Sean Baker's Anora wins Palm D'Or at Cannes Film Festival

I left one of the actresses from Emilia Perez who took Best Actress. Adriana Paz also received it along with Saldana, Gascon and Gomez.

Has that ever happened before? A four way split for Best Actress? Seems....unusual.

In 2006, the prize went to all of the actresses from Volver. It's rare, but it's not unprecedented.

Sean Baker has never made a watchable film. That this one won the Palme D'or likely won't change my mind about that.

Sean Baker is, however, cute.

So, they gave Coppola's Megalopolis NOTHING. Sounds about right. How humiliating for him. Now that film will never get an American distributor.

I think one of Barbara Hershey's Cannes best actress wins was also shared.

Sean Baker really loves hookers.

It's Palme d'Or.

Friendly Persuasion (1956) was another American film that won the Palme d'Or, and it wasn't all that great.

[quote] It's Palme d'Or.

Who gives a fuck?

If we're going back that far, then why not throw in Marty, R10?

I'm happy Jesse Plemons now has a Best Actor prize to go along with Kirsten Dunst's award for Melancholia. I never would have guessed they'd join Newman/Woodward and Bardem/Cruz as married couples with acting prizes from Cannes.

I didn't correct the spelling, but I do give a fuck about spelling, especially a famous proper noun.

I look forward to seeing these winners in theaters because the current movie season sucks.

I liked Baker's previous films. A 3 times Cannes veteran and very strong reviews for the most part seems like a respectable win to me. I've read good things about "Anora" and listened to some enthusiastic reports on the film on Cannes podcasts. A steep step up from shooting his film on his iPhone. Good for him.

I was the one who made the error about the Palme d'Or, and if I'm not offended by R9's correction, I don't see why anyone else should be.

He wasn't rude about it at all, and we're on a site where rudeness is often the default setting.

And Baker will be accused of something he did during filming to be canceled by the time of its release.

R17, so far the only controversy involving Baker I've heard is when he was caught liking tweets that defended the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict, but there's a slightly judgmental part of me that thinks anyone who does four consecutive movies about sex workers has to have some skeletons in his closet.

He looks so humble in that pic. Has he apologised yet for taking the award from an actor of colour?

R2, Best Actress was shared by three actresses. The actual name of the film is Emilia Perez.

In 1988,, there was a shared prize for the actresses in Chris Menges’ film, A World Apart, which included Barbara Hershey (a back to back winner who’d won the previous year for 1987’s Shy People), and the British actress Jodhi May and a South African actress Linda Mvusi, who made her film debut in the film and never made another film.

R15, Sean Baker has made several films since Tangerine including the Oscar-nominated The Florida Project (2017) and Red Rocket (2021) which was his first film to be in competition at Cannes.

It’s not such a steep step up. He’s one of the best independent filmmakers around.

I highly recommend Starlet (2012) as well. Pretty much all of his films are about sex workers. Though I can’t remember if the young mother in The Florida Project was a sex worker so maybe not that film.

Simon Rex should’ve been Oscar-nominated for Red Rocket. That would’ve been a lot more interesting than whomever they did nominate that year.

Starlet is quite good. It defies standard narrative expectations in the best possible ways.

[quote]I didn't correct the spelling, but I do give a fuck about spelling, especially a famous proper noun.

I suspect I could could count the number of Americans who care about the Palme d'Or on my fingers and toes.

Jesse Plemons is fantastic.

“Killers of the Flower Moon” would have been infinitely better had he played Leo’s part as originally intended.

R23 You seem nice.

Come on people!

Someone has to have dirt on Sean. He seems nice and all and the films are ok but what the hell? He's almost has bad an QT and all those shots of feet....

What do we know?

Just picturing what Jesse Plemons' take on Leo's role in KOTFM make sme sad, because it would've been so much more subtle and less cartoony than what Leo did. I even loved the movie as it was but Leo was def the weakest link and JP would've knocked that role out of the park. You're right r24

Sean Baker seems like a really good guy, I am happy for him. His movies have all been terrific to date

I think Sean Baker is fantastic. He's creating films that nobody else is.

I loved:

The Florida Project - my favorite one

Red Rocket - great

Tangering - may need to rewatch....sort of forgot what it was all about.

Cher and Norma Aleandro both won in 1985.

Tangerine - Christmas classic!

[quote] "In 2006, the prize went to all of the actresses from Volver. It's rare, but it's not unprecedented."

