Cannes in 60 Seconds: Saturday, May 16, 2009

The fourth day of the Cannes Film Festival rolled onward without apparent major incident. The gorgeous Sophie Marceau and Tilda Swinton got all dressed up; also making appearances were Emile Hirsch and Monica Belluci.

Key Screenings. Competition: Ang Lee's nostalgic comedy Taking Woodstock (due for US release on August 14), Jacques Audiard's prison drama A Prophet. Un Certain Regard: Bong Joon-ho's legal / family drama Mother, Corneliu's Porumboiu's drama Police, Adjective. Directors' Fortnight: Hong Sang-see's "film director forgets what he did the night before" Like You Know It All, Benny Safdie and Josh Safdie's "single father with kids for two weeks" flick Go Get Some Rosemary.

Films Sold. MTV picked up Adria Petty's Paris, Not France and plans to broadcast it this summer, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The long featurette screened once at the Toronto fest last fall amidst concerns that Paris Hilton and her camp might object to its content. "After watching the film with an audience," the article says, "Hilton's concerns were allayed." Was it the one that James Rocchi reported on for Cinematical? He called the doc "a step above a home movie ... a glossy glib pseudo documentary."

Strand Releasing announced the acquisition of two films that debuted at Sundance in January. Emily Abt's lacrosse relationship drama Toe to Toe, planned for an early 2010 release, and Jay DiPietro's Peter and Vandy, starring Jason Ritter and Jess Weixler, planned for release this fall. Cinematical's Erik Davis saw it at Sundance and wrote in part: "This isn't a film that relies on a few big set pieces to rule the show; it's a quieter character piece about the complexities of love. Details on the deals are available at indieWIRE:

After the jump: Choice Review Quotes!

Choice Review Quotes. David Hudson at The Daily quotes several more positive reports on Ang Lee's Taking Woodstock, but most reviewers had a similar reaction to Eric Kohn at indieWIRE. "This messy historical fiction plays like a two hour 'Saturday Night Live' sketch, and not a very good one, either."

Yay! Karina Longworth of Spout has finally landed in Cannes, just in time to write sentences like this: "It would be a lot easier to dismiss if Kore-eda's platitudinous lament for the loss of collective soul didn't, as a side effect, movingly speak to fundamental conflicts between sexes, to outdated gender roles that persist to spark frustrations in urban North American life and must be much more prevalent in Japan, in which standard issue porn is dominated by images of alleged schoolgirls." My high school education is not sufficient to parse that partial sentence, but it makes me eager to see Air Doll, the Japanese film she's writing about, and that's half the battle, isn't it?

"No more caveats: this morning was the premiere of Un Prophete and it was received with a rush of enthusiastic applause by the critics. (By the way, when people say a film was greeted with a standing ovation at Cannes, they're referring to the evening performance for invited guests and the stars where a standing ovation is almost obligatory. It's the morning screening for the critics where people will applaud and boo with gusto and that's the reception that matters.)" -- Michael Glitz at The Huffington Post, writing about A Prophet, the new film by Jacques Audiard (The Beat That My Heart Skipped).