More Posters from Cannes

I made a crude collage of the six that I could only find in thumbnail-size. For all of your Cannes needs, check the official site, and also IFC Daily as David Hudson collects reviews and commentary on the films (I'm especially happy to hear Andrea Arnold's Fish Tank has been met with a lot of enthusiasm).

Adventures In Miscellaneous Pointlessness: Shopping With No Money

The fifth season finale of Lost aired in the US last night, but it's still hanging in the air for us UKers. To a lesser extent, so did the finale of America's Next Top Model (go Allison and/or Aminat!!!). Therefore I'm hiding from the Internets in order to avoid spoilers, which I've managed to stumble upon for the past two years running. Easier said than done, as Digital Crack is unavoidable in our home, even with a computer that breaks down more often than a car in a horror movie. (Tip for readers: never buy Dell!)

So I stepped out this morning to buy broccoli (The Fart-Inducing Green Brain of the vegetable world), and browse in shops, rather than run the risk of absent-mindedly opening Twitter and seeing something spoilery. Browsing in shops is fun when you have money. When you don't? Not so much. Anyway, to pass the time I took bad pictures of things that caught my eye, using the iPhone. And now I'm sticking them on the Internet to distract myself from the excitement about the finale of ZOMGLOST, which I'm hoping will be ten times better than the finale of Fringe and twelve times better than the finale of Dollhouse.

How in the hell did this become so cheap so quickly? Hasn't it only been out for about six months, and it's being sold for tiny pounds? I thought this would be much more successful. Everybody likes horror games based loosely on almost-competent Paul W.S. Anderson films, right?


Maybe it would have been more successful if it came with an in-game option to throw Sean Pertwee out of an airlock. Of course I'm being terribly glib. I know this was partially written by Warren "Evil" Ellis, and so has the mark of excellence branded on it. More than anything else I saw today, this almost convinced me to spend money on something that wasn't essential, like bills, or medicine for me and my cat, or Allman Brothers Band downloads for Rock Band, or broccoli.

Usually when I browse in game shops, the prices never seem to come down. Today? It seemed like the recession finally convinced shops to drop game prices, which is one good thing about the crunch, I guess. There were bargains everywhere, and not just in the Pre-Owned racks. This caught my eye, however.


Yet another Red Storm game, only this time one that is based on a movie adaptation of a Jack Ryan novel instead of being directly developed by Tom Clancy and his team of macho pro-army coders. Clancy is a total gaming whore (in a good way), developing dozens of average-to-great games over the years. Something tells me that a first-person shooter based on a very dull movie by an otherwise intriguing director (Phil Alden Robinson, improbably enough) is not going to be listed up there with Splinter Cell or Rainbow Six. It did make me wonder if there was scope to develop games based on other Phil Alden Robinson movies:

• Sneakers - Give me the controller, right now, or I will shoot you, right now! Guide your team of hackers, security experts, and piano teachers through a series of heavily guarded facilities in search of gadgets and doodads that do very exciting things to computers. Levels include: avoid a trace on a phonecall for one whole minute! Solve multiple anagrams using Scrabble tiles! Drive a van across town with no visual aids whatsoever (the first entirely pitch black game level ever devised)! Try to convince Sidney Poitier to explain just why he was thrown out of the CIA! Have long chat with Sir Ben Kingsley and his stylish ponytail! Bonus level includes first-person-shooter scenario inside the Setec Astronomy moonbase.


• All Of Me - Get out of my mind, Lily Tomlin! Guide Steve Martin through LA while the controls on your joypad are randomised to mimic the disruptive influence of body-sharing crank Tomlin! Bonus level includes first-person-shooter scenario inside Steve Martin's brain.


• Field of Dreams - You've built it, but will they come? A baseball simulation featuring many famous disgraced players of yesteryear. Featuring voicework from Kevin Costner, James Earl Jones, Billy Crystal, Ray Liotta, Amy Madigan, Jimmy Smits, Patti LuPone, and Timothy Busfield, and expanding on the franchise campaigns of Football Manager and the Madden series, you are given the task of earning enough money to keep a baseball stadium and a farm going over several years. Bonus level includes first-person-shooter scenario where Costner has to shoot the tears caused by the heartwarming final shot of a million hippies visiting the farm.

I can say, with full confidence, that those games would be better than this.


Fuck you for allowing this to happen, Nintendo. (ETA: I just noticed the title of the game isn't even grammatical. GAH RAGE!)

It wasn't all browsing for games. Zack Snyder's movie adaptation of Moore and Gibbons' Watchmen split nerd opinion down the middle, often within the same nerd. I liked some of it, but was utterly unmoved by it in the long run. A shame, as Snyder was obviously expended a lot of effort to recreate the shell of it, though he didn't seem to have figured out what was supposed to go inside, i.e. a point to the whole thing other than slavish imitation. Even if you really hated the movie, however, you could console yourself with the thought that the original book was still there, and remained unsullied by the film. Until now.


I don't know if that t-shirt design is really drawn by Dave Gibbons, but the thought that his wonderful character designs are being slowly replaced in the popular mind by the faces of these actors upsets me greatly. Far more than is deserved, I'm sure, but still, it's a dick move by DC and Warners. If Gibbons did draw it, I hope he got paid well.

Speaking of movie adaptations, here's something for every miserable emo teenager in your family; yet more Twilight merch!


