Benicio del Toro Archives

Review: ‘One Battle After Another,’ starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn, Benicio del Toro, Regina Hall, Teyana Taylor and Chase Infiniti

September 17, 2025

by Carla Hay

Teyana Taylor, Otillia Gupta and Leonardo DiCaprio in “One Battle After Another” (Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures)

Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson

Culture Representation: Taking place in unnamed locations in the United States, the action film “One Battle After Another” (inspired by the 1990 novel “Vineland”) features a racially diverse cast of characters (African American, white and Latin) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A former member of a radical, left-wing militant group goes on a mission to rescue his biracial teenage daughter when she becomes the target of a secretive and powerful white supremacist group.

Culture Audience: “One Battle After Another” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson, and sprawling action movies that take a dark comedic approach to sociopolitical issues, such as racism and income inequalities.

Teyana Taylor and Sean Penn in “One Battle After Another” (Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures)

“One Battle After Another” is a sometimes-rambling, sometimes-taut blend of being a dark screwball action comedy and a preachy anti-racism drama. The performances and action scenes are better than how the movie handles racial issues. “One Battle After Another” seems to be filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson’s response to criticism that his previous movies didn’t have enough racial diversity. But some areas of “One Battle After Another” are cringeworthy in how it tries too hard to be a politically progressive statement film.

Written and directed by Anderson, “One Battle After Another” is inspired by Thomas Pynchon’s 1990 novel “Vineland,” a story about a California former radical hippie and his teenage daughter who go on the run from government officials. “One Battle After Another” can be considered a contemporary Wild West movie, with themes about loyalties to family versus loyalties to the government. In “One Battle After Another,” the “heroes” are members of a violent, radical, left-wing anti-government group, and the “villains” are the U.S. government and a secretive group of white supremacists who are in positions of power. Many of the scenes involving car chases and fights take place in remote desert areas where the only laws that seem to matter are the laws of survival.

“One Battle After Another” (which was filmed in California and the Texas city of El Paso) begins somewhere near the U.S./Mexico border. A radical activist named Perfidia Beverly Hills (played by Teyana Taylor) goes to a remote area in the desert to meet her group of colleagues in a left-wing anarchist group called the French 75. The members of the French 75 believe that the best way to bring attention to their causes is by committing violent crimes. They do things such as blow up buildings and rob banks.

On this particular day, about 20 members of the French 75 (who call themselves “revolutionaries”) will be raiding a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center. The French 75’s goal is to free the immigrant detainees and imprison the military detention guards in the same cages that were built for the detainees. In another part of the movie, the French 75 blows up the campaign office of a politician who voted to ban abortion in his state.

The French 75 is a collective with no official leader. But if they did have an official leader, it would be Perfidia. She is hardcore in her beliefs, infatuated with violence, and fearless in getting what she wants. Perfidia is also one of the most one-note characters in the movie, which flubs opportunities to present her as a more complex and more interesting character.

Bob Ferguson (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) is a drifter/stoner, who desperately wants to be accepted into the French 75. On the day of this ICE detention invasion, Bob is seen arriving with a wagon of weapons (such as guns and tear gas) at a French 75 meeting place and telling Perfidia that he has any weapons that they might need. Perfidia has a tough persona, but she soon reveals that she has a soft spot for Bob because they have a noticeable attraction to each other.

Before the members of the French 75 raid the ICE detention center, they chant, “Free borders, free choices, free bodies, and freedom from fucking fear.” The French 75’s raid is victorious, as they achieve their goal of freeing the detainees and locking up the detention center guards. Perfidia takes pleasure in putting a gun to the head of the detention center’s leader: Colonel Steven J. Lockjaw (played by Sean Penn), who has an erection when she takes him from his room and leads him to the cage where he gets locked up. She also takes his gun and hat.

Perfidia and Bob hook up soon after the ICE detention raid and become a couple. If they fall in love, then Bob is definitely more in love with Perfidia than she is with him. Bob and Perfidia move in together. He thinks she’ll want to settle down for a happy domesticated life, but he is very wrong about that assumption.

Meanwhile, it’s shown many times in the movie that Steven (who is an unmarried loner with a rigid personality) has a secret sexual fetish for black women. Steven becomes obsessed with Perfidia and masturbates when he stalks her. Perfidia finds out that he’s been following her when he corners her in a public restroom. He tells her that he doesn’t care what she does, as long as she returns his gun and hat to him.

Of course, those items are not what Steven really wants. Perfidia and Steven have sex in the bathroom, in an encounter where he lets her dominate him. They have a similar sexual encounter in another scene that’s also more about power than sex.

Within an unnamed number of months after Perfidia and Bob become a couple, Perfidia finds out that she’s pregnant. Bob is elated about becoming a parent. Perfidia has a “wait and see” attitude about parenthood.

After Perfidia’s mother Sandrae (played by Vanessa Ganter) finds out about the pregnancy, she candidly tells Bob: “You are unsuitable for my daughter. We come from a long line of revolutionaries. She’s a runner. You’re a stump.” (Who talks like that in real life? Only people in a movie like this one.)

It eventually becomes obvious that Perfidia’s real love is causing chaos with her version of radical activism. Nowhere is this exemplified more than in a scene where a very pregnant Perfidia, with her belly exposed, gleefully shoots off rounds of a machine gun somewhere in a desert area where the other French 75 members have gathered. It’s a visually striking scene but one of many scenes in which Perfidia seems to be objectified as a black female fetish.

After Perfidia gives birth to a daughter named Charlene (played by Otillia Gupta as a newborn baby and Nia Leon as an older infant), Perfidia says in a voiceover that she thinks Bob loves the baby more than he loves Perfidia. In other words, Perfidia gets jealous because she can’t stand not being the center of attention in her own home. And the truth is, Bob is a more attentive and more loving parent than Perfidia.

So what does narcissist Perfidia do? She abandons her family when Charlene is less than 6 months old and tries to make Bob look “soft” by telling him that she’s more committed to the French 75 cause than he is. Perfidia says to Bob, “You and your crumbling male ego will never do the revolution like I will.”

Bob attempts to persuade her to stay, but he eventually gives up when he sees that Perfidia has made up her mind and won’t come back. The last thing Bob says to Perfidia in a resigned voice is, “Do the revolution, baby.” After this breakup, Perfidia does something to betray the French 75. This betrayal has consequences for years to come. What happens to Perfidia is eventually revealed in the movie.

“One Battle After Another” then fast-forwards 16 years later to show that many years ago, Bob left the French 75 and has raised his daughter as a single parent in an “off-the-grid” area with desert terrain. The daughter is now named Willa (played by Chase Infiniti), who knows that Perfidia abandoned her and Bob. Because Bob left the French 75 under acrimonious circumstances, and because he was directly responsible for many of the group’s bombings and other violent crimes, he is paranoid about being found. His paranoia is also fueled by his continuous abuse of drugs and alcohol.

