Cannes + Tribeca Lineups + Civil War
Reunion Newsletter [4.19.24]
Cannes Director’s Fortnight lineup announced this week. Congrats to Reunion team member Ariella Mastroianni and Ryan Sloan on their debut GAZER! Quinzaine programmer Julien Rejl began his announcement by reading Ryan’s director’s statement and comparing him to David Cronenberg, Francis Ford Coppola and Brian DePalma. One of the coolest honors I’ve seen in a while. Julien didn’t read anyone else’s statement. It’s as crazy as it sounds. I wish we recorded the 6am call we had following the announcement. One of those life moments that only happen once.
I’m beyond happy for them and honored to talk about them. They’re the real thing. They made the movie together over a few years, wrote, produced, entirely crafted together with a tiny group of friends. Ariella stars and Ryan directs. Self financed while working day jobs, shot in pick ups on location entirely. No packaging, no development, no stars, not even film school.
They submitted to Julien through the standard portal, he loved it, got in touch, and next month they premiere at Cannes. They had their first industry conversations on Tuesday following the announcement.
Let their story inspire you, it can happen. Well, they’re now one of one instance I can cite. They achieved this because they’re more sincere than others you hear about. They are not hustle culture. They’re not networkers. They’re not strategizing even. This is not a trendy topic social justice movie. No IP. I’m the most well known person affiliated with the film and the only EP at the moment. They pulled no tricks. They crafted a story they deeply cared about, iterated on it over a few extremely dedicated years, and grew their expertise while they did it.
This is a movie movie because these two people love movies. You need to watch it in a movie theater with other people around you. It’s by people who love that experience, and made for that experience. If I were able to get a dime for every time they’re about to hear ‘we need more movies like this!’, well, we’d have a P&A budget for the release.
These New Jersey kids love love love movies, did a GREAT job, and will bring their passion project—that is no longer a passion project but a movie in a bidding war—to the international stage of Cannes.
If you’re at the festival, please come see! We’ll be screening it a few times, there’ll be a party, and we’ll announce distribution, well, when all of that comes together! Hit us up if you’re coming! Ask us for the WhatsApp group invite too. :)
Thoughts on Civil War and ‘but what kind of [X] are you?’ below.
— Sean Glass @sdotglass
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Filmmaking Resources:
2024 Film Festival Calendar [Screen Daily]
50 Film Festivals Worth the Entry Fee in 2024 [Moviemaker]
Some new deadlines below!
NEWS
The important stuff on the important stuff. TL;DR + links if you want more.
Remembering Ed Pressman’s legacy. So look at the photo below of Ed. What’s he remind you of? This event was at Paris Theatre right off Central Park, and memorial afters was down the street. This was the night Flaco the owl from the Central Park zoo broke out. It happened while we were two floors up on 5th Ave, and some commotion started outside, we noticed. Went outside to see what was going on, and there was Flaco, right outside, just standing there on the street. I went over and took a video of Sam, Ed’s son, next to Flaco. We hugged and cried and laughed, because this felt like dad saying goodbye to him. It was always kinda a joke that Ed was like an owl. And minutes after Sam gave a speech to all of Ed’s best friends and family, his dad flew over to say hi. Cinematic til the end.
Quentin Tarantino Scraps The Movie Critic as His Final Film. The latest on this is that TWO films were actually shelved. First The Movie Critic, and then a OUATIH spin-off featuring Brad Pitt’s Cliff Booth character. Tarantino is now at work on a new script for his 10th film. Sad to see this strict adherence to only making ten movies is limiting his output. Guess we’ll have to wait for these in inevitable novel form. [World of Reel]
Quentin Tarantino’s 10-Movie Retirement Plan Has Some Flaws [THR]
The Fall Guy Lands First-Ever ‘Stunt Designer’ Credit for Industry Veteran Chris O’Hara. Another win for the stunt community, which has been recently making strides in getting more recognition for their role in modern moviemaking. Now we just need a Best Stunt Oscar. [Variety]
Tribeca Festival Reveals 2024 Feature Film Lineup. [Variety]
Tribeca Festival Reveals TV and Now Lineup. [Variety]
Full festival guide. [Tribeca Film]
Sundance Film Festival Courting New Host City for 2027 and Beyond. [Variety]
“It was a disaster this place.” Abel Ferrara on going to Utah for Sundance. [Twitter]
Baloji and Emmanuelle Béart will co-preside over the Caméra d'or Jury of the 77th Festival de Cannes. Arguably more influential than any choice at the festival for the kind of stuff we care about. Camera d'or is like the opposite of the Grammy best new artist curse, lots of winners become a major filmmakers. Also, woah how does Emmanuelle Beart look like this at 60. French people. Ryan gonna win for Gazer. [Cannes]
Cannes Critic’s Week lineup revealed [Variety]
Seth MacFarlane Foundation Teams With Martin Scorsese’s Film Foundation To Restore Its First-Ever Collection Of Animated Pics. The crossover we didn’t know we needed. MacFarlane and Scorsese will restore significant animated shorts from the 1920s to the 1940s. “What an astonishing experience, to see these remarkable pictures that I experienced for the first time as a child brought back to their full glory. Imagine the reactions of children today! Because the films now seem as fresh as they did when they were newly made.” [Deadline]
DEVELOPMENT
Martin Scorsese eyes Frank Sinatra Biopic with Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence. Project is likely to land at Sony. [IndieWire]
Miles Teller and Andrew Garfield up for roles in Scorsese’s “Life of Jesus” adaptation. Jesus Christ. [Playlist]
Steven Spielberg Returning To Sci-Fi For New Original UFO Movie. This will be based on an original idea by Spielberg and written by long time collaborator David Koepp. 2024 headline. [Screen Rant]
Chris Farley Biopic in the Works With Josh Gad, Paul Walter Hauser. This is already the best picture. [THR]
SUBSTACK RECOMMENDATIONS:
TL;DR: Mostly death.
