Quentin Tarantino lets us all in on his 20 favorite movies since he began his directing career...

Plenty of interesting choices, as you can see below:

-Thoughts?

Today's News: Eli Roth tackles 'Nation's Pride' for Tarantino's Basterds, screenwriters writing video games instead of movies, and more...

In the news:

Variety takes a look at the propaganda short that Eli Roth directed for Inglourious Basterds, sure to be one of the more interesting parts of the movie.

The writer of Wanted will now be writing video games instead of movies for a while.

A former Oscar nominee will be in one of the next Twilight movies, Eclipse to be precise.

A Chinese film about the Nanjing Massacre has picked up some distribution in America.

-Thoughts?

Today's Posters: Ingourious Basterds (again), Zombieland, and The Box

First off, we get another new character poster for Tarantino's upcoming flick 'Inglourious Basterds':
Next we have the poster for the zombie comedy/horror film 'Zombieland':

Finally, we have a new poster for Richard Kelly's 'The Box':

Thoughts?

Today's Posters: (Oscar Edition) Inglourious Basterds and Broken Embraces

First up is another in the infinitely cool Basterds Posters:

And second is the Poster for Almodovar's latest:
Thoughts?

Some new character Posters for Inglourious Basterds!

Behold these 4 new ones:

I'm digging these, very old school looking to me...what do you think?

International Trailer for Inglourious Basterds!

Behold more of Tarantino's latest:

An Inglorious Basterds Prequel coming our way?

Tarantino has basically been keen to make follow ups to any film of his not named Jackie Brown, and it seems that his upcoming WWII opus is no exception. It's too early to know if this is a good idea or not, but if the flick catches on with audiences (and voters), I think Harvey Weinstein will make it happen... -Thoughts?

While we're at it, a new Trailer for Inglorious Basterds for ya!

-Seriously, this needs to just come out today, it's not even fair...

An italian Basterds Poster

Very old school war movie look to this poster, in my opinion...

Tarantino continues to fine tune his Basterds...

...in anticipation of unleashing them on American audiences, according to this piece I got from Variety:
In my interview with Quentin Tarantino, he admits that he plans to go back to the editing room with Inglourious Basterds this June. He rushed the movie, getting it done in less than a year to make Cannes, and delivered a cinephile's fantasy:
It’s been a whirlwind year for the director, who has long believed in making films slowly to stand the test of time. That is, until Death Proof, which did not benefit, he says, from too much overfiddling. So he put Inglourious Basterds on a tight schedule with a Cannes deadline.
After finishing last July the 165-page script he had been writing on and off since 1999, Tarantino obtained backing for a $70 million picture from loyal patron Harvey Weinstein and Universal Pictures, landed his most megawatt star ever, Brad Pitt, almost canceled the October shoot before he finally found the multilingual Christoph Waltz to star in a pivotal role, and stayed on schedule during 10 weeks of shooting on location in Germany. And after three months of editing, he delivered a dripping-wet print to Cannes—a place he considers “Cinema Nirvana,” where “cinema matters, it’s important”—at a running time of two hours, 27 minutes: 13 minutes less than Pulp Fiction and 19 minutes less than he needed to retain final cut.
While the war mission movie played better to some than others, the Cannes jury liked it well enough to award the best actor prize to dazzling German linguist Christoph Waltz, who performs fluently in French, German, English and Italian.
As Tarantino goes back to the editing bay, he has some wriggle room. He'll edit together one scene that he shot but didn't assemble; it comes right before the La Louisiane sequence featuring Michael Fassbender and Diane Kruger as a British soldier under cover and a German movie star who wants to help him bring down the Third Reich. Fassbender pops in the movie, so it makes sense that the filmmakers would want to give him more screen time.
The scenes featuring Maggie Cheung as Madame Mimieux, the proprietor of a Paris cinema who takes in Shosanna Dreyfuss (Melanie Laurent), won't be restored. It doesn't add to the narrative.
Tarantino also plans to preview the movie in the States, outside of California, not with research cards but just to see how it plays with an audience. He and editor Sally Menke will then fine-tune and tweak the timing. The Weinstein Co. releases the movie August 21.
-I just want to see it already and find out what to make of it myself...how bout you?

