New Films from Bruce LaBruce, Isild Le Besco and Christophe Honoré at Locarno Film Festival

The official line-up for the 63rd annual Locarno Film Festival was announced yesterday, including new films from Bruce LaBruce, Christophe Honoré, Isild Le Besco, Aaron Katz and Denis Côté screening in competition. Katz's Cold Weather, which IFC picked up for US distribution after its premiere at SXSW, is the lone American film competing for the Golden Leopard this year. French porn star François Sagat looks to be the unexpected star of competition line-up, appearing as the lead in both LaBruce's LA Zombie and Honoré's Homme au bain [Man in Bath], the latter co-starring Honoré's muse as of late, Chiara Mastroianni. LA Zombie, a porn-ier counterpart to LaBruce's earlier Otto; or Up with Dead People, screened in Berlin earlier this year and stars a handful of gay porn stars, as well as Tony Ward (who memorably played the object of desire in LaBruce's Hustler White in 1996), pin-up boy Trevor Wayne, rapper Deadlee and Project Runaway finalist Santino Rice (hello, St Louis). In addition to presenting Bas-fonds, her latest project as a director, actress Isild Le Besco can be seen in front of the camera in Benoît Jacquot's Au fond des bois [Deep in the Woods], which marks the sixth collaboration with Jacquot. Au fond des bois also stars Nahuel Pérez Biscayart of Alexis Dos Santos' Glue and will be the opening film in the Piazza Grande section.

Other films in the International Competition: Pia Marais' Im Alter von Ellen [At Ellen's Age], with Jeanne Balibar in the title role; Morgen, the feature debut of Marian Crişan, whose short Megatron won the Palme d'Or in the courts-métrages section at Cannes in 2008; Pietro, the latest from Italian director Daniele Gaglianone (I cento passi); and Curling, from Canadian director Denis Côté who won the Directing Prize at Locarno in 2008 for Elle veut le chaos [All That She Wants]. Elle veut le chaos is available to stream (in certain territories) on MUBI.

Also in the Piazza Grande section: the Duplass' brothers Cyrus, currently in theatres across the US right now; the second directorial outing from respected editor Valdís Óskarsdóttir (The Celebration, julien donkey-boy, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), entitled Kóngavegur [King's Road] which stars Daniel Brühl and Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson; L'avocat [The Counsel], from director Cédric Anger–who co-wrote Xavier Beauvois' Le petit lieutenant and Selon Matthieu and Werner Schroeter's Deux–starring Benoît Magimel, Gilbert Melki, Aïssa Maïga, Eric Caravaca and Barbet Schroeder; Quentin Dupieux's killer-tire film Rubber, which premiered during the Semaine de la Critique at Cannes this year; also from Cannes, Aktan Arym Kubat's The Light Thief, which played in the Quinzaine des Réalisatuers; and restored prints of Ernst Lubitsch's To Be or Not to Be and Francesco Rosi's Uomini contro [Many Wars Ago].

In the Cinema of the Present portion: Memory Lane, the "feature" debut of Mikhaël Hers, whose previous three films (Montparnasse, Primrose Hill and Charell) premiered at the Cannes Film Festival over the past few eyars and all clock-in around an hour-long; Ivory Tower, from first-time director Adam Traynor which marks the acting debut of musician Peaches; and Norberto apenas tarde [Norberto's Deadline], the directorial debut of actor Daniel Hendler, best known as Argentinean filmmaker Daniel Burman's cinematic persona.

And Out of Competition, a number of shorts from notable directors will be playing:

- Get Out of the Car - Thom Anderson (Los Angeles Plays Itself)
- Hell Roaring Creek - Lucien Castaing-Taylor (Sweetgrass)
- Low Cost (Claude Jutra) - Lionel Baier (Garçon stupide)
- Avant les mots - Joachim Lafosse (Nue propriété)
- Return to the Dogs - Lodge Kerrigan (Clean, Shaven)
- Where the Boys Are - Betrand Bonello (Tiresia)
- Pig Iron - James Benning (RR)
- Les lignes ennemies - Denis Côté
- Rosalinda - Matías Piñeiro (Todos mienten)
- Chef d'oeuvre? - Luc Moullet (A Girl Is a Gun)
- Toujours moins - Luc Moullet
- O somma luce - Jean-Marie Straub
- Corneille-Brecht - Jean-Marie Straub
- Joachim Gatti - Jean-Marie Straub
- Europa, 27 Octobre - Jean-Marie Straub, Danièle Huillet

