The First Weekend at Cannes, in Parties, Acquisitions, and Premieres

12:30Jordan Firstman:Yeah.

12:31John L. Hopkins:Do you have something to do with that?

12:32Jordan Firstman:I don't think I had anything to do with it. You don't?

12:35John L. Hopkins:You don't think his 600 agents and managers didn't listen to you?

12:39Jordan Firstman:He may or may not have asked me which of the many distributors going for his movie he thought would be the best fit for him. And I may or may not have told him the one he picked. But, you know, that's not rocket science. Lots of people, I think, would have recommended 824 for that movie. But he did say, you know, he's never obviously been involved with a bidding war before. And it is such a wild circus. So I think he was sort of really caught up in the, I mean, that's the dream festival experience, right? And he was living it in the moment. So it was a cool time to talk to him for sure. But yeah, it's a big deal.

13:16Jordan Firstman:I mean, 824 bought it from what I've heard from sources will be releasing it this year. So they must really believe in it, I think. And it's like such a debut for Jordan as a filmmaker and a storyteller. So that is definitely a high point of the festival so far.

13:34John L. Hopkins:Yeah, because, I mean, a lot of the films have distribution. Right. And that distributor is neon. Right. So there isn't quite as many that are going in here with the potential for sales maybe as some other years. So we'll see. There's a couple of others that are looking and are still, I think, negotiating or figuring it out. And it's also complicated because there's different rights areas. So some films may be sold for all of Europe or Asian rights, but it's still looking for a domestic distributor. Yeah. So we'll see.

14:15Jordan Firstman:All right. We're going to take a break. And when we get back, we'll talk about some of the films we saw this weekend. Don't go away.

14:33Rebecca Keegan:Hi, I'm Nicole Phelps, the Global Fashion News and Features Director and co-host of Vogue's podcast, The Run-Through. Each week on the show, our listeners get an all-access pass to the world of Vogue with the latest fashion news and the most exciting voices in the industry. On Tuesdays, join me to hear interviews with influential leaders in the industry like Calvin Klein, Daniel Roseberry, and Jonathan Anderson. On Thursdays, join Head of Editorial Content at Vogue, Chloe Mal, and Head of Editorial Content at British Vogue, Chomenadi, as they explore style and culture through the lens of fashion with guests like Martha Stewart, Kamala Harris, and Tracee Ellis Ross.

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16:40Jordan Firstman:Welcome back to Little Gold Men. All right, John, let's get into the movies. I want to start with something I very much liked that has now debuted.

16:49John L. Hopkins:Yeah, you should.

16:50Jordan Firstman:I saw Paper Tiger before the festival, but that was the big premiere of Saturday Night. That's James Gray's movie that stars Miles Teller, Adam Driver as brothers, and Scarlett Johansson plays Miles Teller's character's wife. It's like a family crime drama, I would say. And I knew it was strong. I think it's a really good James Gray movie. It's like a mix of his two passions, I would say, because Armageddon Time was very personal, you know, based on his childhood, set in New York. And this has those bones, but then is a kind of more like We Own the Night, like it's more of a crime film that is not based on his own experience.

17:34Jordan Firstman:So I loved the mix of the personal and the dramatic in this. And it seems like audiences really liked it. got a long 10-minute standing ovation. Adam Driver's really, really good in it. Scarlett Johansson is really very good. Miles Teller's doing something you haven't really seen him do. He's playing, you know, like a dad and a family man. So I think it has the performances and the story and seems to have gone over quite well.

18:02John L. Hopkins:Do you think it has awards chances? I do. For whom and what?

18:06Jordan Firstman:Scarlett, I think, was the one a lot of people have been bringing up to me because it's a big performance. She's got a wig. She's like very in the late 80s in the look and she's got the accent. But she has some deeply emotional moments that I won't spoil, but like are really impressive. So that's kind of like Scream's Oscar performance. But I really hope James Gray gets in there because he has never had an Oscar nomination for his films. And I think it's a little overdue and I'm hoping this might be the one.

18:39John L. Hopkins:And Miles and supporting?

