsession and projection. America doesn’t, and probably never will, understand David and Victoria Beckham, the über celebrity couple of Great Britain, who, unlike Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, have a quality about them that’s almost strictly English. For Zoë, the Beckhams represent the ideal. In an embarrassing scene, one of her daughters tells a woman how she says she’s as pretty as Victoria, resulting in scoffs from the woman and Zoë telling her daughters to not tell anyone that again. In many ways, there’s Victoria Beckham is an impossibility, the paradigm of the young, attractive mother. And yet, the actual struggles Zoë suffers in being a mother aren’t the ones anyone would ever imagine Mrs. Beckham has ever had to endure.

This celebrity projection is a sad endeavor, for Zoë can barely even feed her children. When Zoë runs into Dave (Danny Dyer), a former crush showing his first bit of interest in her, one of the girls remarks, “He looks just like David Beckham!” This, naturally, elicits a knowing smirk from Zoë, in a way opening herself up to the possibility of coming to a closer realization of her idolization. Of course, this will only happen if she can get someone to watch her kids for their evening date at the pub. The Beckhams operate similarly in Wasp as ABBA does in Muriel’s Wedding. For Muriel (Toni Collette), ABBA is the escape of her own harsh personal reality; the infectious pop of the Swedish supergroup stands as her archetype of eternal bliss and happiness. For Zoë, the Beckhams represent the same thing, the false pinnacle of desire: fashionable motherhood, physical perfection and marital joy. The young girls share their mother’s obsession with celebrity and forced commercialism, asking their mother to play Robbie Williams at the pub while demanding she take them to Mack-donalds.

It would appear that Zoë is a pretty awful mother. She beats a woman up in front of her young girls, even if she’s doing so because the woman slapped one of her girls. When she can’t find a babysitter, Zoë plants her children outside the pub to fend for themselves. They’re starving, and she has no money to buy them anything more than crisps. However, this ultimately comes in question when the titular wasp threatens to crawl inside her baby’s mouth. The incident proves to be the wake-up call she needed, eclipsing her own personal desires for a man or, more accurately, to play the part of Victoria to Dave’s David.

Despite a glimmer of a happy ending with Dave finally realizing that the young girls Zoë played off as belonging to her girlfriend are, in fact, hers. Instead of running away (which always looks like it might be a possibility), he gets the children fed and takes the family home. Despite coming to some actualization of what’s truly important in her life, this comes with a return to the consumerism of fast food, and on top of that, a merry car ride to horrible pop music. The last shot of Wasp shows the car driving off as one of the passengers carelessly throws their bag of fast food out the window. On one hand, Arnold says that some things will never change. On the other, steps have been made in the realization of Zoë’s daydream goal. Arnold knows Zoë will never be the Victoria she so longs to become… and, really, Zoë knows this underneath as well. Yet with said understanding, Zoe finds what she’s both looking for and not expecting to find. However, happiness doesn’t come with a clean slate.

With: Natalie Press, Danny Dyer, Jodie Mitchell, Molly Griffiths, Kaitlyn Raynor, Danny Daley
Screenplay: Andrea Arnold
Cinematography: Robbie Ryan
Country of Origin: UK
US Distributor: Tartan Films

Premiere: August 2003 (Edinburgh Film Festival)
US Premiere: 23 October 2004 (Milwaukee International Film Festival)

Awards: Best Live Action Short Film (Academy Awards); Short Filmmaking Award, International (Sundance Film Festival); Best Short Film, Honorable Mention – Natalie Press (Stockholm Film Festival)

European Film Award Nominees

The nominees for the 2009 European Film Awards are in! Culling from 48 films released within a window of 1 July 2008 to 15 July 2009 (the specifics are really murky, as a country can decide whether to submit a film based on their festival premiere or their national release), the official nominees have been announced, some of them expected, some surprising and others downright foolish. Apparently, if the European Film Academy is to believe The Reader is European enough to be included, I guess they're silly enough to think it's a good film. I hope I'm not the only person bothered by films set in foreign countries where all the actors speak English (or worse, with accents!). I suppose a nod for Winslet is always acceptable, but David Kross as well!? Anywho, the nominations for Andrea Arnold's Fish Tank are all well-deserved, especially the less likely choice of Katie Jarvis in the Actress category. The nominees are listed below, and the award ceremony will take place in Germany on 12 December.

