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cannes 2009 Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Quentin Tarantino Will Tweak 'Inglourious Basterds'

Filed under: Action », Comedy », Independent », Thrillers », Cannes », Scripts », The Weinstein Co. », DIY/Filmmaking », Newsstand », Brad Pitt », Quentin Tarantino », War »

The version of Inglourious Basterds that played to mixed reviews at Cannes won't be the version we see, for better or for worse. Quentin Tarantino is heading back into the editing bay next month, and giving the film an extra scene or two. (And nothing is harder to write about than a film you and the rest of the moviegoing world hasn't even seen, so bear with me here.)

The director admitted to Variety's Anne Thompson that he felt overfiddling had hurt Death Proof, so he deliberately put Basterds on a Cannes deadline -- but it was one that was so tight that he had to rush "a dripping-wet print" to the festival. As a result, Basterds was 19 minutes less than he needed to retain final cut.

So, he's adding footage back in. One is a scene that he filmed, but hasn't yet assembled that introduces the characters of Michael Fassbender and Diane Kruger's more thoroughly. For those of us who didn't get to see the film at its Cannes debut, that means little. But if you read the script, it comes before the La Louisiane sequence. However, if you're hoping to see Maggie Chung as Madame Mimieux, you'll be disappointed. The scenes between Mimieux and Melanie Laurent's Shoshanna Dreyfuss won't be restored as Tarantino feels they don't add to the narrative.

But the final edit might rest on audience approval. Tarantino's going to be doing some test screenings "outside of California" to see how the film plays to the people, and will fine tune it from there -- but hopefully not to the point of Death Proof fiddling ...

Cannes in 60 Seconds: Friday, May 22, 2009

Filed under: Independent », Cannes », Festival Reports », Cinematical Indie »

Cannes in 60 Seconds - 2009

As the festival enters its final weekend, things have grown quieter. That doesn't mean Friday lacked excitement, though. Undoubtedly, the big title of the day was Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus, featuring Heath Ledger's final performance. Erik Davis rounded up the first reactions. The director and Verne Troyer (AKA "Mini Me") appeared in support of the film.

Another eagerly-awaited title also debuted: Gasper Noé's Enter the Void. Of course, the interest in Imaginarium has more to do with the stars (Johnny Depp, Colin Farrell, and Jude Law stepped in to finish the film after Ledger's untimely passing). Void, on the other hand, created anticipation because it is Noé's first feature-length work since his Irreversible generated considerable controversy at Cannes seven years ago.

Via David Hudson at IFC's The Daily, we learn that Enter the Void has already been compared to the Wachowskis' Speed Racer and Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Shining (by Daniel Kasman in The Auteurs' Notebook). Manohla Dargis of the New York Times also notes the borrowings from Kubrick, while describing it as an "exceptional work [by] an artist who's trying to show us something we haven't seen before." Eugene Hernandez of indieWIRE called it "an endurance test [that] stirred both boos and bravos."

Other Key Screenings. Competition: Elia Sileiman's The Time That Remains. Un Certain Regard: João Pedro Rodrigues' To Die Like a Man, Jean Van de Velde's The Silent Army. Directors' Fortnight: Scandar Copti and Yaron Shani's Ajami, Mikhael Hers' Montparnasse. Special Screenings: Fanny Ardent's Ashes and Blood.

Awards. Xavier Dolan's Canadian film I Killed Your Mother won three of the four prizes awarded by Directors' Fortnight, reports indieWIRE, beating out higher-profile US titles Tetro, I Love You Philip Morris, and Humpday. The complete list can be viewed at indieWIRE.

Exclusive: 'Precious' Teaser Poster Debuting at Cannes

Filed under: Drama », Independent », Cannes », Movie Marketing », Posters »


Click image below to view full poster

Cinematical has just received this exclusive teaser poster for the film Precious (previously known as Push: Based on the Novel by Sapphire), which will enjoy a premiere at the Cannes Film Festival this month after walking away with several awards (including the double whammy of Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award) at this year's Sundance Film Festival. It's a hard, tough, nasty film -- the kind that knocks the wind out of you with more than a few punches to the gut -- but, as our own Eric D. Snider pointed out in his Sundance review, it's also "compelling and artistic, punctuated with warm humor and masterful performances, and ultimately triumphant and hopeful."

I could easily see an Oscar nod or two shelled out for this film -- which follows an overweight, pregnant, illiterate teen from Harlem who enrolls in an alternative school with plans to give herself and her child a better life. For one, Mo'Nique gives one of the coldest, harshest performances I've ever seen on screen, and now that both Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry (talk about another double whammy) have lent their names and support to Precious, that -- along with a slew of awesome buzz -- should help it do well when it finally hits theaters later this year on November 6th. Check out the full poster by clicking the image below.

 
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