Here is an exclusive excerpt from the book, just to give you a taste of what's inside:

Monday 3rd. Just got back to my trailer after a hard day half-assing it. Much harder than I thought it would be. The director of photography kept making things harder by putting the camera in some really interesting places, but that's missing the point. Teenagers see the world as an ugly place, and so we have to make sure that the movie is as ugly as possible. If I could switch off the lights altogether, that would be perfect, but no one will let me even though I'm the fucking director. Even so I've managed to drain the film of as much colour as possible. The rest can be removed in post. Director of photography is unhappy about this, but I'm in charge, dammit!

Tuesday 4th. My teenage stars were wonderful today. Almost none of the dialogue was audible, with Kristin doing a great job of turning all of Melissa Rosenberg's words into exasperated noises and facial twitches. Robert was even better. There was one shot where his eyes bugged out of his head for about two minutes straight! I think it was acting, though he might have been expressing horror at Stephenie turning up on set to stalk him again. She's getting really good at avoiding security.

Wednesday 5th. Big effects sequence to be filmed today! I'll let someone else handle that.

Thursday 6th. Robert keeps giving interviews about how stupid Twilight is, and how much he resents being in the film. If I wasn't so entranced by his beautiful hair and unnecessarily complicated face, I'd fire his ass. Kristin is much easier to work with, though it's getting harder and harder to keep her awake during takes. Oh, the glamourous life of a film director!

I have a terrible feeling there will be some poor emo girl who will stumble across this blog and be very very upset. It will look something like this picture I spotted on the way home.


Don't cry, little emo girl! I'm sure there will be another Paramore album coming out soon.

And now, LOST FINALE!!! You'd better rock my world, TV show.

Sony and IFC, predictably, make the first Cannes purchases

Sony Pictures Classics has already nabbed Michael Haneke's The White Ribbon [Das weiße Band] and Jan Kounen's Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky before they've officially premiered. I wonder if they purchased the latter to avoid issues with the other Chanel biopic, Coco avant Chanel, which they also own. Thanks Eric.

IFC has only picked up one thusfar, the Romanian omnibus Tales from the Golden Age, which is co-directed by Cristian Mungiu, whose 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days was also handled stateside by the company. Expect plenty more purchases in the coming two weeks, and expect most of them to come from Sony and IFC.

Fire Walk With Me on Blu-ray (in the UK... maybe) + Region 2 DVD Update for France

Now, I ain't tryin' to start any rumors or anything, but Amazon.co.uk does have a listing for Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me on Blu-ray, set for 14 September. Is this the long-rumored, long-pined-for edition fans have always wanted, or is it just a bare-bones release, or is it incorrect information altogether? I guess you'll have to keep an eye on that page for updates. As for more UK discs, I'll be posting those either tonight or tomorrow. Right now, I have a number of notable (or maybe not notable as I wasn't familiar with a few of these) DVD and Blu-ray releases from France which were released this year. Of course, I'm missing some of them; and of course, I omitted quite a few (usually in the realm of B westerns). And, as for the pending releases, I have gotten bogus information from DVDrama (they still have the film Le lien listed as Bergman's The Touch, when it's actually a WWII-era made-for-tv drama) and Amazon.fr (they still have a DVD for a film called Les possédés listed as the Andrzej Wajda/Isabelle Huppert film from 1988, though it certainly is not that) before, so there's a possibility that some of the distant titles won't come out.

Note 1: The most exciting release(s) I discovered was two films from Eduardo de Gregorio, one of Jacques Rivette's screenwriting collaborators on Céline and Julie Go Boating, Duelle, Noroît and Merry-Go-Round. From the little I could find about the films, Sérail [Surreal Estate] appears to be a companion piece to Céline and Julie (it also stars Bulle Ogier and Marie-France Pisier, and La mémoire courte [Short Memory] stars Ogier, Nathalie Baye and even Rivette himself. Both are scheduled to be released on 18 June (I couldn't find a studio listing), so I'll let you know if I hear more regarding these two. I also didn't include the 4 Oshima films that Carlotta released in March, but you can find them here.

Note 2: A number of these are re-issues (I know for certain all of Wild Side's releases on 1 June are such), as France seems to repackage their earlier releases more than we do in the US, and of course all of these films are subject to date changes, delays and cancellations without notice here. There might also be some studio errors as Amazon.fr isn't particularly helpful in that regard. You should also note, if you don't speak French, that most of these discs will likely not have English subtitles. I would direct you to ecranlarge to get substantial information about the DVDs, but as it's all in French, that would sort of defeat the purpose, eh? I hope this is help to someone; boredom can be a plague.

Also available on Blu-ray. As of today, MIA on DVD in the US (though some titles that are not in bold print might be out-of-print). They are listed in descending order of release date, with the Blu-ray only releases at the bottom.

* The Living End - Remixed and Remastered - d. Gregg Araki - 8 January - BQHL
* Totally Fucked Up - d. Gregg Araki - 8 January - BQHL - w. James Duval, Alan Boyce
* Whatever Lola Wants - d. Nabil Ayouch - 14 January - Fox Pathé Europa
* Mange-moi [Dein Herz in meinem Hirn / Your Heart in My Head] - d. Rosa von Praunheim - 20 January - Les films de l'ange
* Si c'était à refaire [If I Had to Do It All Over Again] - d. Claude Lelouch - 21 January - Opening - w. Catherine Deneuve, Anouk Aimée
* Vivre pour vivre [Life for Life] - d. Claude Lelouch - 21 January - Opening - w. Yves Montand, Candice Bergen, Annie Girardot
* Intimités [Intimitäten] - d. Lukas Schmid - 21 January - Optimale - w. Jörg Andreas
* Nos 18 ans - d. Frédéric Berthe - 22 January - TF1 Vidéo - w. Bernadette Lafont, Maruschka Detmers
* Le premier jour du reste de ta vie [The First Day of the Rest of Your Life] - d. Rémi Bezançon - 27 January - Studio Canal - w. Jacques Gamblin, Zabou Breitman, Déborah François, Marc-André Grondin - also on Blu-ray
* Rien dans les poches - d. Marion Vernoux - 29 January - TF1 Vidéo - w. Emma de Caunes, Lio, Alain Chabat, Nicolas Duvauchelle, Émilie Dequenne, Romain Goupil, Brigitte Sy, Esther Garrel

