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Donald Clarke

Whingeing about cinema and real life since 2009

Cannes

Cannes review of Mud

MUD **** Directed by Jeff Nichols Starring Matthew McConaughey, Reese Witherspoon, Tye Sheridan, Jacob Lofland, Michael Shannon, Sam Shepard, Sarah Paulson 135 min, playing in competition Fans of Jeff Nichols’s first two pictures — Shotgun Stories and Take Shelter — …

Tara Brady investigates the Directors’ Fortnight

Tara Brady writes: Seasoned Cannes punters couldn’t help noticing that many of the films in this year’s Directors’ Fortnight selection were – whisper it – superior to most of the titles in the higher ranked Un Certain Regard. These are …

The final stretch

Things are beginning to quieten down a little here. The trade magazines are now the size of parish gazettes. The market echoes whenever you laugh at the poster for Batman’s Bolivian non-union equivalent. It’s an odd feeling. It’s rather as …

A day of Resnais, Hong Sang-soo and Chris O’Dowd.

Honestly. Some of the people here. If I may paraphrase John Gielgud in Arthur, one usually has to go to a bowling alley to encounter people of this calibre. I should hurriedly explain that I’m not talking about the distinguished …

It’s all about Haneke

As the grey skies closed in and genuinely torential rain hammered the pavement, the main competition kicked properly into gear with the screening of Michael Haneke’s Amour. The Austrian director is now big favourite for the Palme d’Or with a …

Cannes review of Amour by Michael Haneke

AMOUR/LOVE ***** Directed by Michael Haneke Starring Emmanuelle Riva, Isabelle Huppert, Jean-Louis Trintignant, William Shimell, Rita Blanco, Laurent Capelluto 127 min, playing in competition You didn’t need a degree in semiotics to deduce that the title of Ulrich Seidl’s creepy Paradise: Love, which played here on …

Lawless press conference and other Saturday matters

To the media room. It’s the press conference for John Hillcoat’s Lawless. I was looking forward to the film very much, but, as you can read below, I ended up finding it a bit flat. No matter. It was nice …

Cannes Review of Lawless by John Hillcoat

LAWLESS *** Directed by John Hillcoat Starring  Shia LaBeouf, Tom Hardy, Gary Oldman, Jessica Chastain, Mia Wasikowska, Guy Pearce 115 min, playing in competition In 2005, John Hillcoat turned a script by Nick Cave into one of the best films of the decade: The Proposition. That …