I promise, Gazer will do this!
WATCH
Sasquatch Sunset [wide]
Coup de Chance [Quad] Woody Allen!!! Hide yo kids hide yo wife oh my god he’s gonna get you!!!
Stress Positions [IFC]
Hundreds of Beavers, now streaming on [Fandor]
Humane, with Caitlin Cronenberg on 4/24 [IFC]
The Films of Edward Yang — series extended with screenings of A Brighter Summer Day + Yi Yi [Film Linc]
Ryûsuke Hamaguchi series, opens 4/26 [Film Linc]
The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed, opens 4/26 [Film Linc]
Cinco De Manno series—screenings of Thief + Last of the Mohicans [Roxy]
1984 Milestone Movies series— Indies & Auteurs block (Body Double, Love Streams, more). [Paris] Saw Temple of Doom the other day so much fun.
Just Announced: Alejandro Jodorowsky: An American Cinematheque Retrospective, opens May 17 [American Cinematheque]
Alain Delon series, thru 4/25. [Film Forum] Swoon.
Americans in Paris series, thru 4/29 [Anthology]
MoMI + Japan Society team for 2 part Hiroshi Shimizu retrospective, opens 5/4 [MoMI]
Poster by the great Tony Stella.
ON OUR MIND
RIP Eleanor Coppola (1936-2024). [Variety]
Abel Gance’s restored Napoleon (1st period) will screen at this year’s Cannes. [Twitter] Only thing that can compete w Megalopolis and Gazer.
Bertrand Bonello’s Criterion Closet Picks. His movie Coma that I saw at Cannes two years ago is finally coming out apparently.
Criterion’s upcoming Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid release is actually taken from Sam Peckinpah’s never before seen final cut. Very cool story of how Peckinpah smuggled it out of the studio. [Twitter]
Twitter account tracking what’s playing on the Criterion 24/7 channel. Does this not ruin it? [Twitter]
Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull poster in Chris Marker's Sans Soleil.
Tsai Ming-liang’s masterpiece Goodbye, Dragon Inn is now streaming. Read Nick Pinkterton’s book from Fireflies Press too. It’s a quick and rewarding one. [Kino Film Collection]
AMC x Rainforest Cafe. Maybe better than Megalopolis?
READ: John Galliano’s Maison Margiela Artisanal Triumph Was Just One of His Many Unforgettable Shows. [Vogue]
Denis Villeneuve was inspired by a sandstorm in Sydney for Blade Runner 2049.
Civil War’s press tour is not going so well. Bc it sucks. [Twitter]
Popcorn buckets are only going to get more fuckable from here on out…
Godzilla’s American dream.
Hideaki Anno’s Shin Ultraman is available on Youtube for free.
Civil War is a rough draft. You don’t need to watch it. It’s a teaser video for a movie that could be. Make it 8 episodes like Devs, and it would be something. Or make it one detailed view into the universe, but have a real aspect to explore, ask a question, introduce a conflict, resolve conflict and answer question. A single one in a larger world. Or do Devs and do the whole thing.
The structure of Devs had three hours of character and action. Some stuff happens to some people. We get to know these people and care about what matters to them and how they connect to one another. Things change, we have emotional reactions, and feel stakes heightening. There is a world in the background, but we don’t know enough about it yet to care, we care about these people. The stakes are on these people. Not some worldly abstraction. Then the veil is removed from the worldly abstraction. We spend three hours in discussion about it. Little happens to these people. We introduce the world, and thereby a few more people. Each of these people represent philosophical approaches to the world and our world. Let these people talk now. Garland wrote these scenes beautifully. We know who’s who, we care about at least one of them, and we put opposition in a room together to hash it out. Rinse and repeat until audience has texture to the information they’ve been given. The determinism conversations are thrilling not only because he does a wonderful job summarizing gigantic complicated concepts, but they’re introduced in the context of characters and stakes we care very much about by that point. Then the final two hours all the stuff happens. We care about what happens to these people. We know what they want and why and what happens if this or that happens. We understand the worldly implications to the diegesis as well as how it applies to our world, so we are further invested in what happens to these individual characters, as we’ve thoroughly mirrored ourselves into at least one of them by this point. We speak the language and care, so when the fireworks come, they mean a lot, and carry heft. This is great storytelling. Nothing I said here is novel or monumental. Garland just didn’t do this in Civil War.