* Mariage à l'italienne [Matrimonio all'italiana / Marriage Italian-Style] - d. Vittorio de Sica - 4 February - Carlotta - w. Sophia Loren, Marcello Mastroianni
* Fragments sur la grâce - d. Vincent Dieutre - 4 February - Éditions Montparnasse - w. Mathieu Amalric
* Bloody Kids [One Joke Too Many] - d. Stephen Frears - 8 February - BQHL
* Une flamme dans mon coeur [A Flame in My Heart] - d. Alain Tanner - 13 February - LJC Éditions
* Parlez-moi de la pluie [Let It Rain] - d. Agnès Jaoui - 17 March - Studio Canal - w. Jaoui, Jean-Pierre Bacri, Jamel Debbouze - also on Blu-ray
* L'empreinte de l'ange [Mark of an Angel] - d. Safy Nebbou - 19 February - TF1 Vidéo - w. Sandrine Bonnaire, Catherine Frot - also on Blu-ray
* Telepolis [La antena] - d. Esteban Sapir - 19 February - mk2
* Viridiana - d. Luis Buñuel - 20 February - Sidonis - w. Silvia Pinal
* Capitaine Mystère [Captain Lightfoot] - d. Douglas Sirk - 21 February - Carlotta - w. Rock Hudson
* Surveillance - d. Jennifer Chambers Lynch - 24 February - Wild Side Vidéo - w. Julia Ormond, Bill Pullman

* Inju, la bête dans l'ombre [Inju: The Beast in the Shadow] - d. Barbet Schroeder - 25 March - UGC - w. Benoît Magimel
* La fille de Monaco [The Girl from Monaco] - d. Anne Fontaine - 25 February - Warner - w. Fabrice Luchini, Roschdy Zem
* Antarctica - d. Yair Hochner - 25 February - Optimale
* L'expédition [Abhijaan / The Expedition] - d. Satyajit Ray - 26 February - Epicentre Films
* Back Soon [Skrapp út] - d. Sólveig Anspach - 3 March - BAC Vidéo
* Martyrs - d. Pascal Laugier - 4 March - Wild Side Vidéo - w. Mylène Jampanï, Morgane Alaoui, Catherine Bégin - also on Blu-ray
* Comme les autres - d. Vincent Garenq - 4 March - Gaumont - w. Lambert Wilson, Pilar López de Ayala, Pascal Elbé - also on Blu-ray
* Les amitiés particulières [This Special Friendship] - d. Jean Delannoy - 4 March - Europeart
* Affreux, sales et méchants [Brutti sporchi e cattivi / Ugly Dirty and Bad] - d. Ettore Scola - 4 March - Opening
* Be happy [Happy-Go-Lucky] - d. Mike Leigh - 5 March - mk2 - w. Sally Hawkins, Eddie Marsan

* Le sel de la mer [Salt of This Sea] - d. Annemarie Jacir - 5 March - Pyramide Distribution - w. Suheir Hammad, Saleh Bakri
* Swoon - d. Tom Kalin - 6 March - BQHL - w. Craig Chester
* Souvenir [A Thousand Cranes] - d. Im Kwon-taek - 11 March - Warner
* Le silence de Lorna [Lorna's Silence / The Silence of Lorna] - d. the Dardenne brothers - 17 March - blaq out - w. Arta Dobroshi, Jérémie Renier
* Les 7 jours [Shiva / The Seven Days] - d. Ronit Elkabetz, Shlomi Elkabetz - 19 March - TF1 Vidéo - w. Ronit Elkabetz, Simon Abkarian
* Rumba - d. Dominique Abel, Fiona Gordon, Bruno Romy - 19 March - TF1 Vidéo
* Un autre homme, une autre chance [Another Man, Another Chance] - d. Claude Lelouch - 24 March - Opening - w. James Caan, Geneviève Bujold, Susan Tyrell
* Entre les murs [The Class] - d. Laurent Cantet - 24 March - France Télévisions - also on Blu-ray
* La vie, l'amour, la mort [Life Love Death] - d. Claude Lelouch - 24 March - Opening
* Un homme qui me plaît [Love Is a Funny Thing] - d. Claude Lelouch - 24 March - Opening - w. Jean-Paul Belmondo, Annie Girardot

* Vinyan - d. Fabrice Du Welz - 1 April - Wild Side Vidéo - w. Emmanuelle Béart, Rufus Sewell
* De la guerre [On War] - d. Bertrand Bonello - 2 April - mk2 - w. Mathieu Amalric, Asia Argento, Guillaume Depardieu, Clotilde Hesme, Michel Piccoli, Aurore Clément, Elina Löwensohn, Laurent Lucas, Léa Seydoux
* La belle personne - d. Christophe Honoré - 2 April - TF1 Vidéo - w. Louis Garrel, Léa Seydoux, Grégoire Leprince-Ringuet
* Pirates - d. Roman Polanski - 2 April - TF1 Vidéo - w. Walter Matthau - also on Blu-ray
* Séraphine - d. Martin Provost - 2 April - Diaphana - w. Yolande Moreau, Ulrich Tukur - also on Blu-ray
* Le cahier [Buddha Collapsed Out of Shame] - d. Hana Makhmalbaf - 2 April - TF1 Vidéo
* Hansel & Gretel - d. Yim Pil-sung - 2 April - Wild Side Vidéo
* Un monde à nous - d. Frédéric Balekdjian - 8 April - Studio 37 - w. Edouard Baer
* La Chine [Chunf Kuo - Cina / China] - d. Michelangelo Antonioni - 8 April - Carlotta
* La voce della luna [The Voice of the Moon] / Fellini: Je suis un grand menteur [Fellini: I'm a Born Liar] - Édition Collector - d. Federico Fellini / Damian Pettigrew - 8 April - Opening

