It’s easy to get lost in writing, researching and surfing. That’s what I’ve been doing since around 8 pm or thereabouts, to the extent that about 25 minutes ago I looked at my watch and realized I’d missed the 10 pm Salle Bazin screening of Nicholas Winding Refn‘s The Neon Demon. Brilliant. And to think I blew off the 7 pm screening for Laura Poitras‘s respectable but underwhelming Risk. I’m blaming Ryan Werner for this…kidding. It’s my own damn fault.

Favorite Steve Pond review quotes: (a) “Refn’s film brought out the boo birds on Thursday, along with some viewers who couldn’t limit themselves to booing and actually shouted abuse at the screen”; (b) “I’ve seen Cannes films get hostile receptions in the past, but I can’t remember ever hearing a loud ‘fuck it!’ resounding through the Salle Debussy at the end of a film“; (c) “Refn composes every shot for maximum drama, then lingers on them as long as humanly possible. His characters speak so slowly that you could fit entire speeches from Xavier Dolan‘s talky It’s Only the End of the World in the pregnant pauses”; (e) “The whole mess reaches almost sublime levels of utter silliness and questionable taste.”

There’s a 12 noon Demon screening on Friday in the Grand Lumiere, for which I’ll have to score a ticket. Otherwise tomorrow’s big attractions are Sean Penn‘s The Last Face at 8:30 am, Paul Schrader‘s Dog Eat Dog at Director’s Fortnight (8:45 and 7:30 pm), Jim Jarmusch‘s Gimme Danger at the Salle du Soixantime at 4:45 pm and Asghar Farhadi‘s The Salesman in the early evening. I’ll also be doing an interview with Graduation‘s Cristian Mungiu at 2:15 pm.

Tomorrow is my last full day here. I’m on a bus to Nice Airport as of 9 am Saturday, which means I’ll be missing Paul Verhoeven‘s Elle. I could catch the first half-hour as it’ll begin at 8:30 am. Maybe I’ll do that.