While the big-screen adaptation of Gabriel García Márquez's Love in the Time of Cholera could not, unfortunately, live up to the text's expectations, the famous writer is getting another shot. This time, however, it's an old screenplay. The Guardian reports that Mexican actor and producer Rodolfo de Anda says that he has picked up the rights to a screenplay written by the author over 40 years ago.

Titled Frontera, the script follows "an ageing pistolero and his much younger partner." De Anda says that he heard about the screenplay years ago, but assumed that it was written by Alcoriza. When he bought the rights "about a month ago, I discovered the surprise that the story was not in fact by Alcoriza, but by Gabriel García Márquez." "Nobody knew it existed, and the most surprising thing is that it is a Western." De Anda says he will take on the role of the older partner, and is, not surprisingly, thinking of casting one of the two Y tu mamá también stars -- Gael García Bernal or Diego Luna -- as the young sidekick.

It's not an adaptation of a translation, so hopefully this will fare better than the last Gabriel offering. But which of the two young stars would you pick for the feature -- Gael or Diego?

UPDATE: Here's the trailer in Quicktime quality.

Of all the films I'm looking forward to this fall, Blindness ranks fairly high up there. Canadian distributor Alliance has just made available a full trailer that proves to be fairly intriguing, as an optometrist (Mark Ruffalo) and his seemingly immune wife (Julianne Moore) cope with an inexplicable epidemic of sight loss.

I'm a sucker for most anything vaguely apocalyptic, and while this very well could turn out to be akin to watching the first act of Children of Men through a milk-filled mask (which I've done, mind you), the prestige behind the project* says otherwise. We have acclaimed screenwriter Don McKellar adapting Nobel-Laureate José Saramago's novel, with Academy Award nominee Fernando Meirelles directing a cast that also includes Danny Glover, Gael Garcia Bernal, Alice Braga, and Sandra Oh.

I must say, going off that taste and last spring's teaser, I still like the look, sound, and feel of this one, especially Moore's little retort (you know the one), and that's not to mention that any trailer which employs John Murphy's underrated score from last year's Sunshine to set a rightfully ominous tone is always fine by me. We'll get to see (sorry) what trials and tribulations await the world on September 19th.

*Not to mention Rocchi's review of the film from its Cannes world premiere.

Cinematical has just received this exclusive poster for Blindness (click to enlarge), which enjoyed its world premiere as the opening night film of this year's Cannes Film Festival back in May. Starring Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Danny Glover and Gael García Bernal, Blindness tells of a city overcome by a blindness epidemic where its citizens are stricken with instant "white blindness." As folks are quarantined off in an abandoned mental hospital, one woman who remains unaffected pretends to be sick in order to take care of her husband, a doctor, who's now blind. Based on Nobel Prize winner Jose Saramago's novel, and directed by the very talented Fernando Meirelles (The Constant Gardener), Blindness definitely looks to bring the creep factor -- and with this outstanding cast, I'm sure it will claim a spot as this fall's first great flick.

Don't close your eyes for too long, because Blindness hits theaters on September 19.

I sat in on a roundtable luncheon for the film Blindness the other day; as far as roundtables go, it was a nice affair; there were four tables of journalists, and they rotated the talent through the tables, giving us about 15 minutes with each set. It's always interesting to me to talk to the actors and filmmaker about a film like this; it gives you a different perspective that you have from just watching the film.

A word of caution: There are spoilers in these interviews about certain aspects of the film, but I'm including them because they provide a good deal of context about the film and the motivations of the characters. If you prefer to go into seeing the film blind, as it were, you'll not want to read this until after you've seen it. If you do want to learn more about the film, the interview writeup is after the jump ...

This morning James and I and a couple thousand other press folks took in a screening of the Opening Film at Cannes 2008, Fernando Meirelles's Blindness, starring Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Danny Glover and Gael Garcia Bernal. You can check out James' review here, and tomorrow I'll be attending a luncheon/roundtable for the film. And in related Cannes news, Jack Black arrived at the 2008 Festival de Cannes in style. He's here to promote Kung Fu Panda, which premieres later in the week. Check out our gallery of Black and tons of panda bears down below.

Meantime, though, my take on Blindness is that it's ambitious and good, but falls short of being great. In part, I think, this is because the source material was challenging to adapt to a visual experience, but it's also due to some clunky expositional voiceover that detracts from the experience more than it adds. I don't want to be told how this or that person feels or reacts, I want to see it.

