ENTERTAINMENT
April 3, 2013 | By Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times Film Critic
Burt Lancaster was the first movie star I ever met. I've encountered others since, but the circumstances have never been so dramatic. The year was 1971 and I was a young reporter for the Washington Post covering the Cannes Film Festival on my own dime. Few Americans made the trek in those days, which is why Lancaster's publicist contacted me and asked if I wanted to be part of a small lunch the actor was giving for journalists at the glamorous Hotel du Cap, a legendary spot perched just above imposing rocks that jut boldly into the Mediterranean.
ENTERTAINMENT
May 10, 2011 | By Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times Film Critic
Cannes is always the film festival that critics have to go to, but this year it's shaping up as a place you actually might want to be. With Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris" opening its 64th edition Wednesday night, Cannes is known as an event where art and commerce coexist uneasily, where the 20 presumably rarefied films in the official competition share time and space with the sprawling Marche du Film, a marketplace where 4,079 companies from...
ENTERTAINMENT
January 7, 2011
The Cannes Film Festival is again going with an American brand-name for its jury president. Organizers announced Thursday morning that they'd chosen Robert De Niro to head the jury for this year's edition, the 64th in the gathering's history. He follows Tim Burton, who served as president in 2010. The 2011 installment runs May 11-22 in the southern Riviera town. De Niro is no stranger to film festivals, having founded the Tribeca Film Festival a decade ago; that group spun off another international film convocation, the Doha festival, two years ago. The announcement marks the latest involvement for De Niro with the French festival.
ENTERTAINMENT
February 3, 2011
Woody Allen's 41st feature, "Midnight in Paris," starring Owen Wilson, Rachel McAdams, Marion Cotillard, Kathy Bates, Adrien Brody and Carla Bruni-Sarkozy (wife of the French president), will open the Cannes Film Festival on May 11, organizers announced Wednesday. But if you're not in Cannes that night, you still might be able to catch the romantic comedy ? it's to be released in some 400 theaters across France on the same day. "'Midnight in Paris' is a wonderful love letter to Paris," festival director Thierry Frémaux said in a statement.
ENTERTAINMENT
May 18, 2010 | By Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times Film Critic
"I always have a problem giving films titles," Mike Leigh says, thinking about it. "That comes last, and this film was a real tough one, a bummer. At some stage we thought we should just call it 'Life,' but you can't call it that, it's bloody pretentious." "Another Year" was the appropriate title eventually selected, but the truth is that Leigh's exceptional new film, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, really is about the turning wheel of life as dramatized by the hand of a master, about the pleasures and jealousies, disappointments and insecurities, destroyed dreams and rekindled hopes that make up our daily lives.
ENTERTAINMENT
April 18, 2013 | By Steven Zeitchik, Los Angeles Times
The Cannes Film Festival has a long tradition of showcasing independent global cinema. But in a twist, this year's lineup also includes movies from a wide range of Hollywood entities: Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros., CBS Films, the Weinstein Co., even HBO. The selections revealed Thursday morning reflect a festival leadership that, for all its auteur leanings, is happy to thicken its lineup with American glamour. And while past slates have included a smattering of Hollywood films, the docket this year suggests that studios and networks are - for reasons having to do with marketing and keeping their talent happy - particularly eager to bring movies to the festival despite the hefty price tag. Cannes-related expenses, after all, can run a studio as much as $5 million.