Lee Daniels’ The Paperboy got it’s in-competition premiere at the Cannes Film Festival tonight. Earlier today, the cast and director gathered for a photocall in the morning sun, probably all thankful it stopped raining in the South of France. To say the reviews have been mixed is being kind. More on that later. For now let's just look at the pics of the pretty people.

The cast of the film, which we’ve been telling you about for a couple of months now, includes Zac Efron and Matthew McConaughey as Jack and Ward James, John Cusack as death row inmate Hilary van Wetter, Nicole Kidman as sex-kitten Charlotte Bless and David Oyelowo as newspaper man Yardley Acheman. Also, while she is not credited on imdb’s cast list, singer turned actress Macy Gray was also present. From reviews coming out of the festival, it is apparently her voiceover  that tells much of the story.

I’m still not sold on Zac Efron as an actor, but he looks every inch the movie star. With his perfectly coiffed hair and impeccably tailored Glen plaid suit in the morning and basic black at night, he could easily fit in with the likes of a Rock Hudson or a young Paul Newman. He may have aspirations to the contrary, but he’s probably going to have to grow a scruffy beard, not comb his hair and adopt a rainbow coalition before anyone takes him seriously. He’s too pretty.

Speaking of pretty. Will someone please tell Nicole Kidman to stop messing with her face?  She was looking normal there for awhile but she’s been hitting the fillers and lip plumpers again. 

I don’ t mean to sound superficial but, while Macy Gray is a helluva singer, that hair and the man’s Salvation Army leisure suit she wore to the photocall are doing nothing for her. She looks like one of those troll dolls my aunt collected when I was a kid.

Cusack always looks the same. Always. There’s something to be said for reliable.

Then there’s Matty. I’ve been a Matthew McConaughey admirer even through the ‘naked bongos’ phase and I’m very pleased he’s making a comeback to talented actor as opposed to freaky half-naked all-natural oddity. While many swoon when he has his shirt off, he looks good in a suit too.

Speaking of looking good in a suit…guess who’s still in town!?!  *demented poodle dance*. I’ll be back later with pics from the big amfAR bash. (I should have known better! Silly me!)

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photo credit: WENN

There are few actresses of the modern era of whom you can say, “she looks like a movie star”.  One of those women is most certainly Nicole Kidman, as I think this still from HBO’s Hemingway & Gelhorn proves.  She looks like a movie star in the tradition of Katherine Hepburn, Bette Davis, Hedy Lamar, and Greta Garbo.  (She walks the walk and talks the talk, too. You never see pics of Nicole Kidman out and about looking like a schlub, even on her way to the gym.)

The other new image is of Clive Owen, who plays the titular Ernest Hemingway. I do love me some Clive Owen. He’s not the the person who immediately comes to mind when you need an actor to play the gruff bear of a literary icon known as “Papa” Hemingway, but from the trailers and clips we’ve seen, he was an inspired choice and he will make us believe.

Hemingway & Gelhorn, which screened at the Cannes Film Festival a few days ago to favorable reviews (most citing the film’s smoking hot chemistry between the leads), also stars Robert Duvall, Rodrigo Santoro, Parker Posey, Molly Parker, Tony Shalhoub, David Strahairn and Peter Coyote. It finally gets its HBO premiere on Monday May 28.  Perfect way to cap a holiday weekend.

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Here’s a new clip from Lee Daniels’ The Paperboy with Matthew McConaughey, Nicole Kidman and Zac Efron. Part of this clip was included in the montage shown during the opening ceremonies of the Cannes Film Festival on Wednesday.  The clips stars out with Jack James (Zac Efron) daydreaming about Nicole Kidman’s Charlotte as he, his brother Ward  (McConaughey) and Yardley Acheman (David Oyelowo) wait for her in the car.

The Paperboy, which also stars John Cusack as death row inmate Hilary van Wetter, is based on a novel  by Pete Dexter.  You can see the first clip from the film here.

