Jane Campion's Gorgeous Cannes Jury

Cannes is but 17 days away and we'll have a TFE team member there this year! Alas it's not me so I'll have to be envious of Diana as she jets off to France in two weeks. We already knew that the brilliant auteur Jane Campion, who regained some cultural caché recently with Top of the Lake (she never lost it with us: Bright Star, hello!) would preside over the jury but this morning the full nine member panel was announced.

Joining Campion this year is a great mix of onscreen talent that happens to include a few people The Film Experience is generally just gaga for from left to right: TFE's favorite Mexican actor ever since Amores Perros, Gael García Bernal;  the future reinterpreter of The Little Mermaid, one of our favorite ladies Sofia Coppola (USA);  former Bond Girl Carole Bouquet will represent the hometeam of France; A Touch of Sin/Platform director Jia Zhangke (China) who I was literally just talking about at brunch yesterday; TFE's favorite Korean actress Jeon Do-Yeon (Secret Sunshine, The Housemaid); the other Mad Dane Drive's Nicolas Winding Refn (Denmark); Hollywood star, experimental indie fixture, and Wes Anderson repertory company player Willem Dafoe (USA); and Leila Hatami, the beautiful Iranian star of A Separation.

 I am in a puddle for this jury. LOVE. 

It's International Women's Day !

I had so many different ideas with which to celebrate today that I didn't manage to get any of them done. It's a typical problem when you have more ideas than time and when indefatigable ambition meets easily exhaustable execution. So herewith... a few off the cuff LISTS celebrating actresses that work primarily outside of the English language that are every bit as good and sometimes a whole lot better than their American/English/Aussie counterparts who get the bulk of attention in the global market.

The gold standard here is always Deneuve. "Catherine Deneuve"... go ahead, sound it out. The name itself just reverberates with glamour but the razzle dazzle of her international celebrity is hardly the reason she's the gold standard. She's also got a filmography that would be the envy of any actor who cares about cinema beyond their own image and though she'll turn 70 this fall, she's still challenging herself. Frankly, if you look at some of the work she did in the past dozen years or so (Dancer in the Dark, Potiche, Pola X, Beloved, 8 Women, A Christmas Tale, etcetera) other actresses her age are slacking...

10 Foreign Film Actresses Most Likely To Get Me in the Movie Theater 

Paprika Steenmultiple actressy lists after the jump!

Click to read more ...

Two Box Office Lists, One "A Separation" Inspired

It was a big weekend for spoofing familiar concepts with 21 Jump Street filling movie houses and the only other top ten newbie Casa De Mi Padre, doing a parodic riff on Mexican movies starring Will Ferrell and everyone's favorite Mexican tag team: Gael García Bernal & Diego Luna. Would love to hear from anyone who saw the latter in the comments since this one slipped me by and GGB is an old favorite. (My review of 21 Jump Street will be up tomorrow evening.)

TOP TEN (Estimates)
01 21 JUMP STREET  $35 new in wide release
02 THE LORAX  $22.8 (cum. $158.4)
03 JOHN CARTER  $13.5  (cum. $53.1) [Review and Taylor Kitsch Beefcake]
04 PROJECT X  $4 (cum. $48.1)
05 A THOUSAND WORDS $3.7   (cum. $12.1)
06 ACT OF VALOR   $3.6 (cum. $62.3)
07 SAFE HOUSE  $2.8 (cum. $120.2)
08 JOURNEY 2 THE MYSTERIOUS ISLAND $2.4 (cum. $95)
09 CASA DE MI PADRE  $2.2 new in limited release
10 THIS MEANS WAR $2.1  (cum. $50.5)

Another Milestone for A Separation
Asgar Farhadi's Oscar winner A Separation (our favorite of 2011) continues its incredible theatrical run passing the 5 million mark. Five million for an Iranian family drama at the US box office? Unheard of. Every once in a blue moon the nation's box office gives us good news for quality cinema. While we're here why not a look back at the biggest foreign hits from the past year?

TOP TWENTY SUBTITLED HITS RELEASED IN THE US IN 2011
Disclaimer: I didn't count The Artist. Though it's foreign, it's silent so we're excluding it but you'll understand that if we did it'd be number one with an incredible $42 million. Don't believe those naysayers that call it a box office disappointment. Black and white + no stars + silent + foreign = $42 million is big big numbers.

Kristin Scott Thomas continues to be a draw ... at least when subtitled.