In some ways, Willa is a typical teenager who’s at a stage in her life where she’s embarrassed by her parents and wants more independence. In other ways, she’s not a typical teenager because she’s been raised from an early age to defend herself from getting murdered. Willa is skilled at using guns. Bob encourages her to take lessons in martial arts. And because Bob wants to live as undetected as possible, he doesn’t like Willa’s use of technology.

“One Battle After Another” makes a big deal out of how racism is the reason for most of the movie’s conflicts. And yet, “One Battle After Another” is quite cowardly in sidestepping any realistic conversations that white Bob and biracial Willa would have about racial issues. The movie spends more time pointing out that Willa has a friend with “they/them” pronouns than having Willa talk about her mixed-race heritage. When being black is mentioned by anyone in this movie, it’s only in the context of pain and acrimony, not joy and harmony. Racism becomes its own fetish for the purposes of this film.

Meanwhile, as Bob and Willa navigate their changing relationship, Steven is invited to interview for membership in a secret white supremacist group called the Christmas Adventurers Club. The members of the club are high-ranking politicians, military leaders, judicial officials, business moguls and other powerful people. The Christmas Adventurers Club hails St. Nicholas as part of a group ritual. The senior leader of the Christmas Club is Roy More (played by Kevin Tighe), whose name seems to be an obvious nod to real-life right-winger Roy Moore, a controversial former Alabama supreme court justice.

Other members of the Christmas Adventurers Club have names that are the same or similar to other famous people: Sandy Irvine (played by James Downey) is most definitely not the 22-year-old British mountaineer who died while trying to climb Mount Everest in 1924. William Desmond (played by D.W. Moffett) has a name that is similar to Irish American actor-turned-director William Desmond Taylor, whose 1929 murder (when he was 49) remains an unsolved mystery. The only female Christmas Adventurers Club member who’s shown in the movie is Roy More’s wife Alice More (played by Patricia Ridgely Storm), who is briefly seen and has a subservient role.

Christmas Adventurers Club member Virgil Throckmorton (played by Tony Goldwyn) is a politician who reaches out to Steven to recruit Steven as a possible member of the Christmas Adventurers Club. Steven is eager to join the club and is flattered that he was asked. But first, he must go through a vetting process that’s required for all potential members. Because “One Battle After Another” reveals very early on in the story that Steven has a secret sexual fetish for black women, you can easily predict where the movie is going to go in this vetting process.

The second half of the movie is mostly about Willa going missing and Bob on a frantic quest to find her. It results in madcap and violent chase scenes and fights that include an eccentric mercenary character named Sensei Sergio St. Carlos (played by Benicio del Toro), Willa’s karate teacher whom Bob enlists to help him; a Christmas Adventurers Club “fixer” named Tim Smith (played by John Hoogenakker); and a French 75 member named Deandra (played by Regina Hall), who becomes a maternal figure to Willa and helps her hide in a convent of nuns called the Sisters of the Brave Beaver, who grow marijuana. Steven also gets involved in this search for Willa.

“One Battle After Another” has elements that seem to want to be like a Coen Brothers movie and a Spike Lee movie at the same time. “One Battle After Another” wants to be quirky and amusing while delivering serious social messages about racism. The combination works well in some areas and doesn’t work as well in other areas. When it comes to the movie’s dark comedy, “One Battle After Another” is like a comedian who constantly laughs at the comedian’s own jokes before getting to the punchlines.

Some of the dialogue in “One Battle After Another” is so cheesy and cornball, it’s comical. The cast members in the movie do a great job of selling it, with some (such as DiCaprio, Penn and del Toro) seeming to be in on the not-so-subtle ways that this movie is trying to be a satire. And although “One Battle After Another” is obvious in its attempt to present Willa as an action hero instead of a stereotypical damsel in distress, make no mistake: This is a very male-centric movie, where the men get the best dialogue, and the story is told mainly from the perspectives of the male characters.

Characters such as Perfidia and Deandra come and go in the story and are ultimately overshadowed by other characters. Deandra barely gets any dialogue until the part in the movie where she’s supposed to be a protective mother figure to Willa. And because “One Battle After Another” is so focused on the buffoonish antics of Bob and Steven, the movie sidelines or ignores many of the characters who deserved more screen time in this long-winded, 170-minute film.

The French 75 is the catalyst for everything that happens in “One Battle After Another.” However, one of the movie’s missed opportunities is in not telling enough about any of the French 75 characters who aren’t Bob and Perfidia. Who are they as people, where did they come from, and what motivated them to join this radical group? Don’t expect the movie to answer any of those questions.

One of the French 75 is a nerdy guy named Sommerville (played by Paul Grimstad), who is in charge of a lot of the technical planning. That’s about all you’ll find out about him. Many of the French 75 characters have deliberately cartoonish nicknames—such as Mae West (played by Alana Haim), Junglepussy (played by Shayna McHayle) and R.A. Rippey (played by Sachi DiSerafino), whose name references 1970s child star Rodney Allen Rippy—that are practically begging for interesting backstories to be revealed. But these French 75 characters are merely shown quickly in scenes where they participate in violent crimes in the name of their activism.

“One Battle After Another” excels in its immersive cinematography (by Michael Bauman) that ramps up the movie’s tension in the action scenes. People who get easily queasy when watching movie cameras dip and rise like a rollercoaster should be warned in advance about a part of the movie where there’s a chase scene on a very hilly road. Jonny Greenwood’s unique musical score for “One Battle After Another” stands out for its unconventional piano motifs, but it is music that won’t be to everyone’s liking because it can’t be described as “crowd-pleasing.”

The biggest assets in “One Battle After Another” are the entertaining performances by this very talented cast. DiCaprio, Penn, Infiniti, del Toro and Taylor are all compelling in their roles. But their characters are written in ways that their characters’ humanity doesn’t feel entirely real, because they are near-caricatures in a movie that wants to shock more than awe. “One Battle After Another” isn’t as progressive and innovative as it thinks it is. Ultimately, it’s a very long action movie where the ending and the people who have the most importance in the story can easily be predicted.

Warner Bros. Pictures will release “One Battle After Another” in U.S. cinemas on September 26, 2025.

Review: ‘The Phoenician Scheme,’ starring Benecio del Toro, Mia Threapleton, Michael Cera, Jeffrey Wright, Scarlett Johansson, Benedict Cumberbatch and Bill Murray

May 29, 2025

by Carla Hay

“The Phoenician Scheme”

Directed by Wes Anderson

Culture Representation: Taking place from 1950 to 1951, in Europe and in Asia, the comedy film “The Phoenician Scheme” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few Latin people and black people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: Wealthy and corrupt business mogul Anatole “Zsa-zsa” Korda tries to avoid getting assassinated while instigating and covering up shady deals.

Culture Audience: “The Phoenician Scheme” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the filmmaker Wes Anderson, the movie’s headliners, and madcap dark comedies about eccentric people.

Benedict Cumberbatch in “The Phoenician Scheme” (Photo courtesy of of TPS Productions/Focus Features)

“The Phoenician Scheme” has more star power than story power. It’s watchable if you can tolerate filmmaker Wes Anderson’s oddball style. The cast’s performances save a plot that becomes a checklist of business betrayals and schemes.

