France’s Cannes Film Festival has seen its share of controversies since it started in 1946. Blame the Riviera sun or the filmmaking iconoclasts that gather on the red carpet each year, but various high jinks and bizarre publicity stunts have often dominated the festivities. Bold action isn’t always required to shake things up, however. Often times it’s just the movies themselves that cause a scene with audiences and the Cannes jury. With the current 66th annual festival underway, we wanted to take a look at ten of Cannes most controversial moments. … Read More
Lars Von Trier
The Dirtiest Movie Posters of All Time [NSFW]
Late last week, the Internet collectively furrowed its brow, cocked its head sideways a bit, and then issued a unanimous “Ohhhh” and turned a little red before quickly closing the tab window as Lars von Trier unleashed the dirty/artsy poster for his latest film, the two-part, LaBeouf-enabling, unsimulated-sex epic Nymphomaniac. But how do Von Trier parenthetical genitals stack up against the cinema’s naughtier one-sheets? A roundup of some of the dirtiest movie posters to date after the jump. … Read More
Beautiful Behind-the-Scenes Photos from 20 Art House Films
We make no secret about our fascination with behind-the-scenes photos and footage from our favorite films. So, after spotting a collection of photos from Robert Altman’s surreal dream study 3 Women on Kino Images, we went searching for more beautiful shots from art house films. Most of these stills could be artworks themselves, and several provide a humorous respite from an otherwise serious subject. Click through for more beautiful, fascinating… Read More
Ranking Foreign Directors’ English-Language Debuts from Best to Worst
Described by critics as a “literary, gothic fairy tale,” Chan-wook Park‘s provocative thriller Stoker is the Korean director’s first English-language film. The dark drama about an enigmatic man who moves in with two women he claims are family opens in limited release today. Cult audiences are familiar with the filmmaker’s intense, violent revenge epics like Oldboy and Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance, but it’s interesting to see how the director is being embraced by American critics for his stylish storytelling — this time featuring Hollywood talents Nicole Kidman, Mia Wasikowska, and Matthew Goode. Not every foreign filmmaker has seen similar praise when it came to their North American offerings. We explored this by examining the works of ten well-known, international directors and ranked their English-language debuts from best to worst. … Read More
10 Highbrow Horror Films You Should See Instead of ‘Texas Chainsaw 3D’
This Friday, Texas Chainsaw 3D opened at theaters everywhere (and is murdering the box office). This film, mind you, is the sixth re-iteration of the original 1974 classic, and it’s pretty squarely in the trite, generic slasher film category, without many redeeming features. Plus — and we realize that this is an oft-sung refrain, but — can Hollywood really not come up with any other ideas? So, if you’re thinking about getting your horror fix at the theater this week, allow us to offer you some alternatives — highbrow horror films guaranteed to scare you way more than the shiny pop-up gore of Texas Chainsaw 3D ever could. Plus, you can watch them at home, where no one judges you for yelping. Our picks after the jump — and as ever, feel free to add to our list in the comments. … Read More
Watch a Short Film by a 15-Year-Old Lars Von Trier
It’s hard to imagine a time when incendiary filmmaker Lars Von Trier wasn’t known as the guy who almost broke Björk, horrified audiences with a clitoral castration scene, and made a bad Hitler joke at the Cannes Film Festival that nearly landed him in jail. But back in 1971, he was just a 15-year-old Danish kid, honing his skills with a black-and-white, dialogue-less short film called “En Blomst.” Click through to watch it now, courtesy of The Playlist, and let us know in the comments if you spot any hints of his future greatness. … Read More
10 of Film’s Biggest Provocateurs
Danish filmmaker and journalist Mads Brügger boasts a first name that seems worthy of his work, which he has dubbed “performative journalism.” He went undercover as a European Ambassador in the war-torn Central African Republic (CAR), armed with hidden cameras and credentials obtained on the black market. There, he brokered deals with corrupt blood diamond kingpins, leisurely traded diplomatic titles, and exposed a litany of murder, bribery, and bureaucrats from hell. The Ambassador balances a dark absurdity with terrifying revelations of exploitation, shocking fraudulence, and greed. The film opens in New York today, and we thought this would be a good time to explore some of cinema’s most controversial figures (mainly directors) — several of which Brügger has been compared to. The Huffington Post called him the “most provocative filmmaker in the world.” See if you agree after viewing our gallery after the jump. … Read More
Submit Your Film to Lars von Trier’s User-Generated Project
Is there any director working today who’s more incendiary than Lars von Trier? Whether he’s depicting a graphic genital mutilation on-screen or getting banned from the Cannes Film Festival for his misguided Hitler “jokes,” his career is one that seems to run on controversy. That’s why we’re intrigued to hear that the Danish filmmaker’s latest… Read More
10 of the All-Time Scariest Movie Trailers
Since new horror anthology V/H/S premiered at Sundance, fans of terror cinema and multi-story chillers have been anxious to see more of the found footage collection. Directors like The House of the Devil’s Ti West and Adam Wingard (You’re Next) are featured in the tale about a group of misfits who are hired by a mysterious client to recover a VHS tape from an abandoned house. Once there, they uncover disturbing footage amongst a massive collection of tapes, disrupting their mission in unsettling ways. Last week the movie’s creepy poster premiered, and now Slash Film has shared a red band trailer for the film that gave us some serious chills.
With nerves officially rattled, we wanted to keep the momentum going and decided to dig up a few of the all-time scariest movie trailers. Some of these films may be familiar to you, but these unnerving trailers (several of them rare) probably aren’t the clips you’ve seen dozens of times before. Other films may be new to you, and hopefully these excerpts will entice you to seek them out for a good scare. Watch them all after the break, and confess your fears below. … Read More
The Most Notorious Actor/Director Feuds in Movie History
A couple of weeks back, we spotlighted a few of the most fruitful and (presumably) harmonious filmmaker/actor collaborations in moviedom. But as we all know, filmmakers can also be a prickly lot, and the recent (mostly tabloid) coverage of director Kevin Smith’s recent swipes at his Cop Out star Bruce Willis (more on that below) got us thinking about some of the less cordial actor/director relationships. We’ve assembled some of the more contentious ones for your reading pleasure after the jump. … Read More
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