Latest news with #PalmeD'Or
Mint
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Mint
‘The Four Seasons' review: Scenes from all marriages
Donald Sutherland was a fantastic 'Hawkeye" Pierce. Robert Altman's Palme D'Or winning M*A*S*H* film—an adaptation of Richard Hooker's savage novel—cast Sutherland as a smirking surgeon, detached and too hip for the wartime hell around him. Alan Alda, inheriting the part in the M*A*S*H* series, one of the greatest American shows of all time, added a splash of melancholy to his martini. His 'Hawkeye" talked more, joked more and, crucially, felt more. Both top-shelf performances, but where Sutherland served up a dirty martini, Alda poured one that was dryer and infinitely more unforgettable. It therefore feels appropriate to see Alda back with the Netflix series The Four Seasons. Written and directed by Alda, the 1981 film of the same name has been adapted into a new series by Tina Fey, Lang Fisher and Tracey Wigfield, and it really works. Alda's film, sharply written and observed, is about a close-knit group of middle-aged friends regularly meet up for vacations together—and take turns unravelling. This episodic storytelling device naturally lends itself to the series format, where each seasonal getaway—Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter—gets two episodes apiece. The series arrives features a mature cast who know exactly how to underplay the grand and overplay the trivial: which, when it comes to long marriages and longer friendships, is really the point. It's a sly, simmering show about grown-ups who spend an inordinate amount of time with each other, despite—or because—they often cannot stand one another. It's about the cold fronts in marriages, the blossoms of unexpected tenderness, the sudden summer squalls that arrive when someone dares to say what they actually feel. Steve Carell, playing Nick, a man about to leave his wife, is superb. Nick isn't angry or grieving or desperate. It's worse than that: He's fine. 'We're like coworkers at a nuclear facility. We sit in the same room all night monitoring different screens," he says, describing his marriage and landing a line that is tragic, mordantly funny, and dangerously true for many watching. That's the kind of dialogue this show does so well—sentences that glance off the comedic and stick in your ribs later. Colman Domingo's Danny is all eye-rolls and snark, a larger-than-life man who wants to be the centre of every moment. He's married to Marco Calvani's Claude, a gloriously high-strung Italian with a theatre-kid's lungs and a philosopher's grievances. When Claude is told to lower his voice during a confrontation, he responds with an operatic 'I'm Italian!". This is a moment so deliciously theatrical it feels written in all caps. (And, as it turns out, it was written decades ago: the line is taken directly from the 1981 film, where the response was a weary 'Everybody in Connecticut knows you're Italian.") This new Four Seasons steals from the past with intention, not imitation. It nods to the Alan Alda original like a grown child reclaiming a family recipe and adding spice. Tina Fey's Kate, acerbic as can be, refers to someone as 'such a Zelig." It's a reference to her favourite Woody Allen film, a reference lost on many, but she's fine being her own audience. She plays a woman too sharp to soften, too tired to explain herself, and too loyal to leave the people who exhaust her. (Alda himself shows up, old but still twinkly-eyed, telling the couples 'not to fuss about the small stuff." 'I love you," Tina says.) Kerri Kenney-Silver is lovely as Anne, the outsider-insider. She married into this friend group years ago, and still seems faintly surprised every time she's invited back. There's a generosity to her awkwardness, a woman who doesn't quite fit but really really wants to, and that yearning gives her scenes a quiet poignancy that sneaks up on you. What the show captures best is how much long-term intimacy is made up of nonsense: repeated anecdotes, shared allergies, longstanding dinner orders. As Jack once said of Danny in the 1981 film: 'He's hypochondriacal, stingy, bossy, selfish, compulsive, and paranoid. He's the Muhammad Ali of mental illness." Or Nick's perfect marital lament: 'For a year and a half, all we talked about was zucchini. Then, for another year, it was green peppers. That was a nice change." These lines could easily belong to this new show, and that's the point. In the 44 years between the movie and the show, it's astonishing how little has changed. People age, partnerships drift, tensions bubble under the surface of Instagram-friendly getaways. The clothes are better, the therapy is more expensive, but the core remains unchanged. We marry people we want to like, we befriend people we can't always stand, and we grow old hoping someone will know how we take our coffee (or martini) without asking. Buckle up. The seasons will keep marching on, and we will inevitably turn into our parents—or, at the very least, the characters our parents watched on TV. Our edges will dull, our affairs will seem commonplace, we will appear out of touch to those who are young and exciting. If we are fortunate, however, we will get by with a little help from our friends. Love them, do. Raja Sen is a screenwriter and critic. He has co-written Chup, a film about killing critics, and is now creating an absurd comedy series. He posts @rajasen. Also read: Neeraj Ghaywan on 'Homebound': 'If I don't tell my stories, who will?'
