Waltz with Two Lovers

I guess I hadn't done my homework ... When I arrived proudly on the rooftop of the Arclight this morning, I had the surprise to realize that the AFI Fest village was nowhere to be found, the festival's headquarters having been moved to the gorgeous Roosevelt hotel, right across that tourist trap named the Chinese theater. Upon arriving, I was even more disappointed running into a few witches and ghouls remaining from Marylin Manson's Halloween party the day before - I should have been there instead of that lame-ass party I went to.

But let's go back to the subject ... I started the festival with the screening of Nirvana (read the Nirvana review or watch my video comments about Nirvana here and if you need subtitles, email me!!), a post-punk Russian film that even a Sigue Sigue Sputnik fan like me found pretty tedious. The film was followed with some absurd Q&A with the director, who managed to never answer to the questions he was asked.

The following Waltz with Bachir was even more disappointing as it was preceded by some good buzz from Cannes (see video comments here - read Waltz with Bachir review), proving that having a good political/humanitarian message isn't enough to make a good film.

Finally, the documentary about Gogol Bordello (see video comments here) proved to be entertaining but messy, while James Gray's Two Lovers (Two Lovers review) was a good surprise despite the bad buzz from Cannes -- I know why the French hated it ... they didn't like the ending ... which isn't surprising, knowing their propensity to enjoy "drama".

AFI Fest 2008

Starting next week, Plume Noire will be covering AFI Fest 2008 live from Hollywood. You will find blog posts in this blog, a video journal on Youtube as well as exclusive reviews of the films.. In the meantime, check out our first reviews of Che, Tokyo, Two Lovers and Waltz with Bashir here

LA Film Festival 2008

I must admit, though it was crowded and rather uncomfortable at times, I still pine for the punkish LA Film Festival days at the Sunset 5 Plaza. Westwood Village is great and all, but we Eastsiders aren't all that fond of the 10 & the 405. Oh well…..

What are our picks this summer at the Los Angeles Film Festival?

The festival certainly has its eye on sure hits in the action genre for opening and closing nights, though they're from directors far removed from the Michael Bay school of Kaplowie! high jinks. Opening night features Wanted (Wanted review), directed by Timur Bekmambetov (director of the hyperkinetic Night Watch - Nightwatch review) and starring James McAvoy, Morgan Freeman and Angelina Jolie, while the festival closes with writer/director Guillermo del Toro's Hellboy II: The Golden Army. Del Toro will also be on hand for a conversation at the Hammer.

Must sees include Elite Squad, which looks like Brazil's answer to Training Day, Nordic music videos in Declare Independence: Spotlight on Scandinavia, HottirBoombaLottie, The Wackness, Momma's Man, South Africa's The Choir and Infinite Border.

Outdoor screenings at the Ford Amphitheatre remind us its summertime in the city. Swear-a-Long Scarface, surf movie Highwater (Highwater review) and high school documentary American Teen (American Teen review) will screen at twilight.

Poolside chats at the W Los Angeles in Westwood tackle topics like pot "The New Stoner Age", funny women "Funny Girls", and "Hollywood, D.C.".

Documentary topics include art:Dirty Hands: The Art & Crimes of David Choe, family strife Must Read After My Death, transsexuals Trinidad chef school Pressure Cooker, and the yucky Fleiss Heidi Fleiss: The Would-Be Madam of Crystal.

To its credit, the LA Film Festival has always screened a few films that deal with the complexities of angeleno life. This year two films explore South Central. The ever important free screenings include The Garden (The Garden review), which examines the dirty underbelly of LA politics that allowed the destruction of a 14 acre farm in the middle of South Central and Made in America, which takes a look at root causes of gang warfare. Quintessential LA architecture is explored in Visual Acoustics: The Modernism of Julius Shulman.

Is it too early too visit the 80's? LAFF doesn't think so. From The Lost Boys to Night Flight: Born Again, campy fun abounds.

The LA edginess has been watered down, but that means events like Antonio Banderas being saluted. And who doesn't mind saluting Antonio?

LA Film Festival 2008

The Cannes Film Festival might be just over but we're already preparing for the LA Film Festival. Get ready for our coverage of the LA Film Festival 2008, which will take place from June 19th to June 28th.

Cannes Film Festival 2008

Plume Noire was at the Cannes Film Festival. Check out our coverage of the Cannes Film Festival 2008 edition, including our exclusive reviews and our blog.