* Vicky Cristina Barcelona - d. Woody Allen - 8 April - Warner - w. Javier Bardem, Rebecca Hall, Scarlett Johansson, Penélope Cruz - also on Blu-ray
* Yol - d. Yilmaz Güney, Serif Gören - 8 April - Films sans frontières
* Versailles - d. Pierre Schöller - 8 April - Sony - w. Guillaume Depardieu
* Premières neiges [Snijeg / Snow] - d. Aida Begic - 16 April - Pyramide Distribution
* Une histoire italienne [Sanguepazzo / Wise Blood] - d. Marco Tullio Giordana - 19 April - Océan Films - w. Monica Bellucci
* Kes - d. Ken Loach - 20 April - Les films du paradoxe
* Mademoiselle - d. Tony Richardson - 20 April - Doriane Films - w. Jeanne Moreau
* Salò ou les 120 journées de Sodome [Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma / Salò, or The 120 Days of Sodom] - Édition Ultime - d. Pier Paolo Pasolini - 22 April - Carlotta - also on Blu-ray
* Carnet de notes pour une orestie africaine [Appunti per una Orestiade africana / Notes for an African Orestes] - d. Pier Paolo Pasolini - 22 April - Carlotta
* Exhibition - d. Jean-François Davy - 5 May - Les films de ma vie

* The Element of Crime / Epidemic / Europa [Zentropa] - d. Lars von Trier - 5 May - Les films de ma vie
* Les chemins de la gloire [The Road to Glory] - d. Howard Hawks - 5 May - Les films de ma vie - w. Lionel Barrymore
* Bungalow pour femmes [The Revolt of Mamie Stover] - d. Raoul Walsh - 5 May - Les films de ma vie - w. Jane Russell
* Amants et fils [Sons & Lovers] - d. Jack Cardiff - 5 May - Les films de ma vie - w. Dean Stockwell
* O.H.M.S. [You're in the Army Now] - d. Raoul Walsh - 5 May - Les films de ma vie
* Serbis - d. Brillante Mendoza - 6 May - Equation
* L'héritière [The Heiress] - d. William Wyler - 6 May - Carlotta - w. Olivia de Havilland, Montgomery Clift
* La vie moderne [Profils paysans: La vie moderne / Modern Life] - d. Raymond Depardon - 6 May - Arte Vidéo - also on Blu-ray
* La passante du Sans-Souci [The Passerby] - d. Jacques Rouffio - 7 May - TF1 Vidéo - w. Romy Schneider, Michel Piccoli
* Parfum de femme [Profumo di donna / Scent of a Woman] - d. Dino Risi - 7 May - TF1 Vidéo - w. Vittorio Gassman

* Le lit conjugal [L'ape regina / The Conjugal Bed] - d. Marco Ferreri - 7 May - TF1 Vidéo - w. Ugo Tognazzi
* Possession - d. Andrzej Żuławski - 7 May - TF1 Vidéo - w. Isabelle Adjani, Sam Neill, Margit Carstensen
* Lake Tahoe - d. Fernando Eimbcke - 7 May - mk2
* La forêt de Mogari [The Mourning Forest] - d. Naomi Kawase - 7 May - mk2
* Poison - d. Todd Haynes - 11 May - BQHL
* Dream Boy - d. James Bolton - 13 May - Optimale
* Passion d'amour [Passione d'amore] - d. Ettore Scola - 15 May - LCJ Éditions - w. Bernard Girardot, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Laura Antonelli
* Les yeux sans visage [Eyes Without a Face] - d. Georges Franju - 19 May - Gaumont - w. Pierre Brasseur, Alida Valli, Edith Scob
* La grande menace [The Medusa Touch] - d. Jack Gold - 19 May - Arcades Vidéo - w. Richard Burton, Lino Ventura, Lee Remick
* L'hôtel de la plage - d. Michel Lang - 19 May - Gaumont - w. Guy Marchand, Anne Parillaud

* La gifle [The Slap] - d. Claude Pinoteau - 19 May - Gaumont - w. Lino Venutra, Annie Girardot, Isabelle Adjani
* Moscow, Belgium [Aanrijding in Moscou] - d. Christophe Van Rompaey - 19 May - BAC Vidéo
* Les marmottes [The Groundhogs] - d. Elie Chouraqui - 19 May - BAC Vidéo - w. Jean-Hughes Anglade, Jacqueline Bisset, André Dussollier, Gérard Lanvin, Marie Trintignant, Anouk Aimée, Virginie Ledoyen
* Phantom of the Paradise - 2-disc special edition - d. Brian De Palma - 19 May - Opening
* La femme fardée - d. José Pinheiro - 19 May - BAC Vidéo - w. Jeanne Moreau, André Dussollier, Laura Morante
* Hoa-Binh [The Bamboo Incident] - d. Raoul Coutard- 19 May - Opening
* Retour à la bien-aimée [Return to the Beloved] - d. Jean-François Adam - 19 May - Opening - w. Isabelle Huppert, Jacques Dutronc, Bruno Ganz
* Halfaouine - d. Férid Boughedir - 19 May - Aventi
* Quatre nuits avec Anna [Cztery noce z Anna / Four Nights with Anna] - d. Jerzy Skolimowski - 20 May - France Télévisions
* Dernier maquis - d. Rabah Ameur-Zaïmeche - 20 May - Arte Vidéo

