Cannes 2021 Betting Thread

[wba]

Palme d'Or : The Seed and the Sacred Fig (Mohammad Rasoulof)
Grand Jury Prize : Grand Tour (Miguel Gomes)
Jury Prize : Caught by the Tides (Jia Zhangke)
Director : Megalopolis (Francis Ford Coppola)
Alternate : All We Imagine As Light (Payal Kapadia)

[flip]

good to have more contestants! the competition is now officially underway, the first film has already screened...

[flip]

as i do every year, i'll post each film as it screens, along with the rating (out of 5) it gets from the guardian. i take ratings from the guardian not because i like their film criticism (i have no opinion of it, i don't read it), but because i know they rate everything, and i figure they might be a decent barometer of jury opinion.

Wild Diamond (Agathe Riedinger) •••
The Girl with the Needle (Magnus von Horn) ••••
Bird (Andrea Arnold) •••
Megalopolis (Francis Ford Coppola) ••
Kinds of Kindness (Yorgos Lanthimos) ••••
Three Kilometres to the End of the World (Emanuel Parvu) ••••
Oh, Canada (Paul Schrader) ••
Emilia Perez (Jacques Audiard) •••
Caught by the Tides (Jia Zhangke) ••••
Limonov: The Ballad (Kirill Serebrennikov) ••••
The Substance (Coralie Fargeat) ••••
The Apprentice (Ali Abbasi) ••
The Shrouds (David Cronenberg) •••
Anora (Sean Baker) ••••
Marcello Mio (Christophe Honore) ••
Parthenope (Paolo Sorrentino) ••
Grand Tour (Miguel Gomes) ••••
Motel Destino (Karim Ainouz) ••••
Beating Hearts (Gilles Lellouche) ••
All We Imagine As Light (Payal Kapadia) •••••
The Seed of the Sacred Fig (Mohammad Rasoulof) ••••
The Most Precious of Cargoes (Michel Hazanavicius) •

(i haven't found a review of the most precious of cargoes yet, but the cannes jury grid says the guardian gave it the lowest possible rating, so i assume it's a 1-star review)

the cannes jury grid seems to be publicly available this year (past years i had trouble seeing it i think), so i'll include their average as well, out of 4 (some of these may change as more reviews come in) :

Wild Diamond (Agathe Riedinger) – 2.1
The Girl with the Needle (Magnus von Horn) – 2.2
Bird (Andrea Arnold) – 2.3
Megalopolis (Francis Ford Coppola) – 2.1
Kinds of Kindness (Yorgos Lanthimos) – 2.4
Three Kilometres to the End of the World (Emanuel Parvu) – 2.3
Oh, Canada (Paul Schrader) – 1.8
Caught by the Tides (Jia Zhangke) – 2.6
Emilia Perez (Jacques Audiard) – 2.5
Limonov: The Ballad (Kirill Serebrennikov) – 2.2
The Substance (Coralie Fargeat) – 2.7
The Apprentice (Ali Abbasi) – 1.7
The Shrouds (David Cronenberg) – 2.2
Anora (Sean Baker) – 3.3
Marcello Mio (Christophe Honore) – 1.4
Parthenope (Paolo Sorrentino) – 1.6
Grand Tour (Miguel Gomes) – 3.0
Motel Destino (Karim Ainouz) – 1.9
Beating Hearts (Gilles Lellouche) – 1.3
All We Imagine As Light (Payal Kapadia) – 3.3
The Seed of the Sacred Fig (Mohammad Rasoulof) – 3.4
The Most Precious of Cargoes (Michel Hazanavicius) – 1.2

and from the moirée jury grid, also out of 5, where the critics seem, well, more critical, which is interesting:
Wild Diamond (Agathe Riedinger) – 1.6
The Girl with the Needle (Magnus von Horn) – 1.8
Bird (Andrea Arnold) – 2.4
Megalopolis (Francis Ford Coppola) – 2.9
Kinds of Kindness (Yorgos Lanthimos) – 1.5
Three Kilometres to the End of the World (Emanuel Parvu) – 1.3
Oh, Canada (Paul Schrader) – 2.7
Caught by the Tides (Jia Zhangke) – 3.93
Emilia Perez (Jacques Audiard) – 0.9
Limonov: The Ballad (Kirill Serebrennikov) – 1.5
The Substance (Coralie Fargeat) – 2.6
The Apprentice (Ali Abbasi) – 1.5
The Shrouds (David Cronenberg) – 3.87
Anora (Sean Baker) – 3.5
Marcello Mio (Christophe Honore) – 0.9
Parthenope (Paolo Sorrentino) – 0.3
Grand Tour (Miguel Gomes) – 3.91
Motel Destino (Karim Ainouz) – 1.7
Beating Hearts (Gilles Lellouche) – 1.8
All We Imagine As Light (Payal Kapadia) – 3.6
The Seed of the Sacred Fig (Mohammad Rasoulof) – 2.7
The Most Precious of Cargoes (Michel Hazanavicius) – 0.5