The Palme d'Or is announced....and The White Ribbon is your winner!

Variety has the rundown of the winners from France:
In awards that ran the gamut from the widely predicted to the jaw-dropping, Michael Haneke's "The White Ribbon," a stark, black-and-white drama set in a rural German village on the eve of WWI, received the Palme d'Or from the jury of the 62nd Cannes Film Festival on Sunday.
Haneke, who had previously won the director award for "Cache" (2005) and the Grand Prix for "The Piano Teacher" (2001), received his first Palme from a visibly delighted Isabelle Huppert, president of the jury. Huppert had won Cannes' actress gong for "The Piano Teacher."
"Happiness is a rare thing, but this is a moment in my life when I am truly happy," Haneke said in his acceptance speech.
The Grand Prix went to French helmer Jacques Audiard's tough prison drama, "A Prophet," which had been a frontrunner for a major prize since screening early on in the fest.
The top two prizes rep a coup for Sony Pictures Classics, which acquired North American rights to “The White Ribbon” before the festival and will distribute “A Prophet” in multiple territories including the U.S.
Sole kudo to an American-helmed film, in a competition light on U.S. fare, was the actor prize for Christoph Waltz for his multilingual tour de force as the Nazi "Jew Hunter" in Quentin Tarantino's German-U.S. production, "Inglourious Basterds." The 52-year-old, Vienna-born thesp was previously unknown outside Germany, where he's spent most of his career in TV.
"I owe this award to (my role as) Col. Landa," said Waltz in his acceptance speech, "and his unique and inimitable creator, Quentin Tarantino."
To a standing ovation in the Grand Theatre Lumiere, French vet Alain Resnais, who turns 87 next month (and was in competition with the elegant tragicomedy "Wild Grass"), received a lifetime achievement award for his work and contributions to the history of cinema. The visibly frail helmer declared it "completely surprising," a possibly ironic reference to his stormy past relations with the fest (starting with 1974's "Stavisky ... "), from which he's previously won only one award, the Grand Prix for "Mon oncle d'Amerique."
While many other Cannes fave auteurs were completely passed over by the jury -- including Pedro Almodovar, Ang Lee and Palme laureates Ken Loach and Jane Campion -- Danish maverick Lars von Trier's latest headline-grabber, "Antichrist," at least walked away with an actress kudo for Charlotte Gainsbourg's performance as a mother whose grief over her child's death takes a psychotic turn.
Sharing the jury prize were Brit director Andrea Arnold's slice-of-lifer "Fish Tank" and South Korean helmer Park Chan-wook's vampire meller, "Thirst." Arnold scooped the same award three years ago with her debut feature, "Red Road."
Australian helmer Warwick Thornton’s well-received Aboriginal teen drama, “Samson and Delilah,” nabbed the Camera d’Or for first film.
Though several of the awards had largely been predicted and were generally seen as well deserved, many of the others were seen as among the quirkiest in recent memory.
All three of the Asian kudos drew heavy booing from the assembled press corps. Biggest scorn was reserved for the director prize for Filipino Brillante Mendoza's rape-and-dismemberment drama "Kinatay" (of which even admiring jury member Hanif Kureishi admitted, "I don't ever want to see it again, myself"), followed by jeers for "Thirst" and mainland Chinese director Lou Ye's "Spring Fever," which copped screenplay (generally seen as its weakest element).
