And we're back. I certainly gave the writers of Lost a run for their money with that cliffhanger, didn't I?
So for those of you too lazy to read the last entry, I'm in Cannes and about to see the latest Paul Verhoeven film, Teenagers (and couldn't be happier). Until the film started.
I remember thinking to myself "gosh this opening logo looks a lot like it's been created on iDVD". 10 seconds later the real truth dawned on me - there's more than one Paul Verhoeven. This didn't come from the mind that gave us such dialogue as "I've got my period. See?" and "People got AIDS and shit." It seems the entire audience reached that conclusion at the same point because the crowd stood up en masse and evacuated the cinema with such haste, you'd think Carrie had just stood up drenched in blood and started looking at us through bulging eyes of hatred.
The 10 of us remaining just sat there dumbly in a state of confusion as two teenagers appeared floating in space. It was kind of like the opening of Dune except the stars looked like they'd been borrowed from the opening credits of Young Talent Time. The boy and girl (the last time we'll be seeing one of those pesky females for a while!) spoke about the themes of the film in French. I can't say I remember what they were saying because my heart was still breaking a bit that I wasn't watching a film from the mind that gave us Starship Troopers. Plus I have the sneaking feeling that the credits were translated using Babelfish because they didn't really make one word of sense.
Luckily we'd been handed a manifesto for the film as we walked in which the remaining 10 of us in the audience quickly reached for to try to work out what the hell was going on. We soon learned that the film we were watching was told in 3 chapters and I soon realised that each of these chapters would be introduced by the outer space narrators. So far so good. Then I read the paragraph about all the scenes of "naturism" being absolutely legal and young people having no problem with it as they are accustomed to it in their sport activities. Hmmm.. I can't say I did a lot of sport as a child so maybe I just missed Nude Little Aths day.
Chapter #1 starts in 1983. It involves a 15 year old boy called Erwan who has been abandoned by his parents and now doesn't like folks. He takes it out on young Lucas who has been unceremoniously dumped with Erwan for the week by his parents. Lucas isaA 12 year old boy who is strangely non-resistant to Erwan's demands that he take off all his clothes (yep! briefs too!) and act like a dog for the duration of his stay, albeit a dog who can also make breakfast and serve it to Erwan in bed. One day Erwan accidentally whips Lucas 50 times with a stick and Lucas almost dies. Erwan realises he and Lucas are in love. They have sundaes. With me so far? They make out. And no, seeing a 12 year old naked boy make out with a 15 year old who treats him like a dog isn't creepy at all, you conservative prudes! They eventually go their separate ways because Erwan realises that Lucas is angelic and he doesn't want to corrupt him. As if you could, Erwan! You've got a heart of gold too underneath all those brambles you keep whipping naked boys with! So that's chapter #1. I'll skim through the next chapters because they're too damn confusing, I fell asleep and then left the cinema midway through in a state of utter bewilderment. I will tell you though that I did see a 27 year old Lucas start a relationship with a 14 year old called Said in 1998 that involved sundaes, making out and a homosexual suicide pact. Luckily the purity of their love turned them into angels so they could return to earth in the directionless present day and inspire a street gang to stop mugging young boys and start hugging them instead. I don't know why I walked out either. I'm just nuts like that. If anyone wants my T shirt, go to Ebay pronto!
I wandered the Palais in a fragile state after evacuating the cinema until I met up with the gang to see Nymph, a splendid new Thai addition to the eco-porn genre. I don't know about you but I can't wait for VideoBusters on Smith Street to finally start up their eco-porn section. They say they don't have enough room but I'm sure if they moved the 10 packs of water to the left and the Buddhist heads to the right, they could slide it in there next to their internet kiosk. Once again, we upped the ante for sleeping in a cinema when all 5 of us passed out within minutes of the film beginning. Later we were able to piece together the plot as it seemed that we all slept through different parts. I slept through the part where a man fell in love with a tree while somebody else slept through the part where his jealous wife chopped it down. Together we made a story! A beautiful beautiful story.
So by this point, I really needed some sleep but I had one more film in me - Gaspar Noe's Enter The Void!
