VarietyLA DVFLA052312 : Page 1

DAY 8 WEDNESD A Y , MA Y 23, 2012 CRIX FIX PIX MIX Variety ’s senior film critics, Justin Chang and Peter Debruge, sat down to discuss and debate the standouts so far at the 65th Cannes Film Festival. PETER DEBRUGE: It’s been raining for the last few days in Cannes, which is the perfect kind of weather to drive critics into movie theaters, where we feel grateful for grubby dramas set inside medieval-minded Romanian monasteries — such as “Beyond the Hills,” a skin-crawl-ing, unsensationalized look at a Drake’s Good deals By Diana Lodderhose and Dave McNary Joe Drake’s new financing, production and sales outfit Good Universe has descended on its first Cannes with a bang, locking multi-territory deals with Univer-sal Pictures Intl. for “Oldboy” and “Last Vegas.” UPI acquired rights for the U.K., Germany, France, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Australia and Spain for both pics. Douglas UPI also snagged “Last Vegas” for Scandinavia. “Oldboy,” a remake of the Park Chan Wook’s pic, is helmed by Spike Lee and penned by Mark Protosevich, based on the manga by Garon Tsuchiya and Nobuaki Minegishi. It stars Josh Brolin, Elizabeth Olsen and Sharlto Copley. Roy Lee and Doug Davison and Good Uni-Freeman verse’s Nathan Kahane produce. John Middleton exec produces and Protosevich co-produces. “Last Vegas,” a laffer directed by Jon Turteltaub, stars Michael Douglas, Robert De Niro and Morgan Freeman. CBS Films has See UPI page 26 Love, sex and violence: what’s not to like? real-life exorcism gone wrong from past Palme d’Or winner Cristian Mungiu — or during the height of American Prohibition, like “Law-less,” a John Hillcoat-Nick Cave collaboration whose blood seems laced with peyote, not moonshine. Still, it’s a bit too early in the fes-tival for the world’s tastemakers to have arrived at anything resembling consensus regarding the films that have unspooled so far. JUSTIN CHANG: Even strong films that play in the competition spot-light are bound to have their de-tractors, yet I’ve heard unusually few dissenting remarks about Mi-chael Haneke’s runaway critical favorite, “Amour” — and I’m not about to add any. Anyone famil-iar with Haneke knows the milk of human kindness does not exactly flow through his body of work; here, he’s found a way to be every bit as exacting and pitiless as ever about his subject, but with a devas-tating counterweight of emotional honesty provided by the extraordi-nary performances of Jean-Louis See CRIX page 27 Jean-Louis Trintignant in “Amour” ‘GRACE’ NOTES SALES America (Play Arte), Eastern Eu-rope (Revolutionary Releasing) and Benelux (RVC). Cannes buyers have “ ‘Grace’ has been very fallen under the spell of well received by buyers be-“Grace of Monaco,” Olivier cause they’ve been tracking Dahan’s drama toplining the project since it’s been Nicole Kidman as thesp-on the (Hollywood screen-turned-princess Grace Kelly. play) Black List,” Inferno’s Repped by L.A.-based Kidman co-founder Jim Seibel tells shingle Inferno, “Grace of Variety . Monaco” pre-sold to Italy (Lucky Seibel added, “ ‘Grace’ is on Red), Australia (Entertainment track to sell worldwide by the end One), Scandinavia (Scanbox), of the market — the few remaining See GRACE page 26 Germany (Square One), Latin By Elsa Keslassy and John Hopewell Buyers flock to lock ‘Lux’ By John Hopewell Underscoring the marquee value of heavyweight auteurs, Mexican Carlos Reygadas’ “Post tenebras lux,” which bows in Cannes competition Thursday, has struck several sales deals at Cannes. Pacts are the first for NoDream Mantarraya (NDM), the sales op-eration launched by Reygadas via his NoDream Cinema shingle, and Jaime Romandia, his longterm producer at Mantarraya Produc-ciones, in February. Headed by Fiorella Moretti, NDM made its market debut at Cannes. See LUX page 26 Competition Killing Them Softly MOBS WITH JOBS TO DO By Justin Chang A routine, even mundane crime story relayed in tones of world-weary fa-tigue, “Killing Them Softly” deglams the mob movie to coolly distinctive if rarely pulse-quickening effect. Trad-ing in pleasures of a deliber-ately rarefied sort, writer-director Andrew Dominik’s talky, character-rich genre piece largely short-circuits thrills to sketch a grimly funny portrait of thugs taking care of business, in every rotten sense Turn to page 26 SPC says yes to Larrain’s ‘No’ By Dave McNary Sony Pictures Classics has acquired North American rights to Pablo Larrain’s “No,” which screened in Directors’ Fortnight. Deal was announced Tuesday in Cannes by Sony Classics. The Chilean-set political drama is financed by Participant Media in association with Funny Balloons and Fabula. “No” stars Gael Garcia Bernal, Alfredo Castro, Antonia Zegers, Marcial Tagle, Nestor Cantillana, Jaime Vadell and Pascal Montero. Larrain directed from a screen-play by Pedro Peirano. “No” is produced by Juan de Dios Larrain and Daniel Dreifuss and exec pro-duced by Participant’s Jeff Skoll and Jonathan King. Film is based on a true story: When Chilean military dicta-tor Augusto Pinochet called for a referendum on his presidency in 1988, opposition leaders persuaded a brash young advertising execu-tive, portrayed by Garcia Bernal, to spearhead their campaign. Participant’s Jeff Ivers and King negotiated the deal.

