Today in Cannes Hell: Market Lags for Everything But Photos of Lindsay Lohan Making Out With Samantha Ronson
As we established previously, little is happening movie- or industry-wise at the Cannes Film Festival; even Croisette-weary NY Times critic A.O. Scott is officially on the record now with his ambivalence about this year's crop. As such, we lead today's fest news round-up not with the general befuddlement over Synecdoche, New York or continued rapture around Che, but with the only story worth our consideration as the event slumps, thuds and dies until a phoenix-like restoration in 2009: OMG Is Lindsay, like, totally kissing Samantha Ronson? More press conference photos shameless paparazzi indulgence after the jump.
It's not like we didn't see this coming, although even the most cynical of marketplace buyers probably wouldn't have guessed the accompanying snapshots might be the biggest pick-up of the festival. And really, is this tame glint of intimacy any more suggestive than the hickeys, cohabitation, cattiness and mutual shopping excursions of their recent, torrid past?
Whatever. Hey, look! Another glowing Che review from Salon's Andrew O— What? You want... Oh, for Christ's sake. Fine. Just this once, though:
Here are a few fantastic round-ups of aQuentin Tarantino lecture from the other day. We admit we've always had a soft spot for his cockiness, his divisiveness, his... What? OK, OK — but this is the last one! We mean it!
Ahem. So. The Variety review of Charlie Kaufman's directing debut Synedoche, New York is about as cautiously optimistic as critic Todd McCarthy gets, at once praising its ambition while pointing out its certain doom among buyers, viewers and history alike:
Like an anxious artist afraid he may not get another chance, Charlie Kaufman tries to Say It All in his directorial debut, Synecdoche, New York. A wildly ambitious and gravely serious contemplation of life, love, art, human decay and death, the film bears Kaufman's scripting fingerprints in its structural trickery and multi-plane storytelling. ... On the most superficial level, many viewers will be nauseated by the many explicit manifestations of physical malfunction, bodily fluids, bleeding and deterioration. A larger issue will be the film's developing spin into realms that can most charitably be described as ambiguous and more derisively will be regarded as obscuritanist and incomprehensible.
"Obscuritanist," Todd? Really? We liked it so much better when we could just read from afar without feeling like it's our turn in a Scrabble game. Anyway, one of these films from the last week of dispatches will claim this year's Palme D'Or on Saturday; we'll bring you the news when it happens, assuming it immediately precedes or follows another torrid, yachtside lesbian encounter. Otherwise? It can wait.