18:43Jordan Firstman:Maybe. They haven't obviously decided yet. This film's being released by Neon. But I would say Adam Driver is probably the supporting. And I think could have a good chance in that category. Because it is a really great. I mean, he's always good. But he has some really. There's a whole scene towards the end that I still think about. Even though I saw it a couple weeks ago. That is really just him. So, yeah, I'm excited to see how that conversation continues. Okay.

19:12John L. Hopkins:I Saw Sheep in the Box by Koreyeda Hirakazu. He's the director of Shoplifters, which won the POM. The film is set in the not-too-distant future where AI robots are around, but they're not omnipresent. And this couple that had recently lost their child participates in this program where you can send all your photos and videos to them and they create a robot of your missing loved one. And the missing child comes to live with them as a robot.

19:56Jordan Firstman:But looks exactly like their child. Looks exactly like their child.

20:00John L. Hopkins:this was a hard one because one, Steven Spielberg's AI, the movie, is similar, very similar. This is different in that it takes it much smaller. It doesn't get into the world of like how people feel about robots or AI that much. I mean, there isn't that much like, that's not a real boy. It doesn't go in that direction. But the real issue I had was it was a packed house. It wasn't the premiere, but it was a packed house for the second screening. The audience absolutely knew what the ending of this film was going to be for the last 30 minutes. And so we're all sitting there kind of being like, okay, like, is this what it's gonna be?

20:51John L. Hopkins:And it was, and it was like so paint by numbers. It was a little disappointing. I mean, there's still some beautiful cinematography and some moments, and there's a deep emotional connection to a story about, like, technology, but it just doesn't push the narrative forward about stuff like that. Didn't you? You saw it too, Rebecca. Yeah. What did you?

21:19Jordan Firstman:I had a similar experience because I feel like Coretta is so incredible with sort of family dynamics, what makes a family. And that's in there. Yeah. But it's always surprising. Like shoplifters, broker, which I really loved. He's known for that. So I thought this is going to surprise me in the end. This can't possibly be going where I think it's going. And then it kind of does. And you're like, well, and I think because AI is so heavily being explored in so much, like this could have been a Black Mirror episode, you know, in the first season, I think. It doesn't feel new enough for us, despite the performances being good.

22:00Jordan Firstman:And like you said, a lot of the filmmaking is really nice. But it, yeah, it made me think about After Yang. Do you remember that film with Colin Farrell?

22:09John L. Hopkins:Which premiered here.

22:11Jordan Firstman:Yeah, yeah.

22:11John L. Hopkins:In 2021, yeah.

22:13Jordan Firstman:Right. And I get that these are sort of an exploration of grief, but I think because we can reference so many films that have done it before, we're sort of explaining the problem with this one.

22:25John L. Hopkins:Yeah. Do you want to talk about All of a Sudden? Yes. I know how much you loved it.

22:30Jordan Firstman:Oh, man. Okay. So all of a sudden is the three hour and 15 minute film from Hamaguchi Ryusuke, who did Drive My Car, which was a huge hit of Cannes and ended up getting Oscar nominations. I really liked Drive My Car and I was optimistic for this, but unfortunately, it doesn't quite work. But the film is about a French woman in Paris who runs a care facility for the elderly. And she's trying to introduce this like new innovative care system where you really care about the person's well-being. This will be for the parents out there, but it reminds me of like gentle parenting where you're like really talking to them in a gentle voice and looking in their eyes.

23:20Jordan Firstman:And it's the same thing modern day parents do with their toddlers.

23:24John L. Hopkins:Are you a gentle parent?

23:26Jordan Firstman:That's a whole other podcast. But our generation.

23:30John L. Hopkins:You don't come from the gentle parent.

23:32Jordan Firstman:I do, but I also make fun of it at the same time. And then she meets a Japanese playwright and play director, and they form like an instant bond, and this playwright is terminally ill. And so then it goes from there. And their bond is really beautiful. And like, if you saw Drive My Car, you know he loves to make movies where the characters talk a lot in settings. And so I was prepared for that. But it just doesn't all come together in a way that feels impactful enough, I guess, for the three-hour journey you're on. And I'm not alone in my field. Most people I talked to sort of felt the same, that it was a little disappointing.

24:15Jordan Firstman:And it is hard to follow up a giant breakout like that because expectations are very high and the performances are really good. both the actors, these two lead actors, are switching between French and Japanese and English throughout the film because the characters are, I guess, trilingual. They speak all three languages and the actors did not. So they learned these other languages for the film. So there's some really impressive acting here. I kind of wonder if it's enough to perhaps get the actor award because that part is really impressive. I think the storytelling just didn't quite work for me.

24:51John L. Hopkins:Well, that was a very nice assessment of a film that, from what I've heard from other people, described it as an excruciating boring three-and-a-half-hour experience.

25:02Jordan Firstman:I can always find something impressive in most films. That's true. I do think the acting deserves the praise, but we'll keep going on other films, but I think the through line here is nothing is popping. Like, there are good glimmers of performance or something else, but nothing's, like, blowing our minds. I think is what we're saying.

25:23John L. Hopkins:All right, well, let me go through my last one really quickly. The movie is called Colony. We talked about it on the last podcast. It's the Train to Busan director, Young Sang-hoo. This is a really generic zombie movie. It has some elements that are like out of the box. It's basically like a scientist creates like a virus in which as they infect more and more people, He can sort of control them all via like ants and like the ant queen analogy. And it's in this sort of big office building where they're doing a conference and the mall that's underneath it. There's all this zombie scenes in a mall, which is Dawn of the Dead, right?

26:12John L. Hopkins:I mean, like famously so. And the visuals are cool, but it's just it doesn't do something different enough in the zombie canon. And the whole sort of parasite that they're all connected to each other through some sort of web of gunk stuff is also in a little bit The Last of Us. There's some filmmaking, just like you, I can find something. There's some filmmaking sequences that show his ability as a filmmaker to direct action sequences and horror sequences at a very, very high level. His camera work, his editing, his pacing. But it just, it felt a little like a Netflix TV show. If it was a Netflix TV show, it would be huge.

27:11John L. Hopkins:You know, but like as a standalone film for a guy who did something 10 years ago that really like moved the genre forward, it was not that, you know, groundbreaking.

27:24Jordan Firstman:Yeah, I don't know. We're just sighing. This is the sigh heavy podcast episode. I wasn't planning on seeing that movie. It's not my type of movie in the first place. But from what I'm hearing around town, it doesn't sound like I'm going to be rushing out for that one either. I think maybe we should take another break and talk about our hopes for the next couple days, because I think there are some things coming that maybe are going to shake everybody awake here or not. But let's take a little break. And when we're back, we'll talk a little bit more about what's coming up in the next couple of days.

28:14Rebecca Keegan:I'm Jazzy Sefcek. And I'm Shilpa Oskokovic. And we're senior test kitchen editors at Bon Appetit and the hosts of the Bon Appetit Bake Club podcast. Bake Club is Bon Appetit's community of confident, curious bakers. We love to bake. Some might even call the two of us obsessive. And we love to talk about all the hows and whys and what didn't work that come with it. Every month, we publish a recipe on bonappetit.com that introduces a baking concept we think you should know. Then you'll go bake, send us any questions you have. And we'll get together here on the podcast to talk about the recipe. And this month we're making strawberry roll cake.

28:49Rebecca Keegan:It is the unofficial birthday cake of the Bon Appetit Test Kitchen. And it is the perfect way to welcome spring. Head to BA.com and come and bake along with us. Send us your questions, pictures, and any thoughts to Bake Club at BonAppetit.com. Or find us on the Substack. Join us the first Tuesday of every month as we debrief about our latest bake. Find BA Bake Club wherever you get your podcasts. Happy baking.

29:19Jordan Firstman:Welcome back to Little Gold Men. All right, I'm leaving Cannes tomorrow, but I'm packing the day. Let's talk about what we're excited to see in the coming days. I think we should talk about Hope because it did have its world premiere already, but John, you're going to check it out today, and then we're going to talk about it on the next episode. in the now. You're getting ready. You're doing your stretches. But talk a little bit about it. Why are people talking about it today?