CRIX Fix Pix Mix

Love, sex and violence: what’s not to like? Variety’s senior film critics, Justin Chang and Peter Debruge, sat down to discuss and debate the standouts so far at the 65th Cannes Film Festival. PETER DEBRUGE: It’s been raining for the last few days in Cannes, which is the perfect kind of weather to drive critics into movie theaters, where we feel grateful for grubby dramas set inside medieval-minded Romanian monasteries — such as “Beyond the Hills,” a skin-crawling, unsensationalized look at a real-life exorcism gone wrong from past Palme d’Or winner Cristian Mungiu — or during the height of American Prohibition, like “Lawless,” a John Hillcoat-Nick Cave collaboration whose blood seems laced with peyote, not moonshine. Still, it’s a bit too early in the festival for the world’s tastemakers to have arrived at anything resembling consensus regarding the films that have unspooled so far. JUSTIN CHANG: Even strong films that play in the competition spotlight are bound to have their detractors, yet I’ve heard unusually few dissenting remarks about Michael Haneke’s runaway critical favorite, “Amour” — and I’m not about to add any. Anyone familiar with Haneke knows the milk of human kindness does not exactly flow through his body of work; here, he’s found a way to be every bit as exacting and pitiless as ever about his subject, but with a devastating counterweight of emotional honesty provided by the extraordinary performances of Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva. Is it too early to declare “Amour” a masterpiece? I’m not so sure. There wasn’t a moment in this film when I felt I was anywhere but in the hands of a master. PD: I wholeheartedly agree “Amour” warrants the “masterpiece” label, as it builds on a style Haneke has cultivated over a quarter- century career, while also taking us in a new direction, where the film’s title and depiction of pure devotion ironically serve to answer the question, “When is it OK to murder someone?” The other competition title where tenderness masks what society would normally deem an enormously controversial scenario is Matteo Garrone’s “Reality,” which brilliantly applies a “Bicycle Thieves”-style neorealist aesthetic to a scripted fable about a man who checks out of his own reality as he becomes increasingly obsessed with being cast on Italy’s “Big Brother.” Set in a Catholic culture, the film suggests television and instant fame as our generation’s new god. JC: God or the absence of God, always a hot festival-film topic. Certainly it’s central to “Beyond the Hills,” a rigorous, often commanding high-art “Exorcist” that amounts to a 2½-hour cautionary tale about misguided groupthink. To my mind, Thomas Vinterberg tackled a similar theme more successfully with “The Hunt,” an entirely gripping drama about a monstrous accusation that causes an innocent man (an outstanding Mads Mikkelsen) to be banished from his community. And by design or not, boy did I feel the absence of God during “Paradise: Love,” Ulrich Seidl’s powerful, explicit and painfully protracted look at Kenyan sex tourism. I wanted to take a shower afterward, but that would’ve only further emblazoned the movie’s faucet-heavy imagery into my brain. PD: “Paradise: Love” is one of those rare films that warms me over to the Cannes-beloved style in which directors set up a camera in one spot and then let an entire scene unfold in the distance. (It’s a wonder it’s taken the fest so long to embrace Wes Anderson, who loves squared-off glimpses at bizarre behavior.) Coming into the fest, there was much consternation about the lack of female directors, yet the program has offered no shortage of femme-driven stories, from “Beyond the Hills,” where a lesbian attraction explains the so-called “possession,” to “Paradise: Love’s” sunburned heroine to the incredible performance Marion Cotillard gives in “Rust and Bone,” in which her character finds the strength to overcome self-pity after losing her legs. JC: Isabelle Huppert gave a typically fine performance in “Amour,” but it was a pleasure to see her cut loose in Hong Sangsoo’s funny, flaky cross-cultural doodle “In Another Country,” in which she plays three different women falling into a series of trysts and near-trysts in a Korean seaside town. (Thankfully Ulrich Seidl didn’t direct that one.) While we’re on the subject of female performances, one of the problems I had with “Lawless” was its ridiculously perfunctory treatment of the women in its story. Yeah, I know it’s a man’s world, blah blah blah, but why bother to hire superb actresses like Jessica Chastain and Mia Wasikowska and give them nothing to do but stand by their men? Frankly, Margarethe Thiesel was treated with more directorial respect in “Paradise: Love,” and she spends most of that movie stripping bare for the camera’s very unflattering gaze. PD: Chastain’s role in “Lawless” exists more to define the men around her, but then, the film is really about three redneck brothers. Among them, Tom Hardy gives my favorite performance of the festival so far, humanizing a stereotype whose instincts compensate for his unsophistication. Meanwhile, there are no women to speak of in Andrew Dominik’s “Killing Them Softly,” an ultra-stylish but otherwise vacuous genre movie about a criminal called in to kill some criminals who stole from the wrong criminals. The movie would be easy to dismiss if not for a running motif in which every car radio broadcasts political speeches from the 2008 financial meltdown, cynically suggesting that in America, the whole game is run by criminals anyway. JC: Women indeed have no more place in “Killing Them Softly” than they do in “Lawless” or the vast majority of American crime pictures; at least Dominik’s movie doesn’t waste time pretending that they do. Far more slippery and elegant in its consideration of the fairer sex is Abbas Kiarostami’s “Like Someone in Love,” which unfolds over a night and day in the life of a demure young college student and escort girl (Rin Takanashi). This hypnotic headscratcher is, on one level, a story about the many shades of male desire, yet it shimmers and quivers with a sensibility that can only be called feminine; I won’t soon forget the sublime shot of Takanashi in a cab at night, the neon lights of Tokyo rushing past her as she listens to her grandmother’s voice messages. With any luck, there are more highs like this to come in the remaining days of the festival.

Buyers Flock To Lock 'Lux'

