The story of my festival-going life tends to be that I miss the one film that winds up on everyone’s lips. It’s some kind of uncanny anti-radar that never fails. This time though, I managed to catch one that had everyone buzzing to the extent that people were turned away at the door of the next morning’s pick-up screening. La Vie d’Adele (Blue is the Warmest Color), Franco-Tunisian writer/director Abdellatif Kechiche’s Palme d’Or candidate, is a three hour telling of the emotional and sexual coming of age of a young woman loosely adapted from Julie Maroh’s graphic novel. I waited an hour and a half in the rain with no coat or umbrella knowing only it was from the same filmmaker behind 2007′s widely praised arthouse favorite The Secret of the Grain. The irony is that I think I’m the only one who ultimately found the earlier film a little bit disappointing. Not so La Vie d’Adele. Driven by a subtle and naturalistic star-making (and possibly Cannes award-winning) performance from its young lead Adele Exarchopoulos, this is the kind of film experience you hope to have when you come to a film festival.

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I don’t know when it happened exactly – maybe it was his non-performance hosting the Oscars – but the worm has definitely turned on the general enthusiasm for James Franco. For a while, everything he touched was a source of endless media fascination, but that’s pretty much over. No one I talked to here at Cannes going in was particularly excited about seeing his adaptation of William Faulkner’s challenging novel As I Lay Dying and those who were assigned to it weren’t looking forward to it. The thing is, it’s not Franco’s fault that every artistic doodle he’s tossed off and each creative whim he’s followed has been treated with such reverence. And his name still has cachet. Would As I Lay Dying have ever been chosen for the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes or would it ever have even been made without Franco’s name front and center? No, it wouldn’t because unfortunately it’s not very good.

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There’s something rotten at the heart of Claire Denis despairing Un Certain Regard entry The Bastards, and you just know whatever it is will eventually consume the film’s lead character, but you can’t help but root for him anyway.

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Only God forgives and even He will be hard pressed to give the latest from Nicolas Winding Refn a pass. Those who discovered the Danish director following the crossover success of Drive are likely to be disappointed as well. Only God Forgives shares the previous film’s star Ryan Gosling and a strong sense of style, but it doesn’t have the love story or noirish plot to give it a backbone. The result is a garish, unpleasant jellyfish of a film lacking even a sting.

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Is “dark whimsy” an oxymoron? I guess it is, but I can’t think of a better way to describe the bone-dry, jet black humor delivered with an impish twinkle that has marked at least the last couple of pictures from Dutch writer/director Alex van Warmerdam whose latest, Borgman, debuted yesterday morning in competition at the Cannes Film Festival’s Grand Theatre Lumiere.  He excels at setting up seemingly mundane situations, then slowly revealing how off-kilter they are while leaving it up to the audience to piece together exactly what’s going on.

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I’m going into each film here at the festival knowing as little in advance as I can possibly manage. I’m not even reading the official catalog entries so I wasn’t sure what exactly to expect from prolific Japanese director Takashi Miike. My only hope was that he’d help blow off a little mid-festival langueur and he certainly did that with Shield of Straw, a brisk crime thriller that sneaks in a uniquely Japanese cultural punch. Every year, Cannes manages to work one or two nifty genre exercises in between the Important humanist tone poems and this year Miike fit in nicely.

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I had hoped to take some time for regular updates about what the festival is like outside of the movies themselves, but between screenings, reviews, eating and sleep, I haven’t made the time for anything but a little bit of exploring and picture taking. So, by request, here’s a bunch of the photos I’ve snapped so far, beginning with the obligatory shot of the festival catalog and my blue press badge. For competition screenings, blue waits in line behind white badges, pink badges and pink badges with yellow dots, but in front of yellow badges. It’s actually a pretty funny hierarchy that a lot of people bitch and complain about, but my attitude the whole week has been: “It ain’t Chinatown, Jake. It’s friggin’ Cannes so quit your bitching.” I might be singing a different tune if I’d had a yellow badge however…

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A cat named Ulysses is a key figure in Inside Llewyn Davis and that reference is not the only thing that calls to mind an earlier film from Joel and Ethan Coen. The emphasis on music also very much put me in the mind of their O Brother Where Art Thou? And yet, tonally, the brothers’ latest film feels completely different. O Brother is often silly, but ultimately redemptive and hopeful whereas Inside Llewyn Davis is kind of sad and a little bit haunting despite being ripe with the expected off kilter humor. It’s a beautiful, melancholy rumination on the capricious nature of success.