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Fernando Meirelles's new film Blindness begins with the rush and push of urban life; traffic, crowds, activity, purpose. And then, one man cries out: "I'm blind." He eventually makes it to an ophthalmologist, but there's nothing physically wrong with his eyes; he simply can't see. "It feels like I'm swimming in milk," he explains, and we see, through his eyes, the blank, empty swirl of what used to be the world. And then another person says they are blind, and then another, and soon those few, frightened voices form a chorus of chaos as "the White Sickness" spreads like wildfire and leaves a ruined world in its wake.

Adapting Nobel Prize winner Jose Saramago's novel, Blindness feels like a curious mix of highbrow literary aspirations and lowbrow genre fiction; as the White Sickness spreads from person to person in a clear chain of connection and things fall apart, it'd be easy to dismiss Blindness as Dawn of the Dead for NPR listeners or Outbreak for grad students. Meirreles has taken a similar two-pronged approach before -- The Constant Gardener is an excellent critique of the failings of modern capitalism that also works as a strong, suspenseful thriller -- and while Blindness may not work as well as that film, it's also a clear case of a film, and filmmaker, failing to hit the mark occasionally only because they've set the bar so high for themselves.

Cinematical has received two brand new exclusive Blindness images ahead of the film's world premiere tonight at the 2008 Festival de Cannes. Directed by Fernando Meirelles (The Constant Gardener), Blindness was selected as the opening night film for this year's Festival de Cannes, and it stars Julianne Moore as the wife of a doctor (Mark Ruffalo) who suddenly becomes the only one who can see in a town where everyone is struck with a mysterious case of blindness. Based on the novel by José Saramago (adapted by Don Mckellar), Blindness also stars Gael García Bernal, Alice Braga and Danny Glover.

Cinematical is on the ground in Cannes, and both James and Kim have already seen Blindness. We'll have our review of the festival's opening night film later on in the day. Check out our second exclusive photo below, then head to the gallery for more. Blindness arrives in theaters on September 19.



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Every once in a while, a follow-up news piece pops up that makes me wonder where I've been. In case you missed it as well -- there's a new anthology hitting screens this year called 8, and it's got a bunch of interesting directors attached. There are the likes of Jane Campion, Gael Garcia Bernal, Mira Nair, Gus Van Sant, and Wim Wenders, plus Gaspar Noe, Abderrahmane Sissako, and Jan Kounen.

Unlike the "I Love You" odes to famous cities, the film will tackle 8 themes and 8 films from famous directors that focus on the progress, set-backs, and challenges that face our planet. It's not just an environmental picture, but rather, it focuses on themes of poverty/hunger (Sissako's Tiya's Dream), education (Garcia Bernal's The Letter), gender equality (Nair's How Can It Be), child mortality (Van Sant's Mansion on the Hill), maternal health (Kounen's The Story of Panshin Beka), HIV/AIDS and other diseases (Noe's SIDA), environmental sustainability (Campion's The Water Diary) and development (Wenders' Person to Person).

It's sort of like Invisibles, which Kim reviewed from SIFF last year, and which also had a short from Wim Wenders. Now Variety reports that Marta McGonagle (iCarly) has signed on for a role in his segment -- although there is no word on what his segment, titled Person to Person, will be specifically about. For now, you can get a bunch of information from the film's website.

When news broke about Jim Jarmusch's next film back in November, The Limits of Control, it was said that JJ regular Isaach De Bankolé would star, along with "an international collection of bankable stars." Well, they're certainly living up to the promise so far. Reuters reports that the filmmaker has once again grabbed Bill Murray and Tilda Swinton for roles, both of whom appeared in Broken Flowers, as well as Gael Garcia Bernal. That fills the old comedy contingent, the drama power, and the young Mexican boy-crazy crowd.

It turns out that this will be a road movie of sorts -- how, they're not saying. We know that De Bankolé will play an outlaw doing some sort of job in Spain, and Reuters adds that he's a loner, but that's it. Since the road comes into play, I imagine either he'll try to hook on to some innocent roadtrippers to escape the area, or maybe they'll be his accomplices -- but that latter doesn't work with the loner deal. The film shoots this month in Spanish cities like Seville, Madrid, and Almeria, so hopefully we'll hear more soon.

Meanwhile: Swinton has been busy all over the literary world, from filming Burn After Reading, to some Narnia, to Lewis Carroll and a stint as Lady Macbeth, Bill's spent some time getting Smart and leading the City of Ember, and Bernal has been busy with a number of foreign projects from Mammoth to Pedro Paramo.

