That Cannes-do spirit

The glitz, the glamour, the gratuitous spectacle; it's all happening at this year's Cannes film festival, currently underway in France. Despite the world medias' tendency to focus on Brangelina or the token blockbuster launch (it's the fourth Pirates Of The Caribbean movie this year, by the way), there is also a handful of films from the world's greatest living filmmakers premiering. Woody Allen's latest Midnight in Paris opens the festival tonight, but the real attention is on the 20 films in competition for the festival's grand prize; the Palme d'Or. Here are my picks for the six most likely contenders:

Terrence Malick: The Tree of Life

Everyone loves a recluse, especially when they pop out of the woodwork with masterpieces such as Badlands and The New World every seven-years or so. Terrence Malick's latest, starring Brad Pitt and Sean Penn, sets to be just as beautiful, poetic and complex as his previous films and early buzz has Malick tipped to take home the top prize, 32-years after his first Palme d'Or nomination for Days Of Heaven.

Julia Leigh: Sleeping Beauty

Oscar-winning director Jane Campion presents this erotic retelling of the classic fairytale. Australian beauty Emily Browning swaps the samurai sword and school girl outfit of Sucker Punch to play a college student drawn into a mysterious, hidden world of prostitution. Written and directed by Australian novelist Julia Leigh, this is a triumph of female filmmaking and the poignant, beautifully crafted story should appeal to the A-List jury.

Nicolas Winding Refn: Drive

The black sheep, or black Cadillac rather, of the finalists is Drive; an action movie with art house sensibilities. It stars international film festival favourite Ryan Gosling as a Hollywood stunt performer who moonlights as a wheelman and discovers a contract has been put on him after a heist gone wrong. It doesn't sound like the usual Palme d'Or fare, which is exactly why it might work. It also stars Carey Mulligan, Christina Hendricks, Ron Perlman, Bryan Cranston and Oscar Isaac.

Lars Von Trier: Melancholia

Von Trier blew everyone away with his sexually graphic and emotionally horrific film Antichrist at last year's Cannes, which divided critics and audiences alike. His latest and eighth Palme d'Or nominated film Melancholia looks to be a safer bet with Kristen Dunst and renowned French actress Charlotte Gainsbourg starring as sisters who find their relationship challenged as a nearby planet threatens to collide into the Earth.

Pedro Almodóvar: La Piel que Habito (The Skin that I Inhabit)

Bizarre. That's the first word that springs to mind when watching excerpts from acclaimed Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar's latest about a plastic surgeon (Antonio Banderas) on the hunt for the men who raped his daughter. Part horror, part thriller, all parts dramatic, this is one of the more left-field, artistic offerings amongst the 20 finalists.

Takashi Miike: Ichemei (Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai)

The prolific and controversial Japanese filmmaker's newbie will be the first 3D feature to compete in Cannes and is a re-imagining of Masaki Kobayashi's 1962 film Harakiri. With over 70 titles to his name, Miike's films range from violent and bizarre to dramatic and family-friendly, with this being his first to screen at the famous festival. It's an outside chance to take home any of the major prizes since its biggest coup was getting selected for competition in the first place.

Out of competition films to keep an eye on throughout the course of the festival are Australian serial-killer drama Snowtown, the controversial Princess Diana documentary Unlawful Killing and Oscar-winner Gus Van Sant's latest Restless, starring talented Aussie actress Mia Wasikowka. The Cannes film festival wraps on May 22. In the meantime, I suggest you check out the Restless trailer below because, put simply, it looks amazing.

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Favourite Movie Friday with Mark Ronson

He is, in my opinion, one of the best and most inventive producers in the world. Mark `The Man' Ronson has the kind of resume that makes you feel inferior in every possible way and he and the Business International have a new album out today titled Record Collection. What better way to celebrate than with this exclusive look at his favourite movies of all time:

"My favourite movies? I have so many. I would say quite a few Woody Allen films, probably Annie Hall, Manhattan, Waiting for Guffman - a Christopher Guess film."

(when asked about why he likes Woody Allen films)

"I didn’t see them when I was a kid. Those movies have a romanticised ideal of New York and they’re from around the same time I moved there. That might be part of a reason why it strikes (a chord). It feels a bit warm and fuzzy in a way."

(More favourite of his movies….)

"American movie, a film doco about two guys trying to make a horror film on no money, and of course The Godfather and The Godfather II and Mean Streets. Oh and The King of Comedy is definitely one of my favourites, and Fargo."

His new album (below) is out today and trust me, it's sufficiently dandy.

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Say what? Great quotes from great filmmakers

Filmmakers are such awesome people in general, pretty much anything they have to say is extremely interesting and offers some unique insight. Except for Australian director Ana Kokkinos, I got to sit in on an interview with her last month and boy can that bitch talk; mainly about herself and what a successful, brilliant, visionary filmmaker she is (snort). Anyway, I’ve put together a collection of my favourite quotes from filmmakers, some legendary and others, not so much. There’s many, many, many great quotes from filmmakers out there, but these are the ones that have really inspired me in some way, or made me laugh.

I hope you find them as intriguing as I did.

"The directing of a picture involves coming out of your individual loneliness and taking a controlling part in putting together a small world." - John Houston

"Cinema is an old whore, like circus and variety, who knows how to give many kinds of pleasure." - Federico Fellini (below)

"The very meaninglessness of life forces man to create his own meaning. If it can be written or thought, it can be filmed." - Stanley Kubrick.