John Hopewell

Underscoring the marquee value of heavyweight auteurs, Mexican Carlos Reygadas’ “Post tenebras lux,” which bows in Cannes competition Thursday, has struck several sales deals at Cannes. Pacts are the first for NoDream Mantarraya (NDM), the sales operation launched by Reygadas via his NoDream Cinema shingle, and Jaime Romandia, his longterm producer at Mantarraya Producciones, in February. Headed by Fiorella Moretti, NDM made its market debut at Cannes. In the wake of two private screenings, with buyers not waiting to gauge press reception, “Lux” has closed Italy (Archibald Film), Benelux (Wild Bunch Netherlands), Poland (Festival New Horizons), Greece (Ama Films), Portugal (Midas Filmes), ex-Yugoslavia (MCF) and Denmark (Ost For Pardis). Jean Labadie’s Le Pacte, sales agent and French distrib partner on Reygadas’ films, handles Gaul and is selling Spain and Switzerland; the Match Factory, a “Lux” producer, is selling German rights. The U.S., U.K. and Russia are under negotiations and will close shortly, Romandia said at Cannes. Reygadas’ followup to 2007’s “Silent Light,” which won Cannes’ jury prize, “Lux” turns on a family living in the countryside in Mexico. Pic tops a slate that includes Amat Escalante’s drug cartel drama “Heli,” the feature film debut of Reygadas a.d. Alex Ezpeleta, “Cacahuete,” and Mantarraya partner Pablo Aldrete’s alternative Western, “Rio de oro.” The duo has set up a distrib ution company in Mexico: ND Mantarraya. Its pickups for Mexico include “Alps,” “Elles,” and Michael Haneke’s “Amour,” which screened in competition here . “Heli” and “Cacahuete” are Mantarraya productions.

