Blog News 4/15/11 & Blogging Around

For anyone that hasn't heard the news, the official line-up for the 2011 Cannes Film Festival has been unveiled. Anyone interested can read here via Indiewire.

Honestly, I'm pretty excited for this line-up. There's a bunch of films that I want to see that are competing for the Palme D'or. Among the 2 that I really, really, really want to see are Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life and Lars von Trier's Melancholia. There's also Pedro Almodovar's The Skin That I Live In, The Dardenne Brothers' The Kid with the Bike, Lynne Ramsay's We Need to Talk About Kevin, and Julia Leigh's Sleeping Beauty. The last of which has a trailer that was just shown via Vimeo that can be seen here (warning NSFW).

I'm also excited for Gus Van Sant's Restless to appear at the festival though it will be part of the Un Certain Regarde section.

All of this excitement about the Cannes Film Festival has me wanting to announce the line-up for this year's 2011 Cannes Film Festival Marathon. Essentially, from May 11-22, I watch and review films that played at the prestigious festival. Though I will be cheating a bit by watching some of those films prior to the festival's opening day. I will post those reviews during the festival's duration. Here are the 15 films that I will be viewing for this marathon:

Irreversible by Gaspar Noe (2002 Cannes Film Festival-Palme D'or nominee)

Morvern Callar by Lynne Ramsay (2002 Cannes Film Festival-Youth Award & C.I.C.A.E. Award winner)

Battle in Heaven by Carlos Reygadas (2005 Cannes Film Festival-Palme D'or nominee)

Lorna's Silence by the Dardenne Brothers (2008 Cannes Film Festival-Best Screenplay Award)

The White Ribbon by Michael Haneke (2009 Cannes Film Festival-Palme D'or Winner)

Che by Steven Soderbergh (2008 Cannes Film Festival-Best Actor Award to Benicio del Toro) (Expanded Criterion DVD Review)

Antichrist by Lars von Trier (2009 Cannes Film Festival-Best Actress Award to Charlotte Gainsbourg) (Expanded Criterion DVD Review)

Broken Embraces by Pedro Almodovar (2009 Cannes Film Festival-Palme D'or nominee)

Fish Tank by Andrea Arnold (2009 Cannes Film Festival-Jury Prize Award along with Thirst)

House of Flying Daggers by Zhang Yimou (2004 Cannes Film Festival-Out of Competition)

Bright Star by Jane Campion (2009 Cannes Film Festival-Palme D'or nominee)

Looking for Eric by Ken Loach (2009 Cannes Film Festival-Palme D'or nominee)

The Class by Laurent Cantet (2008 Cannes Film Festival-Palme D'or winner)

My Blueberry Nights by Wong Kar-Wai (2007 Cannes Film Festival-Opening Film/Palme D'or nominee)

A Prophet by Jacques Audiard (2009 Cannes Film Festival-Grand Prix winner)

In the world of the bloggers, there's a lot of activity out there. One of the bloggers I've been reading frequently is All Things Shining, a blog that is all about Terrence Malick.

Edgar of Between the Seats & Bill of Bill's Movie Emporium each have some wonderful reviews of Sam Peckinpah's 1969 classic The Wild Bunch as Edgar's can be found here and Bill's is here.

CS of Big Thoughts From a Small Mind asks who is better? Samuel L. Jackson or Nicolas Cage?

From the Final Girl Project comes an excellent podcast about Sucker Punch and films that are better than Zack Snyder's recent failure.

Castor of Anomalous Material ask about Great Movies That Started Off Well... Until the Third Act. And could they please get rid of those video ads? They're fucking annoying.

Dan of Dan the Man's Movie Reviews is really on a roll as he has a great review about Barbara Streisand's The Prince of Tides.

Cinema Du Meep has a great tribute of one of cinema's great directors, the late great Sidney Lumet. He will be missed and my favorite film of his is 12 Angry Men.

Finally, there's a new blog that I'm following in The Movie Encyclopedia that has a very insightful review of Your Highness.

Well, that is all.  Coming this weekend will be Duncan Jones' Source Code.  Until then, this is thevoid99 signing off.