The worst part of Civil War is the best part. From the trailer, we thought Plemons’ line ‘but what kind of American are you’ summarized our existential state of threat to our shared identities. On October 6th, we just said we were Jews. On October 7th, we said we’re Jews…’yeah, but what kinda Jew are you?’ That question is real now. Are you a Zionist Jew? Are you a Jewish Voice for Peace? Etc. This is real. But the line isn’t that! He’s literally just asking if the guy is from Central or South America!!! It’s nothing! It wasn’t thoughtful or deep or challenging or meaningful or anything! It was practical! What a cop out!
Oh man, what a weird weird weird missed opportunity. The set pieces suck. Like for all the imagined opportunities in this scenario, even literally better ones on the AI A24 posters they released this week to outrage. Horrible boring writing. Garland got the Amazon Prime x Netflix cursing bug, where every character has to use ‘fuck’ to emphasize anything instead of actually finding combinations of words that communicate anything. It’s all just a blurb of I am overwhelmed by emotions and articulating myself is not a priority bc I have sooo much going on so all I do is just grunt and say fuck. So boring. Deliver us from this please. Think when writing ya idiots. Karl Glusman wasted. Sonoya Mizuno wasted. Like what’s the pitch there? Hey come and do a few days on my movie, you won’t have anything cool to do, but you’ll be in it, and hey we like each other right? But no, I’m not going to give your character any character or anything memorable, only a few who watch the movie will realize it is you, you’ll be like an easter egg from all our other projects, fun right? Bleh.
I laughed out loud throughout, especially the De La Soul music scene. I saw it as a comedy, intended or not. Others in my IMAX screening didn’t laugh. I think they thought this was challenging because A24 told them it was. It was hilarious. But not hilarious enough, not often enough. It doesn’t work as a comedy, it just was the closest it got to strength.
Way too much consideration for photogs in battle. Christ. These people are living and dying right now. Why are they tasked with steering around children causing chaos and danger constantly? If I were these soldiers I’d tell em gtf away from me. Go get shot if you want. I don’t care. There’s zero chance soldiers do that.
This is not a terrible movie, but it’s the worst version this concept and package could have been. The entire increased budget when to sets and guns and CGI blowing things up. So boring. So much more they could have done.
Just kinda leaving all my notes I made during (hell yeah I looked at my phone while watching, I’d have passed out otherwise) and after movie.
Man, Wagner Moura, what a horrible role for him. Horrible. He got the short end of the thin writing stick. Someone else said it but the world really missed out on not getting Cailee Spainy in Last of Us. The secret service white dude casting was so on the nose and boring.
Anyway. Sucked. But it won’t go down that way, A24 did a good job of washing it all into a general stew of elevated something and the world will just think the movie was good or something. It won’t go down as a failure. Garland interviews though, woah, it’s like he broke.
Another note from a while ago. Ghostbusters opening sequence is one of the worst things I’ve seen in a long time. Five layers of nothing. They shot NYC on a regular day with drones, that’s the base, people go about their regular day business, strolling, on phones, etc. Then they shot the ghost mobile or whatever you call it driving regular, they superimpose that onto the first shoot. Why they did not do this one together, I’m not sure, but something to do with the availability of the picture vehicle I assume. Like maybe they only shot it for a few blocks, but needed to cover lots more ground, and they reused the vehicle shots on more blank streets. Closeups of the vehicle swerving and doing things, shot on a stage. Closeups of the actors in the vehicle, shot on a stage. CGI of the ghosts flying around. The sum of these is layer on layer, but the whole thing a bright sunny day in NYC with people strolling around. Nothing interacts with the environment except for planted moments like when a CGI fire hydrant explodes, but nobody nearby reacts. It’s a chase scene CGI’d into a normal day. So the ghost mobile goes 100 mph and swerves through other cars just driving normal, and nobody cares. The actors have zero awareness nor interaction of where they are, they literally shot this on a stage, sitting on apple boxes probably, or maybe like constructed ghost mobile seats on the stage. It’s one of the least thrilling scenes I’ve ever encountered. I remember the driving scenes being fun and emotional in the recent Jason Reitman one. Maybe they’re the same and I forget. But I responded emotionally. This movie was so nothing. I’ve recently gone to the theater I grew up going to, to sit with popcorn in my lap, and be in a movie theater bc I felt like it on that particular day. Have done that twice and saw Ghostbusters and First Omen. Omen was worse, it was boring. It wasn’t even stupid fun. Boring. So so dumb. Weird time for movies. But there’s incredible ones playing art houses and the repertory is obviously transcendent.