I can do without the flatulence joke(s) in it, but I love that movie, R3.

I enjoyed Tangerine but I thought The Florida Project was terrible. Red Rocket seemed similar so I never watched it. Surely I'm not the only one questioning the endless accolades heaped on Mr. Baker's output.

Willem Dafoe was excellent in The Florida Project. But he always is.

The fixation on sex workers makes me think there’s some sex scandal brewing under his cute surface.

I love prostitutes!

Here's Mikey Madison and Sean Baker breaking down a party scene from "Anora." She's very charming in real life.

I hate that rat faced Mikey Madison bitch. Hated her in Better Things and hated her in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. How someone that ugly got famous is beyond me.

Nothing I've heard or seen of Anora appeals to me, despite the critical acclaim. I think his movies just aren't my thing.

I did enjoy TANGERINE because the lead character had some guts and attitude. Couldn't make past 30 minutes of THE FLORIDA PROJECT as I found it incredibly dull.

A friend recommended Red Rocket so I'll check that out, and will wait on friends' recommendations on the new film since I distrust critics more and more lately.

Has anyone seen this? It’s his first feature.

I hated The Florida Project. While teaching at a local community college (my longest f/t gig at 3 years), I lived in the Kissimmee area, and I recognized every single area in which the movie was shot.

That combined with how real the story was (this should have been a documentary) had me depressed for weeks. People in that area really do live like that, although not that many of them are white. They're mostly Hispanics recruited by Disney to come to the US and be maids at their hotels or dishwashers at their restaurants.

I cannot imagine watching anything else of his after that.

Erm, saw this yesterday. They must’ve lost the screwball comedy reel - thankfully, I guess because this was already overlong and stretched too thin. But this wasn’t a comedy to me. A woman is abandoned, abducted, used and disposed of…this had more the feel of a Fargo season than anything approaching a comedy.

When she wasn’t screaming, I felt the writer really muted the title character; it was like in trying to humanise her abductors, he robbed her of her own humanity. And intelligence. I assumed she would have the kind of moxie that comes with having a film named after you but she didn’t. And then in the final scene in the car, when it’s freezing outside, she just climbs on top of the guy and rides his dick? O-Kay, I guess, you could say this is how she communicates with men or this is her currency and she wants to thank him or maybe she’s raping him as payback or whatever…? But once she breaks down and cries, is his dick still in her? That’s how contrived it was. It was such a cheat. And it just made me think, well, the entire last act of your film could’ve been about that instead of…nothing. Like, using the last little bit of the final scene of your so-called screwball comedy to suggest that this character is in pain from all she’s been through…while she’s riding some Russian guy’s cock who she doesn’t even know, seems like a real male-gazy cheat.

I wasn’t impressed with this film. No matter how much Sean Baker thinks he empowers sex workers, the misogyny in this film was off the charts.

I have questions for Greta Gerwig and her Cannes jury giving this the Palme D’Or. I think these Oscar prognosticators better slow down thinking this is going to sweep the Oscars including a Best Actress win for Mikey Madisen, who is fine but the character is so flawed in the writing, silenced for a bunch of Russian goons. I mean, you could say that the character is met with the reality of her fantastical situation at every point but she isn’t met with reality, she’s met with this so-called comedy goon squad and shoved in the back seat. Even when the Russian parents arrive, Baker is mostly out of his depth and still focusing on the teenage fantasy of the young Russian character. Everyone in the film is stymied by his childishness. It should’ve been called Yuri not Anora because the filmmaker never successfully takes her point of view.

A real disappointment.

The critics have had Anora and Mikey (my god I fucking hate her name) at the top of the lists for MONTHS..

My only hope for this year is that Demi gets nominated, and if released in time, Pam Anderson. Both are long shots.

Fuck the rest of these shits

Very excited to see The Brutalist amd Emilia Perez and that's about it- I will definitely see Anora as well- Also looking to the one Marianne Jean Baptiste.

Also, for the Variety critic Peter DeBruge quoted on the poster as saying, “Makes Pretty Woman look like a Disney movie,” Pretty Woman WAS a Disney movie, released by their Touchstone Pictures distribution arm.

R37- I hate her fucking name, and I am very surprised at her success- quite honestly- I think if I watch some interviews with her I may like her.

[quote]Like, using the last little bit of the final scene of your so-called screwball comedy to suggest that this character is in pain from all she’s been through…while she’s riding some Russian guy’s cock who she doesn’t even know, seems like a real male-gazy cheat.

