The weather didn’t play ball, but Magnus von Horn’s fierce fairytale and Andrea Arnold’s kitchen-sink take on English mysticism should count among the first-week highlights for Greta Gerwig’s jury

The Cannes film festival opens just as the heavens do, too. It’s raining on the red carpet and on the black limousines and on the immaculate white pavilions that line up on the beach. The rain falls on the A-listers as they climb the stairs to the Palais, and on the stoic huddled masses who gather behind the police cordons. Everybody’s bedraggled and windswept; it feels as though the whole town’s been at sea. “My main wish is that we see some great films this year,” says Iris Knobloch, the festival’s president, casting an anxious eye at the sky. “But also I’m wishing for a little sunshine as well.”

If it’s raining in Cannes, it means there’s a glitch in the script. It’s one of the event’s in-built paradoxes that a festival which predominantly plays out in darkened rooms should be so dependent on good weather; so in thrall to its complementary circus of photocalls, yacht parties and open-air film screenings. All it takes is a downpour to trigger a disturbance in the force, a creeping sense of existential dread. The punters came expecting Technicolor. But the scene is all wrong: the world has gone monochrome.

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© Photograph: Loïc Venance/AFP/Getty Images

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© Photograph: Loïc Venance/AFP/Getty Images

Roger Corman has left us. The 'Movies' as we knew them wouldn't have reached their heights without him. He jump/kick-started the careers of Coppola, Nicholson, Cameron, Demme, Scorsese and so, so many more. With his passing it feels as if cinema, as we knew it...and perhaps the analog 20th century has truly passed. He also directed Teenage Caveman.

"Megalopolis has always been a film dedicated to my dear wife Eleanor. I really had hoped to celebrate her birthday together this May 4th. But sadly that was not to be, so let me share with everyone a gift on her behalf." Weeks after the loss of his wife, the legendary Francis Ford Coppola reveals a first look at his magnum opus more than 40 years in the making, which has finally found a distributor after the director spent $120 million of his own funds on the project.

Premise: An accident destroys a New York City-like metropolis already in decay. Cesar, an idealist, aims to rebuild the city as a sustainable utopia, while the venal mayor, Frank Cicero, has other plans. Coming between the opposing men and their visions is Frank's socialite daughter, Julia. Tired of the attention and power she was born with, Julia searches for her life's meaning. Themes:

A film professional who attended the first screening told IndieWire the film is about a civilization teetering on a "precarious ledge, devouring itself in a whirl of unchecked greed, self-absorption, and political propaganda," and echoed a Coppola quote: like "Apocalypse Now" before it, "Megalopolis" isn't about the end of the world but the "end of the world as we know it."

Hollywood Elsewhere has glowing responses from a recent private screening (though the bewildered reaction from industry insiders might explain its difficulty finding a distributor):

"It's a startling film....a very enveloping film, but also highly visual in a '60s experimental way. It felt like Francis's youth was returning to him and pouring through his heart at age 84....the kind of independent cinema that he grew up on....it's a wonderful, larger-than-life, jumps-off-the-screen movie and in a totally personal way....constantly entertaining....it's not like any movie that's out there, I can tell you that...avant garde experimental. "It's principally about a love affair between Driver and Natalie Emmanuel, the daughter of his rival and opponent (Whitaker)....a battle for her heart. Romeo and Juliet....a Shaekespearean battle between two families...a bit like Baz Lurhman's Romeo + Juliet. "The statement that I felt summed up the general response was from Andy Garcia: 'This guy is the reason we're all making movies.'

Cast:

Adam Driver as Cesar Nathalie Emmanuel as Julia Cicero Giancarlo Esposito as Frank Cicero Jon Voight - Laurence Fishburne - Aubrey Plaza - Shia LaBeouf - Jason Schwartzman - Grace VanderWaal - Kathryn Hunter - Talia Shire - Dustin Hoffman - D. B. Sweeney - James Remar - Chloe Fineman - Madeleine Gardella - Isabelle Kusman - Bailey Ives - Balthazar Getty

Megalopolis previously on MeFi

In this episode we'll look at how production notes flat out lie about the making of a film, we'll look at two different sides of Gran Turismo, and we'll check out the history of CGI and why it fell from grace. We'll bust some common misconceptions about CGI, and we'll look at the most notorious "no CGI" project that I know of. the 4th and final episode of "NO CGI" is really just INVISIBLE CGI

Episode 3 Episode 2 [Previously] Episode 1 [Previously]

Part 1: From the S Dynasty to the Chin Dynasty. Part 2: From the Chu-Han contention, through the first Chinese golden age of the Han dynasty, to the Warring States, and the Northern and Southern dynasties. To clarify, this YouTube series is NOT about the actual history, but how Chinese history is interpreted through Chinese cinema. This is a continuing series from Accented Cinema. Previously from AccentedCinema. For those interested in the actual history, he recommends Cool History Bros.