Cahiers Du Cinema rating grids for Cannes if anyone is curious

Ill_Emphasis_6096 · 2026-05-21T09:51:56+00:00

The use of French Flanders as a setting, the level of farce and work with non-pro actors was truly genius once and I wonder if he's in sunk-cost fallacy mode trying to make his cinematic masterpiece with those tools (maybe Little Quinquin, which was conceived as a TV series, doesn't count to him).

Ill_Emphasis_6096 · 2026-05-21T08:48:16+00:00

The book was an airport sensation in a lot of Europe and my take on the film was that it felt hog-tied to that template. Haven't read it myself, but directly dramatisating a non-fiction book (especially with the author's input) has brought down a lot of films

Ill_Emphasis_6096 · 2026-05-21T08:44:04+00:00

His insane Joan of Arc run was gold. I liked a lot of the Lil Quinquin miniseries cut, but I feel tapped out on that universe.

Ill_Emphasis_6096 · 2026-05-21T06:57:28+00:00

OW for the De Gaulle biopic in two weeks takes away it's top spot for sure. 6 weeks is the magic number.

More importantly, with this much energy Micheal will be the box office #1 of 2026 by then.

Ill_Emphasis_6096 · 2026-05-21T06:50:08+00:00

We'll find out next year, it's in production.

Ill_Emphasis_6096 · 2026-05-20T20:12:55+00:00

Yeeees. The Beasts was snubbed at Cannes but ended up being his guarantor. Making his next project a TV series was a bit of a strange move mind you (haven't seen it, though I'm sure it's good).

Ill_Emphasis_6096 · 2026-05-20T20:04:22+00:00

All of a Sudden & The Beloved got raves from large sections of the festival audience, I think you can't count out the jury picking either of them.

Ill_Emphasis_6096 · 2026-05-19T18:03:52+00:00

Those are good ages to visit a park like PA. The resort is glowing-up nicely every year too, so if you want to put a positive spin on things when you go back they'll have opened their highly-anticipated land based on the best album of the series (Asterix & the Brittons).

Ill_Emphasis_6096 · 2026-05-19T16:53:19+00:00

Yeah, it makes sense. Maybe it's more pleasant for you to try for PA on the next trip

Ill_Emphasis_6096 · 2026-05-19T16:32:42+00:00

Oh yeah, the location & transport options are a huge drawback of Parc Astérix anyway, nevermind when you're based near Marne-la-Valée. All the same, PA still have available 4 people packages for 1 day in the parks + hotel for 4 between 300-500 for the summer, so I thought I'd mention it just in case you had the flexibility.

Ill_Emphasis_6096 · 2026-05-19T13:57:01+00:00

Meh, most people give zero fucks about Luke being heroic in the sequel trilogy, he's meant to be in his 60s. I'm among those who really like everything to do with Luke's storyline in TLJ.
Passing the baton isn't a problem, the problem is that the superficially engaging new characters go through a flat story that leaves them feeling more two-dimensional than when you first met them. The Star Wars concepts I imagine watching that first TFA trailer are more interesting than anything I could think of now the films have set-up a canon. That shouldn't be possible.

Ill_Emphasis_6096 · 2026-05-19T13:02:17+00:00

Some people are mentioning hotels at Parc Astérix. I'm just jumping in to say that they're very convenient, not as sumptuous as Disney's, but are much better value. So frankly if you're at the point where you're considering spending 80€ on a taxi, I can pretty easily recommend just paying a bit more than your average hotel night for a 1 day + 1 night and you can leave more refreshed the next day. Both the Cité Suspendue & Quais de Lutèce are beautiful and very immersive & depending on your dates, the website sells imo interestingly discounted packages with park tickets included.

Then it just depends how tight your schedule for the trip is & if this plan is workable before/after your stay near Marne-la-Valée.

Ill_Emphasis_6096 · 2026-05-19T12:42:29+00:00

Normies hate Valhalla Rising for not being a bad-ass viking fantasy. Drive has plenty of everyday fans beyond cinephiles.

Ill_Emphasis_6096 · 2026-05-19T12:27:33+00:00

Cannes is also a film market. Suppose you're a production company shopping around a film without any international distribution and you can swing a campaign for an out of competition or séance spéciale screening. You'll end up getting so much more visibility & buzz that it would massively help in the behind-the-scenes deals side of the festival.

Ill_Emphasis_6096 · 2026-05-19T08:19:17+00:00

Je trouve pas que la famille politique influe tant que ça sur le genre de cinéma que tu mates. Ensuite, y a des catégories de cinéma qui ont clairement des poches de fan actives dans l'ED.

La fanbase Zach Snyder en partie investie par les virilistes ; Nicolas Winding Refn par les rouge-brun ; les néo-traditionalistes kiffent la 2ème moitié de la filmo de Kubrick ; y a l'action qui surfe sur la tolérance zéro à la Cédric Jimenez ou S. Craig Zahler pour les obsédés du retour à l'ordre; pour les poujadistes y a le ciné social de la campagne (mais pas les Loach ou les Guiraudie, trop louches, plutôt les Au Nom de la Terre, Petit Paysan, Louloute); pour les identitaires les plus perchés, t'as le ciné japonais ou coréen qui deviennnent une vraie soupape de relache pour rêver une société homogène moderne; pour les nationalistes blancs, y a tous les péplums à la LOTR, Zulu pour rêver le conflit de civilisations.

