Hebba (Mona Zaki) is sort of a sex pot Tim Russert. With bright red lips and tight Eurotrash-girl-reporter get-ups, she intimidates the powerful guests of her politically controversial late-night talk show by all but crawling across the desk to interrogate them. Newly married (for the second time, as is repeatedly pointed out, lest we forget that this is the apparently 30-something’s Last Chance At Love) to an ambitious flunky at a State-run newspaper, Hebba submits to her husband’s aggressive request that she tone down her implicit criticism of contemporary Egyptian government by devoting her show to “stuff you can’t blame the government for” –– at least until he secures a key promotion. After an encounter with a shopgirl who cuts a glamorous Western-esque swath by day only to don a hijab to walk through streets littered with burning trash at night, Hebba figures she can give her husband the superficial human interest stories he wants and still slip in a bit of hard truth. The sob stories of Egypt’s everyday women turn out to be so politically incendiary that their fallout hits Hebba where she lives. Literally.
The existence of Yousry Nasrallah’s Scheherazade, Tell Me a Story within the contemporary Egyptian film industry mirrors the uneasiness of storytelling in a less-than-open state that’s at its story’s core. Both visually and politically provocative, the film has managed to triumph over controversy and censorship to become a huge critical and commercial hit in its home country. A triptych-within-a-story revealing women as the invisible victims of the Muslim world’s pains of growing into modernity, the epic drama sometimes wears its muckraking intentions a little too plainly on its sleeve, but its fusion of campy/soapy pleasures into serious social satire is unforgettable.
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Film blogs are sure to be a buzz-influencing force at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, which opens tonight and runs through the 19th. And they better be, especially after the apparent runaround bloggers — including Spout’s own Karina Longworth — were getting from the TIFF press office last month regarding credentials. Alex Billington of FirstShowing even arrived in T.O. only to find that the festival had still not decided if he should be given a badge (he was eventually granted credentials).
Anyway, Karina will be reporting through the fest’s run, but I want to first share what some other bloggers are writing as the fest begins. Check it all out after the jump:
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2009 may be remembered as a “down year” for the Cannes Film Festival — certainly, some press and industry faces familiar from previous years were nowhere in sight; certainly, celebrity directors like Ang Lee, Pedro Almodovar and Quentin Tarantino showed up with new films that failed to single-handedly rescue the world economy by the end of their first screenings — but isn’t it a down year all around, not just for film but for, like, life on Earth? In a time as stagnant and depressed as this, what can we reasonably expect a film festival to do? Never once in my eight days at the festival did I question whether Cannes does or does not matter. Spending hours each day in Market badge lines composed of Cannes’ equivalent of rabble (myself included — I was standing in those lines because my coverage is not important enough to the Festival to merit press accreditation) the weight of the event doesn’t seem up for debate — you’re literally fighting over seats with too many people to whom Cannes matters to.
Back in New York now, maybe I should have a clearer perspective, but it’s hard. Even as the bigger films failed to meet my expectations, even as Lars Von Trier stomped in like Godzilla, swallowed the press corps whole and left the festival in ruins (and I *liked* Antichrist), even if I went home without seeing anything that matched 2008’s A Christmas Tale or Modern Life as sure-to-endure masterworks international cinema … I’ll still do whatever it takes to go back next year. I spend an awful lot of time covering things out of obligation because they’re perceived to matter to someone; in return, let me be selfish. Let me have Cannes, if for no other reason than because it matters to me.
And with that: after the jump, you’ll find my collected coverage. At right, the one photo I managed to take of “local color” - because even the coffee at Cannes this year came with unneccessary nudity.
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Spanish auteur Pedro Almodovar recently announced he’s working on an American TV series based on his Oscar-nominated film Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. While it seems odd for Fox Television to be interested in adapting a 21-year-old foreign film to the small screen, the age of the source material is hardly surprising given the fact that both NBC and ABC are similarly working on new shows based the 1989 ensemble dramedy Parenthood and 1987’sThe Witches of the Eastwick, respectively, for the fall.
Is this the beginning of a trend? We hope so, and we’re even going to lend TV producers a hand by suggesting ten other 1980s movies that would make interesting shows. To make it a little less random, though, especially given how many appropriately sitcomish films were released in the decade, we have limited our selections to one per year. If you have any additional ideas, please pitch them in the comments section below.
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If you’ve been paying attention to any of the pre-Cannes speculation this year, you won’t be surprised to see that Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds, Ang Lee’s Taking Woodstock, Lars Von Trier’s Antichrist, and Pedro Almodovar’s Broken Embraces made the competition lineup. You may be surprised by just how many modern masters, globally recognized provocateurs and early-to-mid career boldfaced names will be showing work alongside them: Michael Hanneke, Jane Campion, Park Chan Wook, Johnny To, Isabel Coixet, Gaspar Noe, Jacques Audiard, Tsai Ming-liang, Andrea Arnold, and Alain Resnais. This leaves little room for emerging talents — and in fact, a couple of small American films gossiped about in recent weeks as being Cannes-bound were not included in the Competition or Un Certain Regard lineups. But there’s always Director’s Fortnight; the slate for that and Critics Week will be announced tomorrow. The full ineup so far after the jump.
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Yesterday, for the second time in two weeks, In Contention’s Kristopher Tapley confessed to being done with 2008 and noted a bunch of anticipated 2009 films. These aren’t necessarily titles he’s looking forward to seeing, though; it’s basically a preliminary jump on next year’s Oscar season. Because apparently this year’s Academy Awards are all but handed out, the winners properly predicted and expected, and now it’s time to think about what will be up for what in 2010. Those titles Tapley lists are Rob Marshall’s Nine, Peter Jackson’s Lovely Bones, Michael Mann’s Public Enemies, Clint Eastwood’s “Mandela“ (formerly The Human Factor), Richard Curtis’ The Boat That Rocked, Scott Cooper’s Crazy Heart and the latest from Terrence Malick (The Tree of Life), Steven Soderbergh (The Informant), Paul Greengrass (Green Zone), Martin Scorsese (Shutter Island) and James Cameron (Avatar).
Oh, and then Jeff Wells had to go and hint that Spielberg’s Lincoln is likely to arrive by year’s end. What and who else is being foreseen as nominated this time next year? Check out the links after the jump.
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Roger Ebert, who underwent his third cancer-related surgery in January, has posted 
Two Paramount subdivisions are collaborating to produce Jackass 2.5, an almost-feature length, direct-to-internet sequel to last year’s massively successful 
