EXCLUSIVE: Maddie Ziegler and Schitt’s Creek Star Emily Hampshire are to lead Bloody Hell, a coming-of-age “traumedy” from Mary Goes Round director Molly McGlynn.
19.05.2022 - 21:45 / deadline.com
Writer-director James Gray has been to the Cannes Film Festival in competition on four previous occasions with We Own the Night, The Yards, The Immigrant, and Two Lovers but has yet to walk away with a prize. Maybe the fifth time will be the charm? It certainly would be deserving as Gray comes back to his beloved New York City roots with the highly autobiographical and intriguingly titled Armageddon Time.
Lest you think that with that title this is more akin to his last film, the Brad Pitt-starring sci-fi Ad Astra think again. It couldn’t be further apart and reps a return to his more frequent thoughtful character-driven family drama explorations rather than space, although that figures in at least one way. With Astra and the exceptional and haunting jungle epic The Lost City of Z (my favorite of all his films and one of the best of any kind this century) Gray had drifted from the films that brought him to Cannes, but he is back in familiar territory and this is his most personal yet, a meticulously recreated cinematic journey set in the course of two months during the 1980 election season.
The ever-imposing, even threatening presence of then-Presidential candidate Ronald Reagan is weaved subtly in the background through snippets on TV as the family from Flushing, Queens, looks on with disapproval and fear for the future. But this story is focused on a coming-of-age tale about the friendship between young Paul Graff (Banks Repeta) and a Black schoolmate Johnny (Jaylin Webb) at PS 173 who has been held back a year and whom he immediately befriends, the pair bonding over their respective dreams of being an artist and an astronaut one day. Both are clearly hated by their obnoxious teacher, and when they are caught smoking
EXCLUSIVE: Maddie Ziegler and Schitt’s Creek Star Emily Hampshire are to lead Bloody Hell, a coming-of-age “traumedy” from Mary Goes Round director Molly McGlynn.
The stars of the new movie Elvis, directed by Baz Luhrmann, stepped out for a press conference and photo call at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival.
CANNES – Lukas Dhont’s second feature, “Close,” starts off where most love stories end, and, in that respect, it begins with almost euphoric joy. Leo (Eden Dambrine) and Remi (Gustav De Waele) are the best of friends.
Detective Hae-joon investigating the death of a man who fell from a mountain top. When he meets the deceased man’s wife in Park Chan-wook’s latest film in competition at Cannes, Decision To Leave.
“It’s apparently fun to drown,” says sixteen-year-old Chloé, the droll, moody teen at the heart of Charlotte Le Bon’s debut feature, “Falcon Lake.” It’s a pithy line that echoes Cecilia Lisbon’s response (“Obviously, Doctor, you’ve never been a thirteen-year-old girl”) when she’s asked why she tried to harm herself in Sofia Coppola‘s “The Virgin Suicides.” Unlike Cecilia and her sisters, Chloé only plays at being dead, seeing how long she can float in the lake near her family’s cabin or lie in the road like a deer hit by a passing car.
“It’s apparently fun to drown,” says sixteen-year-old Chloé, the droll, moody teen at the heart of Charlotte Le Bon’s debut feature, “Falcon Lake.” It’s a pithy line that echoes Cecilia Lisbon’s response (“Obviously, Doctor, you’ve never been a thirteen-year-old girl”) when she’s asked why she tried to harm herself in Sofia Coppola‘s “The Virgin Suicides.” Unlike Cecilia and her sisters, Chloé only plays at being dead, seeing how long she can float in the lake near her family’s cabin or lie in the road like a deer hit by a passing car.
CANNES – It may seem obvious, but sometimes combining two compelling stories doesn’t lead to an overall more captivating film. That’s the primary takeaway from Gina Gammell and Riley Keough‘s somewhat messy “War Pony,” which debuted at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival this weekend.
CANNES – We are living in yet another era of European history where old battles over the borders of nation-states are being disputed. Russia has invaded the sovereign nation of Ukraine after already annexing the province of Crimea less than a decade ago.
“Three Thousand Years of Longing” premiered at Cannes on Friday night has quickly become one of the more talked about films out of the festival thus far. And Miller and his stars Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba in a press conference Saturday encouraged the journalists in the room, as well as Hollywood at large, to continue telling unique, diverse stories.Swinton in particular warned of the danger of only being exposed to one type of story.
