Biutiful

Here's the first look at Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's Biutiful for those unlucky enough to have already seen the film when it had it's world premiere at Cannes two months ago.  The film stars Javier Bardem in a role that won him the best actor award at this years festival.  It's notable that this is Inarritu's first film without screenwriter Guillermo Arriago, who collaborated on Amores Perros, 21 Grams, and Babel (Biutiful was co-written by Inarritu and Armando Bo.)  I'm ever hopeful that this will be a success as a non-fan of Babel, intermittent one of 21 Grams and loyalist to Amores Perros.  As of now, there's no US distribution of the film.  This is also his first Spanish language film since Amores Perros.

Early reviews have been mixed:

• Sasha Stone, of Awards Daily, called it "beautiful"
• Lou Lumenick of New York Post, said it was "a soul crushing endurance test at 2 1\2 hours."
• Owen Glieberman of Entertainment Weekly thinks, "it's the first film of his didn't really work."
• David Bourgeois of Movieline called it "the best movie of the festival."