'Up' To Kick Off Cannes Film Festival

The next major film event is the 62nd Cannes Film Festival, which opens on Wednesday, May 13th. Easily the world's glitziest film festival, Cannes has changed a bit over the years to accommodate both serious international film and some of the bigger Hollywood popcorn fare. To illustrate that point, this year, Disney Pixar's Up will be the first animated film ever selected as the Opening Ceremony film at Cannes. That's quite an honor, actually, because as we start to see more news about Cannes coming in, the odds are that every one of those films being mentioned wanted to be in the spot now reserved for Up. I think a great deal of the reason for the selection has to do with Pixar's sterling reputation among movie fans and industry professionals. It's strange that Ratatouille didn't open the festival two years ago - what with it being set in France and all - but given that the media blitz that accompanies Cannes will give Up a tremendous amount of publicity two weeks before it opens, this couldn't be any more perfect for Disney and Pixar. It's a noticeable shift from the previous years at Cannes, when My Blueberry Nights kicked off the festivities in 2007, and the poorly-received Blindness christened the event last year.

Comments

[Eating Butter]

Or, read differently, Up is as big a turd as both Blindness and My Blueberry Nights.

[Get The Big Picture]

There's always that possibility, I suppose.