Mark Kermode's Blog, page 45

Cannes 2010 Day 4 - So what's good this year?

On a diet of about four films per day including Mike Leigh's Another Year, Gregg Araki's Kaboom, the cultish possessed car tyre movie Rubber, Woody Allen's You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, and Hideo Nakata's Chatroom, I can't argue that most food groups aren't being served this year, but who is looking like Chef of the Cannes kitchen at the halfway point?

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Cannes 2010 Day 4 - All Aboard with Andy Serkis

While my job here is to attempt a rational critical opinion of tons of movies against a backdrop of hysterical anticipation, others are doing the serious business of trying to raise the money to complete them: movies such as John Landis's Burke and Hare starring Simon Pegg, Isla Fisher, and two-time Kermode Award winner Andy Serkis. I caught up with the former Gollum, King Kong, and Ian Dury aboard a yacht - which frankly is hardly a natural environment for either of us.

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Cannes 2010 Day 3

Two years ago they promised the moon... would deliver a Nazi invasion. And this year the lunacy is real. Let's review the pitch: the Moon, UFOs, Nazis, Udo Kier... Yes the Iron Sky is finally about to fall on our heads and I couldn't be happier.

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Cannes Day 2

Where's the best place to form a considered critical opinion of a movie like Oliver Stone's new Wall Street movie? How about in the middle of an overexcited, overdressed crowd of film buffs while a brass band plays cover versions of old movie themes?

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Cannes Day 1

The festivities are begun, but with Robin Hood and an excoriating documentary about Silvio Berlusconi among the treasures already banked, a sheen of sanity prevails. For now.

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Cannes 2010 Preview

Two years ago I sent daily blog reports from the belly of the beast that is the Cannes Film Festival. After a brief one-year sabbatical the summons has again been issued, the family must be left behind, and I must gird myself to face the creatures of the Croisette. On the other hand there's a new Mike Leigh, a new Takeshi Kitano, a last minute Ken Loach Iraq War movie, Route Irish, Ridley Scott's Robin Hood, and even Oliver Stone's new Wall Street movie, a timely sequel to his often...

Returning Themes

Coming home to your comments on coming home in the movies was like, well, coming home. It really is a special feeling, and one that is apparently evident in everything from After Hours to District 9 via The Warriors and even, so it is argued, The Exorcist...

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How many actors does it take to make a great movie?

Is it true that all you need for cinematic success is a big two-hander (insert your own "Kermode mitts" gag here), or even a three-hander, or does that only work if you have the likes of Gemma Arterton and the wonderful Eddie Marsan, as in The Disappearance of Alice Creed?

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5 live review: Nightmare on Elm Street

5 live's resident movie critic Dr Mark Kermode reviews Nightmare on Elm Street.

Go to Mark on 5 Live for more reviews and film debate.



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One from the Heartless

About a year ago when X Men Origins: Wolverine was released I argued that the way to stop movie piracy was to release them on all formats simultaneously. But when a film comes out that I really, really, really like, I'm not so sure anymore.

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