CANNES, France –- All rumors about the prizes at Cannes are essentially worthless. Why don’t I know this? I could make up my own and do just about as well. It is apparently true that Sam Jackson told somebody there were going to be “big surprises” when the awards were announced, and there were; never before has a jury honored the casts of two films with ensemble acting awards, and certainly no one predicted that Ken Loach’s “The Wind that Shakes the Barley” would win the Palme d’Or. When it did, there was much agreement, and, yes, much surprise.
CANNES, France -- Ken Loach's "The Wind That Shakes the Barley" won the Palme d'Or in the Cannes Film Festival here Sunday, and that was a surprise and a delight in about equal measure. The film stars Cillian Murphy in the harrowing story of how the Irish Republican Army waged war against the British and enforced deadly discipline within its own ranks.
CANNES, France – It probably won’t happen this way, but wouldn’t everyone be pleased if Gerard Depardieu won the best actor award at Cannes this year. The festival’s awards are given out Sunday night (12:30 p.m. CDT), and Depardieu received a tumultuous ovation Friday as the star of “Quand j’etais Chanteur,” or “The Singer.” Depardieu’s character reminded many audience members of the actor himself: A beefy middle-aged artist still slugging away at a job he loves, smoking too much, adamantly on the wagon, given new hope by his feelings for a much younger woman (Cecile de France). “I’ve been written off a lot of times,” he tells her, “but I always bounce back.”
CANNES, France – At last, on Day 9 of the Cannes Film Festival, an old-fashioned real movie, with a beginning, middle and end, characters, a story, and a powerful message. Is Rachid Bouchareb’s “Days of Glory” (“Indigenes”), a drama about French troops from the colonies of Northern Africa, too traditional to win the Palme d’Or?
CANNES, France – Like any good bookie, Derek Malcolm carries his odds in his head. He revises them after every screening of a film in the official competition. Wednesday morning, the odds got a little longer for Sofia Coppola’s “Marie Antoinette,” which is tipped as a front-runner for the Palme d’Or.
“Almodovar’s chances up a little, Coppola down a little,” Malcolm informed me. He is a British film critic, long with the
Guardian, who early in life was a professional jockey. At Cannes he quotes the odds, you place your bet, he pays off at the end of the festival. This must be legal, since he makes no secret of it. Like all good bookies, he usually makes money no matter who wins.
CANNES, France – There are entries that have been liked and even loved, but the 2006 Cannes Film Festival reaches its halfway mark looking like a fairly lackluster year. Only Pedro Almodovar’s “Volver,” a high-spirited memory inspired by his childhood in La Mancha, has been embraced by critics and audiences. “Volver” means “to return,” and resembles in its exuberant nostalgia Fellini’s “Amarcord” (“I Remember”).
RSS Headlines
