First reactions to a number of Cannes films have rolled in – not entirely consistent with one another, but hey, wouldn’t that be boring…
James Franco directs and stars in an adaptation of William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying, a tale of mourning amidst poverty about which Variety opined:
“A little perversity might have been welcome in As I Lay Dying, which, aside from the aforementioned stylistic flourishes and the use of slow-motion, is stodgily faithful to the book.”
The Hollywood Reporter has a more complimentary take:
“James Franco has pulled off a devilishly difficult literary adaptation with this faithful yet cinematically vibrant version of William Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying.”
Japan’s Takashi Miike offered up his version of a Hollywood action movie with Shield of Straw and Variety promptly hated it:
“Stylistically speaking, the film looks slick and professional […] That said, even the hackiest of Hollywood writers would have known how to fix its considerable script problems.”
The AV Club did more to keep us interested:
“Nobody was prepared for the onslaught of unapologetic schlock […] That’s not meant as an insult—schlock is fine by me, so long as it’s reasonably skillful and inventive, and it’d be hard to go too far astray with a premise as deliriously high-concept as this one.”
Over at their Cannes blog The Guardian are getting their snark on between actual news coverage, Keanu Reeves being one prime victim:
A Good day to waste time, hard
John McClane’s gun-toting Russian holiday comes to home video in the US soon, and to promote A Good Day to Die Hard‘s arrival in every patriotic American home you can play a 16 Bit version of the film, running around collection things while your boss busts you due to the Die Hard catchphrases leaking out of your cubicle.
Star Wars filibuster
Patton Oswalt’s awesome Star Wars filibuster scene on Parks and Recreation has had its second best possible outcome – sadly not a feature film adaptation, but at least an 8-minute animated version visualising his cross-franchise nerd epic.
No Means No
From Rumour With Love
Christopher Nolan thinking about directing Bond, eh? That’s the chitter chatter from unnamed sources, with no evidence to back it up. Just the sound of lots of excited readers clicking speculative stories around the web. Badass Digest‘s Phil Nobile Jr reckons it’s all baloney, and has made this promise:
“If Christopher Nolan directs Bond 24, I will eat a piece of my Bond memorabilia on the first day of principal photography.
That’s right: if the write-your-own-ticket-est director in the industry chooses to direct the next 007 outing, I will prepare a piece of my collection (a modest pile of useless and non-potable stuff like poker chips, books, posters and other trinkets, obtained over the years through fellow fans, well-meaning friends and drunk Ebaying), eat it, and post the ingestion here.”
