In a 5.15 HuffPosting, Dana Kennedy writes that Precious costar Mo’Nique “could take Meryl Streep in an Oscar bar fight one-handed — and clean the floor with her. She scared me to death [as] the monstrous mother of an obese Harlem teenager and incest victim named Precious (an excellent Gabourey Sidibe.)

“For most of the movie, Mo’Nique is seated in an armchair in her grim apartment like a black female Dr. Evil, ordering Precious around like a servant, insulting her with the worst vitriol, forcing her to overeat — and occasionally getting up to slam her head against the wall. Mo’Nique felt so dangerous it was as if she might step out of the screen and come punch me in the face any minute.”

But Kennedy doesn’t mention Mo’Nique’s final clincher scene, shared with Sidibe and Mariah Carey in a welfare office — a scene that is pathetic, ghastly and yet emotionally wide open. Mo’Nique tries to explain how she’s “not a monster” and that she allowed her longtime boyfriend to abuse Precious from early childhood on because she didn’t have the strength to tell him not to touch her daughter and that she paradoxically came to resent Precious for diverting his interest away from her. The scene is horrific and disgusting, but unforgettable for the way Mo’Nique makes you feel just a smidgen of sympathy. (But no more than that.)

The scene made me question why director Lee Daniels never acquaints the viewer with the boyfriend-rapist-father in any depth.

It seems likely, in any case, that Mo’Nique will get some Best Supporting Actress heat out of this. Certainly with the critics groups. Older conservative Academy members might just turn off to the whole thing. But there’s no mistaking that Precious is finally about caring and compassion.

I’m telling myself this is passable enough to post because at least it captures the brilliant blue sky and the faintly misty sunlight and yaddah-yaddah. It’s very calming and good for the soul. Taken 40 minutes ago from a catwalk outside the third-floor Orange wifi cafe inside the Palais. Taking good, semipro-level video is hard, and I’m too time-crunched and not sufficiently tech-adept to edit out the weak stuff. My skills will eventually improve.

“A sort of let’s-put-on-a-show summer-camp lark for director Ang Lee after the dramatic rigors of Brokeback Mountain and Lust, Caution, Taking Woodstock serves up intermittent pleasures but is too raggedy and laid-back for its own good, its images evaporating nearly as soon as they hit the screen,” declares Variety‘s Todd McCarthy.

“Given the film’s vast canvas and ambition to provide a kaleidoscopic portrait of a generational movement, the personal issues of Demetri Martin‘s Elliot Tiber — his feelings of responsibility to his immigrant parents, closeted gay status and general behavioral uptightness — seem unduly magnified in relation to everything else that’s going on.

“Elliot (who in real life was 34 at the time, older than the ‘generation’ in question) is a mild-mannered, unassertive guy without much electricity as a central screen presence. In the role’s conception and casting, Elliot is clearly patterned after Dustin Hoffman‘s Benjamin Braddock in The Graduate, but the effect isn’t remotely the same.

“Despite being temporally defined by the run-up to the fest and the weekend itself, the pic has a formless, unstructured feel, as its attention jumps from incident to incident in almost random fashion. Some distantly heard music serves notice that Woodstock itself has begun, but the stage is only ever glimpsed from atop a faraway hill. The musical performances are clearly not the subject of the film, but there’s no denying that their absence makes Taking Woodstock feel oddly incomplete; the table is set, but the meal never gets served.

“Other than the oddly extended attention devoted to the harsh irascibility of Elliot’s unbendingly greedy mother, pic is pleasant enough on a moment-to-moment basis, but the separate sketches never coalesce into anything like a full group portrait.”

Excerpts from my 5.15 Taking Woodstock review: “It too often feels ragged and unsure of itself…Elliot’s story comes through but [it seems analagous] to a story of the D-Day Invasion that focuses on Francois, a closeted young man in his 30s who doesn’t want to work at his parents’ Normandy bakery any more…Elliot was a man of 34 who’d been around a bit — Martin plays him like Dustin Hoffman’s Benjamin Braddock…no Woodstock concert footage is mixed into Lee’s movie, and [while] I kept telling myself that it’s Eliot’s story, not Woodstock II, I wanted glimpses of the real thing…the story is weakened, in my book, by Imelda Staunton‘s strident and braying portrayal of Tiber’s mother-from-hell…[the film] doesn’t coalesce in a way that feels truly solid or self-knowing.”

The Inglourious Basterds site went live yesterday or the day before…whatever.

Okay, so I got it wrong with Guillaume Canet/Albert Brooks thing, but a note to Movieline‘s Seth Abamovitch regarding his item about same. That photo of Brooks that you call “era-appropriate” (i.e., late ’70s) is not, I’m afraid. I speculated that the photo was of Brooks in ’79 or thereabouts. His close-cropped haircut and slightly filled-out face in your photo tells me it was taken around the time of Lost in America (’85). Brooks definitely had a modest Jewfro thing going in the mid to late ’70s.

I slept through the 6:45 am wake-up and it’s now…uhm, 12:05 pm. This happens. Four days of 19-hour-a day blitzkrieging (on top of faintly lingering jetlag) and the body takes over and says “we’re getting the sleep we need — that’s it, period, end of discussion.” I won’t make the 1 pm Taking Woodstock press conference. Screenings of Ne Te Retourne Pas at 1:30, Samson and Delilah at 4:45, and Kinatay at 7:30.

It took me years of begging the Cannes Film Festival team before they finally gave me a pink-with-yellow-pastille credential, which is golden because it allows you to run into a screening at the last minute without waiting in line. The highest-level pass is white, then my kind of pass followed by pink sans pastille, blue and then yellow.

