Cannes 2014

[Chris Knipp]

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Festival de Cannes 14 to 25 May 2014

The 67th annual Cannes Film Festival is scheduled to be held from 14 to 25 May 2014. New Zealand film director Jane Campion has been announced as the head of the jury for the main competition section.
In late January of 2014 it was announced that the long delayed Grace of Monaco, directed by Olivier Dahan and starring Nicole Kidman as Grace Kelly, would open the festival playing out of competition. Due to European Parliament elections taking place on 25 May 2014, the winner of the Palme d'Or will be announced on 24 May, and the winning film in the Un Certain Regard section announced on 23 May.The festival poster featured Italian actor Marcello Mastroianni from Federico Fellini's 1963 film 8½, which was presented in the 1963 Cannes Film Festival's Official Selection.
The Official Selection of films for the 2014 festival, including the line-up for the Main Competition, was announced on 17 April 2014. French actor Lambert Wilson has been announced as the host of the opening and closing ceremonies.

Official Festival de Cannes website (http://www.festival-cannes.com/en.html).

The Guardian (http://www.theguardian.com/film/cannesfilmfestival) Cannes coverage is usually good.

Cannes Competition Jury (http://www.festival-cannes.fr/en/archives/juryLongFilm+.html)(headed by Jane Campion).


Here's the whole slate for all the main sections:

IN COMPETITION

Opening Film
Olivier DAHAN GRACE DE MONACO Out of Competition 1h43

***
Olivier ASSAYAS CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA 2h03
Bertrand BONELLO SAINT LAURENT 2h15
Nuri Bilge CEYLAN WINTER SLEEP 3h16
David CRONENBERG MAPS TO THE STARS 1h51
Jean-Pierre DARDENNE, Luc DARDENNE DEUX JOURS, UNE NUIT 1h35
Xavier DOLAN MOMMY 2h14
Atom EGOYAN CAPTIVES 1h53
Jean-Luc GODARD ADIEU AU LANGAGE 1h10
Michel HAZANAVICIUS THE SEARCH 2h29
Tommy Lee JONES THE HOMESMAN 2h02
Naomi KAWASE FUTATSUME NO MADO (Still the water) 1h50
Mike LEIGH MR. TURNER 2h29
Ken LOACH JIMMY’S HALL 1h46
Bennett MILLER FOXCATCHER 2h10
Alice ROHRWACHER LE MERAVIGLIE (The Wonders) 1h50
Abderrahmane SISSAKO TIMBUKTU 1h40
Damian SZIFRON RELATOS SALVAJES (Wild Tales) 2h02
Andrey ZVYAGINTSEV LEVIATHAN 2h21

UN CERTAIN REGARD
Opening Film
Marie AMACHOUKELI, Claire BURGER, Samuel THEIS PARTY GIRL 1st film 1h35

***
Lisandro ALONSO JAUJA (Land of Plenty) 1h41
Mathieu AMALRIC LA CHAMBRE BLEUE 1h15
Asia ARGENTO INCOMPRESA 1h43
Kanu BEHL TITLI 1st film 2h04
Ned BENSON ELEANOR RIGBY 1st film 1h59
Pascale FERRAN BIRD PEOPLE 2h07
Ryan GOSLING LOST RIVER 1st film 1h45
Jessica HAUSNER AMOUR FOU 1h36
Rolf de HEER CHARLIE’S COUNTRY 1h48
Andrew HULME SNOW IN PARADISE 1st film 1h48
July JUNG DOHEE-YA (A Girl at my Door) 1st film 1h59
Panos KOUTRAS XENIA 2h03
Kornél MUNDRUCZÓ FEHÉR ISTEN (White God) 1h59
Philippe LACÔTE RUN 1er film 1h40
Ruben ÖSTLUND TURIST 2h
Jaime ROSALES HERMOSA JUVENTUD 1h43
WANG Chao FANTASIA 1h25
Wim WENDERS & Juliano RIBEIRO SALGADO THE SALT OF THE EARTH 1h40
Keren YEDAYA LOIN DE SON ABSENCE (That Lovely Girl) 1h35

OUT OF COMPETITION
Dean DEBLOIS DRAGONS 2(How to Train Your Dragon) 1h45
André TÉCHINÉ L’HOMME QU’ON AIMAIT TROP (In the Name of my Daughter) 1h56
ZHANG Yimou GUI LAI (Coming Home) 1h51

MIDNIGHT SCREENINGS
CHANG PYO JEOK (The Target) 1h39
Kristian LEVRING THE SALVATION 1h30
David MICHOD THE ROVER 1h40

SPECIAL SCREENINGS
Aida BEGIC, Leonardo DI COSTANZO, Jean-Luc GODARD, Kamen KALEV, Isild LE BESCO, Sergei LOZNITSA, Vincenzo MARRA, Ursula MEIER, Vladimir PERISIC, Cristi PUIU, Marc RECHA, Angela SCHANELEC, Teresa VILLAVERDE LES PONTS DE SARAJEVO (Bridges of Sarajevo) 1h50
Laurent BECUE-RENARD OF MEN AND WAR 2h22
Pablo FENDRIK EL ARDOR 1h40
Tony GATLIF GERONIMO 1h44
Sergei LOZNITSA MAÏDAN 2h
Ossama MOHAMMED
Wiam Simav BEDIRXAN EAU ARGENTEE, SYRIE AUTOPORTRAIT (Silvered Water, Syria Self-Portrait) 1h50
Gabe POLSKY RED ARMY 1h25
Stéphanie VALLOATTO CARICATURISTES - FANTASSINS DE LA DÉMOCRATIE (Cartoonists - Foot Soldiers Of Democracy) 1h46
Adilkhan YERZHANOV THE OWNERS

[Chris Knipp]

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Competition Jury

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Jane CAMPION – President
(Director, Screenwriter, Producer – New Zealand)
Carole BOUQUET (Actress – France)
Sofia COPPOLA (Director, Screenwriter, Producer – United States)
Leila HATAMI (Actress – Iran)
JEON Do-yeon (Actress – South Korea)
Willem DAFOE (Actor – United States)
Gael GARCIA BERNAL (Actor, Director, Producer – Mexico)
JIA Zhangke (Director, Screenwriter, Producer – China)
Nicolas Winding REFN (Director, Screenwriter, Producer – Denmark)
_______________

Un Certain Regard Jury President: Pablo Trapero

[Chris Knipp]

TEN FILMS THAT WILL NOT BE AT CANNES BUT WILL BE AT VENICE OR TORONTO (http://www.indiewire.com/article/10-films-not-heading-to-cannes-but-sure-to-hit-venice-and-or-toronto) from Indiewire:


Whether due to the film not being done or a strategic move to screen it elsewhere or maybe even Cannes rejecting it, quite a few high profile films are now officially major contenders for the fall festival circuit's main trio -- Venice, Toronto and/or Telluride.

Here are 10 examples:

BIG EYES
Directed by Tim Burton
Tim Burton -- who headed the Cannes jury two years back -- has gotten a lot of flack as of late thanks to big budget, critically panned films like "Alice in Wonderland" and "Dark Shadows." And while it seems like he is making a return to fantasy-free, low-budget fare in 2014 -- really for the first time since 1994's "Ed Wood" (which is perhaps his most critically acclaimed film) -- it didn't end up meaning a trip to the Croisette. With a script from "Wood" screenwriters Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, "Big Eyes" takes on the true story of husband and wife artists Walter and Margaret Keane (Christoph Waltz and Amy Adams), the former of whom rose to fame in 1950s for his paintings of big-eyed kids.

BIRDMAN
Directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
Inarritu's past films to have gotten into the Cannes Film Festival have been grim, foreign-language dramas that tackle issues of global and social importance. His upcoming film "Birdman," on the other hand, was said to not have been ready, and maybe it's for the best that Inarritu mixes things up for a film in which he definitely, well, mixes things up: It's an American comedy starring Zach Galifianiakis, Emma Stone and Michael Keaton about an actor trying to regain his former glory on Broadway when his days playing a famous superhero have long been gone.

EDEN
Directed by Mia Hansen-Love
At only 33, Mia Hansen-Love has already established herself as a director to watch, and many expected her to be screening in competition this year. She won the Special Jury Prize in the Un Certain Regard section of the 2009 Cannes Film Festival for her drama The Father of my Children. Her latest project, Eden, follows the life of a French DJ who’s credited with inventing "French house" or the "French touch," a type of French electronic music that became popular in the 1990s. But for whatever reason, Eden will be sitting out Cannes.

FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD
Directed by Thomas Vinterberg
"A Celebration" director Thomas Vinterberg made quite the comeback at Cannes a couple of years back with the eventually Academy Award-nominated "The Hunt," and he follows it up with this promising adaptation of Thomas Hardy's 19th century classic headlined by the ever reliable Carey Mulligan as a woman who inherits a large farm and becomes romantically entangled with three men (Michael Sheen, Tom Sturridge and Matthias Schoenaerts). Vinterberg has proven adept at drawing out career best performances from his cast (Mads Mikkelsen took home top acting honors at Cannes for his showstopping turn in "The Hunt"), so signs point to this being a heated character study... Just not one that will be screening at Cannes.


THE IMITATION GAME
Directed by Morten Tyldum
After directing Norwegian films “Buddy” and “Headhunters,” the latter being the highest-grossing Norwegian film of all time, Tyldum has a lot to prove with “The Imitation Game.” With a bigger budget, the backing of Harvey Weinstein, and a cast boasting the unstoppable Benedict Cumberbatch, the film is about the British mathematician Alan Turing (Cumberbatch) who was a successful cryptographer during World II and was later prosecuted for his homosexuality. The film also stars Keira Knightley and Matthew Goode, and seems like the kind of thing made for awards season. Which made it seem likely all along that Harvey and company would choose to debut it in Toronto.

INHERENT VICE
Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson
It was wishful thinking from the get-go, but Paul Thomas Anderson's epicly anticipated follow-up to "The Master" was at the top of almost anyone's Cannes wish list. But the director has been in post-production on the film since the fall, though he tends to take his time and the film's release date isn't until December. So he'll likely wait until Venice (like he did with "The Master") or maybe he'll avoid the festival circuit altogether (which he basically did with "There Will Be Blood"). But either way, we'll be first in line when his adaptation of Thomas Pynchon's novel makes its debut. Following a P.I. who investigates the disappearance of his ex-girlfriend and her boyfriend, the film's remarkable ensemble includes Joaquin Phoenix, Josh Brolin, Owen Wilson, Katherine Waterston, Reese Witherspoon, Jena Malone, Joanna Newsom and Benicio del Toro.

A MOST VIOLENT YEAR
Directed by JC Chandor
After garnering a screenplay nomination for the vastly underrated 2011 Wall Street drama “Margin Call," Chandor made a big splash at Cannes last year with a subtler, but nonetheless acclaimed film, “All is Lost,” starring a relatively silent Robert Redford. Once again proving that he’s a versatile director to contend with, Chandor will be releasing his latest film, crime drama “A Most Violent Year,” later this year. The film will star Oscar Isaac of “Inside Llewyn Davis” and Jessica Chastain and focuses on 1981—one of the most violent years in New York’s history. It was a longshot for Cannes to begin with, but expect it in Venice or Toronto.