* Home Sweet Home - d. Didier Le Pêcheur - 20 May - France Télévisions - w. Judith Godrèche
* Tokyo! - d. Leos Carax, Bong Joon-ho, Michel Gondry - 20 May - mk2 - w. Denis Lavant, Sohee Park
* Stella - d. Sylvie Verheyde - 20 May - Diaphana - w. Benjamin Biolay, Guillaume Depardieu, Johan Libéreau, Karole Rocher
* L'homme a 1000 visages [Man of a Thousand Faces] - d. Joseph Pevney - 20 May - Carlotta - w. James Cagney, Dorothy Malone
* Les enfants sont partis [El nido vacío / Empty Nest] - d. Daniel Burman - 20 May - Océan Films - w. Cecilia Roth, Inés Efron
* Repulsion / Le couteau dans l'eau [Nóz w wodzie / Knife in the Water] / Cul-de-sac - d. Roman Polanski - 20 May - Opening
* Le général est mort à l'aube [The General Died at Dawn] - d. Lewis Milestone - 20 May - Opening - w. Gary Cooper
* Âmes à la mer [Souls at Sea] - d. Henry Hathaway - 20 May - Opening - w. Gary Cooper
* Two Lovers - d. James Gray - 26 May - Wild Side Vidéo - w. Joaquin Phoenix, Gwyneth Paltrow, Vinessa Shaw - also Blu-ray
* La loi de la haine [The Last Hard Men] - d. Andrew V. McLaglen - 27 May - Fox Pathé Europa - w. Charlton Heston, James Coburn, Barbara Hershey

* Body and Soul - d. Robert Rossen - 1 June - Wild Side Vidéo
* Double énigme [The Dark Mirror] - d. Robert Siodmak - 1 June - Wild Side Vidéo - w. Olivia de Havilland
* Lettre d'une inconnue [Letter from an Unknown Woman] - d. Max Ophüls - 1 June - Wild Side Vidéo - w. Joan Fontaine
* Le petit arpent du bon Dieu [God's Little Acre] - d. Anthony Mann - 1 June - Wild Side Vidéo
* Marché de brutes [Raw Deal] - d. Anthony Mann - 1 June - Wild Side Vidéo
* The Big Combo - d. Joseph H. Lewis - 1 June - Wild Side Vidéo - w. Cornel Wilde
* Le secret derrière la porte [Secret Beyond the Door] - d. Fritz Lang - 1 June - Wild Side Vidéo - w. Michael Redgrave
* House by the River - d. Fritz Lang - 1 June - Wild Side Vidéo
* Shock Corridor - d. Samuel Fuller - 1 June - Wild Side Vidéo - w. Constance Towers
* Caught - d. Max Ophüls - 1 June - Wild Side Vidéo - w. James Mason, Barbara Bel Geddes

* Macbeth - Version intégrale - d. Orson Welles - 1 June - Wild Side Vidéo - with Welles
* L'ange des maudits [Rancho Notorious] - d. Fritz Lang - 3 June - Films sans frontières - w. Marlene Dietrich
* Filatures [Eye in the Sky] - d. Yau Nai-Hoi - 4 June - TF1 Vidéo - w. Simon Yam, Tony Leung Ka Fai
* Le plaisir de chanter [The Joy of Singing] - d. Ilan Duran Cohen - 4 June - Pyramide Distribution - w. Jeanne Balibar, Nathalie Richard, Caroline Ducey
* Sparrow - d. Johnnie To - 4 June - TF1 Vidéo - w. Simon Yam, Kelly Lin
* Johnny Mad Dog - d. Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire - 4 June - TF1 Vidéo - also on Blu-ray
* Secret défense [Secrets of State] - d. Philippe Haïm - 10 June - UGC - w. Gérard Lanvin, Vahina Giocante, Nicolas Duvauchelle, Simon Abkarian, Aurélien Wiik - also on Blu-ray
* Sleep Dealer - d. Alex Rivera - 10 June - Fox Pathé Europa
* Hello Goodbye - dir. Graham Guit - 10 June - M6 Vidéo - w. Fanny Ardant, Gérard Depardieu, Lior Ashkenazi
* Baby Blues - d. Diane Bertrand - 10 June - France Télévisions - w. Karin Viard, Stefano Accorsi, Jean-Marc Barr