Written and directed by Anderson, “The Phoenician Scheme” (which had its world premiere at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival) offers more of the same types of quirky retro films that Anderson has been churning out on a regular basis. Characters talk in a clipped and rushed tone, as if they’re always in a hurry to get somewhere. There’s meticulous production design, where every location looks unnaturally photogenic, like something of out of a museum.

Anderson’s movies also tend to have cinematography that is very pastel or very rustic, occasionally peppered with black-and-white imagery. The stories, more often than not, center on a morally dubious or conflicted protagonist who’s dealing with corruption in one form or another. Various other characters scurry around or pop in and out of the story to either participate in the corruption or try to thwart it.

“The Phoenician Scheme” fits all of the above descriptions. It’s not a movie where Anderson pushes any new creative boundaries. It’s a movie where Anderson sits firmly in his comfort zone, for better or worse. In other words, you don’t like any of Anderson’s films, “The Phoenician Scheme” will not win you over into become a fan of Anderson.

The protagonist of “The Phoenician Scheme” is Anatole “Zsa-Zsa” Korda (played by Benecio del Toro), known as Korda, who is a wealthy and corrupt business mogul of vague European origins. He has business in a variety of areas, such as arms dealing, property development and transportation. Korda has a reputation for betraying colleagues through fraud and theft. Needless to say, he’s made a lot of enemies.

The first scene in the movie shows Korda narrowly escaping an assassination attempt when the side of private plane is blown up during the flight, instantly killing one of Korda’s employees. Korda tells the airplane pilot that he’s fired before killing the pilot by ejecting the pilot from the plane before it crashes. For a while, Korda goes missing, but he is found alive. Korda’s incredible survival becomes big news in the media.

Korda has more than one close brush with death during the course of the movie. Every time he comes closes to dying, he briefly visits an afterlife realm, where God (played by Bill Murray) and other celestial beings try to judge Korda. Back on Earth, another group of people can be seen judging Korda in a different way: Members of business syndicate, led by a vengeful rival named Excaliber (played by Rupert Friend), vote unanimously to stop Korda, by agreeing to a price-fixing plan that will hinder Korda from buying certain materials for his businesses.

Korda’s grand scheme is to disrupt the economy of Phoenicia. Because he knows he’s an easy target for his enemies, he tries to revamp his business affairs by making his eldest child Liesl (played by Mia Threapleton) the heir to his estate, with Korda aiming to teach Liesl his shady business practices so she can continue his legacy. The only problem is that Liesl is in the final stages of becoming a nun named Sister Liesl. At first, she says no to Korda’s requests, but Korda convinces her to accompany him for his various antics. Liesl think she can redeem her father.

Korda has been married and divorced three times. He has 11 children. His other 10 children are all sons under the age of 18: Jasper (played by Edward Hyland), David (played by Kit Rakusen), David #2 (played by Jonathan Wirtz), Phillip (played by Milo James), Michael (played by Ogden Dawson), Jamie (played by Hector Bateman-Harden), Harry (played by Benjamin Lake), Steven (played by Gunes Taner), Samuel (played by Gabriel Ryan), Thomas (played by Momo Ramadan, also known as Mohamad Momo Ramadan). It’s really just a gimmick to show 10 boys in a room where Korda really can’t keep track of them all.

Korda also persuades a Norwegian entomologist Bjørn (played by Michael Cera), who was teaching Korda about entomology, to become his personal assistant. Bjørn is attracted to Liesl, even though she is about to become a nun. Much of the interactions between Bjørn and Liesl consist of Liesl trying to avoid Bjørn’s obvious infatuation with her.

“The Phoenician Scheme” gets more convoluted in its shenanigans than what is necessary, considering that it’s a very simple plot. The story shows Korda going from place to place in Europe and in Asia, in an attempt to cover up his embezzlements and to do damage control when certain business associates find out that Korda betrayed them. These associates include subway developers Leland (played by Tom Hanks) and Reagan (played by Bryan Cranston); nightclub owner Marseille Bob (played by Mathieu Amalric); and investor Marty (played by Jeffrey Wright), who all deal with Korda’s double-crossing in various ways.

Korda embezzlement has resulted in him having a money deficit that he calls the Gap. He spends much of his time scrambling to find money to fill the Gap before certain people find out that the money is missing. Along the way, he also has encounters with a royal named Prince Farouk of Phoenicia (played by Riz Ahmed) and a radical freedom fighter named Sergio, (played by Richard Ayoade), all while dodging gun shootouts and other deadly attacks.

Korda’s biggest enemy is his half-brother Nubar (played by Benedict Cumberbatch), who is called Uncle Nubar in the movie. Nubar’s grudge is explained in the story. Also appearing in supporting roles are Scarlett Johansson as Cousin Hilda, who becomes Korda’s fiancée; Hope Davis as Liesl’s Mother Superior; Willem Dafoe as a knave; and F. Murray Abraham as a prophet.

The dialogue is filled with quips, but the personalities of the characters are sometimes two-dimensional. Because so many famous people are crammed into Anderson’s films, it seems as if quality is sacrified for quantity, when it comes to character development. Anderson’s films often become less about the plot and more about which characters his celebrity cast members are going to portray and how offbeat these characters are going to be.

There’s a world-weary drollness that del Toro gives to his character that brings some humanity to an otherwise detestable character. Threapleton is a standout and is able to hold her own in scenes with cast members who are better-known that she is. Cera (who is American in real life) is somewhat miscast because he’s never that convincing as a Norwegian. Cumberbatch hams it up as the story’s biggest villain and having the physical-appearance flamboyance (bushy beard and debnair wardobe) to match. The other cast members also consistently stick to the Anderson film tone of hyper-realism.

“The Phoenician Scheme” can be used as an example of the type of stylish screwball comedy that fits Anderson’s filmmaking formula. His movies aren’t for everyone, but viewers who are inclined to like his films will probably find something to enjoy about “The Phoenician Scheme.” However, the movie gets repetitive, and there’s not much of a plot. “The Phoenician Scheme” should also be a wakeup call that Anderson needs to focus more on presenting better stories instead of over-relying on casting many famous people to populate his movies.

Focus Features will release “The Phoenician Scheme” in select U.S. cinemas on May 30, 2025, with a wider release to U.S. cinemas on June 6, 2025. The movie will be released on digital and VOD on July 8, 2025. “The Phoenician Scheme” will be released on 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray on July 29, 2025.

Review: ‘The French Dispatch,’ starring Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, Owen Wilson, Benicio del Toro, Léa Seydoux, Frances McDormand, Timothée Chalamet and Jeffrey Wright

October 22, 2021

by Carla Hay

“The French Dispatch”

Directed by Wes Anderson

Some language in French with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in the fictional city of Ennui-sur-Blasé, France, the comedy film “The French Dispatch” features predominantly white cast of characters (with a few black people, Latinos and Asians) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: After the American editor of The French Dispatch magazine dies, his staffers gather to put together the magazine’s final issues, with four stories coming to life in the movie.

