The second part of the Cannes Festival is turning out to be harder to love than the first one, an enlightened epoch when “Ma Loute” and “Mal de Pierres,” an off-kilter comedy and a love drama respectively, were easy to stamp as good cinema. Week two isn’t all gems. Yesterday, the Dardenne Brothers’s “La fille inconnue” (“The Unknown Girl”) received a lukewarm response. In it a young woman ... more >
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CANNES DAYS 8 and 9 | “La fille inconnue,” “Personal Shopper,” “Inversion” and “Juste la fin du monde”
More misses than hits in fest's second half
Black swan
Darren Aronofsky’s biggest movie yet
Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis and Vincent Cassel
Directed by Darren Aronofsky
Darren Aronofsky has made another divisive film; in fact I feel a little divided on it myself. It’s expertly-made and you never know where it will go but you want to scrub the unpleasantness from you brain as soon as you leave the theater. Natalie Portman plays Nina, an dedicated ballerina with a controlling stage-mother (Barbara Hershey), deformed, swollen toes, and fingernails hanging by a ... more >
Irreversible
Cannes Fest’s most controversial film in years
Monica Bellucci, Vincent Cassel and Albert Dupontel
Directed by Gaspar Noé
The first thirty minutes of Gaspar Noé's "Irreversible" had a background noise added which hovers around the 28 hz frequency. This type of frequency causes nausea, sickness and vertigo in humans; this might help explain the numerous walkouts on the festival circuit the year the film came out (2002; San Sebastian, Cannes)--though there were other reasons (fire extinguisher, anyone?). ... more >