MANIAC with Elijah Wood Among 7 New Titles Added to Cannes 2012 Lineup

Editor-at-Large; Los Angeles (@http://twitter.com/marshalclark)
MANIAC with Elijah Wood Among 7 New Titles Added to Cannes 2012 Lineup
maniac_elijahwood.jpg The Cannes Film Festival has just added seven new films to their official selection, and I'm happy to report that we can now look forward to early word about how Elijah Wood fares playing a scalp-obsessed serial killer in the Maniac remake.

I'll go out on a limb here and say that I thought the news about Wood taking the lead role was some of the most inspired casting for a horror remake I had heard about in quite a while. Granted, the bar isn't sky-high, but a less ballsy filmmaker would have ignored the charm that Joe Spinell channeled in the original and just cast a typical sleaze-ball looking actor in the role. In any case, we'll find out how he does when the The Franck Khalfoun (P2)-directed, Alexandre Aja-produced remake plays in the midnight sidebar of the festival in May.

On the other side of the midnight spectrum is Wayne Blair's The Saphires, which is based on the true story of an aboriginal pop group from the 60's -- billed as Australia's answer to The Supremes -- who fly to Vietnam to entertain American troops.

The festival has also added Adam Leon's SXSW hit about love and graffiti, Gimme the Loot, to Un Certain Regard, along with Aida Begic's Djeca and Gilles Bourdos' Renoir, a biopic which apparently focuses more on the painter than his filmmaker son.

Rounding out the additions are Candida Brady's Trashed, which follows Jeremy Irons around the world as he examines environmental problems related to, yep, garbage, as well as György Pálfi's Final Cut - Hölgyeim És Uraim, a "montage film" comprised of footage from more than 400 other films which was produced by patience-testing-slow-dirge master Bela Tarr.

Special Screening
Trashed, dir. Candida Brady (UK)

Midnight Screenings
The Sapphires, dir. Wayne Blair (Australia)
Maniac, dir. Franck Khalfoun (US/France)

Un Certain Regard
Djeca, dir. Aida Begic (Bosnia-Herzegovina)
Gimme the Loot, dir. Adam Leon (US)
Renoir, dir. Gilles Bourdos (France) (closing film)

Cannes Classics
Final Cut - Hölgyeim És Uraim, dir. György Pálfi (Hungary)
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