The director is obsessed with sex workers, little wonder it seems male-gazy.

I really liked Florida Project, but stopped both Tangerine and Red Rocket 1/3 of the way thru. Everything about Tangerine was obnoxious and the movie gave me a headache. Red Rocket was simply boring.

Same here^^ I actually thought that Tangerine was horrible, I LOVED Florida Project, and Red Rocket was -ok- but it lost my interest with each passing minute... I don't think that I even watched the last 15 minutes. I suspect that I will like Anora, but will say it is WAY overrated. I think once out, "Mikey" (I have never hated a name so much in my life) will fall out of favor as a front runner. I suspect Emilia Perez takes home the most Oscars.

Selena Gomez is a Cannes Film Festival Award winner?

I liked Anora but I would kinda roll my eyes if Mikey Madison won the Oscar. You know the horny old male voters can’t wait to vote for her.

I thought Anora was okay, but it's my least favorite of Baker's films. This is what usually happens - an interesting director builds up to their most boring, mainstream movie, and they get over-praised because they're overdue when it's mostly good vibes from their previous work lifting the new one up.

I thought Janicza Bravo's similarly themed Zola from 2020 was ten times this movie - funnier, scarier, better acted and shot.

We watched this on Christmas Eve and just catching up with this thread. This film all the attentions and rewards it can get!

Mikey Madison for Best Actress over Elphaba any day! And that weirdly hot Russian actor Yuri (who plays Igor) for Best Supporting!!

r52 So... thumbs up, or thumbs down?

Loved Tangerine because it was rough and bold.

Happy to see him grow as a director

Big thumbs up, r52. Reading this thread after I posted I'm surprised at all the negativity here about Baker, Mikey Madison and Anora (though, admittedly, I haven't watched any of his earlier films).

I liked this a little more upon rewatching it, mostly because I had the stupid marketing out of my head and appreciated the atonality of it a bit more.

Mikey Madison is wonderful in it but the whole “searching for Vanya” part just goes on too long and Baker doesn’t capitalise much on the first two acts in the 3rd act - the way Billy Wilder would - so, to me, it just runs out of steam. I found the original Fellini went on a bit but at least that was firmly centred on the title character (Cabiria, from 1957’s Nights of Cabiria). Ending it the way he does, Baker makes it seem like Ani has a problem with men, like she just couldn’t see how good this Russian thug is; frankly, I wish it wasn’t so obvious that’s what he’s trying to do. This film needs to be a lot more complicated and more brutal for an ending like that to actually work. Not a misfire, exactly, but there’s a lot here that’s left unrealised which is unfortunate given how much of the runtime is given to just driving around.

The writer’s branch and I guess the larger Academy seldom get the screenplay categories right but if there’s any justice, Jesse Eisenberg will take Original Screenplay for A Real Pain, since the biggest problem with both Anora and The Brutalist is their screenplays.

^ too often the only writers branch nominate movies that are too “Arthouse” (by Academy terms) for the Best Picture categories. It’s like the Highly Commended category and rotten screenplays are selected all the time.

[quote] Like, using the last little bit of the final scene of your so-called screwball comedy to suggest that this character is in pain from all she's been through... while she's riding some Russian guy's cock who she doesn't even know, seems like a real male-gazy cheat.

This is why I side-eye Sean Baker. Behind every man obsessed with sex workers is the male gaze working overtime. ditto male feminists.

Mikey Madison is just too damn ugly for Hollywood. Poor thing.

Sean Baker was exposed as a white supremacist and was following libs of TikTok and supporting Kyle Rittenhouse on Twitter, which he now has locked.

Did Anora receive any Golden Globe noms?

I wuz rubbed, again!!!!!!

Sean loves him some Tulsi.

I have total "contempt before investigation" on this one, but I've learned to listen to that inner voice because it's usually correct when it comes to movies.

I think at least 5 Globe nominations including Best Comedy, Director and Actress.

I agree that the "searching for Vanya" section went on too long, but so did the beginning section that had an almost endless series of hard-party scenes.

And while I get that she saw Vanya as a potential way out of her current life, he was such a pathetic fool that she had to be really stupid to take him even a bit seriously.

Finally, the amount of time Baker shows Ani and the other girls performing lap dances and other stuff struck me as overkill and exploitative. There's something pretty skeevy about Baker.

That said, I liked TANGERINE but couldn't get past 30 minutes of THE FLORIDA PROJECT, which I found tedious.