Festival in Cannes

I went in expecting nothing since all I"d ever seen of HJ was about a half hour, as much as I could stand, of "Always" a really unbearable movie, starring him, of the lovesick clueless guy somehow had gorgeous girlfriend and now shall mope for 90 minutes and she thinks he's cute even now for some mysterious reason even though it's over while the audience well, simply has to endure him, variety.

Anyway I thought it was pretty great this movie, really well plotted, I liked the actresses in particular: anouk, gretta and the girl who played "Blue". . . they were all really wonderful. The characters were vividly drawn and I thought it was a really well written human comedy.

What I would encourage him to do in the future however is to try something other than a score that shows your movie as being a knock off of woody allen or gives that feeling, which this music did. The film would have seemed a lot more his own had he had a different sound to go with.

In Cannes, the actress Alice Palmer (Greta Scacchi) wants to have her debut in the cinema industry as director and her two friends have written a screenplay to Gena Rowlands. However they are approached by the counterfeit crasher Kaz Naiman (Zack Norman) that convince them to rewrite the scrip to the famous French actress Millie Marquand (Anouk Aimée) that is in the festival; in return he would sponsor the feature with three million dollars. Millie loves the screenplay and promises to make the film. However, the powerful producer Rick Yorkin (Ron Silver) is producing a blockbuster with Tom Hanks and Simone Duvall and needs Millie Marquand and needs Millie Marquand to perform the role of Tom Hanks' mother. Millie's former husband, the director Viktor Kovner (Maximilian Schell) is in Cannes and Rick manipulates him to convince Millie to accept the part. Meanwhile the promising debutant star Blue (Jenny Gabrielle) becomes a hit in the festival but is divided between her lover and her career.

"Festival in Cannes" is almost a good movie. The idea of shooting in the backstage of the Cannes Film Festival 1999 like in a documentary is creative and interesting. However, the naiveness of the characters like Blue, Alice Palmer and Millie Marquand associated to the verbose screenplay are bothersome in the end of 100 minutes running time. Further, Maximilian Schell is awful and the ham Zack Norman is totally unconvincing. This movie was released on VHS by Paramount distributor in Brazil. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Um Festival em Cannes" ("A Festival in Cannes")

I really enjoyed this movie.

It simultaneously captures the feel of a glitzy French film festival and the deal making that go into getting a movie made.

The entire cast is superb, and Mr. Jaglom's technique of allowing the actors to do a lot of improvising makes for scenes that feel like real interaction between people, as opposed to a couple of actors reciting lines from a screenplay. The French pop ditties within the score was also a nice touch.

Do yourself a favor and see this film.

This is a highly interesting movie and to put it in simple words it is a MOCKUMENTARY. The cast is excellent and it is a satire on what reading too much into a movie can do to the general viewing of the movie. It makes a pretend documentary into a kind of black comedy of what Critics and their in depth reading "into" movies of so much; that the absurdities of the movie industry comes to light. Especially when it comes to movie awards. Watch it like a documentary but think of it as a comedy.

Henry Jaglom, who knows his way around movie deal-making from the inside, made a vicious thrust at the film industry, located at Cannes with an all-star cast and a wealth of cameos. Critics who panned this brilliant non-lampoon missed the point. If movie nuts (like myself) ever entertained fantasies of making a big time film, Henry Jaglom's satire will cure them.