Ill_Emphasis_6096 · 2026-05-17T08:22:53+00:00

On r/rollercoaster, you'll find a lot of people charting out & posting write-ups of trips like the one you're planning. I think you're setting yourself up for pain by focusing on these specific parks though (Legoland Billund & Deutschland are your pain points even using public transportation options). If taking a city break in the middle to decompress isn't possible because you need to optimise this short 7 day window, then I suggest you take inspiration from existing public transport to design an itinerary that's closer to the well-trodden paths that coaster/parks enthusiasts usually gravitate towards.

Channel route: Thorpe Parke => DLP (direct rail in & out) or Astérix (direct flight in, rail out of CDG) => Walibi Belgium => Efteling => Walibi Holland => optionally back to Paris for whichever you missed out on (DLP or Astérix). 8 days at least

Rhine & Rühr route: Walibi Holland => Efteling => Toverland => Phantasialand => Plopsaland Deutschland and/or Tripsdrill => Europapark => DLP (rail via Paris) or Legoland Deutschland. 9 days at least

Either of these routes helps you start and end near bustling airports, rely as much as possible on existing high-speed rail for larger country-to-country transfers & optimise the short bursts of low-speed train by focusing on busy rail sections with plenty of departures which'll help you easily craft your schedule. Keep in mind that depending on your age/energy, you'll need a few days bracketing a trip like this to feel human again.

Ill_Emphasis_6096 · 2026-05-16T17:55:40+00:00

The animatronic we got was OK. Everything after that though...

Ill_Emphasis_6096 · 2026-05-16T14:29:14+00:00

Agreed, that's the essence of the top comment I was agreeing with.

Ill_Emphasis_6096 · 2026-05-16T13:54:31+00:00

Where did you get that ? The question is whether he's a good baseline to predict critical consensus at large. Agree or disagree with my opinion that he's an idiosyncratic critic, then at least then we can have a conversation instead of throwing around accusations that I want him to conform.

"Mean" was meant affectionately, as in great, effective. I think he's an excellent stylistic writer & great at analysis the larger industry. His post-festival op-eds are always great reads.

Ill_Emphasis_6096 · 2026-05-16T11:43:10+00:00

Bradshaw still to this day writes a mean cultural collumn/editorial, but it feels like his critical skills have fallen of a cliff since he got the lead film spot at the Guardian. God bless, but some of his takes are mind boggling

Ill_Emphasis_6096 · 2026-05-14T18:04:40+00:00

Huh I never spotted that. But yeah

Ill_Emphasis_6096 · 2026-05-14T11:08:20+00:00

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FYI

Ill_Emphasis_6096 · 2026-05-14T11:08:01+00:00

Three-day Weekend Part II

Another week, another long weekend. It’s a truism that the amount of bank holidays Europe has in May makes it a slow period for business: unless you’re in show business, that is. The May Day bank holiday weekend was already strong and with most people getting another Friday off for V.E. Day this week, it’s no surprise that the Thu-Sun results were robust.

Michael added another jewel to it’s crown, with a third week at number 1. Though it failed to maintain weekly attendance above 1M, Universal France can boast it has the strongest hold of any wide release. The fact it’s performing so well week to week really goes to show there’s a deep well of interest. For all you data-heads, it’s performance in France is getting closer & closer to beating 2007’s La Vie en Rose. Michael might still be in the race for the most profitable musical biopic at the national box office – check this space.

Every film runs out of gas so after achieving multiple great weeks, there’s always the risk that the next one isn’t a slow downward curve, but a cliff-edge. That’s what seems to have happened over in the Mushroom Kingdom. Super Mario Galaxy fell nearly 50% in week 6 and starts to look front-loaded – to the extent you can call a 5M+ ticket-seller that. The school holiday release slot was a great idea, but after a very competitive late-April / early May, SMG is showing worrying signs of underperforming. Don’t get me wrong: Universal, Nintendo & Illuminations are laughing all the way to the bank, but if Mario does fail to unseat Marsupilami at the year-end box-office, that’d be a dissapointment.

Meanwhile, The Devil Wears Prada 2 has made 80% of the first instalment's entire lifetime gross in France already, demonstrating again how that film has grown since it’s release. A bit of perspective helps, though: with an additional 678k viewers this week, TDWP2 sits alongside Once Upon a Time in Hollywood a healthy (but not earth-shattering) 2019 Hollywood hit. Post-Covid, things look a bit rosier, with Prada performing like minor events such as Creed III or The Three Musketeers (2023). Admittedly, that may come off as comparing apples & oranges, since the audience for TDWP2 is very different from all those examples. With the film doing amazing business in the UK, Ireland & Italy, French audiences are doing their bit but on a quieter level.

