Father Geek here with our crack team of reporters from Paris and Cannes' report on the Third Day of the wonderful Cannes Film Festival...
Hello people... Edgard here with our third report on
the Cannes Festival... Just for the record (nothing to
do with Cannes), I had a very nice evening... first a
restaurant with a very charming friend of mine, then
we were walking around the Seine and who did we see ??
Milla Jovovich... making what I guess is a commercial
just there... Aaaaah Milla !! But anyway.. let's get
back to Cannes, here's our first reporter : Stanley !
Just for the record (nothing to
do with Cannes), I had a very nice evening... first a
restaurant with a very charming friend of mine, then
we were walking around the Seine and who did we see ??
Milla Jovovich... making what I guess is a commercial
just there... Aaaaah Milla !! But anyway.. let's get
back to Cannes, here's our first reporter : Stanley !
The first day where this place calmed a bit down. Not many sirously famous people were around today, at least not as many as over the last two days. The routine of screenings, press conferences and everyday press coverage has started and even the weather started to remember that it is supposed to be nice in this area of europe at this time of year.
Yesterday evening I went to see an old movie that they also showed here, Luc Besson's LE DERNIER COMBAT from 1982. I thought I knew Luc, but it seems there has been a time before SUBWAY. So this movie, for those of you who never heard of it, is all in black and white and has NO DIALOGUE. Therefore it was quite easy for me to follow the story, as I feared my french might not be sufficient. It is a sci-fi film that grabs you and entertains you, it definitely showed his potential. It already has in it Jean Reno and some elements that will always stay with Luc, including a strong sound/music track by - who else - ERIC SERRA. The screening was shortly interrupted by a fire alarm, but greatfully we were allowed back in the cinema shortly after and could finish it.
Right, now for today. In the morning, NURSE BETTY, by Neil LaBute starring Morgan Freeman, Chris Rock and Renee Zellweger. It is a comedy about a woman who witnesses the murder of her husband and therefor falls into shock. Now her way of being in shock is that she believes that she is actually part of a soap, a mixture of ER and Falcon Crest, and that she is actually having a past with them. So she goes to LA ....But you can read that anywhere. The audience gave a big applause to it, at least bigger than to the two movies I saw yesterday. I felt that it was too much of a thriller at times to be a comedy and it will therefore have a problem of finding an audience. Also frankly I hate films about anything to do with television. Trueman was alright, but I just don't like this kind of films.
Let me add this top list of movies I like and dislike so that you get an idea of how I feel about movies. Last years best to me were FIGHT CLUB and BRINGING OUT THE DEAD. My total absolutely favourite films of all time are: Dr. Strangelove, Das Boot, The Blues Brothers, Underground, Apocalypse Now, The Godfather, Amadeus, Vertigo, Leaving Las Vegas, Jules and Jim and Terminator 2. I also love the work of Burton.
Totally overrated movies to me are THE MATRIX (great effects, cool clothes, but otherwise?), Psycho (explaining everything in the end by talking - please!) and L.A. Confidential (Sorry, I never understood what was special about that film). So by knowing this you might decide if you care about what I have to say about movies or not.
RIGHT, TOMORROW - 0830 a.m.- O BROTHER WHERE ARE THOU -THE NEW COEN BROTHERS MOVIE. I AM DEFFINITELY LOOKING FORWARD TO THAT.I am continuing not to give any spoilers or anything like that, i just feel, considering me a filmmaker myself, it is so much work to make one that the best is not to listen to anything that reveals any plot, including reviews, teasers, trailers or articles on them. Best to watch it without knowing anything about it, just knowing you want to see them. The question about Ken Loach's movie: It's about janitors trying to join a union and going on strike, joined with some US imigration themes and problems. I'll try to name a few pages on the net for you next time where you can get that standard info.
Tonight, still coming up, the classic "WAR OF THE WORLDS" from 1953 by Byron Haskin. All the best from Cannes, some call it a circus - they are right.
Stanley
And now, the "other" side of Cannes with the giant GROZILLA !!!!
THE KING IS ALIVE from Kristian Levring is the fourth Dogme film coming from Denmark. Like FESTEN or THE IDIOTS, it's very strict about the setting and showing of human aspects through a community. Around ten tourists in a trip are lost in the Namibian desert. While they're waiting for rescue, they spend time in an African ghost city kept by an old man. One of them decides to play "King Lear" from what he can remember. Except the perpetual moving image, the film also surprises by a strange tone, almost like hallucinations, from time to time, like it was a fantasy film. The more the tourists lose it, the more you feel the tension, and that keeps you totally in the movie. More strange is the casting : a mix between Jennifer Jason Leigh, Bruce Davison, Romane Bohringer and the late Brion James (Leon in "Blade Runner") dead after the shooting of this film. A mix not always homogenic, maybe that was volontary from the director to keep a kind of confusion between this lost group of characters. Maybe THE KING IS ALIVE is pushing too much in that direction, by making the African guy the narrator who keeps pointing the famous"degeneration" of civilization against the wisdom of Africa. The best thing also about it is the use of digital camera; this film proves it works well with long feature.
