It seems like only yesterday we were closing out the lengthy and eventful awards season with my 2015 preview installment of Oscar Beat, but the next race is already starting to heat up.  The first awards barometer of each year arrives with the Cannes Film Festival, and the most recent fest is no different.  A number of potential contenders premiered on the Croisette over the past couple of weeks, and after all the standing ovations (and a fair amount of boos), some serious Oscar contenders have emerged.

Hit the jump as I take a look at the post-Cannes Oscar landscape, which includes contenders like Foxcatcher, Mr. Turner, Maps to the Stars, and even a possible Oscar nomination for Channing Tatum.

Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan is the winner of the coveted Palme d’Or at the 64th XX Cannes Film Festival for his three-hour twenty-minute film Winter Sleep. The director had fierce competition… with better films – mainly Mr. Turner by Mike Leigh, Mommy by Xavier Dolan, Foxcatcher by Bennett Miller, The Homesman by Tommy Lee Jones and the critically-acclaimed Still the Water by Naomi Kawase.

Alice Rohrwacher‘s Le Meraviglie (The Wonders) won the Grand Prize, while Bennett Miller takes home the best direction Palme for another favorite amongst critics, Foxcatcher. Julianne Moore won the best actress award for her performance as a C-list actress in David Cronenberg‘s Maps to the Stars and Timothy Spall the best actor award for his unforgettable rendition in the title role in Mike Leigh’s Mr. Turner.  Hit the jump for more, including the full list of winners.

Ahead of its Cannes Film Festival premiere, three new Maps to the Stars clips have gone online.  David Cronenberg‘s latest film follows an archetypical Hollywood dynasty including a writer of self-help manuals, his wife who manages the career of their 13-year-old son, and their daughter, who was recently released from a sanatorium where she was treated for criminal pyromania.  The plot also includes Havana, an actress who wants to remake a movie that starred her now-deceased mother.  These new clips feature most of the main characters, and they provide a sense of unease as well as Hollywood satire.  I don’t know if that will be the overall tone of the movie, but there’s definitely something quietly unnerving about these clips.

Hit the jump to check out the clips [they're slightly NSFW because of language].  The film stars John Cusack, Julianne Moore, Mia Wasikowska, Robert Pattinson, Olivia Williams, and Sarah Gadon.  Maps to the Stars opens in France and Italy on May 21st.  A U.S. release date has yet to be announced.

With its premiere set for the Cannes Film Festival, new Maps to the Stars images have gone online.  David Cronenberg‘s latest film follows an archetypical Hollywood dynasty including a writer of self-help manuals, his wife who manages the career of their 13-year-old son, and their daughter, who was recently released from a sanatorium where she was treated for criminal pyromania.  The plot also includes Havana, an actress who wants to remake a movie that starred her now-deceased mother. The two trailers have been cryptic, and we’ll probably get a better sense of the movie after it plays at the festival.

Hit the jump to check out the images.  The film stars John Cusack, Julianne Moore, Mia Wasikowska, Robert Pattinson, Olivia Williams, and Sarah Gadon.  Maps to the Stars opens in France and Italy on May 21st.  A U.S. release date has yet to be announced.

The 2014 Cannes Film Festival lineup has been announced, and it has some heavy hitters.  Technically, the biggest is How to Train Your Dragon 2, but Cannes has played host to DreamWorks Animation films in the past in an attempt to give the festival a wider appeal.  Plus, that movie is playing out of competition.  Among the indies, the one I’ll be keeping an eye on is Bennett Miller‘s Foxcatcher starring Steve Carell, Channing Tatum, and Mark Ruffalo.  Other notable contenders include David Cronenberg‘s Maps to the Stars, David Michôd’s The Rover, Mike Leigh‘s Mr. Turner, Tommy Lee Jones‘ The Homesman, Ryan Gosling‘s Lost River (formerly titled How to Catch a Monster), Zhang Yimou‘s Coming Home, and Atom Egoyan‘s The Captive.

Hit the jump to check out the full lineup.  The 2014 Cannes Film Festival runs from May 15 – 25th.

A new Maps to the Stars trailer has gone online, and this one is a French, NSFW version (it’s NSFW because of language and nudity, not because it’s French).  The film follows an archetypical Hollywood dynasty including a writer of self-help manuals, his wife who manages the career of their 13-year-old son, and their daughter, who was recently released from a sanatorium where she was treated for criminal pyromania.  The plot also includes Havana, an actress who wants to remake a movie that starred her now-deceased mother.  Like yesterday’s trailer, I’m still not quite sure what to make of the movie.  There are clearly some darkly comic elements, but there’s also some serious intensity, and it’s sometimes difficult to tell where one ends and the other begins.  I can’t wait to see this flick.

Hit the jump to check out the trailer.  The film stars John Cusack, Julianne Moore, Mia Wasikowska, Robert Pattinson, Olivia Williams, and Sarah Gadon.  Maps to the Stars opens in France and Italy on May 21st, and will probably make its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival.  A U.S. release date has yet to be announced.

The first Maps to the Stars trailer has been released.  The film follows an archetypical Hollywood dynasty including a writer of self-help manuals, his wife who manages the career of their 13-year-old son, and their daughter, who was recently released from a sanatorium where she was treated for criminal pyromania.  The plot also includes Havana, an actress who wants to remake a movie that starred her now-deceased mother.  I’m not quite sure what to make of the footage in this promo trailer, and that’s part of what makes me so excited for this movie.  The other part is that this is a new David Cronenberg movie, and I’m eager to see anything he does.

