As usual during this hectic time in Southern France, flicks be selling and selling. The market is packed with movies, good and bad, big and small. George Gallo’s Middle Men, a comedy starring Luke Wilson about the guys who figured out how to make money off Internet porn, has been getting a solid response and I tried to get into a screening of I Love You, Philip Morris and watched many buyers (representatives of production companies and distributors) go in before me. That being said, the intense homosexual content in the film will make it a hard in the States, even if Jim Carrey’s performance is worthy of his much-needed comeback.
I have not seen as may films as I should be, and for that I apologize. That being said, it’s been a mediocre year for the competition films. So far, Jacques Audiard’s Un Prophete has gotten the most universal positive response by critics, so keep that on the Palme d’Or radar. Taking Woodstock, one of the most highly anticipated films here, was met with a thundering shrug and while Lars von Trier’s Antichrist was is probably impossible not to shrug at, the gruesome content has polarized the audiences and the critics as well.
The word on the street is that Michael Haneke’s Das Weisse Band is impressive and, seeing as Haneke has never one the Palme d’Or, this film is a viable contender. My sleeper pick is Map of the Sounds of Toyko, an Isabel Coixet film starring Rinko Kikuchi about a fish-market employee who also is a hitman. Coixet did a lot of good things with the acting in Elegy, so I’m excited to see what she can do with Kikuchi.
Editor’s Note: One of the day-after screenings of Antichrist lost power during the screening allegedly due to a protester of the controversial film. Whether or not this is true is not for me to say at this moment, but my guess would be yes. The movie is crazy and disturbing and hated by many, yet decidedly brilliant by some. It’s Von Trier after all, and his self-proclaimed “most important film.”