Cannes Film Festival 2008

Now that the coverage of COL COA has been wrapped up, it's time to get ready for the Cannes Film Festival. From May 14th to May 25th, Plume Noire will cover the Cannes Film Festival 2008 and will bring you exclusive reviews as well as a blog. Stay tuned...

COL COA Awards

While we can certainly be satisfied that Secret of the Grain (The Secret of the Grain review) was awarded the critics prize, it is pretty disappointing to see that the audience prize went to Welcome to the land of Shti (Welcome to the land of Shti review), a funny but cheesy French box office champion, which success is mostly due to the fact that, whether it’s here on in the main land, the French behave like a lot of sheep.

Water Lilies & Secret of the Grain

Saturday was without a doubt the strongest day of the week, with 3 films imposing their mark in different genres: in terms of pure entertainment, OSS 117 (OSS 117 review) proved to be the most intelligent and ambitious comedy showcased at COL COA. Flirting with cinema-verité, Water Lilies (Water Lilies review) offered an uncompromising look at the lives of 3 teenage girls while Secret of the Grain (The Secret of the Grain review) brought a significant emotional dimension by bringing us in the life of North-African immigrants. Next to these 3 major works, the charming but light comedy La Vie d’Artiste (La Vie d'Artiste review) was quite forgettable.

The Killer & Rivals

Centered on the intriguing relationship between a man and the killer who has been sent to kill him, Jacques Maillot’s The Killer (The Killer review) was the revelation of the night, this minimalist psychological piece slowly enveloping the audience in its noir atmosphere. Built on the confrontation of two brothers, a cop and a con, and supported by French stars Guillaume Canet & François Cluzet, Rivals is quite entertaining but collapses once you realize how poorly drafted are these characters, their implausible personas being used as a gimmick to trigger an expected dramatic conclusion.

Cedric Klapisch's Paris

One of the most anticipated entries of the festival, Paris (Paris review) by Cédric Klapisch (L’Auberge Espagnole, Un Air de famille), proved to be a big disappointment. Abandoning his juicy portraits of a modern youth to, this time, focus on the adult world, with some social commentary in the background, Mr. Klapisch delivered a choral movie that stumbles in its messy storylines and veers too many times into cheesy Claude Lelouch territories.

Even more embarrassing was the following Q&A where it became clear that the interviewer didn’t know much about Mr. Klapisch’s body of work, beside a few articles he had read.

Welcome to the Land of Shti and COL COA

The 12^th edition of COL COA opened with the gala presentation of Welcome to the Land of Shti. The event kicked off with the usual cocktail party featuring fine French food and lots of champagne, allowing festival-goers and celebrities to mingle around the food tables and the bars (American actor Robert Foster proved to be a lot of fun despite the fact I cut him in the line at the bar and several French filmmakers including Florent-Emilio Siri, Cédric Klapisch & Claude Lelouch were also available to chat).

Following the usual laborious speeches by some “French officials”, Welcome to the Land of Shti (Welcome to the land of Shti review) was presented to a room that was conquered in advance, thanks to the hype surrounding its French box office record. While the film was certainly fun and provided some great laughs (especially if you’re from the South of France like yours truly), there is certainly nothing to cheer about here, as this charming but cheesy little movie is far from being a good representative of what French cinema is.

OSS 117 review

The hilarious spy comedy OSS 117 is one of the must-see films at COL COA this year. It stars French humorist Jean Dujardin as a French secret agent and it's been one of the best critical and box office success of these last couple of years. Check out our OSS 117 review

COL COA 2008

Check out our COL COA 2008 film selection for the 12th edition of Los Angeles French film festival COL COA
Come back soon for our festival reviews and our festival coverage on this blog.

Film Investor

Since this blog is about festivals and new filmmakers, you might be interested in reading our Film Investor article that offers some resources on how to find film investors.

Superheroes and deficit

Whether you came to the walk of fame as a tourist to snap a picture of The Hof’s star or to haunt clubs on Hollywood blvd, chances are that you ran into Superman, the Hulk, Wonder-Woman, Batman or one of the multiple incarnations of Jake Sparrow. I’m of course not talking about the real ones – because guess what, they don’t exist – but about those “actors” who pose in superhero suits with tourists in front of the Chinese theater, in exchange for a tip. Part of the Hollywood tourist trap that is the walk of fame, these characters are the subject of Confessions of a Superhero, a hilarious and not-to-be-missed documentary that explores the lives and journeys of the people behind the masks, from actors making a living to more obsessive persona's. Superman, Wonder-Woman, the Hulk and the filmmakers were present for a Q&A afterwards.