Culture Audience: “The French Dispatch” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of filmmaker Wes Anderson and of arthouse movies that have well-known actors doing quirky comedy.

Lyna Khoudri, Frances McDormand and Timothée Chalamet in “The French Dispatch” (Photo courtesy of Searchlight Pictures)

At times, “The French Dispatch” seems like an overstuffed clown car where filmmaker Wes Anderson tried to fit in as many famous actors as possible in this movie. This star-studded cast elevates the material, which is good but not outstanding. Anderson’s style of filmmaking is an acquired taste that isn’t meant to be for all moviegoers. He fills his movies with retro-looking set designs, vibrant cinematography and snappy dialogue from eccentric characters. “The French Dispatch,” written and directed by Anderson, takes an anthology approach that doesn’t always work well, but the fascinating parts make up for the parts that are downright boring.

The movie revolves around a fictional magazine called The French Dispatch of the Liberty, Kansas Evening Sun (also known as The French Dispatch), which is a widely circulated American magazine based in the fictional city of Ennui-sur-Blasé, France. The French Dispatch was founded in 1925. The movie opens in 1975, when the French Dispatch editor/owner Arthur Howitzer Jr. (played by Bill Murray), an American originally from Kansas, has died in the magazine’s offices. The employees have gathered to work on his obituary and reminisce about him and the magazine’s history.

Arthur appears in flashbacks throughout the movie. In one of the flashbacks, Arthur has told his top-ranking staffers that he has put a clause in his will which requires that The French Dispatch will stop publishing after he dies. The staffers are melancholy and a bit disturbed when they hear about this decision. Arthur is loved and respected by his employees, so they oblige his request. Therefore, they know that the French Dispatch issue that will have Arthur’s obituary will also be the magazine’s final issue.

The French Dispatch is a magazine that is known for its collection of stories. In “The French Dispatch” movie, four of these stories come to life and are told in anthology form, with each story told by someone from the magazine’s staff. Some scenes are in color, and other scenes in black and white. Anderson says in the movie’s production notes that The French Dispatch was inspired by his love for The New Yorker magazine. That’s all you need to know to predict if you think this movie will be delightful or pretentious.

The French Dispatch staffers are mostly Americans. They including copy editor Alumna (played by Elisabeth Moss), cartoonist Hermès Jones (played by Jason Schwartzman), an unnamed story editor (played by Fisher Stevens), an unnamed legal advisor (played by Griffin Dunne), an unnamed proofreader (Anjelica Bette Fellini) and an unnamed writer (played by Wally Wolodarsky). All of these aforementioned staffers don’t have in-depth personalities as much as they have the type of quirky reaction conversations and stagy facial expressions that people have come to expect from characters in a Wes Anderson movie. A running joke in “The French Dispatch” is how obsessive Alumna and proofreader are about things such as comma placement.

The staffers who get more screen time and more insight into their personalities are the four staffers who tell their stories. The first story is told in travelogue form by Herbsaint Sazerac (played by Owen Wilson), whose title is cycling reporter. Herbsaint travels by bicycle to various parts of the city. He has a penchant for going to the seedier neighborhoods to report what’s going on there and the history of how certain locations have changed over the years. During his travels, he visits three other French Dispatch writers who tell their stories. They are J.K.L. Berensen (played by Tilda Swinton), who is the magazine’s flamboyant art critic; Lucinda Krementz (played by Frances McDormand), a secretive essayist who likes to work alone; and Roebuck Wright (played by Jeffrey Wright), a lonely and brilliant writer with a typographic memory.

J.K.L.’s story is “The Concrete Masterpiece,” which is about the how a “criminally insane” painter named Moses Rosenthaler (played by Benicio del Toro as a middle-aged man and by Tony Revolori as a young man) is discovered and exploited while Moses is in prison for murder. One of the paintings that first gets attention for Moses is a nude portrait of a prison guard named Simone (played by Léa Seydoux), who is his muse and his lover. Moses has a makeshift art studio in prison for these intimate painting sessions, which he is able to do because Simone gives him a lot of leeway and protection from being punished.

An unscrupulous art dealer named Julian Cadazio (played by Adrien Brody), along with his equally corrupt and greedy uncles Nick (played by Bob Balaban) and Joe (played by Henry Winkler), find out about Moses’ talent and are eager to make huge profits off of Moses’ work. These art vultures figure that they can take advantage of Moses because he’s in prison. Julian, Nick and Joe get a tizzy over how much money they can make off of Moses, who is a mercurial and unpredictable artist. Imagine these art dealers’ panic when Moses decides he’s going to stop painting until he feels like painting again. There’s also a Kansas art collector named Upshur “Maw” Clampette (played by Lois Smith) who comes into the mix as a potential buyer.

“The Concrete Masterpiece” is the movie’s highlight because it adeptly weaves the absurd with harsh realism. Swinton is a hilarious standout in her scenes, because J.K.L. is quite the raconteur. She delivers her story as a speaking engagement in front of an auditorium filled with unnamed art people. It’s like a pompous lecture and bawdy stand-up comedy routine rolled into one. You almost wish that Anderson would make an entire movie about J.K.L. Berensen.

Lucinda’s story is “Revisions to a Manifesto,” which chronicles a youthful uprising in the French town of Ennui, when young people stage a labor strike that shuts down the entire country. At the center of this youthful rebellion are two lovers named Zeffirelli (played by Timothée Chalamet) and Juliette (played by Lyna Khoudri). Zefferelli (a college student) is the sensitive and romantic one in this relationship, while Juliette has a tendency to be aloof and no-nonsense. Although “Revisions to a Manifesto” has some visually compelling scenes depicting the strikes and protests, the overall tone of this story falls a little flat. Chalamet’s performance is very affected, while McDormand is doing what she usually does when she portrays a repressed character.

Roebuck’s story “The Private Dining Room of the Police Commissioner,” which is a tale of kidnapping and other criminal activities. The story starts off being about a famous chef named Nescaffier (played by Stephen Park), who is hired to serve Ennui-sur-Blasé’s police commissioner (played by Mathieu Amalric), who is just named The Commissaire in the story. But then, the story becomes about The Comissaire’s son/crime-solving protégé Gigi (played by Winsen Ait Hellal), who gets kidnapped by some thugs, led by someone named The Chauffeur (played by Edward Norton). The kidnappers say that Gigi will be murdered unless a recently arrested accountant named Albert (played by Willem Dafoe), nicknamed The Abacus, is set free from jail.

“The Private Dining Room of the Police Commissioner” ends up being too convoluted and somewhat sloppily executed. Liev Schreiber has a small role as a Dick Cavett-type TV talk show host who interviews Roebuck on the show. There’s some whimsical animation in this part of the movie. But ultimately, “The Private Dining Room of the Police Commissioner” is a story about a lot of people running around and making threats with no real sense of danger.

