REEL NEWS IN CANNES: Apocalypse Now and The Mission were screened as works-in-progress at Cannes and both went on to take the Palme d'Or in their incomplete form. No such luck, though, for Donnie Darko director Richard Kelly's Southland Tales, which was slated by the critics at Cannes this year. Although nobody mentioned in advance of its festival screening that this, too, was a work-in-progress, we were told several days later that the film "wasn't finished" and that Kelly is going back into the editing room, this time with pages of notes from at least some of his movie's 10 producers.
"He's upset," one of those producers said of Kelly in an interview with the Hollywood Reporter. "He's listening now."
The plan is to cut down Southland Tales from its present unwieldy 160 minutes and submit the revised version to the Toronto festival in September. Three years ago Vincent Gallo's justly reviled The Brown Bunny had a similar makeover, losing a half-hour between its screenings in Cannes and Toronto.
Presidential patronage
In addition to meeting potential backers for one of the two films planned on the Kerry babies' case, producer Jackie Larkin of Newgrange Productions was busy raising finance at Cannes for another factually based project, Stella Days, which is set in deeply conservative 1950s Ireland. Larkin says that US actor Martin Sheen has agreed to play the central role of a priest, Fr Daniel Barry, who was faced with several obstacles in opening a cinema in the town of Borrisokane in Co Tipperary.
Antoine O'Flatharta's screenplay for Stella Days is based on a memoir written by Michael Doorley, who grew up in Borrisokane, which happens to be the birthplace of Sheen's mother.
Sick to the stomach
The crowded Cannes marketplace screened hundreds of movies this year, most of them unlikely ever to turn up at a video store near you, not to mind a cinema. Arguably the most tasteless ad campaign on show was for the world premiere of Colic. It shows a baby in a nappy and carries the slogan: "Colic. . . when he cried, someone dies . . ." Running it a close second was Bird Flu: Virus in Paradise, described by its sales agents as "a terrifying biological thriller".
On sale was a slew of Da Vinci Code cash-ins, among them The Michelangelo Code, Stealing the Mona Lisa and The Da Vinci Treasure. Then there was an effort titled Artie Lange's Beer League, with the slogan: "His team has the biggest balls in the league".
Oscar nominees Toni Collette and Keisha Castle-Hughes co-star in Hey Hey, It's Esther Blueburger, which surely will get a title change before it's released. And then there was Lope de Vega's enticingly named Spanish movie, Lady Nitwit.
Dog days on the Med
Sofia Coppola's Marie-Antoinette failed to collect any awards from the official Cannes jury on Sunday night, but it triumphed at the fifth annual Palm Dog awards presented in Cannes last weekend.
Organised by Paris-based journalist Toby Rose, the award is presented for the best canine performance in any film shown in any category at Cannes. The prize went to Mops, the Austrian dog cradled by Kirsten Dunst in the early scenes of Coppola's movie.
In the best tradition of awards shows, neither Coppola nor Mops could attend the ceremony, which was quite an elaborate affair with speeches, clips and a reception afterwards.
Guardian critic Peter Bradshaw was perfectly deadpan as he revealed the assessments of the Palm Dog jury, on which he was joined by fellow critics James Christopher and Derek Malcolm, Heat editor Charles Gant and Tartan Films supremo Hamish McAlpine. They gave a special citation to the three-legged dog in The Wind That Shakes the Barley. The ceremony was preceded by a screening of Rose's short film, i.d. crisis, starring Rose and his dog Mutley. I can unhesitatingly describe that film as, well, quite long.
One man's masterpiece . . .
Irish director John Moore on using the original script of The Omen for his remake: "It's like a piece of Shakespeare."