These awards appeared to have reflected deep divisions within the nine-member jury, which, apart from Huppert, included directors James Gray, Nuri Bilge Ceylan and Lee Chang-dong, writer Kureishi, and actresses Robin Wright Penn, Shu Qi, Asia Argento and Sharmila Tagore.
Before the awards ceremony, rumors were already circulating that jury discussions had been particularly fraught. One member described it as the worst jury experience he'd ever had, while another was said to have described Huppert as a "fascist." Onstage, Huppert, looking visibly tense, referred to "an unforgettable week" and "several hours, uh, several moments of deliberation."
Show's host, comedian Edouard Baer, jokingly suggested that the onstage jury might "perhaps exchange telephone numbers and addresses" before parting. However, at the press conference afterward, several members went out of their way to stress that deliberations were "harmonious" and democratic."
Somewhat less harmoniously, the ecumenical jury, which gave its annual award for spiritual values in filmmaking to Loach's "Looking for Eric," bestowed an "anti-prize" on von Trier's "Antichrist." Cannes fest director Thierry Fremaux was quick to denounce the dubious honor, calling it a "ridiculous decision that borders on a call for censorship," particularly from a jury headed by a filmmaker, Romania's Radu Mihaileanu.
INTL. COMPETITION JURY PRIZES
Palme d'Or
"The White Ribbon" (Michael Haneke, Germany-France-Austria-Italy)
Grand Prix
"A Prophet" (Jacques Audiard, France)
Lifetime achievement award
Alain Resnais, "Wild Grass" (France)
Director
Brillante Mendoza ("Kinatay," France-Philippines)
Jury prize
"Fish Tank" (Andrea Arnold, U.K.), "Thirst" (Park Chan-wook, South Korea-U.S.)
Actor
Christoph Waltz, "Inglourious Basterds" (U.S.-Germany)
Actress
Charlotte Gainsbourg, "Antichrist" (Denmark-Germany-France-Sweden-Italy-Poland)
Screenplay
Mei Feng, "Spring Fever" (Hong Kong-France)
UN CERTAIN REGARD JURY AWARDS
Main Prize
"Dogtooth" (Yorgos Lanthimos, Greece)
Jury Prize
"Police, Adjective" (Corneliu Porumboiu, Romania)
Special Prize
"No One Knows About Persian Cats" (Bahman Ghobadi, Iran), "Father of My Children" (Mia Hansen-Love, France)
OTHER MAIN JURY AWARDS
Camera d'Or
"Samson and Delilah" (Warwick Thornton)
Special Mention
"Ajami" (Scandar Copti, Yaron Shani, Israel-Germany)
Critics' Week Grand Prix
"Farewell Gary" (Nassim Amamouche, France)
FIPRESCI AWARDS
Competition
"The White Ribbon" (Michael Haneke, Germany-Austria-France-Italy)
Un Certain Regard
"Police, Adjective" (Corneliu Porumboiu, Romania)
Directors' Fortnight
"Amreeka" (Cherien Dabis, Canada-Kuwait-U.S.)
SHORT FILMS JURY PRIZES
Palme d'Or
"Arena" (Joao Salaviza, Portugal)
Special Mention
"The Six Dollar Fifty Man" (Mark Albiston, Louis Sutherland, New Zealand)
CINEFONDATION
First Prize
"Baba" (Zuzana Kirchnerova-Spidlova)
Second Prize
"Goodbye" (Song Fang)
Third Prize
"Diploma" (Yaelle Kayam)
"Don't Step Out of the House" (Jo Sung-hee)
ECUMENICAL PRIZE
"Looking for Eric" (Ken Loach, U.K.-France-Italy-Belgium-Spain)
PRIX VULCAIN TECHNICAL AWARD
Aitor Berenguer, sound mixer ("Map of the Sounds of Tokyo," Spain)
-No real surprises, though mentions in terms of acting for Antichrist and Inglorious Basterds somewhat vindicates me from the mockery of picking them as big upset winners....what are your thoughts on the awards this year?

Here's that fourth clip from Inglorious Basterds...

