The 69th edition of the Cannes Film Festival is happening as we speak and we're writing down new titles on our watch-list every day. The festivities began on Wednesday (May 11th) and they will continue until the 22nd.
"On the opening day, even Mother Nature seemed intent on grabbing a role in the drama, dousing the town with such a storm overnight that one half-expected to find stranded fish flapping on the steps of the Palais. The damp, dizzy delegates needed a movie to warm them and it’s likely they found it in Woody Allen’s Cafe Society, although personally I’d have preferred something more galvanic. Instead we got Jesse Eisenberg andSteve Carell playing kvetching New York Jews, each chasing the American dream out in 30s Hollywood and vying for the affections of a beautiful secretary (Kristen Stewart, doing her utmost with a sketchy role)." (The Guardian)
About the film:
"Going into a new Woody Allen film, there’s always the hope that it’s going to be major, like “Blue Jasmine,” and not one of his trifles, like the Allen movies that have opened the Cannes Film Festival in recent years (“Hollywood Ending,” “Midnight in Paris”). At this point, however, his track record vastly favors the probability that it’s going to be a trifle, at which point the question then becomes: Will it be one of his good ones — that is, one of those Allen fables that really sings? “CafĂ© Society,” starring Jesse Eisenberg as a sweetly naĂŻve Bronx nebbish who journeys to Hollywood in the 1930s to seek his fortune, has been made with all the verve and high-style panache and star magnetism of a small-scale Allen gem." (Variety)
One of Cannes' highlight films this year has been Andrea Arnold’s American Honey which premiered to a series of accolades. On Sunday, the cast—including Shia LaBeouf and newcomer Sasha Lane– appeared at a press conference for the indie, which follows a group of young kids that travel across the country hustling money by selling magazine subscriptions.
"Twice, in Andrea Arnold’s rapturously scuzzy ensemble road movie American Honey, Rihanna and Calvin Harris grace the soundtrack with “We Found Love”, the 2011 dancefloor smash whose euphoric climb invites you to drop everything, get high and lose yourself. It’s first heard in an Oklahoma Walmart, where main characters Star (Sasha Lane) and Jake (Shia LaBeouf) clap eyes on each other, while the latter’s crew of wasters, waifs and strays grab provisions up and down the aisles. Not long into the song, Jake is using one of the checkouts as a podium, and security have to show this peacocking punk the exit." (Telegraph)
The Nice Guys starring Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe also premiered at the festival and received some good reviews.
"Think of The Nice Guys as candy noir: all the key ingredients from mysteries such as Chinatown and The Long Goodbye poured into a tall glass, then topped up with sugar syrup, a spritz of club soda, a sprig of mint and an ironic paper parasol. [...] Crowe is Jackson Healy, a burly enforcer whose body-hugging shirts run the gamut from ‘snug’ to ‘early stages of Incredible Hulk transformation’, while Gosling is Holland March, a private detective whose investigative instincts are muddy even before he hits the bourbon at noon. As the guys screech between crime scenes, gunfights and bacchanals, both actors have a kind of multi-coloured neon glow of happiness, as if neither can quite believe that the franchise-fixated Hollywood of 2016 has taken a swing at this kind of deliriously unreconstructed one-off romp. As the writer of the first two Lethal Weapon films and architect of the modern buddy cop genre, Black is an old hand at balancing brute force with quick wit – and his flair for gourmet trash is evident in every impossibly snappy exchange of repartee and fireball-belching shoot-out." (Telegraph)
And last, but not least, a comedy from Germany - Tonie Erdmann.
"Not only does German humour exist, it might just save your life. That’s one of many horizon-altering takeaways from the exquisite Toni Erdmann, a bittersweet comedy from the Berlin-based filmmaker Maren Ade about father-daughter love and the compartmentalisation of modern life. The film’s sweetness and bitterness are held so perfectly in balance, and realised with such sinew-stiffening intensity, that watching it feels like a three-hour sports massage for your heart and soul." (Telegraph)
We'll feed you more titles as they pierce our interest.
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