CANNES 2024
Cannes 2024 Recap - 8 Best Films to Watch Out For From This Fest
What are the best films out of this year's Cannes Film Festival? Which ones should you be taking an interest in? What films should be a priority for you to see? After diving into cinema for 12 days at the 77th Cannes Film Festival, after watching a total of 40 films, it's time to present my 2024 list of my Top 8 Favorites. This was my 14th year back to this festival (I also handed out 4 signed books), and I still love being there right in the middle of all the buzz and excitement, watching new cinema every single day. As I usually say - there's always more to see, always more to take our breath away. These eight favorites listed below are the ones that connected with me emotionally or intellectually, and I hope you'll consider watching a few when they arrive in your neighborhood. They are worth the wait - each one distinct and memorable. It might have been another lackluster Cannes overall, for the most part, though I am happy I caught a few bangers by the end. This is my very final recap of Cannes 2024 - don't skip a chance to watch any of these with an audience.
Cannes 2024: Coralie Fargeat's Freaky Body Horror 'The Substance'
What would you do to stay beautiful forever? This is a question that remains on the minds of many human beings on this planet. What will they do, how far will they go? What will they sacrifice? It's pretty much the Monkey's Paw concept mixed with an obsession with "beauty above all, always." The immensely talented French filmmaker Coralie Fargeat takes this concept for a totally bonkers ride in her exciting new body horror film The Substance, a vibrant spin on this trope about sacrificing oneself for endless beauty. The Substance in question is a mysterious medicinal creation from an unnamed company that allows anyone to stay beautiful - as long as they follow the rules. Much like in Gremlins, however, someone is going to break the rules and the rest of the film becomes "fuck around and find out" with the most grotesque, horrifying consequences anyone could imagine. And the crowd goes wild! The Cannes press screening audience nearly lost it - cheering and hollering and applauding ferociously at the end. This is what great horror is all about.
First Look Trailer for Leos Carax's 'It's Not Me' Self-Portrait Short Doc
"The Unhoped For." Les Films du Losange in France has revealed a first look trailer (with English text) for the latest unique Leos Carax film titled It's Not Me. This just premiered at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival and opens in France this June. The 41-minute biopic short doc film is a "self-portrait of the director and his oeuvre, revisiting in free-form more than 40 years of the author's filmography." This autobiography takes a look back at all of his films and his work, and examines politics over time and the art-form of cinema. The intro: "For an exhibition, that in the end never took place, the Pompidou Museum asked the filmmaker to reply, in pictures, to the question: Where are you at, Leos Carax? He attempts an answer – full of questions. About himself and 'his' world: I don't know, but if I did, I'd reply that..." C'est pas moi or It's Not Me. With Denis Lavant, Kateryna Yuspina, Loreta Juodkaite, Anna-Isabel Siefken, Nastya Golubeva Carax, and Petr Anevskii, plus Bianca Maddaluno. Not much footage yet, but enough to make me intrigued. I want to watch.
› Posted May 29 in Cannes 24, Documentaries, Foreign Films, To Watch, Trailer | Comments
Cannes 2024: Abou Sangare is Unforgettable in 'Souleymane's Story'
This is the story of Souleymane. This is a story we need to hear. This is a story we need to understand. By now there's an entire subgenre of modern day refugee films - important, real stories about immigrants and refugees and asylum seekers struggling to make it safely into Europe and survive under the crushing weight of anti-immigration people and policy (also see: Green Border or Europa or Io Capitano). One of the latest entries in this subgenre is the film Souleymane's Story, also known as L'histoire de Souleymane in French (or The Story of Souleymane). This premiered at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival in the Un Certain Regard section and won two awards: Best Actor and a Jury Prize. It deserves both - the lead performance is exceptional and the storytelling in this is especially powerful. It's one of these films that might change your life - you'll never order food delivery again because it feels like exploitation when one of these guy's delivers.
Cannes Book Giveaway Recap - Thank You for Another Amazing Year
"Fremaux knows his films, his festival, his audience. His taste is exceptional." (–Roger Ebert's notes from Cannes 2009.) At the start of the 2024 Cannes Film Festival two weeks ago, I announced a special giveaway of four signed copies of Matt Singer's book called Opposable Thumbs: How Siskel & Ebert Changed Movies Forever. Now that the festival has ended, it's time for a quick recap and a thank you to all those who crossed paths with me this year in Cannes. This 2024 giveaway was a follow-up to my 2019 giveaway, when I originally handed out 10 copies of Ebert's Cannes diary book called Two Weeks in the Midday Sun. This time the books were signed by the author, making them even more unique as a gift. Of course, I wanted to connect them to Roger Ebert again, and Matt's book is fantastic - recalling his history as a legendary film critic. All it took to win was finding me at a screening and saying the name of one film – The Brown Bunny. I had an amazing time chatting with my friends and colleagues in Cannes this year. Congrats to the winners.
Cannes 2024 Video Interview with Kazakh Film Critic Oraz Kereibayev
Meet Oraz! Last year while on the film festival circuit, I met a young film critic named Oraz Kereibayev. We quickly became friends, hanging out at the Venice and Berlin Film Festivals. Oraz is from Kazakhstan, a big country in Central Asia located just below Russia and above Uzbekistan & China. Most know Kazakhstan from Sacha Baron Cohen's Borat movies, though of course that's a very deplorable caricature of the country and the people from there. I'm a big fan of Oraz, I'm lucky to call him my friend, and overjoyed that he has become a part of the international film critic community covering film festivals all year long. He decided to make the trek to the 2024 Cannes Film Festival - his first time ever attending this prestigious cinema event. Before the fest ended, I met up with Oraz and interviewed him to talk about who he is, the films he loves, and his experiences at Cannes. I've been going to Cannes for 14 years already, and I also love showing newcomers the ropes and listening to them chat about what it's like to be at this fest. Watch the video below.
