Cannes, France — A beautiful place to surrender.

by DB

Hooray, the Frogs have finally announced some of the films that will be a part of the week-long festival that begins in mid-May (Cannes runs from May 16, 2007 to the 27th and Yes - yours truly from DB from BoxOfficePsychics.com will be present at the festival to report all the news firsthand)

The way it works is simple - this guy…

… Thierry Fremaux who is the artistic director for the Cannes film festival - after much cajoling, negotiating and ass-kissing (French style so you know it’s not pretty) announces some of the films participating. Many of which he doesn’t announce cause they are French and therefore take precedence. This year (apparently) is a very good year for American film-makers who have been kind of shut-out in recent years.

Michael Moore - who is the darling of the French will likely have his film SICKO. Moore won the Palme d’Or (the biggest honor at Cannes) in 2004 for Fahrenheit 9/11. This film looks at America’s health-care crisis and hopefully will do more to sway the elections in 2008 than Fahrenheit 9/11 was able to do in 2004 (can you sense that we here at Box Office Psychics are a rare breed of non-politically correct sarcastic Democrats yet?)

Wong Kar Wai’s MY BLUEBERRY NIGHTS will most likely be filling the festival’s opening slot (Wong Kar Wai won the Palm D’Or in 1997 for HAPPY TOGETHER) and is best known in this country for his film 2046 which was released 42 years too early in 2004. MY BLUEBERRY NIGHTS stars Norah Jones, Jude Law, Natalie Portman, Rachel Weisz, David Strathairn and Ed Harris. (In other words the film is a Cannes photo-op wet dream) and will be distributed in the US by the Weinsteins. It’s about a young woman - played by Norah Jones who takes a soul searching journey across the USA to resolve her questions about love while encourntering a bevy of psuedo-stars along the way. Of course the film sounds really boring, but maybe that’s why it was selected to go first.

Other festival notables are likely to be GRINDHOUSE from Tarantino, ZODIAC (to close the festival) from David Fincher and Ocean’s 13 (Note that if a film is a part of Cannes it must not be released in other parts of Europe till Cannes and this could slow up the release process for these already released in the US films - not good business if you ask me)

I’m most looking forward to CITY OF MEN - a follow up to the Brazilian masterpiece CITY OF GOD directed by Fernando Meirelles in 2004. MEN is directed by Paulo Morelli an up-and-coming Brazilian director and the Miramax film stars a whole bunch of unknowns (I’m only saying this cause there was no info on IMDB.com telling me who the actors are or what the plot is - I just know I want to see it dammit.)

In case you are thinking to yourself- “Cannes - who fucking cares what the French think” Then pehaps you should remember that last year’s Palm D’Or winner Ken Loach’s THE WIND THAT SHAKES THE BARLEY made an entire $2 dollars and 25 cents here in the USA. And that it beat out far superior movies such as Babel, Volver, Marie Antoinette and Pan’s Labyrinth to win that prize. The Cannes jury did however give out a Best Actor award to the entire male ensemble cast of DAYS OF GLORY (see review) and Best Actress to the entire femlae ensemble of Volver so I suppose that evens things out a bit. But if you’ve followed Cannes for a few years you’d know that they have about 240 different awards and prizes that they give out and that the rules are so make-them-up-as-you-go-along that they dont’ really matter. I guess what does matter is that the food there is probably better than it is anywhere in Hollywood and that while you are spitting on stars walking down the red carpet on the Croisette you can mutter “Stupid Americans” in peace.

For more info on the Cannes Film Festival check out their neat website here: http://www.festival-cannes.fr/

Tags: cannes, film festival, sicko, my blueberry nights, grindhouse, zodiac, city of men

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