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You see a lot of movies and most of them are pretty ordinary. Once in a while you see one slightly above average and it’s a cause for celebration. On rare occasions you see something truly outstanding and you’re reminded why you love cinema in the first place. It’s the nourishment that keeps you going through the day-to-day ordinary. That happened this morning at Cannes with the debut of Asghar Farhadi’s The Past – all the more remarkable because the film comes with such high expectations following the Iranian filmmaker’s Foreign Language Oscar-winning A Separation. If anything, Farhadi has topped himself. The Past is a richly rewarding human drama of seemingly infinite depth and nuance.

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The Bling Ring which premiered this afternoon in the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival is, contrary to the small sampling of negative early twitter buzz I happened across, another winner from Sofia Coppola. Less contemplative than her glacially paced (but wonderful) previous film Somewhere, Bling returns in a way to some of the territory the writer/director examined with the under-appreciated Marie Antoinette – a culture of excess gone horribly wrong. In this case, she follows the true life exploits of a pack of little Queen of France wannabes for whom breaking and entering the homes of celebrities is a perfectly reasonable means to an end which they think they unquestionably deserve.

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Believe me, I didn’t fly all the way to Cannes just to see The Great Gatsby which already opened in the States last Friday. I was actually going to skip it and instead pour as much of my energy as possible into films that haven’t been seen yet, but I hadn’t had time to see it before I left and, as the first press screening of my first Cannes Film Festival, it seemed like a good opportunity to get my feet wet while figuring out the ins and outs of navigating this crazy place. Unfortunately, Gatsby is pretty much a disaster from the opening frames – it’s not even an interesting misfire – and I was ready to bolt within the first 15 or 20 minutes. I just kept thinking of all the dozens of different things I could be doing instead and they all sounded more appealing than this nice looking but dull and gutless stroll through the pages of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic novel. Continued »

One of the big successes at Sundance this year was Fruitvale which was snapped up by The Weinstein Company, renamed Fruitvale Station and instantly became “the Sundance film that’s going to cross over and make an Oscar run.” Following a similar trajectory to recent films like Precious and Beasts of the Southern Wild, it has also parlayed its success to a slot at Cannes where it will doubtless ride the wave to bigger and better things to come. The lead character is even named Oscar! Convenient! Call me a cynic, but I tend to be instantly skeptical of these heavily buzzed sensations. They rarely live up to the advanced hype, but Fruitvale Station is a most welcome exception to the rule. It’s the real deal and not the last time we’ll here from star-in-the-making Michael B. Johnson.

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Barcelona-born, Mexico City-raised Amat Escalante is three for three with Cannes. His first two films, Sangre (2005) and Los Bastardos (2008) both played in the Un Certain Regard category and this year he’s graduated to the main competition with Heli, a confidently mounted but mostly unpleasant exercise in human cruelty.

I didn’t see Sangre, but Los Bastardos was interesting and mysterious enough from the start to hold your attention while it built to a shockingly and (for me) unexpectedly violent conclusion. In it, Escalante channeled a certain quiet rage as he explored the illegal immigrant experience in the United States. It was awkward at times and heavy-handed, but it made its point and it made it with flair. There is little mysterious or unexpected about Heli on the other hand. It begins with a man dressed only in his underwear being hung from a bridge overpass so you know right away unpleasant things are in store.  There are no surprises, there is only the inevitable.

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The Official Screening Guide for Cannes dropped today, glowing tantalizingly before me like the golden idol at the start of Raiders of the Lost Ark. There were no spiders or spears getting here, nor was I betrayed by the guy who would one day play Doctor Octopus, but there were definitely a series of hurdles and they’ve all been overcome. All of the important technical details like press passes and plane tickets and passports are nailed down. Even so, it’s still a little hard to believe since this adventure was little more than a vague fantasy just two months ago. I didn’t start the year thinking this was going to happen, yet here we are. As of Monday or Tuesday, I’ll be writing to you from France.

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A Simple Plan (1998) Directed by Sam Raimi.
Bridget Fonda as Sarah and Bill Paxton as Hank.

