Cannes Diary #4: Cannes gets undressed with two lesbian nuns and a naked maid.

by Elisa Guidici

by Elisa Guidici

Blame the pandemic, blame the sensuous summer in Riviera, this Festival is rated R for sure. A lot of nakedness, numerous explicit sex scenes (with a preference for cunnilingus) and in general the inability to spend a day at screenings without a full frontal or two. Sometimes journalists try to sell Cannes coverage insisting on the hotness of various movies. Well, no one needs to exaggerate this year: Benedetta gave us all the scandalous content we wanted...

Benedetta (Paul Verhoeven)
COMPETITION FILM

This historical queer drama about the forbidden love between two nuns was my most anticipated film and what an experience it was...

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Review: Shirley

by Chris Feil

Josephine Decker’s Shirley opens with the false optimism of young love with a couple in the mold of American idealism. Over the film’s volleying and spry 107 minutes, Decker curdles it with subversion by focusing on their dismantler: the genius writer Shirley Jackson, played by Elisabeth Moss.

The couple at the center, Rose (Odessa Young) and Fred (Logan Lerman), arrive in a college town already imbalanced, favoring the advancement of his studies over her own. Fred is under the leadership of writer and professor Stanley Hyman (Michael Stuhlbarg), the husband of Jackson, with Rose and Fred taking up residence in their booze-drenched home. The young couple disrupts their existence with tranquility and squareness, but Rose’s curiosity and oppression halts a patch of writer’s block for Shirley. The film crescendos with the status quo of the campus upper crust, Rose’s intoxication with Shirley, and the wringing of Shirley’s next masterpiece.

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AACTA Awards Hail Mel Gibson, Tanna and... Gods of Egypt?

by Glenn Dunks

Mel Gibson certainly won’t object to waking up to 13 nominations from the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (the AACTA Awards) for his directorial comeback, Hacksaw Ridge. This canny bit of career rehabilitation for the former Oscar winner began, by association, with the revival of Mad Max. Even if Hacksaw Ridge doesn't ultimately pan out in terms of Oscar success, it should at least go some way to redeeming him in the eyes of many who have been turned off by his personal dramas and increasingly violent movies. I have not seen the film which leads today’s AACTA announcement, but a big-budget international co-production with a big name at its helm is catnip to this group --it’s not surprising to see it nominated in every category possible except one (Best Original Score).

The pleasure in these nominations is the swathe of nominations for much smaller, unique titles like the desert noir Goldstone, the quirky coming-of-age fantasy Girl Asleep, and Australia’s foreign language Oscar entry the Vanuatu-set romance Tanna that in any other year (er, one with bigger hits) would have likely been left with scraps. These four films are nominated alongside the all-star Ibsen adaptation The Daughter in the Best Film category. Alas, Gods of Egypt had to settle for technical nominations.

And, in case you’re wondering, Lion is not here because it doesn’t receive a local release (in its home country!) until next January. This time next year, folks.

The full list of nominations with commentary after the jump...

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