Walter Salles’ long-awaited screen adaptation of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road got its in-competition red carpet premiere tonight at the Cannes Film Festival. The reception from critics has so far been mixed, with most having something to say about the amount of time star Kristen Stewart spends with her clothes off. (I guess that’s the way to shed your teen heart-throb image. Her Twilight costar and real-life paramour Robert Pattinson must agree since he apparently does the same in Bel Ami.)

Speaking of RPatz, I think this is an example of what Gerard Butler was alluding to when he said “you can’t really do down other people’s press-lines” and what I meant when I said that if someone not associated with a movie stole the spotlight it was the fault of the press and not the attendee. While it’s lovely that he’s there to support KStew (plus he has a movie, Cosmopolis,  also screening in competition later this week) there are at least as many pics of Pattinson at this premiere out there on the web as there are of Kristen Stewart. Not only might a casual observer think that Pattinson was in the movie, but that he and Stewart were in it alone. If I were Kirsten Dunst, Sam Riley, Garret Hedlund or Tom Sturridge, I’d be pissed. Viggo Mortensen probably doesn’t care one way or another. 

Enjoy the pics from the On the Road premiere as well as the photocall earlier in the day!

*observations: Kiki Dunst looked very pretty at the photocall, almost bridal-wonder if that was a message for Garrett Hedlund? Also, Tom Sturridge does not look old enough to be Sienna Miller's baby-daddy (He's actually 26 to her 30 so I guess he is).

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I’m sure you remember the stories of Paris Hilton and Lindsey Lohan (among others) having their homes broken into and all of their prized possessions stolen etc etc.  Writer/director Sofia Coppola has taken these incidents and turned them into her next movie, The Bling Ring starring Emma Watson and we have your first look.

Inspired by actual events, a group of fame-obsessed teenagers use the Internet to track celebrities' whereabouts in order to rob their homes.

(Law & Order: LA, before it was unceremoniously yanked off the air, also did an episode based on this group.)

Coppola has again assembled a talented and eclectic cast (which has become her trademark). In addition to Watson as Nicki, Leslie Mann is Nicki’s Mom as well as Nina Siemaszko, Gavin Rossdale and Taissa Farmiga (American Horror Story – sister of Vera). Kirsten Dunst who starred in Coppola’s Marie Antoinette is rumored to have a role. (The film is still in production so we don’t know if it’s true yet.)

Speaking of “still in production”, there are recent reports that the film may have put the actual court case from the 2008-2009 incidents in jeopardy. Coppola hired a working LAPD officer, Brett Goodkin, as a technical advisor, but Goodkin's testimony is likely to be critical in the trials of the three accused.  He never notified prosecutors about his work on the movie.  Oops.

The Bling Ring does not currently have a release date other than 2013. We’ll keep you posted.

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On the Road, based on the autobiographical novel by Jack Kerouc, stars Sam Riley as Sal Paradise (Kerouac’s doppelganger) and Garrett Hedlund as Dean Moriarty (fictional counterpart to Neal Cassady) along with  Kristen Stewart as Moriarty’s wife Marylou. We’ve had a few posters (for Viggo Mortensen, Tom Sturridge, Amy Adams, Alice Braga and Elisabeth Moss) and pics already. Today we have three more character posters, one for Sam Riley (Control, Brighton Rock), Garrett Hedlund (Tron: Legacy, Country Strong) and Kirsten Dunst as Camille as well as some new stills from the film. (I think all that's missing is a poster for Kristen Stewart. That'll probably appear right after I post this. )  What did I tell you? I’m psychic! (Or psycho as the case may be.)

Just after his father’s death, Sal Paradise, an aspiring New York writer, meets Dean Moriarty, a devastatingly charming ex-con, married to the very liberated and seductive Marylou. Sal and Dean bond instantly. Determined not to get locked in to a constricted life, the two friends cut their ties and take to the road with Marylou. Thirsting for liberty, the three young people head off in search of the world, of other encounters, and of themselves.

Dean and Sal are the portrait of the Beat Generation. Their search for"It" results in a fast paced, energetic roller coaster ride with highs and lows throughout the U.S.

The amazing troupe of supporting players also includes Steve Buscemi and Terence Howard.  

On the Road is set for release in France on May 23 (much like Cosmopolis, this is a sure sign of its inclusion at Cannes. We’ll find out definitively today at some point.), 21st September in the UK but nothing definite yet in the US. 