Mobs With Jobs To Do

Justin Chang

Competition Killing Them Softly A routine, even mundane crime story relayed in tones of world-weary fatigue, “Killing Them Softly” deglams the mob movie to coolly distinctive if rarely pulse-quickening effect. Trading in pleasures of a deliberately rarefied sort, writerdirector Andrew Dominik’s talky, character-rich genre piece largely short-circuits thrills to sketch a grimly funny portrait of thugs taking care of business, in every rotten sense of the word. Results are at once a bit pretentious and worth savoring by those who don’t mind a low-octane approach, spelling moderate B.O. for the fall Weinstein Co. Release, though a wellcast Brad Pitt could enhance its prospects. Though it runs a fleet 97 minutes and finds Dominik in a relatively light mood after the brooding dramatics of 2007’s “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford,” “Killing Them Softly” is similarly a film about the complications and hesitations that precede the decision to murder a man. Like its predecessor, this confidently made picture is minutely attentive to process, marked by occasional arty flourishes, and in no hurry to get to the payoffs. No one really wants to hurt anyone in this battered, beleaguered world of disorganized crime, but it’s got to be done, and with as little expense as possible in these cash-strapped times. Indeed, the picture cynically and over-insistently foregrounds the economic crisis throughout, updating the setting of George V. Higgins’ 1974 Boston-set novel, “Cogan’s Trade,” to Louisiana in the weeks preceding the 2008 presidential election. Lest one miss the tale’s topical import, TV screens and radios are continuously blaring speeches by President George W. Bush and then-candidate Barack Obama, full of false hope and lofty talk of choices and consequences, repeatedly suggesting that the era’s financial gloom and air of general malaise have trickled down even to America’s scuzziest back alleys. It begins with the setup for a particularly pathetic crime, as pudgy midlevel crook Johnny Amato (Vincent Curatola) taps ratty up-and-comer Frankie (Scoot McNairy) to rob a card game run by mob hustler Markie (Ray Liotta). To Johnny’s chagrin, Frankie foolishly chooses perpetually strung-out loser Russell (Ben Mendelsohn) as his partner. These two dumb kids proceed to hold up the game and make off with the mob’s stash, in one of the few sequences that delivers a jolt of tightly coiled suspense, albeit stemming more from the culprits’ bumbling incompetence than from anything else. “You know they’re gonna kill ya?” Markie murmurs to Russell mid-heist, a look of genuine sympathy on his face. The movie goes on to glumly prove his point, as his higher-ups bring in their smooth, reliable and unfailingly pragmatic enforcer, Jackie Cogan (Pitt), to wipe out those responsible. When suspicion falls on Markie, Pitt becomes the very picture of a reluctant assassin, one who kills strictly out of professional obligation and often hires others to do the dirty work. “I like to kill ’em softly — from a distance,” he says, summing up the joyless efficiency with which he goes about his job. Retaining the pungent, Elmore Leonard-esque tang of Higgins’ dialogue, yet rendering it tighter and more comprehensible for the screen, Dominik’s loquacious screenplay employs a stop-andgo rhythm, dominated by lengthy, two-character exchanges punctuated by potent spasms of violence. Not even a routine beating can be dished out without copious amounts of planning, hedging, negotiating, arguing and cussing beforehand, the goombah equivalent of bureaucratic red tape. When the attacks do arrive, they’re amply foreshadowed, alternately sped up or slowed down for