13th April 2009

How is your veal stew? If you recognize that secret code you’ll know what movie I’m most dying to see this year. OSS 117: RIO IS NOT RESPONDING opens in France on Friday April 10 and I cannot wait to see this sequel to the sublime parody OSS 117: NEST OF SPIES. That brilliant AUSTIN POWERS style spoof of Jean Bruce’s long-running series of espionage novels (inspiring more straight-laced and cheap adaptations between 1956–70) got everything right in precise deadpan James Bond tone. From the unsubtle sexual innuendo and bad matte paintings behind car scenes, to fez-wearing suspicious informants in hotel phone boxes and obvious miniature effects. The whole Euro-spy look, jet set style, ‘Bloody foreigners’ attitude and glamorous artifice playfully sent up with love on a sparkling epic canvas. With a perfectly fitting Lounge score and poking fun at every now politically incorrect target, director Michael Hazanavicius’ hilarious 007 lampoon was a constant delight. And as Hubert Bonnisseur de la Bath, aka OSS 117, French comedy actor Jean Dujardin (BRICE DU NICE) was an absolute riot as the patronizing, racist, clueless chauvinist. Forever arching his eyebrows, keeping his Brylcreemed hair slick at all times, and striking the daftest tough guy poses his super-suave spy is a fabulous creation. Frankly I’d take Dujardin over every previous OSS 117 (Kerwin Mathews, Luc Merenda, Frederick Stafford and John Gavin) and Daniel Craig any day! Two years after I saw NEST OF SPIES in the Cannes Market, it debuted at the ICA and has become something of a cult hit in Britain selling well on DVD. But at least it opened here unlike my other firm French favourites PODIUM, POLTERGAY and DISCO. MARTYRS director Pascal Laugier is absolutely appalled by my taste in Gallic blockbusters, and cannot for the life of him understand why I like what he views as populist trash of the worst kind. It has been our only point of disagreement every time we meet up. In my defence I would like to point out Pascal was looking forward to THE BOAT THAT ROCKED! OSS 117 PART 2 looks every bit as wonderful as the original from the trailer and even has Dujardin sending up Daniel Craig’s bathing suit scene from CASINO ROYALE. It will be the first film I’ll rush to see in Cannes and my first acquisition will be the CD soundtrack.

Speaking of ‘Yes We Cannes’, although the official competition line-up has yet to be announced there are some obvious inclusions already being talked about. Lars Von Trier’s ANTICHRIST is one of the hot contenders and aiming to be ‘La Scandale’ of the event. Why? Because this supernatural shocker starring Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg as a couple going to a cabin in the woods to heal their marriage features actual female self-circumcision in graphic close-up detail. MONDO CANE lives. Then there’s Jane Campion’s BRIGHT STAR about an ill-fated romance 19th century poet John Keats (Ben Wishaw) had before his untimely death at 25. Snoozeville - I won’t be seeing that one. Like everyone else I’m looking forward to Quentin Tarantino’s INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS - and what a copy bastered that title will prove over the next few months.  Will Eli Roth’s acting be convincing? How Nazi tasteless is it going to be? Is Cloris Leachman the new John Travolta? Terry Gilliam’s THE IMAGINARIUM OF DOCTOR PARNASSUS is a shoe-in too because of the Heath Ledger factor. Lionsgate has the movie in Great Britain, one of the few places that does, mainly because of Gilliam’s recent track record (someone tell him once and for all that TIDELAND was awful) and frankly, how’s that title going to look on marquees in the American mid-West? Colin Farrell is one of the actors substituting for Ledger and he will probably have another two movies on Cannes show: Neil Jordan’s mermaid fantasy ONDINE and the photojournalist thriller TRIAGE co-starring Christopher Lee. Pedro Almodovar’s Hitchcock homage BROKEN EMBRACES is another definite, even though it has been the director’s biggest flop in Spain. Everyone is blaming the rampant piracy in Spain for that though, not the movie’s quality. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s BIUTIFUL starring Javier Bardem, Alejandro Amenabar’s spectacular-looking Egyptian slave epic AGORA and, inevitably, Ken Loach’s football comedy drama LOOKING FOR ERIC as in Cantona are considered likelihoods too.  ‘Postcards from Cannes’ on the website will soon be buzzing and we haven’t even seen the list of what will be playing in the market place.

Until next time.

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