When ranging out of Mad Max territory, George Miller’s films are highly diverse and unpredictable in nature, and never has this proved more the case than with his time-traveling, narratively far-ranging new drama, Three Thousand Years of Longing. In this Cannes Film Festival competition entry, the director delves back into old texts to examine the nature and power of legendary stories that have endured for centuries in a way that is both sharply creative and a bit off-putting; the film begins on quite a high, only to slowly deflate as it works its way toward its modern-day ending.
It’s early days at the Cannes Film Festival, so awards prognostication might seem a little premature, but still, it’s hard to imagine that the phenomenal performance given by Swedish-Lebanese actor Fares Fares in Tarik Saleh’s searing political thriller Boy from Heaven will go entirely unnoticed by this year’s jury. Topping the work he did in Saleh’s 2017 Sundance hit The Nile Hilton Incident, Fares commands the screen from the moment he arrives, playing a character whose disheveled appearance conceals a ruthless efficiency, a laser-focused mind and an entirely pragmatic concept of morality.
Mark Jenkin’s 2019 film Bait had the rare distinction of being a genuine out-of-the-blue discovery, featuring heavily on UK critics’ year-best lists after a modest arthouse release by the BFI. The black-and-white film’s experimental style was emphasized in all its press coverage, nodding to avant-garde auteurs like Stan Brakhage, Derek Jarman and Guy Maddin — all directors who are interested in the literal grain of film and video (indeed, Jenkin reportedly developed the negative with coffee and washing soda then distressed the image by hand). Throw in post-synch sound, and you have a film more likely to screen to two people and a dog at a smoky underground 1960s cine-club than win a BAFTA.
CANNES – James Gray’s new film, “Armageddon Time,” is an autobiographical tale recounting the systematic racism he witness at the age of 12-years-old over four decades ago. His parents are played by Anne Hathaway and Jeremy Strong, while he’s reimagined as Paul, an artistic dreamer portrayed by Banks Repeta.
TheWrap’s review called the film one of the least nostalgic examples of a form that is almost by definition nostalgic,” and added: “Gray is hard on himself in ‘Armageddon Time’; Paul Graff, the film’s stand-in for the director as a sixth grader, is never cute, unless you want to dote on the angelic curls and ignore the purposefully stubborn personality.
Elsa Keslassy International CorrespondentJames Gray spoke about the contemporary resonance of his Cannes competition film “Armageddon Time” at the press conference for the movie on May 20. Sitting next to Anne Hathaway and Jeremy Strong, Gray said he wrote the script of “Armageddon Time” before a series of events including the killing of George Floyd and said his initial idea for the film was to show “layers of white privilege” in the 1980s which still exist today.“It’s impossible to look at the world as currently constructed, at least the Western world, at least my own country, which is what I have referenced and not see white privilege as one of the guiding mechanisms that are in existence,” said Gray.Gray said people who go to the private school depicted in the film have to been seen as “having superpower privilege.” “It’s a system where the same group gets to the top, stays at the top, and they keep everybody else out.
James Gray returned to Cannes for the fifth time with what was a personal story inspired by his childhood during 1980s Queens, NY, and the premiere tonight was nothing but emotional.
Matt Donnelly Senior Film WriterAnne Hathaway and Jeremy Strong made the end of the world seem pretty fabulous on Thursday night, hitting the Croisette for the Cannes Film Festival premiere of writer-director James Gray’s “Armageddon Time.”Gray’s semi-autobiographical film about growing up in 1980s Queens stars newcomers Banks Repeta (as the Gray surrogate) and Jaylin Webb (as his best friend). Hathaway and Strong play solid a Jewish couple with dreams of upward mobility.
Kenneth Branagh’s childhood was transformed by the Troubles in Northern Ireland, Mike Mills had very eccentric parents and Cameron Crowe was a teenage rock critic — and we know these things because all three directors have made films that drew upon their own childhoods. And now it’s James Gray’s turn to offer his own look back with “Armageddon Time,” which premiered to a rousing ovation in the main competition at the Cannes Film Festival on Thursday.And what does the film tell us about the young Gray? For starters, he was a dreamer, he was a brat, he didn’t understand the privileges he was born into and he went on his own path.
Jessica Chastain surprised audiences at the Cannes Film Festival on Thursday, when she appeared in an unannounced cameo in the 1980s coming-of-age drama “Armageddon Time” as Maryanne Trump, Donald Trump’s sister.Chastain’s role is small but effective. As Maryanne Trump, she appears as a guest lecturer at an austere private school where the film’s young protagonist, Paul (Banks Repeta), matriculates mid-film. She lectures the privileged boys and girls about the value of ambition in a Phyllis Schlafly-esque beehive.