Okay, finally…wait, what? The 2012 Cannes Film Festival selections were announced early this morning. Too early to be Johnny-on-the-spot in LA. Leave me alone. I’d crashed at 1:15 am, and I like to get six hours. But a text message alarm woke me at 4-something, and so I read the rundown selections in the dark on the iPhone. Damn, no Master and no Malick. Malick is such a pain in the ass. The man lives to meditate first, hide in the shadows second and make films third. Bleedin’ Christ.

I’m assigning an HE special interest designation to those films that have I’m particularly hot for, an N for neutrals and an M for “meh.”

Competition:

Moonrise Kingdom, dir: Wes Anderson (N)
Rust & Bone, dir: Jacques Audiard (HE)
Holly Motors, dir: Leos Carax (N)
Cosmopolis, dir: David Cronenberg (HE)
The Paperboy, dir: Lee Daniels (N)
Killing Them Softly, dir: Andrew Dominik (HE)
Reality, dir: Matteo Garrone (HE)
Amour, dir: Michael Haneke (N)
Lawless, dir: John Hillcoat (HE)
In Another Country, dir: Hong Sangsoo (N)
Taste Of Money, dir: Im Sangsoo (M)
Like Someone In Love, dir: Abbas Kiarostami (M)
The Angel’s Share, dir: Ken Loach (N)
Im Nebel, dir: Sergei Loznitsa (M)
Beyond The Hills, dir: Cristian Mungiu (HE)
Baad El Mawkeaa, dir: Yousry Nasrallah
Mud, dir: Jeff Nichols (HE)
You Haven’t Seen Anything Yet, dir: Alain Resnais (M)
Post Tenebras Lux, dir: Carlos Reygadas (M)
On The Road, dir: Walter Salles (HE)
Paradis: Amour, dir: Ulrich Seidl (N)
The Hunt, dir: Thomas Vinterberg (M)
Therese Desqueyroux, dir: Claude Miller (closing film, M)

Un Certain Regard:

Miss Lovely, Ashim Ahluwalia (N)
La Playa, dir: Juan Andres Arango (N)
God’s Horses, dir: Nabil Ayouch
Trois Monde, dir: Catherine Corsini
Antiviral, dir: Brandon Cronenberg (HE)
7 Days In Havana, dirs: Benicio Del Toro, Pablo Trapero, Julio Medem, Elia Suleiman, Juan Carlos Tabio, Gaspard Noe, Laurent Cantet (HE)
Le Grand Soir, dirs: Benoit Delepine, Gustave Kervern
Laurence Anyways, dir: Xavier Dolan
Despues De Lucia, dir: Michel Franco
Aimer A Perdre La Raison, dir: Joachim Lafosse
Student, dir: Darezhan Omirbayev
La Pirogue, dir: Moussa Toure
Elefante Blanco, dir: Pablo Trapero
Confessions Of A Chile Of The Century, dir: Sylvie Verheyde
11.25 The Day He Chose His Own Fate, dir: Koji Wakamatsu
Mystery, dir: Lou Ye
Beasts Of The Southern Wild, dir: Behn Zeitlin

Out of Competition:

Io E Te, dir: Bernardo Bertolucci (HE)
Madagascar 3, Europe’s Most Wanted, dirs: Eric Darnelle, Tom McGrath (M)
Hemingway & Gelhorn, dir: Philip Kaufman (HE)

Midnight Screenings:

Dario Argento’s Dracula, dir: Dario Argento
Ai To Makoto, dir: Takashi Miike

Special Screenings:

Polluting Paradise, dir: Fatih Akin (HE)
Roman Polanski: A Film Memoir, dir: Laurent Bouzereau (HE)
The Central Park Five, dirs: Ken Burns, Sarah Burns, David McMahon
Les Invisibles, Sebastien Lifshitz
Journal De France, dirs: Claudine Nougaret, Raymond Depardon
A Musica Segundo Tom Jobim, dir: Nelson Pereira Dos Santos
Villegas, dir: Gonzalo Tobal
Mekong Hotel, dir: Apichatpong Weerasethakul