The Beguiled Review: Cannes . Its skin is pretty, but its heart is dark. Though it borrows some of the gauzy mood of The Virgin Suicides, it’s essentially unlike any other Sofia Coppola film, a serene, supple picture that hits more than a few notes of despair. In the heterosexual world, the tragedy of men and women is that each has something the other needs, but how to get it? To steal it is wrong, and to lie and cheat your way into love is a sure way to ultimately lose it. So what’s left? No wonder the temptation is strong to resort to a kind of witchcraft, a casting of spells in which each side says what the other wants to hear, in word, deed or touch.

Read the The Beguiled movie synopsis, view the movie trailer, get cast and crew information, see movie photos, and more on Movies.com. Sofia Coppola’s The Beguiled, playing at Cannes in competition, may be a reimagining of a 1971 Don Siegel revenge thriller starring Clint Eastwood, but it’s. We're both excited and terrified for the return of Pennywise in Stephen King's It. See which other movies and TV shows we're excited about this month. Times film critic Justin Chang is at the Cannes Film Festival, taking in the scene and all the movies he can watch on very little sleep. In this, his Cannes.

If men are manipulators, as many of our mothers have taught us, there’s a dark side to female desire, too. That may be what this sly, elegant picture is really about: The horror that the more we try to control nature, the wilder it grows, like vines spiraling out of control from between our fingers. Colin Farrell plays a Union soldier, Corporal John Mc. Burney, who lies injured in the woods of 1.

Virginia when a little girl, out picking mushrooms, inadvertently picks him. Watch An Inconvenient Sequel (2017) Hd more. The girl, Amy (Oona Lawrence), is a student at a nearby boarding school for girls. She’s a little frightened by this smoldering, exotic, albeit weakened being, but she’s intrigued, too, and she agrees to help him. The school’s owner and headmistress, Martha Farnsworth (Nicole Kidman, in a performance pitched deftly between ice and fire), is dismayed when she sees this hobbling man heading toward the school. All the women are afraid, but they’re curious, too.

Read about Jack Giroux's top 10 movies of 2017 so far. Movie Genres at HOYTS Cinemas. The HOYTS website provides session times for all HOYTS cinema locations along with the most up to date movie information.

And as Mc. Burney lies in bed, charming them all as he recovers from his wounds, each girl and woman projects her fantasies of what a man should be onto him. Sheltered, frustrated Edwina (Kirsten Dunst, subtle and touching) sees him as a tender soul who can sweep her away from the life she secretly hates. Martha, a woman of good sense and stalwart character, sees him as the solution to her repressed carnality, perhaps as a man who will “take her” the way men are shown “taking” women on the covers of steamy 2. And Alicia (Elle Fanning, both sultry and doelike) is simply the bad gal. She sees Mc. Burney and wants him, for 1. He’s the only man around.

He’s a prize that will prove her the winner among all the women. He’s just—there is no other way to put it—hot. She’ll have him by any means necessary. Meanwhile, Mc. Burney eyes them all as they drift around the property in their pale cotton dresses.

And though he never says as much, his eyes, alight with gluttony, tell us that he can’t believe his luck: He's like the boy at the banquet assaying a plate heaped high with treats, It doesn’t occur to him to make a choice among the women. He’ll have them all, and it’s his right. He plays one against the other, pouring honey’d words into each ear. Frighteningly, he seems trustworthy at the beginning—after all, he’s played by Farrell, whose eyes have the soft soulfulness of a cow grazing in the field. Coppola adapted the script herself—the source material is Thomas Cullinan’s 1.

The original film is deeply enjoyable in a seedy way, but there’s no way to escape its sour spirit: The women, with the exception of the fragile Edwina (played by the lovely Elizabeth Hartman), are cartoonishly garish, and although Siegel makes it clear that Eastwood’s Mc. Burney is lying through his teeth every minute, the movie still roots for him—the women are just conveniently unforgivable, conniving bitches. Coppola’s version works much better for the way it subtly nudges our sympathies, sometimes in conflicting directions.

This Beguiled is neither anti- man nor anti- woman. Both men and women love the thrill of the chase, and each side has plenty to lose. It’s easy to see why Mc. Burney, devious as he is, is unmoored as a lone man among women.

Their world is enticing but impenetrable. Are all the women menstruating in sync? That alone is a kind of witchcraft, an instance of women doing the moon’s bidding. No wonder men try to control women—they're always competing with the moon. After Mc. Burney has earned the ladies’ trust—not to mention their lust—they prepare a lavish meal for him, putting on their best dresses for the occasion.

In their pastel satin gowns, they nestle around him like dollops of meringue. The image is so idyllic that for an instant it’s easy to imagine a weirdly happy future for all, as a kind of oddball forbidden family. It can’t, of course, turn out like that.

