Quentin Tarantino‘s stand-alone Death Proof — running 114 minutes, or 27 minutes longer than the version that showed in the second half of Grindhouse — is a slightly tangier and more filling thing, but it’s not what I would call significantly enhanced. There are several marginal augmentations — Vanessa Ferlito‘s lapdance for Kurt Russell‘s “Stuntman Mike” is the most significant — but none of them make you go “whoa!”
The best part of this enjoyably trashy tribute pic is still the car-chase sequence, but it’s the same version that appeared in Grindhouse so the throttle factor is unchanged. Truth be told, the sassy-chick dialogue that I had so much fun with during my first viewing plays just a tiny bit weaker the second time around. And the fact that the footage and the sound have an appropriately aged, scratchy quality in the first half but not in the second portion is still a little bit weird (i.e., curiously inconsistent).

Variety‘s Robert Koehler told me an hour ago in the press room that Serge Bozon‘s La France, a World War I musical with Sylvie Testud, Pascal Greggory and Guillaume Depardieu, is the best Director’s Fortnight film he’s seen by far. (He had just come from the screening.) Will HE get around to it? Doubtful, but at least I’ll be looking for it down the road. I will, however, finally see Anton Corbijn‘s Control, the black-and-white Ian Curtis suicide flick, at 6 pm.

I’ve now seen Juan Antonio Bayona‘s The Orphanage twice, which is perhaps an irresponsible thing given all the movies and events to be absorbed at the Cannes Film Festival. But it’s such a deliciously haunting and rousingly effective work that I couldn’t resist. Joel and Ethan Coen‘s No Country for Old Men is the best all-around film I’ve seen here, but The Orphanage is a very close second (with Michael Moore‘s Sicko and Michael Winterbottom‘s A Mighty Heart running third and fourth).

The Orphanage director Juan Antonio Bayona following our chat in the Majestic Hotel lounge — Wednesday, 5.23.07, 12:25 pm

Produced by Guillermo del Toro, The Orphanage is hands down the creepiest sophisticated ghost story/thriller to come along since Alejandro Amenabar‘s The Others, and if you ask me (or anyone else who’s seen it here) it absolutely deserves a ranking alongside other haunted-by-small-children classics as Jack Clayton‘s The Innocents and Nicolas Roeg‘s Don’t Look Now. It also recalls Robert Wise‘s The Haunting, although the ghosts in that 1961 film were all over 21.
Bayona, whom I spoke to a couple of hours ago at the Majestic Hotel, is the newest addition to the current pantheon of Spanish-language directors (most famously repped by Del Toro, Alfonso Cuaron and Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu) who have made — and will hopefully continue to make, if they don’t allow the Hollywood flotsam-jetsam effect to dilute their focus — the most full-spirited and excitingly crafted films of our time. This is all the more wowser knowing that The Orphanage is Bayona’s first feature.
I was told this morning that Bob Berney‘s Picturehouse is planning to open The Orphanage sometime in early ’08. Due respect, but that feels like the wrong call. It should definitely open before the end of the year to qualify in the Best Foreign Language Film category as well as the various critics’ awards. (If I were calling the shots I would open it in late October.) This adult-level, mostly gore-free chiller is so many cuts above the crude horror films of our day (i.e., the Lionsgate torture-porners and slasher films) that their fans may feel moderately ashamed after seeing it. Or at least wised up.

Written by Sergio G. Sanchez, The Orphanage is a close stylistic and thematic cousin of Del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth as well as Henry James‘ “The Turning of the Screw.” It’s about nocturnal, other-worldly imaginings taking shape and governing destinies inside the heads of young children — a kind of nightmarish “Peter Pan” tale about (as Variety‘s Justin Chang has observed) “a grown-up Wendy figure grieving her lost boy.”
Laura is a mother in her early ’40s (Belen Rueda, last in The Sea Inside) who is running an orphanage for disabled kids with her husband Carlos (Fernando Caya). She is doing this partly as a way of communing with her childhood since she herself was raised there. But there are residual forces at work in inside the old house, and they have their strongest effect upon Laura and Carlos’ excitable young son, Simon (Roger Princep), who is soon reacting to and then conversing with a small group of young tyke-sized ghosts. We soon learn they’re remnants of kids who suffered a bruising trauma when they were living in the orphanage roughly 30 years earlier.
The film’s two key events are Simon’s sudden disappearance one day, and then Laura’s increasingly manic and desperate attempts to find him (even if that means venturing over to “the other side”) and bring him back. I’m not going to recap any more of the story, but there are at least two heavy-jolt scenes that result — one in the second act, and one in the third. They are worth it, trust me — especially the latter, which gives you the serious chills by panning back and forth between Laura and her five or six visitors during the playing of a childhood game.