Miike Takashi has been for some time the sensation in a certain kind of Japanese cinema. His new film AUDITION is unclassable... Seven years after the death of his wife, a producer uses the audition for a erotic film to find his new wife. He falls totally in love with an enigmatic woman who disapears after a few days. Who is she ? Does she really exist ? The first hour of the film is very perturbing. Takashi develops a slow study on the loneliness for a typical 40 years old man. Hopefully some disturbing flashes on the mysterious woman keeps the film interesting. And in the last half-hour, everything slips away, between dream and reality, you can't be sure of anything except you are just in the middle of a labyrinth between the usual themes for Japanese films : sex and death. In a few sequences, all the sexual neurosis from Japan are reviewed by Takashi : lolicomplex, sadomasochism, mutilations, slavery,... And to conclude in an amazing seance of torture based on the pleasure to feel and make feel pain. Even if the story is not the strong point of this AUDITION (the motivations of the girl are banal), Takashi delivers a great work on the form especially during the last part that makes you feel totally lost... This psycho-horrific delirium is not far from the questions asked in the universe of Kiyoshi Kurosawa and Dario Argento. Half a dozen of films from Takashi should be shown this August in Paris during the "Etrange Festival". AUDITION makes you want to know more about this strange director...
Grozilla
And once again, here's Ozymandias... always there, always ready, always... Ozy !!.. it's him, with some deals made in the frame of the Cannes Festival...
- FREQUENCY star Dennis Quaid has signed to star in STRANGER THAN THE WHEEL, the story of a man who goes on an emotional journey to shatter his father's destructive legacy. The indie picture reteams Quaid with SAVIOR director Peter ''Gaga'' Antonijevic, who will start shooting in September. Quaid will also serve as an executive producer.
- Sony-based Ray Stark's Rastar Prods. (RANDOM HEARTS) will produce THE NIGHT OF THE IGUANA based on the Tennessee Williams play, and THE DEEP FREEZE GIRLS. Jeremy Irons has committed to star in ``Iguana,'' with Kirk Douglas and Thora Birch in negotiations to co-star. ``Iguana'' is budgeted at $10 million, ``Deep'' at $13 million. Both are slated for late summer start dates. A consortium of European banks will finance. In the vein of ``Clueless'' and ``10 Things I Hate About You,'' the story of "Deep" revolves around the secret games played by a bunch of ultra-sophisticated 17-year-old American and European girls at a Swiss boarding school. It will be shot in the Netherlands.
- StudioCanal France, a unit of pay TV giant Canal Plus, will fully finance the $16 million picture SPEAKING OF SEX to be directed by John McNaughton (``Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer''). The edgy comedy about small-town hypocrisy features an ensemble cast including James Spader, Bill Murray, Jay Mohr, Lara Flynn Boyle and Catherine O'Hara. Principal photography on the picture begins May 24 in Calgary. Gary Tiechi wrote the script.
- Director Agnieszka Holland will direct JULIA WALKING HOME from a script she co-wrote with Roman Gren and Arlene Sarner. Casting is under way, with Miranda Otto (''What Lies Beneath'') among the leads under consideration. Budget is in the $4 million-$6 million range. ``Julia'' concerns a husband and wife who have different concepts of how to deal with the illness of their son. Explaining why she chose this particular project among the others offered her, Holland said, ``It's like falling in love. Sometimes I read a script I really like, but I don't want to spend a whole year doing it. Every film you make creates another emotional reality and you have to want to live there.''
- Horror maestro George Romero is back with more gore, writing and directing the indie vampire thriller THE ILL. The story follows a slacker college student who falls head over heels for a gorgeous exchange student -- Hungarian? Romanian? It's not clear. Anyway, she's got a mean streak. Death and the walking undead proliferate. Romero's latest picture, BRUISER will be released in the fall.
- Ricky Martin and Natalie Portman are in early talks to do the mambo together in a sequel to the worldwide hit "Dirty Dancing." Artisan Entertainment, the company behind "The Blair Witch Project," has teamed up with Miramax Films to update the 1987 smash. No deals have been signed yet with any talent.
And to conclude this report, we remind you that you can access a lot of events through the official Cannes Festr. website Right Here.
With a choice of seven events each day, visitors are sure not to miss the festival's most important happenings:
° press conferences,
° photo-calls,
° the climb up the palace steps,
° daily festival highlights.
