From David Mikics’ 5.22.24 Tablet article about Nellie Bowles‘ “Morning After The Revolution — Dispatches From The Wrong Side of History“:

“Remember the heady days of 2020? Progressives trained by the richest universities in the land suddenly had the chance to remake America in their image, the way they had always dreamed of doing. The result was so obvious and crushing a failure that one is no longer supposed to talk about it.

“Four years later, the power elite have discovered that their cosplay revolution is seen as merely ridiculous. Minority groups don’t want the new names that have been issued to them. Straight people prefer not to be called cisgender, and gay people don’t like being submerged in a tide of heterosexuals who style themselves queer. Even The New York Times, that high conclave of official euphemisms, has begun to soft-pedal chilling locutions like ‘gender-affirming care for minors,’ instead referring honestly to puberty blockers and body-altering surgery.

‘Nellie Bowles’ ‘Morning After the Revolution‘ is a grand tour through the craziness that followed the killing of George Floyd and continues to this day, despite the majority of Americans shaking their heads in bewilderment.

“Bowles, a former Times reporter, started out as a progressive seeker, curious and hopeful about the new thinking, and she is still seeking solutions to racism, income inequality, and attacks on women’s rights. But she also sees the absurdity of much of what passed for progressivism, yet was actually narcissistic, neo-racialist, and aggressively inhumane.”

The only “big” screening left is Mohammad Rasoulof‘s The Seed of the Sacred Fig, which will debut at the Grand Lumiere on Friday, 5.24, at 3 pm.

It was announced earlier this month that Iran’s mullahs had sentenced Rasdoulof to eight years in prison as well as a fine, a flogging and confiscation of his property. Shortly after Rasoulof and “some crew members” escaped from Iran to somewhere in Europe (presumably Paris). Rasoulof is here in Cannes and will attend tomorrow’s premiere screening.

Hollywood Elsewhere will be there with bells on — talk about a big emotional moment.

I’m less certain about attending the Sacred Fig press conference on Saturday, 5.25, at 10:15 am. My return flight to JFK leaves from Nice Airport at 2 pm, requiring arrival no later than noon, so catching the last sensible bus from the Cannes gare (departing at 10:56 am, arriving just before noon) would be a tight situation.

Three films today, all at the Debussy: Celine Sallette‘s Niki at 2 pm, Gael Morel‘s To Live, To Die, To Live Again (an AIDS drama feels a bit out-of-time…Longtime Companion opened a quarter-centry agop) at 7:45 pm, and Payal Kapadia‘s All We Imagine As Light at 10:15 pm. (The Kapadia also screens on Friday morning at 9 am.)

HE is taking a respectful pass on Giles Lellouche‘s Beating Hearts, which screens today at 4:15 pm.

The Richard Burton encounter happened in 1978, when Kevin Costner was 23. He and wife Cindy Silva were flying back to Los Angeles from a honeymoon in Puerto Vallarta. Go to the 10:15 mark…

This was taken as the Feinberg-Costner interview began. I have a bizarre habit of baring my fangs while posting on my phone. I have to work on this.

…and in recent years have tended to vote for films that have promoted the right kind of politically correct message, especially since the woke virus began to infect everything six years ago.

I therefore wouldn’t be surprised if Greta Gerwig‘s jury declines to give the Palme d’Or to Sean Baker‘s wonderfully un-wokey Anora and hands it instead to Jacques Audiard‘s Emilia Perez, primarily because of the trans thing.

Failing this, they will most likely give the Best Actress trophy to Karla Sofía Gascon, the transitioned biomale actor who plays the titular character. There’s really no question that Anora‘s Mikey Madison gives a more compelling, dynamic, high-throttle performance, but cultural political matters are a bigger deal these days.

It is also worth recalling that Palme d’Or winners have often triggered WTF responses in the past. Case in point: Ken Loach‘s I, Daniel Blake, which won eight years ago.

When Ken Loach‘s I, Daniel Blake won the Cannes Film Festival’s Palme d’Or, I posted the following: “WHAT? Wrong call, gents. A good film, but not my idea of a really good one, and a long way from greatness. It’s a sturdy, downish Loach-wheelhouse thing about an older craftsman (Dave Johns) with a heart condition getting the humiliating run-around by the system. Except 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.”

On 5.13 I had an argument with a critic friend about Blake — here it is:

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.