By this point I'd dealt with incest, paedophilia, underage S&M, preachy kids in outer space, eco porn, gypsy curses, eye gouging and detailed descriptions of what Charlotte did to herself in Antichrist so why not see a film from the director of Irreversible? And Gaspar certainly still had some tricks up his sleeve for us! Ever wondered what sex looked like from the cervix's point of view? Well kids, you're about to find out.
It's hard to comment on Enter The Void as what we saw was a work in progress but I was blown away. And not in the way that I was when I saw Teenagers. With the exception of Drag Me To Hell, Enter The Void was the only film in Cannes I didn't fall asleep in. High praise indeed! It's hard to talk at all about what the film is about without giving the whole shebang away but it was a bold, ambitious, challenging film that like Inland Empire was simultaneously breathtaking, frustrating, confusing, pretentious, overwhelming but ultimately inspiring as it came from such a strong artistic voice. I'll be interested to see what he does with the film. Apparently there's still a lot of effect work to be done but the effects that were in the film were pretty stunning and transcendent. I think the film would be stronger if it had 20 minutes trimmed out of it - at close to 3 hours, it became a little repetitive and monotonous but one could argue that was also half the point as repetition and aimlessness were major themes of the film. While I kinda knew that Haneke would take the Palme D'Or, I really hoped that this film would win it. But considering this is so early in his career, I look forward to seeing what he does with this film and what he does beyond it. It took some pretty big risks, one that resulted in a good third of the audience walking out and missing the final scene that brought the whole film together, but it's one I'd definitely watch again. Cinematic mescaline.
And that's "SCENE" from me in Cannes. I'm back in Amsterdam now and set for a choc-a-block month of workshops and shooting which will see me wrap up at Binger Lab before heading to Poland where I may be beaten with sticks in the name of art. Joy.
Friday, May 29, 2009
A&E - Cannes You Feel It?
So I'll never be Carrie Bradshaw. I'm an irregular blogger at best. But I assure you it's not just because I'm sitting at home watching Rob & Big take Mini Horse on lots of adventures across America, despite how that may appear. I'm really actually quite busy.
And I got a case of the old tonsillitis and nothing sucks the humour out of me like a case of the old tonsillitis. I was grumpy, moody and petulant. Luckily I found some left over "codeine" from my trip to Cambodia. Lord knows what it really is. When you buy pharmaceuticals in Cambodia, you don't bother to read the fine print. They just took me off to a lovely land of fluffy bunnies and candy mountains that resembled something out of a Pioneer commercial (you know.. Pioneer. What jelly dreams are made of. I think they went the same way as Gumbuyah Park and Wobbies World and everything else that gave me happiness as a child - condemned as being health hazards.)
How did I get this tonsillitis? Knowing the followers of this blog your minds have gone straight to the gutter but it is with great pride that I can correct you and say nay, I caught it whilst visiting the family in Germany for Easter. My attempts to speak German weren't great I must admit. Hadn't spoken it in a few years - there are few opportunities around downtown Collingwood. But I did try. Unfortunately my "near enough is good enough" approach to the language just caused confusion. Especially when I kept wishing people a Frohe Osterreich which doesn't mean Happy Easter at all but actually means Happy Austria. You'd think Austria would be happy to be mentioned at all but apparently they don't like being confused with Easter. Talk about being precious.
I visited with my cousins but all roads in Germany lead to the family matriarch - die Tante Herta. My first attempt at film writing was at the age of 18 when I started writing a script called Die Tante Herta about an elderly German relative who comes to town one wacky festive season and manages to tear her family apart with a few well chosen words. The script was no Casablanca but I couldn't help but think fondly of it as I sat at the dinner table with Tante Herta.
Tante Herta doesn't care for me as I have long hair and wear nail polish. Devoting my life to burlesque routines based on Equus would probably have more dignity in her eyes. As our meals were delivered, Herta inspected each plate carefully before lowering her voice, adopting a tone that insinuated an incorrect answer would have dire consequences for everyone in the near vicinity as she coolly asked "where are the potatoes?" They were quickly delivered.
