Day: May 19, 2011

After double-checking the SNCF train schedule pamphlet and then going the extra mile by revisiting the Cannes gare yesterday and re-confirming with an information-booth person, I had every reason to believe that I’d be able to take a 5:40 am train from Cannes to Nice. But of course, I couldn’t and didn’t. Because this particular train doesn’t run on Fridays, I was told this morning. Thanks, SNCF staffers! So I had to take a cab to Nice Airport, and it set me back 80 euros.

Nice Airport departure lounge — Friday, 5.20, 7:05 am.

Final Cannes snap — Thursday, 5.19, 8:55 pm.

Nichoias Winding Refn‘s Drive, which finished showing about 45 minutes ago, is the violent, Steve McQueen-ish, fast-car crime movie that guys like myself have been waiting for…almost. It’s a genre flick and hardly high art, and the truth is that some of the elements are under-cooked. But the things it does right are wonderful, really wonderful. For me anyway.

It’s Bullitt in the clothes of a curiously motivated stunt-car driver (a very stoic and charismatic Ryan Gosling) who moonlights as a freelance getaway guy. And yes, it has that stripped-down ’70s atmosphere in spades. And it delivers three killer performances from Gosling, Carey Mulligan and — big jolt — a darkly cynical and altogether splendid Albert Books (!), and a very fine one from Ron Perlman. It holds back, invests in silences, lets the ingredients percolate and build and then wham! And then it chills for a bit. And then wham! again. And then more quiet, waiting, looks, intimations.

It’s the kind of high-end genre flick that “they” stopped making a long time ago when “they” decided that the Fast and Furious movies were better investments. Jerks.

If I was Justin Lin, the director of Fast Five and two other Fast & Furious films, I would put on a fishing hat and a fake beard and hide out in the desert until things blow over. Lin churns out bonehead CG car fantasies that are impossible to even half-believe in. Deliberately. Lin pushes his absurdities in your face and says, “Cool, huh?” But Nicholas Winding Refn is a director, a real director, and one measure of this is that he makes you believe that much of what’s in Drive is fairly plausible. By today’s standards that’s almost a Godsend.

Parts of Drive are so carefully and cautiously dead-on and still and quiet, and are so thrillingly well-directed (or should I say well-engineered?) that I was grinning ear to ear. Smart talk, lean talk, oddly cool music, menacing aromas, superb car-chases…all to the good. And with all manner of knife-stabbings and hammers and severed arteries and head-stompings…a bit too much of this, actually, but we’ll let that slide for now.

And the early scenes between the barely verbal Gosling and Mulligan, who constitute the film’s romantic coupling, have the kind of poignant, eye-contact undercurrents that would do any straightforward guy-girl romance proud.

Why, then, does this roaring, speeding, fish-tailing, back-to-basics car movie that puts Fast Five to shame not feel entirely whole? Why does it feel like it belongs in the good company of Michael Mann‘s legendary Thief (’81), a film about a lone-wolf felon whom Gosling’s character somewhat resembles, but isn’t quite as good?

Answer: Hossein Amini‘s script makes Gosling’s driver into too much of an enigma. He doesn’t have a backstory and you don’t know what he really wants or needs. And you’re not told why he’s so efficient at fists and stabbings and gunplay. He’s just “the Zen guy” who walks slowly and waits and sizes things up before making a move. That’s okay on a certain level but I wanted more.

Anyway, I have to get up in five hours so that’s all she wrote, but there’s enough in this film to make a lot of people very happy. My only other complaint is that there’s a little too much blood, but…right, I said I was going to let that one go. For now. I’ll get into it a bit more tomorrow.

From David Poland‘s HotBlog, posted earlier today: “I have to say, it makes me kind of sick to my stomach to think that Lars von Trier, stumbling over his own ideas about being Jewish and German, basically saying stuff that has been said by high school upperclassmen and college freshmen for decades, and having it all reduced down to ‘I Heart Hitler!,’ leading to Cannes’ board meeting and saying that the filmmaker is now ‘persona non grata.’