* Hunger - d. Steve McQueen - 11 June - mk2 - w. Michael Fassbender
* Tickets - d. Abbas Kiarostami, Ken Loach, Ermanno Olmi - 11 June - TF1 Vidéo - w. Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi
* La révolution française [The French Revolution] - d. Robert Enrico, Richard T. Heffron - 11 June - TF1 Vidéo - w. Klaus Maria Brandauer, Jane Seymour, François Cluzet, Peter Ustinov, Claudia Cardinale, Sam Neill, Vittorio Mezzogiorno, Jean-François Stévenin, Christopher Lee, Dominique Pinon, Michel Subor
* Mascarades [Masquerades] - d. Lyes Salem - 11 June - TF1 Vidéo
* Leonera [Lion's Den] - d. Pablo Trapero - 11 June - TF1 Vidéo - w. Martina Gusman, Elli Medeiros, Rodrigo Santoro
* Home - d. Ursula Meier - 16 June - blaq out - w. Isabelle Huppert, Olivier Gourmet
* Caos calmo [Quiet Chaos] - d. Antonio Luigi Grimaldi - 16 June - BAC Vidéo - w. Nanni Moretti, Valeria Golino
* La bande à Baader [Der Baader Meinhof Komplex / The Baader-Meinhof Complex] - d. Uli Edel - 16 June - Métropolitan Vidéo - w. Martina Gedeck, Moritz Bleibtreu - also on Blu-ray
* Timecrimes [Los cronocrímenes] - d. Nacho Vigalondo - 17 June - Fox Pathé Europa
* Mesrine 1ère partie: L'instinct de la mort [Mesrine: Killer Instinct] - d. Jean-François Richet - 17 June - Universal Studios - w. Vincent Cassel, Cécile De France, Gérard Depardieu, Gilles Lellouche, Roy Dupuis, Elena Anaya, Ludivine Sagnier - also on Blu-ray

* Sérail [Surreal Estate] - d. Eduardo de Gregorio - 18 June - w. Bulle Ogier, Leslie Caron, Marie-France Pisier, Corin Redgrave
* La mémoire courte [Short Memory] - d. Eduardo de Gregorio - 18 June - w. Nathalie Baye, Bulle Ogier, Jacques Rivette, Benoît Jacquot
* Le chant des mariées [The Wedding Song] - d. Karin Albou - 18 June - Pyramide Distribution - w. Albou, Simon Abkarian
* La terre des hommes rouges [BirdWatchers - La terra degli uomini rossi / BirdWatchers] - d. Marco Bechis - 19 June - Océan Films - w. Claudio Santamaria
* Le cousin - d. Alain Corneau - 23 June - Studio Canal - w. Alain Chabat, Samuel Le Bihan, Agnès Jaoui
* Pour elle [Anything for Her] - d. Fred Cavayé - 23 June - Wild Side Vidéo - w. Vincent Lindon, Diane Kruger
* Les vampires [I vampiri] - d. Riccardo Freda, Mario Bava - 24 June - Carlotta
* Duel au couteau [I coltelli del vendicatore / Knives of the Avenger] - d. Mario Bava - 24 June - Carlotta
* La baie sanglante [Reazione a catena / Bay of Blood] - d. Mario Bava - 24 June - Carlotta
* Lovers [Elegy] - d. Isabel Coixet - 24 June - Sony Pictures - w. Penélope Cruz, Ben Kingsley, Patricia Clarkson

* Il divo - d. Paolo Sorrentino - 1 July - Studio Canal - w. Toni Servillo
* Mesrine 2ème partie: L'ennemi public n°1 [Mesrine: Public Enemy No. 1] - d. Jean-François Richet - 1 July - Universal Studios - w. Vincent Cassel, Ludivine Sagnier, Mathieu Amalric, Gérard Lanvin, Samuel Le Bihan, Olivier Gourmet, Anne Consigny - also on Blu-ray, and also available in a set with L'instinct de la mort on both formats
* Le bon, la brute et le cinglé [The Good, the Bad, the Weird] - d. Kim Ji-woon - 2 July - TF1 Vidéo - w. Song Kang-ho, Lee Byung-hun, Hung Woo-sun - also on Blu-ray
* Che - 1ère partie - L'Argentin [Che: Part 1 - The Argentine] - d. Steven Soderbergh - 15 July - Warner - w. Benicio del Toro, Demián Bichir, Julia Ormond - also on Blu-ray
* Palindromes - d. Todd Solondz - 16 July - Diaphana - w. Jennifer Jason Leigh, Ellen Barkin
* Inland Empire - d. David Lynch - 28 July - Studio Canal - w. Laura Dern, et al.
* Carmen - d. Carlos Saura - 28 July - Studio Canal
* Harem - dir. Arthur Joffé - 28 July - Studio Canal - w. Nastassja Kinski, Ben Kingsley
* Central do Brasil [Central Station] - d. Walter Salles - 28 July - Studio Canal - w. Fernanda Montenegro
* Che - 2ème partie - Guerilla [Che: Part 2 - Guerilla] - d. Steven Soderbergh - 29 July - Warner - w. Benicio del Toro, Franka Potente, Demián Bichir, Catalina Sandino Moreno - also on Blu-ray

* Largo Winch - d. Jérôme Salle - 29 July - Wild Side Vidéo - w. Tomer Sisley, Kristin Scott Thomas, Miki Manojlovic, Gilbert Melki - also on Blu-ray
* Next Door [Naboer] - d. Pål Sletaune - 4 August - Studio Canal
* À l'est de moi [East of Me] - d. Bojena Horackova - 4 August - BAC Vidéo - w. Olga Kurylenko
* LOL (Laughing Out Loud) ® - d. Lisa Azuelos - 4 August - Fox Pathé Europa - w. Sophie Marceau - also on Blu-ray
* Diamant 13 [Diamond 13] - d. Gilles Béhat - 6 August - mk2 - with Gérard Depardieu, Asia Argento, Aïssa Maïga, Aurélien Recoing - also on Blu-ray
* La vallée des fleurs [Valley of Flowers] - d. Pan Nalin - 20 August - Diaphana - w. Mylène Jampanoï
* Un barrage contre le Pacifique [The Sea Wall] - d. Rithy Panh - 20 August - TF1 Vidéo - w. Isabelle Huppert, Gaspard Ulliel, Stéphane Rideau
* Le code a changé [Change of Plans] - d. Danièle Thompson - 25 August - Studio Canal - w. Karin Viard, Dany Boon, Marina Foïs, Patrick Bruel, Emmanuelle Seigner, Marina Hands - also on Blu-ray
* La vague [Die Welle / The Wave] - d. Dennis Gansel - 8 September - BAC Vidéo - w. Jürgen Vogel
* Welcome - d. Philippe Loiret - 11 September - Warner - w. Vincent Lindon - also on Blu-ray

