Swimming Pool

“I hope there’s something that just wows us, something we cannot even verbalize about, and we all look at each other and say, ‘my god that’s the Palme d’Or’. I hope that will happen, I pray that will happen. If not we will have opinions and will rationalize it and try to come to agreement, but that’s second best for me,”  said jury member Ang Lee  on the opening day of the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. We’ll soon find out just what happened. We are at the end of a long Cannes and jury members have had the opportunity to see all 20 films in the main competition. Roman Polanski’s Venus In Fur was the last to screen at the 8:30 slot this morning and had its official premiere Saturday night, followed by JIm Jarmusch’s Only Lovers Left Alive  which was the last red carpet premiere of the fest (even though it actually had two  “unofficial” screenings Friday night and another this afternoon). It may be of interest to note that Cannes General Delegate told me at the Cleopatra after-party that making this official competition selection this year was not easy. He told me the films competing are the only ones they saw that were worth competing . In other words the pool of available movies out there that met Cannes standards was limited this year. The Festival ... Read More »

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) — Making his first official trip to sub-Saharan Africa, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Saturday demanded that Nigeria respect human rights as it cracks down on Islamist extremists and pledged to work hard in the coming months to ease tensions between Sudan and South Sudan.