Film

Fish Tank - d. Andrea Arnold, UK
Let the Right One In [Låt den rätte komma in] - d. Tomas Alfredson, Sweden
A Prophet [Un prophète] - d. Jacques Audiard, France
The Reader - d. Stephen Daldry, Germany/UK
Slumdog Millionaire - d. Danny Boyle, Loveleen Tandan, UK
The White Ribbon [Das weiße Band] - d. Michael Haneke, Austria/Germany/France/Italy

Director

Pedro Almodóvar - Broken Embraces [Los abrazos rotos]
Andrea Arnold - Fish Tank
Jacques Audiard - Un prophète
Danny Boyle - Slumdog Millionaire
Michael Haneke - Das weiße Band
Lars von Trier - Antichrist

Actor

Moritz Bleibtreu - The Baader Meinhof Complex [Der Baader Meinhof Komplex]
Steve Evets - Looking for Eric
David Kross - The Reader
Dev Patel - Slumdog Millionaire
Tahar Rahim - Un prophète
Filippo Timi - Vincere

Actress

Penélope Cruz - Los abrazos rotos
Charlotte Gainsbourg - Antichrist
Katie Jarvis - Fish Tank
Yolande Moreau - Séraphine
Noomi Rapace - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo [Män som hatar kvinnor]
Kate Winslet - The Reader

Screenwriter

Jacques Audiard, Thomas Bidegain - Un prophète
Simon Beaufoy - Slumdog Millionaire
Gianni di Gregorio - Mid-August Lunch [Pranzo di ferragosto]
Michael Haneke - Das weiße Band

Cinematographer

Christian Berger - Das weiße Band
Anthony Dod Mantle - Antichrist; Slumdog Millionaire
Maxim Drozdov, Alisher Khamidkhodzhaev - Paper Soldier
Stéphane Fontaine - Un prophète

Composer

Alexandre Desplat - Coco Before Chanel [Coco avant Chanel]
Jakob Groth - Män som hatar kvinnor
Alberto Iglesias - Los abrazos rotos
Johan Söderqvist - Låt den rätte komma in

Prix d'excellence

Francesca Calvelli, editor - Vincere
Catherine Leterrier, costume desginer - Coco avant Chanel
Waldemar Pokromski, make-up and hair - Der Baader Meinhof Komplex
Brigitte Taillandier, Francis Wargnier, Jean-Paul Hurier, Marc Doisne, sound design - Un prophète

Discovery

Ajami - d. Scandar Copti, Yaron Shani, Israel/Germany
The Other Bank - d. George Ovashvili, Georgia/Kazakhstan
Katalin Varga - d. Peter Strickland, Romania/UK/Hungary
Be Good [Sois sage] - d. Juliette Garcias, France/Denmark
Autumn [Sonbahar] - d. Özcan Alper, Turkey/Germany

Animated Feature Film

Mia and the Migoo [Mia et le Migou] - d. Jacques-Rémy Girerd, France
Niko & the Way to the Stars [Niko - Lentäjän poika] - d. Michael Henger, Kari Juusonen, Finland/Germany/Denmark/Iceland
The Secret of Kells - d. Tomm Moore, Nora Twomey, France/Ireland/Belgium

Documentary

The Beaches of Agnès [Les plages d'Agnès] - d. Agnès Varda, France
Below Sea Level - d. Gianfranco Rosi, Italy/USA
Burma VJ [Burma VJ: Reporter i et lukket land] - d. Anders Østergaard, Denmark
Cooking History [Ako sa varia dejiny] - d. Péter Kerekes, Slovakia/Austria/Czech Republic
The Damned of the Sea [Les damnés de la mer] - d. Jawad Rhalib, Belgium
Defamation - d. Yoav Shamir, Denmark/Austria/Israel/USA
The Heart of Jenin [Das Herz von Jenin] - d. Leon Geller, Marcus Vetter, Germany
Pianomania - d. Robert Cibis, Lilian Franck, Germany/Austria
The Sound of Insects: Record of a Mummy - d. Peter Liechti, Switzerland
The Woman with the 5 Elephants [Die Frau mit den 5 Elefanten] - d. Vadim Jendreyko, Switzerland/Germany