But you didn't come here to read about German senior citizens. Oh no. You're here for the real party - Cannes! And yes what a party it was.
It got off to a shaky start as all my flights seem to be doing lately when the check-in lady at Amsterdam Schipol reprimanded me for my heavy suitcase. I'm pretty sure it's the suitcase that's heavy as I was packing next to nothing but this was met on deaf ears of course. Nor did I get a response to my question, "you don't happen to have a cousin back at Tullamarine called Fuck Face, do you?"
Things soon righted themselves and I was off to Cannes via London. The equivalent of driving from Melbourne to Adelaide via Sydney. The joys of European flying. Turns out that 9 times out of 10 it's cheaper to fly via England and when I heard Juliette Lewis would be rocking Koko for one night only... well, I'm not made of stone, am I? Jules showed she still had a set of pipes on her and her singing wasn't bad either. Oh sound that Benny Hill horn! The night ended rather dramatically with a friend being carted off to A&E after some overzealous dance floor action but luckily the outcome wasn't as bad as we all feared. Once again though, it turns out we've all been lied to through song as Allison Goldfrapp's rapturous musings about the British A&E wards aren't in any way accurate.
Well this IS turning out to be a long blog isn't it? Anybody would think I was overcompensating for weeks of not writing. I may have to pull a 2 parter on you. Let's see if I can find a suitable cliffhanger.
So I arrived in Cannes and checked into my apartment with my Binger droogs, who for the sake of allowing me to re-use the acronym (and because I'm not sure whether they want their names plastered all over the interwebs) I'll just call A&E. Look at me! Streamlining my blogs!
Anyways, we were on the fair shores of Cannes but 2 hours when invitations were thrust into our hands and off to the India party we went. The party started with a kind of Wicker Man meets Eyes Wide Shut touch of us being ferried far from the mainland onto an island where we were shepherded into SUV's that drove down dark paths until they arrived at a stony fortress lit by flaming torches. Luckily once we got inside, there were no masks, sodomy or repetitive pianos. Instead there was a buffet worth throwing elbows for, mood lighting that made us all look like Bollywood stars and a whole bunch of dancing ladies getting all Jai Ho (You Are My Destiny) on our arses. It wasn't a bad way to start the week.
It seems everything is beautiful at the buffet for as I was slyly manoevering my way around some people to reach the desserts, I was mistaken for a British pop star. Not sure which one. Though with my glass ashtray throwing abilities, it could have been one of the Sugababes. At the end of the party we were all given goody bags and we all did pretty much the same thing - dump the contents in the harbour save the lovely red pashmina. Day #1 down!
From then on, I established a rhythm that I saw no real reason to deviate from for the remainder of the festival - get up early, have some meetings, go to the Binger apartment for workshops, squeeze in a film, happy hour drinks wherever was happy, bedazzle my way into a beach party and then crawl home for some night cheese. Night cheese became a bit of a Cannes tradition and soon morphed into dawn cheese and morning strawberries. Good nutrition is vital to any film festival.
There's no real need to go into the meetings because if I tell you about them they won't come true. There was only one moment when I pondered my level of class and dignity when I rocked up to a meeting, introduced myself to the person in charge only to be told "I know who you are after last night's party." Part of me will always wonder what he meant by that. I do remember collaring somebody with a camera in order to give an "hilarious" interview as the sun was rising and then leaving the party with an armload of croissants around 6am (to have with my dawn cheese) after ensuring that everyone knew all the moves to Get Ur Freak On but nothing out of the ordinary. It wasn't like I pulled a Pat Benatar and started a revolution of whores taking it to the streets at sunrise. I will say this though - the meeting was brief.
While Cannes was deathly quiet this year with everybody scared to have too much fun in case it made them seem insensitive about that whole economic crisis, the parties still managed to deliver the goods. Kudos in particular going to the Norwegians, the French and the Mexicans.