* Harvey Milk [Milk] - d. Gus Van Sant - 16 September - M6 Vidéo - w. Sean Penn, James Franco, Josh Brolin - also on Blu-ray
* La journée de la jupe [Skirt Day] - d. Jean-Paul Lilienfeld - 25 September - Arte Vidéo - w. Isabelle Adjani
* Eden à l'ouest [Eden Is West] - d. Costa-Gavras - 11 October - Fox Pathé Europa - w. Riccardo Scamarcio
* OSS 117: Rio ne répond plus [OSS 117: Lost in Rio] - d. Michel Hazanavicius - 15 October - Gaumont - w. Jean Dujardin, Rüdiger Vogler - also on Blu-ray
* Coco avant Chanel [Coco Before Chanel] - d. Anne Fontaine - 22 October - Warner - w. Audrey Tautou, Benoît Poelvoorde, Alessandro Nivola, Emmanuelle Devos, Marie Gillain - also on Blu-ray
* Je l'aimais [Someone I Loved] - d. Zabou Breitman - 6 November - Warner - w. Daniel Auteuil, Marie-Josée Croze, Florence Loiret - also on Blu-ray

Blu-ray only releases

* La piscine [The Swimming Pool] - d. Jacques Deray - 14 January - M6 Vidéo - w. Alain Delon, Romy Schneider, Jane Birkin
* 36 Quai des Orfèvres - d. Olivier Marchal - 4 February - Gaumont - w. Daniel Auteuil, Gérard Depardieu, André Dussollier, Roschdy Zem, Valeria Golino, Daniel Duval, Francis Renaud
* Un thé au Sahara [The Sheltering Sky] - d. Bernardo Bertolucci - 17 February - BAC Vidéo - w. Debra Winger, John Malkovich, Campbell Scott
* Pulp Fiction - d. Quentin Tarantino - 19 March - TF1 Vidéo - w. John Travolta, Uma Thurman, Samuel L. Jackson, Bruce Willis, et al.
* Le labyrinthe de Pan [El laberinto del Fauno / Pan's Labyrinth] - d. Guillermo del Toro - 14 April - Wild Side Vidéo - w. Maribel Verdú, Sergi López
* Ridicule - d. Patrice Leconte - 15 April - Studio Canal - w. Charles Berling, Jean Rochefort, Fanny Ardant, Judtih Godrèche, Bernard Giraudeau
* Bound - d. the Wachowski brothers - 27 May - M6 Vidéo - w. Gina Gershon, Jennifer Tilly, Joe Pantoliano, Christopher Meloni
* Dune / Sailor et Lula [Wild at Heart] - d. David Lynch - 2 June - BAC Vidéo
* Dr. Folamour [Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb] - d. Stanley Kubrick - 10 June - Sony Pictures - w. Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden

* Nikita [La femme Nikita] / Léon [The Professional] / Le grand bleu [The Big Blue] / Atlantis - d. Luc Besson - 11 June - Gaumont
* Master and commander: De l'autre côté du monde [Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World] - d. Peter Weir - 17 June - Universal Studios - w. Russell Crowe, Paul Bettany, James D'Arcy
* Arizona Dream - d. Emir Kusutrica - 17 June - Studio Canal - w. Johnny Depp, Faye Dunaway, Jerry Lewis, Vincent Gallo, Lili Taylor, Pauline Prorizkova
* Dobermann - d. Jan Kounen - 17 June - Universal Studios - w. Vincent Cassel, Tchéky Karyo, Monica Bellucci, Romain Duris, Stéphane Metzger
* King Kong - d. John Guillermin - 17 June - Studio Canal - w. Jeff Bridges, Jessica Lange, Charles Grodin
* Le lauréat [The Graduate] - Édition Collector - d. Mike Nichols - 17 June - Studio Canal - w. Dustin Hoffman, Anne Bancroft
* Leaving Las Vegas - d. Mike Figgis - 17 June - Studio Canal - w. Nicolas Cage, Elisabeth Shue

The Decade List: demonlover (2002)

demonlover - dir. Olivier Assayas

There's a certain difficulty on critiquing the "now." There's always a risk of getting lost in the unknown, particularly as Olivier Assayas confronts the digital, Internet medium, with technology advancing and shifting at a rapid pace. With demonlover, the film should have by all counts felt stone-cased in its early-'00s when revisiting it, but it doesn't. At all. This is one of the many reasons why Assayas is such a gifted (and undervalued) filmmaker. His films and his themes all surpass their "now" expiration date, and in demonlover, his missteps and "inabilities" in the film's final third feel strangely appropriate for a film with issues as unsolvable as demonlover.

More than a corporate thriller (which it is, to some extent), demonlover is the first, and maybe only, neo-neo-noir, confronting technological fears with no direct allusion to what came before it. As pulpy and sleazy as demonlover may appear (it has Gina Gershon wearing a T-shirt that says I Heart Gossip), it's almost entirely un-ironic. Its similarities to Hong Kong action-ers (mainly the ones the female-centered ones that starred his former wife Maggie Cheung) and corporate thrillers are seamlessly infused into demonlover's surfaces (which also include gorgeous photography from Denis Lenoir and a dazzling post-rock score from Sonic Youth). In evading the elitist cues one might expect from not only a film like this but from a former Cahiers du Cinéma writer, the female-dominated, amorally cutthroat corporate universe becomes as curiously real as the animated pornography the business is killing to acquire does.