People's Choice Award

Der Baader Meinhof Komplex - d. Uli Edel, Germany
Los abrazos rotos - d. Pedro Almodóvar, Spain
Coco avant Chanel - d. Anne Fontaine, France
The Duchess - d. Saul Dibb, UK/Italy/France
Fly Me to the Moon - d. Ben Stassen, Belgium
Män som hatar kvinnor - d. Niels Arden Oplev, Sweden/Denmark/Germany
Låt den rätte komma in - d. Tomas Alfredson, Sweden
Pranzo di ferragosto - d. Gianni di Gregorio, Italy
Slumdog Millionaire - d. Danny Boyle, Loveleen Tandan
Transporter 3 - d. Olivier Megaton, France/UK

Artificial Eye's Agnès Varda Collection, Volume 2

Artificial Eye in the UK has already announced volume 2 of their Agnès Varda Collections. The first set hits stores on 19 October and contains La pointe-courte, Cléo from 5 to 7 [Cléo de 5 à 7], Les glaneurs et la glaneuse [The Gleaners and I] and Le bonheur. The second will include Vagabond [Sans toit ni loi] and The Beaches of Agnès [Les plages d'Agnès], as well as the harder-to-find Jacquot de Nantes, a film inspired by the childhood of her late husband Jacques Demy, and L'une chante, l'autre pas [One Sings, the Other Doesn't], both available for the first time on DVD with English subtitles. Here's hoping Volume 3 contains the works Varda did with Jane Birkin in the 1980s (Jane B. par Agnès V., Kung-fu master!), Les créatures with Catherine Deneuve, Michel Piccoli and Eva Dahlbeck and her exceptionally rare Lions Love, which features Varda along with Viva, Eddie Constantine, Shirley Clarke, Jim Morrison, Peter Bogdanovich, Gerome Ragni and James Rado.

Artificial Eye announced a few other titles for 2010 in addition to the Varda set and Antichrist, which I mentioned before: Peter Strickland's Katalin Varga (22 February), Marco Bechis' Birdwatchers (25 January) and Andrea Arnold's Fish Tank (25 January). The latter brings me to the topic of the ongoing Decade List project, which (conceivably) only has two-and-a-half months left to go. So far, Fish Tank is my favorite official 2009 release, and I plan to write about it soon, which means that all the years from 00-09 are fair game. There are some significant omissions on the list so far, but I'm still open to more suggestions as the year approaches its close. I've already got a number of entries lined up, and a stack of DVDs ready for watching... so don't hesitate to throw a suggestion or seven my way.

And, just so you know, Lars von Trier's Dogville, Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Tropical Malady, Andrew Bujalski's Mutual Appreciation, the Dardenne brothers' L'enfant, Cristi Puiu's The Death of Mr. Lăzărescu [Moartea domnului Lăzărescu], Claire Denis' L'intrus [The Intruder], Richard Linklater's Before Sunset, Michael Haneke's Caché, François Ozon's Le temps qui reste [Time to Leave], Kim Ki-duk's Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring, Bertrand Bonello's Tiresia and Andrei Zvyagintsev's The Return are all on their way.

Retourne-toi: Post-Cannes

Though it was barely more than a month ago, I haven't seen a whole lot of post-Cannes coverage anywhere. And maybe that's because not a whole lot has stirred since then. I have uncovered some details about US releases of a few of the titles. Sony, maybe predictably, plans Michael Haneke's Palme d'Or winning The White Ribbon for a week-long run in New York and Los Angeles on Christmas, though I'm not clear if it will expand from there or wait, à la The Class, a couple months before showing up elsewhere.

IFC will unleash Antichrist this October, before Halloween, On Demand as well as in NY and LA, though the Variety article didn't mention anything about the Uncut vs. "Catholic" version of the film. Jane Campion's Bright Star still looks to be the first release from the late Picturehouse's former president Bob Berney's new company, which is still nameless. A September date is expected.

Ken Loach's Looking for Eric has a tentative 2009 release date from IFC, while Cristian Mungiu's Tales from the Golden Age will, more than likely, be out early 2010. I also heard that IFC snatched up Andrea Arnold's Fish Tank for a 2010 release, but I can't find an official announcement of that. So let's just hope so.

And closing out IFC's acquisitions from the fest thusfar is Marina de Van's critically savaged Don't Look Back [Ne te retourne pas] with Sophie Marceau and Monica Bellucci.

As for the pre-bought/produced titles, Almodóvar's Broken Embraces is locked for limited release date of 20 November from Sony Pictures Classics; Inglourious Basterds is still set for 21 August from The Weinstein Company, with Ang Lee's Taking Woodstock a week later from Focus. Focus is also releasing the first of the In Competition titles to play stateside, Park Chan-wook's Thirst, on 31 July.