Although it’s admirable that Anderson was able to attract so many famous actors in this movie, after a while it seems like stunt casting that can become distracting. Viewers who watch “The French Dispatch” will wonder which famous person is going to show up next. Some well-known actors who make cameos in “The French Dispatch” include Christoph Waltz, Saoirse Ronan and Rupert Friend. Anjelica Huston is the movie’s voiceover narrator.

“The French Dispatch” can almost become a game of Spot the Celebrities, since there are so many of them in this movie. That being said, there isn’t a bad performance in the bunch. However, the movie would’ve benefited from taking a chance on casting lesser-known but talented actors in some of the prominent speaking roles, in order to make the film a more immersive viewing experience instead of it coming across as an all-star parade.

Despite its flaws, there’s no doubt that “The French Dispatch” is a highly creative film that has Anderson’s unique vision and artistic flair. He has a love of language and a knack for keeping viewers guessing on what will happen next in his movies. And these bold risks in filmmaking are better than not taking any risks at all.

Searchlight Pictures released “The French Dispatch” in U.S. cinemas on October 22, 2021.

2019 Tribeca Film Festival movie review: ‘Other Music’

May 5, 2019

by Carla Hay

“Other Music”

Directed by Puloma Basu and Rob Hatch-Miller

World premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City on April 26, 2019.

Brick-and-mortar retail stores that sell music—just like video stores and places to develop film—are a dying breed that the Internet and other digital technology have been killing off since the mid-2000s. From 1995 to 2016, Other Music was an independent music store located in New York City’s East Village. The store had a reputation for being a place that championed obscure and non-mainstream music, but Other Music also carried releases from popular artists, with an emphasis on releases that might not be that easy to find. The documentary “Other Music” is a respectful, nostalgic history of the store, including a behind-the-scenes look at the final days before Other Music closed for good on June 25, 2016.

Other Music’s financial woes weren’t just caused by the Internet. Like many other independent retailers in high-priced urban cities, Other Music (which stayed in the same location throughout its 21-year run) couldn’t keep up with the rising rents in the area. But the store’s history is truly a reflection of what was going on in the music business at the time. Other Music was co-founded by Chris Vanderloo, Josh Madell and Jeff Gibson, at a time (the mid-‘90s) when alternative/indie rock was at the height of its commercial appeal. Vanderloo and Madell were former employees of Kim’s Underground Video, an independently run video store in New York City.

In the documentary, Vanderloo is described as the most customer-oriented; he was the Other Music owner who was most likely to be mingling with store customers. Madell was the managerial taskmaster, who was the most involved in employee hiring and training, as well as community outreach and setting up in-store performances. Gibson was the one who was the most enthusiastic about discovering new music—the more obscure, the better. In 2001, Gibson left Other Music and moved to Belgium, where his wife is from, and he declined to participate in the documentary.

The documentary mentions that, at first, many people thought it was crazy for Other Music to open directly across the street from the East Village location of Tower Records, the music-store behemoth that was considered one of the most powerful music retailers in the U.S. for decades. But it turns out that both stores had overlapping customers, and Tower Records’ foot traffic helped Other Music, which was a place to find releases that Tower Records might not have. Ironically, Other Music would outlast Tower Records (which closed all its U.S. operations in 2006), as well as other corporate music retailers that shut down in the U.S., such as Virgin Megastore and HMV. TransWorld-owned music retailers Musicland, Sam Goody, The Wherehouse and Camelot Music also went out of business years before Other Music did.

Other Music was the kind of store that strived to keep its anti-corporate image intact. The store’s labels and signs were hand-written. Most of the inventory was from independent record companies. The store prided itself on having employees who were extremely knowledgeable about non-mainstream music and weren’t shy about making recommendations to customers. But all of that led to Other Music having a “hipster snob” reputation that was a turnoff and intimidated some people, which the documentary rightfully acknowledges. A few of the employees interviewed also admit that they would be impatient and give attitude to customers if they thought the customers didn’t know much about music.

The film predictably includes a number of celebrities who mostly praise Other Music. Depeche Mode’s Martin Gore opens the movie with this glowing statement about Other Music: “Per square meter, it probably had more interest value than any other shop I’d ever been in, in the world.” Oscar-winning actor Benicio del Toro says that shopping at Other Music was “almost like a religious experience.” Vampire Weekend lead singer Ezra Koenig, former Le Tigre member JD Sampson, and Animal Collective singer Avey Tare are among the other artists who share fond memories of Other Music.

A few celebrities, such as Jason Schwartzman and Regina Spektor, admit that although they were fans of Other Music, they often felt like their musical tastes were being judged by the staff. Spektor explains that she always had a feeling of “first-day-of-school nervousness” when she shopped at Other Music, because she didn’t want to feel embarrassed. The National lead singer Matt Berninger said that if people felt uncomfortable shopping at Other Music because of the “snob” factor, it was because Other Music “set the bar high” when it came to musical taste. “They should celebrate stuff that’s better-than-average.”

One of the best things about the Other Music documentary is that is gives a spotlight to some of the store’s unsung heroes. Even though Other Music carried a wide variety of music, it still had an image of being dominated by indie rock. It might come as a surprise to many people who see this film that Other Music’s staff was a lot more diverse than the stereotypical white male music nerd, even though the store’s owners/bosses and many of the employees fit that stereotype. There were plenty of female staffers there too (although they don’t get as much screen time in the movie as the male staffers) and some people of color (usually male) who worked at Other Music. Most of the employees describe themselves as music fanatics and misfits who wouldn’t do well if they had to work at a regular 9-to-5 office job. It’s mentioned in the documentary that it was hard to get a job at Other Music because the standards for music knowledge were high and the employee turnover was relatively low. Co-owner Madell said that if employees got fired, it was often because of chronic tardiness.

Many people in the documentary mention Duane Harriott (a black man) as Other Music’s best employee. Harriott, who worked at Other Music from 1997 to 2008, is interviewed in the film, and he says of Other Music: “It wasn’t just a record store. It was a community center.” He also says he was largely responsible for building Other Music’s hip-hop inventory “from scratch.” Harriott is praised by many people in the documentary for his encyclopedic music knowledge and his sales skills—he had a gift of gab with customers, and he loved to tell trivia factoids and stories about artists, which often resulted in people buying music that they originally didn’t intend to buy.

Many of the employees of Other Music were also musicians, and they were encouraged to promote their own music in the store. One former employee, an African American identified in the movie only as Beans, was notorious for relentlessly suggesting that customers buy his music. Beans, who’s interviewed in the movie, freely admits that he was one of those Other Music employees who would get impatient and give attitude to customers if he thought they seemed clueless. Even though he admits this flaw, he’s also clearly one of Other Music’s most loyal employees: He’s seen in the documentary being one of the last employees to stay behind to help clear out the store after it permanently closed.

