Movies to look forward to

Sometimes the anticipation of a good movie is more exciting than the movie itself. So why not indulge in pre-release daydreaming? Here are the movies we're particularly looking forward to.

I'm still catching up on the pretty impressive oeuvre of French director Claire Denis but consider myself a fan based on her excellent Beau travail and White Material. Her newest effort is called Les salauds (international title: The Bastards) and it's been selected for the Cannes sidebar Un Certain Régard.

Sofia Coppola is one of  those directors that grew on me, which probably makes me the one person on earth who liked Somewhere better than Lost in Translation. With her latest project, The Bling Ring, Coppola once again digs into the theme of fame. The trailer reveals some small similarities to Harmony Korine's terrific Spring Breakers, mainly because of its airhead protagonists who curiously combine materialism with spirituality.

Check out the brand new trailer:


 
Then there's also the Susanne Bier Depression-era drama Serena to look forward to, featuring Silver Linings Playbook-duo Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper.
We've also got a new Kelly Reichardt movie coming up, called Night Moves, with Dakota Fanning and Jesse Eisenberg leading the cast. You might know Reichardt from Wendy & Lucy or western Meek's Cutoff, both excellent.
And something else to get excited about: Abus de faiblesse, Catherine Breillat's latest effort, starring the always wonderful and ever busy Isabelle Huppert.

As for exciting performances, I can't wait to see Amy Adams, Rooney Mara, Samantha Morton and Olivia Wilde rock Spike Jonze's Her.
Wes Anderson has got a way of writing fine female parts and his next movie The Grand Budapest Hotel credits great actresses like Saoirse Ronan, Tilda Swinton and Léa Seydoux.
O, and speaking of Tilda Swinton: she's also got interesting parts coming up in Jim Jarmusch' new movie, Only Lovers Left Alive, and Snowpiercer, by my favorite Korean director Bong Joon-ho.

But the one female performance we're all looking forward to is this one:
 

Dancing on My Own Mixtape #4

Dancing on my own once again. Here's the music to do it to.

 

Our girl Léa

Good news for Léa Seydoux fans (and let's face it, we're all Léa Seydoux fans): our girl has landed a part in the highly anticipated new Wes Anderson movie.

The Grand Budapest Hotel is said to be coming out later this year, though there's no definite release date yet. In fact, the whole project is pretty mysterious, so it shouldn't be a surprise that there's also no information on either the seize or the nature of Seydoux' role. But it's going to be awesome all the same, that much we do know.

The first time I saw Léa Seydoux was in La Belle Personne (Christophe Honoré, 2008), in which she portrays a high scool student caught in a love triangle. Yes, this movie is very, very French but definitely worth your while, for several reasons besides Seydoux.

Seydoux has kept herself busy since then. I've spotted her in small parts, like in Jessica Hausner's Lourdes and in Woody Allens Midnight in Paris (where she plays the boring part of The Right Girl Owen Wilson's character ends up with). I've spotted her in larger parts, like opposite Diane Kruger in  Les adieux à la reine and in Ursula Meier's L'enfant d'en haut (Sister). She also played the lead in Rebecca Zlotowski's impressive but obscure Belle Épine. And then she did some big time Hollywood stuff like Robin Hood, Inglourious Basterds and Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol (which I haven't seen but apparently features Seydoux in a cat fight with some other impossibly hot girl).

Furthermore, Seydoux  just finished shooting Le bleu est une couleur chaude, a film by Abdellatif Kechiche, whose previous film is the extraordinary Black Venus. Something to look forward to, for sure, with Seydoux playing the female lead.

Not sure in which movie you might have seen Léa Seydoux? Check out her résumé on IMDb.

Watch Léa Seydoux in the trailer for La Belle Personne

Watch Léa Seydoux in a three part commercial Wes Anderson made for Prada

Play Marnie

Marnie Stern might just be the coolest girl currently working in the music business.This New York based singer-songwriter-with-a-band knows how to handle a guitar, comes up with the strangest lyrics and doesn't follow any rules or logic when constructing a song. Pitchfork once wrote about her:

In a scene of bands that rely on technical prowess to sway fans (-) Marnie Stern appealed to the heart. Her music didn't just aim to impress, but to move. For a couple of weeks, I thought of her as an emotive technician, but it became clear she was something else: A dizzy heir to Sleater-Kinney, or Helium-- arty, feminine guitar-rock that infiltrated Guyville without a mission statement.

Now, Stern has a new album out, The Chronicles of Marnia. You can preview it here.

By the way, back in 2009 Subbacultcha had me interviewing Marnie and her drummer over shoarma. Fond memories. You can read the interview here: