Klein at Cannes

Barely a Splash: A Review by: Nicole Klein How does one take the sport of large-waving surfing, a sport where one risk serious injury of a slow and painful death   by drowning just to skate along on 30 foot wave boring? It seems the director of the documentary Heavy Water aimed to do just that. Aside from way too many slow motion pans across mountainous gushing waves, this documentary seems to lack the stakes this real-world story already had. Heavy Water focuses its attention on a series of surfer Nathan Fletcher’s exploits, leaving little more than talking heads and those same shots of Hokusai-esque waves over and over and over again. It isn’t until the tail end of the documentary that a pattern starts to emerge; fletcher seeks to honor deceased friends and family members through pioneering what he calls the ‘acid drop’, a dive from a helicopter onto the largest wave he can find. It’s quite a shame that this was the most compelling story this film could muster, as it only o...

#MakeRacismScaryAgain A Review by: Nicole Klein For quite a few years now, many have doubted if Spike Lee’s directorial stylings were what they used to be. Needless to say, Spike Lee’s newest offering, a little adaptation by the name of BlacKkKlansman feels like the triumphant return that fans of his work have been dreaming of for years. Although darkly comedic in an in-your-face, almost Tarantino-esque way, BlacKkKlansman doesn’t shy away from the timely social criticism when needed, quite the contrary, BlacKkKlansman is a dual-natured film. At times it delivers deadpan humor and dry wit. However, when it comes time for the discourse, BlacKkKlansman unapologetically aims to make racism downright scary again. In this fictionalized adaptation of an autobiography of the same name, John David Washington plays Ron Stallworth, the first black police officer of the Colorado Springs police department. Ron Stallworth, at first assigned to grunt-work by his chief, quickly moves to the r...

Ah the final day of the festival; it certainly didn't disappointed. I got into Cannes at 11 and Immediately got busy getting all I could into the day. I went around to souvenir shops for my dad and I and got my mom some fancy french chocolate. I went again to look for my tiny phone, but had no such luck. Oh well, I guess I'll have to bite the 50€ bullet. It could be worse. I was lucky enough to find my way into a screening of Blackkklansman , a film all my peers have been raving about. The hype was not unwarranted; it was easily one of the best films I've seen throughout this whole festival. After that, I tried begging for closing tickets, to no avail. Oddly enough, some little old woman interrupted my begging, just by approaching me asking what I was doing. Then we ended up getting into a 40 minute conversation about God, her acting career, and the sorry state of the world. I'm not sorry I had that experience, even if she wierded me out a bit. I ran into another gro...

Yesterday wasn't all that interesting a day. I spent the morning on reviews and missed blog posts, delaying my arrival into Cannes to 2:30. When I got there, I tried a restaurant Namita recommended; I certainly wasn't dissatisfied. After having a lunch of duck breast (a cut of the bird that tastes remarkably like a good bloody steak), I went into the festival in search of my small phone. Unfortunately, they didn't find it. The only film I saw was Lazzaro Felice which was damned outstanding. Seeing that film definitely gave me an appreciation for 'arthouse' cinema. I rode the train back to JLP and just kinda explored for a couple hours.

The Last Prince of Atlantis seems to be an endurance test. It seems to dare its audience how long it is willing to wade through a Dantean river of excrement before it wants to pull itself out of the muck and leave. The Last Prince of Atlantis is a lesson in its own regard, a lesson on how not to make an animated feature, a lesson in what happens when one waits through something seemingly exciting that will ultimately offer only disappointment. Truly it was a spectacle to witness a film where everything was done absolutely incorrectly, but it is not a spectacle I would eager recommend others partake in. Quite the contrary, this little film is a spectacle on par with a destructive volcanic eruption or a massive hurricane; it is devastating and tragic to behold, but one can’t help but keep their eyes glued to it. The Last Prince of Atlantis juggles way too many plot lines for its own good. The first features an Indiana Jones-type character dismissed as insane by his peers for seeking...

I’m not quite sure how to feel about Savauge . On the one hand, it’s a well shot, well-acted film that’s incredibly aesthetically pleasing and offers a tragic tale that will haymaker-punch you in   the heart down to the last second. On the other hand, it’s essentially explicit gay porn, with full frontal nudity from its actors and all. The pornographic elements pull no punches either, as the sound designers have made sure you the viewer can hear every swallow of semen. I get that the film’s leads were male prostitutes, but I felt the film’s desire to get as explicit as it possibly was quite distracting from the emotionally weighty story this film was trying to tell. This isn’t to say that this is a bad film by any stretch of the imagination. Quite the contrary; when this film’s plot can climb above the mountain of penises, its character interactions and cinematography are impressively emotional. 6.9/10 ·       Producer: Emmanuel Giraud ·  ...

