I had slight forebodings about Jeff Nichols‘ Loving, which screened this morning at the Cannes Film Festival. Mainly whether a dramatization of the once-controversial interracial marriage between Mildred and Richard Loving would amount to anything more than a rote retelling. And I worried that the combination of Southern drawls (particularly Joel Edgerton‘s) combined with the notoriously bassy sound system in the Grand Lumiere would make for difficult listening.

Joel Edgerton, Ruth Negga in “teaser” poster for Jeff Nichols’ Loving.

Well, the film is slightly better than I expected. A warm, measured, adult-level thing. I wasn’t doing handstands in the lobby but I was telling myself “hmmm, okay, not bad.”

It’s less fact-specific than I would have preferred, and there’s the usual emphasis on emotional rapport and interplay and fine, nicely underplayed performances, my favorite being Ruth Negga‘s as Mildred. And at 123 minutes it feels maybe 20 minutes too long. And if you’re at all familiar with the facts or if you happened to catch Nancy Buirski‘s The Loving Story, a 2012 HBO doc, it’ll be hard to avoid a feeling of being narratively tied down.

But Loving is a compassionate, plain-spoken, better-than-decent film that will amost certainly pick up some award-season acclaim, particularly some Best Actress talk for Ms. Negga’s kindly, sad-eyed wife and mom. I suspect she’s the hottest contender right now for the festival’s Best Actress prize.

Nathan Morlando‘s Mean Dreams isn’t blazingly original, but I found it a handsome, pared-down thing that doesn’t give in to the usual blam-blam when a gun is purchased and push comes to shove. If a cover band really knows how to perform classic Malick rock — Badlands meets Cop Car meets Ain’t Them Bodies Saints meets A Simple Plan meets No Country for Old Men — and they include a riff or two of their own then I really don’t see the problem.

It isn’t how familiar something seems as much as how spare and straight the chops feel. Take, assimilate, make anew.  And the quality of the performances, which in this case struck me as near-perfect in the case of co-leads Josh Wiggins and Sophie Nelisse, and a bad-cop, pervy-dad turn by Bill Paxton that…okay, felt a little moustache-twirly at times and yet acceptable enough in the context of greed, alcohol and obsession. Plus Colm Meaney‘s slightly less corrupt lawman plus Steve Cosens‘ handsome cinematography and a sometimes slammy percussive score by Son Lux…solid as far as it goes.

And then along came Variety‘s Guy Lodge and The Hollywood Reporter‘s David Rooney last night with pooh-pooh reviews, essentially calling it too derivative and/or not twisty enough. I felt a little queasy as I read these reviews around 11 pm last night, as if some kind of virus had gotten into my system from the wrong kind of seafood. Lodge and Rooney and whomever else are entitled to piss on anything they want but I know it when a film feels steady and restrained and is more or less up to something honorable.

So that didn’t seem right but this has occasionally felt like a kind of Twilight Zone-y festival so far with films that I’ve felt somewhat distanced if not repelled by catching a decent amount of acclaim. Maren Ade‘s Toni Erdmann is example #1 in this regard. There’s actually a belief that it’s the strongest Palme d’Or contender thus far. Words fail. May God spare me the appalling physicality and personality of Peter Simonischek‘s performance for the rest of my time on this planet.

I’m certain that despite being overly long and a lack of a compelling, complete-feeling narrative that Andrea Arnold‘s American Honey more than compensates in other ways. And I agree with the consensus (which I haven’t time to get into with the 8:30 am Loving screening breathing down my neck) about Jim Jarmusch‘s Paterson being one of the best thus far, at least in terms of knowing itself, holding back and dealing clean, reverent cards.