Sean Baker‘s Anora certainly deserves the highest Cannes Screen Jury rating (3.3), but the aggregate critical scores for Ali Abassi‘s The Apprentice (1.7) and Paul Schrader‘s Oh, Canada (1.8) are deranged. Neither of these films has anything to apologize for, and they both pay off. Meanwhile the 12 participating critics are telling us, in effect, that David Cronenberg‘s underwhelming The Shrouds (2.2) and Francis Coppola‘s nutso Megalopolis (2.1) are better? Take the needle out of your arms.

Paolo Sorrentino makes eye-bath films. His lustrous visual swooning began to intensify, I feel, with 2013’s The Great Beauty, and was fully maintained in Youth, Loro and The Hand of God.

But there’s a limit to this kind of spell-weaving, and Sorrentino’s Parthenope, which I saw late last night, is exhibit #1.

Two actresses portray the title role, young Celeste Dalla Porta and the considerably older Stefania Sandrelli. But it’s mainly Della Porta’s show as the film is mostly about a series of guys (Italians of all ages plus Gary Oldman‘s John Cheever) staring longingly and hungrily at her.

I was feeling profoundly bored within 30 minutes, and had decided to bail by the one-hour mark if things didn’t improve. I wound up lasting 90 minutes.

If you’ve ever felt humbled or blown away by a woman’s beauty (we’ve all been there), the way to play it is to not stare at her like she’s a bright red apple and you haven’t eaten in three days. The way to play it is the young Warren Beatty way — one, express more interest in her personality and especially her mind than her looks, and two, behave as if you’re the beautiful one.

In the wake of David Fincher‘s Mank, why did Sorrentino want Oldman to play another soused writer whose literary prowess is quite formidable? After watching Mank I resolved to never again watch Oldman playing a chronic drunk, and now I’ve been through the same damn experience. In my mind there isn’t a dime’s worth of difference between Oldman’s Cheever and his Herman J. Mankiewicz.

While watching I was thinking of two older films that were about the same kind of thing (i.e., a series of guys worshipping a young irresistible woman and wanting desperately to “lay lady lay” her) — John Schlesinger‘s Darling (’65) and Bernardo Bertolucci‘s Stealing Beauty (’96). Both had underlying currents that were at least moderately interesting, Darling in particular. If there’s any kind of subtextual intrigue in Parthenope, I missed it.

It also struck me that Dalla Porta, who’s around 26, resembles the young Mia Sara (Legend, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off).

I bought this yesterday…approved.

This morning I finally saw Sean Baker’s Anora, which everyone seems to believe is destined to win the Palme d’Or. I’m onboard with this prediction, and it’ll be doubly satisfying (for me at least) if Baker’s film prevents Jacques Audiard’s audacious but flawed (as in totally unbelievable) trans musical Emilia Perez from snatching the big prize.

I’ve been searching high and low for a Cannes film that would take the strut out of Perez, and now…glory hallelujah!

On top of which Anora isn’t the least bit wokey — no militant trans or gay stuff, no #MeToo currents, no POC or progressive castings, no 2024 Academy mandate inclusions for their own sake and in fact blissfully free of that whole pain-in-the-ass checklist mindset.

Baker’s loud, coarse and emotionally forceful film, mostly set in southern Brooklyn (an area close to Coney Island and Little Odessa) with two side journeys to Las Vegas, is entirely about straight white trash, and yet a certain amount of soul, grace and dignity are allowed to emerge at the very end.

It’s basically a social-conflict, family-values story (written as well as directed by Baker) about money, sex, arrogance, rage, outsider sturm und drang and a truly bountiful blend of incredible bullshit, screaming hostility and straight talk.

The first act is exasperating (mostly vulgar behavior by profligate 20something party animals) but once a certain family gets involved…look out.

The Anora battle is between the cynical, sex-working, Russian-descended titular character (Mikey Madison, who played the hysterical, screechy-voiced Susan Atkins in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) who prefers the colloquial “Ani” vs. a demimonde of vulgar, grotesquely wealthy Russians, principally Mark Eydelshteyn’s Ivan, the wasteful-idiot son of a Russian oligarch, and one or two none-too-bright Armenians.

And yet it ends on a note of honest emotional admission and revelation even. There’s actually a decent dude in this film, played by Yuriy Borisov…a Russian fellow who isn’t a ferociously propulsive wolverine…imagine.

Madison is a revelation — she deserves to win the Best Actress prize. Out of the blue, her career has been high-octaned and then some.

Neon is distributing Anora — easily the strongest film they’ve ever gotten their mitts on.

Friendo on “okay” Emilia Perez: “It feels like AI Almodóvar. It checks 17 boxes, but it’s not moving — you don’t swoon. It’s actually rather conservative when it comes to the trans thing. Ten years from now, it’ll play like a trans minstrel show.”

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