The Toronto International Film Festival will be celebrating its 35th year this September and it has announced today the first batch of big premieres. Some highlights include Darren Aronofsky‘s Black Swan, Robert Redford‘s The Conspirator, John Madden‘s The Debt, Tom Hooper‘s The King’s Speech, and Mark Romanek‘s Never Let Me Go. Check out the initial line-up below.

Special Presentations

Blue Valentine Derek Cianfrance, USA Canadian Premiere Blue Valentine is the story of love found and love lost, told in past and present moments in time. Flooded with romantic memories of their courtship, Dean and Cindy use one night to try and save their failing marriage. Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams star in this honest portrait of a relationship on the rocks.

Source: The Film Stage

Michelle has been nominated for a Teen Choice Award for her role in Shutter Island. You can register and vote as many times as you want at TeenChoiceAwards.com. Leonardo DiCaprio was also nominated for Shutter Island and the movie itself was nominated for Choice Horror/Thriller. The awards air Monday, August 9 on Fox.

Choice Movie Actress: Horror/Thriller
Katie Cassidy, A Nightmare on Elm Street
Megan Fox, Jennifer’s Body
Audrina Patridge, Sorority Row
Michelle Williams, Shutter Island
Rumer Willis, Sorority Row

Choice Movie Actor: Horror/Thriller
Penn Badgley, The Stepfather
Adam Brody, Jennifer’s Body
Leonardo DiCaprio, Shutter Island
Jackie Earle Haley, A Nightmare on Elm Street
Micah Sloat, Paranormal Activity

Choice Movie: Horror/Thriller
A Nightmare on Elm Street
Paranormal Activity
Shutter Island
Splice
The Stepfather

CANNES, France — An intimate, gorgeous and wrenching portrait of a working-class marriage in what may be a state of terminal decay, “Blue Valentine” is not only the breakthrough American film at Cannes this year, but one of the best films here, period. It stars two hot young indie-oriented actors in Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams, who are extraordinary as Dean and Cindy, a couple who live in rural eastern Pennsylvania with their 5-year-old daughter. “Blue Valentine” shines a spotlight on aspects of American life rarely seen in the movies, and it resulted from a lengthy and intensive period of preparation and discovery.

(snip)

What aspect of the movie did you like most at first?

M.W.: It was actually the future, meaning the time when the couple’s on the outs. That section compelled me the most. That really got my attention. When I came back to it, I just had to find a deeper sense. I couldn’t approach it with the same point of view, the same idea of how to play it. I had to find a new way to play that part, because I had already played it so much in my head. It had gotten boring. All the things that had compelled me about it, all the questions I had about it, I felt like I understood them. They had lost their mystery. So I had to find a new mystery.

(snip)

Did the script change a lot during all those years of development?

M.W. Yeah. I mean, it changed while we were shooting. [To Gosling.] I was remembering that day that we showed up in Honesdale [Pa.], with nothing planned. It was crazy! We had no idea what we were going to do. We had 12 hours, an entire night, to shoot a walk-and-talk down a main street, with no plan.

Read the full interview with Ryan and Michelle at Salon.com

CANNES — There is a certain calm and serenity that envelops Michelle Williams, the luminous star of “Blue Valentine,” who along with her co-star Ryan Gosling, director Derek Cianfrance and Harvey Weinstein, met on the rooftop terrace of Palais Stephanie to discuss the project, which screened here in the Un Certain Regard category.

The morning rain had let up allowing a bit of sunshine that provided a dramatic view of the Mediterranean dotted by luxury yachts in the distance.

I mention to Ryan that I’d seen the film at Sundance and he suggested I catch it here again. “The film is tightened by a few minutes and a few extra scenes added,” he informed.

The film about love lost and found in past and present moments has some pretty steamy scenes (some in the bathroom). “It’s a love story, sex is a part of it and we wanted to make sure there’s intimacy,” said Ryan.

One of the shower scenes took eight hours, said Michelle. “We had to be naked not just physically but emotionally,” she commented on the film that tells the story of the couple, Dean and Cindy’s relationship on the rocks. (Read the full article at The Hollywood Reporter)

Marilyn Monroe is too big of a cultural icon to have just one more. Deadline reports that two films centering the late model/actress are in the works. The first up is from Andrew Bergman who directed the amazing The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Ford. [Correction: Andrew Dominik directed Assassination of Jesse James; Andrew Bergman is producing. Movie is still amazing.] The film, Blonde, is based Joyce Carol Oates’ imaginary Marilyn Monroe memoir. Filming is set to begin January 2011 with Naomi Watts playing Monroe.

