Specials: Kaurismäki. Ceylan. Rohmer. And X-Men.

GreenCine Daily has all of the Cannes links you could hope for, and some very interesting, if somewhat disappointing, reports.

DIM LIGHT
I loved Aki Kaurismäki’s The Man Without a Past. But according to reviews posted at GreenCine, Kaurismäki’s new film Lights in the Dusk isn’t as easy to love.

CEYLAN RETURNS
I’m also very surprised to read the disappointed reviews over Ikilmer (Climates), the latest feature by Nuri Bilge Ceylan. His last film, Distant, which I reviewed for The Other Journal, showed him to be one of the potential inheritors of the kind of vision that blessed Tarkovsky. Perhaps it’s one of those “when you see it the second time” movies. Or perhaps it’s just a step on the way to another masterpiece. Either way, I’m still anxious to see it.

ROHMER IN A BOX
Six short films by Eric Rohmer are coming to the Criterion Collection in a boxed set. Very cool. I’ve enjoyed every experience I’ve had with Rohmer, but I’ve never devoted enough attention to him. (The only film of his that I’ve reviewed is The Lady and the Duke.) Hopefully someday I’ll get around to revisiting and writing about his greatest films like Claire’s Knee and My Night at Maud’s. But for now, Tim Lucas is writing about Rohmer, so the rest of the world can’t say nobody told them.

X-MEN “DOWNGRADED”
Elsewhere, Jeffrey Wells calls Brett Ratner’s X-Men movie the “coarsening of a action franchise that had more than a touch of class — wit, smarts, well-sculpted characters — when Bryan Singer was directing. But of course, everyone knew this was in the cards when Rattner was hired, and if you accept the downgrade as the way of the corrupted world it’s not that bad to sit through.” And at Ain’t It Cool News, Moriarty’s prayers are answered — according to him, the movie doesn’t suck.