The documentary also interviews Vanderloo’s wife Lydia and Madell’s wife Dawn, who are perhaps the biggest unsung heroes of Other Music. The wives reveal that because they had more stable incomes than their husbands, the wives kept the business afloat for years when Other Music was losing money. In other words, if Vanderloo and Madell hadn’t been married to people who could give them money to keep the business going, the store would have closed years before 2016. The wives say that they and their husbands kept the business going because they felt obligated to Other Music’s customers and employees. But when they were losing so much money that the business no longer became sustainable, it was time to shut it down for good.

From the beginning, Other Music had issues with being cash-strapped. As Josh Madell says in documentary, the store didn’t pay most of its employees in its early years (the staff knowingly signed up as volunteers), and not even Lydia and Dawn were exempt from working for free. The wives talk about how their pre-marriage dates with their future husbands involved meeting at the store and being unpaid employees. A “dinner date” would be often be ordering pizza while they worked for free at the store.

The documentary also mentions how Other Music was affected by the 9/11 terrorist attacks, which caused most businesses located in downtown Manhattan to be temporarily closed or severely limited in the weeks and sometimes months after the tragedy. William Basinski’s “DLP1.1” composition (one of his “disintegration loop” instrumental recordings) became Other Music’s unofficial anthem in dealing with aftermath of 9/11, according to the documentary. Other Music co-owner Madell says that the store had its biggest sales in the year 2000, and things never really recovered after 2001.

When Napster and other controversial file-sharing services began to eat away at the music industry’s profits, Other Music responded by launching its own digital music store without digital-rights management, but that wasn’t until 2007, when music retail was already in a major downward spiral, and iTunes was already dominating the online music market. Things also got worse for Other Music when corporate stores such as Best Buy had lower prices for CDs than what Other Music’s wholesalers/distributors would charge. Other Music had its own e-newsletter, and when that also shut down, the owners heard that Lou Reed was despondent over it. Other Music also launched its own record label in 2012.

Financial woes aside, Other Music’s biggest legacy is that it was a home for independent artists, many of whom weren’t mainstream enough for commercial radio or corporate chain stores. The documentary includes footage of in-store performances of artists such as Ghost, St. Vincent and Conor Oberst. Former employee Harriott says his most memorable Other Music performance was by the mysterious and elusive singer/songwriter Gary Wilson, who arrived at the store with a blanket over his face. Before his performance, Wilson poured talcum powder over himself and then performed wearing 3-D glasses.

The documentary also notes that in the aftermath of 9/11, the music community in New York City became more vibrant. It was during this period of time that the New York City music scene had LCD Soundsystem, The Strokes, Interpol, The National, and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Other Music helped all of these acts before they broke through to larger audiences.

Although a few people (including Josh Madell) had tears in their eyes and understandably got emotional in the final days and hours before Other Music’s last day in business, the general feeling was one of positivity over all the great experiences they had because of Other Music. There’s plenty of nostalgia and wistfulness, because the closing of Other Music represents a bygone era when most people got their music by physically going to a store and combing through racks of vinyl records, cassettes or CDs. Many of the customers interviewed in the documentary talk about how they prefer the tangible feeling of holding albums in their hands, so that they can better appreciate the artwork or lyrics that came with the packaging.

People who’ve spent countless hours of their lives at a music store know that it’s become an increasingly rare experience to physically be at a store devoted to music where you can find those hidden gems or sought-out items to add to a collection. Unfortunately, it’s becoming increasingly common for small, independent businesses such as Other Music to not be able to survive online competitors, technology’s effects or rising rent.

The documentary ends with the “Other Music Forever” farewell concert that took place at the Bowery Ballroom on June 28, 2016. The event, hosted by Janeane Garofalo, included performances by Yoko Ono, Sharon Van Etten, Bill Callahan, Yo La Tengo, OM, Julianna Barwick and Frankie Cosmos. People who didn’t attend the concert can see a few snippets in the movie, as well as how Other Music co-owner Madell had to practically beg a modest Vanderloo to come up on stage.

“Other Music” co-directors Puloma Basu and Rob Hatch-Miller do a fine job of telling Other Music’s story in a cohesive and entirely conventional manner. There’s some use of animation, which can be hit-or-miss in a documentary, but it works well-enough in this movie because the animation is used sparingly. And although there are some celebrities and other world travelers who no doubt got to experience Other Music firsthand, the movie might not be compelling enough to watch for the average person who’s never heard of Other Music or has never even been to New York City.

And here’s why the movie might have a challenge in finding an audience that’s larger than those who care about a music store in New York City: Unfortunately, there are any number of beloved, independently owned music stores around the world that have closed over the years. Each store had its own unique impact on its community. Other Music just happened to be in America’s largest-populated city, so it had a bigger profile than most indie record stores. The people who have the most emotional attachment to Other Music are those who had a great experience there and/or those whose careers were affected by Other Music—and that’s a very niche audience indeed.

That’s not to say that the “Other Music” documentary isn’t worth watching, and you don’t have to be a former customer or employee to enjoy the movie. But people who never went to Other Music might have a harder time relating to and engaging in the documentary’s sentimental nostalgia over the store. The “Other Music” documentary would make a great double feature with “All Things Must Pass,” director Colin Hanks’ excellent 2015 documentary about the rise and fall of Tower Records, because, at the very least, the “Other Music” documentary shows how a scrappy underdog outlasted a corporate giant.

UPDATE: Factory 25 will release “Other Music” on digital and VOD on August 25, 2020.

2018 CinemaCon: What to expect at this year’s event

April 23, 2018

by Carla Hay

CinemaCon, the annual convention for the National Association of Theatre Owners (NATO), will be held April 23 to April 26, 2018, at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. About 5,000 people attend the event, which gives movie studios the chance to showcase what they expect to be their biggest hits of the year.

Movie studios scheduled to give their presentations at the event are Sony Pictures Entertainment on April 23; Walt Disney Studios, STX Films and Warner Bros. Pictures on April 24; Entertainment Studios, Universal Pictures, Focus Features and Paramount Pictures on April 25; and 20th Century Fox, Amazon Studios and Lionsgate on April 26.

One of the highlights of CinemaCon 2018 will be the 2018 Pioneer of the Year Award Dinner on April 25. The event will honor Tom Cruise, the first actor to ever receive the award. Tony-and-Grammy-Award-winning “Hamilton” star Leslie Odom Jr. will perform at the event, which will include a special presentation from Cruise’s “Jack Reacher” director Christopher McQuarrie, who also directed Cruise in 2015’s “Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation” and 2018’s “Mission: Impossible – Fallout.”

CinemaCon culminates with the CinemaCon Big Screen Achievement Awards ceremony, which will take place April 26.

Here are the announced winners of the awards:

CinemaCon Lifetime Award
Jodie Foster

Jodie Foster (Photo by Paul Drinkwater/NBCUniversal via Getty Images)

Jodie Foster has been one of the most critically acclaimed actors in movies since made her big-screen debut in 1972’s “Napoleon and Samantha.” Her most famous movies include 1976’s “Taxi Driver,” 1997’s “Contact” and 2002’s “Panic Room.” She has two Oscars for Best Actress: for 1988’s “The Accused” and 1991’s “The Silence of the Lambs.” In 2018, her thriller film “Hotel Artemis” is set for release. Foster has also become a respected director and producer, having helmed several feature films, including 1991’s “Little Man Tate,” 1995’s “Home for the Holidays,” 2011’s “The Beaver” and 2016’s “Money Monster.”