29:44John L. Hopkins:You know, I go into movies more or less blind. I really don't like to read about stuff.

29:49Jordan Firstman:That's what's fun about Cannes is you can't do it. No, in general.

29:52John L. Hopkins:I am a real like, I'm like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I like to pretty much go in not knowing that much. So I know that it's a little horror. It's got a crazy the ending. It stars Alicia Vikander, Michael Fassbender, Taylor Russell, but I don't know that much about it. I just know that people have been talking about it. I'm excited to see it.

30:16Jordan Firstman:Yeah, it's like sci-fi action. It's totally in contrast to the restrained films of this lineup. So I'm excited to hear what you have to say about it. I think it's extremely divisive, and a lot of people seem surprised it's in the lineup because it is so action genre-y, but I'm okay with that though

30:36John L. Hopkins:that doesn't

30:37Jordan Firstman:yeah that's why you're going to see it yeah yeah

30:40John L. Hopkins:and then there is a movie I'm going to try to see that has premiered already Gentle Monster that stars Lea Sido I have now heard at the caring dinner everyone was talking about it and I've heard from people it is divisive too some people don't like the way the subject matter is handled but basically it's a woman whose husband gets arrested for having child pornography on his computer and how she reckons with it. I've heard she's incredible in it, but I'm hearing the buzz on it is at least that people are chatting about it, and especially about her performance.

31:24Jordan Firstman:And tonight we're going to see Fjord, which is directed by Christiane Manjou, and it stars Renata Reinsva and Sebastian Stan. And I obviously am a huge Renata Reinsva fan. We just saw her in Sentimental Value last season. So they basically play a couple who have children who move to sort of a very remote town and then things happen. That's about all I know. But we have heard good things about this one. And I am still looking for my, like, really elated screening at a film festival experience. And I feel like I'm putting all my hope into this movie. As I feel like you are too, John. We're hoping this is a really great experience.

32:04Jordan Firstman:The gala premiere is later tonight. And so I really would love that to be what I want it to be.

32:10John L. Hopkins:And then afterwards, we're going to see the Nick Ruffin movie, Her Private Hell. that's playing out of competition, but it's his first film in like 10 years. Yeah, right? Yeah. And it's some sort of horror thriller with young people, Nick Ruffin style. I like to see crazy stuff like that, so I'm excited for that.

32:32Jordan Firstman:Yeah, I mean, Ruffin, I ran into Charles Melton at an event yesterday. He's in the movie, and he called it a fantastic art film. So I think he is setting me up for an art film, which Ruffin is known for. He's like a very much a visual artist. But I don't know if it's going to be a movie where we like completely understand what's going on with the plot. But I think I'm just going to walk in embracing that.

32:56John L. Hopkins:I don't think that's ever a Nick Ruffin movie. So par for the course.

33:02Jordan Firstman:Yeah, but I think having the right expectations will be the key to enjoying that movie. And then the last one that premieres before we record again is Pedro Amaldivar's next film, Bitter Christmas. I love the worlds of Amaldivar. I think the stories vary in their success, but this one I think is about like a director filmmaker. And I love when he kind of goes, I mean, they're always personal, but I feel like it seems promising. So we'll be able to talk about that one on the next episode too.

33:35John L. Hopkins:But yeah, I'm always excited to see his work.

33:43Jordan Firstman:Thanks for tuning in to Little Gold Men. Be sure to check out our Cannes live blog on VanityFair.com.

33:49John L. Hopkins:And if you have any festival-related questions, please send us an email at littlegoldmen at vf.com.

33:55Jordan Firstman:This episode was produced by Emily Elias and Michelle O 'Brien with mixing by Mike Kutchman. Stephen Valentino is our executive producer.

34:03John L. Hopkins:And we'll be back on Thursday with another Dispatch from Cannes. We will see you then.

34:33John L. Hopkins:for now, doesn't mean we are. Join us every week for coverage of the biggest stories in Hollywood,

34:39Jordan Firstman:interviews with today's brightest stars, and so much more.

34:42John L. Hopkins:Listen to Little Gold Men every Thursday, wherever you get your podcasts.

34:52John L. Hopkins:From PRX.