And as for films, this year was the year of the "masters" so there wasn't really much for fans of the Wayans Brothers. I arrived on Saturday so I missed Bright Star, Fish Tank and A Prophet (the 3 early contenders for the Palme D'or) and also missed out on Taking Woodstock though considering the reviews for Ang Lee's latest, it would seem that maybe "missed" is the wrong word.
On Sunday night I foolishly turned down a ticket to see Agora, the latest from Alejandro Amenabar (the one who DIDN'T direct Harry Potter or Babel). I assumed with it's $70 million budget and Rachel Weisz as a studious astronomer trying to pacify the Christians and the Pagans with her theories on constellations in the 4th century AD that the film was a natural contender for the multiplexes. After all, don't those elements spell out box office gold to you? But sadly, no distributors were forthcoming and no sales were made on the film, described by my colleague E as a "big budget adaptation of Google Maps", so I may never get to see it. You'd think after The Fountain, Rachel's agent might have said "hey Rach, how about you give films that rely on its audience having an intimate knowledge of esoteric spiritual faiths a wide berth?" Maybe it's time they had that conversation.
I did end up seeing the lovely Monica Belluci and Sophie Marceau in their new film, Don't Look Back. Now I should point out that I, and all 3 people I went to see the film with, fell asleep at some point but in Cannes, that's not exactly a criticism. Night cheese doesn't have caffeine in it, aight? The film dealt with Sophie Marceau's fear that she was Monica Belluci and Monica Belluci's fear that she might be developing super-cellulite and might therefore be human after all. It was one of many films in the festival that waved the flag loud and proud for incest. Incest, it appears, is the new black.
Monday I was all set to see Antichrist, the latest from Lars Von Trier, but an unfortunate shoe malfunction on the red carpet, prevented me from seeing Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg going at it hammer and tongs (and rusty scissors). It was interesting to hear detractors of Charlotte (of which I'm not one) lamenting her starring role in the film but once reviews got out and everyone heard how the film, umm.. climaxes, they supported Lars' decision to cast her much more furtively.
Wednesday saw the premiere of Inglourious Basterds - the hottest ticket in town. And I didn't have one. I did try to charm my way into a market screening only to be elbowed out of the way by Pedro Almodovar who did get in. What does he have that I don't? I just hope he didn't hear me yell out "choke on it, Pedro" because I really didn't mean it and it was said in the heat of the moment and I was secretly gunning for him to take out the main prize after years of being overlooked. Despite its mixed reviews and the general complaint that it meandered and needed a good hard edit, there were whispers that it could take out the top gong but considering Isabelle Huppert had been fired from the film a few days into shooting and was the president of this year's Jury, I didn't see that happening somehow.
Instead I had the pleasure of allowing Sam Raimi to Drag Me To Hell. His much anticipated return to horror was an absolute hoot and the enthusiastic crowd response ensured it was one of the most animated cinematic outings I've ever been to (except for that time I saw Lost Things at Greater Union and the bored audience turned rabid and started throwing their seats at the screen). The film was not only entertaining but remarkably pertinent - the general comment being, who wouldn't want to see a bank loan officer getting dragged to hell for 2 hours? The thing I really enjoyed though was that it was an old fashioned genre film that fully embraced its roots and was also embraced by a Cannes audience. I don't want to pay out on all the jump cutting, incest supporting, Google Map adaptations out there but sometimes an audience just want to be entertained and see a good story. And Raimi ensured every minute of that film was firing on all cylinders.
Thursday's when things started getting a little messy. I, along with my cohorts A&E, did the honourable thing and got up at 8am to attend a screening of Inglourious Basterds. The only problem was, we only got to bed a little after 5am a few hours earlier so we were in no fit state to see a film. We totally missed the screening but some kindly soul took pity on us and gave us 3 tickets to see the Michael Haneke film, The White Ribbon. What I saw of the film was well crafted and stark but considering I'd had less than 3 hours sleep, I was in the mood for some Nazi hunting set to ironically chosen music, not a weighty parable on how Nazis came to be. And it was around the time I started hallucinating that there were creatures crawling up the walls of the Grand Theatre Lumiere that I thought "screw this, I'm getting some REM sleep" and curled up in a ball and completely missed the remainder of the film. I will see it again naturally to give it a more respectable chance but right now, there's not a great deal I can say.