"Okay, we have Michelle Williams back on set today -- so should we go ahead and shoot that scene with her next to a skeleton, three blocks away from where her old flame was found dead a couple weeks ago?" I imagine a conversation like this had to occur prior to shooting scenes for Williams' new film Mammoth in New York City the other day. Photos of the poor gal standing next to a skeleton on set were splashed across the pages of the New York Post today, and one can't help but look at her and say, "Really? These were the scenes that needed to be shot right now? And the skeleton comes into play ... how, exactly?"

Mammoth stars Williams and Gael García Bernal as a married couple living in New York with their daughter and Filipina nanny whose lives drastically change when the husband takes a business trip to the Philippines. Williams was back in New York only two days after attending a funeral service for Heath Ledger in Australia. Here's hoping the girl stays strong ... and that the Mammoth filmmakers will try to next shoot a scene that doesn't involve a dead body in SoHo.

Do you know who that is playing Yoda up top?

Okay, this is pretty hysterical. A website called Worth1000 is currently hosting a contest in which they ask you to re-imagine a Star Wars character -- any character -- using a celebrity. Of course, a ton of folks have entered photo-shopped images (that are very well done, if you ask me) of Star Wars characters ranging from Shrek as Darth Maul to Anthony Hopkins as Yoda (pictured above). There's even a freaky pic of Marilyn Manson as Padme. The international folks representing Mexico doctored up a photo to show what it would look like if Gael Garcia Bernal and Salma Hayek played Luke and Leia, and even George Lucas himself shows up as Darth Maul.

The celebs who pop up the most include Dick Cheney (as a number of slimy Star Wars creatures) and, believe it or not, the Pope. Yoda and Darth Maul seem to be the most popular re-invented characters. There's a bunch of contest rules to read through, and I'm not sure if you win anything for the best picture ($1000 maybe, since the site is called Worth1000?), but it sure is fun to surf through them all. Head on over to Worth1000 to check out all the images, and I've included my favorite up top (though the Bernal/Hayek pic is pretty damn awesome as well). Oh, and if you enter, definitely let us know so we can run over there to check out your creation. (Note: President Bush is nowhere to be found, though I believe he's one of their "cliches" -- meaning he's a personality that's too easy to rip on, and therefore isn't allowed.)

[via Hollywood Wiretap]

If you've ever quickly passed by the DVD for Lilya 4-ever in a store, you might have had to do a double take, thinking the girl on the cover was Michelle Williams -- a very young Michelle Williams, that is. The lead actress in that film, Oksana Akinshina, doesn't exactly look like Williams, but there are a few shots where you can see a resemblance. Take a look at this still, and this one, to see what I mean. With this in mind, I wonder if Lukas Moodysson, the writer-director of Lilya, was also thinking of Akinshana when he cast Williams to co-star in his next film, Mammoth. According to Variety, the Oscar-nominated actress will play the wife of Gael Garcia Bernal, who we previously learned would appear in Mammoth, which will be Moodysson's English-language debut. The film, about a couple "facing a crisis", begins shooting next week in Thailand. Filming will also take place in the Philippines, Sweden and New York.

Though the exact plot is still unclear, I previously made the prediction that it involved an affair between the husband played by Garcia and his 8-year-old daughter's nanny played by Filipino actress Marife Necesito. But then, I just assume all movies these days are about infidelity. The most I've read about the story so far is that Bernal's character is on a business trip to Thailand when he decides to seriously alter his life. I guess that could very well mean something other than cheat with the nanny. Whatever the plot, I'm excited. I am typically dubious regarding a favorite foreigner making an English-language film, but with Bernal and Williams on board, I am imagining great things. And this is even without the involvement of Lars von Trier, who had previously been named as a producer. However, Lars Jönsson, who has produced much of the work of both von Trier and Moodysson, is still attached, as is regular von Trier-producers Vibeke Windeløv and Peter Aalbæk Jensen and long-time Tom Tykwer-producer Maria Köpf. Sounds like it could be one of the best non-foreign-language foreign films to come out next year (so far it's set for Swedish release in August, but hopefully it will be easily picked up for the U.S., too).

Like any fun but exhausting activity, you're anxious for it to be over, but then you miss it when it is. In what seemed like a blink of the eye, TIFF 2007 has wrapped. Eastern Promises nabbed the People's Choice prize, and the wonderful My Winnipeg grabbed top Canadian honors. (Rejoice!) But there was still lots of fun, great films, and some fest craziness that came before the awards were handed out.