Sarah: You gotta remember how people see you. You’re just a normal guy. A nice sweet normal guy.
Hank: They’re gonna know!
Sarah: No they won’t! Nobody would ever believe that you’d be capable of doing what you’ve done.

The Parallax View (1974) Directed by Alan J. Pakula.
Hume Cronyn as Bill Rintels and Warren Beatty as Joe Frady

Bill: You’re supposed to be dead. Goddamnit. You could’ve called me.
Joe: I was scared shitless they’d think I was still alive.
Bill: You mean nobody knows?
Joe: Nobody but you. Hey Bill, what’s that?
Bill: Tomorrow’s lead. I’m demanding a reopening of the Carroll investigation. (pulls out a phonebook)
Joe: Who’re you calling?
Bill: The police. The FBI. The CIA. Somebody.
Joe: Bill… don’t do it.
Bill: You suggesting they’re involved?
Joe: Nope.
Bill: Or that they covered up on their original investigation?
Joe: Well, there is a natural bureaucratic tendency to cover up mistakes, but beyond that I got no reason to think any governmental agency was in on it… or if they were that they knew that they were in on it. If you want to use the FBI or the CIA, you don’t have to infiltrate the whole agency to do it. At first I thought these killings were related only to the Carroll assassination. It’s much bigger than that. Whoever’s behind this is in the business of recruiting assassins.
Bill: Recruiting assassins.
Joe: I think I got some of their entrance exams. If I’m right, I’m gonna enlist. If you print anything now, I’ll be exposed.
Bill: You’re telling me that you alone can uncover what all these agencies couldn’t?
Joe: Maybe. I’m just asking you not to print anything or talk about this ’til I get more specific evidence. If you do, you’ll just blow my chance to find out who’s behind it.
Bill: What do you expect me to print?
Joe: My obituary. I want to predate a will, I want to name you as executor, something informal. I’d like you to go out to my motel, pick up my things and give them to the Salvation Army or whatever, but make a big show out of it. I’m dead, Bill… and I just want to stay that way for awhile.

Back to School (1986) Directed by Alan Metter
Timothy Stack as Trendy Man and Rodney Dangerfield as Thornton Melon

Trendy Man: Mr. Melon! Your wife was just showing us her Klimt.
Melon: You too, huh? She’s showin’ it to everybody.
Trendy Man: Well, she’s very proud of it.
Melon: I’m proud of mine too. I don’t go waving it around at parties, though.

It’s a testament I think to the modest charms of Susanne Bier’s new romance Love is All You Need that I went into it feeling cranky and not at all in the mood for a love story, but came out feeling won over. I suppose I should’ve given Bier, better known for darker and more dramatic subjects, the benefit of a doubt that she’d bring something different to the table. Or maybe it’s all Pierce Brosnan who happens to be kind of great as an embittered widower who unexpectedly finds love.

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Olivier Assayas’ Something in the Air (French title Apres Mai) is a wistful, but wholly unsentimental look back at that high school age when you’re smart enough to know the world is falling apart and still naive enough to think you can do something about it. It’s 1971 near Paris and a teacher is quoting Pascal to his class: “Between us and heaven or hell there is only life, which is the frailest thing in the world.” One of the students, Gilles, scratches an anarchy symbol into his desktop. He has no idea yet how fragile life can be. He’s at the very beginning of it, but he isn’t yet sure what he wants to do with it. Assayas is remembering the fear of that uncertainty, but also embracing the freedom.

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Tiny Furniture (2010) Written and directed by Lena Dunham. Lena Dunham as Aura and David Call as Keith

Keith: So, how’re… how’re things?
Aura: Ummm… I’m really tired. I took three Klonopin and woke up next to a spoonful of peanut butter.

Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999) Written and directed by Jim Jarmusch
John Tormey as Louie, Cliff Gorman as Sonny Valerio, Henry Silva as Ray Vargo and Joe Rigano as Joe Rags.

Louie: For the past four years, this guy’s done maybe twelve perfect contracts. Perfect. Like a ghost. He’s very valuable. He’s totally untraceable. I’m sure he didn’t realize anyone was gonna be there when he did Handsome Frank or he woulda backed off. He sure as hell didn’t know that she was gonna… be there.
Sonny: Louie, unless you want to be buried next to Frank, now is the time to tell us everything you know about this mysterious, ghostlike, untraceable fuckin’ button man.

