Showbiz Sandbox 322: Cannes Film Festival Spurs Critical Debate
May 24, 2016
This year’s Cannes Film Festival ended over the weekend with the awarding of the Palm d’Or, the festival’s top prize, to an unlikely, albeit quite solid, movie from director Ken Loach. A critically panned movie from filmmaker Xavier Dolan was given the runner up award, the Grand Prix, leaving many in Cannes baffled over how the jury made its selections. However festival director Thierry Fremaux has always said, Cannes is not set up for critics.
The Broadway season also came to a close last week earning a record $1.3 billion in ticket sales. Musical productions took in most of the revenue over the past year, though it was “The Lion King” and not “Hamilton”, which only opened in August, which ruled the box office.
Over at HBO Michael Lombardo, the longtime head of programming for the premium cable network is stepping down, whereas at Viacom Sumner Redstone has stirred up a hornets nest by ousting his longtime protogé, the company’s chief executive, from the trust that will eventually control the company.
Of course we also cover the week’s top entertainment news including whether the wave of summer blockbusters will prove to be too much competition, rumors of Adele’s massive record deal and Bill Cosby gets his day in criminal court.
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Showbiz Sandbox 148: Soaking Up This Year’s Cannes Film Festival
May 22, 2012
Uncharacteristic inclement weather drenched the first half of this year’s Cannes Film Festival, though the rain could not dampen the spirits of attendees or distributors looking to acquire hot titles. Are the selections at this year’s festival going to be future award contenders as they were last year with “The Artist” and “Tree of Life”? We’ll let you know.
Of course, Cannes has never been short on movie stars. This year’s festival has featured appearances from Bruce Willis, Nicole Kidman, Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart and Brad Pitt, to name just a few. However some journalists are finding that getting access to such talent can be costly, especially if you have to pay thousands of euro for interviews. We’ll explain.
One film that didn’t make it into the festival is “Battleship”. The $200 million action film finally opened in North America over the weekend to poor reviews and tepid box office receipts. Like Disney was forced to do with “John Carter”, Universal will likely take a write down on the movie.
We also cover the week’s top entertainment headlines including this year’s entries to the National Recording Registry, ABC’s plans to expand “Good Morning America” to the afternoon and the creator of “Community” gets fired from his own show.
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