For Roger Ebert, it's a prayer that made him "more alert to the awe of existence." For Rober Koehler, it's a kitschy New Age con. For Richard Brody, it perfectly captures the essence of a generation by depicting a character thinking "back to the musings and fantasies of childhood, which are the product of a wondrous and fantastic view of science formed by popular-science books for children and by the commercial artists whose illustrations adorned them." For Stephanie Zacharek, it's "a gargantuan work of pretension." For Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, it's "a creation myth in the guise of a crypto-autobiography" that invents a universe of its own only to destroy it. For J. Hoberman, it's lifeless and dull, "essentially a religious work and, as such, may please the director's devotees, cultists, and apologists." It spent thirty years in development, three in editing and, yes, it contains dinosaurs. The Tree of Life, written and directed by famously reclusive Zoolander fan and "JD Salinger of American movies" Terrence Malick , won the Palme d'Or at this year's Cannes Film Festival. Tomorrow, it comes out in the United States. [more inside]
posted by alexoscar on May 26, 2011 - 64 comments

Joel and Ethan Coen rarely disappoint. Their new film, No Country for Old Men (based on a novel by Cormac McCarthy), is no exception. See also: Cannes.
posted by chuckdarwin on May 30, 2007 - 55 comments

In 30 years of going to Cannes, Roger Ebert has witnessed Francis Ford Coppola suffering from post-Apocolypse insanity and learned Jerry Lewis's secret for preventing riots--but the most interesting character he ever met there was a loudmouthed, fast-talking Texan named Silver Dollar Baxter with an uncanny gift for bluffing...
posted by yankeefog on May 9, 2005 - 5 comments

Festival de Cannes update: The new Michael Moore movie received a 18 minutes long standing ovation , a couple of days ago, which was already meaningful to him and his film crew. Tonight Moore also received the prestigious Palme D'Or prize, making sure the film will receive an adequate distribution in the United States. His speech was quite powerful, beginning with him visibly stunned, looking at Quentin Tarantino (who was in tears) in disbelief, saying “What have you done? I’m completely overwhelmed by this. Merci”.
posted by Sijeka on May 22, 2004 - 69 comments

When Vincent Gallo's "Brown Bunny" debuted at Cannes the fuvor over the sex scenes gave way to outright boos. In fact, the filmmaker later apologized for making the film. Or did he? Now, Gallo says the apology never happened and that Roger Ebert made it up. Ebert says he'll respond on-air on his next show.
posted by bclark on Jun 4, 2003 - 35 comments