Hopscotch (1980) Directed by Ronald Neame.
Walter Matthau as Miles Kendig and Glenda Jackson as Isobel.

Isobel: Did you come to Salzburg to see me?
Miles: Mmm. You and Mozart.
Isobel: They still keep tabs on me in Washington?
Miles: Well, we knew you married some old Nazi.
Isobel: Come on, Kendig. He was Austrian!
Miles: So was Hitler.
Isobel: Yes, but he had no sense of humor.

“You forgot to DVR Mad Men?”

For the longest time, I couldn’t figure out why a May Marvel release was set during Christmas, but that’s because I’d forgotten that Iron Man 3 was directed and co-written by Lethal Weapon screenwriter and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang writer/director Shane Black who favors the holiday as a setting for his action/comedy shenanigans. The other clue is that it’s got a reasonable amount of humor and an agreeable swagger that’s always self-effacing enough to ultimately call bullshit on its own macho-ness before it becomes ridiculous. Throw in a few narrative twists that threaten to breathe life into an increasingly stale superhero exercise and you’ve got a summer entertainment that isn’t as much fun as the equally ridiculous The Avengers, but is an improvement on the first two mostly dull Iron Man films and another nice antidote to the oppressively self-serious Dark Knight series.

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Major Dundee (1965) Written and directed by Sam Peckinpah
Charlton Heston as Maj. Amos Charles Dundee and Richard Harris as Capt. Benjamin Tyreen

Dundee: You’re a would-be cavalier, an Irish potato farmer with a plumed hat fighting for a white-columned plantation house you never had and never will.
Tyreen: How exactly do you see yourself, Major Dundee? Have you ever stopped to think why they made you a jailer instead of a soldier?

The Ruling Class (1972) directed by Peter Medak
Coral Browne as Lady Claire Gurney and Peter O’Toole as Jack Arnold Alexander Tancred Gurney, 14th Earl of Gurney

Claire: How do you know you’re God?
Jack: Simple. When I pray to Him, I find I’m talking to myself.

Gosford Park (2001) directed by Robert Altman
Kristin Scott Thomas as Lady Sylvia McCordle and Michael Gambon as Sir William McCordle

William: Who’s next to me at dinner?
Sylvia: Oh, you know. Aunt Constance and Lavinia.
William: Oh why do I have to have that bloody old trout all the time? I want Louisa!
Sylvia: Do I have to explain the table of precedence again, or can it wait?
William: I don’t give a shit about precedence!
Sylvia: Well you always complain that people look down on you and then you behave like a peasant.

Metropolitan (1990) written and directed by Whit Stillman
Edward Clements as Tom Townsend and Carolyn Farina as Audrey Rouget

Tom: You don’t have to have read a book to have an opinion on it. I haven’t read the Bible either.
Audrey: What Jane Austen novels have you read?
Tom: None. I don’t read novels. I prefer good literary criticism. That way you get both the novelist’s idea as well as the critic’s thinking.

Rabbit Hole (2010) directed by John Cameron Mitchell
Nicole Kidman as Becca, Aaron Eckhart as Howie, Colin Mitchell as Sam (not pictured) and Yetta Gottesman as Ana (not pictured)

Sam: We just have to remind each other that… it’s just part of God’s plan… and we can’t know why. You know? Only God can know why.
Becca: (rolls eyes)
Ana: God had to take her. He needed another angel.
Sam: He needed another angel.
Becca: Why didn’t he just make one?… another angel. I mean, he’s God after all. Why didn’t He just make another angel? Hmm?

The Limey (1999) directed by Steven Soderbergh. Screenplay by Lem Dobbs.
Terence Stamp as Wilson and Luis Guzman as Eduardo Roel.

Eduardo: You know, you could see the sea out there, if you could see it.

Repo Man (1984) Written and directed by Alex Cox. Emilio Estevez as Otto and Sy Richardson as Lite

Lite: Do you like music?
Otto: Sure.
Lite: Mmm. In that case you’re gonna love this. I was into these dudes before anybody. Partied with ‘em all the time. They asked me to be their manager. I called bullshit on that. Managing a pop group? Hey, that’s no job for no man.