ROSEWATER
Directed by Jon Stewart
"The Daily Show" won't arrive in Cannes as host Jon Stewart and his directorial debut "Rosewater" seems destined for Venice or Toronto instead. The comic had taken a leave of absence from his day job back in July 2013 to shoot the project alongside Shohreh Aghdashloo and Gael García Bernal. Written by Stewart, Maziar Bahari and Aimee Molly, and based on Maziar Bahari's 2011 memoir "Then They Came For Me: A Family's Story of Love, Captivity, and Survival," the film centers on an Iranian-Canadian journalist (Bernal) detained in Tehran for over 100 days during the 2009 presidential election in Iran. Stewart covered Bahari's imprisonment extensively on his show. Footage from the film was screened for buyers in Toronto back in September 2013, so chances are the full deal will head back there a year later.


SUITE FRANCAISE
Director: Saul Dibb
Based on the powerful novel of the same name set in 1940s France, the source material has an equally dramatic backstory: the Jewish-Russian born author Irene Nemirovsky planned a five-novel cycle beginning in 1940, just as forces overran northern France. In the summer of 1942, Nemirovsky, who had converted to Catholicism, was shipped to Auschwitz and the two completed parts of Nemirovsky's planned cycle were discovered only six decades later. Though a film based on Nemirovsky's story sounds compelling, so does the book which Nemirovsky finished, on which the film is based. "Suite Francaise" tells the story of a woman in 1940s France who falls for a German officer posted in the town as she awaits her prison-of-war husband's return. The cast, with Michelle Williams playing the woman opposite Matthias Schoenaerts as her lover, should bring this strong material to life. And while there's a good chance The Weinstein Company will privately preview the film at Cannes (as they tend to do), it won't get a full-on premiere until the fall.

WHILE WE'RE YOUNG
Director: Noah Baumbach
A year after "Frances Ha," Noah Baumbach re-teams with "Greenberg" star Ben Stiller for a $10 million Scott Rudin production about an uptight documentary filmmaker (wait, Ben Stiller playing someone uptight?) and his wife (Naomi Watts) who try to loosen up a bit by befriending a free spirited younger couple (Adam Driver and Amanda Seyfried). It's a great cast, and Baumbach is clearly on a roll as of late. The film doesn't have a release date yet (but is in post-production) -- and Baumbach also is working on "Untitled Public School Project" with "Frances" star Greta Gerwig -- but one way or another, we'll get us some more Baumbach (or double the Baumbach) by year's end -- just not at Cannes. Though Venice or Toronto seems more likely the case.

[Chris Knipp]

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/150x100q90/838/8mdf.jpg Festival de Cannes. Opening notes.

Wed. 14 May 2014: GRACE OF MONACO, the gala opening film, has already been screened and generally reviled by the international critics. Huffington Post (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/14/grace-of-monaco-reviews_n_5322569.html) gives some highlights of the lowlights. TRAILER. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFYmYWa348c) It's out in Paris too and Allociné (http://www.allocine.fr/film/fichefilm_gen_cfilm=201484.html)press rating is decent, 3.5, but based on only 4 (French) reviews so far.

By the way Gerard Depardieu stars as Dominique Stauss-Kahn in WELCOME TO NEW YORK, with Jacqueline Bisset as DKS's wife. This is to be released on the Internet this Saturday 17 May 2014.

Main GUARDIAN (http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/may/13/cannes-2014-new-blood-short-supply-film-festival-begins)Cannes scribe Xian Brooks writes a piece on how Cannes' lineup is too cozy and familiar ("Cannes 2014: new blood in short supply as film festival begins"). Competition selection and award nominations may reflect an excess of loyalty to players who have scored well at Cannes in the past. Brooks selects "five to watch for" (with his descriptions):
Mr Turner
Mike Leigh's labour of love charts the life and times of the 19th-century painter JMW Turner. Timothy Spall headlines as the great man, scowling at the sea from his bolthole down in Margate.

The Homesman
Oscar-winning Hilary Swank stars in the western as the God-fearing spinster, Mary Bee Cuddy, charged with transporting what the festival programme describes as a wagonload of "madwomen" back from the frontier. Tommy Lee Jones co-stars and directs.

Winter Sleep
Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan comes tipped for major prizes with Winter Sleep, a tale of family torments that casts a small, snowed-in hotel as both refuge and prison.

The Search
Michel Hazanavicius's last film, The Artist, used Cannes as a springboard to eventual Oscar glory. The French film-maker now returns with a marked change of pace, updating an old Montgomery Clift Holocaust drama to the 1999 Chechen war.

Clouds of Sils Maria
The Oscar-winning Juliette Binoche plays a regal, ageing actor thrown into crisis by the arrival of a younger model. French director Olivier Assayas's

[Chris Knipp]

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/150x100q90/838/8mdf.jpg Festival de Cannes. Brief reports.

MIKE D'ANGELO CANNES TWEETS BEGIN:


Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 21h
Grace of Monaco (Dahan): 33. A non-hack might've done something interesting w/ idea that "Princess of Monaco" was Kelly's greatest role.


Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 9hA
Timbuktu (Sissako): 59. Does a good job for a long while of hiding its essential nature—social-justice tract—behind loose-limbed funkiness.


Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 4h
Mr. Turner (Leigh): 68. Much more a conventional biopic than TOPSY-TURVY, but featuring the same delectable wealth of period detail.


Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 14h
Party Girl (three young first-time directors): W/O. Chances that your mom is really fascinating enough to build a feature around: very slim.


Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 14h
That Lovely Girl (Yedaya): 43. Old-school miserablism like I haven't seen in a while. Incest/rape + bulimia + cutting + just no letup.



Mike D'Angelo‏@gemko
The Captive (Egoyan): 46. Art-schlock at its art-schlockiest. Structural gamesmanship compels, but when the pieces come together, ye gods.

GUARDIAN ratings: GRACE 1/5 stars, TIMBUKTU 4/5 stars, MR TURNER 5/5 stars. Scott Foundas provides an equally ecstatic and informative VARIETY review (http://variety.com/2014/film/reviews/cannes-film-review-mr-turner-1201182098/) of MR TURNER.

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TIMOTHY SPALL IN MIKE LEIGH'S MR TURNER

[Johann]

Great stuff Chris. Your "Cannes coverage-from-a-distance thread" is always a treat.
:)

[Chris Knipp]

Thanks for following.

[Chris Knipp]

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/150x100q90/838/8mdf.jpg Festival de Cannes. 15-16 May.

GUARDIAN DAILY REVIEWS.

CATCH ME DADY 3/5 STARS "John Ford on the Yorkshire moors. This debut from Daniel Wolfe – featuring tremendous cinematography from Robbie Ryan – is a tense, troubled and troubling thriller about a British Pakistani girl on the run." Peter Bradshaw review. (http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/may/16/cannes-2014-catch-me-daddy-review)

THE CAPTIVE 1/5 STARS Ryan Reynolds stars in Atom Egoyan's worrying crass paedophile thriller. Peter Bradshaw review: (http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/may/16/the-captive-cannes-2014-review-ryan-reynolds)
Another day at the Cannes film festival and another one-star turkey, this one so misjudged from start to finish it feels like a terrible dream Retweeted from Blake Williams by Mike D'Angelo: "For someone who keeps making movies About The Internet, I don't think Egoyan knows how the internet actually works." (After reading Bradshaw's GUARDIAN review (http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/may/16/the-captive-cannes-2014-review-ryan-reynolds), D'Angelo's rating looks high.)

THE BLUE ROOM 3/5 STARS. Xian Brooks review. (http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/may/16/cannes-2014-review-the-blue-room-mathieu-amalric) Matthieu Amalric directed this film based on a Georges Simenon novel. Amaric won the Best Director prize for his directorial debut ON TOUR in 2010, a sign of his cachet at Cannes. This adultery murder tale with a noirish finale is in Un Certain Regard. Guy Lodge in his VARIETY review (http://variety.com/2014/film/reviews/cannes-film-review-the-blue-room-1201183218/)calls this film "poky," "airless," and a "disappointing return" (for Amalric as director). UN CERTAIN REGARD.

RED ARMY 4/5 STARS Henry Barnes review (http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/may/16/red-army-cannes-review-soviet-union-ice-hockey) Documentary about how the superb collective Soviet hockey team's members foundered when transferred to the inividualistic star-based US hockey world. Executive produced by Werner Herzog.

From Manohla Dargis' 1st Cannes report (NY TIMES) (http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/16/movies/sommeliers-decanting-the-madness-of-cannes.html?emc=edit_fm_20140516&nl=movies&nlid=22852861&_r=0):
Last, this year’s edition was overshadowed by the terrible news that the Swedish director Malik Bendjelloul, 36, was found dead on Tuesday, apparently a suicide. Mr. Bendjelloul’s first and only feature was “Searching for Sugar Man,” an inquiry into art, perseverance and the American musician Sixto Rodriguez. A Sundance favorite that went on to win the Oscar for best feature documentary, “Sugar Man” felt like the first installment in what was going to be a great career.

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RED ARMY

[Chris Knipp]

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/150x100q90/838/8mdf.jpg Festival de Cannes. Fri. 16 May.

MIKE D'ANGELO CANNES TWEET REVIEWS CONT'D:


Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 25m
Winter Sleep (Ceylan): 55. Epic portrait of a prick, shot in an amazing location. Admirable, w/a magnificent lead perf, but sooo grueling.


Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 1m
Wild Tales (Szifron): 62. Wish the shorts had anything in common (bsides being "wild"), but they're fun. Only 1/2 have a good punchline tho.

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HALUK BILGINER IN WINTER SLEEP
(COMING OUT IN PARIS 14 AUG.)

GUARDIAN (Xian Brooks review) (http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/may/16/cannes-2014-winter-sleep-review-nuri-bilge-ceylan) calls WINTER SLEEP a "heavyweight Palme d'Or contender and the lead performance "majestic." He also speaks of the film's "gruelling 196-minute running time" and thinks Ceylan lacks the "banked intensity and. . . sweet command of a story's arc" of Ingmar Bergman, whom he emulates here.

[Johann]

It saddens me that Atom Egoyan's latest is getting such negative reviews. I hold that man in high esteem!

[Johann]

I'm also looking forward to P.T. Anderson's Inherent Vice. The Master blew my mind. (RIP Philip Seymour Hoffmann).
And the new Thomas Vinterberg interests me. Plus Werner Herzog producing the Red Army doc has got my attention.
Women are not well represented at Cannes this year, according to Jane Campion, a Juror.
I'd like to see the female equivalent of Tarantino step out of the shadows. Is she out there? Does she even exist?

[oscar jubis]

It saddens me that Atom Egoyan's latest is getting such negative reviews. I hold that man in high esteem!
Did you watch Egoyan's Chloe? I thought it was grossly under-rated. Maybe that's the case with the new film. I wonder sometimes if Egoyan is being "punished" for making a "commercial move" beginning with Where the Truth Lies (2005), which I also liked. Another favorite Canadian filmmaker is Robert Lepage. He has a new film, Triptyque. If anyone knows when/if it is being released in the US, please let me know.

[Chris Knipp]

I do not share you boys' affection for Egoyan nor await his new films with bated breath. P.T. Anderson is another story. I'll be interested in his INHERENT VICE too, though I don't think it's at Cannes, is it?

TRIPTIQUE appears to have no US distributor, nor to have been released anywhere, only shown in festivals. It shows at Seattle's in ten days. Dennis Harvey in VARIETY (http://variety.com/2013/film/reviews/triptych-review-1200682694/) called it "fascinating" (Sept. 2013) and though direct from a stage play, "highly cinematic." But on Allociné Lepage has never gotten a press rating as a director above 3,2. Egoyan peaked at 3.7. CHLOE got a 2.8.

PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN is in a recently released film, GOD'S POCKET, MAD MEN actor John Slattery's feature film directing debut. Alas, it has not been well received by critics (have not seen it myself). And there's more to come, A MOST WANTED MAN, the John Le Carré novel, directed by Anton Corbijn (whose CONTROL I liked a lot), and in this Hoffman is rumored to be fine. Plus there are two more HUNGER GAMES episodes and a new TV series HAPPYISH he's at least listed as involved with, but it's not certain how much of them were done when he died.

[Johann]

No I haven't seen Chloe. I haven't seen the last three of Egoyan's films. I'm way behind in my cinema viewing.
I just find it hard to believe that he made "Art-Schlock", as Mike d'Angelo says.

Inherent Vice is not at Cannes, true. And I'm surprised to learn that he skipped the festival circuit altogether with There Will Be Blood.
That's how you know he's a real filmmaker. Awards don't drive him, like Kubrick.

[Chris Knipp]

Sometimes some directors purposely avoid Cannes, others fail to get their films ready quite in time and make detailed completion the priority. Don't know what is the case with PTA.

[Chris Knipp]

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/150x100q90/838/8mdf.jpg Festival de Cannes. Sat 17 May. Day four.

REVIEWS FROM VARIOUS SOURCES.


Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 3h
Saint Laurent (Bonello): 49. Alas, this is in fact a biopic, albeit one with some captivating interludes. Drug-addled downhill slide a drag.
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GASPARD ULLIEL AT CANNES Q&A

SAINT LAURENT: This second of two YSL features this year released 5 months apart stars Gaspard Ulliel as YSL and Léa Seydoux as his muse Loulou de la Falaise, with Jérémie Renier as his partner Pierre Bergé, and others including Dominique Sanda, Louis Garrel, and Helmut Berger. The other previously released one, starring Pierre Niney and directed by Jalil Lespert, is coming out in the US shortly (Landmark). Bonello is respected for his lush, atmospheric turn-of-the century brothel study HOUSE OF TOLERANCE (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3165-Paris-movie-report-%28oct-2011%29&p=26924#post26924)(2011, which I reviewed in Paris). Guy Lodge (VARIETY (http://variety.com/2014/film/reviews/berlin-film-review-yves-saint-laurent-1201095128/)) called Lespert's YVES SAINT LAURENT "awkwardly structured" and "considerably less innovative than its human subject." This one also reviewed by Lodge (http://variety.com/2014/film/reviews/cannes-film-review-saint-laurent-1201184381/) he finds considerably better: Lespert was prêt-à porter; this is pure haute couture, also more commercial, with "its bigger-name cast and audio-visual sparkle." But two films about the same guy will cause confusion and diffuse interest and returns (I say). As a fan of Ulliel I am interested to see SAINT LAURENT; as one who's seen several YSL docs and liked the energy of youngest Comédie Française member Pierree Niney in 18 YEARS OLD AND RISING (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3239-Rendez-Vous-with-French-Cinema-at-Lincoln-Center-2012&p=27431#post27431) (R-V 2012), I will watch Lespert's film too.

WILD TALES (Damián Szifrón) 4/5 STARS - GUARDIAN (Peter Bradshaw review (http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/may/17/cannes-2014-wild-tales-review-argentinian-portmanteau-movie-is-a-box-of-delights)) " Argentinian portmanteau movie [directed by Damián Szifrón] is a box of delights. Ricardo Darin features in this Pedro Almodóvar-produced collection of fine, fractious stories showing a nation at the end of its tether and a people poised to implode." WILD TALES also highly praised by VARIETY (Jay Weissberg review (http://variety.com/2014/film/reviews/cannes-film-review-wild-tales-1201184260/)) "For pure viewing pleasure, the one wild card in Cannes competition this year is unlikely to be beten....A wickedly delightful compendium of six standalone shorts united by a theme of vengeance."

THE SALVATION (Kristian Levring) well reviewed in VARIETY (Peter Debruge review) (http://variety.com/2014/film/reviews/cannes-film-review-the-salvation-1201182872/) - Danish Western shot in South Africa, with Mads Mikkelson and Eva Green. "This Danish twist on the most American of genres recycles stock elements from old Westerns, but does so in style." (Later D'Angelo saw it and gave it a 65.) MIDNIGHT SCREENINGS.

THE ROVER (David Michôd) well reviewed in VARIETY (http://variety.com/2014/film/reviews/cannes-film-review-the-rover-1201183127/)by Scott Foundas who says it well realizes the promise of Michôd's stunning debut ANIMAL KINGDOM. "Two unlikely traveling companions traverse the existential badlands of the Australian outback in 'Animal Kingdom' director's striking follow-up." Peter Bradshaw in the GUARDIAN's review (http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/may/17/the-rover-review-cannes-robert-pattinson?CMP=twt_gu) of THE ROVER (a dystopian post-apocalyptic tale starring Robert Pattinson and Guy Pearce) is less enthused, saying our expectations have to be "managed down" for this after ANIMAL KINGDOM, much less forceful, the script perhaps needing rewrites, or a return to a clearer first draft. MiIDNIGHT SCREENINGS.

THE DISAPPEARANCE OF ELEANOR RIGBY (Ned Benson) 3/5 STARS - GUARDIAN Xian Brooks review (http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/may/17/cannes-2014-review-disappearance-eleanor-rigby). It was shown at Toronto as two back-to-back featuers entitled "Him" and "Her" depicting the breakdown of a relationship (with James McAvoy and Jessica Chastain) but here they've been mashed-up, an hour cut, as "Them." Costars are many including John Hader and Isabelle Huppert as well as Cioran Hinds and William Hurt. Brooks finds good performances but a whole that feels "refrigerated." Given Brooks's remarks 3/5 seems a bit high. UN CERTAIN REGARD.

NATIONAL GALLERY (Frederick Wiseman). Documentary about the London museum has gotten favorable mention from various sources. Cannes category? Three hours, focused on working in the museum and a bit about the old masters. Andrew Pulver reviews (http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/may/17/cannes-review-national-gallery-frederick-wiseman-2014) it for the GUARDIAN.

AMOUR FOU (Jessica Haussner) Reviewed with mild favor by VARIETY (https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox) by Justin Chang: "A dryly amusing and ambiguously layered account of the famed double suicide of Heinrich von Kleist and Henriette Vogel." Not to be confused with the 2011 documentary about the relationship between Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé. UN CERTAIN REGARD.

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AMOUR FOU


Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 1h
Amour fou (Hausner): 45. I'm as indifferent to this film as its protagonists are indifferent to life itself. Looks stunning, though.



Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 1h
The Wonders (Rohrwacher): 62. Hard to believe this is the same woman who made CORPO CELESTE. Loved everything except the "German" kid.

D'Angelo didn't like CORPO CELESTE but I did (NYFF 2011 (http://filmleaf.com/?p=161)) GUARDIAN's Peter Bradshaw is mildly enthusiastic about the quiet charms of THE WONDERS/LE MERAVIGLIE (3/5 STARS: "This is an entertaining, affecting piece of work - but not wonderful.") VARIETY (Jay Weissberg review (http://variety.com/2014/film/reviews/cannes-film-review-the-wonders-1201184521/)) also likes it but they both think it's too slight. Weissberg: "Alice Rohrwacher's sophomore feature has intermittent rewards yet isn't weighty enough to justify a Cannes competish slot."

[Chris Knipp]

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/150x100q90/838/8mdf.jpg Festival de Cannes. Sat 17 May. Day four cont'd.

MIKE D'ANGELO'S CANNES 2014 RANKED TWEET RATINGS SO FAR (updated day to day).

D'Angelo is uniquely precise in his relative ratings, which even if one disagrees, are useful because he is ranking his Cannes experiences in relation to each other, and he sees and rates a lot of the films.

No rating yet:


Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 33m
Leviathan (Zvyagintsev): TBD. Easily my favorite of his; good vs. great hinges on what I decide the film implies about a specific event.


Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 5h
Au hasard Cotillard [Deux jours, une nuit] (Dardennes): 84. These guys may yet sell me on this whole "humanism" thing.


Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 4h
It Follows (Mitchell): 74. Superbly creepy premise packs metaphorical punch, isn't executed quite as inventively as I'd hoped. But AIIEEE!


Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 7h
Tu dors Nicole (Lafleur): 71. Random French-Canuck Fortnight comedy blends various influences (GHOST WORLD, F. HA) into unique sensibility.


Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 4h
Mr. Turner (Leigh): 68. Much more a conventional biopic than TOPSY-TURVY, but featuring the same delectable wealth of period detail.


Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 5h
Clouds of Sils Maria (Assayas): 67. Relentlessly brainy, to the point where it's constantly interpreting itself. Really sharp, though.


Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 14h
The Salvation (Levring): 65. Old-school Western, nothing special but expertly done. Eva Green makes a great scarred, pissed-off mute.


Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 7h
In the Name of My Daughter (Téchiné): 63. Same deal as GIRL ON THE TRAIN: Would be superb as fiction, fizzles when real-life stuff intrudes.


Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 3h
Force Majeure (Östlund): 63. I much prefer the version of this film where the couple can't talk about it. Sharp on masculinity, though.


Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 1h
The Wonders (Rohrwacher): 62. Hard to believe this is the same woman who made CORPO CELESTE. Loved everything except the "German" kid.


Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 1m
Wild Tales (Szifron): 62. Wish the shorts had anything in common (bsides being "wild"), but they're fun. Only 1/2 have a good punchline tho.


Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 40m
The Salt of the Earth (Wenders & Salgado): 62. Lets the elder Salgado's photographs and V/O annotations do the work, to oft-stirring effect.


Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 9hA
Timbuktu (Sissako): 59. Does a good job for a long while of hiding its essential nature—social-justice tract—behind loose-limbed funkiness.


Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 2h
Coming Home (Zhang): 58. Shamelessly melodramatic amalgam of the returning-POW movie and the amnesiac romance. Enjoyably cornball.


Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 3h
The Homesman (Jones): 57. Briefly thought this was making a startlingly powerful feminist statement, but false alarm. Just a buddy flick.


Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 3h
Love at First Fight (Cailley): 56. Starts out like a French version of a mediocre Sundance romcom, winds up somewhere (a bit) weirder.


Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 25m
Winter Sleep (Ceylan): 55. Epic portrait of a prick, shot in an amazing location. Admirable, w/a magnificent lead perf, but sooo grueling.


Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 3h
P'tit Quinquin (Dumont): 55. Not so much a Dumont comedy as just a long-ass Dumont film that's often really funny. Gestalt lacking for me.


Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 25m
Goodbye to Language (Godard): 54. Content is his usual gobbledygook (adjust as necessary), but holy shit he found ways to give 3-D a point.


Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 56m
Mommy (Dolan): 54. I'd watch Anne Dorval and Suzanne Clément in anything, but this just seems like a whole lot of random thrashing.


Foxcatcher (Miller): 50. MONEYBALL appealed to me with some spiky humor, but as a straight dramatist I find Miller intensely blah.


Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 3h
Saint Laurent (Bonello): 49. Alas, this is in fact a biopic, albeit one with some captivating interludes. Drug-addled downhill slide a drag.


Mike D'Angelo‏@gemko
The Captive (Egoyan): 46. Art-schlock at its art-schlockiest. Structural gamesmanship compels, but when the pieces come together, ye gods.


Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 1h
Amour fou (Hausner): 45. I'm as indifferent to this film as its protagonists are indifferent to life itself. Looks stunning, though.


Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 3h
Still the Water (Kawase): 44. Remember in 2007 when I saw PARANOID PARK and SILENT LIGHT back to back? That was awesome.


Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 14h
That Lovely Girl (Yedaya): 43. Old-school miserablism like I haven't seen in a while. Incest/rape + bulimia + cutting + just no letup.


Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 7h
Footloose (Loach): 41. Features the howler of the festival: The Lithgowian priest asking "What is this obsession with pleasure?!"


Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 5h
Maps to the Stars (Cronenberg): 35. Adjust upward if you thought SCENES FROM THE CLASS STRUGGLE IN BEVERLY HILLS was brilliant satire.


Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 21h
Grace of Monaco (Dahan): 33. A non-hack might've done something interesting w/ idea that "Princess of Monaco" was Kelly's greatest role.


Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 3h
The Self-Importance [The Search] (Hazanavicius): 25. This is what happens when you validate a guy like this with Oscars & convince him he's Major.


Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 14h
Party Girl (three young first-time directors): W/O. Chances that your mom is really fascinating enough to build a feature around: very slim.


Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 52m
Snow in Paradise (Hulme): W/O. There are hints of something odd going on in this otherwise humdrum gangster flick, but I wasn't curious.

[Chris Knipp]

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/150x100q90/838/8mdf.jpg

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/640x480q90/844/sml7.jpg (http://www.semainedelacritique.com/)

Semaine de la Critique: Complete List

IT FOLLOWS (Mitchell), which has leapt to the top of D'Angelo's ratings at the end of the day, is his first viewing in the CRITICS' WEEK competition. David Robert Mitchell (THE MYTH OF THE AMERICAN SLEEPOVER, 2011), is the only American in the list. Here are the rest:

Opening Film: Faire L’Amour, dir: Djinn Carrénard (France)
Closing Film: Hippocrate, dir: Thomas Lilti (France)

Special Screenings
Respire, dir: Mélanie Laurent (France)
L’Institutrice, dir: Nadav Lapid (Israel)

Critics’ Week Features
Più Buio Di Mezzanote*, dir: Sebastiano Riso (Italy)
The Tribe*, dir: Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy (Ukraine)
It Follows, dir: David Robert Mitchell (U.S.)
Gente De Bien*, dir: Franco Lolli (Colombia)
When Animals Dream*, dir: Jonas Alexander Arnby (Denmark)
Hope*, dir: Boris Lojkine (France)
Self Made, dir: Shira Geffen (Israel)

* Denotes first film, eligible for the Camera d’Or

Critics’ Week Shorts
Safari, dir: Gerardo Herrero (Spain)
The Chicken, dir: Una Gunjak (Croatia)
Crocodile, dir: Gaëlle Denis (UK)
Une Chambre Bleue, dir: Tomasz Siwiński (Poland)
TrueLoveStory, dir: Gitanjali Rao (India)
Petit Frère, dir: Rémi St-Michel (Canada)
A Ciambra, dir: Jonas Carpignano (Italy)
La Contre-Allée, dir: Cécile Ducrocq (France)
Les Fleuves M’Ont Laissée Descendre Où Je Voulais, dir: Laurie Lassalle (France)
Boa Noite Cinderela, dir: Carlos Conceiçao (Portugal)

IT FOLLOWS (Mitchell) HOLLYWOOD REPORTER (David Rooney review (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/follows-cannes-review-705174)) very favorable:
Writer-director David Robert Mitchell's 2010 debut, The Myth of the American Sleepover, was a gentle depiction of adolescence in the Michigan suburbs as a time of inchoate yearnings and fading innocence. He returns to that territory with the same sensitivity in It Follows, only this time the danger is far more malevolent than just plain old emotional vulnerability. Creepy, suspenseful and sustained, this skillfully made lo-fi horror movie plays knowingly with genre tropes and yet never winks at the audience, giving it a refreshing face-value earnestness that makes it all the more gripping


Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 4h
It Follows (Mitchell): 74. Superbly creepy premise packs metaphorical punch, isn't executed quite as inventively as I'd hoped. But AIIEEE!

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Competition Jury Sofia Coppola, Jane Campion, Leila Hatami,
Jeon Do-yeon and Carole Bouquet arrive for the screening of
The Wonders. Photograph: Julien Warnand/EPA [GUARDIAN]

[Johann]

D'Angelo is entertaining to read. Interesting slate of films at Cannes.
Wish I was there.

[Chris Knipp]

Maybe not as good as last two years? But it often seems that. Cannes is always great.

[Chris Knipp]

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/150x100q90/838/8mdf.jpg Festival de Cannes. 18 May. Day five.


Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 4h
The Homesman (Jones): 57. Briefly thought this was making a startlingly powerful feminist statement, but false alarm. Just a buddy flick.

THE HOMESMAN 4/5 STARS (GUARDIAN Peter Bradshaw review (http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/may/18/the-homesman-cannes-review-tommy-lee-jones-hilary-swank)) Bradshaw calls it "superbly watchable," "Tommy Lee Jones also stars in his second film as a director - a full-bodied quasi-feminist western in which he and Swank's gutsy singleton escort three disturbed women across the mid-west plains." VARIETY (Peter Debruge review0 (http://variety.com/2014/film/reviews/cannes-film-review-the-homesman-1201184932/) is favorable but less glowing, hard to detect from Debruge's description despite good cast, music, cinematography, restraint, what the charms of this film are exactly. But "just a buddy flick" seems reductive?

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GASPARD ULLIEL AS YSL

SAINT LAURENT 2/5 STARS (GUARDIAN Peter Bradsahw review) (http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/may/17/saint-laurent-cannes-2014) "A smirking deification: Bonello's Saint Laurent is a celebratory and swooningly submissive tribute to the fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent. It is hugely narcissistic, colossally long - and for all its apparently feminised sensibility and solemn talk of Saint Laurent's pioneering sympathy with women, it is as macho and phallus-worshipping as any Schwarzenegger action movie. . . Finally, Saint Laurent is a well made but bafflingly airless and claustrophobic film, like being with fashion's very own Tutenkhamen , living and dying inside his own richly appointed tomb - and sentimentally indulged to the last." Much verbiage for a film Bradshaw almost hates. One can see how this could have the beautiful, decadent moodiness of Bonello's previous HOUSE OF TOLERANCE. Wonder if Bradshaw has seen that. (This was shot on 35mm film; in the press conference (http://www.festival-cannes.com/fr/mediaPlayer/13906.html)Bonello explains why. Runtime 135 mins.) SONY PICTURES CLASSICS has picked up this as well as WILD TALES. P.s. Jalil Lespert's YVES SAINT-LAURENT, which came out in France 4 Jan. 2014, did very meciocrely with the press (Allociné critics' rating 3.0). 0

THE WONDERS (Rohrwacher/Le meraviglie, Italian, liked by D'Angelo who gave it a 62) not liked by VARIETY (Jay Weissberg review (http://variety.com/2014/film/reviews/cannes-film-review-the-wonders-1201184521/)): "Alice Rohrwacher's sophomore feature has intermittent rewards yet isn't weighty enough to justify a Cannes competish slot."

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THE WONDERS

WELCOME TO NEW YORK (Ferrara) VARIETY (Scott Foundas review) (http://variety.com/2014/film/reviews/film-review-welcome-to-new-york-1201177859/) sounds one of Ferrara's most interesting later films, if only for the physically bloated, controversial Depardieu's committed performance. Too much literal procedural stuff maybe but that pretty realisti. Bisset holds her own with Depardieu, and they play together like a Cassavetes film couple. Heavy-handed editorializing by Ferrara on American decadence included. GUARDIAN (Xian Brooks revie (http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/may/18/welcome-to-new-york-review-gerard-depardieu-abel-ferrera-cannes)w) 4/5 STARS: "a film so brazen and foolhardy that it had sections of the Cannes audience hooting in astonishment. I watched the whole thing with my jaw on the floor." CANNES MARKET.

BEAUTIFUL YOUTH (Jaime Rosales) is described in VARIETY (Peter Debruge review (http://variety.com/2014/film/reviews/cannes-film-review-beautiful-youth-1201175999/)) as more mainstream than the Spanish director's previous work, a depiction of an aimless 20-something couple with a newborn child who contemplate making porn movies. GUARDIAN raves: 3/5 STARS (Peter Bradshaw review (http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/may/18/cannes-2014-beautiful-youth-film-review)): " An intelligent, bracing study of Spanish twentysomethings doomed to unemployment and disillusion, told through the story of a couple with a newborn child." (I reviewed Rosales' SOLITARY FRAGMENTS (SFIFF 2008 (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?2265-San-Francisco-International-Film-Festival-2008&postid=20000#post20000)), a humanistic, but observationally chilly feature.) UN CERTAIN REGARD.

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BEAUTIFUL YOUTH

MAPS TO THE STARS (Croonenberg) Mike D'Antelo's tweet review (above) was a paltry 35. GUARDIAN (Peter Bradshaw review (http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/may/18/maps-to-the-stars-cannes-review-julianne-moore-robert-pattinson)) 4/5 STARS. He calls it "brilliant." "David Cronenberg's new film here at Cannes is a gripping and exquisitely horrible movie about contemporary Hollywood – positively vivisectional in its sadism and scorn. It is twisted, twisty, and very far from all the predictable outsider platitudes about celebrity culture." VARIETY (Peter Debruge review) (http://variety.com/2014/film/reviews/cannes-film-review-david-cronenbergs-maps-to-the-stars-1201185571/) suggests the screenplay, written by then-wannabe Bruce Wagner 20 years ago, is out of date. Debruge also holds that Cronenberg, who has never shot in L.A. before or even in the US, doesn't capture the feel of the city. ". . .most of Wagner’s criticisms were hatched in the early ’90s, in a pre-smartphone era, before the Internet got nasty and back when the line “Harvey’s Harvey” would have packed a lot more punch." MAPS debuts in Paris Wed., and Debruge preducts it will do better there than with Cannes critics; we'll see. (It did: Allociné press rating 4.2 so far the same, so far, as the new Dardenne brothers film as of early Wed.)

[Chris Knipp]

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/150x100q90/838/8mdf.jpg Festival de Cannes. Mon. 19 May. Day six.

MIKE D'ANGELO CANNES TWEET REVIEWS AND OTHERS CONT'D: (These two from D'Angelo he may have seen Sun. night.)


Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 14h
The Salvation (Levring): 65. Old-school Western, nothing special but expertly done. Eva Green makes a great scarred, pissed-off mute.


Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 14h
Foxcatcher (Miller): 50. MONEYBALL appealed to me with some spiky humor, but as a straight dramatist I find Miller intensely blah.

FOXCATCHER = 5/5 STARS from GUARDIAN (Peter Bradshaw review (http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/may/19/cannes-2014-foxcatcher-review-steve-carell)), so underrated by D'Angelo vs. THE SALVATION (he has graded exotic westerns a bit high in the past). Justin Chang's VARIETY review (http://variety.com/2014/film/reviews/cannes-film-review-foxcatcher-1201185646/)calls FOXCATCHER, a true 1996 sports-crime-murder story, "Perhaps the sole credible awards-season heavyweight to have emerged from this year’s Cannes Film Festival." It has an early Nov. Sony Classics release. This has unusual roles for Steve Carrel (serious, as jealous, murderous Delaware plutocrat John Du Pont ) and Channing Tatum. Also with Mark Ruffalo, Vanessa Redgrave. Title comes from du Pont's mansion's name 'Foxcatcher Farm.' This is one we're all going to see. CANNES COMPETITION. (SALVATION=MIDNIGHT SCREENINGS.)