After fighting through the mess to enter the screening – thanks to AFI’s absurd & unexpected change regarding passes and total disdain for the press – actor-turned-producer Diego Luna introduced the screening of his friend Gael Garcia Bernal’s directing debut, Deficit, which followed a group of rich kids partying at a house for a weekend. Despite some light comments on social classes and racism in the background, Deficit proved to be disappointing, a somewhat pointless work that didn’t bring anymore drama than most parties I’ve attended…but don’t get me started on this. Luna and another producer came back for a Q&A while Bernal was MIA.

AFI FEST 2007: The Telenovela & the Policia

IT'S BETTER IF GABRIELA DOESN'T DIE
(MEJOR ES QUE GABRIELA NO SE MUERA)

Directed by Sergio Umansky

Saturday night we entered the world of a telenovela writer (Mauricio Isaac) and his twisted relationship with a policeman(Dagoberto Gama) in Mexico City. After a not-so-routine stop one night in the city, writer Miguel escapes policie harassment when he reveals that he writes for a very popular telenovela. The policeman Bracho, a fan, feels he has a special link to the inside world of his favorite soap. From there, a cat and mouse game ensues as plot details change and Bracho becomes violent.

The film is hilarious in it's portrayal of the ridiculous telenovela world and in the policeman's increasing frustration when the plotline doesn't go his way. It's also a meditation on police harassment in Latin America and the fact that the bad guys don't always get caught; more often than not they're rewarded.

The film could have been edited down about 40 minutes to be a bit more taut and the ending is not very punchy but it's still a fun ride for anyone who ridicules the genre.

AFI FEST: Romania

Saturday we traveled to Romania just before the fall of Communism.

4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, directed by Cristian Mungiu and winner of this year's Palme d'Or at Cannes, proved to be a brilliant study of two women arranging an illegal abortion during the final years of Ceaucescu's dictatorship in Romania. Repression, both political and sociological, comes in the form of an illegal abortion, of the difficulty of doing simple things like renting a hotel room or buying cigarettes. Anyone who lived or traveled to Eastern Europe during this time and remembers the absolutely awful service and gray atmosphere will find this familiar.

From arranging for an illegal abortion, to rape and having to dispose of the fetus somewhere in the streets, the actions here are almost in real time and shocking. While there has been controversy over whether or not the fetus should have been shown at the end (given that many other actions take place offscreen), Mungiu explained that since the whole movie centered on this abortion, it seemed implausible not to show it. I agree--anyone who agrees with the idea that abortion should be legal and safe absolutely and those who seek to have it made illegal must see this film.
Check out the review at: http://www.plume-noire.com/movies/reviews/4months3weeks.html

Searching for the last mistress

Venturing into new cinematic territories, Catherine Breillat offers with The Last Mistress, a period piece starring Asia Argento, probably her most classical works, where sex is this time in the background rather than forefront, used only for a metaphoric purpose. Built on great dialogues, this elegant production keeps a constant emotional edge, hope and fate battling until the end – and with Miss Argento as the mistress, you can expect things to be complicated.

Israeli entry The Band’s Visit, the tale of an Egyptian police band that gets lost in Israel on its way to a show, used a humoristic angle to tackle loneliness and a rapprochement of politically-opposed cultures. With spare dialogues, a simple setting and a great cast, this is no surprise that this film has become a fave on the internation film circuit.

It is kinda funny that AFI Fest screened Searchers 2.0, a film which plot centers around kicking the butt of some evil screenwriter the same weekend as the writers’ strike in LA kicks off. A satirical journey into movie nerdiness with political tones in the background, the latest from Alex Cox – who attended the screening with his cast – is a treat if you’re familiar with genre films such as spaghetti westerns, vigilante movies and if you’re a Hollywood insider – otherwise you might get lost in dialogues that refer to many b-movies and to the industry behind-the-scenes. The only regret, which is linked to a lack of budget, is that the film would have gained to be shot in film – or even in cinemascope – to emphasize the homage it was paying.

Tales of Sigur Ros

Only faux pas here, I kicked off the festival with the screening of Southland Tales, Richard Kelly’s notorious sci-fi political epic, which has been missing in action since it’s panned representation at the Cannes film festival two years ago.

