Cannes at Home: Days 2 & 3 – Blood, Sweat & Tears

by Cláudio Alves

WILD DIAMOND (2024) Agathe Riedinger

The first two days of competition screenings have whipped up a storm at the Cannes Film Festival. Things started normal enough with Agathe Riedinger's Wild Diamond, this year's only feature debut vying for the Palme. Reactions were a tad tepid, but the same can't be said about Magnus van Horn's Girl with the Needle, which has horrified some viewers. All hell broke loose on the second day of competition, when both Andrea Arnold's Bird and Francis Ford Coppola's Megalopolis had their world premieres. The British auteur earned general praise, though some found it confounding. As for the American master's long-awaited opus, opinions are so divided that a chasm seems to have broken open across the Croisette. Some say it's a catastrophe of epic proportions, while others see value in its epic mess. Whatever the case, it sounds like a fascinating watch, even as reports from the troubled shoot have enmeshed the picture in controversy. 

Since Riedinger has no previous features, she won't be included in the Cannes at Home fest. For the other filmmakers, let's revisit Sweat, Red Road, and Apocalypse Now…

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Beauty Break: ASC Tributes + Best Cinematography Honors

The American Society of Cinematographers will hold their annual awards dinner tonight where they'll be honoring Jeff Bridges with their Board of Governors Award, three-time Oscar winner Robert Richardson (Hugo, Aviator, JFK) with the Lifetime Achievement Award, and two time Emmy winner Jeffrey Jur (Carnivàle, Bessie) for the Career Achievement in Television Award. They'll also hand out some competitive prizes and presumably give Alfonso Cuarón yet another trophy for his mantle (let's hope he has steel reinforced shelving at home given this season's worth of hardware.) UPDATE: oops we were wrong and Cuarón lost for practically the first time this season.

Let's look at that beautiful imagery from the winners and nominees again with a few bonus gifs... 

• WINNER: Łukasz Żal, PSC for “Cold War” 

What an incredible DP Żal is. After the consecutive Pawel Pawlikowski's successes of Ida (2013) and Cold War (2018), will he be in demand in Hollywood or just stick to work across the ocean? While his best work has been in black & white in Poland he does color and cinema from other countries as well...

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Review: American Honey

By Steven Fenton

The song “American Honey” is about a woman aching for the free spirit she was in her youth, wishing she’d had the courage to flee her circumstances. Andrea Arnold’s American Honey considers what that woman’s life might have been had she left. The sensational Sasha Lane plays Star, a young woman who steps out of her life and into a tribe of disenfranchised, disenchanted, lost youth on an odyssey across the American South.

Star is struggling. She’s living with her boyfriend and raising his children, with no help or money. Then one day at Wal-Mart she watches a troop of wild teens turn the store into their own raucous dance party...

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YNMS: American Honey

Murtada here. The best thing about this lackluster summer movie season, might be the trailers for fall movies. This week sees one of our most anticipated, Andrea Arnold’s American Honey starring Shia LaBeouf, Riley Keough and introducing Sasha Lane in the lead role. The film is about a young woman who joins a travelling magazine sales crew, and their adventures as they travel the midwest, party and maybe fall in love. There’s also some law-breaking.

Let’s deep dive with a Yes, No, Maybe so after the jump..... 

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