What 97% of today’s horror filmmakers don’t get is that it’s not the number of “scares” that matter as much as the effective delivering of seriously creepy mood. Bayona, trust me, knows how to play this game and then some. Cheers also to Oscar Faura for his shadowy widescreen photography, which captures it all just right; ditto the economical work by editor Elena Ruiz, and the very pronounced and melodramatic orchestral score by Fernando Velazquez.
Again, here’s the Bayona interview from earlier this afternoon.

The Arizona Daily Star‘s Phil Villarreal caught Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End the other day and says, “Man, is piracy paranoia ever getting out of control!

First, he says, “Disney held just one screening in the state of Arizona, meaning I had to drive up to Tempe. Second, they wouldn’t let me bring my DS into the theater, I guess for fear I would somehow record the screening with my innocent little video game machine.
“I absolutely need that sucker as the minutes tick down before the movie starts, to pass the inevitable delays as the p.r. folks try to scramble to get people in seats before they let the projector roll. Back when I had a camera phone I was forced to take it back to the car on many occasions, but never had I been ordered to make the march of shame due to a Game Boy Advance, PSP or DS.)
“Weirdly, they did allow non-camera-equipped cell phones in – which I discovered during my lengthy argument with the security guy – meaning I could have brought my DS if I said it was a cell phone. Unfortunately this didn’t occur to me until I was hunched over my Subaru’s passenger window, waving goodbye to my little patience-maker as I abandoned it to the 300 degree heat of my car interior. (I have no games on my cell phone because I’m a snob who can’t stand dumbed-down mobile games).
“Anyway, once I was finally granted admission to the theater – I couldn’t resist muttering ‘I hope this movie gets pirated’ as I walked in – they shoved this paper in my face that said…
“Dear Friends/Colleagues –
“You are among the first audiences to see ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End’ prior to its worldwide release on May 25. We respectfully ask the following:
“Please do not reveal the many plot resolutions that occur throughout the film, completing the characters’ story lines from the previous two movies in the series. We would appreciate it if you would not reveal these details in your articles, on your program, online, on your blogs or in any other format.
“We hope you appreciate there are many Pirates fans who will enjoy their moviegoing experience so much more not knowing in advance the outcome of the many plot twists. Thank you for your consideration.’
“All of what the letter asks are basically understood tenets of film criticism, but the urgency of the writing made me think we’d be in for some unbelievable, Keyser Soze-like twists. The funny thing is, nothing at all surprising happens in the movie.
“They also handed me another form telling me I’d get thrown out if I tried to videotape the movie, and a third form asking me, among other things, to name my favorite scene. That was easy to do: The end credits.”

In a N.Y. Times story today (5.22) about Michael Moore‘s Sicko, reporter Liza Klaussmann says that TWC honcho Harvey Weinstein, a supporter of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, “tried to persuade Moore to revise the film’s depiction of Mrs. Clinton.”
The story explains that “the early part of the film unrolls as a virtual love letter to Mrs. Clinton, chronicling her efforts as first lady to stage an overhaul of the health care system, but the tone changes as the film proceeds, lumping her among the members of Congress who, Sicko contends, are financially beholden to insurers.”
This more or less concurs with what Moore told Variety interview Peter Bart at an American Pavillion dialogue held yesterday. The story varies slightly in that Moore said Weinstein wanted him to excise the negative stuff about Clinton, but “he respects me as a filmmaker and wouldn’t do that.” Not turn on the full pressure, he meant. Here’s a recording of the chat.

A sloppy writer named Jolly Roger put up an Ain’t It Cool review last Sunday…Sunday!…of Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End. He basically called it “darker” in the way that the final Star Wars prequel triology was darker than the first two. If the first two Pirate pics “reeled you in as being fun and quirky with skeleton pirates, funny monkeys, waddling Jack, an Octupus man and sword fights,” he says, “this film throws most of those light and colorful perceptions out the window.”

“There has been a cultural shift in Hollywood where the size of a party doesn’t show how much you believe in a movie anymore. A party is not going to sell movie tickets.” — Rob Moore, Paramount worldwide marketing and distribution chief quoted in a N.Y. Times story by Laura M. Holson called “Hollywood Diet: Cutting Back on the Big Parties.”
There is an entire culture of Hollywood party vampires in Los Angeles, New York and — for the time being — Cannes who will definitely feel deflated after reading this story. I know lots and lots of them. They’re all great to chit-chat with, but they never seem to attend all that many screenings at film festivals. Their days are largely about getting up late, lunching at 1 or 2 pm, getting dressed and around 3 or 4 pm, warming up in the early evening and then…three guesses and the first two don’t count.
Free drinks, hors d’oeuvres and buffet dinners for this crowd are like warm virgin’s blood to Christopher Lee in The Horror of Dracula.

