Cannes Report Day 2: Tom Cruise Storms the Croisette; Zelenskyy Takes Center Stage

Cannes Report Day 2: Tom Cruise Storms the Croisette; Zelenskyy Takes Center Stage No images? [Click here]( ID=167008;size=700x180;setID=564182;uid={EMAIL}5792183;click=cannes_top [- - -] [Awards Beat with Steve Pond] May 18, 2022 Tom Cruise and ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ Celebrate the Big Screen Experience Plus, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy shows his love for Charlie Chaplin [- - -] By Brian Welk [Tom Cruise Miles Teller Top Gun: Maverick Photocall Cannes] (Getty Images) When Tom Cruise landed his first starring role in 1981’s “Taps” opposite George C. Scott, he told the crowd at Cannes that he remembers thinking, “Please, if I could just do this for the rest of my life, I will never take it for granted.” Over 40 years later, Cruise hasn’t stopped running, on screen or head-first into every public appearance to celebrate how much he loves the movies. And he found a good audience when he was given a career retrospective on Tuesday ahead of the Cannes premiere of “Top Gun: Maverick.” When asked why he chooses to do his own stunts, he wryly said that no one would dare ask Gene Kelly why he performed all his own dances. “There’s a very specific way to make a movie for the big screen. I know where they go after that and that’s fine,” he [said](. “I know people want that [big-screen] experience. I want other filmmakers to have that experience.” After looking the part during the Cannes photo call in which Cruise appeared with “Top Gun: Maverick” co-stars Jennifer Connolly and Miles Teller as well as producer Jerry Bruckheimer, Cruise made his way to the Debussy theater stage for a career retrospective conversation with Didier Allouch. The presentation opened with a lengthy clip package from many of Cruise’s films, all of it scored to the “2001: A Space Odyssey” theme “Thus Spoke Zarathustra,” and Cruise after yet another Cannes standing ovation told the crowd that “after everything we’ve been through, it’s such a privilege to see your faces.” Cruise first appeared at Cannes way back in 1982 for Ron Howard’s “Far and Away” in which during the closing night ceremony he presented the Palme d’Or to “Best Intentions.” Ukraine President Zelenskyy Says Cinema Can’t Be ‘Silent’ Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy helped to open Cannes Tuesday by reminding the crowd during the opening ceremony that the world needs people like Charlie Chaplin to remind everyone that cinema isn’t “silent,” and neither should the rest of the world. Zelenskyy appeared via a massive video message and received one of the longer standing ovations of the night in a ceremony that also included Forest Whitaker accepting an achievement award and audiences later getting the first look at Michel Hazanivicius’ “Final Cut.” But he wasn’t there for the applause. “Hundreds of people are dying every day,” Zelenskyy said of the people in his country fighting off Russian invasion. “They won’t get up again after the clapping at the end.” Zelenskyy, ever the cinephile, quoted Chaplin’s “The Great Dictator” and even showed a clip from Francis Ford Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now.” The film clip was another grim reminder that such images have become “a reality” in Ukraine. “Will the cinema keep quiet or will it speak up?” he said in his remarks. “Everything depends on our unity.” But in quoting Chaplin’s film, he did leave the Cannes audience with a hopeful thought. “I am convinced that the dictator is going to lose,” Zelenskyy said. In response to the Ukraine invasion, Cannes this year banned Russian delegates from attending the festival. Though on Wednesday will be the premiere of the one Russian film in the festival, “Tchaikovsky’s Wife.” The film comes from a director whom was put under house arrest by Vladimir Putin’s government. He’ll address the press on Thursday following the film’s premiere. ID=167008;size=300x250;setID=564183;uid={EMAIL}5792183;click=cannes_bottom Jessie Buckley Film ‘Hot Milk’ Acquired by IFC Films IFC Films, which on Monday acquired the Cannes competition title “R.M.N.,” picked up the domestic distribution rights to an upcoming film called “Hot Milk” that stars Jessie Buckley, Fiona Shaw and Vicky Krieps. “Hot Milk” is the directorial debut of writer Rebecca Lenkiewicz’s (“Ida,” “Disobedience,” “Colette”) and is about the complexities of a relationship between a single mother and daughter set in the heat and atmosphere of the Spanish seaside town Almería. The film is described as an intimate exploration of sex, love and the bonds that tie us all together. HanWay Films handled worldwide sales on the title, and they also closed multi-territory deals with MUBI for UK, Ireland, Italy, Latin America and Turkey. Additional deals include Metropolitan Films (France), The Searchers (Benelux), Scanbox (Scandinavia), M2 (Eastern Europe), A-One (Baltics), Front Row (Middle East) and Shaw (Singapore). [Adam Driver at the Gotham Awards, Adam Sandler at the Spirit Awards, Chloe Zhao at the Oscars (Getty Images)] ‘Final Cut’ It’s better to look at “Final Cut” less as an example of an odd Cannes trend than a creation all its own – and almost certainly the first-ever Cannes opening-night film to offer not just rampaging zombies and geysers of blood but also extended sequence devoted to farting, pooping, vomiting and other unsavory stuff. Oh, and by the way, it’s the most entertaining Cannes opening-night film in a very long time. (Maybe since “Up” in 2009?) And in its own particular and seriously deranged way, “Final Cut” is as much a valentine to the act of filmmaking as Hazanavicius’ Oscar-winning film “The Artist” was when it debuted in Cannes back in 2011. A remake of the 2017 Japanese horror-comedy “One Cut of the Dead,” “Final Cut” is silly and excessive and completely over-the-top, but it also brings out the lightness and deftness of Hazanavicus’ touch with comedy; the director somehow manages to fling body parts and bodily excretions at the audience for almost two hours, and yet you leave feeling as if you’ve seen a feel-good movie. Read more of Steve Pond‘s review [here](. [Final Cut] “Final Cut” (Courtesy of Cannes) ‘Scarlet’ Not quite a musical, sort of a folktale, and almost but not entirely a hardscrabble hunk of post-war realism before all of a sudden changing gears, “Scarlet” – which opened the 2022 Cannes Film Festival’s Directors’ Fortnight sidebar on Wednesday – is a tricky project to pin down. Of course, director Pietro Marcello wouldn’t have it any other way. Shooting in French for the first time, the Italian filmmaker made his name with documentaries before working found and historical footage into the world of make-believe with 2019’s “Martin Eden.” With this more ambitious (if more uneven) follow-up, Marcello continues at a similar pace, folding fact into fiction as he explores both the landscapes of rural Normandy in the aftermath of the First World War and the plight of the working poor, all through the crags of his leading man’s brow. Read more of Ben Croll‘s review [here](. 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