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Breaking Baz @ Cannes: 'Even If I'm Fired, I Stay,' Declares Defiant Thierry Frémaux; Festival Victors Dance The Night Away After Strongest Selection In Years
Thierry Frémaux, the Delegate Général of the Cannes Film Festival, is propping up the Majestic Beach's main bar. The joint's buzzing, the victors being lionized after what has been acknowledged as a strong competition and selection, and I have the temerity to wonder idly when he'll retire. 'I don't know,' he murmurs. 'You know, in France the social contract is something different.' More from Deadline Cannes Winners: Palme D'Or Goes To Jafar Panahi's 'It Was Just An Accident'; Grand Prize Is Joachim Trier's 'Sentimental Value'; 'The Secret Agent' Scores For Wagner Moura & Kleber Mendonça Filho – Full List Cannes Film Festival 2025: Read All Of Deadline's Movie Reviews Including Palme D'Or Winner 'It Was Just An Accident' Cannes Winners Are Again Good For Neon But Create Confusing Picture For Oscar Race - Which Films Could Place In Both? 'Even if I'm fired, I stay,' he finishes defiantly. He laughs, then turns the tables and cheekily asks when I will retire. 'I don't want you to retire,' he says caressing my arm. 'Stay with us.' Fremaux first visited Cannes in 1979, driving from Lyon in a truck. Every day that year he remained on the Croisette without watching any movies 'because I couldn't attend any film. Each evening I used to go back to the highway and sleep in the car in the gas station.' Today (it now being the early hours of Sunday) he says, he will pick up his car at the Carlton 'and go back to Lyon like I was 19 again,' he says wistfully. 'It's in my tradition to come by car… we need to feel, I don't want to say forever young, but it is something like that. When you, me, whoever, are in the screening room there is no age. No young people, no old people.' Together we marvel over the diversity of the winners. There's Jafar Panahi, the Iranian-born director of Palme d'or winner It Was Just An Accident, and Norwegian Joachim Trier who took the Grand Prix prize for Sentimental Value. Oliver Laxe, director of Sirât, born in Paris to Galician emigrants, was joint Jury Prize winner with Berlin-born Mascha Schilinski the director of Sound of Falling, and so on all the way to Nigerian-born Akinola Davies Jr. who was garlanded with a Special Mention by the Caméra d'or jury for My Father's Shadow which was shown in Un Certain Regard. I note that Nadia Melliti who is French-Algerian heritage was named best actress for her beautifully captured performance as a young woman discovering her attraction for other women in Hafsia Herzi's The Little Sister, while it seemed that the the Cannes bubble was cheering for Jennifer Lawrence to win for Die, My Love – Lynne Ramsay's incendiary study of the disintegration of a marriage. Melliti tells me that Herzi's casting director discovered her 'walking along the street.' She'd never acted before. Her background was in sport. Now it's in acting. I tell Frémaux that it angers me that people forget that Cannes represents the whole world, not just the white western bit of it, and that cinema isn't just the shiny and splashy stuff from Hollywood. Nodding in agreement, Frémaux remarks that since the origin of Cannes 'we are universal,' and remembers John Ford's comment, 'Be local, you will be universal.' 'We are not in France,' says Frémaux. 'Cannes is not a French film festival. It's a film festival in France and it's an international film festival,' he says reminding me that its official name is Festival International du Film. 'We have for the first time Nigeria in Un Certain Regard. We have Czech, Iran… Cannes is a journey. We make that journey in the selection process.' He observes that in the past Asia meant films only from Japan. 'And then in the beginning of the new century, Korea, China, Singapore, Thailand. And now it's Africa and not only ex-French Africa,' while conceding that 'maybe not enough' attention had been paid to Africa: 'Again, it's a frustration of the festival' but 'we pay attention on what is going on everywhere …' He looks me in the eye because he knows I'm about to ask about America and the orangutan in the White House, and I mean no offence to the great apes. However, he cuts me off at the chase. 