heightened dramatic impact, yet drained of anything that might be mistaken for a rush of pleasure. Certainly not for all tastes, especially those of straight-up action fans, the picture’s restraint places a considerable burden on the actors to maintain interest, which they shoulder impressively. A couple of them get great, tongue-in-cheek entrances; Pitt’s Jackie, sporting shades and slicked-back hair, packs just a hint of a strut as he strides into the frame backed by Johnny Cash’s “The Man Comes Around.” James Gandolfini, amusingly disagreeable as a hitman who’s let his taste for booze and prostitutes ruin his killer instincts, is introduced getting off a plane like a shlub attending a sales convention. Appearing exclusively opposite Pitt, Richard Jenkins socks over his turn as a bespectacled, tightlaced mob liaison with a particular aversion to cigarette smoke. Sam Shepard has a too-brief turn as a local rough, but Liotta, in only a few minutes of screen time, makes poor Markie a figure of real pathos and enormous likability; casting of Liotta and fellow screen-gangster icon Gandolfini slyly underlines the pic’s notion of the cruel-to-indifferent fates that await everyone in this bloody biz. Skillful technical package is distinguished by Greig Fraser’s color-muted widescreen lensing, Brian A. Kates’ deft editing and Leslie Shatz’s subtle sound design, employing occasional drones and dissonances in lieu of a score. In keeping with the economic realities impinging on the story, the film was shot in Louisiana for tax-incentive purposes; while the rundown locations are well suited to the story’s gone-to-seed atmosphere, the absence of New Orleans color and the indiscriminate mix of tough-guy accents suggest these sorry-ass proceedings could be taking place anywhere. CREDITS: A Weinstein Co. Release of a Metropolitan Films and Inferno presentation in association with Annapurna Pictures and 1984 Private Defense Contractors of a Plan B Entertainment and Chockstone Pictures production. Produced by Brad Pitt, Dede Gardner, Steve Schwartz, Paula Mae Schwartz, Anthony Katagas. Executive producers, Megan Ellison, Matt Butan, Bill Johnson, Jim Seibel, Bob Weinstein, Harvey Weinstein, Adi Shankar, Spencer Silna. Co-producers, Samuel Hadida, Victor Hadida, Roger Schwartz, Matt Budman, Will French, Douglas Saylor Jr. Directed, written by Andrew Dominik, based on the novel “Cogan’s Trade” by George V. Higgins. Camera (Deluxe color, Panavision widescreen), Greig Fraser; editor, Brian A. Kates; music supervisor, Rachel Fox; production designer, Patricia Norris; set decorator, Leslie Morales; costume designer, Norris; sound (Dolby Digital/DTS), Kirk Francis; sound designer, Leslie Shatz; supervising sound editors, Thomas O’Neil Younkman, Robert C. Jackson; re-recording mixer, Shatz; visual effects supervisor, Dottie Starling; visual effects, Wildfire VFX; special makeup effects, Christien Tinsley; stunt coordinators, Wade Allen, Darrin Prescott; associate producer/assistant director, Scott Robertson; casting, Francine Maisler. Reviewed at Cannes Film Festival (competing), May 22, 2012. Running time: 97 MIN. Jackie ............................................ Brad Pitt Frankie .............................. Scoot McNairy Russell ............................. Ben Mendelsohn Driver ............................... Richard Jenkins Mickey ........................... James Gandolfini Markie Trattman ........................ Ray Liotta Johnny Amato ................. Vincent Curatola Kenny Gill ........................................ Slaine Barry Caprio ........................... Max Casella Steve Caprio ........................... Trevor Long Dillon .................................... Sam Shepard

