Hell has frozen over. Adam Sandler is coming to Cannes in official selection. Is there no mercy in such a terrible year?
The film is Noah Baumbach’s “The Meyerowitz Stories,” starring the great Dustin Hoffman. I guess Sandler plays his son. The idea of Sandler on the Croisette is more than anyone can take. Cannes is press-friendly. Sandler hates press and it’s mutual. That should be a lot of fun.
To offset this horror, Nicole Kidman is in four films including Sofia Coppola’s
“The Beguiled.” So that’s great news. There’s nothing better than Nicole Kidman in Cannes.
Otherwise, so far, the Cannes list for this year is a mixed bag with few American entries. The opening night film is a French one, Arnaud Desplechin’s “Fantomes de Ismael,” starring Marion Cotillard and Charlotte Gainsbourg. Those two ladies are like rock stars in France.
Missing from the list is Christopher Nolan’s “Dunkirk,” which a lot of hot air prognosticators predicted would be there.
Other highlights are Todd Haynes’ “Wonderstruck,” John Cameron Mitchell’s “How to Talk to Girls At Parties,” Lynne Ramsay’s “You Were Never Really Here,” and Michel Hazanavicius’s Godard film, “Redoubtable.”
They’re also touting a documentary by Vanessa Redgrave, a short film by Kristen Stewart, and screenings of TV shows “Twin Peaks” and “Top of the Lake.”
I know Thierry Fremaux is struggling this year because so many films aren’t finished, or their distributors don’t want to show them in May for a December release. But he will add titles over the next couple of weeks, no doubt.