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Here’s a first poster for a film we haven’t heard a peep about since TIFF last September (where it received mixed reviews). Hick, directed by Derek Martini , stars Blake Lively, Chloe Grace Moretz and Eddie Redmayne. Two of those names have gotten a lot of ink lately for their acting (and not publicly canoodling with Ryan Reynolds). Redmayne was of course in Oscar nominated My Week with Marilyn and Moretz is just everywhere. The latest is that she has been offered the lead in yet another remake of Stephen King’s Carrie. (Note to CGM: Please don’t do it!) While some may see this as a good move because an appearance in a King based film has done so much for others careers in the past (Spacek, Bates, Freeman etc etc) –this is a remake of a classic, something that was tried to disasterous effect ten years ago.)

“When 13-year-old Luli gets fed up with her mother’s love of high drama and men who drink too much, she leaves Nebraska and takes to the road, going west to follow her dreams of stardom. Along the way she meets Eddie, a drifter with an attitude, and a troubled woman named Glenda. With the help of these new friends and the strength of her dreams, Luli protects herself from the unpredictable people she meets in her new life.”

Hick will get a limited US theatrical release on May 11 and hit VOD the same day.

Ted is the feature film directorial debut from Family Guy mastermind Seth McFarlane. It stars Mark Wahlberg as a man whose childhood teddy bear comes to life. It  also stars Mila Kunis and was filmed here in Boston last summer. That poster makes it look like some high-brow stuff, huh?

A story centered on a man and his teddy bear, who comes to life as the result of a childhood wish.

Director McFarlane voices Ted and the stellar cast also includes Giovanni Ribisi, Patrick Warburton, Joel McHale and Jessica Stroup. Ted comes to theaters July 13 in the US and 3^rd August in the UK.

Last week we showed you a first trailer for David Cronenberg’s Cosmopolis with Robert Pattinson and it looks as bizarre, violent, drug and sex fueled as anything the gonzo director has ever done, let alone anything anyone’s seen Pattinson in. This first poster gives us a brooding Pattinson as billionaire Eric Packer.

Riding across Manhattan in a stretch limo in order to get a haircut, a 28-year-old billionaire asset manager's day devolves into an odyssey with a cast of characters that start to tear his world apart.

Pattinson needed to take  a walk on the wild side in order to shake the shadow of Edward Cullen. (He had a lot of Belle Epoch sex with a lot of women in Bel Ami, but even that was nearly safe for the Twi-hards. Cosmopolis most certainly is not.)

Cosmopolis will be released in the US and the UK sometime after its probable appearance at Cannes.  France has a firm date of May 23.

Last but not least, we have a new poster (out of Russia) for mind-bending love story Upside Down with Jim Sturgess and Kirsten Dunst.

“Adam is a seemingly ordinary guy in a very extraordinary universe. He lives humbly trying to make ends meet, but his romantic spirit holds on to the memory of a girl he met once upon a time from another world, an inverted affluent world with its own gravity, directly above but beyond reach… a girl named Eve. Their childhood flirtation becomes an impossible love. But when he catches a glimpse of grown-up Eve on television, nothing will get in the way of getting her back… Not even the law or science!”

No firm dates are known as yet, just a vague “2012”. I’m predicting a TIFF appearance for this one, by which time it will have been in the can for two and a half years.

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I don't know how I missed this, but back in December, the New York Times published its Hollywood Issue of the New York Times Magazine and its centerpiece was titled “Touch of Evil”, featuring some of the year’s best actors as classic Hollywood villains. The actors all had their choice of roles and designed the scenarios with photographer/videographer Alex Prager and Kathy Ryan, the NYT director of photography. Sometimes a role or a ‘type’ was suggested to them, and they accepted or sometimes they had something or someone specific in mind. I thought it a fitting companion to yesterdays post, Time Rounds Up the Great Performances of the Year.

Take a look at the photo above.

1.Jack Nance as Henry Spencer in David Lynch’s Eraserhead (1977). 2. Images of invisible men, including The Invisible Man (1933) and a photo of the Chinese artist Liu Bolin (in front of the taxi van). 3. The ventriloquist’s dummy Fats from Magic (1978). 4. Louise Fletcher as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975). 5. Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko in Wall Street (1987). 6. Charles Laughton as Captain Bligh in Mutiny on the Bounty (1935). 7. Dominique Sanda as Anna Quadri in Bernardo Bertolucci’s Conformist (1970). 8. The silent film star Pina Menichelli. 9.Catherine Deneuve as Carole in Roman Polanski’s Repulsion (1965). 10. Faye Dunaway as Bonnie Parker in Bonnie and Clyde (1967). 11. Malcolm McDowell as Alex in A Clockwork Orange  (1971). 12. A still from Green Street Hooligans (2005). 13. Lana Turner as Cora Smith in The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946).

