Thumbnails Special Edition: Our Cannes 2019 Coverage

Thumbnails is a roundup of brief excerpts that usually introduces you to articles from other websites that we found interesting and exciting. In this instance, however, we are doing a roundup of articles from our own writers and contributors spotlighting our coverage of the 2019 Cannes Film Festival. To view our complete table of contents, click here. To view the video table of contents, click here.—The Editors

1. 

"Parasite": Barbara Scharres reviews the film directed by Bong Joon-ho that went on to win this year's Palme d'Or. She also offers her thoughts on Ira Scahs' "Frankie" and Xavier Dolan's "Matthias & Maxime." Related: Ben Kenigsberg reports on the festival's major prizewinners. See Chaz Ebert's review of "Parasite" here.

“Family is everything in Bong Joon-ho’s ‘Parasite,’ a satire that pulls a series of sharp comic switcheroos for an unexpectedly poignant social comment. Bong’s ‘Okja’ competed for the Palme for the first time in 2017, and he is well known internationally for thrillers including ‘Snowpiercer’ and ‘The Host.’ The unemployed Kim family of four lives in a basement apartment, where they gleefully poach on a neighbor’s Wifi and make a little cash doing piecework assembling pizza cartons for a chain. A passing nod to the triangular stink bugs that infest their cramped fetid home will take on a meaning that will eventually cast a symbolic shadow in Boon’s larger scheme of things. A posh friend of son Ki-woo, aka Kevin (Choi Woo-shik), shows up mysteriously, gifting him with a big craggy ‘scholar’s stone’ said to bring good fortune, and passing on the connection for a gig to tutor the teen daughter of the wealthy Park family. Sister Ki-jung, aka Jessica (Park So-dam), utilizes her ace Photoshop skills to fake his university diploma. Within minutes, Kevin’s caring line of patter has twitchy and vulnerable Mrs. Park and her cute wide-eyed daughter eating out of his hand.”

2. 

"Quentin Tarantino Brings Hollywood to Cannes": Ben Kenigsberg details the splashy premiere of the "Pulp Fiction" director's hugely anticipated ninth feature, "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood." Related: Barbara Scharres offers her thoughts on the film. See Chaz Ebert's review of the film below.

“According to a press release from Kodak, only 11 features in Cannes and its parallel festivals this year were actually shot on film, including ‘The Lighthouse’ from the other day (and, sadly, the Oliver Laxe film that we all missed). But the Tarantino picture is the only movie I've seen here that actually screened on film, as opposed to digital projection. When, last month, it looked as if the movie might not be finished in time for Cannes, the festival's head programmer, Thierry Frémaux, suggested, according to reports, that Tarantino's desire to show ‘Once Upon a Time …’ on film meant a slower post-production process. (I wonder if the paucity of screenings this week can be attributed to a limited number of 35-millimeter prints or projectors.) In any case, Tarantino was right: The brilliant colors of Robert Richardson's cinematography look great on a print. And even more important to this particular movie is the texture of film. ‘Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood’ is an ambience-driven movie: Tarantino festishizes old posters, records, cars, and home decor. Characters go to drive-ins and movie theaters and gather around TVs (during an era when shows were shot on celluloid) for communal viewing. Watching this story on a digital medium would feel false; it needs to look lived-in, worn, graspable.”

3.

"Justice Singleton on the Legacy of Her Father, John Singleton": Bill Stamets provides coverage of an event honoring the late "Boyz in the Hood" director, featuring a conversation between his daughter and Bruno Chatelin, editor and co-founder of Filmfestivals.com. See also: Ben Kenigsberg's report on an onstage conversation with Sylvester Stallone.

“Singleton introduced herself as a 26-year-old filmmaker, screenwriter, poet and comedian born two years before ‘Boyz’ was released. She shared memories during a 40-minute appearance in the Roger Ebert conference room at the American Pavilion. Her father died April 28. Although one attendee interrupted Chatelin’s insider chronicle– ‘This is about her, not about you’– Singleton said she would like to hear more about her father’s trip to Cannes. Later Chatelin made an aside: ‘I’m doing this for her, you know. I’m not doing it for you, sorry.’ Chatelin’s first move was asking a publicist to suggest a Paris journalist who might get ‘Boyz.’ He broke Cannes protocol per previews and showed a U-matic video cassette of the film to a journalist from Liberation. ‘Oh my God– Orson Welles!’ the critic supposedly exclaimed afterwards. Thus began the buzz among his cinema colleagues. Singleton said that after watching ‘Colors’ (1988) her father had said: ‘I can make a movie about south L.A. better than Dennis Hopper can make a film about south L.A.’ After his nominations for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay, the writer-director would later tell his daughter maybe ‘I went too hard’ and that as a black filmmaker he might not get ‘another shot.’”