[This actually from yesterday:]
FORCE MAJEURE (Ruben Östlund') 4/5 STARS GUARDIAN Henry Barnes review (http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/may/18/cannes-2014-force-majuere-review). This story of a man who abandons his family when an avalanche appears to come and is forever compromised when it turns out to have been just snow and fog sounds like a less minimal replay of Julia Loktov's much admired THE LONELIEST PLANET (NYFF 2011 (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival- 2011&p=26794#post26794)). I reviewed Ostlund's previous PLAY (also NYFF 2011) (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3137-New-York-Film-Festival-2011&p=26895#post26895) and so did Howard Schumann on Cinescene. (http://www.cinescene.com/howard/play.html) . Peter Debruge in VARIETY: (http://variety.com/2014/film/reviews/cannes-film-review-force-majeur-turist-1201184517/) "Visually stunning even in its most banal moments and emotionally perceptive almost to a fault, the film stands to complicate many a romantic arthouse date." This does sound like a more playable, but still highly odd and original film from Östlund, even if under "scrutiny" it seems "a bit stagnant" to Debruge. UN CERTAIN REGARD.

BIRD PEOPLE (Pascale Ferran) And we have a 'winner' or close to a rave notice anyway from D'Angelo, though we don't know yet why he rates it so high. VARIETY (Peter Debruge) only says this "curious follow-up to LADY CHATTERLEY" "will have a comfortable nest at fests
but flies too high only to risk too liittle. This is the director of the lovely LADY CHATTERLEY (SFIFF 2007 (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?1999-San-Francisco-International-Film-Festival-2007-%2850th-anniversary%29&p=17843#post17843)). This one focuses on a hinted-at offbeat romance between a mousy French hotel maid (Anais Demoustier) and an jetsetting Silicon Valley executive (Gary Newman) in mid-life crisis at De Gaule airport (Roissy) Hyatt. Keenly observational with a supernatural turn and a trick ending reviewers won't reveal that may be what D'Angelo doesn't like? HOLLYWOOD REPORTER (Jordan Minzter (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/bird-people-cannes-review-702111)) hints at a bit more of the oddball twists toward the end. Also has Roschdy Zem as the hotel clerk, Radha Mitchell as the man's wife, and a 'JULES ET JIM' style voice-over by the ubiquitous Matthieu Amalric. Opens in France 4 June. French trailer (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqNlDKmRqtE). UN CERTAIN REGARD.


Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 3h
Still the Water (Kawase): 44. Remember in 2007 when I saw PARANOID PARK and SILENT LIGHT back to back? That was awesome.


Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 3h
Bird People (Ferran): 80. Hated the last three minutes (which are crucial); adored everything else. Truly extraordinary. Read nothing.

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BIRD PEOPLE, ANAIS DEMOUSTIER

[Chris Knipp]

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/150x100q90/838/8mdf.jpg Festival de Cannes. Dowd (AV Club) vs. D'Angelo (The Dissolve). Battle of the thirty- and forty-something daily festival journalists.

D'Angelo is writing his daily Cannes essays for the new venue The Dissolve this year and the ones on AV Club have been taken over by their reviewer A.A. Dowd. Dowd's pieces lack the sharpness and personality of D'Angelo's, but promise starry-eyed enthusiasm since this is his first time ever at Cannes. Here are Dowd's films seen and ratings of them: Let's just hope these two, who are often in touch and have switched off places, are not simply interchangeable. They're clearly not but reading them side by side lets me see why I like D'Angelo's Cannes reports. One reason is the way he conveys a sense of the festival as an organic thing, breathing and changing with each day's new screenings: thus while GRACE OF MONACO "instantly flatlined," the mood was immediately corrected 24 hours later by the appearance of Mike Leigh's very fine MR. TURNER. But of course D'Angelo's confidence and command goes far beyond maintaining a sense of live drama in the festival itself, as much as that fits with daily reporting. In writing for The Dissolve now he is freed of the need to assign letter grades to films, which may be a relief for one whose 1-100 ratings are so much more precise than AV Club's A-B-C system. But this makes his dispatches harder to summarize. This is not a battle;l it's just that the formats are quite similar, and show D'Angelo as an experienced practitioner of the daily Cannes report.

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DAY FIVE, EVAN BIRD IN MAPS TO THE STARS


A.A. Dowd: AV Club.

Cannes ’14, Day One: Grace Of Monaco opens the fest with a whimper. GRACE OF MONACO: C. TIMBUKTU: B-. With the crowd on these.

Cannes ’14, Day Two: Mike Leigh makes another biopic. Mr. Turner. MR. TURNER: B. THE CAPTIVE: B. PARTY GIRL: B. THAT LOVELY GIRL: C- (He is rating MR. TURNER a bit low, CAPTIVE higher than most; THAT LOVELY GIRL oppressed him with its miserablism (he might have rated it lower; D'Angelo walked out).

Cannes ’14, Day Three: An epic, an anthology, another biopic, and a gem The gem is AMOUR FOU, but Dowd is stingy with raves (B+). The epic is WINTER SLEEP, which he thought too much of a slog (B-). The biopic is SAINT LAURENT: C. The anthology ("A welcome jolt of irreverence") is WILD TALES: B.

Cannes ’14, Day Four: Outside competition, a striking horror film debuts That revers to David Robert Mitchell's IT FOLLOWS: B+ Also rated THE HOMESMAN: B-

Cannes ’14, Day Five: Cronenberg does Lynch doing Richard Kelly. Good title and snappy photo of the 13-year-old boy actor pointing a pistol. MAPS TO THE STARS: C. FOXCATCHER: C+ (gibes with D'Angelo's low rating; description not as informative as Bradshaw's).

Cannes ’14, Day Seven (http://www.avclub.com/article/cannes-14-day-seven-ryan-gosling-brings-his-direct-204902): Ryan Gosling brings his directorial debut to the fest. Add Harmony Korine and Dario Argento to the directors Gosling is said to emulate in his poorly received directorial debut. (Catherine Shoard of GUARDIAN, an avowed fan of the actor, had good things to say about the film in a video she and her colleagues made.) Dowd gives LOST RIVER a C+. "Less a coherent movie than a wild collage" may be the best comment yet to fit with the trailer and what people have said.


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IT FOLLOWS


Mike D'Angelo: The Dissolve.

Day 1 (http://thedissolve.com/features/postcards-from-cannes/562-test/): States Of Grace D'Angelo puts his review of GRACE at the bottom "where it belongs" to focus on the truly worthy first title, MR. TURNER, after debunking the idea that Cannes has to begin with a clinker (it has begun with MOONRISE KINGDOM only recently).

Day 2: (http://thedissolve.com/features/postcards-from-cannes/565-day-2-auteur-obligations/)Auteur Obligations D'Angelo defends the presence of directorial heavyweights, none of whom is at all over the hill, he points out. But he proposes Atom Egoyan for retirement after THE CAPTIVE. When he goes into detail about it he makes a case that while the film remains mysterious it's interesting, but as the pieces fall into place it becomes too silly and muddled to take seriously. He also discusses THAT LOVELY GIRL in detail, though he sums it up as little more than "a catalogue of grotesquerie." Auteurs are fine, D'A. is saying, but they're got to live up to their reps.

Day 3: (http://thedissolve.com/features/postcards-from-cannes/568-headline-day-3-marathons-and-sprints/)Marathons And Sprints. D'A. explains how WINTER SLEEP will be seen by few stateside but at Cannes is a major event, with lots of journalists begging to be admitted to the Lumiere Theatre despite its having over 2,000 seats -- "In part, I suspect, that’s because it’s the longest film in Competition (at three hours and 16 minutes)—there’s a natural tendency for people to assume that longer = grander, better, more important. Ceylan seems to have bought into that idea himself, frankly." The first hour is "flat-out terrific," but the next two are absorbed indoors with endless petty bickering. The film still is magnificent and admirable, but much of it frankly "an endurance test." " Some movies really are just too damn long." D'Angelo explains why Bonello's SAINT LAURENT doesn't quite work and how it fails to be what you'd expect from the maker of HOUSE OF TOLERANCE. The only interesting thought sounds like that YSL makes the seeming oxymoron of "hedonistic workaholic" make sense in his own personal case. With "new kid on the competition block" D'A. explains how Damián Szifron makes his anthology pic WILD TALES (six unrelated tales) work by amusing and not wearing out any one tale's welcome. WINTER and SAINT LAURENT are marathons; WILD TALES is a sprint, or series of them. But it's too lightweight to justify being in Competition.

Day 4: (http://thedissolve.com/features/postcards-from-cannes/569-day-4-shivers/) Shivers The reference of course to IT FOLLOWS, the hip/hot newcomer horror flick, David Robert Mitchell's followup to his "lovely, beguiling debut feature" THE MYTH OF THE AMERICAN SLEEPOVER (I have still not seen it), which debuted at Cannes Critics' Week four years ago. The premise: after sex with a new lover, the protagonist is pursued by a thing that can take any form, easy to escape but always murderously in pursuit, to be escaped only by transfer by sex with someone else, but if it kills that person, it reverts back to her. This sounds Cronenbergian but isn't, D'A. says. It makes me think of Kiyoshi Kurosawa. This jumped to the top of D'A.'s listings, perhaps because he's looking for original coolness, because of suave and consistent style and showing how few trappings are needed to make a good horror movie. This was a nice day for D'A., since he also was quite charmed by Alice Rohrwacher's semi-autobiographical tale of a multicultural beekeeping family, THE WONDERS. Tommy Lee Jones's THE HOMESMAN was a disappointment to D'A. This review shows how weirdly D'A.'s full reviews have a ring of déja vu because his Twitter reviews are so spot-on. His AMOUR FOU review jut fleshes out the tweet too in a rigorously logical but also obvious way.

Day 5: (http://thedissolve.com/features/postcards-from-cannes/570-day-5-follow-the-map/) Follow The Map Maybe not such a good day for this writer, with FOXCATCHER and MAPS TO THE STARS. He found little to like in either. D'Angelo compares SCREEN and LE FILM FRANCAIS' relative Competition ratings so far (I'll give these separately) to say FOXCATCHER is going to do well in one chart and maybe both, as the really award-worthy movie so far. He does not agree at all, not feeling that Bennett Miller gets beyond his creakily obvious biopic plot points, or manages to explain why this murder took place. As for MAPS TO THE STARS, D'Angelo found Bruce Wagner's 1989 SCENES FROM THE CLASS STRUGGLE IN BEVERLY HILLS "dismally unfunny," so take it from tehre: Wagner's 20--year-old screenplay (which sounds strange) is the basis for Cronenberg's movie. Bennett Miller could have used a map: he has no destination. Cronenberg could have used something else, a different screenplay. D'Angelo felt "once again" the Competition films of the day were outshone by a feisty little movie, a refreshingly old school Western made by a Dane and starring Mads Mikkelson, THE SALVATION.

Day 6 (http://thedissolve.com/features/postcards-from-cannes/574-empathetic-automatons-of-cinematic-excellence/): Empahic Automatons of Cinematic Excellence Those are the Dardenne brothers (TWO DAYS, ONE NIGHT. And D'A. thinks their new film may be their best yet. He can't understand why Naomi Kawase is a Cannes darling: just a lot of actors mouthing her ponderous philosophical generalizations. This new one STILL THE WATER is better than her previous, but still nobody outside Cannes is likely to see it, or needs to.

Day 7: (http://thedissolve.com/features/postcards-from-cannes/577-day-7-pretensions-and-pleasures/?utm_content=buffer05088&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer) Pretensions and Pleasures. The pretensions are Hazavencius and his THE SEARCH and perhaps Ryan Gosling's high-flown Gothic noir LOST RIVER, which D'Angelo skipped (after dire "toxic" reports) in favor of an unexpected French Canadian film called JE DORS NICOLE, which he enjoyed very much in spite of its not having any particular point to make. Also a pleasure, despite its not being an ideal project for the director, was André Téchiné's IN THE NAME OF MY DAUGHTER, with Guillaume Canet and Catherine Deneuve; he (D'A.) was somewhat thrown off and by the discovery that it's based on true events, which belatedly explained its unsatisfying ending. "That damp fizzle of an ending prevents it from ranking among Téchiné’s best work. . ."

