Sight & Sound. 07/06.

The July issue of Sight & Sound features a whopping Cannes package, most of which is online. The festival "often delivers less than its optimistic constituency would wish for," writes editor Nick James in a broad survey of the Competition. "But this year's festival seemed more to dash hopes for the future than enhance existing reputations."

For Jonathan Romney, the other sections of this year's edition "yielded no great bolt-from-the-blue revelations," either. He quite liked Avida, though, and has good things to say about Colossal Youth and Eugène Green.

"Power and extremism proved to be recurring themes" for Ali Jaafar, who notes a few favorites. Geoff Andrew sets out to write about the European entries but ends up casting his net far wider. And, as expected for some time now, Amy Taubin steps up to bat for Richard Kelly's Southland Tales, which she finds as "oneiric and overwhelming as two memorial films of Cannes past - David Lynch's Mulholland Dr and Wong Kar-Wai's 2046 - and a lot funnier."

Reviews:

• This month's trio begins with Edward Lawrenson's take on the Palme d'Or-winner, The Wind That Shakes the Barley, in which he wonders, is Ken Loach's "distaste for the very idea of compromise appropriate in these post-Good Friday Agreement times?"

• Ryan Gilbey notes a scene in Forty Shades of Blue that doesn't work for him, but for the most part, he admires Ira Sachs's choices.

• Reviewing United 93, Jaafar approvingly notes that Paul Greengrass "who eschews bombast or mawkish sentimentality."

Posted by dwhudson at June 21, 2006 7:21 AM