'Regarding, of course, the US and what is going on in the world, in cinema not only in Cannes, there is no border. The language is cinema, the emotion is cinema or cinema is emotion. And the emotion is the same wherever you were born.' I wonder if others will second my emotion that Ari Aster's Eddington is a masterpiece about the sad decline of the United States? Frémaux and I warmly embrace and I scoot over to Renate Reinsve who's so darn good in Trier's Sentimental Value. The actress is taking a break, she tells me, ahead of starring in Alexander Payne's already announced movie Somewhere Out There. 'Not one person has a bad word to say about Alexander and I'm looking forward to working with him,' says Reinsve, although she refuses to say what the film's about, except that 'it's a remarkable script.' Filming, she says, begins in February on locations in Denmark and Ireland. Stellan Skarsgård plays Reinsve's father, a film director, in Sentimental Value. I tell him that the character reminds me, in part, of Lear, except that his filmmaker overcomes his madness. Later, I chat briefly to Elle Fanning who, as I noted in a previous column, excels in Sentimental Value, just as she did in James Mangold's A Complete Unknown. Fanning plays a Hollywood 'type actress' in Trier's movie, but says, that she and the director tried not to make her a caricature. Whatever they did, it's some of her best work. She says that her performance was aided by the fact that she went from shooting Predator: Badlands in New Zealand directly to filming a beach scene with Skarsgård in Deauville. 'It was the kind of role my character might have played, so it was very meta,' says Fanning. Before he goes, I snap a few photos of Trier and his editor Oliver Bugge Coutté. They've been friends for years and, back in the day, shared an apartment with three others in St. John's Wood, NW London, while they were students at the National Film and Television School in Beaconsfield. The flat was ideally situated, he says, because it was close to Marylebone train station, 'just a few stops to the school,' where the late agent Jenne Casarotto first saw his work and signed him. He's still with the Casarotto Ramsay & Associates agency, represented by Elinor Burns. Akinola Davies Jr. shows the same devotion to his longtime agent Roxana Adle at LARK management. The My Father's Shadow director has been inundated since the film was shown at the festival. But he's staying firm with both Adle and Element's Rachel Dargavel. 'To get to me, they'll have to go through Roxana,' says Davies who was on a hike outside Marseilles when he received a message suggesting he return to Cannes in time for the closing ceremony. He was dressed in shorts, T-shirt and boots and his black-tie clobber was in a car miles away in Marseilles. Somehow, he and Nicholas Hayes,his producing partner at Red Clay Pictures, made it back to the Palais in time. I felt sad that Akinola's brother Wale, with whom he wrote the film, was not with him. However, I shall never forget when Davies's name was called and he stood up – and stood out due to his blond-dyed hair – and the world of cinema applauded him. I couldn't make out what he was saying; was it to the crowd or to himself, I asked? 'I have a little motto I repeat to myself when I'm nervous,' he responds, about not being alone and to be kind to yourself and others. Davies spent most of the night hanging out with Hayes, Dargavel, the BFI's Ama Ampadu, as well as Element's Emma Norton and producer Lee Groombridge who were producers on Pillion. Pillion's director Harry Lighton won the best screenplay honour in Un Certain Regard and he was on the Majestic Beach too and there was something touching about seeing them engaging and being supportive of each other. Spotting Jafar Panahi, I went over to pay my respects and to point out that his winning the Palme d'or had brought tears to Cate Blanchett's eyes. 'I saw that,' he acknowledges softly behind dark glasses he's still sporting at one in the morning. I play the room and the pier one last time. Then I hear the beat of Rock This Party (Everybody Dance Now). I look over to the dance floor and it sinks in that the world Frémaux was talking about is on that floor letting its collective hair down. The beat that brings us together must never stop. Best of Deadline 'Poker Face' Season 2 Guest Stars: From Katie Holmes To Simon Hellberg Everything We Know About Amazon's 'Verity' Movie So Far Everything We Know About 'The Testaments,' Sequel Series To 'The Handmaid's Tale' So Far
