What am I missing?

I honestly hadn’t noticed it until Facebook‘s Robert Chandler posted about it yesterday. Be honest — don’t “say” you knew all along unless you really did.

After stating that Woody Allen‘s Coup de Chance had not been officially submitted to the festival, Cannes topper Thierry Fremaux has revealed in a Le Figaro interview (page 33) that he did see it unofficially.

Fremaux also said — this is a real shocker — that even if it had been officially submitted he might have had reservations because showing it would rip the festival apart into pro- and anti-Woody camps.

Fremaux: “The Polanski, we have not seen it. The Woody Allen, it’s a bit special. I saw it without seeing it. The film was not a candidate. We also know that if his film was shown at Cannes controversy would take over the fest, both against him and against the other movies.”

Was this Fremaux conveying what he himself is actually fearful of, or was he sharing the view of the Woody camp? Either way this is flat-out cowardice. The statement essentially says “there will be too many Woody haters attending the festival, and there are serious concerns about the spectacle of the festival being convulsed by Woody hate vs. Woody defenders.”

Imagine if the Cannes Film Festival had voiced similar concerns about showing Michelangelo Antonioni‘s L’Avventura and wimped out? After screening that classic film in May 1960, it drew howls of derision. Ditto, in 1977, Marguerite Duras‘s The Truck (Le Camion) — following the Cannes showing, “Duras stood atop a flight of stairs while a crowd yelled insults at her.” Or Vincent Gallo‘s problematic but certainly brave The Brown Bunny, which screened in Cannes 20 years ago? Or, a year earlier, Gaspar Noe‘s Irreversible, which would almost certainly not be screened now due to squeamishness about the #MeToo community.

And Allen’s film, to judge from earlybird reactions posted by Showbiz 411‘s Roger Friedman and resturateur Keith McNally, is hardly an envelope pusher but a tart and crafty 90-minute noir about infidelity and murder.

Ten years ago Fremaux and the Cannes Film Festival would have been delighted to screen Coup de Chance. Now they’re letting the woke banshees control things, at least in this instqnce.

(Thanks for World of Reel‘s Jordan Ruimy for providing the Le Figaro link.)

I’m definitely not predicting that Ari Aster’s Beau Is Afraid will snag a Best Picture nomination early next year. It’s way too unconventional for those dumb-ass, easy-lay SAG-AFTRA voters who loved EEAAO, but it is the kind of unhinged, wackazoid, Fellini-esque family psychodrama that deserves such an honor.

I’m serious as a heart attack. I was expecting hell but it kind of knocked me flat. Not altogether but close. The craziest, trippiest and least predictable film I’ve seen since I don’t remember what.

It’s a nightmare comedy that’s really out there and ooh, man, does it swing for the fences! At the very least it’s a solid triple. Speaking as a confirmed LQTM-er it means something, trust me, that I laughed out loud four or five times.

I can’t call this 179-minute crazytown film “pleasant” but aside from a couple of sluggish spots it’s truly fascinating and exciting as fuck for the most part. Not a perfect film but unmistakably brave and intelligent and immaculately conceived and constructed, and certainly all of a piece.

It struck me as mining similar turf as that which the Coen’s A Serious Man lies upon, only way more surreal. Is it God or your mother who’s out to torture you to death, or are you the bad guy, consumed by cowardice and self-loathing?

During the super-imaginative first 60% to 70% I was thinking Beau would be a great film to watch with a little lysergic acid diathylamide in my system, but I wasn’t thinking along those lines during the last third, which is alternately loopy and sexual and fiercely guilt-trippy (please, mama!) and intense.

Even when it’s not fully working, it’s a brilliant tour de force on a Fellini Satyricon level…hoo-hoo and cuckoo…through the looking glass & down the white rabbit hole…a truly no-holds-barred, psychologically warped Wizard of Oz mescaline nightmare, unleashed and unloosed…a fine madness…demonic, crazy-ass shit and much of it half mind-blowing and half-hilarious.