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GOODBYE TO LANGUAGE

Day 8: (http://thedissolve.com/features/postcards-from-cannes/580-day-8-reinventing-the-format/) Reinventing the format. He means Godard's GOODBYE TO LANGUAGE and Dolan's MOMMY, and he has a lot to say about both.

[Chris Knipp]

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/150x100q90/838/8mdf.jpg Festival de Cannes.

Two critics polls.

"My" Cannes 2014 coverage may be getting too long. But here to sum things up neatly in terms of contrasting critical ratinbgs is D'Angelo's collation of up to yesterday's ranking of Competition films seen so far. The French don't give a damn about MR. TURNER and THE WONDERS, and quite like SAINT LAURENT. Nobody has much use for THE CAPTIVE, and the clear favorite (even if nobody will much want to watch it) is Nuri Bilge Ceylan's WINTER SLEEP. SCREEN represents an international poll of critics; LE FILM FRANCAIS, just French ones.


SCREEN
(average rating out of four stars; I broke the three-way tie by number of 4-star ratings)

3.6 Mr. Turner (Leigh)
3.4 Winter Sleep (Ceylan)
2.6 The Wonders (Rohrwacher)
2.6 Timbuktu (Sissako)
2.6 The Homesman (Jones)
2.2 Wild Tales (Szifron)
1.7 Saint Laurent (Bonello)
1.6 The Captive (Egoyan)

LE FILM FRANÇAIS
(Note: these averages aren’t directly comparable to Screen’s, even though both essentially use a four-star scale. Just note the relative ranking.)

3.00 Timbuktu (Sissako)
2.79 Winter Sleep (Ceylan)
2.33 Saint Laurent (Bonello)
2.14 The Homesman (Jones)
1.93 Wild Tales (Szifron)
1.87 Mr. Turner (Leigh)
1.50 The Captive (Egoyan)
1.09 The Wonders (Rohrwacher)

[Chris Knipp]

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/150x100q90/838/8mdf.jpg Festival de Cannes. Tues. 20 May. Day Seven.

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COTILLARD IN TWO DAYS, ONE NIGHT

DEUX JOURS, UNE NUIT/TWO DAYS, ONE NIGHT (DARDENNE BROTHERS). A crystal-clear Palme d'Or favorite emerges with the new Dardennes movie shown this morning. It jumps to the top of D'Angelo's Cannes '14 list and other people's lists too.


Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 5h
Au hasard Cotillard [Deux jours, une nuit] (Dardennes): 84. These guys may yet sell me on this whole "humanism" thing.
GUARDIAN'S (Peter Bradshaw review ) (http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/may/20/two-days-one-night-cannes-2014-palme-d-or-favourite)5/5 STARS."The Dardenne brothers' employment rights fable looks likely to beat off stiff competition and bag them their third Palme d'Or, while star Marion Cotillard is on course for best actress."

VARIETY'S (Scott Foundas review (http://variety.com/2014/film/reviews/cannes-film-review-marion-cotillard-shines-in-two-days-one-night-1201186779/)) "The Dardenne brothers take on a movie star and lose none of their beautifully observed verisimilitude in another powerhouse slice of working-class Belgian life. . .the Dardennes once again find a richness of human experience that dwarfs most movies made on an epic canvas. Cotillard’s presence will assure the widest exposure to date of any Dardenne effort, particularly in the U.S., where IFC will distribute later this year." Releasing theatrically in France now, it has already received predictable raves (Allociné press rating 4.2 based on 6 reviews so far.

QUEEN AND COUNTRY (JOHN BOORMAN): 3/5 STARS (GUARDIAN). Peter Bradshaw review. (http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/may/20/queen-and-country-cannes-film-review-john-boorman) A sequel to Boorman's semi-autobiograpahical HOPE AND GLORY, this about a young man in Fifties England doing his military service, having more trouble with girls. "Entertaining, if lightweight..." DIRECTORS' FORTNIGHT.

COMING HOME (ZHANG YIMOU): HOLLYWOOD REPORTER Elizabeth Kerr review (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/coming-home-cannes-review-704833): " stately and polished, typical of Zhang, the film’s lack of any real thematic thrust or significant commentary ."

Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 2h
Coming Home (Zhang): 58. Shamelessly melodramatic amalgam of the returning-POW movie and the amnesiac romance. Enjoyably cornball.
This was shown at Berlin when Sony Pictures Classics bought the US distribution. (Can a movie be both "stately" and "shamelessly melodramatic"? OUT OF COMPETITION.

Another from from yesterday:
A HARD DAY (KiIM SEONG-0HUNG) VARIETY Maggie Lee review (http://variety.com/2014/film/reviews/cannes-film-review-a-hard-day-1201185578/)"A hit-and-run lands a cop in more trouble than he could ever have imagined in “A Hard Day,” a South Korean police thriller that finds helmer-scribe Kim Seong-hung handling a taut yet elaborately plotted narrative with poise, control and near-faultless technical execution." (This is a more high-action and criminal thriller version of Matthew Saville's Australian moral dilemma film FELONY [FCS 2014 (http://www.filmleaf.net/showthread.php?3686-New-Directors-New-Films-and-Film-Comment-Selects-2014&p=31898#post31898)] I reviewed in early March. Both concern cops involved in fatal hit-and-runs who cover them up.) DIRECTORS' FORTNIGHT.

[Chris Knipp]

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/150x100q90/838/8mdf.jpg Festival de Cannes 2014 Day Seven, con't.

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/320x240q90/839/ko34.jpg (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQ2Nd53ye-Y)
CLICK ON IMAGE FOR TRAILER OF 'LOST RIVER'

LOST RIVER (RYAN GOSLING) 2/5 STARS GUARDIAN (Peter Bradshaw review (http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/may/20/lost-river-cannes-review-ryan-gosling)): "Ryan Gosling flounders with directing debut....The first film in which Ryan Gosling features behind the camera rather than in front wears its influences on its sleeve and its folly all over the shop. For 'River' read 'Opportunity or 'Any Sense Of Proportion Or Humility' or maybe just 'Mind'." You can watch a teaser trailer of this debut shot in desolate Detroit: it's surreal, magic realism, arty, and owes various gestures to Refn, Malick, Lynch, a touch of Benh Zeitlin, Cianfrance, and others. Boldly visual but formless and overindulgent. Something in there somewhere though. INDIEWIRE (Lyttleton review (http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/cannes-review-ryan-goslings-lost-river-starring-christina-hendricks-saoirse-ronan-matt-smith-20140520)) provides more specific discussion. VARIETY (Justin Chang review (http://variety.com/2014/film/reviews/cannes-film-review-ryan-goslings-lost-river-1201187183/)): "Ryan Gosling makes an altogether inauspicious debut with this risible slab of Detroit gothic." UN CERTAIN REGARD.

Two more from D'Angelo:


Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 7h
Tu dors Nicole (Lafleur): 71. Random French-Canuck Fortnight comedy blends various influences (GHOST WORLD, F. HA) into unique sensibility.

Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 7h
In the Name of My Daughter (Téchiné): 63. Same deal as GIRL ON THE TRAIN: Would be superb as fiction, fizzles when real-life stuff intrudes.
HOLLYWOOD REPORTER'S David Rooney review (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/name-my-daughter-lhomme-quon-706057) calls IN THE NAME OF MY DAUGHTER (French title 'L'Homme Qu'on Aimait Trop') "a "musty, out of touch effort." Writing for the the same publication VARIETY regular Boyd van Hoeij describes (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/tu-dors-nicole-cannes-review-705839) TU DORS NICOLE (which is French Canadian, and the "third idiosyncratic directorial outing of Quebec editor Stephane Lafleur." as "shot in gorgeous, black-and-white 35mm" and "an affecting, funny and eccentric -- in the best sense of the word -- meditation on that in-between state that people in their early twenties find themselves, as they are technically old enough to participate fully in all of life’s activities but they still lack the experience to know what they really want or what’s really good for them."

Still coming in Competition in Cannes 2014's remaining days:

ASSAYAS' CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA
GODARD'S GOODBYE TO LANGUAGE
HAZANAVICIUS' THE SEARCH
LOACH'S JIMMY’S HALL
ANDREY ZVYAGINTSEV'S LEVIATHAN

D'Angelo chose to go to Téchiné's Out of Competition film L’HOMME QU’ON AIMAIT TROP (In the Name of my Daughter) and skip Lisandro Alonso's UN CERTAIN REGARD one JAUJA (LAND OF PLENTY) starring Viggo Mortensen, which VARIETY called "beautiful but belabored." In HOLLYWOOD REPORTER Deborah Young's review (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/land-plenty-jauja-705315) makes this 19th-century vaguely costumed flick sound interesting, a bit more 'mainstream' than this cult director's usual work (LOS MUERTOS, LIVERPOOL) and much more talky, but still enigmatic.

The festival Marché/Market films seem to have been by invitation only this year, but D'Angelo said he wasn't interested though he has watched some of them in the past. Yesterday Market included a sneak screening of Jon Stewart's directorial debut ROSEWATER starring Gael García Bernal as an Iranian-Canadian journalist. This will probably be shown at Toronto.

Showoff: Justin Bieber walking the Crosette today
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[Chris Knipp]

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/150x100q90/838/8mdf.jpg Festival de Cannes. Wed. 21 May.

THE SEARCH (Michel Hazanavicius) panned in GUARDIAN (Peter Bradshaw review (http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/may/21/the-search-cannes-review-berenice-bejo?CMP=twt_gu)) 2/5 STARS "desperately well-meaning" ..."naive and misjudged;" ...[lead role of Bérénice Béjo] "dull and complacently conceived" ... Annette Benning "frankly even more exasperating." An EU search for a lost boy's mother frankly inspired by a same-name Fred Zinneman 1948 Oscar winner. INDIEWIRE' Eric Kohn (http://www.indiewire.com/article/cannes-review-michel-hazanavicius-the-search-starring-berenice-bejo-is-a-remake-devoid-of-a-purpose?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed) calls this "a remake devoid of a purpose." Agreement seems to be his big Oscar win for THE ARTIST gave Hazanavicius license (or he thought it did) to do something he shouldn't have. D'Angelo gives it his lowest rating other than his one W/O:

Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 3h
The Self-Importance [i.e. THE SEARCH] (Hazanavicius): 25. This is what happens when you validate a guy like this with Oscars & convince him he's Major. He should return to his light comedic OSS 117 stuff (and apparently he plans to).

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/320x240q90/843/qmewo.jpg (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7vfbVJ_3WY)
CLICK ON IMAGE FOR TRAILER OF 'THE END OF LANGUAGE'

THE END OF LANGUAGE (Jean-Luc Godard) AKA ADIEU AU LANGUAGE.


Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 25m
Goodbye to Language (Godard): 54. Content is his usual gobbledygook (adjust as necessary), but holy shit he found ways to give 3-D a point. GUARDIAN 3/5 STARS: (Peter Bradshaw (http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/may/21/jean-luc-godard-goodbye-to-language-cannes-review)) calls it "chaotic, eccentric, exasperating and mad. " (Twitter) "The latest from the great director features a keynote turn from his own mutt, Miéville, erratic edits, an incomprehensible plot, mesmeric moments and a reassuringly idiosyncratic world-view." VARIETY (Scott Foundas review) (http://variety.com/2014/film/reviews/cannes-film-review-goodbye-to-language-1201188140/): 'Contempt' meets 'Lassie,' sort of, in Jean-Luc Godard’s 'Goodbye to Language,' a characteristically vigorous, playful, mordant commentary on everything from the state of movies to the state of the world from French cinema’s oldest living enfant terrible. Its title notwithstanding, Godard’s 39th feature-length work proves its maker has plenty left to say and plenty of new ways of saying it, from its freewheeling use of multiple video formats to its radical experiments in 3D. For 69 densely packed minutes that feel like an adrenaline shot to the brain, 'Goodbye' continually reaffirms that no single filmmaker has done more to test and reassert the possibilities of the moving image during the last half-century of the art form.