...coming off of the three clips Keith posted earlier, and the immediate word out of the Cannes screening (those who love it, love it in a big way, those who don't seem to be saying it's another Death Proof, which will have it's niche, but not be a huge hit like Pulp Fiction) is this last clip, which makes me more excited for this film than anything else we've posted about Tarantino's flick yet:

-August can't come soon enough!

Time to meet another Basterd

The group is coming together...

Quentin Tarantino gives us a look at another lady Basterd

I like the simple introductions we're getting to these characters...how bout you?

Another character Poster for Inglorious Basterds

So far so good for me...what about you?

A new Poster for Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds

Seems Brad Pitt isn't such a nice guy in this...I for one am absolutely shocked...thoughts?

Cannes debuts its lineup and gets its own Poster to boot

We finally know what will be showing at the festival, as per this announcement in Variety:

It's official: Quentin Tarantino, Ang Lee and Pedro Almodovar will face off with Jane Campion, Ken Loach, Michael Haneke and Park Chan-wook in Cannes' biggest heavyweight auteur smackdown in recent years.
All have snagged Competition berths at next month's 62nd Cannes Festival, whose Official Selection was unveiled Thursday.
This year's Competition is heavy on European fare but the lightest Yank presence since 2006. Asia makes a strong showing.
Cannes has given competition berths to Quentin Tarantino's World War II actioner "Inglourious Basterds," toplining Brad Pitt, and Lee's "Talking Woodstock," a comedic take on the legendary concert, with Liev Schreiber, Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Emile Hirsch.
Sam Raimi's feel-good horror movie, "Drag Me to Hell," already a highlight in an unfinished version at March's SXSW fest, scores a Midnight Screening slot.
Terry Gilliam screens Out of Competition with "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus." Of other U.S. pics, Lee Daniel's "Precious" plays in Un Certain Regard.
Competition includes Almodovar's "Broken Embraces," Jane Campion's "Bright Star" and Ken Loach's "Looking for Eric."
Amping up the auteur factor, Competition will also feature Lars von Trier's "Antichrist," Austrian Michael Haneke's "The White Ribbon," Isabel Coixet's "Map of the Sounds of Tokyo" and Italian Marco Bellocchio's "Vincere."
Confirming prognostications, Cannes Official Selection looks relatively light on U.S. fare this year. At a packed press conference in Paris' Grand Hotel, fest program director Thierry Fremaux, flanked by Cannes president Gilles Jacob, told journos Thursday that Hollywood WGA strike could have been responsible for the lighter U.S. presence.
As already announced, continuing its support for ground-breaking studio toon pics, fest opens with Pete Docter and Bob Peterson's Pixar movie "Up," the first time an animated film, let alone a Digital 3-D one, has kicked off Cannes.
Park Chan-wook's "Thirst" leads a strong Asian presence in Competition. He has joined by more Asian titles: Johnnie To's "Vengeance," Brillante Mendoza's "Kinatay" and "Face," a French-set extravaganza from the Taiwan-based maverick. China's Lou Ye ("Summer Palace") is back at Cannes with a reportedly torrid young love triangle tale, "Spring Fever."
Otherwise this year's Cannes Competition belongs largely to Europe.
Alain Resnais' "Les Herbes folles," Jacques Audiard's "A Prophet," Xavier Giannoli's "In the Beginning" and Gaspar Noe's "Enter the Void" fly the flag for France, which has one of its biggest Competish presences in recent years, especially if one includes co-production.
Competition is given spread by a sprinkling of newish directors such as Brit Andrea Arnold, who segues from acclaimed debut "Red Road" to teenage girl drama "Fish Tank," and Competition is rounded up by Palestine's Elia Suleiman, "The Time That Remains," a six-decade Palestine family saga.
Alejandro Amenabar's "Agora" snared an out-of-competition placing.
Cannes' 62nd edition closes May 24 with Jan Kounen's "Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky."
Cannes' Directors' Fortnight and Critics' Week will be fully announced Friday in Paris.

-What do you think of the flicks chosen? Were there things you'd rather have seen there, or anything specific you're looking to see?