The queer thing is that high journalistic cred in the States doesn’t necessarily mean the Cannes people will acknowledge. Karina Longworth of Spoutblog couldn’t get a pass at all — she’s wearing a market badge that she had to buy. Variety‘s Michael Fleming was given a blue pass; ditto Vanity Fair‘s Julian Sancton. Wrap honcho Sharon Waxman has a yellow — bizarre.

I’m too whipped to review Lee Daniels‘ Precious (the Taking Woodstock piece did me in) but it’s an immensely sad, fully felt and deeply compassionate film with solid performances up and down, especially from Mariah Carey (much better than I expected, her best performance ever) as a welfare worker and Mo’Nique as the all-time champion mom-from-hell. I attended a Precious luncheon today from 12:40 to 1:50 pm; took this right before the press conference part began.

(l. to r.) Precious costars Lenny Kravitz, Paula Patton, Mariah Carey, director Lee Daniels, star Gabourey ‘Gabby’ Sidibe, screenwriter Damien Paul.

I don’t know what I was expecting exactly from Ang Lee‘s Taking Woodstock (Focus Features, 8.14.09), which had its first big press screening this afternoon at the Cannes Film Festival, but what I saw didn’t deliver. This backstory saga about the legendary Woodstock Music Festival of ’69 works in spots and spurts, but it too often feels ragged and unsure of itself, and doesn’t coalesce in a way that feels truly solid or self-knowing.

At best it’s a decent try, an in-and-outer. Spit it out — it’s a letdown. I’ve talked to a few critic friends since the 4:30 screening got out and all but one are feeling and saying the same.

I wish it were otherwise. I’d like to be more obliging because I love many of Lee’s films and fully respect his talent. I remember and cherish the spirit and the legend of the 1969 Woodstock Music Festival. I’m looking forward to watching the forthcoming Warner Home Video Bluray of Michael Wadleigh‘s 1970 documentary (out June 9th). And I appreciate what a massive undertaking it must have been to try and recreate it all within a dramatic prism.

James Schamus‘s script is based on the story of Eliot Tiber, the artist who stepped in and pretty much saved the disenfranchised festival by finagling a land permit in Bethel, New York. (The source is a same-titled book by Tiber and Tom Monte.) The story is basically about how a closeted gay Jewish guy got over feeling obliged to help his parents survive by helping them run their rundown El Monaco motel in White Lake, N.Y., and freed himself to live his own life.

This story comes through but it feels analagous to a story of the D-Day Invasion that focuses on Francois, a closeted young man in his 30s who doesn’t want to work at his parents’ Normandy bakery any more. (“Merci, General Eisenhower, for allowing me to move to Nice and be openly gay!”) And the Eliot story is weakened, in my book, by Imelda Staunton‘s strident and braying portrayal of Tiber’s mother-from-hell. I’ve known my share of Jewish moms and I didn’t believe her. Nobody is that humorless or stupid (in terms of recognizing economic opportunity) or dark-hearted.

And as noted, the big sprawling back-saga of how the festival came together — the element that audiences will be coming to see when it opens — too often feels catch-as-catch-can. It doesn’t seem to develop or intensify, and there’s no clean sense of chronology. (And there’s at least one glaring inaccuracy when a random festivalgoer declares a day or two before the event begins that “it’s a free concert, man…haven’t you heard?” My recollection is that it wasn’t declared free until the concert had begun and the fences had come down and the organizers realized they’d lost control.)

Taking Woodstock should have been dated here and there like The Longest Day. That way, at least, we’d have an idea of how many days are left before the festival begins, a sense of “okay, getting closer, things are heating up.”

Lee references Wadleigh’s 1970 doc by using the same split-screen editing style and by shooting it with a semblance of ’70s grainy color. But no Woodstock concert footage is mixed into Lee’s movie, and this just seems unfulfilling somehow. It’s a shame that Lee and Schamus (who also produced) and Focus Features couldn’t have worked out a cross-promotional deal with Warner Bros. that would have allowed for this. I kept telling myself that it’s Eliot’s story, not Woodstock II, but I wanted glimpses of the real thing, dammit.

Comedian Demetri Martin is steady and likable as Tiber, although too much of the time he’s been directed to look overwhelmed or mildly freaked. (This was a man of 34 who’d been around a bit — Martin plays him like Dustin Hoffman‘s Benjamin Braddock.) Eugene Levy is quite good as Max Yagur, the kindly but shrewd dairy farmer who leased the land to Woodstock Ventures. Liev Schreiber delivers a mildly amusing turn as Vilma, a blond-haired cross-dresser whom Eliot hires to provide security for the El Monaco, but his character has no real function or arc — he’s just providing Greek-chorus commentary. Jonathan Groff does a decent job as Michael Lang, the most well-known of the concert promoters, playing him as a serenely confident Zen type. (I loved the way he gets around on horseback in the second half of the film, whether or not that’s accurate — it’s a good bit.)

Emile Hirsch, Ang Lee during shooting.

It may be impossible to have characters speak in ’60s cliches without the effort feeling tiresome, but that’s what happens here. I realize that people actually used the terms “groovy” and “far out, man” back then, but every time you hear them in the film…God!

Taking Woodstock was just too big an undertaking, I suppose. In the same way that Lang and his partners instigated but couldn’t control the enormity and chaos of the ’69 festival, Lee was also overwhelmed. Tough fame, tough call, I’m sorry. Better luck next time.