France 24
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- France 24
Iraq's first ever director in Cannes wins best feature debut
His first feature-length film follows nine-year-old Lamia after her school teacher picks her to bake the class a cake for President Saddam Hussein's birthday or risk being denounced for disloyalty. It is the early 1990s, the country is under crippling UN sanctions, and she and her grandmother can barely afford to eat. The pair set off from their home in the marshlands into town to try to track down the unaffordable ingredients. Hadi dedicated his Camera d'Or award, which honours first-time directors, to "every kid or child around the world who somehow finds love, friendship and joy amid war, sanctions and dictatorship. "You are the real heroes," he said. He later shared the stage with dissident Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi, who won the festival's Palme D'Or top prize for his "It Was Just an Accident", the tale of five ordinary Iranians confronting a man they believed tortured them in jail. "The President's Cake" has received excellent reviews since premiering last week in the Directors' Fortnight section. Cinema bible Variety called it a "tragicomic gem". Deadline said it was "head and shoulders above" some of the films in the running for the festival's Palme d'Or top prize, and "could turn out to be Iraq's first nominee for an Oscar". Palestinian films Also from the Middle East, Palestinian director Tawfeek Barhom received his award for his short film "I'm Glad You're Dead Now". After giving thanks, he took the opportunity to mention the war in Gaza. "In 20 years from now when we are visiting the Gaza Strip, try not to think about the dead and have a nice trip," he said. US President Donald Trump sparked controversy this year by saying he wanted to turn the war-ravaged Palestinian territory into the "Riviera of the Middle East". Outside the main competition, Gazan twin brothers Arab and Tarzan Nasser on Friday received a directing award in the Certain Regard parallel section for "Once Upon A Time In Gaza". One of them dedicated the award to Palestinians, especially those living in their homeland of Gaza, which they left in 2012. He said that, when they hesitated to return to Cannes to receive the prize, his mother had encouraged him to go and tell the world about the suffering of people in Gaza. "She said, 'No, no, no, you have to go. Tell them to stop the genocide'," he said. Amnesty International last month said Israel was carrying out a "live-streamed genocide" against Palestinians in Gaza, claims Israel dismissed as "blatant lies".
Yahoo
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Ethan Coen's ‘Honey Don't!' Gets 6.5-Minute Ovation In Cannes
Focus Features had the final slot of the Official Selection here in Cannes this evening with Ethan Coen's Honey Don't!, a dark comedy reuniting Margaret Qualley with the filmmaker on the heels of last year's Drive-Away Dolls. Coen & Co. received a 6.5-minute ovation in the wee hours of the morning. 'Fun finish to the festival, yah?' said Coen to a lively crowd. More from Deadline Cannes Closing Ceremony To Go Ahead As Planned Despite Massive Power Outage In South Of France Cannes Awards Predictions: Deadline's Critics Make Their Picks For This Year's Palme D'Or & Other Main Prizes Chilean Drama 'The Mysterious Gaze Of The Flamingo' Wins Top Un Certain Regard Prize - Cannes 'It's short for a movie that started after midnight,' added Coen about the movie's 90-minute running time, 'very humane!' Qualley takes on the titular role of Honey O'Donahue, a small-town private investigator who delves into a series of strange deaths tied to a mysterious church led by a preacher played by Chris Evans. Aubrey Plaza and Charlie Day also feature prominently in the cast, which additionally includes Billy Eichner, Lera Abova, Jacnier, Gabby Beans, Talia Ryder, Kristen Connolly, Lena Hall, Don Swayze, Josh Pafchek, Kale Browne, Alexander Carstoiu and Christian Antidormi. Coen directed from his script written with wife Tricia Cooke, the veteran editor who has cut such Coen Brothers classics as The Big Lebowski and O Brother, Where Art Thou? Cooke also co-wrote Drive-Away Dolls. Said Cooke tonight following Coen, 'More queer cinema, all the time!' to