These are the characters channeled by George Clooney as The Tyrant, Mia Wasikowska as the Home Wrecker, Brad Pitt as the Madman, Rooney Mara as the Sociopath, Gary Oldman as the Menacing Dummy, Kirsten Dunst as the Siren, Jean Dujardin as the Hothead, Glenn Close as the Vamp, Viola Davis as the Vengeful Caretaker, Jessica Chastain as the Fire Starter, Ryan Gosling as the Invisible Man and Michael Shannon as the Tycoon. 

Gary Oldman as the Dummy is perfection. (Anyone see Magic with Anthony Hopkins? Spot. Freaking. On.), Brad Pitt surprised the hell out of me. Another spot on performance and genuinely f*cking creepy! Clooney was having a larf even as a villain, as was Gosling. Shannon was doing a take on Agent Van Alden (Boardwalk Empire) if you ask me. (And don’t get me started on the fact that his “Best Performances” only listed Take Shelter – and he was brilliant, don’t misunderstand- but whatever anyone thinks of the movie, he was by all accounts fantastic as Donnie in Machine Gun Preacher. Mia Wasikowska has Restless listed in her credits and while she may have been exceptional, the movie was, by general consensus, not. Sorry. I guess I got started anyway). Glenn Close is a little long in the tooth for “The Vamp”, although she did look fantastic in the stills. By far the best performance though, was Viola Davis'. The bugs! How the hell did she do that?? And that was one hell of a good Nurse Ratched.

Watch the slideshow for the stills, but you MUST watch the video for the performances.

Here are a few of the pics including a couple from behind the scenes. Enjoy!

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No, not that Adam and Eve! To my knowledge, they won't be wearing any fig leaves. They’re the main characters in the new film by Argentinian director Juan Diego Solanas (making his English language debut), Upside Down. It’s the story of two star-crossed lovers separated by opposite worlds, one up and one down, but both just out of reach of the other.  Sturgess’ Adam falls in love with a woman when he sees her on his tv screen when he’s a kid. His love grows, but she lives in an inverted universe with its own gravity, separate from his. Thanks to Jim Sturgess Online, we have some great first images to share. They give us a first look at the characters and a few hints at what the special effects might be like.

I've never heard of a single other member of the cast, although one, Neil Napier, played "Spartan with a Stick" in 300. I like Kirsten Dunst. She was clearly the best thing about the unrelentingly depressing Melancholia. Jim Sturgess is just plain adorable. but if he didn’t cut through his penchant for wacky, trippy (Across the Universe) or just plain sappy (One Day) with something meaty and dramatic once in a while, like his role as Janusz  in Peter Weir’s The Way Back, I’d probably go right off him.

Upside Down just has a vague 2012 as a release date right now. I’m thinking this may be headed for TIFF in the fall.

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Lars von Trier's end of the world drama, Melancholia, has been whispered and buzzed about long before the director's controversial remarks at the Cannes Film Festival, but even getting himself kicked off the Croissette couldn't overshadow his leading lady's performance. Kirsten Dunst won the award for Best Actress for this film and it has been eagerly awaited ever since.

I've been a fan of Dunst since 1994's Interview with a Vampire and it is high time she had something to showcase her considerable talents again. (I don't care about her personal life. For someone who grew up in front of the cameras, she's doing pretty well.) In Melancholia, she has it. It's the story of two sisters (Dunst and Charlotte Gainsbourg) with an already strained relationship who find it further challenged as a mysterious new planet threatens to collide into the Earth.

The hand-held camera work may be off putting to some, but I think it makes the whole thing feel more immediate as if we're watching the events unfold and taking home movies. von Trier has assembled a scary good cast. Besides Dunst and Gainsbourg, it includes Kiefer Sutherland, Charlotte Rampling, John Hurt, Alexander Skarsgard, Stellan Skarsgard, Jesper Christiansen and Udo Kier. The film played TIFF last week and opens in the UK on 30 September, October 7 in the US on VOD and November 11 in theaters (huh?)

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