Day: May 17, 2006

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What’s everybody thinking about the World Trade Center trailer? I for one hate the music. It reeks of blah-blah reverence and soulful uplift and sensitivity. Parts of it feel almost Bruckheimer-ish in the worst syrupy way.

Beware, I say, of any film about a horrific situation — a film that wouldn’t have been made, let’s face it, were it not for the death and destruction backdrop — that has footage of husbands, mothers and kids hugging each other in bed while heartfelt “love is forever” music plays on the soundtrack. Beware of this! A friend wrote this morning and say the “who’s with me?” scene made him laugh out loud. The slow-motion “runnnn!” scene was a bit of a problem for him also. It looks like a professionally made A-level film, yes, but I’m getting a really funny feeling about this one…I really am.

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Angry, bitter and thoughtful words from Dave Kehr, one of the culture’s finest film critics, about the gradual disenfranchising of the film-critic elite (the recently booted Jami Bernard, the downgraded Michael Wilmington, et. al.) by their editors and publishers, presumably to save money (print ad revenues are down all over) and to allow younger, less cranky critics to be heard.

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In his just-up review, New York Times critic A.O. Scott tears into Dan Brown ‘s DaVinci Code prose style with more relish than he does Ron Howard‘s new film. He doesn’t like it, but there’s no sting in his words. There’s a shark-tank feeding frenzy going on over here…the word on DaVinci is bad, bad, bad all over…a perfect opportunity for the less discriminating to buck the tide…and Scott doesn’t seem to be feeling the spirit.

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L.A. Weekly critic Scott Foundas says that there seems to be a general downgrading of press passes this year. One senior-evel critic who’s always rated an elite white pass has this year been given a pink-with- yellow-pastille pass, and some in the pink-with-yellow-pastille fraternity have been downgraded to straight pink. (That’s me…pink all the way.)

The next level below pink is blue, and the lowest-of-the-low are the yellow passes. Richard Schickel is here doing a Cannes documentary and not a a Time critic, so he has a yellow pass. (I saw him waiting last night to see The DaVinci Code and I went over and said, “Hey, Dick…is this the pink-with-yellow-pastille line?” Schickel kind of half-scowled in his usual charming way and said, “Uhnn…no.”)

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Dreamgirls director Bill Condon and producer Larry Mark just poked their heads into the Orange Cafe and ducked out. I ran out and chased them down. Condon said he’d read my DaVinci pan earlier today, and noted I was bit kinder than most. They’re on their way to the DaVinci Code premiere and then to the party. (TV coverage of the red-carpet arrivals is on the flat screen as I write this.) This is piffle…not even a digression… but it’s fun to see friends and familiar faces wherever you turn.

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I’ve just been flopping around today in my black suit. Flopping and filing. I can’t afford to eat anything except mozarella and tomato and lettuce sandwiches, so I’m loading up on the free cappucinos at the Orange Cafe. I like free things…freedom. I want everyone to be free. I’d like to free myself, actually.

There’s nothing much to do except say hello to friends and strangers, and hang out at the American Pavillion and see Lou Ye’s Summer Palace tonight at 9 pm. The DaVinci Code premiere is about an hour away, and the post-premiere party — which will probably be an emotionally muted affair, given the reviews — starts tonight at 11 pm at the Quiaz Laubeuf, Vieux Port Cannes, under the big pyramid.

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Last year the American Pavillion had extended plug-in outlets on the floor near the tables so laptoppers could plug in and work for a long while, if needed. This year…no outlets. So unless you have a fully-charged battery that last a few hours there’s not much point in writing and posting there. I’m sorry to be the sorehead dart-thrower, but this kinda strikes me as unhelpful and ungracious. (I assume the decision not to offer plug-ins was deliberate, as a way of keeping journalists like myself from hogging the seats at the eating tables for too long.) Ah, well…there are plug-ins at the Orange Cafe and at the Palais press room, which have struck me this year as much warmer and folksier places to hang.

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One other thing: the free computers at the American Pavillion all have European keyboards. How do you type the @ sign again? How? Which key do I hit? Maybe Julie Sisk and her partners are trying to encourage American journalists to be less xenophobic and get with the European sensibility, etc. You can eventually be fluent with European keyboards, but until that happens it takes you 75% more time to write stuff.

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I finally crashed at 3 ayem Wednesday. I guess I needed the rest because I slept right through my triple-alarm system and didn’t wake until just before noon, which caused me miss the 1 pm DaVinci Code press conference and before that the 11 ayem press screening of Paris Je’taime. I met the Daily Mail ‘s Baz Bamigboye and Fox 411’s Roger Freidman just after the press conference in the Palais stairway, and they both agreed the p.c. was dull and flat, like the movie. Film Stew’s Sperling Reich (whose site went down today from all the DaVinci Code review traffic) said the same thing. Tom Hanks didn’t want to be there, they all said…he looked drained. There was one direct question about the bad reviews, and it wasn’t answered but deflcted. DaVinci producer Brian Grazer thanked Friedman after the conference for panning the film in a kind way, i.e., less viciously than most critics.

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“The thing to remember about the Cannes press, especially the film critics, is that they are global, sophisticated, pretentious and quite often vicious. They love to slam the seats at a press screening, or hiss a movie during the closing credits. That level of rejection did not occur [at Tuesday night’s DaVinci Code press screening]. But there were uncomfortable waves of titters throughout the film tonight, and when the BIG REVEAL comes, there was outright laughter.” — Anne Thompson on her RiskyBiz blog…and I have only this to add: Anne’s descriptions of the visiting Cannes press omits the fact that most of them are quite perceptive, selectively or otherwise. I’ve never known the Cannes gang to dump on a movie for the sheer perverse joy of dumping on a movie. If a movie has anything impassioned or startling or subversive to offer, somebody here will pick up on this and run it up the flagpole. But there’s nothing in The DaVinci Code that raised anyone’s temperature. It has one notable offering — Ian McKellen‘s 15-minute explanation scene (it’s nearly a soliloquy) of the biggest coverup of all time…but that’s it. All to say that the pans that came out of last night’s screening were not a result of temperament or pissy attitudes or predispostions.