CinemaCon Icon Award
Samuel L. Jackson

Samuel L. Jackson (Photo by Charley Gallay/Getty Images for Paramount Pictures)

In a career spanning more than 45 years, Oscar-nominated Samuel L. Jackson has appeared in more blockbusters than any other actor. His hit films include 1993’s “Jurassic Park,” 1994’s “Pulp Fiction,” “Star Wars” Episodes I II and III, 2004’s “The Incredibles,” 2012’s “Django Unchained” and several Marvel Studios films, such 2010’s “Iron Man 2,” 2011’s “Captain America; The First Avenger,” 2012’s “The Avengers,” 2014’s “Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” 2015’s “The Avengers: Age of Ultron.” The prolific Jackson has several movies scheduled for release. In 2018, his movies include “The Last Full Measure,” “Incredibles 2” and “Life Itself.” In 2019, he has three movies that are predicted to be big hits: “Glass” (the hybrid sequel to 2000’s “Unbreakable” and 2017’s “Split”), “Captain Marvel” and a remake of “Shaft.”

CinemaCon Visionary Award
Jack Black

CinemaCon Vanguard Award
Jonah Hil

Jack Black and Jonah Hill (Photo by Michael Kovac/Getty Images for Grey Goose Vodka)

Jack Black and Jonah Hill are co-stars in 2018’s “Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot.” Although they have appeared in dramas, they are mostly known for their comedic roles. Black’s biggest hits include 2017’s “Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle,” the “Kung Fu Panda” movies, 2003’s “School of Rock” and 2005’s “King Kong.” His other 2018 movie is “The House With a Clock in Its Walls.”

Hill, who received Oscar nominations for supporting roles in 2011’s “Moneyball” and 2013’s “The Wolf of Wall Street,” has appeared in a number of hit movies, including 2007’s “Superbad,” 2012’s “21 Jump Street,” 2013’s “This Is the End,” 2014’s “22 Jump Street” and the “How to Train Your Dragon” movies. He’s also reunited with his “Superbad” co-star Emma Stone in the Netflix series “Maniac.” In 2019, “How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World” is due out in cinemas.

CinemaCon Award of Excellence in Acting
Felicity Jones

Felicity Jones (Photo by Christopher Polk)

Felicity Jones had carved out a niche in independent films (usually dramas) before she was nominated for an Oscar for her supporting role in 2014’s “The Theory of Everything.” Since then, her career has grown by leaps in bounds, including starring roles in 2016’s biggest blockbuster, “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story,” and 2016’s “Inferno.” In 2017, she starred in the critically acclaimed “Breathe.” She plays U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 2018’s “On the Basis of Sex.”

CinemaCon Male Star of the Year
Benicio Del Toro

Benicio Del Toro (Photo by Richard Foreman Jr.)

Benicio Del Toro won an Oscar for his supporting role in 2000’s “Traffic.” He has developed a reputation for playing brooding, often mysterious characters in critically acclaimed movies that range from ,ow-budget independent films to major blockbusters. Del Toro’s best-known movies include 1995’s “The Usual Suspects,” 2013’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” and 2015’s “Sicario” and 2016’s “Star Wars: The Last Jedi.” His movies set for release in 2018 are “Sicario: Day of the Soldado” and “Avengers: Infinity War,” which is expected to the biggest box-office hit of the year.

CinemaCon Female Star of the Year
Dakota Johnson

Dakota Johnson (Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures)

Coming from from a family of famous actors (her parents are Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith; her maternal grandmother is Tippi Hedren; and her former stepfather is Antonio Banderas), Dakota Johnson has forged her most recognizable identity in movies as the star of the “Fifty Shades” trilogy. She has four very different movies in 2018: S&M-themed romantic drama “Fifty Shades Freed,” the horror movie “Suspiria” and the thriller “Bad Times at the El Royale.”

CinemaCon Director of the Year
Ryan Coogler

Ryan Coogler (Photo by Han Myung-Gu/Getty Images)

After directing just three feature films (2014’s “Fruitvale Station,” “2015’s “Creed” and 2018’s “Black Panther”), Ryan Coogler has become one of the hottest filmmakers in Hollywood, thanks to the blockbuster success of “Black Panther,” which broke the record for the highest-grossing film to open in February. The movie also earned rave reviews from critics, and “Black Panther” is set to be in the Top 5 of the highest-grossing movies of 2018.

CinemaCon Breakthrough Producer of the Year
Gabrielle Union

Gabrielle Union is not new to making movies (she’s starred in 2000’s “Bring It On” and 2012’s “Think Like a Man, among other films), but she is relatively new to producing movies. Union was an executive producer of her 2016 comedy film “Almost Christmas,” and she’s a producer of her 2018 thriller “Breaking In.”

CinemaCon Action Star of the Year
Taron Egerton

Taron Egerton is best known to movie audiences as the star of the “Kingsman” movies: 2014’s “Kingsman: The Secret Service” and 2017’s “Kingsman: The Golden Circle.” His 2018 movies are the big-screen version of the true-crime drama “The Billionaire Boys Club” and as the iconic title character in “Robin Hood.” Egerton is also set to star as Elton John in the biopic “Rocketman,” whose release date is to be announced.

Cinema Spotlight Award
Anna Kendrick

Anna Kendrick (Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures)

Anna Kendrick is best known for starring in the “Pitch Perfect” comedy/musical movies, but she is equally adept at doing dramas, such as her Oscar-nominated turn for her supporting role in 2009’s “Up in the Air.” Her 2018 movie is “A Simple Favor,” a mystery thriller

CinemaCon Female Star of Tomorrow Award
Tiffany Haddish

Tiffany Haddish (Photo by Michele K. Short)

Tiffany Haddish is a longtime stand-up comedian, but she had a major breakthrough in movies with her much-talked-about role in the 2017 comedy smash “Girls Trip.” Since then, her career has been on a hot streak, with starring role in TV and movies, including four films due out in 2018: “Uncle Drew,” “Night School,” “The Oath” and “Nobody’s Fool.”

CinemaCon Breakthrough Performer of the Year
LilRel Howery

LilRel Howery made movie audiences stand up and take notice as the wise-cracking TSA worker in the 2017 horror blockbuster “Get Out.” It was a small but memorable role for the actor who was previously known on screen for starring as Bobby Carmichael in “The Carmichael Show.” Howery’s 2018 movies are the comedy “Uncle Drew” and the sci-fi thriller “Birdbox.”