I don't know exactly how Kerrigan's Return to the Dogs relates to his experimental Grace Slick feature Rebecca H. (Return to the Dogs) which played in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes in May. And finally, there will be a special retrospective of director Ernst Lubitsch at the festival this year, as well as a new, restored print of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's little-seen Ich will doch nur, daß ihr mich liebt [I Only Want You to Love Me], which was made for German television. The 63rd Festival del film Locarno runs from 4-14 August. The full list of films in competition is below:

- Bas-fonds, d. Isild Le Besco, France
- Beli, beli svet [White White World], d. Oleg Novković, Serbia/Sweden/Germany
- Beyond the Steppes, d. Vanja d'Alcantara, Belgium/Poland
- Cold Weather, d. Aaron Katz, USA
- Curling, d. Denis Côté, Canada
- Homme au bain [Man at Bath], d. Christophe Honoré, France
- Im Alter von Ellen [At Ellen's Age], d. Pia Marais, Germany
- Karamay, d. Xu Xin, China
- LA Zombie, d. Bruce LaBruce, Germany/Canada/USA
- Luz nas Trevas, a Volta do Bandido da Luz Vermelha, d. Helena Ignez, Ícaro Martins, Brazil
- Morgen, d. Marian Crişan, Romania/France/Hungary
- Periferic, d. Bogdan George Apetri, Romania/Austria
- La petite chambre, d. Stéphanie Chuat, Véronique Reymond
- Pietro, d. Daniele Gaglianone, Italy
- Saç, d. Tayfun Pirselimoğlu, Turkey/Greece
- Songs of Love and Hate, d. Katalin Gödrös, Switzerland
- Winter Vacation, d. Li Hongqi, China
- Womb, d. Benedek Fliegauf, Germany/Hungary/France

Attention-Directing for Berlin and SXSW 2010

The 2010 Berlin International Film Festival begins tomorrow, and unfortunately I'm not going. I did, however, look through the complete line-up to find some of the more exciting films playing this year. One can only hope Noah Baumbach’s follow-up to Margot at the Wedding, Greenberg starring Ben Stiller, Greta Gerwig, Rhys Ifans and Baumbach's wife Jennifer Jason Leigh, is better than Margot, but we'll see...

Jud Süß - Film ohne Gewissen, a biopic of the actor Ferdinand Marian, is the latest from German director Oskar Roehler (Agnes and His Brothers), starring Moritz Bleibtreu and Martina Gedeck. Belgian directors Benoît Delépine and Gustave de Kervern (Aaltra, Louise-Michel) return with their dryly humorous blend of comedy with Mammuth, which stars Gérard Depardieu (with long, golden hair), Isabelle Adjani, Yolande Moreau and Anna Mouglalis.

Four years after she won the Golden Bear for the film Grbavica, Bosnian director Jasmila Žbanić comes to the Berlinale with On the Path [Na putu] about a couple in an unhappy relationship. Yoji Yamada’s (The Twilight Samurai) About Her Brother concerns a family who take over the family pharmaceutical business after the patriarch dies.

Writer/director Nicole Holofcener (Walking & Talking, Friends with Money) once again teams up with actress Catherine Keener for Please Give, a comedy about a husband and wife who own a furniture store. Rebecca Hall, Amanda Peet and Oliver Platt also star. Please Give premiered at Sundance. A director I often confuse with Holofcener, Lisa Cholodenko (High Art, Laurel Canyon), will also be in Berlin with her latest, The Kids Are All Right, with Julianne Moore, Annette Bening and Mark Ruffalo.

