Eyes open. Starting tomorrow, the 61st Festival de Cannes will unspool about 1,000 never-before-seen films in 11 days. It’s hottest event on the film calendar and only around 4,000 of the world’s leading critics and journalists allowed in.
Naturally, we’ll be two of them. LWLies publisher Danny Miller and Associate Editor Jonathan Crocker are currently psyching to rock the Croisette and soak up the cinema. And they’ll be giving you the inside word every step of the way.
Soderbergh, Clint Eastwood, the Dardennes, Abel Ferrara, Spielberg… They’re all here. But which movies should you be excited about? Check out our highlights below. And keep clicking to LWLies Online for the UK’s best daily Cannes blog. All killer, no filler…
Blindness
Director: Fernando Meirelles
Starring: Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Danny Glover, Alice Braga
City Of God and The Constant Gardner helmer Fernando Meirelles and an ace cast link for this drama about a mystery affliction - “The White Sickness” - that leaves over 90% of the population blind. One woman (Julianne Moore) is untouched by the illness, but must hide that fact she can still to help help her husband (Mark Ruffalo) as society falls apart around them. Based on a Nobel Prize-winning novel, too.
Changeling
Director: Clint Eastwood
Starring: Angelina Jolie, John Malkovich, Amy Ryan
Kidnap, murder and another missing child… Angelina Jolie plays a work-class mom who’s 10-year-old son disappears. Months later, he turns up – but Jolie is convinced this is not her child, causing the police to lock her in a psychiatrist hospital. Written by Babylon 5 creator J Michael Straczynski, CLint Eastwood’s late-20s period thriller is based on a real-life kidnap and murder case. Fascinating talent on both sides of the camera.
Synecdoche, NY
Director: Charlie Kaufman
Starring: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener, Michelle Williams
Now /this/ will be interesting. Adaptation and Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind screenwriter Charlie Kaufman makes his directorial debut, with the stunning Philip Seymour Hoffman as a playwright who finds that his autonomic functions are shutting down just as he starts a new play. Kaufman says it’s a bit like a horror film…
Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull
Director: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Harrison Ford, Cate Blanchett, Ray Winstone
You might have heard of this one… But what’s a crystal skull? Where are the Nazis? And are they all too old for this shit? All will be revealed as 60-somethings Spielberg, Lucas and Ford whip the world’s least boring archaeologist back into shape. Spielberg says Cate Blanchett’s dominatrix Russian agent is his favourite villain. We’re liking that.
Adoration
Director: Atom Egoyan
Starring: Scott Speedman, Rachel Blanchard, Arsinee Khanjian
Canadian Cannes darling Atom Egoyan directs his own wife in this story of a high-school French teacher who ask her class to translate a news story about a terrorist who plants a bomb on his pregnant girlfriend and puts her on a plane. But one of the her students becomes obsessed with the story, imagining himself to be the couple’s child and creates a new identity for himself… Hooked? Thought so.
Chelsea On The Rocks
Director: Abel Ferrara
Starring: Ethan Hawke, Bijou Philips, Dennis Hopper
Arthur C Clarke wrote 2001: A Space Odyssey there. Mark Twain and Joni Mitchell stayed there. Bob Dylan wrote ‘Sad-Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands’ there. Sid Vicious’ girlfriend was stabbed there. New York’s Chelsea Hotel sounds like an ideal place for extremo arthouse helmer Abel Ferrara to pull a fact/ fiction documentary.
Wendy And Lucy
Director: Kelly Reichardt
Starring: Michelle Williams, Will Patton, John Robinson
Old Joy was one of 2005’s best films. Now director Kelly Reichardt is back with the only film at Cannes 2008 that the festival selection committee picked without being prompted. Which means it’s good. Very good. Williams plays a woman whose car breaks down on the way to Alaska, forcing her to make a series of “increasingly dire economic decisions.” Hmm…
The Silence Of Lorna
Directors: Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne
Starring: Jeremie Renier, Olivier Gourmet, Arta Dobroshi
If you’re going to make a bet, stick it on the Dardennes. The French maestros have never left Cannes empty handed. They’ve won the Palme d’Or twice – with stunners Rosetta and L’Enfant. Serious excitement, then, to see them back again this year. Their new film focuses on a woman trapped in a marriage of convenient with a drug addict. Anticipate it.
