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Michael Haneke

Film

Flavorpill’s Official 2013 Academy Awards Drinking Game

By Alison Nastasi on

Organizers are hurriedly completing the finishing touches on the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood for the 85th Academy Awards premiering tonight at 8PM. The rest of us are readying our Oscar-themed cocktails so we can survive the never-ending event and walk (ok, crawl) away mostly unscathed. We’re counting on host Seth MacFarlane for unscripted hilarity. In the words of RuPaul: “Good luck, and don’t f**k it up.” You’ve agonized and argued over your ballot predictions and the Oscar shocks, snubs, and surprises, but when the red carpet rolls out, we hope you’ll settle in with our official 2013 Academy Awards drinking game. Try not to hurt anyone or anything, and join us here tonight as we live blog the ceremony. … Read More

Film

The 2012 Oscar Nominees: Your Shocks, Surprises, and Snubs

By Jason Bailey on

If there’s one thing you hear a lot in the run-up to the Academy Award nominations, it’s that they’re predictable — that the industry’s “Oscar bait” films are clearly labeled and marketed as such. So maybe it’s just because there was such an embarrassment of cinematic riches in 2012 that there were so many genuine surprises and shocking snubs when Seth MacFarlane and Emma Stone announced the Academy Award nominees yesterday… Read More

Film

Flavorwire’s Guide to Indie Flicks to See in December

By Jason Bailey on

Indie releases tend to thrive during the months when the multiplexes get dumber — in other words, every month until October, when big studios start putting their muscle behind intelligent Oscar contenders and act like that’s the kind of stuff they’re turning out all year. Point is, our indie preview is a little thinner than usual this month, since quieter movies are basically gunning for the same audiences as your Zero Dark Thirtys and Life of Pis and so on, but there are a few small releases worth tracking down. We’ll run them down for you after the jump. … Read More

Film

Michael Haneke’s Cannes Palme d’Or Winner ‘Amour’ Gets Release Date

By Alison Nastasi on

Michael Haneke’s new movie Amour wasn’t the sure bet to win Cannes’ prestigious Palme d’Or award at this year’s festival. Italian director Nanni Moretti — who was sitting at the head of the 2012 jury panel — wasn’t quiet about his profound dislike for the filmmaker’s 1997 violent psychological thriller Funny Games, and Haneke recently won the Palme for 2009 period drama The White Ribbon. Regardless, Amour took home the venerable award for its deeply emotional story about an elderly couple facing their mortality (Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva). Isabelle Huppert stars in the film as their daughter who lives abroad. Eventually a health scare tests the bonds of the family.

The film doesn’t open in the UK until November 16, and just this morning no US release date had been announced yet. Deadline delivered the good news this evening, however, that Amour will be released in Los Angeles and New York on December 19. Head to the nearest theater this winter for a closer look at the winning, intimate drama. We’ve shared a trailer for Haneke’s film past the break. … Read More

Film

Strange Love: 10 Weirdly Erotic Films

By Alison Nastasi on

Nine ½ Weeks hits Blu-ray today — which means if you’ve been having fantasies about sleeping with Whiplash, performing a striptease to a Randy Newman-written song, and force feeding your loved one, then you should be a very happy person. While much of Adrian Lyne’s film reads as totally goofy and not nearly as erotic as the world was led to believe during its release in 1986 (the plethora of bad ’80s tuneage doesn’t help matters), there are a few glimmers of real sensuality. It doesn’t all add up, but it inspired us to explore other weirdly erotic films that take an unusual approach with their cinematic carnal pleasures. The darker, surreal, and completely unexpected await you below. … Read More

Daily Dose

Daily Dose Pick: The White Ribbon

By Jason Jude Chan on

Michael Haneke’s gloomy Palme d’Or winner The White Ribbon (Das Weisse Band) relates a series of disquieting blips in a small German village just before the shake-up of World War I.

Haneke masterfully evokes this authoritarian land and period by clocking a calendar year of suspicions, affairs, harvests, Sunday masses, and acts of community trauma — the latter being broad enough to include the mutilation of a cabbage field (as an act of revenge) and a fatal fall at the local sawmill. … Read More