Always the envelope-pusher (though seldom with good results), Michael Winterbottom adapts a novel by Jim Thompson (The Grifters, This World, Then the Fireworks) into the graphically violent The Killer Inside Me, starring Casey Affleck and (groan) Kate Hudson and (double groan) Jessica Alba. IFC picked up the US rights to this after it premiered at Sundance. Kristen Stewart plays a teenage stripper/runaway in music video director Jake Scott’s (Plunkett & Macleane) Welcome to the Rileys. Also starring James Gandolfni and Melissa Leo.

Hong Kong filmmaker Scud offers the second part of his unnamed trilogy, Amphetamine, which began with Permanent Residence last year. If you’re curious, take a look at the bizarre lengths some Wikipedia user has gone to in describing the nudity in Permanent Residence. Sample: “As the Chinese actors' full-frontal nudity and unobscured private parts are shown many times, both Sean Li's and Osman Hung's glans penises (penis heads) are visible in every full-frontal nude scene (whether in a room, on a beach, water-platform, shower, etc), revealing that they have both been fully circumcised.”

Both Sébastien Lifshitz and Anahí Berneri are previous Teddy winners (for Wild Side and Un año sin amor respectively), and they both will be presenting their latest films, Plein sud [Going South] and Por tu culpa [It’s Your Fault], in the Panorama section. German queer filmmaker Rosa von Praunheim, Teddy winner in 1990 for Die Aids-Trilogie, will bring the sequel to his Überleben in New York, New York Memories, to Berlin this year.

Canadian director John Greyson has won 3 Teddys, for his feature Pissoir, his short The Making of Monsters and his documentary Fig Trees; his short Covered, an experimental film paying tribute to the organizers of the ill-fated Queer Sarajevo Festival in 2008, will play at Berlin this year. Olivier Ducastel and Jacques Martineau, who won a Teddy Jury Prize for The Adventures of Félix [Drôle de Félix] in 2000, will premiere their latest, Family Tree [L’arbre et la fôret], to Berlin after winning the Prix Jean Vigo. Family Tree stars Guy Marchand, Françoise Fabian, Yannick Renier and Sabrina Seyvecou.

2010 is already a busy year for James Franco. After a hilarious guest role on 30 Rock last month, he is playing Allen Ginsberg in Howl from directors Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman (Paragraph 175), which also stars Jon Hamm (another former 30 Rock guest star), Mary-Louise Parker, Jeff Daniels, David Strathairn, Treat Wiliams, Bob Balaban and Alessandro Nivola. Howl premiered at Sundance and will screen in the Competition section, while two shorts directed by Franco, Herbert White and The Feast of Stephen (the former starring Michael Shannon), will play in the Panorama section.

More 30 Rock connections (it’s all I’ve cared to think about lately): Cheyenne Jackson is featured in Crayton Robey’s documentary Making the Boys, about the legacy of the play The Boys in the Band which was made into a film by William Friedkin. Making the Boys premiered at Outfest last year. Filmmaker Cheryl Dunye (The Watermelon Woman) directs a thriller entitled The Owls in which she and actress Guinevere Turner play aging lesbians.

The latest from Finnish director Aleksi Salmenperä (Producing Adults), Bad Family [Paha perhe], sounds wonderfully naughty. A brother and sister meet again as teenagers after their parents separate and fall in love. Following the German, New York and Tel Aviv editions of the series, Fucking Different: São Paulo is an omnibus of queer shorts from a group of young Brazilian filmmakers.

Postcard to Daddy is a highly personal documentary by Michael Stock, director/star of Prince in Hell, addressing his own molestation by his father as a child. Sadly underrated director Ira Sachs (Married Life, The Delta) will present his short, Last Address, this year, which is dedicated to the many, many NYC artists we’ve lost to the AIDS virus.

German filmmaker Angela Schanelec (Marseilles, Nachmittag) will debut her latest, Orly, in the Forum section. Bruno Todeschini and Natacha Régnier co-star in the German/French production. Constantin Popescu, one of the directors of Tales from the Golden Age, will make his feature debut with Portait of the Fighter As a Young Man [Portretul luptătorului la tinereţe], which follows a Romanian group of anti-Communists hiding in the Carpathian Mountains.

