Day 7 at Cannes Film Festival May 21, 2008
Posted by Helen in : Movies , add a commentYesterday Spike Lee descended on Cannes to unveil the first images and outtakes from his new picture miracle at St. Anna.
Lee showed eight minutes of the film, which is written by James McBride, and shows the forgotten contributions to the Second World War by African American soldiers.
Miracle at St. Anna chronicles the story of four black American soldiers who are members of the US Army as part of the all-black 92nd Buffalo Soldier Division stationed in Tuscany, Italy during World War II.
They experience the tragedy and triumph of the war as they find themselves trapped behind enemy lines and separated from their unit after one of them risks his life to save an Italian boy.
But not content on just promoting his movie he took a swipe at several of his directing peers including this year’s Cannes favourite Clint Eastwood and Joel and Ethan Coen.
Lee heavily criticised Eastwood’s war effort Flags of our Fathers and Letters From Iwo Jima for not showing, in the two films collective time of four hours, ‘one negro actor on the screen’.
He also had some harsh words for the Coen brothers, who won the Best Director Oscar for No Country for Old Men at this year’s ceremony, claiming that they ‘treated life like a joke’.
He went on to claim that in his movies he treats both life and death with respect.
Spike Lee wasn’t the only one on Cannes with something to protest about as five Myanmar monks marched through movie fans gathered in the town for the festival.
The monks were demanding that the Southeast Asian government open the Burmese boarders to allow foreign aid into the country to help those left wounded and homeless by the cyclone that killed millions.
Two Lovers was also on show last night, but there was no Joaquin Phoenix on the red carpet after his doctor refused to let him fly due to ill health.
Also starring Gwyneth Paltrow, who attended Cannes for the first time, Two Lovers centres around a depressed young man’s life is turned around after he moves back in with his parents and two women enter it a beautiful volatile neighbour trapped in an affair and the lovely daughter of a close family friend.
The film is the third time that Phoenix has teamed up with American director James Gray and this is the third consecutive In Competition film for the director after The Yards and We Own the Night.
More Stars at Cannes May 21, 2008
Posted by Helen in : Movies , add a commentLisa Voice meets Andy Garcia
Lisa and Mick Jagger
And with man of the moment Harrison Ford
Cannes Day 6 May 21, 2008
Posted by Helen in : Movies , add a commentWe are half way through the festival and still there is not front runner to claim this year’s Palme d’Or.
There have been a select few good entries, after the disappointing festival openeer Blindness, including Arnaud Desplechin’s Un Conte De Noel and 24 City by Jia Zhang ke.
But tomorrow witll see the big names in the In Competition category get their long awaited screenings.
Clint Eastwood presents his new picture Changeling, his first picture since his Oscar winning Million Dollar Baby, starring Angelina Jolie, her second picture at the festival after Kung Fu Panda.
Los Angeles, 1928: On a Saturday morning in a working-class suburb, Christine said goodbye to her son, Walter, and left for work.
When she came home, she discovered he had vanished. A fruitless search ensues, and months later, a boy claiming to be the nine-year-old is returned.
Dazed by the swirl of cops, reporters and her conflicted emotions, Christine allows him to stay overnight. But in her heart, she knows he is not Walter.
Also being screened tomorrow night is Steven Soderburgh’s two Che guevara movies, starring benicion Del Toro, The Argentine and Guerilla, all four and a half hours playing in one sitting.
Part One On November 26, 1956, Fidel Castro sails to Cuba with eighty rebels. One of those rebels is Ernesto “Che” Guevara, an Argentine doctor who shares a common goal with Fidel Castro – to overthrow the corrupt dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista.
Che proves indispensable as a fighter, and quickly grasps the art of guerrilla warfare. As he throws himself into the struggle, Che is embraced by his comrades and the Cuban people. This film tracks Che’s rise in the Cuban Revolution, from doctor to commander to revolutionary hero.
Part Two After the Cuban Revolution, Che is at the height of his fame and power. Then he disappears, re-emerging incognito in Bolivia, where he organizes a small group of Cuban comrades and Bolivian recruits to start the great Latin American Revolution. T he story of the Bolivian campaign is a tale of tenacity, sacrifice, idealism, and of guerrilla warfare that ultimately fails, bringing Che to his death.
Through this story, we come to understand how Che remains a symbol of idealism and heroism that lives in the hearts of people around the world.
But on the sixth day, after the hype of the Indiana Jones premiere had calmed down, it was back to the serious stuff as Hong Kong director Wong Kar Wai, who opened the festival last year with My Blueberry Nights, previewed his new picture Ashes Of Time.
Ashes Of Time is a reworking of a 1994 picture and is is inspired by Louis Cha’s novel The Eagle-Shooting Heroes.
It centers on a man named Ouyang Feng. Since the woman he loved rejected him, he has lived in the western desert, hiring skilled swordsmen to carry out contract killings.
His wounded heart has made him pitiless and cynical, but his encounters with friends, clients and future enemies make him conscious of this solitude…
Also on show yesterday was Walter Salles’ Linha De Passe which depicts a chaotic and congested Brazil where people have little hope of breaking out of the cycle of poverty in which they and generations before them have found themselves.