‘Armageddon Time’ Review: James Gray’s Deft 1980 Coming-of-Age Memoir Is an Old-School Liberal Message Movie in Progressive Drag

Leo (Eden Dambrine) and Remi (Gustav De Waele) are more than just friends and not at all lovers. At only 13 years of age, they’re too young for that – and what’s more, their bond transcends simple labels. First seen running through the lush meadows of rural Belgium, the duo share a complicity that is as natural and abundant as the late summer harvest.

The TV sequel to the 1988 cult classic movie “Willow” has released its first trailer, giving fans a glimpse at star Warwick Davis’ return to one of his most beloved roles.

omertà, which only makes Chiara more frustrated and more curious. Carpignano and cinematographer Tim Curtin, who also shot “A Ciambra,” keep the audience locked into Chiara’s subjective experience. Curtin’s handheld camera roves over the faces of Chiara’s friends and family, even drifting out over the horizon at times when she feels lost and confused.

Jessica Kiang There are no more potential-killing words of creative advice than “write what you know.” Certainly it’s a shame that when donning her screenwriter chapeau, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi — a fine actress and a director with a deft, light touch, especially with breezy character comedy — seems to have taken them so to heart. Once again she goes back to the autobiographical well for her latest directorial trifle, “Forever Young,” which she co-writes alongside Agnès De Sacy and regular collaborator Noémie Lvovsky.Once again the result is set in a rarefied world of which Bruni Tedeschi has intimate knowledge: this time the 1980s acting school run by the late French theater, opera and film director Patrice Chéreau.

K.J. Yossman Tom Hollander (“The Night Manager”) has been cast in an adaptation of Erri De Luca’s novel “Me, You” (“Tu, Mio”) alongside Alessandro Gassmann (“Transporter 2”) and Daisy Jacob (“Vanity Fair”).The film, set to be directed Bille August (“Pelle the Conqueror”), is set to go into production this Fall on the island of Ischia, near Naples in Italy.“Me, You” is set in the 1950s, in post-war Italy, where 16-year-old London native Marco is on holiday with his father Edward (Hollander).

“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, France -- When the Cannes Film Festival audience stood to applaud James Gray's richly observed autobiographical drama “Armageddon Time," about the director's own 1980s childhood in Queens, Gray's voice quivered as he addressed the crowd.“It’s my story, in a way,” said Gray. “And you guys shared it with me.”“It took every last bit of control not to burst out into tears," Gray said, still recovering the next day in Cannes. “It’s been a really strange journey making the film and my father died two months ago of COVID.

Clayton Davis James Gray’s “Armageddon Time,” a deeply personal look at how the auteur became the auteur we, or at least the French, came to know and love, debuted to warm applause on Thursday. However, the film’s problematic depiction of racial inequalities in the Reagan era may turn off awards voters.

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.

“You can’t ever forget about the past,” Anthony Hopkins says with gentle heed and caution, in a key moment in writer/director James Gray’s intimate new film, “Armageddon Time,” a compassionate movie in perpetual contemplation of our collective accounts, both personally, socially and historically. After venturing out into the jungle (“The Lost City Of Z”), exploring the unfathomable unknowns of deep space (“Ad Astra”) and coming to the same conclusions about the dark heart of human nature, Gray returns to the pavement of his New York City roots for one of his most emotionally honest works regarding the elemental moments of life, love and loss.

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. 

Rebecca Rubin Film and Media ReporterLena Dunham’s next film “Catherine, Called Birdy” will play in theaters before landing on Amazon Prime.The movie has been scheduled to open Sept. 23 in select cinemas and Oct. 7 on Amazon’s streaming service Prime Video.Dunham wrote and directed the Medieval coming-of-age story, which is based on Karen Cushman’s children’s book.

Tom Holland’s Spider-Man trilogy, is set to helm a Star Wars TV series for Disney+.Following rumours of his involvement in the franchise back in February, a report on Vanity Fair has confirmed Watts is working on a Star Wars show under the working title Grammar Rodeo – a reference to an episode of The Simpsons.According to the report, the show takes places “during the post-Return Of The Jedi reconstruction that follows the fall of the Empire” – the same time period as The Mandalorian.While the plot is being kept under wraps, the show is described as a “galactic version of classic Amblin coming-of-age adventure films of the ‘80s” with a casting notice calling for four children around 11 to 12 years old.Watts is an executive producer on the show alongside his Spider-Man: Homecoming writing partner, Chris Ford. A release date has yet to be announced.The series joins an expansive slate of Star Wars TV shows, including Obi-Wan Kenobi later this month, Andor this summer, and The Mandalorian season three due “late 2022 or early 2023”.Other shows in the works include Ahsoka starring Rosario Dawson and The Acolyte, set roughly 100 years before Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.