• Featuring a startlingly dramatic turn from Steve Carell, Bennett Miller's Foxcatcher premiered Monday at the Cannes Film Festival to largely rave reviews and early Oscar predictions. Foxcatcher is based on the true story of Olympic gold medalist wrestler Mark Schultz (Channing Tatum). To step out from the shadow of his brother and fellow Olympian, Dave (Mark Ruffalo), Schultz moves into a wealthy benefactor's Pennsylvania estate and training facility, Foxcatcher Farm. His relationship with millionaire John du Pont, whom Carell plays with a prosthetic nose and a creepy stillness, develops into a tragic psychological drama. "It was so far outside of his comfort zone," Miller said of Carell's performance. "I've never seen Steve do anything that would give any material evidence that he could do this. We just chatted and I heard how he thought and was thinking about the character, and I had a vision for it working." Anticipation for Foxcatcher increased after its release was postponed from last year's awards season, so that Miller could spend more time finishing it. Sony Pictures Classics plans to release the film Nov. 14.

• Maps to the Stars is David Cronenberg's nightmarish, hyper-real tale of vanity, greed and family dysfunction in Hollywood. With an all-star cast, including Julianne Moore, John Cusack and Robert Pattinson, the biting tragi-comedy, which premiered at Cannes Monday, has critics guessing whether it could produce, at long last, the veteran Canadian director's first Palme d'Or. It's the story of Benjie Weiss, a troubled child-star brat and recovering drug addict, who earns $300,000 a week, played by Evan Bird. The film explores the theme of incest -- literally, in the strange relationship Benjie develops with his disfigured sister Agatha, played by Mia Wasikowska, but also metaphorically. In this vision of Tinseltown every star in the movie constellation is linked together, inbred, and not even the darkest secret can remain hidden for long. Moore is the hysterical Havana Segrand, a desperate 40-something actress who lives in the shadow of her forever-young Hollywood icon mother and sleeps with directors to stay in the game. Carrie Fisher (daughter of Debbie Reynolds) plays herself in a cameo as Segrand's friend, while self-reflexive insider references to Scientology-membership boosting career fortune, Robert Downey Jr.'s drug-taking past, or actors manipulating their public image by going on Oprah crop up all over.

A Section on 05/20/2014