MAIDAN (Sergei Loznitsa) GUARDIAN 3/5 (Andrew Pulver review (http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/may/21/cannes-2014-maidan-film-review-ukraine1)) "Sergei Loznitsa's documentary about the anti-government protests that forced out Ukraine's president is a vital and urgent film – even if his rigorous method doesn't help to convey the broader picture." Loznitsa previously directed the documentary-mix fiction features MY JOY and IN THE FOG (both reviewed on Filmleaf). Leslie Felperin gushes (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/maidan-cannes-review-706197)over MAIDAN in HOLLYWOOD REPORTER: "This stunning, epic-scaled film harkens back to the heroic, journalistic roots of documentary-making and yet feels ineffably modern and formally daring. "

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/320x240q90/836/3te6.jpg (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8dscHoAlK0s)
CLICK ON IMAGE FOR TRAILER OF 'MAIDAN'


Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 56m
Mommy (Dolan): 54. I'd watch Anne Dorval and Suzanne Clément in anything, but this just seems like a whole lot of random thrashing.


Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 52m
Snow in Paradise (Hulme): W/O. There are hints of something odd going on in this otherwise humdrum gangster flick, but I wasn't curious.

MOMMY (DOLAN) GUARDIAN (Peter Bradshaw review) (http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/may/21/cannes-2014-review-mommy) 4/5 STARS: "Cannes 2014 review: Mommy - dearest work yet from Xavier Dolan
The latest from the Canadian 25-year-old is a splashy, transgressive treat, from trailer-trash chat to unexpected sex and surprising emotional depth."

MOMMY (DOLAN) VARIETY Peter Debruge review (http://variety.com/2014/film/reviews/cannes-film-review-xavier-dolans-mommy-1201188655/")) "A funny, heartbreaking and, above all, original work from Canadian enfant terrible Xavier Dolan. . . unexpectedly self-effacing fifth feature [at age 25!]" Here Dolan acknowledges that his problems with his mother starkly dramatized in the almost revenge flick I KILLED MY MOTHER were due to misunderstandings on both sides, not just hers. "It’s uncanny how much Dolan’s style and overall solipsism have evolved in five years’ time." Originality includes his use of 1:1 aspect ration, which is derivative from no one, not even himself, and in Cannes projection looks taller than it is wide.

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/320x240q90/837/1e3g.jpg
MOMMY

[Chris Knipp]

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/150x100q90/838/8mdf.jpg Festival de Cannes. Thurs. 22 May.

JIMMY'S HALL (KEN LOACH)

Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 7h
Footloose [JIMMY'S HALL] (Loach): 41. Features the howler of the festival: The Lithgowian priest asking "What is this obsession with pleasure?!"
GUARDIAN (Peter Bradshaw (http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/may/22/cannes-2014-jimmys-hall-ken-loach-review)): 3/5 STARS: "Ken Loach sets community against clergy in Jimmy Gralton biopic
Ken Loach's thoughtful take on Irish communist Jimmy Gralton's battle to save a community hall from an uptight priest is powerful, if a little pedagogic."
VARIETY (Scott Foundas (http://variety.com/2014/film/reviews/cannes-film-review-ken-loachs-jimmys-hall-1201188887/)) "Ken Loach has taken a despicable episode of modern Irish history — the 1933 deportation without trial of one of its own citizens, James Gralton — and made a surprisingly lovely, heartfelt film from it with 'Jimmy’s Hall.' A thematic sequel of sorts to his Cannes-winning 'The Wind That Shakes the Barley'. . ."

THE SALT OF THE EARTH (WENDERS, SALGADO)


Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 40m
The Salt of the Earth (Wenders & Salgado): 62. Lets the elder Salgado's photographs and V/O annotations do the work, to oft-stirring effect.

GUARDIAN (Andrew Pulver (http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/may/20/cannes-2014-the-salt-of-the-earth-film-review-sebastiao-salgado)) 4/5 STARS [/B] "A documentary portrait of the renow
ned Brazilian photographer [Sebastião Salgado] by Wim Wenders and Juliano Ribeiro Salgado manages to be both illuminating and uplifting."
VARIETY (Jay Weissberg (http://variety.com/2014/film/reviews/cannes-film-review-the-salt-of-the-earth-1201188584/)): "Wim Wenders confirms his mastery of the documentary form with this stunning ode to Sebastiao Salgado."

LEVIATHON (ZVYAGINTSEV)


Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 33m
Leviathan (Zvyagintsev): TBD. Easily my favorite of his; good vs. great hinges on what I decide the film implies about a specific event.

GUARDIAN (Peter Bradshaw (http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/may/22/cannes-2014-leviathan-review-film)): 5/5 STARS: "Leviathan - a new Russian masterpiece. . . Andrei Zvagintsev's latest is a very strong contender for the Palme d'Or - a mix of Hobbes, Chekov and the Bible, full of extraordinary images and magnificent symmetry.

VARIETY: JUSTIN CHANG predicts LEVIATHON will win the Palme d'Or.

[Chris Knipp]

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/150x100q90/838/8mdf.jpg Festival de Cannes. 22-23 May. Windup of the festival.

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/320x240q90/843/lerlw.jpg
ZVYAGINTSEV'S LEVIATHON

Big prizes? Contenders.

LEVIATHON (ANDREI ZVYAGINTSEV)

VARIETY (Yesterday, before the film was shown): "CANNES: Underscoring the still enduring attraction of movies from a select number of much-courted auteurs, Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev’s much-anticipated 'Leviathan,' is on track to sell out near all the world, of major territories, by Cannes market end." (This is mindless promo journalism,, when you think about it: to say the movies of "much-courted auteurs" have a "still enduring attraction" is redundant. Was Zvyagintsev ever "hot"? Anyway now he apparently is. That's the point. Is it why D'Angelo is being coy about how he rates LEVIATHON? The thing is, most of the Competition films have all been seen now and for a moment there's seemingly a larger field of possibilities than there really is. Besides TWO DAYS, ONE NIGHT, and now clearly LEVIATHON, there's WINTER SLEEP, FOXCATCHER, MR. TURNER, THE WONDERS, even MOMMY. Maybe TIMBUKTU. All we can be sure of is the non-successes, even turkeys: THE CAPTIVE (called CAPTIVES by the French to avoid contaminating the memory of Ackerman's La captive ), MAPS TO THE STARS. And it's obvious others that made a respectable showing are not contenders.


There has been enthusiastic discussion of some UN CERTAIN REGARD titles, some MIDNIGHT SCREENINGS, one OUT OF COMPETITION, and a couple of SPECIAL SCREENINGS. There have been a lot of interesting films. Some of them will turn up at the New York Film Festival -- where betting on prizes doesn't happen because there aren't any and just being in the Main Slate is the shared prize.

[Chris Knipp]

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/150x100q90/838/8mdf.jpg Festival de Cannes. Fri. 23 May. Last film; prize predictions.

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/320x240q90/841/5dk2c.jpg
BINOCHE, ASSAYAS, MORETZ, CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA

CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA (OLIVIER ASSAYAS) Trailer. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fkRzbL_Qwc)


Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 5h
Clouds of Sils Maria (Assayas): 67. Relentlessly brainy, to the point where it's constantly interpreting itself. Really sharp, though.

GUARDIAN (Xian Brooiks review (http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/may/23/cannes-2014-clouds-of-sils-maria-review-juliette-binoche)): 4/5 STARS: "Art is the ultimate achievement, says Olivier Assayas's meta-drama with Juliette Binoche as an ageing star, Kristen Stewart her PA and Chloë Grace Moretz the younger model – and it's nearly brilliant enough to convince us."

D'Angelo (and everybody else) starts summing up favorites for the Palme d'Or (these are not his own top films in his Twitter ratings). Peter Bradshaw tweets "tearful hugs" to everyone. Many journalists leave before the prizes.


Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 4h
Favorites in Competition (in order): Dardennes, Leigh, Assayas, Zvyagintsev, Szifron, Rohrwacher.

This means: TWO DAYS, ONE NIGHT, MR. TURNER, CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA , LEVIATHON, WILD TALES, and THE WONDERS. That's not narrowing it down much, but it eliminates earlier apparent favorites (WINTER SLEEP, FOXCATCHER).

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PRIDE

PRIDE (MATTHEW WARCHUS) GUARDIAN (Peter Bradshaw): Cannes 2014 review: Pride - Billy Elliot continued with rousing gay rights romance set during miners' strike
Theatre director Matthew Warchus makes a successful transfer to screen with a funny, no-punches-pulled tale set against the backdrop of the mid-80s 'Pits and Perverts' concerts." Bradsha also points out Warchus is taking over Kevin Spacey's job of running the Old Vic.

GUARDIAN's PETER BRADSHAW has listed his Cannes Competition prize should win/will win predictions. (http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/may/23/cannes-2014-award-predictions-peter-bradshaw)

• Palme D'Or: Mr Turner/Mr Turner

• Grand prix: TWO DAYS, ONE NIGHT (dirs. Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne)/TWO DAYS, ONE NIGHT

• Director's prize: Abderrahmane Sissako for TIMBUKTU/Xavier Dolan for MOMMY

• Jury prize: LEVIATHON (dir. Andrei Zvyagintsev)/THE WONDERS (dir. Alice Rohrwacher)

• Best screenplay: Damián Szifrón for WILD TALES/Bruce Wagner for MAPS OF THE STARS

• Best actor: Channing Tatum for FOXCATCHER/Steve Carell for FOXCATCHER

• Best actress: Marion Cotillard for TWO DAYS, ONE NIGHTt/Marion Cotillard for TWI DAYS, ONE NIGHT

VARIETY'S JUSTIN CHANG has a Cannes prize prediction piece (http://variety.com/2014/film/news/cannes-will-leviathan-win-the-palme-dor-1201190013/).


Palme d'Or: LEVIATHON
Grand Prix: MR. TURNER
Jury Prize: TIMBUKTU
Best Director: XAVIER DOLAN
Actor: STEVE CARELL
Actress: MARION COTILLARD
Screenplay: WINTER SLEEP Chang also has lengthy discussion of other possibilities and odds determined by thinking Jane Campion, who is keenly aware of Cannes history, will want NOT to reward directors who've been heavily rewarded before. WINTER SLEEP has won the FIPRESCI Prize.

UN CERTAIN REGARD PRIZES listed by Justin Chang (Variety (http://variety.com/2014/film/news/cannes-white-god-wins-un-certain-regard-prize-1201190254/))


WHITE GOD, Hungarian helmer Kornel Mundruczo’s audacious drama about a canine uprising, won the Un Certain Regard Prize at the Cannes Film Festival on Friday.

The jury prize was given to FORCE MAJEURE, Scandinavian helmer Ruben Ostlund’s sharply comedic tale of a family weathering a crisis while on vacation at a ski lodge. Ostlund was previously in Un Certain Regard with 2011′s “Play.”

The jury awarded a special prize to THE SALT OF THE EARTH, Wim Wenders and Juliano Ribeiro Salgado’s documentary about Salgado’s photographer father, Sebastiao.