My favorite story from TIFF came from a friend who had gone to see Starting Out in the Evening. She loved the film, and said that the end had made her teary-eyed. Impressed with Frank Langella's performance, she walked up to him as she was leaving the theater and told him so. "Are you crying?" he asked, and then wiped her tears away. That Frank is a slick, slick man.

On Wednesday, The Last Lear Q&A with Rituparno Ghosh was cut short when someone pulled the fire alarm. As is usually the case when the bell starts ringing, everyone ignored it and we continued the discussion. (How often do people actually pay attention to those things from the get-go?) Then, mid-sentence, Ghosh was cut short and we were told to exit the theater immediately, because it wasn't a drill as they initially assumed. Whoops. At least it didn't happen during the film. Pisay, on the other hand, had a few technical problems -- thankfully, it was a digital screening, so we didn't end up missing anything.

Deficit drops you directly into a day in the life of an upper-class, college-aged brat in a posh suburban neighborhood outside of Mexico City. Gael Garcia Bernal directs, as well as stars as the main character, Cristobal, and as the film opens we see him driving over rundown streets with a friend, a quizzical expression on his face, giving off the vibe that we're about to enter some kind of crime drama. In a way, we are -- there are hints and accusations peppered throughout that perhaps Cristobal's father is some kind of drug lord, but Bernal isn't interested in bringing these things to the forefront. Instead, he confines any possible backstory to the whispers of the servants, who are both frightened of their employers and in awe of them. One of them, Anan, a dark-skinned Mexican of Indian descent played by Tenoch Huerta Mejia, is propped up as something of a rival to Cristobal even though they are worlds apart. He endures racist snickering and even slurs by the houseguests and zeroes in on one upper-class girl who has captured his attention.

While Anan is pining away and seething at his own poverty, Cristobal is suffering from a more lightweight concern -- his girlfriend, Mafer (Ana Serradilla) is on her way to the pool party, but has gotten lost and needs precise directions in order to get there. The problem is that Cristobal has met someone else at the party, Dolores (Luz Cipriota) and doesn't want Mafer showing up at all. There's a lot of comedy in this film, mixed in and surrounding the overall class tensions and underlying current of criminality, and it's to the credit of Bernal that it all meshes together so well. When dramatic events present themselves, such as Cristobal's receiving a rejection letter from Harvard in the mail, the film doesn't linger on them or turn them into grist for a debate or an argument, it simply acknowledges and moves on. As I watched Deficit at a recent screening, I noticed the audience members paying very close attention, undoubtedly because they had no idea where this film was going but were intrigued by the possibilities.

Now an official rule in filmmaking, if you want to break out in America -- cast Gael García Bernal (Babel) in your film. According to The Hollywood Reporter, this is what Lukas Moodysson is doing for his next pic, titled Mammoth. The Swedish writer-director, who gave us the brilliant teen-trafficking drama Lilya 4-ever and the very sweet lesbian film Show Me Love, has cast Bernal in the domestic drama, about a young couple, their child and their nanny. Knowing how most domestic dramas go, we can assume Bernal's husband character has an affair with the nanny, who will be played by Filipino actress Marife Necesito (Evolution of a Filipino Family). Bernal, who may have helped the Stateside successes of many Latin American filmmakers, possibly appeals to foreign directors because he speaks English, Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese. After shooting Mammoth, he should be able to pick up some Swedish and Filipino.

I typically frown upon foreign directors making the leap to filming in English. Sure, a ton of great filmmakers have done it well, but too many have not. However, because Lukas Moodysson didn't hit so well with his previous two Swedish films (A Hole in My Heart; Container), it is perhaps time for him to try something different. This isn't the usual immigration to Hollywood, though; Mammoth is still technically a foreign film, co-produced by Swedish, Danish and German companies and financiers. It may be better to think of this as similar to Lars von Trier's English-language work since the Dogville director is producing Mammoth with Peter Aalbaek Jensen (Breaking the Waves) and Maria Kopf (Heaven), both of whom work for von Trier's company Zentropa Entertainments -- Kopf being head of the new division Zentropa Berlin. Jensen also co-produced many of Moodysson's Swedish work, including Lilya 4-ever. Moodysson will shoot in Sweden, New York, Thailand and the Philippines.