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Here's the official 2008 Cannes Film Festival poster, but my interest levels have dropped considerably since the news about Steven Soderbergh's two Che Guevara films, The Argentine and Guerilla, most likely not being part of the festival lineup broke last night. I'd been nurturing the idea that the Soderbergh flicks would be the emotional centerpiece of the festival -- hugely ambitious, political glamour factor, controversial, hot button, Oscar contender (certainly by way of Benicio del Toro's lead performance). Without them I feel truly bummed.
Yesterday afternoon the Cannes balloon was full and ascending. This morning it's deflated and back on the ground with everyone standing around with their arms folded and saying to each other, "Hmmm....well, maybe." Variety's Todd McCarthy has written (or implied) that there's an outside chance that the Soderbergh twins might be slipped in at the last minute, but it's one of those "don't hold your breath" advisories. Now I've got this idea in my head, which I'm not married to and am willing to try and flush out, that Cannes '08 is going to be somewhere between passable and a ho-hummer.
McCarthy has also reported that Woody Allen's Vicky Christina Barcelona won't make it either -- terrific -- but the animated Kung Fu Panda (with Jack Black voicing the lead role) will. King Fu Panda?
Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York, in which Philip Seymour Hoffman plays a theater director, is a lock also.
And of course, there's the 5.18 screening of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull in a special noncompeting premiere slot. Four days before the opening...big deal. I'm half-convinced by New York "Vulture's" mention of a "mounting pre-lash" against this film. That USA Today quote from George Lucas is the clincher: "When you do a movie like this, a sequel that's very, very anticipated, people anticipate ultimately that it's going to be the Second Coming...and it's not. It's just a movie. Just like the other movies."
McCarthy also writes that the Dardenne brothers The Silence of Lorna will screen at Cannes. Ditto Wim Wenders' The Palermo Shooting and Fernando Meirelles' Blindness.
Posted by Jeffrey Wells on April 18, 2008 at 8:14 AM
comment #1
Unison
says ...
Yes, this seems like an exceptionally dull lineup compared to last year's.
Posted by Unison
at April 18, 2008 9:14 AM
comment #2
pchu
says ...
Can't wait to see the Kaufman film. My most anticipated film in 2008. Hopefully, it will be good.
Posted by pchu
at April 18, 2008 9:29 AM
comment #3
Rich S.
says ...
One of the more annoying aspects of the Star Wars prequel trilogy was their need to somehow tie everything in that trilogy to something in the first trilogy. Anakin came from Tatooine and raced in pods for Jabba the Hutt. Boba Fett's father was the basis for all the cloned Stormtroopers. Yoda fought alongside Chewbacca in the Clone Wars, and so on. It made Lucas' original broad universe feel small and constricted, like it consisted of a total of ten planets.
The more I read about Indy 4, I keep getting more of that same feeling. Marion is back (if only for a cameo). Russian agents get loose in the warehouse where they're storing the Ark. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the South American Temple in the trailer is the one from the beginning of Raiders.
I'll bet it was that "tying everything up in a neat little package" quality that took them so long with the script. If anything sinks the movie, it will be that.
Posted by Rich S.
at April 18, 2008 9:32 AM
comment #4
Walter Sobchak
says ...
This year the Cannes Film Festival celebrates 3-D!
Posted by Walter Sobchak
at April 18, 2008 9:42 AM
comment #5
gruver1
says ...
Wells to Rich S.: You've just hit it on the head. Feeling a need to "tie everything together" is the bane of the old-school screenwriter. New-school screenwriters are more into the aesthetic of "this is what it is because I wrote it that way and fuck trying to tie everything together with a big symmetrical bow so it flows and balances." As soon as I read your words a little gong sounded in my chest. That's it! Lucas and Spielberg are determined to try and tie it all together!
And yet something apparently didn't quite work or Lucas wouldn't have said "it's just a movie...just like the other movies." What other movies does he mean? The Star Wars prequels? Willow?
Any time a filmmaker says about his or her film that "it's just this" or "I hope you like it" or "it's not the Second Coming," they're saying without actually saying that it's underwhelming on this or that level. I've seen this happen at festival screenings dozens of times. The filmmaker gets on the mike before the film starts and the crowd is wildly cheering and he/she says in a half-joking, half-uncertain way, "Whoa...I hope you cheer as loudly after you see the film!"
Posted by gruver1
at April 18, 2008 10:34 AM
comment #6
JohnCope
says ...
As long as Cannes properly premieres the new Angelopoulos, the new Ceylan and Julian Hernandez's Rabioso sol, rabioso cielo I'll be more than happy.
And yeah, Rich is absolutely correct.
Posted by JohnCope
at April 18, 2008 10:40 AM
comment #7
JohnCope
says ...
As long as Cannes properly premieres the new Angelopoulos, the new Ceylan and Julian Hernandez's Rabioso sol, rabioso cielo I'll be more than happy.
And yeah, Rich is absolutely correct.
Posted by JohnCope
at April 18, 2008 10:41 AM
comment #8
corey3rd
says ...
a film festival promoting putting cardboard in front of your eyes.
I hope Kung Fu Panda wins all the fat awards
Posted by corey3rd
at April 18, 2008 11:12 AM
comment #9
diesel
says ...
no wall-e?
Posted by diesel
at April 18, 2008 2:19 PM
comment #10
hcat
says ...
Speaking of tying all the Indy movies together, I am going to be very disappointed if Blanchett turns out to secretly be Toht's or Belloq's illigitamate daughter
Posted by hcat
at April 18, 2008 2:38 PM
comment #11
lipranzer
says ...
I know I shouldn't expect more from Variety, but really, who gives a shit how many American films are at Cannes? If it's not a good lineup, that's one thing (though the new Dardennes brothers film, the Kaufman film and BLINDNESS, the book of which its based on is brilliant, all sound promising), but we aren't the center of the quality universe.
Posted by lipranzer
at April 18, 2008 3:54 PM
comment #12
Bob Violence
says ...
New Dardennes, new Ceylan, new Desplechin, new Garrel, new Rithy Pran (with Huppert? Didn't see that one coming), new Leos Carax and Bong Joon-ho (with new Michel Gondry, if that's what floats your boat), new Jia Zhangke (I thought he put that film on hold, but I guess McCarthy knows what he's talking about), new Tran Anh Hung, new Kiyoshi Kurosawa, new Eric Khoo...even allowing for the fact that some of these won't make it, I'm not convinced there's that much danger of the lineup sucking, except from the Variety bean-counter perspective.
Posted by Bob Violence
at April 19, 2008 7:28 AM
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