Yesterday was quite eventful. I got into Cannes at around 11 and got breakfast at what's easily my favorite bakery in the damned city. I took it with me to the palais and scheduled out my viewings for the day as I ate. It seemed as though the herds have thinned, as market screenings have all but ended. Luckily for me, this meant I could get caught up on the competition films I'd missed. You see, I've gone about this festival with a philosophy of just seeing movies based on title alone to go in more unbiased. Doing so has given me a whole spectrum of movies to view, be they the next classics or worse than The Room. Now I can catch up on the best things since there's no more muddled water to wade through, so to speak. What I ended up seeing were Savauge, La Hora de los Hornos, and The Harvesters.  Savauge  is a film I can only describe as gay porn with a melodrama's plot. La Hora de los Hornos  was Argentine communist propaganda from the 1960's filmed like a c...

Day 9 was an average day in Cannes. Well, average is pretty relative when you're at a film festival with plenty of industry professionals to talk to. But I feel that, other than that, I did what I'd been doing for the best 1.5 weeks. Well, I guess I do have a standout story from that day. I had a headache when I got there and needed some painkillers for it, so I went to the pharmacy but nobody spoke English. So, instead, I had to rely on Google Translate. You see, I got my painkillers, but I accidentally left my smartphone there. I took me until I got to the cafe I wanted to get to to realize that, and man, did it put me in a panic. I ran up and down the streets looking for it only to retrace my steps and find it there. You dont know how damned relieved I was. But that wasn't even the most ironic part. You see, a few hours afterwards, I lost my burner phone in the palais and haven't found it since.

Yesterday was pretty dang insane. I got into Cannes around noon and followed some of my UGA Bros to a gelato place. I was more in the mood for sushi than gelato, so I got sushi at a place next door. The sushi there was pretty crappy. I wouldn't recommend it. I walked around and bided my time till a screening of We Are Boats , a mediocre movie with a fascinating premises. It wasn't until I got out that I'd realized I'd screwed up. You see, I was supposed to go to a talk at 3 but I misread it as reading 3:30. The movie let out around then, making me 36 minutes late by the time I got there. After the talk I hurried back to Juan-Les-Pins for the business cards I left at the residence. By the time I got in, I went and had a pastry and went to see another film. As I headed back to the festival, I saw some dude flying around on an actual flying home, not one of those handle free Segway things people call hoverboards. The dude was flying around like he was the Green Goblin. I...

Today got to Cannes by around noon and got lunch in town. I tried to find some place indoors, as the weather was exceptionally crappy. Unfortunately, as I was eating my lunch, I got word that Spike Lee was hanging out in the American pavilion. I rushed through lunch and ran to try to see if I could catch a glimpse, but by the time I got there, he was gone. So, I resigned myself and got a cup of tea and went to see some movies. The first was a really crappy vampire movie that looked like it was composed entirely by robots who just learned the art work for filmmaking. Fortunately, I wasn't alone in my opinion, as I ran into documentarians who'd watched the film with me. They invited me to see their documentary, a film about the filming of The Great E sca pe . The documentary itself was just okay. I think my lack of familiarity with The Great Esca pe kept me from fully enjoying it. After that, I rode the train back to JLP and roamed around for some dinner.

This was an uneventful day. I basically slept till noon having been at a premiere till 4. I woke up and decided that I wouldn't allow myself to eat or get dressed till my first review was done. I was on schedule to finish at around 2ish before my computer decided to die on a 20% charge and I lost my progress. I had to rewrite the first half and didn't get done until 3:30, and then I had to shower. That coupled with transportation problems left me late to Cannes by 3 hours hungry enough to eat a horse. Fortunately, I found out Steak N Shakes in France are better than Grindhouse and that basically anywhere has the best pastries ever. I didn't get into the festival till 7 and at that point, all I did was watch a relentlessly depressing Japanese melodrama and come back.

