Drum Roll Please… Cannes Festival 2012 Line-Up Announced

(Written for Lost In The Multiplex)

It’s that time of year again. The Cannes Film Festival has announced the line-up for its 2012 event at a press conference in Paris this morning.

Among the list are some of this year’s biggest names including Terrence Malick and David Cronenberg, as well as a number of previous festival favourites such as Michael Haneke, Ken Loach, Cristian Mungiu, Alain Resnais, Carlos Reygadas, Matteo Garrone, Jacques Audiard and Abbas Kiarostami.

Film Review: Midnight In Paris

(Read this in my publication In Retrospect – Issue 3 and in my student newspaper, Flex.)

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Midnight In Paris premiered at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and has since been a global box office success. Written and directed by Woody Allen, the romantic comedy-fantasy explores the theme of nostalgia, reflecting back on the Golden era of the 1920s which leads one man to question whether these illusions of the past are better than the present one he is facing.

Gil (Owen Wilson), a writer struggling to finish his first novel, travels to Paris for a break away from his Hollywood life with his fiancée Inez (Rachel McAdams) and her parents, John (Kurt Fuller) and Helen (Mimi Kennedy). After arguing with his fiancée one night, Gil begins to roam the streets of Paris when an old-fashioned car pulls up and the passengers inside ask him to join them. Gil finds himself at what seems to be a 1920’s themed party, but he soon begins to recognise that the company around him consists of his literary and artistic idols, including that of F. Scott Fitzgerald (Tom Hiddleston), Zelda Fitzgerald (Alison Pill), Ernest Hemingway (Corey Stoll) and Gertrude Stein (Kathy Bates). Gil has been transported to the 1920s, an era which he admires and decides to return to at midnight every night in order to find inspiration for his novel, and maybe something a little more from the stunning Adriana (Marion Cotillard).

Film Review: Drive

(Read this in my publication In Retrospect – Issue 2)

Directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, Drive is based on James Sallis‘ 2005 novel of the same name, with screenplay by Hossein Amini. The film is undoubtedly one of the best film’s of 2011, and even received a standing ovation at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival.

Ryan Gosling, who remains unnamed throughout the film, plays a Hollywood stunt performer who moonlights as a getaway driver. He works for Shannon (Bryan Cranston) in a garage, who approaches mobsters Bernie Rose (Albert Brooks) and Nino (Ron Perlman) for backing to buy a racecar and have the “Driver” race it. Driver meanwhile becomes involved with his neighbour Irene (Carey Mulligan) and her younger son, but as a romantic connection begins to develop, Irene’s boyfriend Standard (Oscar Isaac) is released from prison. Standard still owes an old associate some money, so Driver offers to help out of his concern for Irene. But when it all goes fatally wrong, Driver is left to clean up his mess.

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Film Review: Melancholia

(Read this in my publication In Retrospect – Issue 2)

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Melancholia is an apocalyptic drama revolved around two sisters, Justine (Kirsten Dunst) and Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg), during their final days before the end of the world. The planet Melancholia is heading towards Earth. Some think the planet will ‘fly-by’, whilst others worry that the planet will hit Earth, ending all of civilisation. The film is initially inspired by writer and director Lars von Trier’s personal experience with depression and is based on his insight that depressives remain calm in stressful situations. It is this relationship and contrast in the two sisters that the film focuses on.