An idealistic reporter for the Miami Times returns to his Florida hometown to investigate a case involving the murder of a local sheriff. He’s eventually helped by his younger brother, Jack (Zac Efron) as they investigate the possible wrongful conviction of a death row inmate (John Cusack). Matthew McConaughey plays Ward James, who teams with another reporter ( David Oyelowo as Yardley). During the course of the investigation, Jack falls for the woman (Kidman) whom the convict has been romancing through prison correspondence.

The Paperboy doesn’t have domestic or UK release dates yet. I’m betting that will change after Cannes.You can see more of the pics we have for The Paperboy here.

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HBO has given us yet another featurette for their upcoming movie, Hemingway & Gelhorn with Clive Owen and Nicole Kidman as Ernest Hemingway and journalist/war correspondent Martha Gelhorn who became his 3^rd wife. The story follows their passionate, tempestuous relationship from their meeting in Key West in 1936 to their parting in 1945.

What’s different about this clip is that in addition to Owen, Kidman and director Philip Kaufman, we also get to hear from some of the other key players, like David Strathairn as John Dos Passos, Joan Chen who plays Madame Chiang (wife of Chiang Kai Shek), Parker Posey who becomes Hemingway’s 4^th wife, Mary Welsh and Tony Shaloub as Russian journalist Mikhail Koltsov.

Kaufman is right when he say’s this is the kind of film Hollywood “used to make”. I wish they still did. Hemingway & Gelhorn will screen at the Cannes Film Festival and then premiere on HBO on May 28. (Doesn’t that make it ineligible for Emmy Awards?)

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There are a lot of films set to bow at the Cannes Film Festival in the next couple of weeks that I am truly looking forward to. One is certainly Lee Daniels’ The Paperboy. Based Pete Dexter’s acclaimed novel, it’s got an eclectic cast that is capable of great things. The question remains whether or not Matthew McConaughey, John Cusack and Nicole Kidman have brought their A games.  Both McConaughey and Kidman have turned in great performances of late (enough so that Kidman gets a pass for Trespass and I can’t wait to see Matty in Killer Joe and Mud – more on that one later) shedding their “movie star” personas and Cusack is always good,  enough to make you wish he got better material to work with (ie: The Raven).

We’ve got your first clip from The Paperboy (thanks to our friends at indieWire) and I think it reaffirms what I just said. The scene is a prison visitors’ room and the clip shows us Matthew McConaughey as Ward James, a journalist out to clear John Cusack’s Hilary van Wetter of the crime for which he’s sitting on death row.  Both actors appear to be in top form.

The clip is brief but since it’s marked #4, I hope that means we’ll be getting more of them in the coming weeks. I’m anxious to hear what those who will see it in Cannes have to say about it. 

An idealistic reporter for the Miami Times returns to his Florida hometown to investigate a case involving the murder of a local sheriff. He’s eventually helped by his younger brother, Jack (Zac Efron) as they investigate the possible wrongful conviction of a death row inmate (John Cusack). Matthew McConaughey plays Ward James, who teams with another reporter ( David Oyelowo as Yardley). During the course of the investigation, Jack falls for the woman (Kidman) whom the convict has been romancing through prison correspondence.

The Paperboy doesn’t have domestic or UK release dates yet. I’m betting that will change after Cannes.You can see more of the pics we have for The Paperboy here.

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HBO has dropped something new every month since February for their telemovie, Hemingway & Gelhorn, in which Clive Owen stars as Ernest Hemingway and Nicole Kidman as his second wife, journalist/war correspondent Martha Gelhorn. HBO is obviously solidly behind this film. (I’m wondering if we’ll see theatrical screenings like the ones the cable network staged for their last major original film, Game Change.)

Philip Kaufman (The Right Stuff, Henry and June, The Unbearable Lightness of Being) is an extremely talented director, known to be meticulous, but also capable of making a movie of “epic” proportions.