“Seriously?

“As inarticulate as his comments and the tortured path they rambled down were, he never said anything more generous to Hilter than, ‘I think I understand the man.’ And he ‘liked” Albert Speer, which American TV networks have done, via mini-series, in the past.

“The word ‘Nazi’ was used, in the context of the press conference segment I posted last night, by von Trier as a provocative shorthand about himself. And then it snowballed into snippets that could be taken out of context. But what i heard was that he was thinking about the German mindset and the Jewish mindset and how he is caught between the two, part of the two, and understands both…even Hitler.

“Of course, von Trier was marginalized by much of the American critical community in years past as ‘anti-American,’ making it hard for some of his work to get distribution here. And there was the stupid – really stupid – claim that Anti-Christ was torture porn of some kind. This was about as accurate as saying that paintings of Christ on the cross are torture porn.

“What really disturbs me is that this is not Fox Fucking News, where anti-intellectual hysteria is a way of life (as they support everyone who would drain every last dollar out of the pockets of anyone earning less than $200k a year). This is a FILM FESTIVAL. We are film critics.

“And the media is completely complicit as we incite the rage by making headlines referring to a ‘meltdown’ or blasting ‘I am a Nazi’ all over the place, when it could not be more clearer than von Trier was NOT endorsing the mass murder of Jews or any race. And if you were to kick every filmmaker at Cannes who thinks ‘Israel is a pain in the ass’ out of the festival, it would be a quiet place indeed.

“Is von Trier an ass at times? Absolutely. Aggressive provocateur? Absolutely.

“But he is one of the few high profile filmmakers who pushes audiences to Think. You can hate what he makes, but you can’t deny that he is skilled and alive with ideas. Who will stand for this in a homogenized, instant-news-cycle culture if Film Critics and Festivals will not?”

Posted earlier today by Slant‘s Ari Arikan…enjoy.

I’ve only just gotten around to watching this Tintin teaser, which appeared yesterday. It isn’t much — teasers never are.. I could share my opinion but I have to bolt now for a screening. If anyone has a view — an honest, non-invested view — I’d love to hear it.

According to N.Y. Times reporter Michael Cieply, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s next film, Cry Macho, in which he’ll have his first starring role since setting aside his Hollywood career to become California’s Governor, contains echoes of his current Mexican maid paternity scandal.

Boiled down, Cieply states, Schwarzenegger’s character will portray a man “working out a complicated relationship with an 11-year-old who unexpectedly turned up in his life,” and who “falls in love with a Mexican woman.”

Cry Macho “was written as a novel decades ago by the playwright N. Richard Nash, who died in December 2000 at 87,” Cieply writes. “It tells the story of Mike Milo, a washed-up horse trainer — he was a rodeo cowboy until Mr. Schwarzenegger entered the picture — who schemes to make $50,000 by snatching a streetwise Mexican boy from his mother in Mexico City and delivering him to his father, Milo’s ex-boss, in Texas.

“As Milo and the boy, Rafo, get to know each other, the plan changes. The boy actually wants to connect with his father, a ne’er-do-well who is trying to have him kidnapped for leverage in a business deal. Mr. Schwarzenegger’s character falls in love with a Mexican woman. A rooster named Macho provides comic relief.

“But mostly, Cry Macho is written as a morality tale about two characters who help each other through tough transitions.”

