Grace Magazine

Julianne Moore, Danny Glover and Gael Garcia Bernal opened the Cannes Film Festival with their film Blindness by Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles.

The paparazzi reflected in Julianne Moore’s glasses

Julianne Moore is always so cool

Gael Garcia Bernal and Julianne Moore

Sean Penn and juror Natalie Portman

Could Natalie Portman be any prettier?

Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie and Jack Black lend their voices to the animated film Kung Fu Panda by directors Mark Osborne and John Stevenson.

Pregnant Angelina Jolie looks fantastic with a little weight on her.

The 61st Cannes Film Festival Jury

The jury on the red carpet

Sean Penn on the red carpet. Penn is President of the 61 Cannes Film Festival Jury.

The 61st annual Cannes Film Festival is May 14-25, 2008.

This year’s Feature Film Jury is:

Sean Penn, President (American actor, director, screenwriter)
Jeanne Balibar (French actress)
Alexandra Maria Lara (German actress)
Natalie Portman (Israeli-American actress)
Marjane Satrapi (Iranian author-director)
Rachid Bouchareb (French director)
Sergio Castellitto (Italian actor, director, screenwriter)
Alfonso Cuaron (Mexican director)
Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Thai director)

Check back in few days for pictures from the event.

Italian film director Michelangelo Antonioni died yesterday in Rome. He was 94 years old.

Antonioni’s films explored life’s issues of love and alienation and did it with the era’s greatest actors: Alain Delon, Monica Vitti, Marcello Mastroianni, Jeanne Moreau, among others.

Here are four of his films that are not to be missed:

• L’Avventura (The Adventure)
• La Notte (The Night)
• L’Eclisse (The Eclipse)
• Blow-Up

Read the comprehensive New York Times obituary.

Watch a clip from The Eclipse:

From his own lips:
“I feel like a father towards my old films. You bring children into the world, then they grow up and go off on their own. From time to time you get together, and it’s always a pleasure to see them again.” — Michelangelo Antonioni

Like another great Italian whose name was Michelangelo, Antonioni was an artist. His medium was film. He will be missed.

Photo Gallery From Cannes:

Angelina Jolie was there to promote A Mighty Heart and Brad Pitt was there with Ocean’s 13.

Jude Law and Norah Jones are starring in My Blueberry Nights.

Michael Moore was in Cannes with his new film, Sicko, about the U.S. health care industry.

Russian actor Konstantin Lavronenko took home the Best Actor award.

Director Lee Chang Dong (right) was there with South Korean film Secret Sunshine.

Jake Gyllenhaal poses for photographers.

Another Cannes Film Festival comes to a close. Here are the winners of this year’s awards:

Palme d’Or
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, a Romanian film about abortion.

Best Actor
Konstantin Lavronenko, from Russia for The Banishment, directed by Andrei Zviagintsev.

Best Actress
Jeon Do-yeon, from South Korea was named best actress for Secret Sunshine.

Best Director
Julian Schnabel, from the U.S. for his adaptation of the best-selling French book, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.

Grand Prix
Japan’s The Mourning Forest .

Jury Prize
This award was shared between Mexico’s Silent Light, by Carlos Reygadas, and animated Iranian film Persepolis, from Marjane Satrapi and France’s Vincent Paronnaud.

Special Prizes
U.S. director Gus Van Sant won a special prize, created to celebrate the festival’s 60th year, for his film Paranoid Park, about a teenage skateboarder’s dark secret.

Actress Jane Fonda was awarded a lifetime achievement award, which seemed to be a surprise to the 69-year-old star.

I love, love, love the original Star Wars trilogy. When I heard that George Lucas was going to make the prequel, I could barely contain myself. I put on my Princess Leia wig, make a batch of Wookiee cookies and began to dream.

But the new movies didn’t live up to my expectations. The genius that made the first three movies forgot to have fun. George Lucas, your lack of faith disturbs me. You didn’t trust your original story and felt the need to embellish and explain. I wish you had left the back story to our imaginations. For the world you created is now our world, the fans.

Now I am forced to show my total geekness and write this post, which pains me greatly.

Here are my top reasons why the new Star Wars trilogy stinks:

• Yoda changes sizes in every scene and fights like a spaz with a lime popsicle, is.
• There’s no dirt.
• Everything rhymes with doodoo: Count Dooku, Naboo, Mace Windu, etc.
• Leia hugs Chewbacca in the original series. You can’t hug a green screen.
• Darth Vader was not Canadian.
• No humor, no wit, no wisecracking Han Solo.
• The emperor was so butch, he scared himself. “Menswear?” See video:
• The emperor looks like Judi Dench in drag.
• I can’t think of one line from any of the new movies. But I can quote the French & Saunders version. “Talk to the dog” and “Milk, milk, lemonade, round the corner chocolate’s made.”
• No one calls Amidala “Your Worshipfulness.”
• The Jedi-Padawan relationship reminds me too much of the Catholic church.
• Virgin birth? Meeza thinks that’s original, George.

OK. It had to be said. But seriously now, I must point out the inconsistencies between the new Star Wars trilogy and the original series:

• Uncle Owen was Ben Kenobi’s brother.
• So, the Force is a disease or a fungus or something?
• Princess Leia remembered her mother. She was very beautiful and very sad. She didn’t die in child birth. She died years later of a broken heart.
• Princess Leia was only a princess because she was adopted by the King of Alderaan, not because her mother was an elected Queen.
• Obi-Wan doesn’t remember R2-D2. He even says “I don’t remember ever owning a droid.” Vader doesn’t remember C-3P0, yet he was supposed to have made him for his mother.
• Obi-Wan was taught by Yoda not some Irishman named Qui-Gon.
• No one knows the originals of Boba Fett. He was a loner who wore the ancient battle armor of the extinct Jedi-hating Mandalorians. He was not a clone.
• Chewbacca and Yoda didn’t hang together back in the day. They never met.
• Why are there no graves at the moisture farm on Tattooine in Episode IV?
• Why would you hide the son of Darth Vader on his home planet, you moron?

George Lucas, please put Star Wars in the pubic domain so we, the fans, can continue the adventure and make up for the atrocities of the new movies. Thank you.

Readers, please feel free to add a few of your own in the comments section.

Alain Delon has agreed to be one of the honorary hosts of this year’s Cannes Film Festival.

He will attend on May 20th for the anniversary ceremonies.

If you don’t know who Alain Delon is, do yourself a favor and find out.

Here are a few photos:

It’s the 60th anniversary of the Cannes Film Festival, which runs from May 16-27. Check back for more details as the days progress.

I love this poster. The original artwork for the poster Un Certain Regard 2007 was created by Italian artist Enrico Marini.