There's good news and bad news, Soderbergh fans: The bad news is that the director's two-part, Benicio Del Toro-starring Che Guevara biopic Che, as noted in a recent piece in The Hollywood Reporter, still doesn't have a U.S. distributor. Gregg Goldstein's piece (which also looks at the similar challenges faced by Cannes '08 films Synedoche, New York and Two Lovers) notes that there are four offers on the table from independent distributors, but no deal has yet been signed.
Of all the films I'm looking forward to this fall, Blindness ranks fairly high up there. Canadian distributor Alliance has just made available a full trailer that proves to be fairly intriguing, as an optometrist (Mark Ruffalo) and his seemingly immune wife (Julianne Moore) cope with an inexplicable epidemic of sight loss.
I'm a sucker for most anything vaguely apocalyptic, and while this very well could turn out to be akin to watching the first act of Children of Men through a milk-filled...
Cannes Prizewinner 'The Class' Taken by Sony Classics
Sony Pictures Classics (SPC) has added an educational element to their Cannes booty. Previously they picked up Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne's drama Lorna's Silence, Norwegian director Bent Hamer's comedy/drama O'Horten, and animated Israeli doc Waltz with Bashir. (Eric Kohn explained why the latter deal was an especially good match of film with distributor.)
Charlie Kaufman is notorious for challenging audiences with his brain-bending screenplays; now, the screenwriter's directorial debut, Synecdoche, NY, faces a challenge even getting to audiences.
The film concerns a playwright (Philip Seymour Hoffman) who uses a grant in order to stage a life-size re-enactment of his life within a massive hangar. Our own James Rocchi referred to the film as "a sprawling, messy work of inspired brilliance and real humanity, a film that enthralls and affects even as it infuriates and confounds"; Kim Voynar put it much more simply: "man, is that film two hours of...
Time to play catch up with a couple of indie distribution deals that were completed during the past few days.
In the warm afterglow of Cannes, IFC Films acquired one more title to add to their stockpile, according to The Hollywood Reporter: Italian crime drama Gomorra. Directed by Matteo Garrone, the film is based on a best-selling book and follows five separate stories. "Set in the provinces around Naples," wrote our own James Rocchi, "Gomorra's a sweeping, stirring drama that has the...
The Rocchi Review -- Cannes Round-Up with Glenn Kenny of Some Came Running
What were the surprises at this year's Cannes Film Festival? Does the showcasing of films like Waltz with Bashir and Cheat the world's premier film festival mean that traditional film making has been replaced by a new wave of technology and technique? Which factor had more to do with the lower-than-expected number of sales at this year's Cannes Festival -- weak films, or the weak dollar? Is there a subtle subtext to the past few years at Cannes, and what were the films that got away this year? Joining us this week to...
It's been clear for several weeks now that the independent distribution company THINKfilm has been suffering from some money troubles. Around the time the Cannes Film Festival kicked off this month, blogger AJ Schnack assembled reports from various sources that the company owed a lot of money to many different places. Now, Nikkie Finke reports that Allied Advertising Ltd. filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court today against THINKfilm owner
Odd Horten (Bard Owe) knows who he is and what he does. He's a driver for the train, and has spent so many years on the same route that he knows it instinctively; he has his work, he has his life. But in Bent Hamer's O' Horten, which played in the Un Certain Regard selection this year at Cannes (and has since been picked up for distribution by Sony Pictures Classics), Horten has to face the fact that his life, as he knows it, is changing; he's hit retirement...
Another 'Valkyrie' Film to Challenge Cruise Film Prospects
When two movies with similar plots hit theaters around the same time, it usually just reveals the vapidity of Hollywood formula (as was the case when Deep Impactand Armageddon came out a few months apart). The situation changes, however, when the subject matter has far more thematic weight. Defamer's S.T. VanAirsdale points out the potential conflict brewing now that The Weinstein Company has picked up U.S. theatrical, DVD...
UPDATE: Here's the trailer in 
Sony Pictures Classics (SPC) has added an educational element to their Cannes booty. 
Things weren't so peaceful in the movie buff land when 
Time to play catch up with a couple of indie distribution deals that were completed during the past few days. 
It's been clear for several weeks now that the independent distribution company 
When two movies with similar plots hit theaters around the same time, it usually just reveals the vapidity of Hollywood formula (as was the case when 