However appealing demonlover's genre tricks may be, the most fascinating elements of the film are the ones that feel out-of-place. While Diane (Connie Nielsen), a corporate spy trying to derail a deal between a French corporation and a Japanese anime company, appropriately remains a mysterious figure in the whole entanglement (we're never given a nationality or a real name for her), the same can't be said for Elise (Chloë Sevigny), an American girl whose professional position is never clear in the offices. We're treated with brief glimpses of a life outside of this world: a boyfriend who's only seen momentarily in the airport, a daughter for whom she hires a babysitter when delivering nighttime threats to Diane and a peculiar fascination with playing violent video games in the nude. What is this pretty, awkwardly-dressed Yankee girl doing here, and where in this shaky hierarchy does she fall? I'm still not sure, though it's worth mentioning that Elise seems better versed in (and emotionally separated from) what Diane and company are trying to annex; Diane and her partners appear oblivious to any details of what they hope to acquire. And then there's the first interaction we see between Elise and her hospitalized maybe-boss Karen (Dominique Reymond), where Elise appears offended by Karen's statement that she feels like she's been raped. "C'est quand même pas la même chose [It's not the same thing]," she says, lowering her eyes, suggesting that her grip on reality is stronger (and more dangerous) than we might later suspect.

Like his later Boarding Gate, one of the film's best scenes occurs between the abject, ambiguous revelations between two of the characters. After Diane's bit of espionage has been uncovered, she dines with former partner Hervé (Charles Berling, almost unrecognizable in his shabbiness). The scene is layered in deception and dizzying performance as Diane unsuccessfully(?) tries to reassert the control she killed and drugged (but not fucked) to obtain. Around this point in the film (though I believe it begins when Diane agrees to Elise's uncertain conditions), demonlover derails. Most people saw this as the film's defeating flaw, but ultimately it adds to demonlover's mystique, as well as its horror.

Assayas is not a moralist, as many other critics have agreed; this keeps demonlover from being a mere cautionary tale. In the epilogue, where a suburban teenage boy steals his father's credit card to log into a torture porn site, I came to a stronger understanding of what Assayas was trying to portray. As Vadim Rizov states in his review of the film, "the heart of evil is located in innocence." But it's more than innocence, he explains, it's "numbed indifference." It isn't a sort of Columbine-era mentality that violence-in-the-media encourages violence-in-life. Instead, Assayas reveals the intricate chain of evil, from the Japanese company's "issue" with one of their animators using underage girls as models to Diane and Hervé's ignorance to Lara Croft to the parallels between Elise's professional involvements and her gaming to this teenager's dark fantasy indulgence. The chain has been set, and Assayas isn't foolish enough to speculate where it might have begun or will end.

In addition to Rizov's, I should also direct you to reviews of the film from Daniel Kasman, Ed Gonzalez and Michael Joshua Rowin (also here), as I scrapped two attempts at trying to tackle the film before settling on this one (and I took some inspiration, or direction, from their write-ups).

With: Connie Nielsen, Charles Berling, Chloë Sevigny, Dominique Reymond, Gina Gershon, Jean-Baptiste Malartre, Edwin Gerard, Abi Sakamoto, Naoko Yamazaki
Screenplay: Olivier Assayas
Cinematography: Denis Lenoir
Music: Sonic Youth, Jim O'Rourke
Country of Origin: France
US Distributor: Palm Pictures

Premiere: 19 May 2002 (Cannes Film Festival)
US Premiere: 19 September 2003 (New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago)

Joseph Sarno, Grey Gardens and the latest from Benten Films

E1 and their subsidiaries have announced their DVD releases for 11 August. Benten Films' The Good Times Kid, from director Azazel Jacobs (Momma's Man), is the highlight of the releases, which also includes Andrzej Wajda's Katyn from Koch Lorber, Les invisibles, with Laurent Lucas and Lio, and Perry Ogden's Pavee Lackeen: The Traveller Girl from Synkronized (note: sure to be delayed), Paul Andrew Williams' London to Brighton and Joseph Sarno's All the Sins of Sodom from Secret Key/Alternative Cinema. A three-film set of Sarno's "Deep Throat Sex Comedies" will be out 14 July; the titles are Deep Throat 2, The Switch and A Touch of Genie. Cinema Epoch's release of Seijun Suzuki's A Tale of Sorrow has been pushed to 14 July as well.

A collection of 39+ slapstick shorts starring Charley Case entitled Becoming Charley Case has been re-announced for 28 July, after Facets' intended release was delayed a few months back. The dates for Magnolia's The Girlfriend Experience and Outrage have been pushed up (!) to 1 September.

Eric pointed out that Peter Bogdanovich's Directed by John Ford will finally be making its DVD debut on 15 September, and likely to piss off many people, is a director-approved update of the film. Dragon Dynasty announced a Special Edition of the martial arts classic Five Deadly Venoms for 18 August as well.

HBO will have the Drew Barrymore/Jessica Lange update of Grey Gardens, which I still haven't watched, on 14 July. Should I waste my time on it or not? Warner/New Line is releasing Michael Cimino's The Sunchaser, with Woody Harrelson, Anne Bancroft, Jon Seda and Talisa Soto, on 25 August. And finally, Sony announced a Blu-ray of Punch-Drunk Love for 15 September.