Cannes Diary #1: Adam Driver singing, journalists spitting, and other minor inconveniences

TFE is thrilled to have a correspondent on the ground in Cannes this year. Please welcome back Elisa Giudici.

by Elisa Guidici

It's my first day of my first year as a press pass holder at Cannes Film Festival. Let me tell you that as an Italian, I am so proud of how Venice Mostra handled their Covid-19 edition last season. Cannes had an extra year to plan how to be efficient, safe and as Covid-free as possible. How did the organisation spent these months?.The ticketing system to avoid long queues before screenings? A hot mess. The website? Almost always down. Covid tests? Bizzarre, but at least free for pass holders...

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"Zola" is a must-see

Spend some time in batshit insane Florida this weekend. Writer/Director Janicza Bravo's stripper comedy Zola (co-written by Tony-nominated playwright Jeremy O. Harris) which was a major Sundance hit way back in January 2020 before the pandemic, is finally in theaters. It was worth the wait. Murtada raved about it last year...

Zola is the first film to get how social media interactions have shaped the way people talk to each other IRL. How many times have you said "LOL" to someone’s face? Admit it, many times. Bravo and Harris manage the find the right speech cadences for that sort of phone jargon. Then, Bravo masterfully realizes them visually so that they are seamless. [Read the full review] 

It's a great and wild time at the movies headlined by fast-rising wonder Taylour Paige (so fun as Viola's girl in Ma Rainey last season) in a nimble deadpan funny star turn. She had me in stitches with a one word line reading "...word" early on in this weekend misadventure before the gallows-humor comedy rubbernecks around its rather serious and frightening sex-trafficking elements. She and the underappreciated Riley Keough are both expert at keeping their performances both real and "in quotes" for the different points of view and emotional facades the women wear to survive. 

Quickies to Catch Up (pt 2): Female led thrillers and CG beasts in battle

by Nathaniel R

In an attempt to clear our cache of notes and fill out that review page for 2021, we're addressing movies we didn't get around to discussing in full for your commenting pleasure. Better late than never! As we were typing these Luca emerged but it's so good it deserves one big post or several little ones before the Oscars so more on that soon. If you missed part one of this review catch-up, that's here. After the jump brief thoughts on four films: Godzilla vs Kong, Mortal Kombat, Those Who Wish Me Dead, and The Woman in the Window...

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"I Carry You With Me"

by Nick Taylor 

I am both tremendously enthusiastic and a bit disappointed that I Carry You With Me is finally getting a theatrical release. Enthused because it’s a goddamn gem that ranks among the best films of last year, and sits right alongside Lingua Franca and Welcome to Chechnya as one of the very best queer films. The disappointment comes from the fact that, as far as anyone's concerned, this is a 2020 film. Distributor Sony Pictures Classics went out of its way to give this an awards-qualifying run despite pushing its wide release date further and further back. As with the aesthetically entrancing documentary Gunda or the tonally triumphant, richly acted French Exit (both also distributed by SPC), it’s a bit mystifying that this was seen as the superior strategy rather than letting I Carry You With Me’s reputation build over the course of this year. Art doesn’t need awards, sure, but it’s a bummer that Heidi Ewing’s fiction film debut won’t be able to generate the sort of grassroots attention that Isabel Sandoval, Eliza Hittman, Kelly Reichardt, and Kitty Green all earned to different degrees over the extended 2020 season.

But enough griping! Legitimate criticisms about a film’s release strategy shouldn’t totally overcome the fact that such an engrossing, formally adventurous and emotionally direct feature has gotten a theatrical release. Compared to Lingua Franca and Welcome to Chechnya, it’s by far among the most approachable of the three, which shouldn’t bely how adventurous its storytelling approach is...

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Quickies to Catch Up (pt 1): The Conjuring 3, A Quiet Place 2, Barb & Star 1

It's been difficult to get back into the swing of things, especially since we're short on funds given how last season went with Hollywood shut down. That said, we're feeling a swing of summer energy coming so... watch out? stay tuned? cross fingers? Though we reviewed quite a few indies, docs, and festival entries, we've given mainstream stuff short shrift other than the beautifully made but maddeningly soft Cruella, the wondrously exuberant In the Heights, and the utterly lame Thunder Force. We'll be shocked if a worse movie arrives this year than the latter, which is sad since it's so easy to root for both of its leading actresses in a general career sense.

Without further ado let's get started on the catch-up (and fill out that review page) with four movies you probably saw that we didn't talk about. Let's fix that in the comment section...

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