Elizabeth Banks' 2015 World Domination Tour Continues. Next Stop Venice

As previously noted, Team Experience won't be covering Venice Film Festival (no funds *sob* but I've wanted to go to Venice ever since I saw virginal Madonna singing on that gondola on MTV as an impressionable young lad) but we have planned a couple of Venice-related treats for you this year. And speaking of treats. The Venice juries were just announced and loaded with so many big names, you'd be hard pressed to guess which among them was the President of the Jury at first glance. But killing the suspense... the main jury's president is Alfonso Cuarón.

COMPETITION JURY MEMBERS:

ALFONSO CUARÓN, PRESIDENT (Mexico)
of The Gravity, Children of Men, Y Tu Mama Tambien fame

THE ELIZABETH BANKS WORLD DOMINATION TOUR (USA): Previous Tour Dates: Directing and Co-starring in Pitch Perfect 2; Best Reviews ever for Love & Mercy; Co-starring in Magic Mike XXL; Next Stops: Netflix Binge-watching Dominance with Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp, Conquering Venice Red Carpet Coverage, and wrapping up a phenomenon with The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2...

Lynne Ramsay and more after the jump...

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Stockholm Film Festival: Turkey's Oscar Entry Soars

Glenn has been attending the 25th Stockholm Film Festival as a member of the FIPRESCI jury. Here he is to discuss Turkey’s 2014 Oscar submission, Winter Sleep.

There’s a moment over an hour into Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Winter Sleep where two of the main characters finally strip away the societal niceties that their relatively comfortable existences requires of them and they reveal their true feelings about one another. Some might suggest that the scene, fraught with simmering tension and explosive drama, comes too late in the picture – it effectively kicks off the second act – and that Ceylan’s film could have easily had 20 or 30 minutes shaved from its runtime. I wouldn’t argue that these people are wrong; at 196 minutes, Winter Sleep is the one percent of film lengths of 2014 (only Lav Diaz’s Norte is a longer new release if I am remembering correctly). Still, I found the majority of Ceylan’s Palme d’Or winner to be thoroughly engaging and surprisingly scintillating given its subject matter.

The plot of Winter Sleep sounds like a parody. Perhaps a sketch from Saturday Night Light making fun of Upper West Side noddies who’ll go and watch three hours of subtitles. Or maybe it’s a Woody Allen gag. Either way, there’s no getting around the fact that Winter Sleep is about a man, a former actor and now the writer of a rather pompous newspaper column and owner of a sleepy hotel in the Anatolian hills, and several of his acquaintances discussing ethics and morals. There is his younger wife who has grown increasingly attached to a local group raising funds for the community, his sister with an alcoholic ex, a best friend, a tenant who’s late on his rent check, and various constituents that he has decided he lords over due to his wealth and status. ...more after the jump

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Podcast: Cannes Aftermath with Special Guest Guy Lodge

For this quickie edition of the podcast Nick and Nathaniel speak to Guy Lodge on the last day of the festival about his experience, from favorites to disappointments, festival politics and even a little Oscar buzz. He answers the really important questions like: is Kristen Stewart really that much of a revelation in Clouds of Sils Maria?; is Hitchcock's The Birds is a fair comparison for the Hungarian dog movie White God?; Which movie convinces you that Xavier Dolan is the real deal?

00:01 Winter Sleep and the politics of being "overdue"
05:00 Leviathan & Mommy: late bows and multiple raves
07:45 Acting Prizes: Julianne Moore in Maps and Timothy Spall as Mr Turner
13:00 "Foxcatcher is really terrific!"
18:00 Un Certain Regard: The Tribe and White God
22:00 Competition quality and surprises: Party Girl winning Camera D'Or and the media praise for Channing Tatum and Kristen Stewart
28:00 Last words, movies missed.

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download the conversation on iTunes. Continue the conversation in the comments... and while you're at it listen to the last couple of week's of the podcast which were two of my favorite episodes and weirdly less remarked upon than usual.

Cannes 2014 in Review