As I’ve previously said, I’m a bit of a Clive Owen fan and I am definitely looking forward to seeing him play a romantic lead again. (I LOVED Corey Stoll in Midnight in Paris and while I’m sure he could have handled this film, the former was meant to be an exaggerated and humorous portrait. Owen’s Hemingway looks to be many layers grittier.) I’m not overly fond of Kidman, I like what she’s done with her voice here and it does appear she and Owen have chemistry. (Anyone else notice she’s almost completely lost her Australian accent?)

The story told here, by Jerry Stahl (Permanent Midnight) and Barbara Turner (Pollack), revolves around the titular pair’s passionate and tempestuous romance during the Spanish Civil War and beyond. Their relationship became Hemingway's inspiration for “For Whom the Bell Tolls”.

As witnesses to history, they covered all the great conflicts of their time; but the war they couldn't survive was the war between themselves. 

There isn’t a lot of new footage in the featurette but it’s always interesting to get glimpses behind the scenes and listen to filmmakers speak enthusiastically about their projects. The supporting cast of this movie includes Robert Duvall, Molly Parker (as 1^st wife Pauline), David Strathairn (as John Dos Passos), Rodrigo Santoro, Tony Shaloub, Brooke Adams, Joan Chen, Jeffrey Jones, Parker Posey, Peter Coyote (as famed literary editor Max Perkins), Diane Baker and Lars Ulrich (Yes, that Lars Ulrich plays Joris Ivens, Dutch documentarian). Hemingway & Gelhorn will premiere on HBO Monday May 28.

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Colin Firth, Nicole Kidman, Stellan Skarsgard and Jeremy Irvine joined director Jonathan Teplitzky in Edinburgh yesterday to announce the start of filming in the Scottish capital for The Railway Man.

Based on a true story, the film follows British officer Eric Lomax (Firth) who was captured and tortured by the Japanese in WW2. Years later, Lomax, under the persuasion of his wife (Kidman), seeks out and confronts one of his captors. Skarsgård is Lomax’s best friend who goes back to the scene of the torture with him. Hiroyuki Sanada (47 Ronin) plays the Japanese officer.

This sounds very promising indeed! With a screenplay by Frank Cottrell Boyce (Tristram Shandy, Millions) and producer Andy Paterson, filming (which had been set for February) begins Monday April 30 and will later move to Queensland Australia and Thailand. Lionsgate UK has the foreign rights but expect to see this on the block at TIFF if all goes well.  (Teplitzky had a film at the fest last year with Burning Man.)  More as we get it.

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Photo credit: WENN

It was literally just yesterday that we the first new word in months on Lee Daniels’ The Paperboy. Hot on the heels of the confirmation that it had made the cut for Cannes, we got three new images from the film, including that one of Nicole Kidman letting out her inner trailer-park vixen (a description pretty well borne out by the pics below). Well, today cats and kittens, thanks to TheFilmstage, we have twenty one more new images, including first looks at John Cusack as Hilary van Wetter, David Oyelowo as Yardley Acheman and Scott Glenn as patriarch of the James clan, W.W.

An idealistic reporter for the Miami Times returns to his Florida hometown to investigate a case involving the murder of a local sheriff. He’s eventually helped by his younger brother, Jack (Zac Efron) as they investigate the possible wrongful conviction of a death row inmate (John Cusack). Matthew McConaughey plays Ward James, who teams with another reporter ( David Oyelowo as Yardley). During the course of the investigation, Jack falls for the woman (Kidman) whom the convict has been romancing through prison correspondence.

Now, John Cusack looks plenty  menacing and a tad nuts, but I have to wonder if anything is being asked of Zac Efron other than he stand around and look cute enough to be Kidman’s toy-boy (which would really be a shame. I hope he was cast because he showed something to Daniels’ that the rest of us have as yet not seen. Sorry not a fan.) Some of the pics below might contain spoilers for anyone who hasn’t read the book, but hopefully your curiosity will have just been piqued and it won’t matter.

Enjoy the pics. More as we get it!

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