In the end The Beguiled is a moody tragedy in which joy is elusive for everybody. Shot by Philippe Le Sourd, the picture has the look of a misty dream, almost as if we're watching from behind a wall of sleep. The sounds of the natural world creep through: Birds chatter and trill, and cicadas do their weird, whirring thing, as if expressing alarm that the world is moving too slow or too fast for their liking. At one point, Amy, a fan of plants and animals and the owner of a turtle named Henry, asks Mc. Burney if he likes birds. Eventually, he’ll come to see these women as an organism ready to eat him whole.

But if they do feel hunger, it’s not inherently evil, but rather a forlorn thing stoked by years of loneliness. Nobody wins in The Beguiled, and the final shot is a melancholy sonnet. This is a world in which you can’t always get what you want. But rarely do you get what you need, either.

Jack Giroux's Top 1. Movies of 2. 01. 7 So Far(With 2. Film staff will be spending this week compiling lists of the best movies they’ve seen this year.

In order to be eligible for the list, a film they’ve seen simply has to have a 2. Here are Jack Giroux’s top 1. So far, this has been a good year at the movies, especially the last two weeks.

The Beguiled, Okja, Baby Driver, and a film I regrettably haven’t seen yet but have heard nothing but love for, The Big Sick, all came out and have kept us busy watching movies. Throughout 2. 01. Here are my top 1. Shimmer Lake. This is a nonlinear and nasty little thriller that’s precise and airtight.

Not a second gets wasted in Oren Uziel. Each scene goes backwards into the past fast with momentum and suspense while defining every character. None of them are what they appear to be at first glance, either. Uziel and his cast make some familiar archetypes three- dimensional. The major characters have personality and their own motives, fears, and desires. Each character in Uziel’s ensemble story feels substantial enough that they could be the star of their own story. Shimmer Lake is as funny as it is dark.

Rob Corddry and Ron Livingston are delightful together as two self- admittedly unambitious F. B. I. Baby Driver Edgar Wright has crafted a simple plot packed with character, invigorating song choices, and propulsive style. Like Wright’s previous work, the jokes often have as many layers as the characters do. Jon Hamm, Eiza Gonz. The actor’s razor sharp delivery and Wright’s quick pace sync together beautifully. I could listen to Doc lay out his plans and exposition all day.

The great character moments are what enrich the experience, with my favorite being Buddy (Hamm) and Baby (Ansel Elgort) enjoying music together. It’s rare to see a protagonist have as intimate of a moment such as that one with an antagonist, but it’s that kind of scene that makes Baby Driver more enjoyable the more I think about it. Wonder Woman Patty Jenkins. Few superheroes are as admirable and as heroic as Diana Prince (Gal Gadot). Right from the beginning, she has a charisma and spirit that lights up every scene.

Even though the final set piece is a little underwhelming, especially compared to the stellar “No Man’s Land” sequence, Gadot, Jenkins, and all involved nail the scenes that count most, like the emotional payoffs. The character doesn’t get lost in the CG destruction. Wonder Woman is vital, character- driven spectacle with a hero surrounded by charismatic characters, like Captain Trevor (Chris Pine), Antiope (Robin Wright), and the gleefully evil Dr. Maru (Elena Anaya), who Wonder Woman doesn’t confront with anger in the end, but compassion.

There’s a big heart in Jenkins’ badass movie. Raw. Julia Ducournau. Ducournau’s bizarre and intimate story about cannibals is also a great story of two sisters. There are many highly effective stomach turning scenes – and terrific practical effects – but even when there’s no cannibalism, the scenes between Justine (Garance Marillier) and Alexia (Ella Rumpf) are fantastic and surprising. Their relationship always feels real, as strange and as perverse as it gets. They ground the blood and shocks. While some film’s third act fights go down exactly as the audience expects, Raw.

The major confrontation in Doccournau’s film is as unpredictable and as dramatic as the rest of her directorial debut – which always had me captivated. A Cure for Wellness.

Gore Verbinski’s latest film is a visual marvel. Most of A Cure for Wellness is set in one location, but the sense of scale Verbinski and cinematographer Bojan Bazelli create in those cold and chilly corridors is massive. It’s a big, beautiful horror movie. Verbinski turns up the gross factor, too much at the end for my taste, but he can make Lockhart (Dane De. Haan) walking around to the sound of creaky crutches as uncomfortable as the unsettling dental treatment. The body horror is eyebrow- raising, and not without fun.

Verbinski is a versatile filmmaker who can effortlessly go from genre to genre and never make the same movie twice, but strangely enough, his new film makes me fondly recall his debut movie, Mouse Hunt. Like Nathan Lane and Lee Evans in that film, Verbinski treats De. Haan’s comically jerky character like a punching bag. The movie isn’t without some physical humor or some wicked laughs. A Cure for Wellness is a long and bold cinematic journey about a character who wants to devour somebody for his gain, like the big bad of the film, but ends up trying to save someone instead. Verbinski’s message of how we consume each other doesn’t get lost in the visual splendor. Pages: 1 2. Next page.

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