CANNES 2024 - remote notes
CANNES 2024 - first overview.
SOURCE.
The 77th edition runs May 15-25, 2024
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[Excerpt from the VARIETY intro:].
Quote:
In what looks to be another robust year in the making, the 77th edition of the Cannes Film Festival will bring together several iconic filmmakers, including Francis Ford Coppola with “Megalopolis” starring Adam Driver, George Miller with “Furiosa” starring Anya Taylor-Joy, as well as George Lucas who will be feted with an honorary Palme d’Or. Kevin Costner will also be on hand with the first installment of his Western epic “Horizon, an American Saga.”
Some of the high-profile films in the pipeline for this year’s competition include Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Kinds of Kindness,” a stylized three-part story set in the present that reunites the “Poor Things” helmer with Emma Stone and Willem Dafoe; Paul Schrader’s “Oh, Canada” with Richard Gere, based on a novel by the late Russell Banks (“Affliction”); Jacques Audiard’s musical melodrama “Emilia Perez” starring Zoe Saldana and Selena Gomez; Paolo Sorrentino’s “Parthenope” with Gary Oldman; and David Cronenberg’s “The Shrouds” starring Vincent Cassel and Diane Kruger. There’s also Coralie Fargeat’s “The Substance,” a female-powered horror film starring Demi Moore and Margaret Qualley from Universal Pictures and Working Title Films.
Beyond the major studio titles, one of the features attracting the most attention on the Croisette could be Ali Abbasi’s “The Apprentice,” which sees Sebastian Stan take on the role of a Donald Trump in a biopic examining his time as real estate businessman in the 1970s and ’80s. Outside of competition, Irish director Lorcan Finnegan leaps from Critics’ Week (where he screened “Vivarium” in 2019) to official selection with the midnight movie “The Surfer,” featuring Nicolas Cage in the title role.
International movies slated for Cannes’ competition include Karim Aïnouz’s “Motel Destino”; Jia Zhang-Ke’s “Caught by the Tides”; Magnus von Horn’s “The Girl With the Needle” and Kirill Serebrennikov’s “Limonov: The Ballad.”
More will be added to the Competition list, festival director Thierry Frémaux says.
As previously announced, Greta Gerwig will head the Competition Jury. Xavier Dolan will head the Un Certain Regard one.
Today: KINDS OF KINDNESS, OH CANADA, BIRD, MEGALOPOIS
Today: KINDS OF KINDNESS OH, CANADA; BIRD; MEGALAPOIS
Quote:
‘Megalopolis’ sparks Cannes frenzy and furious debate
Director Francis Ford Coppola’s self-funded, decades-in-the-making $120M movie divided festival filmgoers: "Complete nonsense" vs. "an awesome experience." The article recounts how a crowd of young European cinephiles waited many hours to get in and some reported a film experience they'll remember forever, while others didn't like it or couldn't recommend it. - Washington Post
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FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA AND ADAM DRIVER AT THE CANNES MEGALOPOLIS PREMIERE.
MEGALOPOLIS (Francis Ford Coppola)
Peter Debruge in his Variety review summarizes the story as " a conservative politician and a forward-thinking urban designer clash over a mythic city’s future." He quesitons why $120 million had to be spent to make it; why Coppola insisted the press screening be shown at the Cannes venue's IMAX theater. He says there are so many closeups it would play fine on your iPhone, and because "world building," that "essential element of Hollywood franchises", isn't in Coppola's wheelhouse," this might have worked better as an animated film. He says the cast is "first-rate" but their performances "oddly cartoonish." It sounds dangerously like a colossal flop to me, but big pictures by great auteurs that spur hot debate are great for cinema. Manohla Dargis of the NYTimes, whose Cannes presence is usually fleeting, gives the film straightforward, respectful treatment, calling it "a fascinating film aswirl with wild visions, lofty ideals, cinematic allusions, literary references, historical footnotes and self-reflexive asides, all of which Coppola has funneled into a fairly straightforward story about a man with a plan. It is a great big plan from a great big man in a great big movie, one whose sincerity is finally as moving as its unbounded artistic ambition." So there. But have you learned anything? I'm more swayed by the so often enthusiastic and positive Peter Bradshaw of the GUARDIAN, who says "Coppola’s passion project is megabloated and megaboring." He gives it a chilling 2/5 stars. Stephen Dalton's summary for The Film Verdict: "Francis Ford Coppola's long-gestating neo-Roman epic is a muddled misfire of overcooked kitsch and undercooked ideas." THE OSCAR EXPERT's "Brother Bro" (Mason Jaeger) has made a video review saying MEGALOPOLIS is "a $100 million-plus indie film that feels like it's going off the rails in every direction," though he suggests you might have fun watching it and he's excited to talk about it. One feels sad for Coppola. He made the film, he said, for his wife, and she died four days later. He looks so small and old. But who knows? The film may be a sleeper that even makes some money eventually, if it gets a cool US distributor like A24 or Neon. May 23: the Metacritic rating is out and it's not good: 58%. based on 27 critics' reviews. But some ratings are high. There are 9 in the 80-90 range, mostly 80. Two 70's. Three 67's. Two 60's. Six 40's. One 25. Two 20's.