After my Haneke nap, I woke refreshed and rejuvenated. I raced to see the new Paul Verhoeven film. My love affair with Paul Verhoeven goes back to the underrated Showgirls and it's deep, intricate exploration of what it takes to be a Vegas lap dancer in the hard and fast 1990's. I'm sure many readers of this blog would have heard me wax lyrical about it many many times and if you're lucky, you may even have caught one of my stirring reenactments of one of its key scenes particularly the gazelle-being-eaten-by-a-crocodile swimming pool scene. So when I heard he'd made a 2 and a half hour documentary about teenagers, well I wasn't about to miss that. I arrived at the screening and received the last ticket! Imagine that! Just call me Serendipity. We were handed tie-in T-shrits and ballpoint pens as well as we walked in. It was a true cinematic event! I settled into my seat about as excited as a 12 year old Christian at a screening of Hannah Montana. But then the movie started...
And there's my cliffhanger!! Stay tuned folks!
And I got a case of the old tonsillitis and nothing sucks the humour out of me like a case of the old tonsillitis. I was grumpy, moody and petulant. Luckily I found some left over "codeine" from my trip to Cambodia. Lord knows what it really is. When you buy pharmaceuticals in Cambodia, you don't bother to read the fine print. They just took me off to a lovely land of fluffy bunnies and candy mountains that resembled something out of a Pioneer commercial (you know.. Pioneer. What jelly dreams are made of. I think they went the same way as Gumbuyah Park and Wobbies World and everything else that gave me happiness as a child - condemned as being health hazards.)
How did I get this tonsillitis? Knowing the followers of this blog your minds have gone straight to the gutter but it is with great pride that I can correct you and say nay, I caught it whilst visiting the family in Germany for Easter. My attempts to speak German weren't great I must admit. Hadn't spoken it in a few years - there are few opportunities around downtown Collingwood. But I did try. Unfortunately my "near enough is good enough" approach to the language just caused confusion. Especially when I kept wishing people a Frohe Osterreich which doesn't mean Happy Easter at all but actually means Happy Austria. You'd think Austria would be happy to be mentioned at all but apparently they don't like being confused with Easter. Talk about being precious.
I visited with my cousins but all roads in Germany lead to the family matriarch - die Tante Herta. My first attempt at film writing was at the age of 18 when I started writing a script called Die Tante Herta about an elderly German relative who comes to town one wacky festive season and manages to tear her family apart with a few well chosen words. The script was no Casablanca but I couldn't help but think fondly of it as I sat at the dinner table with Tante Herta.
Tante Herta doesn't care for me as I have long hair and wear nail polish. Devoting my life to burlesque routines based on Equus would probably have more dignity in her eyes. As our meals were delivered, Herta inspected each plate carefully before lowering her voice, adopting a tone that insinuated an incorrect answer would have dire consequences for everyone in the near vicinity as she coolly asked "where are the potatoes?" They were quickly delivered.
But you didn't come here to read about German senior citizens. Oh no. You're here for the real party - Cannes! And yes what a party it was.
It got off to a shaky start as all my flights seem to be doing lately when the check-in lady at Amsterdam Schipol reprimanded me for my heavy suitcase. I'm pretty sure it's the suitcase that's heavy as I was packing next to nothing but this was met on deaf ears of course. Nor did I get a response to my question, "you don't happen to have a cousin back at Tullamarine called Fuck Face, do you?"
Things soon righted themselves and I was off to Cannes via London. The equivalent of driving from Melbourne to Adelaide via Sydney. The joys of European flying. Turns out that 9 times out of 10 it's cheaper to fly via England and when I heard Juliette Lewis would be rocking Koko for one night only... well, I'm not made of stone, am I? Jules showed she still had a set of pipes on her and her singing wasn't bad either. Oh sound that Benny Hill horn! The night ended rather dramatically with a friend being carted off to A&E after some overzealous dance floor action but luckily the outcome wasn't as bad as we all feared. Once again though, it turns out we've all been lied to through song as Allison Goldfrapp's rapturous musings about the British A&E wards aren't in any way accurate.