Cannes 2024: 'Eephus' - A Baseball Film Like You've Never Seen Before
Within the sports movies subgenre, there have been tons of baseball movies made over the decades. It is America's pastime, after all! There's even an entire book published this month about baseball movies and their legacy. So it would seem as if we've seen it all – every kind of baseball movie has been made before by someone at some point; even Richard Linklater made a modern classic a few years ago (called Everybody Wants Some) and we featured a video edit of the best movies. Lo and behold, we have another classic that has just come up to bat. Carson Lund's Eephus is a baseball movie we've never seen before. And it's genius. It's an "old dudes play ball" indie comedy and it's hilarious. I laughed my ass off watching this, it's more fun than actually going to a ball game, and there's plenty to analyze about what's happening beyond the who's on first and who has the best pitch. Another Cannes 2024 gem that I'm glad I took the time to sit down with.
Cannes 2024 Awards: 'Anora' Starring Mikey Madison Wins the Palme
Winners of the 2024 Cannes Film Festival awards, including the coveted Palme d'Or, were revealed at a glamorous ceremony in Cannes, France this weekend. The awards included many of my favorite films at the festival, and this year THE BEST film of actually won the top prize. Huzzah!! This doesn't always happen, but I loved Anora and had a feeling it would win ever since the screening on Tuesday earlier this week (read my full review). American filmmaker Sean Baker and his NYC film Anora won the Palme d'Or this year, following up Justine Triet's win for for Anatomy of a Fall last year. Congrats to Sean Baker and star Mikey Madison! I also would've been happy with Rasoulof's The Seed of the Sacred Fig winning, but it took home a special prize. Jacques Audiard's musical Emilia Perez also won two awards, and Jesse Plemons won the Best Actor award for his three performances in Yorgos Lanthimos' Kinds of Kindness. I'm impressed and mostly happy with this year's selection of winners from the competition. Recap all the Cannes 2024 awards below.
› Posted May 25 in Awards, Cannes 24, Movie News | Comments
Cannes 2024: Mohammad Rasoulof's Film 'The Seed of the Sacred Fig'
One of the most anticipated films premiering at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival is The Seed of the Sacred Fig, the latest from acclaimed Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof. His films have show regularly at festivals – Goodbye screened at Cannes 2011, Manuscripts Don't Burn at Cannes 2013, A Man of Integrity at Cannes 2017; his most recent 2020 film There Is No Evil won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival. The Seed of the Sacred Fig is especially important and potent because it really upset the Iranian government – they sentenced Rasoulof to eight years in prison as well as flogging, a fine and confiscation of his property just because he made this film. Part of the big question is why – what does it show and why is the Iranian government so afraid of it? Now we know. This remarkable film is about the current events in Iran, mainly the silencing of many women and young protestors who rose up in 2022 by removing burkas in opposition to the government's heinous morality police. Not only does the film capture this moment quite powerfully, the filmmaking is also extraordinary, making this nearly three-hour-long film gripping from start to finish.
Cannes 2024: Gilles Lellouche's 'Beating Hearts' is a Waste of Time
This is what it would look like if Michael Bay directed a romantic musical. Though this doesn't have nearly enough explosions or mind-boggling drone shots to really live up Bay's movies. Beating Hearts is a big, epic, flashy, cheesy, nearly-three-hour long French love story thriller made by a French filmmaker named Gilles Lellouche. He last directed an absurd comedy called Sink or Swim that played at Cannes 2018, and somehow he was able to secure a Main Competition slot this year at Cannes with his latest titled L'amour ouf in French (or just Beating Hearts in English). For some reason, before its premiere the movie was being referred to as a musical – but it's not really a musical. More of an epic, sweeping romance like Romeo + Juliet with two big dance sequences and tons of famous songs used in it. But there's no singing and it's not a classic musical, it's a drama about two lovers in France. The story is lifted from the classic The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, following young lovers who get split apart for 12 years then attempt to reconnect later on in life.
Cannes 2024: Sean Baker's Film 'Anora' is a One-of-a-Kind Sensation
It's always an especially exhilarating experience to stumble upon a film so completely unlike anything that has been made before that it leaves you on a cinematic high after walking out of the theater. At the midway point in the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, we finally get to experience the bliss of Anora, the latest film from American filmmaker Sean Baker. Anora is his eighth feature film so far, and he was already in Cannes in 2017 with The Florida Project (in the Directors' Fortnight sidebar) and again in 2021 with Red Rocket. This might just be hist best yet. France obviously loves him, but so does everyone else - this film has received the highest marks out of any in the Main Competition from all of the critics at this year's festival. The film's title is the name of the young woman who stars in the film, a young stripper from New York City named Anora who falls for a rich Russian kid after he pays her to hook up with him. On a whirlwind trip to Las Vegas they end up getting married (Vegas, baby Vegas!!) - but there's so much more going on in this film than just that.
Cannes 2024: Gints Zilbalodis' Animated Film 'Flow' Follows a Kitty
The story of a cat and his friends. Flow is an animated film made by the Latvian filmmaker named Gints Zilbalodis, his second feature after making Away (in 2019) which was a fable about loneliness. He's also known for many other animated short films that debuted online before he started moving into making these features. Whereas Away is about loneliness, Flow is about friendship, companionship, and loyalty. The title is once again a literal title because the story is about how we meet and befriend different people as life flows along, taking us to unknown destinations and through many trials & tribulations. Much like Away, the story is a metaphor for life as a human being, this time told through an adventure featuring different animals in a strange world. It's entirely dialogue free and features Zilbalodis' distinct cel-shading animation style, more rudimentary than Pixar or DreamWorks or Sony but still animated with heaps of emotion and compassion.
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