The director who was present with his troops – from The Rock to Kevin Smith with whom I shared an elevator ride – announced before the film that he was finally done with post-production. While I haven’t seen the earlier cut of the film, this final version proved to be a bloated and confused piece of work, which is all over the map and takes itself too seriously despite its satirical format. If that was up to me I would classify Southland Tales as Torture Porn, for how painful this 140mn film was to me – fortunately I was able to sleep through parts of that mess, courtesy of the Absolut bar on the rooftop. I’m not sure how Kelly went from the subtle Donny Darko to that failed attempt at being Alex Cox but he certainly lost a lot of credibility in the process.

The second half of the evening offered an unexpected treat, an intimate show from Iceland fave Sigur Ros, which preceded the screening of their live show documentary with an acoustic set of new material. If you’re a fan of the band, you will certainly enjoy that documentary but one can regret the filmmaker went for clichéd shots of Iceland instead of going for an artistic approach that would have matched the visual identity of the band. The band came back for a Q&A afterwards, those 4 nerdy guys offering welcome sarcastic answers to some of the lame questions coming from the audience.

AFI Fest

From November 1st to November 11th, Plume-Noire.com will be covering AFI Fest in this blog. Check out our festival picks below.

AFI FEST 2007
November 1-11, 2007
Arclight Cinemas, Hollywood

The 21st anniversary of AFI Los Angeles International Film Festival features more than 100 films from around the world. And this year’s selection is truly diverse and top notch.
Lions for Lambs, directed by Robert Redford and starring Tom Cruise and Meryl Streep, kicks off the festival on November 1st.

From Cannes to Los Angeles
Several films that premiered at Cannes earlier in the year will have their moment in the California sun, including Persepolis, Southland Tales directed by Richard Kelly and starring Sarah Michelle Gellar and Jason Lee, Julian Schnabel’s The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Carlos Reygadas’ Silent Light and the Romanian Palme D’Or winner 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days. The Last Mistress, starring the versatile Asia Argento and helmed by the always controversial Catherine Breillat will be screened.

Special Screenings include Honeydripper directed by the great John Sayles, Margot at the Wedding directed by Noah Baumbach and starring Nicole Kidman and Jennifer Jason Leigh.

Documentaries
AFI’s documentary selection is always stellar and this year’s selection is of special note.
Fans of music take note. The documentaries Sigur Ros: Heima and Public Enemy: Welcome to the Terrordome will screen, along with surprise special guests.
Atenco: A Crime of State takes a look at government brutality in Mexico against a group of florists and Lynch is a glimpse into the mind of visionary director David Lynch.
Big Rig is a journey through America and Confessions of a Superhero takes a look at those who embody the famous on the streets of Hollywood Boulevard.

Quirky American Films include Look, American Fork, Expired, In Search of A Midnight Kiss and Searchers 2.0.

World Cinema
Women, women and more women. The Lebanese film Caramel is centered on the stories of five women in a beauty salon while Irina Palm stars Marianne Faithful as a sex worker in her 50’s. The Chinese film Night Train features a femail executioner. This year’s African showcase looks promising, with several films from the continent: Faro- Goddess of the Waters (Mali), Nosaltres (Senegal), Clouds Over Conakry (Guinea).

Films from Latin America
The finest selection of films from and about Latin America. This year’s top picks include:
Argentina’s black and white surrealist The Aerial, Cyrano Fernandez- a modern Venezuelan take on Cyrano de Bergerac, Deficit- directed by Gael Garcia Bernal and starring Diego Luna, The Year of the Nail- directed by Jonas Cuarón (Alfonso’s son), the Puerto Rican comedy Manuela Y Manuel and Carol Reygada’s Silent Light.

Tributes
Two tributes will honor the work of Laura Linney and the spectacular Catherine Deneuve. On November 10, the French-Iranian film Persepolis (voiced in part by Catherine Deneuve) will be screened and a tribute in her honor will follow.

TALK/SHOW
TALK/SHOW at the festival Rooftop Village is free to the public and features a series of conversations on an array of topics that includes FROM CHARLIE CHAN TO PANCHO VILLA: MOVIE STEREOTYPES AND AMERICAN POPULAR CULTURE on Saturday, November 3, 12:00 p.m. - 1:30 p.m. and one we’re really excited about: WHOSE REALITY IS THIS? A CONVERSATION WITH WERNER HERZOG on Sunday, November 4, 12:00 p.m. - 1:30 p.m. And on Saturday, November 10, from 2:30 p.m. - 4 p.m. authors James Ellroy and Bruce Wagner will read from their works.

The centerpiece gala is Jason Reitman’s Juno. The closing night gala is Love in the Time of Cholera starring Javier Bardem.