The Velvet Underground Frank Sinatra Keith Jarrett The Fall Mötorhead The Birthday Party Wayne Shorter Scraping Foetus From the Wheel REM (incredible for the first decade) Love

Happily, it has turned out to be a late-delivery #Cannes. LA BOLA NEGRA is one heck of a lot of movie. Spanish epic based around a myth of Lorca that takes in Glenn Close as hauty academic and Penelope Cruz in super-diva mode. The cliche we’re looking for here is “crowd-pleaser”

Talk about your classic late(ish) Cannes surprise. Ira Sach’s THE MAN I LOVE — a tale of the AIDS years — is sensational. If Rami Malek were to win best actor (and he should) it could undo the damage to his reputation done by that Oscar win.

Wait? What? Does the Guardian not realise that its own 2015 list of greatest novels – complied by Robert McCrum – is arranged in *chronological* order.

Let me put it this way, Arthur Harari’s THE UNKNOWN was good enough to get booed in the Lumiere. Something that just doesn’t happen any more. Not up with the best booed films here, but, nonetheless, a fascinating body swap puzzler with shades of Losey and Antonioni. #cannes2026

That’s incredible. (This refers to a short film I made a lifetime ago) youtu.be/p856CfM64w8?...

Sitting here mourning the boxes that used to be stuffed with glossy stuff. Ah well The trees, the trees. #cannes2026

Decent list. Interesting what’s fallen out of fashion. No Waugh. Neither Amis. Fascinating who hasn’t *quite* come back into fashion. Then again, too many options from Elizabeth Taylor or Penelope Fitzgerald may have spilt their votes. I am mean-spiritedly… 1/2 www.theguardian.com/books/ng-int...

THE MATCH pushes no boundaries, but it is the most purely *entertaining* film I’ve seen at Cannes yet. www.irishtimes.com/culture/film...

TEENAGE SEX AND DEATH AT CAMP MIASMA is pretty much all you’d hoped for. #cannes2026 www.irishtimes.com/culture/film...

Suitably dressed to meet Jane Schoenbrun, I think.

I feel this sign at Cannes may need further context.

11 Minutes late, Joan. Overturned horse box at Antibes.

Bon festival!

More of this shit. This is not a real sign on a real restaurant

OBSESSION is incredible. Two performances for the ages. A perfectly pitched take on the Monkey’s Paw that reveals a profoundly pessimistic take on human relationships just beneath the surface. Deserves all the awards it’s not going to get.

it took me too long to realize that this was "horseshit" censored and not new slang i didn't know about yet where "horses" meant bad

Ted Turner had an instinct for mergers, a lot of charm, an inhuman level of self-confidence, AND a wildly overinflated sense of what he could pull off, and if I were to pick a single deal that represented all of those qualities, it would be "I think I can turn Jane Fonda into a trophy wife."

Rolls eyes with Jessie Buckley, Barry Keoghan and Michael McElhatton (and some Scottish actors too, I guess).

SORRY?!!? WHAT?!!? This is what happens when you only read the headline. I hadn’t grasped that Stillman was adapting one of my favourite ever novels.

People who write “tele” for “telly” should be sent to re-education camps. You don’t pronounce it “tellyvision”.

I understand this will register with only a few readers, but every time I read the title of Clio Bernard's Cannes-bound I SEE BUILDINGS FALL LIKE LIGHTNING I sing a line from Scott Walker's THE AMOROUS HUMPHREY PLUGG.

The boys in the booth said “bottle” a great many times. But they weren’t wrong. Missed a black on the spot for a certain win in the penultimate frame. Screwed up position twice in the closing break and pulled off escapes both times. Incredible final.

What a tournament.

My chum Ruth Negga is on the Cannes Jury. Good for her.

On the one hand, actually throwing someone out of the auditorium when their phone went off in the snooker was oddly satisfying to watch. On the other, impossible not to think: that could have been me.

Hodges Figges have moved everything around on the first floor again. I feel like Anthony Hopkins in The Father.

I wrote a few word on the much-missed Gary Lydon, who is about to have a rare starring role in a movie. www.irishtimes.com/culture/film...

Dont think too hard. Top ten songs of all time for you The Amorous Humphrey Plugg: Scott Walker Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands: Bob Dylan Can You Hear Me?: David Bowie Container Drivers: The Fall Going Back: Dusty Springfield Just Like Tom Thumb Blues: Nina Simone 1/2

It’s a shame snooker lost support since its glory days. That was an absolutely incredible match. Levels of emotion you rarely see on screen.

Okay. Looking at recent years, BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOUR seems to be the last foreign language film not selected by its nation. Before everyone turned against it (not me, by the way) that would surely have walked into the race. If, that is, it qualifies for the year of the festival. If not... 1/1

Oscar nerds (like me) I've been wondering how the changed rules might have altered earlier acting races. Harder work pondering what films might have profited from the new festival qualification in international. ANATOMY OF A FALL obviously. Go back too far and that race is chaos. 1/2

Incredible finish to the snooker. What just happened?

We could end around 60 pert cent of social media arguments immediately if we banned the phrase "you are technically correct, but..."

Top 15 shows, no thoughts just vibes: Columbo Fawlty Towers Seinfeld The Ascent of Man Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy Our Friends in the North Mad Men The Shock of the New Dad’s Army Peep Show Motherland The Mary Tyler Moore Show Civilisation Cheers

Yeah! I immediately thought the same thing. I’d bet on Daniel Day-Lewis for In The Name of the Father (which he got) and The Age of Innocence (which he didn’t ). At the expense of, maybe, Laurence Fishburne?

If I may adapt a joke by the late Jeremy Hardy, I don’t approve of the c-word being used as the worst possible insult, but unfortunately it’s impossible to discuss Alex Jones without it.

Interesting new Oscar rules. You can now be nominated against yourself as an actor (which might interest Sandra Huller, this year). Also, festival winners now qualify for international picture. And the award goes to the film not the nation, which was always stupid.

Fucking hell. What a shot.

I see the current referee in the snooker is called Peggy Li. Which is amusing in itself, but more so if you think of her as a Viz character: Peggy Li, Snooker Referee.

THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA self-owns on its Stockholm Syndrome, but it still offers a pleasant place to sit for two hours. www.irishtimes.com/culture/film...

why do critic s review every movie like it citizen cane why cant they just admit something s fun

Please god, stop saying the Stephen’s Green Centre looks like a Mississippi river boat. We’ve done that.

Look. Obviously it’s possible the attack in Washington was staged, that it was (rolls eyes) a “false flag”. But anyone stating this is definitely the case is an idiot.

This week’s movie quiz is scoring in the middle difficulties. www.irishtimes.com/culture/film...

Phew. Be glad when this exhausting hot spell is over.

MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS (1974): the film I have most often come across already started on broadcast telly and watched to the end. I know the latter two thirds backwards, but am a bit shaky on the opening half hour.

Anyone else booked a hotel room at Dublin airport with a popular tourism site. Hilarious how you then get deluged with emails suggesting "things to do round Cloghran"?

I facetiously wondered if the Michael Jackson flick might be bad enough to end the musical biopic epidemic. (Obviously the answer is no) www.irishtimes.com/culture/film...

I’m allowed to say this and you’re probably not. But, by god, Mark Allen plays snooker like an Ulster Protestant.