Cannes 2016: news and film reviews

CANNES, France — Sean Penn essentially had half an hour of one-on-one time with the global entertainment media on Friday, and if you don’t think he seized that opportunity to take a swipe at Donald Trump, you don’t know Penn.

Appearing at the official Cannes press conference for the romantic drama The Last Face, which he directed, the two-time Oscar winner was easily its most called-upon participant. And when he was asked about whether it is important for films with a message, such as The Last Face, to also entertain their audience, the presidential candidate factored heavily in his response:

CANNES, France — Nicolas Winding Refn’s highly anticipated new film The Neon Demon received quite a reception at its first Cannes Film Festival screening on Thursday. As Sia’s gorgeous closing track “Waving Goodbye” filled the theater, the global press corps reacted with a mix of sustained loud applause and significant boos.

This is nothing new for a Refn film. After Drive ruled Cannes in 2011, his 2013 follow-up, Only God Forgives, was almost eviscerated by the festival critics before finding some notable champions prior to its theatrical release. Based on Refn’s response at The Neon Demon’s official press conference, this is exactly the sort of response he’d hope for.

CANNES, France — What often makes the great film festivals of the world so important isn’t just the artistic achievements they unveil, but the snapshot they provide of glaring societal issues bubbling to the surface of our everyday lives.

For example, the Sundance Film Festival is often at the tipping point of America’s latest progressive battle, whether it deals with the environment, civil rights, or Wall Street. But Cannes, which selects movies from all over the globe, tends to reflect a more expansive worldview. And what’s been striking this year is just how many of its films deal with growing anger over income inequality, whether they’re Brazilian, Romanian, from the UK or the good ol’ USA.

CANNES, France — The fact that the 2016 Cannes Film Festival reached its halfway point and the boo-birds had been very quiet so far was, for lack of a better word, suspicious. Of course, the notoriously shady global press corps and select film industry illuminati can’t help but vent their frustrations on something, and the first victim of 2016 turned out to be Olivier Assayas’s Personal Shopper.

The second collaboration between Assayas and Kristen Stewart after 2014’s Clouds of Sils Maria, Shopper finds the Twilight star portraying Maureen, a 27-year-old American who is working in Paris as a personal shopper for a European celebrity. The gig involves traveling to different fashion houses and picking out clothes for the celebrity to wear.

CANNES, France — Compared with other monumental events in the history of the civil rights movement, it’s disheartening that the story of Richard and Mildred Loving isn’t more well-known. That will change with the release of Jeff Nichols’s Loving, which premiered at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival on Monday.

After they got married in 1958, the Virginia couple was quickly arrested by a local sheriff for breaking the state’s anti-miscegenation law, which banned marriages between people of different races. The Lovings eventually pleaded guilty to the charges as part of a deal with a county judge that allowed them to avoid jail time if they moved out of state and didn’t return.

CANNES, France — As one might have predicted would happen during a Cannes press conference, Shia LaBeouf is slightly annoyed with a question he’s been asked. The mercurial actor, who delivers an impressive performance as the leader of a crew of traveling salespeople in British filmmaker Andrea Arnold’s new drama American Honey, is visibly addled.

“I don’t think I get hired for sex scenes, I promise you. I don’t know what is in the movie because I haven’t seen it, but it sure wasn’t filmed like a sex scene,” LaBeouf said. “I’m not even sure what sex scene you’re talking about. The moments I would imagine that, didn’t feel like it. That’s a long scene, that’s a long scene. There is a lot going on.”

CANNES, France — First things first: If you think Kristen Stewart is going to comment on Ronan Farrow’s essay criticizing the press and Hollywood talent for handling his father, Woody Allen, with kid gloves, you’re sorely mistaken. (Allen directed her upcoming film Café Society, and Stewart addressed the allegations against him in this Variety profile.)

Stewart is as candid as they come these days but says she’s not wading into the topic. However, that’s not because she’s in love with Cannes at this exact moment.

Woody Allen’s new film Café Society opened the 2016 Cannes Film Festival this week and was met with what the Hollywood Reporter called a “modest” standing ovation. Our own Gregory Ellwood has more.

Read through that Hollywood Reporter article, however, and you’ll learn that the standing ovation in question lasted a full three minutes. That seems like a lot!

CANNES, France — From an outsider’s perspective, it was a rough first day at Cannes for Woody Allen.

While he was holding court during the official press conference for his new film Café Society, his son Ronan Farrow was publishing a blistering essay in the Hollywood Reporter, in which he criticized the mainstream press for not scrutinizing Allen thoroughly enough over the longstanding sexual abuse allegations that were spotlighted after the release of Blue Jasmine in 2013.