Paunchy, balding and unshaven Joaquin Phoenix whimpers and weeps and moans his way through the whole thing, but like a hemophiliac with blood pouring out of his arm. Patti Lupone is amazing, . blistering — instant Best Supporting Actress noms. And it’s great to have Parker Posey back in the swing of it!

This is a landmark feat of imaginative wackazoid filmmaking. Yowsah!

The great Pedro Almodovar on Strange Way of Life, a Brokeback Mountain-ish, seemingly tongue-in-cheek short that will debut next month in Cannes:

The brilliant title of this post was thought up by “Filmklassik”, not me.

A few weeks ago I spoke to Marilyn Ann Moss, the Los Angeles-residing author of “The Farrows of Hollywood: Their Dark Side of Paradise” (Skyhorse, 4.11).

In late ’21 I had seen and reviewed an interesting doc about the late filmmaker, titled “John Farrow: Hollywood’s Man in the Shadows.”

My motive is speaking to Ross was to try and persuade her to tell me a bit more about Farrow’s personal life and maybe answer a couple of other dangling questions that the doc hadn’t really gotten into. Alas, Moss was more into verbal volleying for its own sake. So we just kind of chatted and danced around. Cool.

I haven’t had a chance to read her Farrow book, but Moss seems to know nearly everyone and everything…she’s really been around. And her literary credentials are impressive — author of “Raoul Walsh: The True Adventures of Hollywood’s Legendary Director” (2011) and “Giant: George Stevens, a Life on Film (2004). In 2021 the Criterion Collection released her 2019, feature-length documentary, The True Adventures of Raoul Walsh, on Blu-ray. Moss is a former film and television critic for The Hollywood Reporter and Boxoffice Magazine.

“Undimmed Saga of John Farrow,” posted on 10.17.21: Last night I watched John Farrow: Hollywood’s Man in the Shadows, a 96-minute doc about the prolific, under-rated Australian-born director. Farrow made scores of better-than-decent, lower-budgeted films (The Big Clock, Five Came Back, Calcutta, His Kind of Woman, Hondo). A skilled and dependable craftsman, he directed no drop-dead masterpieces but was great with long takes.

Married for 20-odd years to Maureen O’Sullivan while constantly catting around, the Roman Catholic Farrow sired seven children, including Mia Farrow.

Co-directors Claude Gonzalez and Frans Vandenburg have delivered a respectable effort, often edifying if less than fully satisfying, for reasons I’ll try to explain.

The sage talking heads include Australian directors Phillip Noyce, Bruce Beresford and Philippe Mora, plus film critics Todd McCarthy, David Thomson, David Stratton, Margaret Pomeranz, Imogen Sara Smith and Farran Smith Nehme. Hollywood biographer Charles Higham and Farrow’s wry look-alike son, John Charles Farrow, also participate.

I’m not a serious Farrow devotee but I respect his assurance and sense of polish and control, and his extra-long takes are Scorsese– or Coppola-level.

I’m as much of a fan of The Big Clock as the next guy. Vincent Price’s performance in His Kind of Woman is one of my all-time camp favorites of the ’40s, and Five Came Back (’39), a crashed-in-the-jungle survival story with Lucille Ball, is a keeper. I’m trying to recall if I saw Farrow’s 1956 remake, Back From Eternity. And the 3-D, John Wayne-starring Hondo is pretty good.

I understand why producer Mike Todd fired Farrow off the direction of Around the World in 80 Days (i.e., Todd wanted a less headstrong director, someone he could push around) but why exactly did Farrow lose the King of Kings gig? The filmmakers couldn’t explore that? This is one of the issues I wanted Moss to explain.

Farrow losing two high-paying 1950s prestige gigs in the space of five years is odd. It alludes to an imperious, uncooperative manner.

Was Farrow’s 1963 heart attack a genetic thing? Was it due to alcohol abuse? Farrow was only 58 when he passed — a relatively early departure for a man who wasn’t overweight.

