By Dave McCoy
MSN Movies Lead Editor

Everything has an expiration date ... or, at the very least, an evaluation date. Milk lasts 10 days, orange juice a few weeks, cars need love every 3,000 miles and relationships should be given the sniff test after a year. Marriage? I'm single, but from what I've observed, after five years of coupledom, you might want to do some soul searching and maybe get that Hefty bag ready. You get the point.

What in the hell does this have to do with the Cannes Film Festival, you ask? Well, like lettuce or yogurt or lifelong vows cooed to someone while wearing a rented monkey suit or dress that will never be worn again, film festivals also have an expiration date. Of course, those dates are subjective (but seriously, don't drink milk after 10 days; that is not up for debate).

Now, before you jump to conclusions, I'm not saying that festivals such as Cannes or Venice or Toronto have grown stale. On the contrary: They still represent the heart and soul of cinematic discovery, glamour and exhausting movie passion crammed into a very concentrated time period. For me, however, no matter how big the event, the luster of these events often fades. I've been attending film festivals for 18 years and have found, strangely, that after approximately three years, I get tired of attending a specific festival. This happened with Telluride and Sundance, and last year during my third visit to Toronto, my favorite film festival, I started to feel that it wasn't worth the effort. Blame it on how brutal it is to travel now or the crowds or the collection of bottom-feeding journalists or too many awful films among a few great ones, or perhaps that feeling of "been there, done that." Which brings us (yes, finally) to the 61st Cannes Film Festival. This is my third year here on the French Riviera, the jeweled festival of all the world, and before arriving, I was worried: Would the event that once was my dream destination finally prove (gulp) ... dull? Truth be told, if you'd asked me a year ago whether I'd attend the 2008 festival, I'd have said no. During the 2007 festival, I spent 10 days with a heat rash covering my body and suffered a lovely bout of food poisoning during the final weekend. Plus, I figured,  what could top the 60th festival? Not only did Cannes pull out all the stops by creating an energetic atmosphere I've never experienced, but it was also an incredible showcase for films. How great? Martin Scorsese gave a two-hour lecture and "No Country for Old Men," which is not only the best film of 2007 but also this decade, debuted but didn't win a single award. Why go back? I have my somewhat nice memories -- along with 13 tubes of French anti-itch cream (which didn't work) ... what more could I want?

Plenty. After another miserable Seattle winter, that, um, itchy feeling came back: I wonder what's playing at Cannes this year? What discoveries can I make? And how do I get away from this friggin' rain before I off myself? Then the film titles started pouring in -- and I was hooked ... again. What compelled me? This year, 80 percent of the films are made by directors of whom I've never heard (the official competition is packed with first- or second-time filmmakers). For me, the lure of festivals will always be the potential they offer -- the small possibility that I'll discover a director I've never known about. In 10 days, I hope to return to America, gushing about the next great filmmaker. If I don't uncover any, perhaps new films by Steven Soderbergh (a four-hour Che Guevara biopic called "Guerilla"? Hand me a beret and a frat boy's tie-dyed T-shirt!), Atom Egoyan, Clint Eastwood, the Dardenne brothers, Arnaud Desplechin, Fernando Meirelles, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Walter Salles and Charlie "Being John Malkovich" Kaufman's directorial debut ("Synecdoche, New York") will deliver new experiences for me. And yes, the little boy in me hopes, despite cynicism, that Hollywood fluff such as "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" and "Kung Fu Panda" will make me feel young again (by the way, the French title for Steven Spielberg and George Lucas' adventure is so much cooler: "Indiana Jones et le Royaume du Crane de Cristal.")

If this fails, at least I'll have 10 days of buzzing energy on no sleep, exotic women and fish soup. Is that worth a 15-hour trip with three connecting flights and a neighboring passenger with vicious gas issues? If you've tasted fish soup, you know the answer ...

The Resonance in the Memory

Before signing off, I want to leave you with a quote. After all, my ramblings for the next 10 days aren't solely for my benefit; I'm watching these films to alert you to what is and isn't worth seeing at your local theater.

"The way we see film and how they have an effect on us changes over the years, just as one changes as a person; this is an impression familiar to everyone.

"In the past I had no trouble at all sitting in the movies for days on end, watching one film after the other, with no qualms about jumping among genres, from Tarkovsky to Spielberg, from Bergman to Hitchcock. There was a seemingly endless reservoir of time and patience, and I felt an ever-playful openness; it was never too much for me. The emotions had their effect and then spread out rather diffusely and without reflection in the cosmos of memory.

"When I watch a film today, however -- even an admittedly exceptional one, like "United 93"-- or for that matter, simply stick it out to the end, then it seems to me completely impossible, even physically, to move along without a break to the next cinematographic impression, to slip smoothly into another story, another rhythm, another atmosphere, and the realm of impressions that develop out of it. In other words, the half-life of an intensive filmic experience has slowed down appreciably, or else a film finds, potentially, a greater echo in one's own history, in the personal zones of resonance in the memory.

"So I sit there after an emotionally intensive film and vibrate. Then I need time, and also to talk about it, in order to digest what I have virtually experienced."
         -- From "He Who Lives in a Human Skin," Tom Tykwer's article on the restored "Berlin Alexanderplatz" at the 2007 Berlin Film Festival

I recently read this passage while trying to watch -- perhaps endure is the better verb -- the restored 15-hour Rainer Werner Fassbinder epic "Berlin Alexanderplatz" (the above quote appears in its DVD booklet). What Tykwer discusses is essentially what one experiences at a film festival. When I was younger, I approached films in the manner that he describes in his second paragraph: with an insatiable appetite to see and devour as many films as I could during the short window of a film festival, where movies are often shown for 18 hours straight every day. The most I can remember seeing is 40 during 10 days at Sundance in 1994. But if you ask me to recall a single title, I cannot. Things have changed; what I've learned through the years is what Tykwer describes in those last two paragraphs. I no longer wish -- or am emotionally and physically able -- to sit through five films a day. Nor do I feel it's fair to the filmmaker, or my readers, to do so. Movies are not fast food; to treat them as such is an insult. This is my typically long-winded way of explaining how I'll cover Cannes this year and how I'll relay information and opinions to you, who may be vicariously living through my own experience for the next 10 days. There are hundreds (thousands if you count the Market) of films playing here, and I'll only scratch the surface ... but I promise to present that surface to you as deeply and richly as I can. I'll choose wisely, and if I do, I'll sit there "and vibrate" ... and then, as Tykwer explains above, I'll need time to think about the film and talk about it. The talking will be with you, and I hope the conversation isn't one-sided. I'll check our message boards often and respond to contributions you have to the conversation, be they recommendations, criticisms or questions.

So, tomorrow, we get started ...

A demain ...

Tomorrow: Dave reports on "Blindness," Cannes' opening-night film starring Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Danny Glover and Gael García Bernal.

Dave McCoy is lead editor for MSN Movies. He'll be filing daily dispatches from Cannes through May 25.

Also: Check out the festival lineup. What should Dave see at Cannes? Write us at heymsn@microsoft.com

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