Hit the jump to watch the Maps to the Stars trailer.  The film stars John Cusack, Julianne Moore, Mia Wasikowska, Robert Pattinson, Olivia Williams, and Sarah Gadon. 

A new Maps to the Stars image along with the Italian teaser poster has been released.  David Cronenberg‘s upcoming film follows an archetypical Hollywood dynasty including a writer of self-help manuals, his wife who manages the career of their 13-year-old son, and their daughter, who was recently released from a sanatorium where she was treated for criminal pyromania.  The plot also includes Havana, an actress who wants to remake a movie that starred her now-deceased mother.  Mia Wasikowska plays the institutionalized daughter, and the actress is crushing the dead-eyed stare.

Hit the jump to check out the image and the Italian teaser poster.  The film also stars John Cusack, Julianne Moore, Robert Pattinson, Olivia Williams, and Sarah Gadon.  While the movie has received an R-rating from the MPAA, it currently doesn’t have a U.S. release date.  Maps to the Stars will likely premiere at the Cannes Film Festival next month, and a domestic release date should be announced around then.

We’ve got some new images from the following films:

• Maps to the Stars – Director David Cronenberg’s new film following a Hollywood dynasty family and starring John Cusack, Julianne Moore, Mia Wasikowska, Robert Pattinson, Olivia Williams and Sarah Gadon.
• Kill Me Three Times - Kriv Stenders directs Simon Pegg, Luke Hemsworth, Sullivan Stapleton, Alice Braga, Bryan Brown, Callan Mulvey and Teresa Palmer in a multi-tiered thriller that incorporates blackmail, assassins, and a small-town Lady Macbeth.
• Three Days to Kill – McG’s hitman thriller starring Kevin Costner, Amber Heard, Hailee Steinfeld and Connie Nielsen.  The film is slated to open February 21, 2014.
• Madame Bovary - Sophie Barthes directs this adaptation of the Gustave Flaubert novel starring Mia Wasikowska, Ezra Miller, Paul Giamatti, Rhys Ifans, Henry Lloyd-Hughes, Logan Marshall-Green, Olivier Gourmet and Laura Carmichael.
• Brick Mansions – Camille Delamarre’s remake of District 13, with Paul Walker, RZA and David Belle.
• The Woman in Black: Angel of Death – Tom Harper directs the Hammer horror follow-up, starring Jeremy Irvine, Phoebe Fox, Helen McCrory and Oaklee Pendergast..

Hit the jump to check them out.

A bit more casting to pass on before the night ends:

• Margot Robbie is nearly set to sign on for the female lead in Focus opposite Will Smith.  They plan con artists in Glenn Ficarra and John Requa‘s follow-up to Crazy, Stupid, Love.
• David Cronenberg cast Emilia McCarthy, Jayne Heitmeyer, and Justin Kelly in his next feature, Maps to the Stars.  Julianne Moore, Mia Wasikowska, Robert Pattinson, John Cusack, Olivia Williams and Sarah Gadon also star.

HIt the jump for more on both projects.

The indie dramedy The English Teacher tells the story of Linda Sinclair (Julianne Moore), a 40-year-old, unmarried high school English teacher in small town Pennsylvania. With no children and no relationships to speak of, her life is uncomplicated, which is just how she likes it.  Her greatest passion and her biggest fulfillment comes from helping her impressionable young students discover their own creative voices, until a former star student (Michael Angarano) returns and threatens to undo it all.

During this recent exclusive phone interview with Collider, co-stars Julianne Moore and Michael Angarano talked about how they came to the project, what they enjoyed most about playing their characters, and how much they enjoyed the experience of working with each other.  Julianne also spoke about the next film she’ll be shooting, Maps to the Stars, directed by David Cronenberg, while Michael spoke about how he’s shooting the remake of Heat with Jason Statham, and they both talked about why Hollywood loves remakes, and what might entice them to working in a really great role on cable television.  Check out what they had to say after the jump.

The cast is finally coming together for director David Cronenberg’s next film.  Cronenberg’s Cosmopolis star Robert Pattinson has long been attached to appear in Maps to the Stars, and now THR reports that Julianne Moore, John Cusack, and Sarah Gadon (A Dangerous Method) are set to round out the cast.  Written by Bruce Wagner (Wild Palms), the film is described as a ghost story that “offers a critique of celebrity-obsessed society in Los Angeles,” the latter of which is quite a popular topic in film culture at the moment with Sofia Coppola’s similarly-themed film The Bling Ring set to hit theaters this summer.

There’s no word on the characters that the aforementioned actors will play, but production is set to begin in July in Toronto and Los Angeles with Entertainment One Films onboard to finance and distribute the indie.  Cronenberg previously stated that he was hoping to nab Viggo Mortensen to star in Maps to the Stars as well, but one assumes Cusack ended up taking that role instead.

David Cronenberg‘s latest film, Cosmopolis, picked up some positive buzz last week when it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival.  Now the director is looking to reunite not only with that film’s star, Robert Pattinson, but with frequent collaborator Viggo Mortensen.  And while we previously reported that Pattinson was looking to team up with Cronenberg for a movie set in France, apparently Cronenberg’s next movie, Maps to the Stars, will be set in the good ol’ U.S. of A.

Hit the jump for more.