Drake's Good Deals

Diana Lodderhose and Dave McNary

Joe Drake’s new financing, production and sales outfit Good Universe has descended on its first Cannes with a bang, locking multi-territory deals with Universal Pictures Intl. For “Oldboy” and “Last Vegas.” UPI acquired rights for the U.K., Germany, France, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Australia and Spain for both pics. UPI also snagged “Last Vegas” for Scandinavia. “Oldboy,” a remake of the Park Chan Wook’s pic, is helmed by Spike Lee and penned by Mark Protosevich, based on the manga by Garon Tsuchiya and Nobuaki Minegishi. It stars Josh Brolin, Elizabeth Olsen and Sharlto Copley. Roy Lee and Doug Davison and Good Universe’s Nathan Kahane produce. John Middleton exec produces and Protosevich co-produces. “Last Vegas,” a laffer directed by Jon Turteltaub, stars Michael Douglas, Robert De Niro and Morgan Freeman. CBS Films has domestic rights for the pic, a comedy about four old friends who throw a bachelor party for the only one who has remained single. Dan Fogelman penned screenplay while Laurence Mark and Amy Baer produce with Kahane and Lawrence Grey exec producing. Matt Leonetti co-produces. Nicole Brown oversees the project for Good Universe. The UPI acquisitions reflect two major themes that are unfolding at the Cannes Film Festival this year: one, that studios are becoming more acquisitive in international markets than in the past; and two, that new sales companies headed by seasoned execs are proving to be the outfits that discerning buyers are turning to for product. Good Universe, which was launched by former Lionsgate motion picture group prexy Drake and former Mandate Pictures prexy Kahane, has partnered with Lionsgate in Mandate’s development list. The duo is also looking to acquire franchise material, and aims to expand the Ghost House Pictures brand with more funds and increased focus on the horror genre.

'Grace' Notes Sales

Elsa Keslassy and John Hopewell

Cannes buyers have fallen under the spell of “Grace of Monaco,” Olivier Dahan’s drama toplining Nicole Kidman as thespturned- princess Grace Kelly. Repped by L.A.-based shingle Inferno, “Grace of Monaco” pre-sold to Italy (Lucky Red), Australia (Entertainment One), Scandinavia (Scanbox), Germany (Square One), Latin America (Play Arte), Eastern Europe (Revolutionary Releasing) and Benelux (RVC). “ ‘Grace’ has been very well received by buyers because they’ve been tracking the project since it’s been on the (Hollywood screenplay) Black List,” Inferno’s co-founder Jim Seibel tells Variety. Seibel added, “ ‘Grace’ is on track to sell worldwide by the end of the market — the few remaining territories, including Spain, U.K. and Canada, are expected to be closed in the coming days.” Dahan is best known for helming “La Vie en Rose,” the Edith Piaf biopic that earned Marion Cotillard an Oscar. The 1962-set “Grace,” which is penned by Brit screenwriter Arash Amel, is produced by Pierre-Ange Le Pogam’s Stone Angels. The Gallic outfit is also producing Inferno-repped “Maggie,” Henry Hobson’s upscale genre pic based on John Scott 3’s script.

SPC Says Yes To Larrain's 'No'

Dave McNary

Sony Pictures Classics has acquired North American rights to Pablo Larrain’s “No,” which screened in Directors’ Fortnight. Deal was announced Tuesday in Cannes by Sony Classics. The Chilean-set political drama is financed by Participant Media in association with Funny Balloons and Fabula. “No” stars Gael Garcia Bernal, Alfredo Castro, Antonia Zegers, Marcial Tagle, Nestor Cantillana, Jaime Vadell and Pascal Montero. Larrain directed from a screenplay by Pedro Peirano. “No” is produced by Juan de Dios Larrain and Daniel Dreifuss and exec produced by Participant’s Jeff Skoll and Jonathan King. Film is based on a true story: When Chilean military dictator Augusto Pinochet called for a referendum on his presidency in 1988, opposition leaders persuaded a brash young advertising executive, portrayed by Garcia Bernal, to spearhead their campaign. Participant’s Jeff Ivers and King negotiated the deal.

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