Yesterday’s word on Ari Folman‘s The Congress was a little iffy and head-scratchy so I didn’t make the effort to catch it as soon as possible. I’ll get around to it — Folman is a major filmmaker and attention must be paid — but I’m not going to sprain an ankle doing so. And then Indiewire‘s Eric Kohn sent me his review this afternoon, which raised my interest levels somewhat.

“Has there ever been a movie so aggressive toward Hollywood power structures?,” Kohn asks. “From Budd Schulberg‘s 1941 novel ‘What Makes Sammy Run?’ to Robert Altman‘s The Player, storytellers have constantly assaulted the studio system, but Folman makes its evils come alive with phantasmagorical effects that force viewers to see the argument from the inside out.

“The Congress rails against commercialism with an absurdly far-fetched premise rendered in the bright palette of a Ralph Bakshi movie and a wandering surrealism that echoes Naked Lunch. Yet it’s also a wholly original and thoroughly surprising fusion of sensory overload and liberal philosophy bound to confuse and provoke in equal measures.”

I didn’t want to watch this teaser for Jon Turtletaub‘s Last Vegas because I figured it would play it right down the middle and I didn’t want that sludge in my head. What the hell, I watched it anyway. And it played it right down the effing middle — old dogs cuttin’ loose, “Welcome to Las Vegas!”, “Four vodka and Red Bulls!”, yay, we’re bombed! No surprises, no counter-current, no side-pocket shots…nothing.

This stately, impressionistic, half-painterly and faintly lewd composition indicates that Lars von Trier‘s Nymphomaniac will have a certain X-factor (as opposed to X-rated) mentality. It promises that the film will be up to something cool and off-center, although I can’t remotely guess what that might be. Charlotte Gainsbourg, Christian Slater, Shia LaBeouf, Stacy Martin, Connie Nielsen, Willem Dafoe, Stellan Skarsgard, etc.

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David Bowie‘s “Beauty and the Beast,” which is now 35 years old (Jesus!), has become the worst ear bug that I’ve had to deal with in a year or so. The only way to get rid of bugs is to listen to the song so many times that you can’t stand it any more. Most of yesterday, all last night, in my dreams, right now…won’t leave me alone.

I’m still fiddling around and shuffling the deck and not yet dealing the cards on my review, but of all the rooted, spellbinding performances in Asghar Farhadi‘s The Past the one that really put the hook in, for me, was Pauline Burlet‘s as Lucie, the elder daughter of Berenice Bejo‘s Marie. I haven’t felt this kind of surging river current in a new actress since I first saw Carey Mulligan go to town in An Education. Burlet is only 16 or 17 or something, but she’s clearly the new Marion Cotillard-plus. Indeed, she played the young Cotillard (or more precisely the young Edith Piaf) in La Vie En Rose when she was 10 or 11.

(l. to r.) The Past director-writer Asghar Farhadi, costars Berenice Bejo, Ali Mosaffa.

In my book (and this in no way compromises the value of Berenice Bejo’s lead perfoirmance), the most eye-opening performance in The Past is given by Pauline Burlet.

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The sky is blue and the sun is out! On top of which I’ve seen two phenomenal, award-destined films — strong>Ryan Coogler’s Fruitvale Station and Asghar Farhadi‘s The Past — within the past 14 hours. I’m sitting in the Orange cafe now and trying to bang something out on The Past and perhaps Fruitvale Station, although I wonder if I have it in me to write two thumbs-up reviews in a row. It’s much easier to write a slam. What makes a domestic melodrama seem soapy to a snarky few and Eugene O’Neil-ish to others? Here’s the initial Twitter dialogue on The Past:

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I’ve been hearing about Ryan Coogler‘s Fruitvale Station since last January’s Sundance Film festival, where it played through the roof. It did the same thing here tonight at the Cannes Film Festival, or more specifically at the Salle Debussy. It’s an awards-level steamroller, that’s for sure. Perhaps more on the level of critics group and Spirit Awards rather than Oscars due to limited box-office…but maybe not. Coogler, 26, has done himself proud, and cheers also to Michael B. Jordan for his vibrant and emotionally varied portrayal of the late Oscar Grant, who was aggressively if accidentally shot by a BART cop after a melee on New Year’s Eve. Cheers also to producers Forest Whitaker and Octavia Spencer.

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I attended a yacht party in Cannes today for Martin Scorsese and Silence, the long-gestating, much-delayed historical drama set in 17th Century Japan that Scorsese will finally begin directing in June 2014. Andrew Garfield, Ken Watanabe and Issei Ogata will costar. The floating soiree was thrown by Emmett/Furla Films, which is producing. The hosts were producers Randall Emmett and Emma Tillinger Koskoff.

(l.) 42West honcho Leslee Dart, (r.) director Martin Scorsese during yacht party earlier today for Silence.

Scorsese arrived about a half-hour after things began, and his publicist Leslee Dart allowed me to speak with him for about four minutes. Mainly we talked about the restored Shane (“I’m waiting to see it…I hear it looks fantastic”). He and George Stevens, Jr. conferred about Shane, he said (presumably about the aspect-ratio situation) and just before they were about to get in touch with Warner Home Video, which will release the Shane Bluray in August, they were told that WHV had flipped on the 1.66 aspect ratio position and that they’d decided to go with 1.37.

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Last night’s rainstorm was miserable all around. It felt like a monsoon in early March. Windy, almost bone-chilling, damp pants and socks. I came out of Amat Escalante‘s Heli, a miserable experience in itself (although it clearly has integrity and auteurist purity) and stood at the top of the steps of the Salle Debussy and the city was under a kind of meteorological siege. Huddled groups, hunched-over bodies, wind and umbrellas. I went to an Asian place and ordered an all-you-can-eat meal for 16 euros. And then I went home and wrote until 2 am.

An apparent attempt to simulate the look of spats, which went out of fashion about 90 years ago. George Raft: “Okay, button my spats.”

My question to Bling Ring director-writer Sofia Coppola at this afternoon’s press conference was about the stupidity factor, although I didn’t use that term. Whenever I see a film about thievery I identify with the thieves, I said. I want them to succeed, and I certainly don’t want them to get caught because of a stupid mistake. Which is precisely what the Bling gang does by ignoring the fact that all pricey homes have security cameras. Plus they don’t wear surgical gloves and plastic foot wraps — standard stuff.

Sofia basically said they were too young and too caught up in their feelings of delight at stealing all the great stuff to think about security cameras. I think they were just too dumb. Wearing masks and not leaving prints or fibres during a robbery is about as basic as it gets.

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There’s a self reflecting, shallow pool, empty-hall-of-mirrors vibe delivered by Sofia Coppola‘s The Bling Ring, which just finished screening in the Salle Debussy. I don’t know what could’ve resulted from a film about fame-worship and malignant materialism, but don’t we know about the yield of shallowness going in? Aren’t the urban GenY kids who live for some kind of nocturnal proximity to the vapidly famous…aren’t they self-parodying to begin with? Weren’t the actual Bling Ring kids extremely self-mocking before they were even caught?

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