Hanna Schygulla will receive an Honorary Golden Bear for her contributions to both German and international cinema. Schygulla will also present four films she directed: Ein Traumprotokoll, Hanna Hannah, Moi et mon double and Alicia Bustamente. In addition to the films she directed, four of her most memorable performances will also play: Fatih Akin’s The Edge of Heaven [Auf der anderen Seite], Marco Ferreri’s The Story of Piera [Storia di Piera] for which she won the Best Actress prize at Cannes and two collaborations with Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Lili Marleen and Rio das Mortes.

Other new films: Submarino, d. Thomas Vinterberg (The Celebration); Shekarchi [The Hunter], d. Rafi Pitts (It’s Winter); Loose Cannons [Mine vaganti], d. Ferzan Ozpetek (Steam: The Turkish Bath, Saturn in Opposition), w. Riccardo Scamarcio.

The South by Southwest [SXSW] Film Festival also announced its line-up. The film portion of the festival begins on 12 March and runs until the 20th, while the music portion, arguably the raison d’être of the fest, begins on the 17th and goes to the 21st.

The Duplass brothers’ Cyrus, starring John C. Reilly, Catherine Keener, Marisa Tomei (with an awful haircut) and Jonah Hill, is among the Headliners, as well as the U.S. premieres of two Sony Pictures Classics titles, Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Micmacs [Micmacs à tire-larigot] and Aaron Schneider’s Get Low. Mr. Nice, a biopic of criminal Howard Marks, directed by Bernard Rose (The Kreutzer Sonata, the Anna Karenina adaptation with Sophie Marceau), is also a part of the Headliners and stars Rhys Ifans, Chloë Sevigny, David Thewlis, Luis Tosar, Christian McKay and (!) Ken Russell.

Sevigny also stars in Barry Munday, co-starring Patrick Wilson, Mae Whitman (Anne Veal from Arrested Development), Judy Greer (Kitty Sanchez from Arrested Development), Malcolm McDowell, Cybill Shepherd, Jean Smart, Billy Dee Williams and Colin Hanks. James Franco will redirect his party to Austin, Texas to premiere his documentary Saturday Night which looks at all the behind-the-scenes action of Saturday Night Live. Carla Gugino plays a retired porn actress in her boyfriend Sebastian Gutierrez’s Elektra Luxx; also with Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Timothy Olyphant, Malin Akerman, Alicia Silverstone (!), Justin Kirk and Marley Shelton.

Easily the most exciting thing playing at this year’s SXSW Film Festival is the new film from Aaron Katz (Dance Party USA, Quiet City), entitled Cold Weather. Cold Weather again stars Cris Lankenau of Quiet City and sounds vaguely thriller-ish. It’ll be the one I’m keeping my eye on. The other title that has me enticed is Kerthy Fix and Gail O’Hara’s documentary on Stephin Merritt called Strange Powers: Stephin Merritt and The Magnetic Fields. The doc is ten years in the making (starting around the time of 69 Love Songs, I’d imagine). The Magnetic Fields’ new album, Realism, is also pretty outstanding if you haven’t picked it up yet.

Other films playing that premiered elsewhere: Harmony Korine’s Trash Humpers, Michel Gondry’s The Thorn in the Heart [L’épine dans le cœur], Bryan Poyser’s Lovers of Hate, Daniel Barber’s Harry Brown, Dagur Kári’s The Good Heart, Niels Arden Oplev’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo [Män som hatar kvinnor], Giorgos Lanthimos’ Dogtooth, Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani’s Amer, Gaspar Noé’s Enter the Void, Sean Byrne’s The Loved Ones, Bahman Ghobadi’s No One Knows About Persian Cats and Steven Soderbergh’s documentary about Spalding Gray, And Everything Is Going Fine.

Contact High

Guess who saw Juno for the first time this morning? You guessed right. And guess who didn't hate it nearly as much as he thought he would. I'm not going to go as far to say Juno is "good," but with such low expectations, it made for a much more pleasurable experience than, say, a routine dental check-up. Eric at Filmbo's Chick Magnet pointed out the deathly flaw of Juno (though I suppose I'm a bit more forgiving) in being that the adult characters (Jason Bateman, Jennifer Garner, JK Simmons, Allison Janney) are each extraordinarily more interesting people to watch than Juno herself. And if you can look past Juno's calculated quirkiness, there's morsels of good stuff around the fringes. However, about it's Oscar nominations, I don't understand why Hollywood must give accolades (in the Best Picture category) to the "lil' indie that could" every year. Juno and Little Miss Sunshine already took their love to the bank; they certainly didn't need the nod.