Here Films, newly revised and expanding beyond their initial catalogue of solely gay flicks, nabbed Xavier Dolan's I Killed My Mother [J'ai tué ma mère], planned for early next year. No date seems to be set for Sony's release of Jacques Audiard's A Prophet [Un prophète].

And, though I don't think this is official information, it looks as though Strand might have picked up Lou Ye's Spring Fever. Strand also released the director's Suzhou River in the early part of the decade.

The In Competition titles still without a US distributor are then: Gaspar Noé's Enter the Void, Brillante Mendoza's Kinatay, Alain Resnais' Wild Grass [Les herbes folles], Isabel Coixet's Map of the Sounds of Tokyo, Elia Suleiman's The Time That Remains, Johnnie To's Vengeance, Marco Bellocchio's Vincere, Tsai Ming-liang's Visage and Xavier Giannoli's In the Beginning [À l'origine].

...which leads me to Toronto's unveiling of their first wave of titles to play at their International Film Festival in September. All (except maybe two) have premiered elsewhere before they'll screen in Toronto. Expect the announcement of the rest of the festival soon, including the world premieres, and additionally, the line-up for Venice which begins at the end of August.

From Cannes:

- Air Doll - d. Hirokazu Koreeda
- Eyes Wide Open - d. Haim Tabakman
- Face [Visage] - d. Tsai Ming-liang
- Fish Tank - d. Andrea Arnold
- Huaco - d. Alejandro Fernández Almendras
- Independencia - d. Raya Martin
- Irène - d. Alain Cavalier
- Karaoke - d. Chris Chong Chan Fui
- Like You Know It All - d. Hong Sang-soo
- Nymph - d. Pen-ek Ratanaruang
- La Pivellina - d. Tizza Covi, Rainer Frimmel
- Police, Adjective [Poliţist, adjectiv] - d. Corneliu Porumboiu
- Samson and Delilah - d. Warwick Thornton
- The Time That Remains - d. Elia Suleiman
- To Die Like a Man [Morrer Como Um Homem] - d. João Pedro Rodrigues
- Wild Grass [Les herbes folles] - d. Alain Resnais
- The Wind Journeys [Los viajes del viento] - d. Ciro Guerra

From Berlin:

- Eccentricities of a Blonde-haired Girl [Singularidades de uma Rapariga Loira] - d. Manoel de Oliveira
- Gigante - d. Adrián Biniez
- The Happiest Girl in the World [Cea mai fericita fata din lume] - d. Radu Jude

And Elsewhere:

- Kelen - d. Ermek Tursunov
- Lourdes - d. Jessica Hausner
- Men on the Bridge [Köprüdekiler] - d. Asli Özge
- Should I Really Do It? - d. Ismail Necmi

Cannes 2009: Haneke, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Andrea Arnold, Jacques Audiard Among the Winners

The jury, headed by Isabelle Huppert, handed out their awards this afternoon, with a few surprises, both good and bad. Jane Campion's Bright Star and Marco Bellocchio's Vincere went home empty-handed despite mostly universal acclaim from the reviews I read. The awards are as follows.

Palme d'Or: Das weiße Band [The White Ribbon] - d. Michael Haneke - Austria/Germany/France
Grand prix: Un prophète [A Prophet] - d. Jacques Audiard
Prix exceptionnel du Festival de Cannes: Alain Resnais - Les herbes folles [Wild Grass]
Prix du jury: (tie) Fish Tank - d. Andrea Arnold; Thirst - d. Park Chan-wook
Prix de la mise en scène [Best Director]: Brillante Mendoza - Kinatay
Prix d'interprétation féminine [Best Actress]: Charlotte Gainsbourg - Antichrist
Prix d'interprétation masculine [Best Actor]: Christophe Waltz - Inglourious Basterds
Prix du scénario [Best Screenplay]: Ye Lou - Spring Fever
Caméra d'Or: Samson and Delilah - d. Warwick Thornton - Australia
Caméra d'Or Mention Spéciale: Ajami - d. Scandar Copti, Yaron Shani - Israel/Germany

As for the acquisitions, only a few have been snatched up so far. Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds, Ang Lee's Taking Woodstock and Park Chan-wook's Thirst were produced by The Weinstein Company and Focus Features, respectively. IFC Films took three films so far: Lars von Trier's Antichrist, Ken Loach's Looking for Eric and Tales from the Golden Age, from Romania. Sony Pictures Classics has the Palme d'Or and the Grand prix winners, as well as the fest's out-of-competition closer Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky and Pedro Almodóvar's Broken Embraces [Los abrazos rotos], which they bought a few months back. It's rumored that Bright Star will be the first release for a new company from Picturehouse's former head. I'll be posting more acquisitions in the coming weeks as they're announced.