CinemaCon Comedy Star of the Year
Kate McKinnon

Kate McKinnon has already won multiple Emmys for her work on “Saturday Night Live,” but she has also made her mark on the big screen, with scene-stealing roles in 2016’s “Ghostbusters” remake, 2017’s “Rough Night” and 2017’s “Ferdinand.” In 2018, her comedy movies set for release are “Irreplaceable You” and “The Spy Who Dumped Me.”

Other awards that will be given at the ceremony:

CinemaCon International Filmmaker of the Year Award: J.A. Bayona, director of 2018’s “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom”
CinemaCon Passpartout Award: Kurt Rieder, 20th Century Fox International executive VP for theatrical in the Asia Pacific region
NATO Marquee Award: Alejandro Ramírez Magaña, Cinépolis CEO/general director
Career Achievement in Exhibition Award: Robert Carrady, Caribbean Cinemas president

2018 Cannes Film Festival: Benicio del Toro named president of Un Certain Regard jury; ‘Everybody Knows’ to open festival

April 4, 2018

Benicio del Toro in "Sicario: Day of the Soldado" (Photo by Richard Foreman Jr.) — Benicio del Toro in “Sicario: Day of the Soldado” (Photo by Richard Foreman Jr.)

Oscar-winning actor Benicio del Toro has been named president of the Un Certain Regard jury at the 71st Annual Cannes Film Festival, which takes place in Cannes, France, from May 8 to May 19, 2018.

In other Cannes news, Variety has reported that the Spanish-language psychological thriller “Everybody Knows” (“Todos Lo Saben”) , directed by Oscar winner Asghar Farhadi, will open the festival. Oscar-winning spouses Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz star in the movie, which is the first Spanish-language film to open the Cannes Film Festival since Pedro Almodovar’s “Bad Education” in 2004. The lineup of films at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival will be announced May 12 at a press conference that will be streamed live at 11 a.m. CET on the official Cannes Film Festival website, YouTube and Daily Motion.

Here is the official press release from the Cannes Film Festival about del Toro heading the Un Certain Regard jury:

The man who will preside over the fate of the Un Certain Regard Jury is not only a film lover but a brilliant actor, entirely devoted to his art. Eight years ago, along with Tim Burton, Benicio del Toro and his fellow members of the Jury selected Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Uncle Boonmee (The One Who Can Recall His Past Lives) as the winner of the Palme d’or.

Born in Puerto Rico, raised in Pennsylvania, he is an artist who knows no boundaries. He is a great admirer of Jean Vigo and Charlie Chaplin and would have loved to have met Bela Lugosi, Lon Chaney, Toshiro Mifune or Humphrey Bogart. When he was 20 years old, he discovered The 400 Blows and the infinite universe of Fellini, Eisenstein, Bergman, Eustache, Kurosawa… The Naked Island of Kaneto Shindô became his go-to film.
At 6 feet 2, Benicio Del Toro always dreamt of becoming a basketball player but became an actor instead. His intense and magnetic presence on the screen makes him sleek and attractive. A chameleon with a thousand faces: a mild-mannered gangster (Usual Suspects, 1995), an eccentric moustachioed lawyer (Las Vegas Parano, 1998), a four-fingered robber (Snatch, 2000), an agent in a Mexican drug squad in cartel areas (Traffic, 2001, Ocar for Best Supporting Actor), an ex-convict turned fundamentalist Christian (21 Grams, 2003), a troubled American Indian (Jimmy P.: Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian, 2013), a famous drug dealer both charming and terrifying (Paradise Lost, 2014).

The charismatic Benicio Del Toro transforms each of his performances into impressive but subtle displays. Despite his apparent insouciance, he throws himself like no other into his roles – his teacher was Stella Adler of the Actors Studio. He is a loyal supporter of independent cinema and has worked with Abel Ferrara (The Funeral, 1996), Julian Schnabel (Basquiat, 1997) and Oliver Stone (Savages, 2012) – he also appears in the 8^thepisode of the saga Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017).

In 2008, he received the award for best actor in Cannes for his role as Che Guevara in Steven Soderbergh’s two-part film – a part he carried for no fewer than seven years. Del Toro and the Festival have a long shared history. He was there for the special screening of Usual Suspects, then The Pledge (2001), Sin City (2005) and more recently, Sicario(2015) which was selected to compete for the Palme d’or. He was even there for his directorial debut, El Yuma, one of the segments of 7 Days in Havana, a collective work selected at Un Certain Regard in 2012. The following year, Benicio Del Toro said: “I’ve come here many times and it’s always amazing. I am totally thrilled and excited to be here.”

As the second competition within the Official Selection, Un Certain Regard will once again feature some twenty original and unique works in terms of themes and aesthetics.

Benicio Del Toro takes over from Uma Thurman, who was president in 2017 of a jury that awarded prizes to Mohammad Rasoulof, Jasmine Trinca, Mathieu Amalric, Taylor Sheridan and Michel Franco.

This year’s Festival de Cannes will take place from Tuesday 8 to Saturday 19 May.

April 5, 2018 UPDATE:

The following is a press release from Momento Films:

Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem in “Everybody Knows” (Photo courtesy of Momentum Films)

EVERYBODY KNOWS, the new film by director Asghar Farhadi, with Penélope Cruz, Javier Bardem and Ricardo Darín, will be the opening film of the 71st Cannes International Film Festival on 8 May. It will also be in Competition for the Golden Palm and will be released in France on 9 May. EVERYBODY KNOWS is produced, distributed in France and handled internationally by Memento Films.

Asghar Farhadi is back in the Cannes Film Festival after THE SALESMAN, winner of the Academy Award® for Best Foreign Film 2017, and winner of Best Actor and Best Screenplay at Cannes 2016. Asghar Farhadi also won the Academy Award® for Best Foreign Film in 2012 with A SEPARATION. The new film by the Iranian director will be screened in opening and in Competition 8 May.

Memento Films Distribution will release EVERYBODY KNOWS on 9 May in 350 theatres.

EVERYBODY KNOWS was entirely shot in Spain and in Spanish with Penélope Cruz, Javier Bardem and the Argentinian actor Ricardo Darín as main characters. Spanish actors Eduard Fernández, Bárbara Lennie and Inma Cuesta also star in the film. The psychological thriller follows Laura who travels with her family from Buenos Aires to the village where she was born, on a Spanish vineyard, to attend her sister’s wedding but unexpected events lead this gathering towards a crisis which exposes the hidden past of the family.

Asghar Farhadi collaborated with great names of Spanish cinema including Jose-Luis Alcaine as DOP and Sonia Grande as costume designer, both regulars in Pedro Almodovar’s filmography. Clara Notari, known for WILD TALES and Soderbergh’s CHE, supervised the production design. The editing of the film was helmed by Hayedeh Safiyari who already worked with Asghar Farhadi on A SEPARATION and THE SALESMAN.

After THE SALESMAN and THE PAST, EVERYBODY KNOWS is the third consecutive film by Asghar Farhadi produced by Alexandre Mallet-Guy from Memento Films Production. The French producer collaborated with Spanish producer Alvaro Longoria from Morena Films. Lucky Red and Rai Cinema in Italy, France 3