New Line Cinema held a press conference yesterday at the swanky Martinez hotel to promote The Golden Compass, a $180 million action- fantasy pic in the vein of….well, you know. It’s another attempt to deliver a heart-touching, visually-dazzling, all-ages family blockbuster, which is no crime. The director is Chris Weisz, and the costars are Daniel Craig (who showed up) and Nicole Kidman (who didn’t).

It’s a screen adaptation of Philip Pullman‘s novel, which is (what else?) the first book in a trilogy called ”His Dark Materials.” It’ll debut in early December. Here’s hoping it’s as good as The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, which I thought was quite good. I shouldn’t say more, having missed the three footage screenings that New Line presented…sorry.
I left before it was over, and on my way out noticed a certain New Line executive dozing in his back-row seat in the Martinez ballrooom. We’ve all been there, especially those who’ve just arrived from Los Angeles.

Forget Gus Van Sant‘s Paranoid Park, an unfocused, meandering and even dreary look at how a Portland skateboarding teenager (Gabe Nevins) doesn’t deal with his complicity in an impulsive accidental homicide. It’s another atmospheric immersion-into-an-exotic- youth-culture piece with a minimalist plot, but nowhere near as striking or stylistically distinguished as Van Sant’s Elephant and Last Days. I’m calling it his first not-very-good film since Gerry. I’m sorry to say this given the respect I have for Gus, but you can’t hit it out of the park every time.

Famed director Roman Polanski (Chinatown, The Pianist) caused a stir a day and a half or two days ago at the press conference for Chacun son Cinema, the anthology film comprised of 35 shorts by 35 distinguished directors.
The questions were on the banal side (which is not an altogether uncommon thing during this festival), and Polanski, irked by some especially lame inquiry, lost his temper and lashed out at either the questioner or, according to one version I heard, all the journalists in the room, calling them “losers” and whatnot. He then allegedly urged his fellow directors to leave the dais in a show of solidarity, which they declined to do.
Cut to this morning at the Grand Palais. Just prior to the showing of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Polanski’s short, “Cinema Erotique,” was shown, and a pair of journalists to my right and left — older guys — booed when his name came on the screen. I’m on Mr. Polanski’s side in this squabble. I’ve listened to hundreds upon hundreds of deadbeat questions at round tables and press conferences; I’m surprised that dierctors and celebrities don’t lash out more.

Julian Schnabel‘s The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, which screened for press at the 8:30 this morning, is a passable attempt to render a beautiful, inwardly-directed portrait about what is truly essential and replenishing in life. But the film is neither of these things, and is nowhere close in terms of poetic resonance and emotional impact to Schnabel’s Before Night Falls (’00). It’s sensitively realized and skillfully made, but it’s a movie about a state of nearly 100% confinement that itself too often feels confining.
Alfred Hitchcock attempted a similar-type experiment when he made Lifeboat, which takes place entirely aboard a lifeboat floating on the Atlantic, and yet he kept audiences involved all through it. Schnabel makes his tale as visually intriguing and ingenious as anyone could have, but he’s locked himself into tight a spot, I fear.
Variety columnist Anne Thompson recently wrote that The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is “one of the hottest projects up for sale in Cannes” and that “a lot of distributors are chasing this one.” I don’t think this is the case any longer. The French-language Butterfly is opening in France right after the festival ends, but if I were an American buyer I would steer clear.
An adaptation of the late Jean-Dominique Bauby‘s memoir of the same name, it’s about how the self-satisfied, sophisticated Bauby (Mathieu Amalric) — an Elle editor with a wife three kids and a mistress — is left totally paralyzed after a massive stroke.
Bauby’s condition is called “locked-in syndrome,” which has left him unable to express himself except by blinking his left eye. A much more confining thing, in other words, than poor Chris Reeve‘s condition after breaking his neck
The book was written with the help of a transcriber who recited a frequency- ordered alphabet, waiting until Bauby blinked to indicate the correct letter. Each word reportedly took approximately two minutes to convey, and the book itself took about two hundred thousand blinks to write.
Like the book, Schnabel’s film chronicles Bauby’s sense of day-by-day, minute-by-minute imprisonment and how this condition paradoxically frees him from his previous obsessions and attentions. Schnabel clearly feels that Bauby become a richer, more spiritually fulfilled man after his misfortune, but he didn’t convince me of this. He seems to be saying that we all, in a sense, suffer from locked-in syndrome, and that we need to free our souls and imaginations and so on. That’s definitely a thought worth pondering, but I’d given this matter a lot of thought before sitting down this morning with Butterfly.
Bauby’s book was published on 3.6.97. It was well reviewed and sold 150,000 copies in the first week. But two days after the French version of the book was published, Bauby passed. I don’t think that was such a bad thing, frankly. I’m all for living and fighting until the last, but winking your way through an extremely restricted version of living tests the limits of this positivist philosophy.