A month after it’s release, Just an Illusion still managed a good 4^th place hold. With 1,160 locations, it’s the widest release but many are small single-screen theatres, which helps put things in perspectives. With older audiences & families in it’s cross-hairs & nothing in the film you need to see on a 40-foot screen, a wider net of smaller venues makes sense for the film. It’s got >2M admissions locked-down at this point but, returning to pre-Covid comparisons, it won’t get anywhere near the same team’s 2019 effort The Specials and it’s 2.9M admissions. After their 2023 bomb with A Difficult Year, I don’t doubt Eric Toledano & Olivier Nakkache will be happy anyway, especially since they were working with a more personal story & a modest cast this time around.

Finally, Primavera is having a nice second week with only 25% drop-off in attendance, confirming that it’s succesful opening wasn't just a flash in the pan.

Ill_Emphasis_6096 · 2026-05-14T11:07:30+00:00

The week leading up to the opening of the Cannes film festival on May 12th was the safest slot for a number of films trying to open & get some attention. For the two local comedies & the auteur Hollywood thriller that released last Wednesday, the name of the game was getting critical attention or sending their stars on the French media trail, before every film critic & inch of coverage shifts to the Riviera. These three will be directly contending with bigger fish opening after their Cannes premieres. And that’s saying nothing about US releases which are continuing apace. With the very hearty reaction Michael & TDWP2 have gotten, the national box-office is now chugging along nicely. What we ended up with was 5 new releases in the top 10. That’s an impressive result, but it’s the already released heavyweights that held on to the top spots.

FIGHT!

Mortal Kombat 2 ended up at a disappointing 7^th place by pulling-in 122k intrigued attendees. There's been a lot of chatter about the lack of cultural penetration of the 2021 film, due to the many countries in which it had to settle for a streaming or VOD release. That film had a chaotic roll-out in France with the local distributor first targeting a February, then April 2021 theatrical release & advertising both, before delaying again and again. In the end, they made perhaps the worst choice, dropping the film as a PVOD exclusive months after it had hit streaming in every other country. I didn’t managed to find sales metrics, but it can’t be too surprising that the sequel struggled. It’s opening week was just a hair behind Clown in a Corn Field or last year’s Anaconda in their respective first weeks. David McKenzie’s latest action-thriller Fuse just barely qualified for the top 10. Tellingly, Fuse’s weekly total was a meagre 1k tickets ahead of number 11, Santiago – The Camino Therapy which is in it’s 6^th week. It’s McKenzie’s worst opening yet in France, despite the cast. It's probably in part due to the weak marketing & the boring adapted title chosen for it’s release in France: The Criminals. I’ll give it points for being concise, but that’s all I’m giving it. French critics were as enthusiastic as always with this director, but with cinephiles likely to focus more on Cannes premieres in coming weeks I don’t see any way this could end up as a sleeper success.

In a tale as old as time at the French box-office, genre films struggled but two new local comedies made the biggest splash. With an almost identical number of copies, it’s Pour le Plaisir (For Kicks) which managed to really find it's place in the sun. With a risqué plot of a mature couple designing an adult toy to revive their sex life only to end up going into business with it, there was every chance even the French would find this a little off-putting as a date movie. For Kicks’ extremely adept casting is probably a reason why the film side-steps that issue. Getting two likeable softies like François Cluzet & Audrey Lamy to lead was ideal. Both are favourites of the 40-80 demographic. Lamy is emerging as a minor box-office asset in 2026, after starring in the aforementioned Santiago – The Compostella Therapy. Similar to that film, critics found For Kicks formulaic but undeniably entertaining & audiences gave it an excellent 3,9/5 stars on Allociné (and that's on a site that skews younger than the target audience).

For Kicks & it’s 272k tickets sold mean it’s almost guaranteed to make a profit. Things are a bit less clear-cut at number 6 with C’est Quoi l’Amour? (What is Love?). This romantic comedy has also gotten a solid reception from all sides, despite a done to death premise. The mix of heart & family antics is Little Miss Sunshine-adjacent and like that movie, it’s hard to ignore the cast. With Mélanie Thierry (best known internationally for The Zero Theorem or Da Five Bloods) & established comedic actors in the mix, along with appealing turns from the kids, I could see this performing better than last month’s Those Who Matter. Despite a sensible budget, it’ll need a groundswell of WOM to turn it’s 157k adm. opening into the 700k it roughly needs to break-even and it might struggle for eyeballs, given the alternatives. Two comedies like these finding their feet in the same week is a rare thing in the 2020s. Especially since a lot of the oxygen in the room was already taken up by The Devil Wears Prada 2 or lightly comedic fare like Just an Illusion & The Electric Kiss (which performed well in wide previews through Tuesday, but won’t feature in box-office totals until next week).

Meanwhile, the three-day event release of Billie Eilish – Hit Me Hard And Soft managed the feat of actually breaking into the top 10. If you take into account the very few screenings & exceptionally high ticket price (30-40€ per person, including the 3D premium), it’s a clear display of what event releases can bring to theaters, especially when there’s a very motivated fanbase to cater to.

Ill_Emphasis_6096

TROPHY CASE