I don't think the Tour has even been free from doping. As you say, people used drugs back in the day as well.

I'm so excited for Winter Sleep, Once Upon a Time in Antolia is one of my favorite films, and his pictures are just so beautiful. Excited for Two Days, One Night as well. But really, living in a marginal market - Denmark - the only way to see something like a three hour turkish film on screen is if it wins the big…

So, just wanted to say, that the best 'cutter' in world cinema right now is probably Paolo Sorrentino. And I do feel like he is underrated, because his bravura sequences works with editing rather than tracking shots. Amazing dance sequencs in both Great Beauty and Family Friend. I litterally just clicked on the first…

Saw this the sunday before last at Copenhagen PIX. Blogged about it: http://centrifugue.blogspot… I like the way the film depicts how almost dangerous the surroundings seem to find her, after they find out she has sex with older men..

The weird style matches the content: Lars von Trier is outsourcing his responsibility for leading the moviemaking to coincidence, just as Ravn has outsourced responsibility for leading the firm to the Boss. Power and responsibility is really a key theme for von Trier, and this film has a fully unique view on that.…

Plus, in the latest Sight & Sound poll, A Man Escaped tops Seventh Seal handily.

Lol. My next film class included a discussion on the importance of oral sex. I can't remember why, the class was on Cinema and WWII… It was the same professor who put Piano Teacher on the curriculum, btw. He is awesome!

Dude, you're crazy… ;) Especially if we are considering his historical features - which is what I just did, though I think almost everything he has done is great. SO MUCH happens in City of Sadness and The Puppetmaster, though obviously a lot of it is on the margens.

True story:

Anyone making a top 50 list from the 90's without having Beau Travail on it is doing it wrong.

I've only seen The Puppetmaster and Much Ado About Nothing from this festival, but I'd still say with complete confidence that The Puppetmaster was robbed. One of the best films of all time, along with City of Sadness an example of truly great historical cinema. The idea that Chen Kaige should have made something…

While it is obviously true, that the discrimination has happened upstream, the fact is that both Berlin and Venice has managed to give the top prize to a woman four times, while Cannes has only done so once. And names like Margarethe von Trotta and Agnes Varda doesn't seem undeserving.

"“Babylon” deliberately links the limitations these women live within—the gilded cage that Joan ends the episode holding—to the bondage the Israelites struggled in until they built a homeland. They’re all struggling toward Utopia, a good place yet also a place that cannot be."

Well, almost true. In Danish it is -er, and it is simply present form. Jeg googler = I google. I am googling = Jeg er googlende. We just really rarely use present participle.

Welles won in 52 for Othello. I would guess the Palm for Best Intentions in 92 had a lot to do with Bergman writing the manus. He did win a Bear instead, for Wild Strawberries.

I'd definitely argue for a blossoming of litterature doing the thaw as well, but that probably has more to do with the previous generation being pretty close to wiped out in the thirties and forties. You're absolutely right that it kept on after the crackdown. Tons of great samizdat books.

Yes, that was what I was implying ;) I find it staggering how vital the arts got to be by a 'thaw' which was hardly a full democratic turn.

What's the last one you've seen? The opening titles of Hawks & Sparrows are all-time great, and must-see. Haven't seen the rest.

You're right, and by the same token, some of the films I've mentioned probably was really from 65. But still, my point is that the mid-sixties were staggeringly great for eastern-european cinema. Then it crashed.

I haven't seen any of the two winners, and looking over the plate at Cannes, haven't seen much else in competition. Chimes at Midnight is a fine work, but I'd give the prize to Miclos Jancso's The Round-Up myself. That is a masterpiece. Really, I'm surprised at how many eastern european films were in competition, one…