big cheers. Focus releases domestically on August 22. Universal Pictures International is handling overseas distribution. Producers on the project are Coen, Cooke, Robert Graf and Working Title's Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner. Coen has been bringing movies to Cannes' Official Selection since the 1980s, starting with 1987's Raising Arizona which he co-wrote with brother Joel who directed. Notable Cannes titles from the duo have also included Barton Fink (1991/Palme d'Or, Best Director, Best Actor); The Hudsucker Proxy (1994), Fargo (1996/Best Director); O' Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000); The Man Who Wasn't There (2001/Best Director); The Ladykillers (2004/Jury Prize); No Country for Old Men (2007); and Inside Llewyn Davis (2013/Grand Prize). In 2022, Ethan Coen brought his documentary Jerry Lee Lewis: Trouble in Mind for a Special Screening. Because it's a midnight screening at Cannes, the black tie and classy dress attire rules don't apply. However, there was a definite mix in the crowd. Best of Deadline 'Poker Face' Season 2 Guest Stars: From Katie Holmes To Simon Hellberg Everything We Know About Amazon's 'Verity' Movie So Far Everything We Know About 'The Testaments,' Sequel Series To 'The Handmaid's Tale' So Far
NBC News
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- NBC News
No scenery was chewed — Icelandic sheepdog awarded with 'Palm Dog' in Cannes
It was a paws-itively magnificent performance. Less Brad Pitt, more Brad Pittbull, the organizers of the 25th annual Palm Dog awards in Cannes, rolled out the red carpet Friday for the four-legged stars getting their flowers alongside their human colleagues, who were in town for this year's iteration of the film festival held in the French beach town. Under the Plage du Festival tent, humans sipped their wine while their furry co-stars soaked up the attention at the award ceremony named as a pun on Cannes' famous Palme D'Or awarded to the director of the year's best feature film. This year's top dog was Panda, an Icelandic sheepdog who stole the show in 'The Love That Remains,' by director Hlynur Palmason. Panda is Palmason's dog in real life, but the victorious hound could hardly be accused of nepaw-tism after her central performance in the drama that explores the year in the life of a family following parental separation. With Panda unable to attend in person, she was granted perhaps the ultimate privilege of stardom — a double named Lola, who received the award on the winner's behalf and was pictured alongside children. Palm Dog jury member Wendy Mitchell said that Panda was chosen for the grand prize because of how central she is to the family's life in the film, joining them on hikes, on car rides and at the mother's art studio. 'There are so many great competitors this year, but this dog is at the heart of the film,' Mitchell told Reuters. While the vagaries of being a film-famous canine meant that Panda couldn't be there to accept her award in person, she had her people send in a recorded video of her "accepting" the prize — a shiny red bandana stitched with the words 'Palm Dog 2025' in golden thread. 'The Love That Remains' producer Anton Mani Svansson explained Panda 'doesn't really know' about the prize, saying of his dog's bandana that 'I guess she will feel good when she has gotten this around her neck.' Past winners of the prestigious prize include Messi, the Border Collie from Justine Triet's 'Anatomy of a Fall,' which in 2023 became the only movie to claim a Palm D'Or and Palm Dog double. In 2019, a Pitbull named Brandy owned by Brad Pitt's character in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood secured the gong. But the Palm Dog wasn't the only prize on offer to furry thespians. Pipa, a Jack Russell, and Podenco-mix Lupita earned the Grand Jury Prize for their sandy adventures in Sirat, a movie following a father's search for his missing daughter in the Moroccan desert. Director Olivier Laxe picked up the prize in person on behalf of the dogs. Meanwhile, dachshund Hippo received a special 'Mutt Moment' prize for his memorable scene in the movie Pillion, starring Alexander Skarsgard. Palm Dog founder Toby Rose told Reuters that the dogs truly deserved the recognition alongside the regular stars. 'When the camera's on them and they do whatever their role is, they stand out,' he said.