No journalist has tried to organize a Lars Von Trier Cannes-banning protest petition so I guess I’ll have to do it, dammit. Or at least I can propose the wording of the statement:

Date: Thursday, 5.19.11

To: Cannes Film Festival Board of Directors

From: Cannes-attending Journalists & Filmmakers

Subject: Decision to Declare Lars Von Trier “Persona Non Grata” In Wake of Inflammatory Statements at 5.18.11 Press Conference

We, the undersigned, recognize the the Board’s responsibility to respond forcefully and unequivocally to the offensive statements made on Wednesday, 5.18, by Melancholia director Lars von Trier. You are a political body as well as a team dedicated to drawing annual worldwide attention to the most exciting and artful films, and in this context you were obliged to verbally admonish Mr. Von Trier, even though he sincerely apologized for these statements on the same day he made them.

We feel, however, that declaring an artist of his accomplishments and magnitude “persona non grata” is an over-reaction. We ask that you reconsider.

You no doubt understand that Mr. Von Trier is a bit of a rascal and a provocateur. He loves to poke at the hornet’s nest. We recognize, of course, that he went too far with Wednesday’s statements (although we believe they were made in jest) and that he committed a grave political error in doing so.

But Lars Von Trier is one of your own — a longtime friend of the festival — and it seems harsh and even rash to throw him under the bus in this manner. Your decision seems particularly inappropriate since he is the director of one of this year’s most emphatically praised competition entries, one which, until late yesterday morning, stood a reasonable if not better-than-decent chance of winning the Palme d’Or.

Lars von Trier is a serious and compassionate artist who has time and again made films that have, with the possible exception of Antichrist, lent immeasurable dignity and stature to your festival. His films have shown time and again that he is full of nothing if not artistic bravery. As with all artists, his films are surely a truer, deeper representation of who he is and what he feels and believes than any words he might carelessly speak at a press conference. Never trust the artist — trust the tale.

Due respect, but respect needs to be paid. Lars Von Trier, an imperfect human being like all of us, needs to be offered charity and clemency. Admonish by all means, but don’t excommunicate.

Thank you.

I’m naturally presuming that James Cameron‘s 3D re-do of Titanic, which will hit theatres in April 2012, will look significantly better than all those cheapo conversions we’ve been seeing in theatres for the last couple of years. Ask which ones were the worst and everyone defaults to Clash of the Titans, but what were the other lamentables? 2D conversions are a tacky idea to begin with, so this will have to done exactly right. If Cameron can’t deliver, no one can.

You know what I’d like to see converted into 3D with the same needlepoint care? George Stevens‘ Gunga Din (’39). Seriously.

Where’s the Titanic Bluray, by the way? I could see owning that.

Even in the backwash of The Skin That I Live In and Lars Von Trier’s banning by the Cannes Film Festival, I’m drawn to a banal observation. When I was a kid my mom would hang the family wash on an outdoor clothesline, and the super-crisp way this made my jeans and T-shirts feel was pure pleasure. Two days ago, after not knowing this wondrous sensation for decades, I re-experienced it after hanging my wash off the patio of my Old Town Cannes abode. Delightful.

The Cannes Film Festival Board of Directors has just issued a statement that not only condemns Melancholia director Lars von Trier for his put-on “I’m a Nazi” comment at yesterday’s press conference, but declares that he’s officially been shunned.

“The Festival de Cannes provides artists from around the world with an exceptional forum to present their works and defend freedom of expression and creation,” the statement reads. “The Festival’s Board of Directors, which held an extraordinary meeting this Thursday, 19 May 2011, profoundly regrets that this forum has been used by Lars Von Trier to express comments that are unacceptable, intolerable, and contrary to the ideals of humanity and generosity that preside over the very existence of the festival.

“The Board of Directors firmly condemns these comments and declares Lars Von Trier a persona non grata at the Festival de Cannes, with effect immediately.”

Well, Von Trier obviously touched a highly explosive nerve, and the Cannes team is politically obliged to say something admonishing. But this is such an over-reaction I don’t know where to begin.

Lars von Trier has, press conference-wise, often played the role of a provocateur, a kidder — he loves to poke and agitate and whip the press into a lather. Nazi-winking, even in jest, in a huge no-no, of course, but we all know that Von Trier is a serious artist and a humanitarian who, despite his impishness, has time and again made films that see through to the sad soul of things. Due respect to the Cannes team, but this is excessive. They’re swatting a fly with a double-barrelled shotgun.