But the Weinstein Company has its own Marilyn Monroe flick in the works. Simon Curtis (The BBC TV series Cranford) will direct My Week with Marilyn late this September. The film is about the time Monroe spent in England shooting The Prince and the Showgirl opposite Laurence Olivier. Michelle Williams will play Monroe in this biopic. Ralph Fiennes was originally set to play Olivier but dropped out to direct and star in Shakespeare’s Coriolanus.

Source: Collider

You can bring home the latest thriller from director Martin Scorsese on both DVD and Blu-ray this June. Shutter Island will be released on DVD and Blu-ray on June 8. We don’t have any pricing details, but it seems the standard DVD will contain no special features and you can look at the cover art for both releases below. The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Max von Sydow, Michelle Williams, Emily Mortimer, Patricia Clarkson and Jackie Earle Haley.

Source: MovieWeb

After a 2009 that saw few American filmmakers or stars on its program, the Cannes Film Festival announced a lineup that includes a number of U.S. and celebrity-heavy films while also keeping its traditional focus on international auteurs.

The Un Certain Regard section will be studded with a Sundance hit, “Blue Valentine,” the Ryan Gosling-Michelle Williams romantic drama that went over big in Park City, Utah, this year. Derek Cianfrance‘s film occupies a spiritually similar slot to that held by “Precious” at last year’s Cannes. That film was also a Sundance phenomenon that played in Un Certain Regard, before going on to awards acclaim in the fall.

Tim Burton heads the jury for this year’s Cannes, which gets under way on May 12.

Source: L.A. Times

Oscar-nominated actress Michelle Williams is circling one of the three lead roles in Noah Baumbach‘s “The Emperor’s Children.”

The Oscar-nominated “Greenberg” filmmaker has already adapted Claire Messud’s 2006 best-selling novel about a trio of Brown University graduates struggling to make something of themselves as they approach their 30s burdened with lofty expectations. The novel was set in New York in the months leading up to and following 9/11.

Williams would likely be playing the character of Danielle Minkoff, a TV documentary producer from the Midwest, though the actress’ representation at CAA would not comment to TheWrap. There is no deal in place yet, but insiders confirm that Williams has met with Baumbach about the role.

While the project is set up at Imagine Entertainment with Ron Howard and Brian Grazer producing, it is still seeking financing, and the longer that takes, the greater the danger of missing its proposed summer start date. Furthermore, Baumbach‘s recent attachment to the family friendly Ben Stiller vehicle “Mr. Popper’s Penguins” raises questions as to whether “The Emperor’s Children” will be his next film.

TheWrap previously broke the news that Keira Knightley, Eric Bana and Richard Gere are attached to star in the dramedy.

Source: The Wrap

It’s still way too early place any importance to a film’s release date nine months from now, but if you go by this tidbit of news, Derek Cianfrance‘s impressive debut Blue Valentine will receive the potentially fatal December 31st release date – a day that has plagued other Weinstein titles in the past decade if you look at the post-December 25th/26th releases of Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, The Matador, Factory Girl and Miss Potter. If the company wants to highlight the excellent performances from the film’s leads, they might want to get this in a bit earlier – by one or two weeks at least.

Source: IonCinema

Will one of our most anticipated films for 2010 calender year, end up being pushed back to 2011? If you go by what Zoe Kazan is saying…, it would appear so. …Despite having completed filming late last year, Kelly Reichardt‘s Meek’s Cutoff isn’t likely to premiere in Cannes (I was expecting to) but if my math skills are up to par and we remain optimistic, my thinking is that she’ll most likely be finished editing time for Venice & Toronto.

Starring Michelle Williams (Wendy & Lucy), Kazan and her boyfriend actor Paul Dano (who recently starred in Gray’s wife’s (So Young Kim) For Ellen, this is set in 1845, the earliest days of the Oregon Trail, where a wagon team of three families has hired the mountain man Stephen Meek to guide them over the Cascade Mountains. Claiming to know a short cut, Meek leads the group on an unmarked path across the high plain desert, only to become lost in the dry rock and sage. Over the coming days, the emigrants must face the scourges of hunger, thirst, and their own lack of faith in each other’s instincts for survival. When a Native American wanderer crosses their path, the emigrants are torn between their trust in a guide who has proven himself unreliable and a man who has always been seen as the natural enemy.

Reichardt is reportedly working on a Western themed project after this is completed, I’m sure she picked up some survivals from having filmed a 1845 set piece in the desert.

Source: IonCinema