[flip]

the first 5-star film of the festival, per the guardian, is Lou Ye's An Unfinished Film. i haven't been interested in watching a Lou Ye film since seeing Suzhou River quite a while ago, but maybe i'll watch this one

the world premiere of Coppola's Megalopolis is 45 minutes away...

[wba]

Great to know he's still working! Need to finally see one of his films.

[flip]

megalopolis apparently very divisive. two big names screen in competition later today - yorgos lanthimos and paul schrader.

[flip]

big names again tomorrow: in competition, films by jia zhangke and jacques audiard, out of competition premieres by leos carax and guy maddin

and so far, really no standout films on the jury grid

[flip]

we're exactly halfway through the competition, and there's a new leader on the jury grid -- the substance, a body horror comedy starring demi moore that apparently got a ten minute standing ovation. its rating might drop as the last reviews come in, but it's slightly ahead of the jia zhangke on the grid right now.

on tap today are the new cronenberg film, and the donald trump biopic the apprentice, which i'm going to guess will either be terrible or amazing.

[flip]

just six films left to go in the competition, and the guardian has yet to give a 1-star or 5-star review (which is unusual, based on past years). so perhaps there are no clear winners or duds this year, though the films that screened yesterday all rank either at the top or at the very bottom of the cannes jury grid -- anora (sean baker) is in first place by a long way right now, while parthenope (paolo sorrentino) and marcello mio (christophe honoré) are the worst reviewed films so far. i would have expected sorrentino to be among the favourites to win something, but it doesn't seem his film was well received.

interesting slate today -- the new miguel gomes film premieres, along with a film by karim ainouz described as an "erotic thriller", a genre from which i can't recall seeing anything i found worthwhile, unless i take a pretty broad view of what might qualify (though i'm sure i'm forgetting some films off the top of my head). maybe this will be an exception!

[nrh]

so far the moire film grid has been the fun one to watch - https://moir.ee/editions/cannes24

[rischka]

oooh i'm pleased for sean baker xD

[Mauries]

I'm not there this year, but heard from friends that All We Imagine As Light is a contender

[flip]

so far the moire film grid has been the fun one to watch - https://moir.ee/editions/cannes24

ha, a 0.3 average rating (out of 5) for the sorrentino film. that jury grid does look a lot more interesting than the standard one, i edited it into my post with all the ratings

[nrh]

after a pretty bleak opening seems like there is some real excitement for gomes, kapadia and jia.

just read the reactions to the audiard and..kind of amazed that the movie is what it is.

[cinesmith]

kind of amazed that the movie is what it is.

This has been my take on a good deal of the entries. Lots of less than stellar entries by a lot of significant filmmakers.
Sucks out all of the excitement for much of the hopes for more vibrant releases for the fall.

The 'Grand Tour' trailer was easily one of the few that actually looks impressive

[flip]

I'm not there this year, but heard from friends that All We Imagine As Light is a contender

it's the first 5-star film in competition, according to the guardian!

[ofrene]

glad to see the most anticipating movies(Kapadia, Gomez) got a good reaction in mess, underwhelmed lineup

[nrh]

the chinese critics are going for kapadia too

https://x.com/hanglutvd/status/1793896731685314784

[flip]

peculiar predictions (especially for the top prize) from the guardian today, this is after they had seen almost all of the films:

Palme d'Or: Emilia Perez (Jacques Audiard)
Grand Prix: Anora (Sean Baker)
Jury Prize: The Substance (Coralie Fargeat)
Director: The Seed of the Sacred Fig (Mohammad Rasoulof)
Screenplay: All We Imagine As Light (Payal Kapadia)
Actor: Ben Whishaw, in Limonov: The Ballad
Actress: Demi Moore, in The Substance

it's really rare they give an acting prize to someone in a film that also wins one of the main prizes (it hasn't happened since Uzak won the Grand Prix and Best Actor prizes in 2003, unless i missed something -- i'm not counting the screenplay prize, which has often overlapped with one of the acting prizes), so i'd bet these predictions will be wrong somewhere.

