Pop Gunning: Time for Cannes

The Cannes Film Festival officially gets underway tomorrow and this year's competition is kind of exciting, definitely a change from the last few years.

There's a couple of Canadian pictures (Egoyan's Adoration and the Canadian co-production Blindness), some solid directors (Festival darlings the Dardenne Bros., Clint Eastwood, Wim Wenders) and a massive Che Guevara double feature (starring Benicio Del Toro, directed by Steven Soderbergh). Other promising films include Synechdoche, New York from Charlie Kaufman (his directorial debut) and Three Monkeys from Nuri Bilge Ceylan (the Turkish director of Climates). Read the full list of movies in competition below (with links to the Cannes official site).

Most exciting of all though, is the debut of Wong Kar Wai's new edit of his 1994 martial arts epic Ashes of Time, Ashes of Time Redux. Yes, apparently he's altered it to better suit his original vision, including a new score by Yo Yo Ma.

READ MORE AFTER THE JUMP.

If this means there will finally be a decent print released on DVD, I'm all for it. This movie is spectacular enough as it is, so I can't wait to see an improved version. It's definitely underloved so I think a re-release is a smart move (especially considering the recent floppiness of My Blueberry Nights). I never really could figure out why Ashes never received as much praise as Wong's other films. But it's definitely on the shortlist of my most important movies. Back in the year 2000, I was lucky enough to see it on the big screen at a special screening in Toronto, and it has really informed a lot of my taste in movies ever since.

Read more about the Redux at Kaiju Shakedown. Watch the original trailer here or check out the higher quality version here.