CANNES 2012 REACTIONS: Lee Daniels' "The Paperboy"

It seems like the competition slate is going rather wonky in the head as of late, doesn't it? "Holy Motors" blew the hinges off this festival in a fantastic and much necessary way, and "Cosmopolis" is still wrapping at the door for a shot at the action. Now Lee Daniels has his moment with "The Paperboy", his follow-up to "Precious: Based on the novel 'Push' by Sapphire", and the reception is rather understandably divided. What else can you expect, since the film itself seems divided at first fight between kinky sex-pot and... well, I honestly don't know what. All I know is that I'm interested enough to put this on the radar.

Guy Lodge (In Contention): "Kidman, relishing the chance to allow most of the character to the surface for a change, is more sexually strident and earthily funny than she’s been since “To Die For,” but in her subtly brokered exchanges with Efron, smartly avoids patronizing Charlotte as a gone-to-seed Lolita. Gray, meanwhile, adds another spacily timed, implication-heavy, hazily sad character sketch to her growing gallery of striking miniatures – you’d say it’s a performance in search of a more coolly accommodating movie, but the ballsy, bonkers, sporadically dreadful but obnoxiously alive one Daniels has made thrives on all the conflicting textures it can get."

CANNES 2012: Lineup announcement scales down

Is anybody else severely interested in how US-centric this year's Cannes lineup is? I say "severe" as an deplorable statement, since I'm usually quite captivated with the Cannes lineup when it goes for films that haven't been even close to my radar. As your knowledge of the world grows, surprises do seem to dwindle. That's not to say I'm completely down on the Cannes lineup this year, and in fact, I'm quite pumped for many of the films brought forth. Any year we get the latest from Jacques Audiard, Michael Haneke, David Cronenberg, Andrew Dominik, and Abbas Kiarostami is an exceptional year on those bases alone.

"Rust and Bone", "Cosmopolis", and "Like Someone in Love" have already gotten the ball rolling with trailers up for the Audiard, Cronenberg, and Kiarostami films, respectively. If you were to ask me which film I'm most interested to see, it's got to be Haneke's "Amour". Such a title to pair up with that guy is going to arouse suspicion, but mostly just arouse. Beyond that, there's Walter Salles' "On the Road", which I must honestly say I have little interest in. Kristen Stewart is an unbearable actress, and I try to avoid seeing anything with her wandering across the screen with an absolutely clueless expression on her face.