Cannes 2009 Line-Up

Heavy competition at this year's Cannes Film Festival, which was announced earlier today in France. As stated earlier, the new Pixar 3D film Up! will open the fest, and it will be closed by that other Coco Chanel film Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky, from director Jan Kounen (Dobermann) with Anna Mouglalis and Mads Mikkelsen. New films from a number of previous Palme d'Or winners will screen in competition, from Lars von Trier (Dancer in the Dark), Jane Campion (The Piano), Quentin Tarantino (Inglorious Basterds) and Ken Loach (The Wind That Shakes the Barley). More films in the other various programs will be announced tomorrow. Actress Isabelle Huppert is the head of this year's jury.

In Competition

Bright Star - dir. Jane Campion - UK/Australia/France - with Paul Schneider, Kerry Fox, Abbie Cornish

Spring Fever - dir. Ye Lou - China/France

Antichrist - dir. Lars von Trier - Denmark/Sweden/France/Italy - with Willem Dafoe, Charlotte Gainsbourg

Enter the Void - dir. Gaspar Noé - France/Japan

Face [Visages] - dir. Tsai Ming-liang - France/Taiwan/Netherlands/Belgium - with Laetitia Casta, Lee Kang-sheng, Mathieu Amalric, Jeanne Moreau, Fanny Ardant, Jean-Pierre Léaud, Nathalie Baye

Les herbes folles - dir. Alain Resnais - France/Italy - with André Dussollier, Emmanuelle Devos, Sabine Azéma, Mathieu Amalric, Anne Consigny

À l'origine [In the Beginning] - dir. Xavier Giannoli - France - with Gérard Depardieu, Emmanuelle Devos, François Cluzet

Un prophète [A Prophet] - dir. Jacques Audiard - France - with Tahar Rahim, Niels Arestrup

The White Ribbon [Das weiße Band] - dir. Michael Haneke - Austria/Germany/France - with Susanne Lothar, Ulrich Tukur

Vengeance - dir. Johnnie To - France/Hong Kong/USA - with Johnny Hallyday, Simon Yam, Sylvie Testud

The Time That Remains - dir. Elia Suleiman - Israel/France/Belgium/Italy

Vincere - dir. Marco Bellocchio - Italy/France - with Giovanna Mezzogiorno

Kinatay - dir. Brillante Mendoza - Philippines

Thirst - dir. Park Chan-wook - South Korea/USA - with Eriq Ebouaney, Song Kang-ho

Los abrazos rotos [Broken Embraces] - dir. Pedro Almodóvar - Spain - with Penélope Cruz, Ángela Molina, Lola Dueñas, Rubén Ochandiano, Blanca Portillo, Rossy de Palma, Chus Lampreave

Map of the Sounds of Tokyo - dir. Isabel Coixet - Spain - with Rinko Kikuchi, Sergi López

Fish Tank - dir. Andrea Arnold - UK/Netherlands - with Michael Fassbender, Harry Treadaway

Looking for Eric - dir. Ken Loach - UK/France/Italy/Belgium

Inglourious Basterds - dir. Quentin Tarantino - USA - with Brad Pitt, Samuel L. Jackson, Diane Kruger, Mike Myers, Eli Roth, Cloris Leachman, Til Schweiger, Michael Fassbender, Maggie Cheung, Daniel Brühl

Taking Woodstock - dir. Ang Lee - USA - with Demetri Martin, Liev Schreiber, Emile Hirsch, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Paul Dano, Eugene Levy, Kelli Garner, Imelda Staunton, Katherine Waterson

Out of Competition

Drag Me to Hell - dir. Sam Raimi - USA - with Justin Long, Alison Lohman

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus - dir. Terry Gilliam - France/Canada - with Heath Ledger, Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell, Christopher Plummer, Jude Law, Tom Waits