Inglorious Basterds will be at Cannes officially!

From Variety:

Quentin Tarantino's WWII epic "Inglourious Basterds" is headed to the French Riviera.
The Brad Pitt starrer, set in Nazi-occupied France, has been invited to play in competition at the Cannes Film Festival. Insiders said Tarantino, a longtime favorite of the French, has accepted the offer and has told the film's backers -- the Weinstein Co. and Universal Pictures -- that the pic will be ready for its world premiere during the May fest.
The movie, which follows a band of Jewish-American soldiers whose mission is to take down a group of Nazis, will bow Aug. 21.
Both the Weinstein Co. and U declined comment. Cannes organizers, who will announce the fest's lineup April 23, could not immediately be reached.
Tarantino is no stranger to the Palais. The helmer became one of Hollywood's most in-demand directors after his "Pulp Fiction" won Cannes' Palme d'Or in 1994.
A decade later, Tarantino returned to serve as president of the festival jury. Tarantino's "Kill Bill" was not in competition that year, but it did unspool on the fest's final night in its original 3-hour-plus version. In addition, "Death Proof" played in competition in 2007, and Tarantino's debut film, "Reservoir Dogs," unspooled out of competition in 1992.
This year's fest runs May 13-24.
-Can't wait till the entire lineup is released

Zack Snyder going all girl for his next project

No, it's not porn, but an interesting sounding action flick. Here's the story from The Hollywood Reporter:

As the clock clicks towards the opening of "Watchmen" on Friday, Zack Snyder is beginning to put together an all-female cast for his next project, "Sucker Punch."Amanda Seyfried in negotiations to topline the project, while Vanessa Hudgens, Abbie Cornish, Evan Rachel Wood and Emma Stone are in talks to star in the action fantasy, which Snyder is directing. Snyder is also producing with his Cruel & Unusual Films partner and wife Deborah Snyder. Set in the 1950s, "Punch" follows a girl who is confined to a mental institution by her stepfather, who intends to have her lobotomized in five days. While there, she imagines an alternative reality to hide her from the pain, and in that world, she begins planning her escape, needing to steal five objects to help get her out before she is deflowered by a vile man.Snyder, who co-wrote the script with Steve Shibuya, has described the fantasy world as " 'Alice in Wonderland' with machine guns," blending such elements as dragons, B-52 bombers and brothels. Seyfried would play Babydoll, the institutionalized girl. If deals are completed, the rest would play Seyfried's fellow inmates who also travel into the alternate reality. Hudgens would play a character named Blondie, Cornish would play Sweet Pea, Wood would play Rocket and Stone would play Amber.The shooting schedule is still being worked out.Wesley Coller of Cruel and Unusual exec produces.Seyfried, repped by Innovative Artists, starred as Meryl Streep's daughter in "Mamma Mia!" and is currently shooting Atom Egoyan's "Chloe." She next stars with Megan Fox in "Jennifer's Body."Hudgens, repped by WMA and Untitled, is best known for her work in the "High School Musical" franchise while CAA-repped Cornish's credits include "Stop-Loss" and "Elizabeth: The Golden Age.Stone, repped by Endeavor and Raw Talent, appeared in "Superbad" and is shooting "Zombieland."

-The all girl factor somehow reminds me of Tarantino's Death Proof...thoughts?

Next Year's Best Picture...

What do you ladies and gents think it will be? Blind guesses at this time, to say the least, but will Peter Jackson get back to the big show with The Lovely Bones, or Clint Eastwood with The Human Factor, or Martin Scorsese with Shutter Island, or Ang Lee with Taking Woodstock, or Quentin Tarantino with Inglorious Basterds? Will one of the films pushed back to 09 make a splash, like The Road or The Soloist? Will Pixar's Up do what WALL-E couldn't? Will Judd Apatow make his Funny People into Oscar People?

-Who knows at this point, and this is obviously a very small sampling of what's out there, but feel free to take a stab at it!