À Cannes

So this morning, or maybe it was afternoon as I slept away the sunlight today, the line-up for Cannes 2006 was announced.... with a wimper.


Apparently David Lynch's Inland Empire was not ready, so the slot for most exciting entry has now been filled by the new Pedro Almodóvar film, Volver. Other films of note I suppose would be the new Guillermo del Toro film El laberinto del Fauno (Pan's Labyrinth), which marks his return to Spanish-language films after Hollywood forgettables like Blade II and Hellboy.


And if you like your cinema uncompromising, Bruno Dumont's (Twentynine Palms, Humanité) new film, Flandres will also be in competition. A cautionary tale of war really doesn't sound appealing, but how could you not want to see how Dumont handles it?

If you can forget Avril Lavigne and Ethan Hawke are in it, Richard Linklater's film adapation of the non-fiction Fast Food Nation will also be screening in competition and maybe it'll be good.

And if you like boring neo-neo-realism, Ken Loach's The Wind that Shakes the Barley and Nanni Moretti's Il caimano will be there too.

Most grudgingly, however, some moron at Cannes has accepted the new Richard Kelly (yeah, that fucker who made Donnie Darko) film into competition, starring..... The Rock, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Mandy Moore, that other guy from Dude Where's My Car?, and (?) Miranda Richardson. Truly, I think they only included this film in competition so I could bitch less about the new Sofia Coppola film. I had once hoped that Donnie Darko was simply an American teenage fluke, but this proves maybe not.

Out of the competition, however, will premiere John Cameron Mitchell's long-in-production hard-sex drama Shortbus and the French premiere of X-Men 3! Oh, yeah, and The Da Vinci Code. For a full listing, here's the link.