Cale’s cinema reviews: Cannes Film Festival preview

Cale Strickland Managing Editor

Opinion

Every year, one of the biggest events in the movie world happens not in Hollywood, California, or in New York, New York, but in Cannes, France. The Cannes Film Festival, along with the Berlin International Film Festival and the Venice Film Festival, is one of the “big three” film festivals. It is a celebration of cinema — to the highest degree. Look at any of the press photos taken from inside the invite-only festival, and you will see all-time auteurs and allstar actors, all dressed to the nines, lining the seaside city’s steps. Many of the films featured at the festival go on to compete for Oscars come fall and winter. And, of course, the festival is a far-reaching encapsulation of international cinema; directors and actors from all across the world are in attendance.

On April 13, the festival committee an- nounced this year’s lineup, whittling more than 2,000 submissions down to a taut 52-film itinerary.

Here are a handful of highlights:

“Killers of the Flower Moon” (dir. Martin Scorsese)

Scorsese is a name synonymous with film

Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI.” The film will premiere at Cannes, out of competition, before appearing in U.S. theaters in October. All I know is it is about a series of murders and the investigation which follows them. Scorsese, DiCaprio, De his heartfelt ode to The New Yorker, with “Asteroid City.” The cast is, as with every Anderson project, stacked. A series of fresh faces are joining his troupe: Tom Hanks, Margot Robbie, Scarlett Johannson and Maya Hawke — among others. The first trailer is out. The he is one of the most well-acclaimed directors of the past few decades. His new film, “May December,” follows an actress studying the life of a woman she is set to play, and stars Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore. “Carol,” Haynes’s ‘50s-era romance starring Cate auteur Pedro Almodóvar, and Ethan Hawke, for what is being described as a “Brokeback Mountain”-esque short. I have not seen much of Almodóvar’s work, but I was a big fan of his last feature, “Parallel Mothers.”

“Perfect Days” (dir. Wim Wenders) itself. His latest, “Killers of the Flower Moon,” has been sitting on ice for the better part of the pandemic era. The threeand-a-half-hour Great Plains drama stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, Jesse Plemons and new Oscar-winner Brendan Fraser and is based on David Grann’s “Killers of the Flower

Niro and Jesse Plemons, who may be one of my five favorite actors, are all teaming up. That is more than enough for me.

“Asteroid City” (dir. Wes Anderson)

All of Anderson’s candy-colored projects, each aesthetically masterful in its own way, are treats. He is coming on the heels of “The French Dispatch,” film appears to be about an alien invasion of some kind. Last year, Jordan Peele delivered one of the best alien movies in recent years, “Nope.” If anyone can deliver a delightful and worthy follow-up, it is Anderson.

“May December”

(dir. Todd Haynes)

Haynes may not be a household name, but

Blanchett and Rooney

Mara, is one of my favorite films of the 2010s.

“Strange Way of Life”

(dir. Pedro Almodóvar)

Between “The Last of Us” and, barring a slight downturn from season two to season three, “The Mandalorian,” Pedro Pascal is on top of the world right now. He is teaming up with Spanish

If you have been listening to Lana Del Rey’s new album, “Did you know that there’s a tunnel under Ocean Blvd,” chances are you are familiar with the city of Paris, Texas. Wenders’s filmic rendition of the small Lone Star State town, “Paris, Texas” — in addition to inspiring Del Rey’s song, of course — won the Palme d’Or, the highest prize at Cannes, nearly 40 years ago. Five years after his last narrative film, “Submergence,” he is returning with “Perfect Days,” a Japan-set drama which follows the day-to-day life of a toilet cleaner.