How many years ago was this doc shot? The answer seems to be “not recently.” Three, four years ago for the most part? More?

But we’re gonna say it anyway.

Le Point has published a friendly encounter interview between Roman Polanski’s wife, actress Emmanuelle Seigner, and his long-ago victim Samantha Geimer. Journalist Peggy Sastre was the go-between.

As you might expect it’s yet another rehash of l’affaire Polanski with Geimer taking the lead with the “enough already” — a mantra she’s been repeating for many years, over and over and over.

Geimer: “Let’s be very clear — what happened with Polanski was never a big problem for me. I didn’t even know it was illegal, that someone could get arrested for it. I was fine, I’m still fine, and that this thing was made into something bigger weighs heavily on me. Having to constantly repeat that it was no big deal is a terrible burden.”

I’ve said over and over since Roman Polanski’s September ’09 Zurich bust and all the other ludicrous harassments that followed…well, you know the HE drill. The now 89-year-old director is an Art God who’s paid the price and should be left the fuck alone. He’s certainly an Art God in the eyes of The Eternals and/or any fair-minded, cinema-literate adult who understands the value of Repulsion, The Pianist, J’Accuse, The Ghost Writer, Cul de Sac, Chinatown, Rosemary’s Baby, et. al.

In 2015 Geimer told People magazine that Polanski “said he did it, he pled guilty, he went to jail…I don’t know what people want from him.”

And she’s saying the same thing now, and I’m sure you all realize this shit will never stop.

Congrats and salutations to all the films and filmmakers officially announced this morning as heading to Cannes ’23 — Todd Haynes‘ May December, Wes Anderson‘s Asteroid City, Martin Scorsese‘s already confirmed Killers of the Flower Moon, Steve McQueen‘s Occupied City, Kore-eda Hirokazu‘s Monster, Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest, Alice Rohrwacher’s La Chimera, Sam Levinson‘s The Idol and Jessica Hausner’s Club Zero.

Plus Wang Bing‘s Youth and Man in Black, Nuri Bilge Ceylan‘s About Dry Grasses (rumored to be four hours!), Kleber Mendonca Filho‘s Pictures of Ghosts, Wim Wenders‘ Perfect Days and Catherine Breillat‘s L’Ete Dernier. Plus James Mangold‘s previously announced Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and Maiwenn‘s Jeanne du Barry.

But for HE the absence of Woody Allen‘s Coup de Chance, a reportedly dark French-language drama that was recently screened and praised in Manhattan, is nothing short of devastating. How could Allen and his producers have let this rousing opportunity slip from their grasp? Woody has allegedly made his best film since Midnight in Paris or even Match Point, and they fold the Cote d’Azur tent? Because they’re afraid of the haters? Because they’re guessing Venice or San Sebastian will be friendlier?

Plus that late-breaking rumor about Alexander Payne‘s The Holdovers plotting a surprise visit turned out to be bullshit. It’s also shattering that Michel Franco’s Memory, an English-language film with Jessica Chastain, Merritt Wever, Elsie Fisher, Peter Sarsgaard and Jessica Harper, is absent from the list. Ditto Jeff Nichols‘ The Bikeriders, which costars Tom Hardy, Austin Butler and Jodie Comer…absent without leave! Yorgos Lanthimos Poor Things, a sci-fish drama with Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe, Mark Ruffalo and Ramy Youssef, also wasn’t announced this morning.

And what does it mean for Killers of the Flower Moon to have ducked a competition slot? Variety: “[Cannes topper Thierry] Frémaux said he tried and failed to convince Martin Scorsese to vie for the Palme d’Or but hasn’t given up on hopes.” On some level Scorsese and the Apple guys have apparently divined an uh-oh element in the prospect of competing.

All in all there are still enough attractions to constitute serious excitement. So let’s focus on the positive and try to dispel the feeling of absolute shock and devastation about the absence of Coup do Chance.