I've been looking through my list of 2007 films and given some strong consideration in placing Cristian Mungiu's 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days at the top of the revision. In some ways, it's No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood and The Bourne Ultimatum in one, without discrediting its own individual merits. I'm kind of stuck, because I feel this need to make a Top 10 list every year, but in a year as phenomenal as 2007, I could have made a top 30 and still been unsatisfied. New additions to the 10 list include Aaron Katz's sublime Quiet City (now available from Benten Films) and Craig Zobel's Great World of Sound (whose personal impact has caused it to move up on the list).

In other news, I'm suffering from Godard malaise. This sentiment will undoubtedly displease two of my most frequent readers (coughEricandEdcough), but Lionsgate's boxset of First Name: Carmen, Passion, Détective and Oh, Woe Is Me did nothing other than induce agitation from me. There's a self-importance in Passion that Godard exposed in Tout va bien about his dealings with the working class that just irks me. It's more than likely that I just "don't get" him, but alas, cross me off the list of fans.

On a shinier note, I have a new favorite film, at least one that deserves placement on my shortlist of personal favorites. Martin Donovan's Apartment Zero. Check that shit if you haven't already... and as a side note, I'd absolutely give Hart Bochner the business.

Oh, Walt Disney. At work, I got stuck watching two of the recent canon of Disney films (as in within the past fifteen years or so): Aladdin and Cars. Now, I'd seen both before, but with Aladdin, I was never old enough to look at it critically, and with Cars, I just hadn't realized what a terrible film it was. I never thought I'd hear myself saying this, but Robin Williams and... Larry the Cable Guy are really the only saving graces of the respective films (God, fucking shoot me now). With Aladdin, how could I have never noticed what duds of characters and love interests Aladdin and Jasmine are? Not only is Jasmine a precocious bitch, but she's criminally bland. Aladdin really only holds up today due to its memorable songs (though I'm not going to go as far to say "good," but don't tell me you can't think of at least three songs from that film) and, yes, Robin Williams. Cars, however, is the biggest embarrassment Pixar has ever released (much, much more so than the mediocre Bug's Life). It's not particularly funny nor visually striking. Hell, the idea alone sounded dull. It is, however, worth watching if only for the shitty country song that runs through the end credits which puts into cheesy song lyrics the entire premise of Cars. It'll save you the trouble of having to sit through it.

I'd also appreciate if a Russ Meyer fan could point me in the best direction for continuing with his films. I have yet to see a film of his that isn't Vixen!, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls or Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (I love his use of punctuation) that is even worth the time I would spend watching it. Up! Megavixen and Supervixens are dreadful. Should I continue on or just not allow Meyer's good name to be spoiled with these lousy films?

Revision

I think I'm going to follow-through with the threat I make every year: revisiting my best of the year list and fixing it. Many things have been circling through my mind.

1.) I'm finally seeing 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days today.
2.) Maybe my friend Dan is right and Black Book is indeed slightly better than No Country for Old Men.
3.) Great World of Sound is way too low on my list.
4.) There Will Be Blood has been sneaking up on me ever since I saw it, thus I need to raise it.
5.) I only just yesterday saw Aaron Katz's Quiet City.
6.) I've waited this long to see Juno... it won't make the cut.

All of these, plus a few others that are in the back of my mind, have forced me to this decision, one that I should have done last year (since the list was sorely missing Old Joy, Mutual Appreciation and Wild Tigers I Have Known). Hey, maybe I'll get inspired and redo that list too! Wish me luck.

Y'know, I like "indie" movies...