Agora - dir. Alejandro Amenábar - USA/Spain - with Rachel Weisz

Contemplating/Fearing/Desiring Viewer Interactivity

Oh, my darling Death Proof. Watching you again, in your extended home video cut without your âme soeur Planet Terror, just confuses me. Exhilarating as you always were, do you really need to exist the way you do? Upon four viewings (two in the theatre, two at home), I'm still not sure where you belong. While I wholly understand the business aspect of the Weinstein Company's decision to divide up Grindhouse for the video market, especially after it performed dismally at the domestic box office, but where exactly should I find Death Proof? Should it always follow a machine-gun legged Rose McGowan destroying zombies, or is it okay that I skip that hour and a half and dive head-first into Quentin Tarantino's love song to Dirty Mary Crazy Larry and Vanshing Point?

I think the answer to that question is simple. It's perfectly acceptable to jump ahead, as (especially on repeat viewings) Death Proof always has more to offer than Robert Rodriguez's half of Grindhouse. However, with this "extended" version, the question of finite viewing and definitive editions (when announced by the filmmaker, not the studio) comes into play. While I smile endlessly on my sofa seeing Vanessa Ferlito perform her lap dance for Kurt Russell, I saw myself reaching for the fast-forward button once the black-and-white introduction to our second troupe of vixens begun after it was thankfully absent from the theatrical version. So what am I to do? As the theatrical is available streaming on Netflix (still not on DVD), do I settle for a lap dance-free version? Or do I chose to endure the tedious middle-segment that brings GrindhouseDeath Proof to a screeching hault? I could say the same about the entire French plantation sequence (and all of the fully-lit shots of Brando) in Apocalypse Now Redux.

There's no easy answer to this question, but the reason I bring it up is to address this growing issue with no real solution. Where is home video viewing headed? I recall my viewing of the woefully messy but not without its charm Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist about a week and a half ago. Riddled with bad editing decisions, particularly in its awkward use of music (not exactly its use of awkward music, as director Peter Sollett appears ill-at-ease to place the music cohesively within the film's diegesis), could I, someone who never successfully made a film over fifteen minutes long, re-shape Nick & Norah into a much better film? If given the power to sort through the raw material, I firmly believe that I could have salvaged a more suitable film out of Nick & Norah. I would have ended the film at that final, lovely kiss down the escalator instead of dollying the camera out of the train station to close the film on a shot of a New York City morning skyline. I might have omitted the silly missed connections when Nick (Michael Cera), Norah (Kat Dennings) and gay company lose drunkard Caroline (Ari Graynor, who does provide some of the film's few genuine laughs). I probably would have cut most of Alexis Dziena's character from the whole thing and likely reworked the soundtrack completely, although I suppose it was consistently harmless; there wouldn't be a "cameo" from Bishop Allen in my version. Nick & Norah also seems to exist in some fairytale New York City where high schoolers, even those not with the big record producer's kin, get into bars and wander the streets at all hours with little danger. It all sort of makes sense when you realize the big goal of the entire evening is to see a mythical band that was made up for the book/film. However, doesn't this contrived fairytale make you long for the sort of fantasies of the 90s independent scene in which Ethan Hawke could find a pretty, charming French girl who not only spoke perfect English but was also willing to spend an entire night with his lame ass?

Flash-in-the-pan musical acts are staples of studio soundtracks, particularly those geared at the iPod teen set, and I don't doubt that you could find Vampire Weekend and Band of Horses in more than just a handful of high schoolers' mp3 libraries, but aren't you secretly judging both Nick and Norah on their musical tastes as much as their peers would? So then, wouldn't you be rooting for their inevitable love to blossom if you knew they listened to really awesome music? Yes, had Norah been a die-hard PJ Harvey fan and Nick obsessed with Marc Bolan, I probably would have cared a lot more. Aside from a mention of The Cure and The Rolling Stones at brief moments, very few "real bands" leave the characters' lips. Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist is begging for some sort of "Remix Edition" where viewers can upload their own playlist to bring the protagonists even closer to their hearts.

How long will it be before we can make our own versions of films on home video? I'm sure fanboys would jump at the chance to remove Jar Jar Binks and Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman's forced romance out of their beloved Star Wars, just as much as I would love to say goodbye to that weepy, cheap ending to Andrea Arnold's otherwise-astounding Red Road. Does a final version even exist in the world of home video any more? Do I really want to have these interactive thoughts rolling around in my head?