Heavy Trip (Hevi Reissu), written and directed by Jusso Laaito and others, is a delightful little romp that will please the grungiest metalhead and most laid back comedy spectator alike. This wickedly hilarious little road-movie is the Spinal Tap of a new generation, destined to deliver headbanging hilarity the world over. Heavy Trip stars Finnish actor Johannes Holopainen as the frontman Turo of a small-town, and I quote “symphonic-post-apocalyptic-reindeer-grinding-christ-abusing-extreme-war-pagan-fennoscandian” Finnish metal band ( a clever little play on the universe of subgernes contained within the heavy metal genre). Turo and his friends, a stoic yet vain guitarist who goes by the stage name Xytrax ( Max Ovaska), an exuberant drummer named Jynkky ( Antti Heikkinen), and a laid-back bassist named Chirstensen ( Torstein Bjorklund) are a garage-band who find a sound through a happenstance at a meat-packing plant and their name (Impaled Rektum) through their interactions with...

I wasn't in Cannes all that much today, as I slept in and did my laundry. That involved quite a bit of schelping for coins. By the time I finished that, I purchased some berries and left for Cannes. I didn't get to the festival till around 4 and immediately went ticket begging. 45 minutes in, some curly haired woman gave away Fahre nheit 451 tickets to a whole group next to me, but ignored me. Luckly, one of the folks she didn't ignore took pity on me and gave me a ticket. Hey, I'll take what I can get. I'm definitely not going empty handed when I comes to viewings today. I'm gonna try to find a  non-coffee energy drink at about 7 so I don't sleep through the movie.

Day 4 was pretty eventful. I rushed out in the morning to get to this 'state of the industry for women' talk at the Israeli pavilion. I met three good contacts there too. Hopefully we'll keep in touch. After that I went to see Damned Kid thinking it was a comedy. I knew literally nothing about it and instead got a hard-hitting and depression period drama. I wasn't dissatisfied; it was actually pretty good. Then I got coffee and went to see a documentary called The Last Sermon thinking it was a drama. What I got instead was a 10 minute preview and a different documentary called Blues By the Beach . Both were extraordinarily fascinating, but more fascinating than the films was the producer. He had made these films having survived a terrorist attack. He also had a good sense of humor and a fondness for music, as he demonstrated by getting up in front of the audience and playing the french national anthem on a harmonica. I tried ticket begging afterwards and got ticket...

Day 3 was a helluva day, even if I didn't get many viewings in. I got to the festival later by virtue of having scored a premiere ticket from Professor Kohn, so I had to miss some morning screenings. Rather than go to market screenings yesterday, I went to a talk with Michael Coogler, director of Black Panther. He was delightfully fascinating and a valuable person to have learned from. He's also led quite the interesting life. When the talk ended, I headed out for a bite to eat and introduced my squad to a female director I had met a few days prior. After that, it was premiere time The whole premiere experience was like a dream. I got to walk down the red carpet looking my sharpest like a celebrity. I spent the whole time in utter shock that it was reality and not just a really fun dream. In the theatre I met up with classmates lucky enough to score tickets too. The film premiering was called Cold War . It was about a romantic couple of musicians having escaped the peril of ...

Well, I had such an eventful day yesterday that I forgot to post about it. Yesterday I saw a couple films. One was fantastic and one was awful. The good one was a Nordic film called Heavy Trip . Being a metalhead like I am isn't required for enjoying Heavy Trip but it definitely doesn't hurt. 10/10 great comedy; it gets high marks from me. But I can't say the same for The Last Prince Of Atlantis . That was one of the worst films I've ever had the displeasure of having to watch. It wasn't even entertainingly bad like The Room . Do yourselves a favor and don't bother. After that was the AmPav cocktail party. I met plenty of important contacts, learned how to pitch scripts better. It was a good, valuable time.

Although there wasn't much to the festival as of yet, the first day was quite an adventure. Getting up earlier than usual wasn't too much of a hassle (I didn't come here to sleep after all). From the train station, it was a straight shot to the American pavilion. As me and a few others waited, I met a woman with the cutest small dog. Upon talking to her, it turned out she was a director. We exchanged information and that was that. The director wasn't the sole potential contact I made, as I met an Indian screenwriter while getting my bag checked. The IndyWire talk was particularly fascinating. It gave me some ideas as to how to approach my review. Speaking of which, my group and I actually made it to a screening after a quick lunch. We saw Heavy Water , a documentary about extreme surfers that somehow sucked the excitement from surfing. I don't know how it's possible to make extreme surfing painfully boring, but these documentarians seemed to manage. After t...

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