The ones that got a lot of people talking...
01 SARAH'S KEY [France] $7.6
02 A SEPARATION [Iran] $5.6 and still playing
The Oscar winner this year which we like writing about.
03 BIUTIFUL [Mexico] $5.1   Technically a 2010 picture since it had a one week qualifying run before being pulled until the nominations were announced. But we'll count it for comparison's sake.
04 OF GODS AND MEN [France] $3.9  It was held back to 2011 to capitalize on a presumed Oscar, but the nomination didn't even come. Did very well for itself in 2011 anyway which is not the usual case for that sort of "wait for the Oscar" trick.

other successes
05 DON 2 [India] $3.6 
06 THE SKIN I LIVE IN [Spain] $3.1
"Success" being relative. This didn't do Pedro Almodóvar's usual numbers though I'm unsure as to why.
07 ZINDAGI NA MILEGI DOBARA [India] $3.1
08 PINA [Germany] $3.0 and still playing The Oscar nominated dance documentary... in 3D.
09 RA ONE [India]  $2.5
10 INCENDIES [Canada] $2.0   Another Oscar nominee from last year

POTICHE was such fun. Arthouse audiences (mostly) agreed.

minor hits... but still hits
11 BODYGUARD [India]  $1.8
12 POTICHE [France] $1.6
13 DELHI BELLY [India]  $1.5
14 THE DOUBLE HOUR [Italy] $1.5 
15 SAVING PRIVATE PEREZ [Mexico]  $1.4
16 CERTIFIED COPY [France| Italy | Belgium ] $1.3
17 NO ERES TU, SO YO [Mexico] $1.3 
18 DESI BOYZ [India] $1.0
19 IN A BETTER WORLD [Denmark]  $1.0 The Foreign Film Oscar winner last year
20 READY [India]  $.9

ol' faithfuls French cinema and Bollywood continue to have the most reliable ticket buyers in the US arthouses. Bollywood movies don't need any press attention at all to find audiences. Even if you follow the movies religiously chances are you haven't heard of their annual hits if you're not out there looking for them. France is a different story in that way, getting and needing the media push.

Hrithik Roshan & Shah Rukh Khan are superstars of Bollywood. So is the male physique.

And also: What is it with Bollywood and über muscley male superstars? Bollywood men are way more objectified than their Hollywood counterparts.

Jeon Do Yeon, our favorite Korean actressjust outside the list Japan's ultra violent epic 13 Assassins got some attention and press but didn't quite cross the million mark.

sad observation Though South Korea is where it's at right now for regional cinema heat (as opposed to heat tied to specific filmmakers) the country's cinema has yet to catch on with arthouse moviegoers here in the States. Despite huge acclaim Mother, Thirst and Poetry, three of the most interesting films of the past few years, didn't totally catch on. None of them crossed the magic million dollar mark and only one of them passed ½ a million. The Housemaid and Secret Sunshine were also not true breakthroughs despite the exciting lead actressing of Jeon Do-Yeon.

Answer me these questions three

• Which of the top 20 foreign hits did you see?
• What did you see this weekend?
• Any theories as to why The Skin I Live In wasn't up to Pedro's usual numbers or why Bollywood worships male flesh?
  

I Link You Phillip Morris

Link Almighty?
How the Link Stole Christmas?
Ace Ventura: Link Detective?

• Towleroad Jim Carrey Black Swans himself for Saturday Night Live
• In Contention is Jim Carrey on the rise again? It's a good question.
• My Life as a Blog interesting piece on great acting and how we (generally) define it. Plus more praise for Jeon Do-yeon in Secret Sunshine (2007) and that's always worth rubber-stamping.
• Cinema Blend Trent Reznor to score The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. The Fincher collaboration continues.
• EW the Coen Bros pick their favorite westerns on such criteria as "good hat brims"
• Scanners best shots, opening and ending of the year
• /Film Wicked film in the works. But not the one we were waiting for, damnit.
• Brown Okinawa Assault Incident has a list of indelible fashion moments in 2010 films from The Runaways to I Am Love to Never Let Me Go. Fun/interesting.
• Roger Ebert a little more detail on the NSFC awards as well as an official statement about the MPAA and the Blue Valentine controversy and such.
• In Contention BAFTA's rising star list. Go Tom Hardy (though I wonder why he wasn't nominated last year? That's when we honored him.

Finally, you should check out StinkyLulu's 5th annual Supporting Actress Blog-a-thon if you haven't yet. Each year, Stinky's enthusiams for "actressing at the edges" provides an interesting eclectic look at a broad swath of performances from their passionate fans. The blog-a-thon often feels quite personal so I respond to it that way in turn. Thus, it was most interesting to read about roles and performances that I... 

a) didn't personally care for (Patricia Clarkson in Shutter Island) 
b) didn't see but am now curious about (Anne Hathaway in Valentine's Day)
c) hadn't thought twice about until the interesting write-up (Tammy Blanchard in Rabbit Hole) or
d) obsess over on account of the film.

Regarding the latter, you know I'm talking about Black Swan which as you can imagine hogs quite a bit of the blog-a-thon being an actressy effort. Mila Kunis gets more writeups than I've ever seen anyone get in these parties and Julian at Movies and Other Things made me giggle with this bit on Barbara Hershey.

She refrains from extremes, ...never dipping into Mommie Dearest-like histrionics. I don’t think she cares if Nina uses wire hangers for her clothes...

Hee. True enough, Julian. But she sure does care if Nina eats cake. "WELL, IT'S GARBAGE NOW!"