Do you dare tell the snooty Frenchmen, “Go ahead, make my day”? Probably not, but that’s probably why Clint Eastwood said the phrase to begin with, and why he’ll be the one bringing a movie to competition at Cannes this year. Eastwood’s Changeling, a period drama about a kidnapped child, will be one of only two American films in competition at one of the most prestigious film festivals in the world, Variety reports. The other American film will be Charlie Kaufman’s Synecdoche, New York, another trip into the twisty screenwriter’s brain that should be hotly anticipated by, well, hopefully everyone.
Technically there’s a third American film in there as well, but Steven Soderbergh’s two-part epic about the life of Che Guevara is officially a Spanish entry. Potato, potahto. A handful of other big-name films will also be screening out of competition, including the Jack Black animated comedy Kung Fu Panda (which insider word says is actually good, however hard to believe that is) and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Oh, and Woody Allen will be there as well, taking a break from filming the upcoming romance between Evan Rachel Wood and Larry David (ew ew ew) to present Vicky, Cristina, Barcelona.
Oh, and there’s a ton of other films there as well, though, given that this is a film festival, most of them are by people you’ve never heard of. Variety has a full list, so you can pick out your favorite titles and say “Oh, yes, I’ve loved that since Cannes” when it wins the Best Foreign Language Oscar in January. Because, yeah, you have to pretend to go to Cannes, because even pseudo-real film journalists don’t go to Cannes because it’s too expensive. Unless Josh decides to spring for my plane ticket, that is. How about it, head honcho?
What does this mean for the movies involved? Well, The Da Vinci Code screened at Cannes a few years back, and we all saw how good that movie is. Then again, Changeling and Synedoche being chose to compete might indicate some stellar quality there—no surprise, given who’s behind them. Mostly we’ll have to wait until the reports start coming out of Cannes in about a month, when everyone tries to hop on the bandwagon so they can prove they saw all the cool movies before we did. Not that I’m jealous or anything.