[flip]

the competition screenings are officially over -- the final film has finished. the awards are announced tomorrow evening france time.

i'd normally collect the average letterboxd rating for each film along with the jury grid scores, just to see which resource is the best predictor of the eventual awards, but for some reason letterboxd won't display the average rating for any of the cannes films -- if i look at megaloplis, say, letterboxd says "not enough ratings to calculate average", even though it has 2300 views (and the letterboxd message makes no mathematical sense anyway, unless a film has zero views). does anyone know why letterboxd is doing that? there are tons of films with 50 views which have a displayed average rating...

[flip]

there doesn't appear to be much consensus about the best and worst films of the festival, but the two films that screened on the very last day end up being the top and bottom films on the screen daily jury grid. here are the best and worst from each source:

The Guardian
best film: All We Imagine As Light (Payal Kapadia)
worst film: The Most Precious of Cargoes (Michel Hazanavicius)

Screen Daily Jury Grid
best film: The Seed of the Sacred Fig (Mohammad Rasoulof)
worst film: The Most Precious of Cargoes (Michel Hazanavicius)

Moirée Jury Grid
best film: Caught by the Tides (Jia Zhangke)
worst film: Parthenope (Paolo Sorrentino)

[flip]

and based on the reviews/ratings, these are the awards i imagine each source would give, arbitrarily giving the jury prize to the 3rd ranked film, and best director to the 4th ranked. the guardian somewhat absurdly gave 4-star reviews to ten films (and 5-stars to another), so i used their award predictions posted above to break ties, though they only gave 3 stars to their predicted palme winner (emilia perez) so that doesn't make their list:

the guardian
Palme d'Or: All We Imagine As Light (Payal Kapadia)
Grand Prix: Anora (Sean Baker)
Jury Prize: The Substance (Coralie Fargeat)
Director: The Seed of the Sacred Fig (Mohammad Rasoulof)

screen daily jury grid
Palme d'Or: The Seed of the Sacred Fig (Mohammad Rasoulof)
Grand Prix: All We Imagine As Light (Payal Kapadia)
Jury Prize: Anora (Sean Baker)
Director: Grand Tour (Miguel Gomes)

moirée jury grid
Palme d'Or: Caught by the Tides (Jia Zhangke)
Grand Prix: Grand Tour (Miguel Gomes)
Jury Prize: The Shrouds (David Cronenberg)
Director: All We Imagine As Light (Payal Kapadia)

[flip]

i tallied the results of the prediction contest, and it was very close, but i think i won! i didn't give any points for picking the seed of the sacred fig (which won a special jury prize). if i counted that as if it were a jury prize, then wba and i would be tied for first.

flip: 9 points
wba: 8 points
ofrene: 7 points
silga: 5 points
curtis: 4 points

as for which source best predicted the awards this year (based on what they liked best), it looks like the screen daily jury grid did very well, and the guardian wasn't far behind. the moiree jury grid seemed more idiosyncratic (and more interesting for it) but wasn't a great predictor.

[rischka]

very happy for Sean baker

[wba]

What's with this weird "special prize" they invented for Rasoulof? Either give him or his film a prize, or don't.
Boy, what idiots...

[flip]

they've actually given out a special jury prize many times, though i think the last time was in 1996 (to crash by david cronenberg)

[Mauries]

Go Payal!

[wba]

they've actually given out a special jury prize many times, though i think the last time was in 1996 (to crash by david cronenberg)

Poor Cronenberg...

I just feels like a sorry excuse for a "prize", as there are so many official prizes to give, that I honestly don't see the point. It's really like a third rate prize.
Especially as you can also award the other prizes ex aequo...

[Silga]

in Cronenberg's case it was Francis Ford Coppola who was the president of the jury that year and he hated Crash so much that he firmly stood against giving Palme D'Or for it, while a majority of the jury wanted to.

When jury decided to present special award to Crash, Coppola even refused to present it to Cronenberg at the ceremony.

I wonder how they were around each other this year as they met again, this time both in competition.

[rischka]

wow now i'm glad coppola didn't win anything!