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.

“There’s a stunner of a centerpiece scene in James Schamus‘ Indignation that is quintessential Philip Roth, the author of the source novel. Played as a thrilling match of equals between Logan Lerman in a breakout performance and playwright-actor Tracy Letts in a turn that will push his estimable reputation to greater heights, this daringly extended exchange is a dialectic pitting a secular Jewish college student, resistant to suffocating authority, against a needling faculty Dean, impressed by the young man’s presentation while deploring his content. It’s characteristic of a film that is simultaneously erudite and emotional, literary and alive, that so much talk could be so enthralling.” — from David Rooney‘s Hollywood Reporter Sundance review.

Maren Ade‘s Toni Erdmann, a dry, interminable father-daughter relationship farce, screened early this evening at the Salle Debussy. People were chuckling from time to time; I was seething. It’s about a hulking, white-haired, 60ish music teacher named Winfried (Peter Simonischek) who tries to rejuvenate a distant relationship with Ines (Sandra Huller), his career-driven daughter, by parachuting into her life and pretending to be a boorish asshole named Toni Erdmann. Winfried’s strategy is to puncture Ines’ veneer by acting out a series of socially intrusive put-ons that are essentially passive-aggressive. You know going in that Ines will eventually warm to this crap but I felt more and more appalled. It got to the point that I couldn’t stand anything about Simonischek — his boorish, hostile behavior and particularly his abominable snowman appearance (jowly wattle, 2-week-old whisker beard, yellowish fake teeth, a cheap black wig he wears for a portion of the film, man boobs). I was fascinated by Huller’s life on its own terms (especially her curious relationships with certain co-workers), but the film, of course, is about Simonischek’s plan to overturn her social apple cart so he can break through. Lord knows I’ve found this or that character off-putting from time to time, but my repulsion for Simonischek was something else. I left around the 100-minute mark. I’m told there’s a great naked birthday party and an impromptu singing sequence that Huller sells for all it’s worth, but I will never even think about seeing this film again.

Imagine getting stuck in an elevator with this guy. On second thought, don’t.

If a film has been directed by Gavin O’Connor (Miracle, Pride and Glory, Warrior, Jane Got A Gun), rest assured it’ll be at least half-decent. (Miracle is/was one of the most hardcore sports film ever; Warrior was a classic of its type.) The Accountant (Warner Bros., 10.14) is about Chris Wolff (Ben Affleck), a socially awkward CPA and math savant who works as a freelance sleeper assassin for some of the world’s most dangerous criminal organizations. Written by Bill Dubuque (The Judge), pic costars Anna Kendrick, J.K. Simmons, Jon Bernthal, Jeffrey Tambor and John Lithgow.

Nearly every critic in town has fallen for Ken Loach‘s I, Daniel Blake, which screened yesterday afternoon at the Salle Debussy. I noticed a couple of women dabbing tears from their cheeks as I shuffled out. It’s another one of Loach’s social injustice sagas, this time about a 59-year-old carpenter (Dave Johns) who needs state assistance after suffering heart trouble and losing his job. The Cannes party line is that it’s about a poor guy being slowly strangled in red tape, but it’s also about an obstinate fellow who’s more committed to venting frustration than playing the system for his own benefit. It’s a sad tale but the world is full of guys like this.

Here’s a debate that ensued this morning between myself and a critic friend:

Me: “You need to calm down on I, Daniel Blake. He’s a carpenter, a joiner, a delicate craftsman, and a would-be employer offers him a job around the two-thirds mark and he turns it down because he’d rather just keep pretending to look for work so he can keep getting government checks?

“Don’t tell me it’s because he’s afraid that working will give him a heart attack because he’s already leading a life of considerable stress plus the anguish of feeling depressed. When he said ‘no, thanks’ to that job, I checked out. No sympathy. If his heart is going to fail anyway then it’s better that it fail while he’s working and earning a living with a sense of pride than to die a miserable government dependent.

“Plus he’s got an obstinate attitude all through the film. It seems more important to him to express indignation and loathing for the bureaucracy than to man up, play it smart and make things a little better for himself. He’s full of grief when Hayley Squires‘ Katie turns to prostitution but he can’t pick up a saw and some nails and do a little honest work?

“When poor Dan died at the end I was muttering ‘tough break and I’m sorry, but with your attitude and the state’s obstinacy things weren’t going to get any better, were they?

I’m under embargo for a couple of days but last night I saw the first “wow!” flick of the 2016 Cannes Film Festival. A classic kids-on-the-run tale in the vein of a ’70s Terrence Malick thing. Very handsomely composed art-genre flick. Fields of tall grass. Hello, Days of Heaven again! It’s basically Badlands meets Cop Car. I’ll be elaborating when the flag goes up on Sunday but I’m telling you this movie is everything that you want from a ripe festival discovery. I knew it was the shit less than five minutes in. Awesome cinematography, convulsive score, subdued but affecting performances.