"The length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder." - Alfred Hitchcock

“I like the idea of making films about ostensibly absolutely nothing. I like the irrelevant, the tangential, the sidebar excursion to nowhere that suddenly becomes revelatory. That's what all my movies are about. That and the idea that we're in possession of certainty, truth, infallible knowledge, when actually we're just a bunch of apes running around. My films are about people who think they're connected to something, although they're really not." - Errol Morris

"Film as dream, film as music. No form of art goes beyond ordinary consciousness as film does, straight to our emotions, deep into the twilight room of the soul." - Ingmar Bergman

“Thank God I’m an atheist” - Luis Bunuel

"The cinema is not an art which films life: the cinema is something between art and life. Unlike painting and literature, the cinema both gives to life and takes from it, and I try to render this concept in my films. Literature and painting both exist as art from the very start; the cinema doesn't." – Jean-Luc Godard (below)

“A fish may love a bird, but where would they live?” – Drew Barrymore

"I don't think about technique. The ideas dictate everything. You have to be true to that or you're dead." – David Lynch

“Every day I’m intrigued and sometimes outraged by things that no one talks about. Current is a chance to be heard, and send think-bombs out into the world.” – Catherine Hardwicke

Basically I marvel at anything Woody Allen has ever said (besides “Mia, I’m leaving you for Soon-Yi”) as the man has such an interesting perspective on, well, everything. I may be a little biased with the following quotes as I got to hear them straight from the man’s mouth during a phone interview, but they really have stuck with me.

“In life, as long as you don’t hurt anybody – life is such a painful experience for most people – whatever works, whatever gives you that little bit of happiness. It doesn’t have to obey conventional rules or please people. It doesn’t have to be what you planned your whole life.”

“I have never tried to pay homage to anybody. I rip off when I want to rip off, but I never pay homage. My feeling is if you’re going to steals, steal from the best.”

“I’m really interested in my appraisal of them (my films) and not the public appraisal, because they don’t know. The public, in general, will say what they’re told to say by people they consider their betters.”

“I’ve never had a muse in my life, there’s never been anybody that has inspired me in any way to make a film. It’s always hard, grinding work; I go in to a room, I sit, I think. No muse ever shows up with any good news for me.”

“Usually if I’m making a film, I have a good idea and I screw it up.”

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And the junior Oscar goes to . . . .

The Golden Globes are all but over and here's a complete list of the winners:

• Best Supporting Actress: Kate Winslet, “The Reader”
• Best Original Song: Bruce Springsteen, “The Wrestler”
• Best Supporting Actor in a Series, Miniseries or Movie: Tom Wilkinson, “John Adams”
• Best Supporting Actress in a Series, Miniseries or Movie: Laura Dern, “Recount”
• Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series, Drama: Gabriel Byrne, “In Treatment”
• Best Actress in a TV Series, Drama: Anna Paquin, “True Blood”
• Outstanding Animated Feature: “WALL-E”
• Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy: Sally Hawkins, “Happy-Go-Lucky”
• Best Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television: “John Adams”
• Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture: Heath Ledger, “The Dark Knight”
• Best Foreign Language Film: “Waltz With Bashir”
• Best Performance by an Actress in a Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television: Laura Linney, “John Adams”
• Best Screenplay: Simon Beaufoy, “Slumdog Millionaire”
• Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Series - Musical or Comedy: Alec Baldwin, “30 Rock”
• Best Performance by an Actor in a Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television: Paul Giamatti, “John Adams”
• Best Television Series - Musical or Comedy: “30 Rock”
• Best Original Score, A.R. Rahman: “Slumdog Millionaire”
• Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series - Musical or Comedy: Tina Fey, “30 Rock”
• Cecil B. DeMille Award: Steven Spielberg
• Best Director - Motion Picture: Danny Boyle “Slumdog Millionaire”
• Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy: Colin Farrell, “In Bruges”
• Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy: “Vicky Cristina Barcelona”
• Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture -Drama: Kate Winslet, “Revolutionary Road”
• Best Television Series - Drama: “Mad Men”
• Best Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama: Mickey Rourke, “The Wrestler”
• Best Motion Picture - Drama: “Slumdog Millionaire”

Thoughts? Feelings? Deepest, darkest secrets? The last part was a joke but I'm curious to know what everyone thought of the results. It was definitely a night for the underdog and suprisingly I think majority of the awards went to the right people, for once! It's good to see the Golden Globes give two awards to Kate Winslet because although she definitely deserved them, the judging panels tend to steer away from awarding the same actor twice. I must admit I'm dissapointed James Franco didn't win for Pineapple Express but Colin Farrell's performance was definitely better and I'm SO SO SO stoked he got the globe for it! And kudos to Anna Paquin, now she has another Globe to go with the others (and her Oscar) for her role in the vampire tv series True Blood, based on the cult Sookie Stockhouse novels. Get a Woody! It's nice to see what I thought was Woody Allen's return to form Vicky Cristina Barcelona getting the chops it sincerely deserves. Good on ya Woody and lets keep the good work up. But, the night was all about HEATH LEDGER and director Chris Nolan accepted the award for best supporting actor on his behalf. Lets hope this winning momentum carries through to the Oscars where Heath SHOULD win best supporting actor.

In conclusion, I don't think I can ever remember being so satisfied with the results of an awards ceremony. No doubt, I wanted Milk to pick up a few awards however Slumdog Millionaire is apparently brilliant and a worthy winner. The official Oscar nominations are being released on Tuesday, January 20 and I think it's about time The Dark Knight gets nominated for best motion picture. Just because it's an action film and not an emotional drama, that doesn't make its brilliance any less warranted. Come on Academy, give it the nod it clearly deserves.

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