Well this IS turning out to be a long blog isn't it? Anybody would think I was overcompensating for weeks of not writing. I may have to pull a 2 parter on you. Let's see if I can find a suitable cliffhanger.
So I arrived in Cannes and checked into my apartment with my Binger droogs, who for the sake of allowing me to re-use the acronym (and because I'm not sure whether they want their names plastered all over the interwebs) I'll just call A&E. Look at me! Streamlining my blogs!
Anyways, we were on the fair shores of Cannes but 2 hours when invitations were thrust into our hands and off to the India party we went. The party started with a kind of Wicker Man meets Eyes Wide Shut touch of us being ferried far from the mainland onto an island where we were shepherded into SUV's that drove down dark paths until they arrived at a stony fortress lit by flaming torches. Luckily once we got inside, there were no masks, sodomy or repetitive pianos. Instead there was a buffet worth throwing elbows for, mood lighting that made us all look like Bollywood stars and a whole bunch of dancing ladies getting all Jai Ho (You Are My Destiny) on our arses. It wasn't a bad way to start the week.
It seems everything is beautiful at the buffet for as I was slyly manoevering my way around some people to reach the desserts, I was mistaken for a British pop star. Not sure which one. Though with my glass ashtray throwing abilities, it could have been one of the Sugababes. At the end of the party we were all given goody bags and we all did pretty much the same thing - dump the contents in the harbour save the lovely red pashmina. Day #1 down!
From then on, I established a rhythm that I saw no real reason to deviate from for the remainder of the festival - get up early, have some meetings, go to the Binger apartment for workshops, squeeze in a film, happy hour drinks wherever was happy, bedazzle my way into a beach party and then crawl home for some night cheese. Night cheese became a bit of a Cannes tradition and soon morphed into dawn cheese and morning strawberries. Good nutrition is vital to any film festival.
There's no real need to go into the meetings because if I tell you about them they won't come true. There was only one moment when I pondered my level of class and dignity when I rocked up to a meeting, introduced myself to the person in charge only to be told "I know who you are after last night's party." Part of me will always wonder what he meant by that. I do remember collaring somebody with a camera in order to give an "hilarious" interview as the sun was rising and then leaving the party with an armload of croissants around 6am (to have with my dawn cheese) after ensuring that everyone knew all the moves to Get Ur Freak On but nothing out of the ordinary. It wasn't like I pulled a Pat Benatar and started a revolution of whores taking it to the streets at sunrise. I will say this though - the meeting was brief.
While Cannes was deathly quiet this year with everybody scared to have too much fun in case it made them seem insensitive about that whole economic crisis, the parties still managed to deliver the goods. Kudos in particular going to the Norwegians, the French and the Mexicans.
And as for films, this year was the year of the "masters" so there wasn't really much for fans of the Wayans Brothers. I arrived on Saturday so I missed Bright Star, Fish Tank and A Prophet (the 3 early contenders for the Palme D'or) and also missed out on Taking Woodstock though considering the reviews for Ang Lee's latest, it would seem that maybe "missed" is the wrong word.
On Sunday night I foolishly turned down a ticket to see Agora, the latest from Alejandro Amenabar (the one who DIDN'T direct Harry Potter or Babel). I assumed with it's $70 million budget and Rachel Weisz as a studious astronomer trying to pacify the Christians and the Pagans with her theories on constellations in the 4th century AD that the film was a natural contender for the multiplexes. After all, don't those elements spell out box office gold to you? But sadly, no distributors were forthcoming and no sales were made on the film, described by my colleague E as a "big budget adaptation of Google Maps", so I may never get to see it. You'd think after The Fountain, Rachel's agent might have said "hey Rach, how about you give films that rely on its audience having an intimate knowledge of esoteric spiritual faiths a wide berth?" Maybe it's time they had that conversation.