Oh, yeah, the Independent Spirit Awards. Isn't that just a big party with John Waters or Sarah Silverman as host? I hear the stars can booze it up there, so it always makes watching a helluva lot more interesting than the sterile Academy Awards, but I always wonder what constitutes a film to be nominated and not nominated? This year, Gus Van Sant's Paranoid Park is up for a handful of prizes, but IFC won't be releasing it until next year. And, is A Mighty Heart really an independent film? Whatever. Also, spare your comments about the photos I chose of Adrienne Shelly and Zoe Cassavetes, nominated for their screenplays, and pictured with cameras. Also, looking at the list of cinematographers, I begin to wonder, "has there been a striking, important American director of photography in the past 20 years?" The nominees are as follows:

Best Feature

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly [Le scaphandre et le papillon] - dir. Julian Schnabel - France/USA
I'm Not There - dir. Todd Hayes - USA
Juno - dir. Jason Reitman - USA
A Mighty Heart - dir. Michael Winterbottom
Paranoid Park - dir. Gus Vant Sant - USA/France

Best Director

Todd Haynes - I'm Not There
Tamara Jenkins - The Savages
Jason Reitman - Juno
Julian Schnabel - The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Gus Van Sant - Paranoid Park

Best First Feature

2 Days in Paris [Deux jours à Paris] - dir. Julie Delpy - France/Germany
Great World of Sound - dir. Craig Zobel - USA
The Lookout - dir. Scott Frank - USA
Rocket Science - dir. Jeffrey Blitz - USA
Vanaja - dir. Rajnesh Domalpalli - India/USA

John Cassavetes Award [for features made under $500,000]

August Evening - dir. Chris Eska - USA
Owl and the Sparrow - dir. Stephane Gauger - Vietnam/USA
The Pool - dir. Chris Smith - USA
Quiet City - dir. Aaron Katz - USA
Shotgun Stories - dir. Jeff Nichols - USA

Best Screenplay

Ronald Harwood - The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Tamara Jenkins - The Savages
Fred Parnes, Andrew Wagner - Staring Out in the Evening
Adrienne Shelly - Waitress
Mike White - Year of the Dog

Best First Screenplay

Jeffrey Blitz - Rocket Science
Zoe Cassavetes - Broken English
Diablo Cody - Juno
Kelly Masterson - Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
John Orloff - A Mighty Heart

Best Actress

Angelina Jolie - A Mighty Heart
Sienna Miller - Interview
Ellen Page - Juno
Parker Posey - Broken English
Tang Wei - Lust, Caution

Best Actor

Pedro Castaneda - August Evening
Don Cheadle - Talk to Me
Philip Seymour Hoffman - The Savages
Frank Langella - Staring Out in the Evening
Tony Leung - Lust, Caution

Best Supporting Actress

Cate Blanchett - I'm Not There
Anna Kenrick - Rocket Science
Jennifer Jason Leigh - Margot at the Wedding
Tamara Podemski - Four Sheets to the Wind
Marisa Tomei - Before the Devil Knows You're Dead

Best Supporting Actor

Chiwetel Ejiofor - Talk to Me
Marcus Carl Franklin - I'm Not There
Kene Holliday - Great World of Sound
Irrfan Khan - The Namesake
Steve Zahn - Rescue Dawn

Best Cinematography

Mott Hupfel - The Savages
Janusz Kaminski - The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Milton Kam - Vanaja
Mihai Malaimare, Jr. - Youth Without Youth
Rodrigo Prieto - Lust, Caution

Best Documentary

Crazy Love - dir. Dan Klores - USA
Lake of Fire - dir. Tony Kaye - USA
Manufactured Lanscapes - dir. Jennifer Baichwal - Canada
The Monastery - fir. Pernille Rose Grønkjær - Denmark
The Prisoner; or How I Planned to Kill Tony Blair - dir. Petra Epperlein, Michael Tucker - Germany/USA

Best Foreign Film

4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days [4 luni, 3 săptămâni şi 2 zile] - dir. Cristian Mungiu - Romania
The Band's Visit [Bikur Ha-Tizmoret] - dir. Eran Kolirin - Israel
Lady Chatterley - dir. Pascale Ferran - France
Once - dir. John Carney - Ireland
Perespolis - dir. Vincent Paronnaud, Marjane Satrapi - France