Von Trier apologized for his remark yesterday, saying that “if I have hurt someone this morning by the words I said at the press conference, I sincerely apologize. I am not antisemitic or racially prejudiced in any way, nor am I a Nazi.” What more can he say?

I’m not presuming that the Cannes Board of Directors intend to ban Von Trier from the festival indefinitely, but it seems a safe bet that Melancholia hasn’t a chance of winning the Palme d’Or now. Unless the jury feels as I do and gives it to him anyway. Not likely, I’m guessing.

If any journalists and filmmakers want to sign a petition saying this whole simple-brained scandal has been inflated past the point of reason and perception and make it public, I’ll sign it and post it.

Glenn Kenny tweet: “So I assume today it’s gonna be May ’68 all over again, with Kohn and Longworth and various unnameables manning the barricades? Oui, non?”

JHoffman6 tweet: “BREAKING: Cannes organizers ban Von Trier for sympathizing with Hitler. Also, they ban their grandparents.”

At this morning’s The Skin That I Live In press conference, Pedro Almodovar explained that his creepy comic melodrama is a result of his being “in a thriller mode.” He’s also called it “a horror story without screams or frights.” Well, okay, but I wouldn’t go to this film expecting to be thrilled or scared. It’s more of a wicked-camp thing. More than a few times the crowd I saw it with erupted in giddy chuckles. And yet Skin, after a fashion, is played more-or-less straight. Always the best way to go with a wink-winker.

Elena Anaya, Antonio Banderas in The Skin I LIve In.

So…whatever, see it at a midnight screening with a hip gay crowd and prepare for doses of exceedingly dry humor and strange-itude in the general vein of David Cronenberg‘s Dead Ringers and Georges Franju‘s Eyes Without A Face. In a just-up tweet MSN’s James Rocchi has invoked Vertigo…yeah, that works.

For this is a highly perverse and, typical for Pedro, lusciously sensuous film about a mad plastic surgeon (Antonio Banderas) who goes to great lengths to…how to put this? A one-line synopsis I’ve found says it’s about a surgeon “who tries to save the life of his wife by creating a new skin.” Nope, wrong. It’s about Banderas, playing a brilliant Dr. Frankenstein-like sociopath with wealth and elegance to burn, recreating his dead wife and daughter with…well, let’s not say.

But the story is also about rape-payback and revenge and a selfish young hound getting a taste of his own medicine and having the tables turned. That’s vague enough, I think.

Let’s take a wild guess and suppose that straight, hamburger-eating, ESPN-watching guys are not going to beat down the doors to see this. But I like burgers and I had a enjoyable, better-than-okay time with it. It’s a first-class effort, beautifully shot by Jose Luis Alcaine (Volver, Bad Education) and assured and technically spot-on, etc. I’m a devout Pedro guy from way back, but I prefer his more soulful, deep-well stuff.

Pedro Almodovar, Antonio Banderas.

Almodovar also said during the press conference that he “was thinking about Fritz Lang” when he wrote the screenplay (which is based upon a book called “Tarantula” by

Thierry Jonquet). He also said he “considered” shooting it as a silent black-and-white film. That probably would have been too on-the-nose.

I had a slight issue about to what degree a person of a certain gender could become as thoroughly transformed as shown in the film, but it’s not worth picking at.

As Robert Ledgard, Banderas has delivered his most striking star-turn performance since “Che” in Evita (which I loved him in) and before that Philadelphia. In the second-lead originally intended for Penelope Cruz, Elena Anaya (Habla con Ella, Sex and Lucia) is fierce and focused as Vera, Banderas’s reconstructed guinea pig and object of desire. Costars Marisa Paredes and Jan Cornet also burn through.