Ensemble acting honors were awarded to the cast of Un Certain Regard opener PART GIRL, the debut feature of French helmers Marie Amachoukeli, Claire Burger and Samuel Theis. The actor prize went to Aboriginal actor David Gulpilil for his performance as the title character in Rolf de Heer’s CHARLIE'S COUNTRY, a drama set in Australia’s Northern Territory.
--VARIETY, Justin Chang.

[Chris Knipp]

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/150x100q90/838/8mdf.jpg Festival de Cannes. May 23. Various early awards.

Thev FIPRESCI International Federation of Film Critics top Competition film award went to Nuri Bilge Ceylan's WINTER SLEEP, as mentioned. The Fipresci jury chose Argentine Lisandro Alonso’s JAUJA as best film in the Un Certain Regard lineup. LOVE AT FIRST FIGHT (Thomas Calley) won best film in Directors’ Fortnight and Critics’ Week sections. The jury only considered first films for this award. Abderrahmane Sissako’s TIMBUKTU won the Cannes’ Ecumenical jury prize. Wim Wenders’ THE SALT OF THE EARTH and Spaniard Jaime Rosales’ BEAUTIFUL YOUTH received commendations from the Ecumenical jury (both in Un Certain Regard).

[Chris Knipp]

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/150x100q90/838/8mdf.jpg Festival de Cannes. 23 May. Tarantino blasts the dominance of digital projection at Cannes.

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/320x240q90/838/fjd7t.jpg (http://www.festival-cannes.com/en/mediaPlayer/14369.html)
CLICK ON THIS IMAGE FOR THE CONFERENCE VIDEO

QUENTIN TARANTINO

QT BLASTS DIGITAL PROJECTION AT CANNES. (http://www.indiewire.com/article/quentin-tarantino-blasts-digital-projection-at-cannes-its-the-death-of-cinema?utm_campaign=Wildfire+Message+-+Quentin+Tarantino%3A+%22Digital+projection+is+the ...&utm_content=po_1119392&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter) It is said only his PULP FICTION, being shown to celebrate the 20th anniversary of its Cannes Palme d'Or, is getting projected in 35mm. He is angry. He grants that anyone can make a film with a cell phone now who has the tenacity, and that's a good thing, but is convinced this generation is being very stupid to be so in love with digital and he hopes the next generation will realize what it's lost and bring film projection back. "The fact that most films aren't presented in 35mm means that the world is lost. Digital projection is just television in cinema," Tarantino declared. "I'm hopeful, " he added, "that we're going through a woozy romantic period with the ease of digital."

Certainly some of the films were shot on film; Bertrand Bonello mentions in the SAINT LAURENT press conference that his new film was. I just saw Cédric Klapisch's new CHINESE PUZZLE, shot on 35mm Technicolor stock. But when they are then digitally projected to the audience, the nuances of film are suppressed. And this is a widespread, virtually universal problem now.

That's an Indiewiere story. A page with links to every Indiewire stroy for the festival in all categories is here. (http://www.indiewire.com/article/the-2014-indiewire-cannes-bible-every-review-interview-and-news-item-posted-during-run-of-festival) The conference itself, moderated by subtitle wizard Henri Béhar, is here (http://www.festival-cannes.com/en/mediaPlayer/14369.html). Watch it: Tarantino is always passionate, funny, clear, and interesting.

[Chris Knipp]

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/150x100q90/838/8mdf.jpg Festival de Cannes. May 24. More ratings and reviews of films.


Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 11h
White God (Mundruzcó): 38. Baffled by the raves and UCR prize for what's basically just a lame horror movie with delusions of grandeur.

WHITE GOD received the Un Certain Regard (UCR) Jury prize. It's said to be like Hitchcock's THE BIRDS only with dogs, and a kind of "ambiguous satire of power relations generally," according to Peter Bradshaw's GUARDIAN review, (http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/may/19/cannes-2014-review-white-god-dog-horror) where he gave it 4/5 stars. D'Angelo also explained on Twitter why he chose to skip Lisandro Alonso's AUJA, the FIPRESCI Jury's choice as best of UCR: (1) he hates Alonso; (2) it's not in Competition so not obligatory to see. If it were in Competition he'd see it despite his dislike.

(This turns up from 22 May:)
SNOW IN PARADISE (Andrew Hulme) GUARDIAN (Xian Brooks review (http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/may/22/cannes-2014-snow-in-paradise-review)) "- east London conversion, needs work
This flashy, patchy debut from former movie editor Andrew Hulme tells the real-life story of a petty criminal who turns to Islam, in part in disgust at the gentrification of the East End." An outsider UK film that got no UK funding that "gate crashes the festival through the Un Certain Regard sidebar."

(From yesterday, but appeared late:)
CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA (Olivier Assayas) VARIETY (Peter Debruge review (http://variety.com/2014/film/reviews/cannes-film-review-clouds-of-sils-maria-1201190094/)): "Contrasting styles between stars of two different generations make Cannes competition title a rich study of actorly insecurity. . .

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BINOCHE, STEWART IN CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA

Some Cannes films have opened in France and here are their Allociné press ratings:
GRACE OF MONACO (Dahan): 2.6
THE HOMESMAN (Tommy Lee Jones): 3/6
MAPS TO THE STARS (Cronenberg): 3.7
THE BLUE ROOM/LA CHAMBRE BLEUE (Amalric): 3.8
TWO DAYS, ONE NIGHT (Dardennes): 4.1

[Chris Knipp]

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/150x100q90/838/8mdf.jpg Festival de Cannes. May 24. Awards and comments on them.

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Mike D'Angelo's (in THE DISSOLVE): "Day 10: predictions and proselytization (http://thedissolve.com/features/postcards-from-cannes/586-day-10-predictions-and-proselytization/)."


D'Angelo'is predictions/preferences:

Will win/should win:

Palme d'Or:
TIMBUKTU/TWO DAYS, ONE NIGHT

Grand Prix:
LEVIATHON/MR. TURNER

Best Director:
Nuri Bilge Ceylan/Jean-Luc Godard

Best Actress:
Marion Cotillard/Kristen Stewart

Best Actor:
Timothy Spall/Haluk Bilginer (WINTER SLEEP)

Best Screenplay:
Naomi Kawase/Olivier Assayas

He got Spall right, and also guessed the Jury Prize might to to Dolan or Godard and it went to both.

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NURI BILGE CEYLAN ACCEPTING PALME D'OR


Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 1h
Is it overly cynical if I note that the Palme went to (a) the film predicted to win before the fest even started, & (b) the longest film?

So there was a surprise. Actually several. The Dardennes not three-time winners, and a film respected but not loved given the top award, and another film less often mentioned than some given the Grand Prix. It has been thought having been a top contender three years in a row, Marion Cotillard might be awarded Best Actress, but it went to the less often mentioned Julianne Moore. Competition Jury Prize split with Godard for Xavier Dolan, an honor perhaps, but not the high award he dreamed of. Mike D'Angelo hardly had a clue about what would win and if you go back and look at the predictions by Peter Bradshaw and Justin Chang, they were far off too. This was a year where the quality was spread out more, and perhaps Bradshaw was right in assuming Jane Champion would want to keep the Competition Jury from doing anything obvious, which would have included giving the Dardenne brothers a third Palme d'Or. Many are sorry this slot went to a colder, more off-putting film and to Julianne Moore rather than the now three-times-close Marion Cotillard. It may wind up being hard to remember these choices. But it won't be hard to remember the movies that mattered here.




Actual Cannes 2014 top winners:

FEATURE FILMS
Palme d'Or
WINTER SLEEP Directed by Nuri Bilge CEYLAN

Grand Prix
LE MERAVIGLIE (THE WONDERS) Directed by Alice ROHRWACHER

Award for Best Director
Bennett MILLER for FOXCATCHER

Award for Best Screenplay
Andrey ZVYAGINTSEV for LEVIATHAN, Oleg NEGIN for LEVIATHAN

Award for Best Actress
Julianne MOORE in MAPS TO THE STARS Directed by David CRONENBERG

Award for Best Actor
Timothy SPALL in MR. TURNER Directed by Mike LEIGH

Jury Prize
MOMMY Directed by Xavier DOLAN
ADIEU AU LANGAGE (GOODBYE TO LANGUAGE) Directed by Jean-Luc GODARD

SHORT FILMS
Palme d'Or - Short Film
LEIDI Directed by Simón MESA SOTO

Short Film Special Distinction
AÏSSA Directed by Clément TREHIN-LALANNE
JA VI ELSKER (YES WE LOVE) Directed by Hallvar WITZØ

Camera d'Or went to PARTY GIRL Directed by Samuel THEIS, Claire BURGER, Marie AMACHOUKELI

Lately D'Angelo reported watching Thomas Calley's Directors' Fortnight winner LES COMBATANTS/LOVE AT FIRST FIGHT, but he appears not to have given it a thumbnail review and number on Twitter.

The awards ceremony was moved up a day because of European elections. (What elections?)

[Chris Knipp]

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/150x100q90/838/8mdf.jpg Festival de Cannes. May 25, 2014. Final day. Other awards, etc.

(These were announced before the Competition top awards.)
Un Certain Regard

Jury: Pablo Trapero, Peter Becker, Maria Bonnevie, Géraldine Pailhas and Moussa Touré .

Prize of Un Certain Regard
Fehér Isten (White God) by Kornél Mundruczó

Jury Prize
Tourist by Ruben Östlund

Un Certain Regard Special Prize
The Salt of the Earth by Wim Wenders and Juliano Ribeiro Salgado

Ensemble Prize
Party Girl by Marie Amachoukeli, Claire Burger and Samuel Theis

Prize of the Best Actor
David Gulpill in Charlie’s Country by Rolf de Heer



Critics' Week/Semaine de la critiue

Grand Prix Nespresso
The Tribe by Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy

The Revelation Prize
The Tribe by Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy

SACD Prize
Hope by Boris Lojkine

Discovery Prize for a Short Film
A Ciambra by Jonas Carpignano

Prix Canal for a Short Film
Crocodile by Gaëlle Denis

Distribution Grant from Foundation Gan
The Tribe by Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy

D'Angelo catches a few more films, one of which, like others, he rates highly (FORCE MAJEURE):


Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 3h
Force Majeure (Östlund): 63. I much prefer the version of this film where the couple can't talk about it. Sharp on masculinity, though.


Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 3h
Love at First Fight (Cailley): 56. Starts out like a French version of a mediocre Sundance romcom, winds up somewhere (a bit) weirder.


Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 3h
P'tit Quinquin (Dumont): 55. Not so much a Dumont comedy as just a long-ass Dumont film that's often really funny. Gestalt lacking for me. He has said the last few years have been blah but he says optimistically:
Mike D'Angelo ‏@gemko 17m
Saw one 1st-rate film in each section: 2 DAYS, 1 NIGHT (Comp); BIRD PEOPLE (UCR); TU DORS NICOLE (Fortnight); IT FOLLOWS (Critics' Week).

David Gulpilil's Best Actor prize has a human interest story in the Guardian. (http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/25/cannes-best-actor-award-for-indigenous-actor-david-gulpilil) The director, Rolf de Heer, says the film, CHARLIE'S COUNTRY, is the first where Australia's best known indigenous actor been fully able to live up to his talent. Gulpilil couldn't come Cannes but he did as a teenager when he starred in Nicolas Roeg's WALKABOUT, his debut role (1971). Gulpilil is 60. De Heer made the fascinating all-Aboriginal-language film TEN CANOES (2006), which I reviewed. (http://www.chrisknipp.com/writing/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=833)