I did end up seeing the lovely Monica Belluci and Sophie Marceau in their new film, Don't Look Back. Now I should point out that I, and all 3 people I went to see the film with, fell asleep at some point but in Cannes, that's not exactly a criticism. Night cheese doesn't have caffeine in it, aight? The film dealt with Sophie Marceau's fear that she was Monica Belluci and Monica Belluci's fear that she might be developing super-cellulite and might therefore be human after all. It was one of many films in the festival that waved the flag loud and proud for incest. Incest, it appears, is the new black.
Monday I was all set to see Antichrist, the latest from Lars Von Trier, but an unfortunate shoe malfunction on the red carpet, prevented me from seeing Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg going at it hammer and tongs (and rusty scissors). It was interesting to hear detractors of Charlotte (of which I'm not one) lamenting her starring role in the film but once reviews got out and everyone heard how the film, umm.. climaxes, they supported Lars' decision to cast her much more furtively.
Wednesday saw the premiere of Inglourious Basterds - the hottest ticket in town. And I didn't have one. I did try to charm my way into a market screening only to be elbowed out of the way by Pedro Almodovar who did get in. What does he have that I don't? I just hope he didn't hear me yell out "choke on it, Pedro" because I really didn't mean it and it was said in the heat of the moment and I was secretly gunning for him to take out the main prize after years of being overlooked. Despite its mixed reviews and the general complaint that it meandered and needed a good hard edit, there were whispers that it could take out the top gong but considering Isabelle Huppert had been fired from the film a few days into shooting and was the president of this year's Jury, I didn't see that happening somehow.
Instead I had the pleasure of allowing Sam Raimi to Drag Me To Hell. His much anticipated return to horror was an absolute hoot and the enthusiastic crowd response ensured it was one of the most animated cinematic outings I've ever been to (except for that time I saw Lost Things at Greater Union and the bored audience turned rabid and started throwing their seats at the screen). The film was not only entertaining but remarkably pertinent - the general comment being, who wouldn't want to see a bank loan officer getting dragged to hell for 2 hours? The thing I really enjoyed though was that it was an old fashioned genre film that fully embraced its roots and was also embraced by a Cannes audience. I don't want to pay out on all the jump cutting, incest supporting, Google Map adaptations out there but sometimes an audience just want to be entertained and see a good story. And Raimi ensured every minute of that film was firing on all cylinders.
Thursday's when things started getting a little messy. I, along with my cohorts A&E, did the honourable thing and got up at 8am to attend a screening of Inglourious Basterds. The only problem was, we only got to bed a little after 5am a few hours earlier so we were in no fit state to see a film. We totally missed the screening but some kindly soul took pity on us and gave us 3 tickets to see the Michael Haneke film, The White Ribbon. What I saw of the film was well crafted and stark but considering I'd had less than 3 hours sleep, I was in the mood for some Nazi hunting set to ironically chosen music, not a weighty parable on how Nazis came to be. And it was around the time I started hallucinating that there were creatures crawling up the walls of the Grand Theatre Lumiere that I thought "screw this, I'm getting some REM sleep" and curled up in a ball and completely missed the remainder of the film. I will see it again naturally to give it a more respectable chance but right now, there's not a great deal I can say.
After my Haneke nap, I woke refreshed and rejuvenated. I raced to see the new Paul Verhoeven film. My love affair with Paul Verhoeven goes back to the underrated Showgirls and it's deep, intricate exploration of what it takes to be a Vegas lap dancer in the hard and fast 1990's. I'm sure many readers of this blog would have heard me wax lyrical about it many many times and if you're lucky, you may even have caught one of my stirring reenactments of one of its key scenes particularly the gazelle-being-eaten-by-a-crocodile swimming pool scene. So when I heard he'd made a 2 and a half hour documentary about teenagers, well I wasn't about to miss that. I arrived at the screening and received the last ticket! Imagine that! Just call me Serendipity. We were handed tie-in T-shrits and ballpoint pens as well as we walked in. It was a true cinematic event! I settled into my seat about as excited as a 12 year old Christian at a screening of Hannah Montana. But then the movie started...
And there's my cliffhanger!! Stay tuned folks!
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