THE 1995 CANNES PROJECT

Updated thoughts now that it's over: Thanks so much to Nick for putting all of this together! I don't suppose I'll have as many chances to do such high-volume movie watching come the end of summer, and I'm tremendously happy to have started off my last summer of pre-grad school freedom with such a crazy, totally rewarding and surprisingly instructive project.

Whip-smart film writer and all-round good human being Nick Davis makes a habit every year of celebrating the Cannes International Film Festival by spending some time exploring a previous edition of the festival, and this year, he's made it a 20th anniversary party, by digging into the films of the 1995 festival. And for the first time, he's invited some folks along to join him in forming a sort of alternate jury and critics pool. One of whom, I'm happy to report, is me.

Every day, I and the rest of the "jurists"shared our capsule thoughts on the films that premiered in 1995 years ago on that date, in the main competition at Cannes and some of the sidebar selections. And I'd urge you all to keep tabs on the developments at Nick's place, since that's where I and several others had our big conversation about the movies as well as announcing our own, two-decades-of-hindsight-later picks for what should have won the big Cannes prizes.

Here's the index for all my own individual thoughts on the movies, day by day.

Day 1: 5/17 (Opening Night: The City of Lost Children)
Day 2: 5/18
Day 3: 5/19
Day 4: 5/20
Day 5: 5/21
Day 6: 5/22
Day 7: 5/23
Day 8: 5/24
Day 9: 5/25
Day 10: 5/26
Day 11: 5/27
Day 12: 5/28 (Closing Night: The Quick and the Dead

Roundtable Discussions (at Nick's site)
Roundtable #1, 17-21 May
Roundtable #2, 22-24 May