It’s 1 am, I haven’t posted zip for 12 hours, and I have to get up five hours hence — terrific. It’s not that I didn’t do a lot — I just couldn’t find the discipline to tap something out in the margins. I attended the American Honey press conference and caught three films (Nathan Morlando‘s Mean Dreams at the subterranean Director’s Fortnight theatre, Asaph Polonsky‘s One Week and a Day at Critics’ Week and Jim Jarmusch‘s much-admired Paterson at the Salle Debussy) over a six hour-period, and then despite trepidations I hit the Amazon party from 10 to 11 pm. Jarmusch’s was the best of the three, but you need to be fully receptive to “restrained”, “minimalist”, “subdued” and “poem-like” to settle into it. (Just saying.) I don’t mind stating I’m a huge fan of Morlando’s film, which, yes, is derivative (it’s basically Badlands meets Cop Car) but is very handsome and well considered for that effort, and I’m furious that both Variety‘s Guy Lodge and The Hollywood Reporter‘s David Rooney blew it off. All I can do now is post photos and then get up at 5 am (Monday) for more filing before hitting the 8:30 am screening of Jeff Nichols‘ Loving.

Three or four of us managed to get American Honey director-writer Andrea Arnold to hang around and answer a few more questions following Sunday afternoon’s press conference.

Carrie Fisher during Saturday’s American Pavillion press conference about Alexis Bloom and Fisher Stevens‘ Bright Lights starring Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher, not just an in-depth capturing of Reynolds and Fisher’s mother-daughter relationship but a blunt, no-holds-barred portrait of the ravages of aging and coping with same.

Mean Dreams‘ Nathan Morlando during Saturday’s Deadline party.

During American Honey press conference (l. to r.) — Shia Labeouf, director-writer Andrea Arnold, Sasha Lane, Riley Keough.

Group photo at Sunday evening’s Amazon party.

Critics inside Salle Debussy awaiting the 7[m showing of Jim Jarmusuch’s Paterson.

One Week and a Day director Asaph Polonsky, also during Deadline party.

Mean Dreams costars Josh Wiggins, Sophie Nélisse following this afternoon’s showing at Director’s Fortnight.

The death of Madeline Lebeau, portrayer of the boozy, heartsick “Yvonne” in Casablanca, led to a re-playing of the “La Marseillaise” scene in Michael Curtiz‘s 1942 classic. And it hit me again that this scene really works. I never understood why Humphrey Bogart‘s Rick would act so coldly towards a woman who might have had issues but who had rocked his libidinal world only a day or two before. Maybe he wasn’t in love but why give her the brush-off? His attitude seemed unduly harsh when I first saw this film at age 15 or 16, and it still seems that way.

“Oldchella,” the forthcoming six-day classic rock festival (10.7 to 10.9, 10.14 thru 10.16) happening at Indio’s Polo Club (where Coachella unfolds every April), has been referred to as Desert Trip, which is what the promoters are attempting to call it. Yes, I agree that it’s not the age of the dog in the fight but the size of the fight in the aging dog, but I still wouldn’t attend with a gun at my back and a $1000 cash bribe. I’ve seen The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, The Who and Neil Young in concert before in much cooler indoor venues (i.e., minus the presence of thousands of balding, pot-bellied, sandal-wearing beefalos). Leave it there.

I fully expect Ang Lee‘s Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk (TriStar, 11.11), which appears to be a kind of Flags of Our Fathers in the realm of the Iraq War, to be at least interesting if not sturdy in terms of story, thematic resonance and acting chops. But I’m definitely down with the 120 frames-per-second format, which has never been seen in a mainstream feature before. (Peter Jackson‘s high-speed Hobbit film was shot and projected at 48 fps). The only concern or question mark is Joe Alwyn (who?) as Billy Lynn. Costars include Kristen Stewart, Chris Tucker, Garrett Hedlund, Vin Diesel, Steve Martin and Tim Blake Nelson.

Three days ago smart-ass conservative essayist P.J. O’Rourke, one of the few righties I like and admire, posted a Daily Beast piece endorsing Hillary Clinton. I was too Cannes-cranked to notice. The piece conveys the thinking of a lot of more-or-less sensible, selfish guys on the right who are grappling with “whoa, wait…Trump?”

O’Rourke: “Dorothy and Toto’s house fell on Hillary. I endorse her. Munchkins endorse her.

“Donald Trump is a flying monkey. Except what the flying monkeys have to say, ‘oreoreoreo,’ makes more sense than Trump’s policy statements.

“Not that Hillary makes much sense either.

“Hillary is wrong about everything. She is to politics and statecraft what Pope Urban VIII and the Inquisition were to Galileo. She thinks the sun revolves around herself.

“But Trump Earth is flat. We’ll sail over the edge. Here be monsters.

I’m blowing off this morning’s 9 am Cannes showing of Shane Black‘s The Nice Guys.  It’ll be playing everywhere in Europe in just a few days so I can catch it when there’s nothing better to do. I might have attended the 9 am Nice Guys showing if it weren’t playing in the Salle Bazin, which is on the smallish side and thus would have required my lining up by 8:25 or 8:30 am to be assured of a seat. Not worth the hassle.

Andrea Arnold‘s American Honey is the second truly exceptional film I’ve seen in Cannes since the festival began last Wednesday night. It’s a kind of Millenial Oliver Twist road flick with Fagin played by both Shia Labeouf and Riley Keogh (Elvis’s granddaughter) and Oliver played by Sasha Lane…but with some good earthy sex thrown in. There’s no question that Honey stakes out its own turf and whips up a tribal lather that feels exuberant and feral and non-deodorized. It doesn’t have anything resembling a plot but it doesn’t let that deficiency get in the way. Honey throbs, sweats, shouts, jumps around and pushes the nervy. (Somebody wrote that it’s Arnold channelling Larry Clark.) It’s a wild-ass celebration of a gamey, hand-to-mouth mobile way of life. And every frame of Robbie Ryan‘s lensing (at 1.37:1, no less!) is urgent and vital.

After sitting through a pair of long, somewhat punishing films back to back (Park Chan Wook‘s The Handmaiden, Steven Spielberg‘s The BFG) and then Pete Hammond‘s American Pavillion interview with Carrie Fisher and Fisher Stevens regarding Fisher’s Bright Lights doc, I briefly schlepped around and then retreated to the pad. And napped for an hour…sorry. Now it’s 6:15 pm and I have to attend a 7 pm Salle Debussy screening of Andrea Arnold‘s American Honey (a road pic about kids selling magazine subscriptions, which presumably means it’s a period film). All I have time to post right now are today’s Handmaiden and BFG tweets.  Nothing more until tomorrow morning.

In the comment thread of Gail Collins‘ 5.12 N.Y. Times piece titled “Bring Hillary and Bernie Together,” R. Adelman of Philadelphia replied as follows: “Though I support Mrs. Clinton, since her policies fall in the category of pragmatic progressivism, which has proven efficacious in the past (including during the previous administration), I am glad that Sen. Sanders persists. Yesterday he said that the American government bailed out the big banks, so now it’s their turn to help indebted college students by bailing them out, and I thought that was a reasonable statement. Sanders improves the party’s social conscience — something often lacking in the opposing party — and that improves the Democratic platform. While Secretary Clinton is the best candidate and it’s her turn, it’s fitting and proper that Sen. Sanders should persist…as a kind of conscience for the party.”

Today will be a bear — Park Chan Wook‘s The Handmaiden (145 minutes) at 8:30 am, Steven Spielberg‘s The BFG (I’m torn between wanting desperately to blow this off and submitting for obvious reasons) at 11:45 am, Andrea Arnold‘s American Honey (162 minutes) at 7 pm and Alexis Bloom & Fisher Stevens‘ Bright Lights, a Carrie Fisher-Debbie Reynolds doc, at 10:30 pm. I’m also going to try and catch Pete Hammond‘s American Pavillion interview with Fisher and Stevens at 2:30 pm.

Artist: Peter Stults.