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The Chopard sponsored Cannes Film Festival is where the world’s cinema elite get together every Spring to see what is new in the world of movie making and fashion. The festival began in 1946, and has grown over the last 62 years into an event the world takes note of in terms of entertainment and fashion.

As with all events, the Cannes Film Festival has its moments of awe and other moments that most wish were not caught by the press. As with all film festivals, Cannes serves up as many masterpieces as it does bombs. The following is a list of the best and worst to date at the Cannes Film Festival.

THE BEST

Up

Up was chosen to open the event, and is Pixar’s newest film. The film’s plot is based on a crotchety old man who ties a bunch of balloons to his house and tries to fly it to a South American paradise. He is accompanied by a personality filled Boy Scout, and obviously high jinks ensue.

It’s ok if you are skeptical at this point, the balloons, plus contrasting main characters are enough to make you smell crap, but add in 3-D and you would think most would go screaming from this film.

But wait. Pixar is also the studio that brought us Wall-E. And with Up, they have conceived a movie that is as much a piece of cinema as it is animation.

The reviews for Up have been amazing, and most have stated it is the high point of the festival to date.

“Nobody in Hollywood right now can touch primo Pixar for lunatic comic invention and sheer visual splendor. Like WALL•E, this wry parable continually and confidently shifts from absurdism to pathos and back again, beginning with a lovely, dazzling montage in which, after meeting our hero, Carl, as a boy in what looks like the ‘30s, we see the entirety of his adult life flash before our eyes. When we finally settle in the present, Carl, now wrinkled and gray and despondent over the death of his beloved wife, resembles Spencer Tracy squashed into the shape of a fireplug and speaks in the querulous voice of Ed Asner. (This may be briefly disconcerting to fans of a certain WB cartoon series of the ‘90s, who’ll keep expecting the old coot to say, “Hey, Freakazoid, wanna go see a three-headed mule?”) But while Carl embarks on pretty much the Journey of Personal Discovery you’d expect, the narrative keeps veering off course in surprising and surreal ways.” – Mike D’Angelo, http://www.avclub.com

Air Doll

Hirokazu Kore-eda continues his exploration of Japanese society. This time, however, the point of view is that of a blow up sex doll, who suddenly takes on life as a social and sexual critic. “At first glance, this film appears to be a love story,” Kore-eda comments. “However, the core issues I am dealing with are about human nature: can men ever fill up their own hollowness? What is the meaning of life? What is a human being? The film speaks of the loneliness of urban life, for both men and women.”

Kore-eda was inspired by a twenty-page manga drawn by Gouda Yoshiee. “The scene where the doll sheds a tear, deflates, and is reinflated by the man she loves,” says the director, “seemed powerfully erotic to me. I also felt it had huge cinematographic potential, the idea is that air from another person could be a metaphor for sexuality. It was important to me to be able to explore my favorite themes through the eyes of the air doll… If my film is a circle, and I am in the center of the circle, I always try to expand it in all possible directions. I can go from concentrating on telling the story, to concentrating on the physical dimension of the human body, and so on. This film is the latest challenge I’ve given myself.”

“Not sure how this goofy but ambitious film wound up in Un Certain Regard, as Kore-eda (a Competition vet) is definitely swinging for the fences here, not just raising questions about the nature of identity and desire but also pointedly suggesting (by never showing the actual doll after the opening scene, even when it’s immobile) that women in general are treated by men as passive semen receptacles.” - Mike D’Angelo, http://www.avclub.com

Precious

Precious had already created a stir at Sundance, and the same happened at Cannes with the outcome being a standing ovation for the film.

Clareece “Precious” Jones is an overweight, illiterate African-American teen in Harlem. Just as she’s about to give birth to her second child, Jones is accepted into an alternative school where a teacher helps her find a new path in her life.

“In ‘Precious,’ which will open in theaters in November, Carey undergoes a startling transformation that transcends the physical into the virtually existential. Gone are the trappings of fame and fashion that she brought out with full force at a news conference on the beach. The highlighted tresses she carefully tends with beige-polished fingernails are a mousy brown in the movie; out goes the square-cut diamond right-hand ring; out comes the full Long Island accent. Even the perfectly blushed cheeks take on a bureaucratic pallor in the film, which is showing out of competition in the Un Certain Regard section of the festival. (”Precious” made its world premiere at Sundance, where it won the festival’s three top awards and caught the attention of Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry, who signed on as executive producers.)” – Ann Hornaday, The Washington Post

THE WORST

Kinatay

Many believed Brillante Mendoza was ready for his second Cannes Film Festival, but those people will change their toon upon seeing “Kinatay,” as Variety.com put it “an unpleasant journey into a brutal heart of darkness.”

Peping is recruited by his classmate, Abyong, to work as a part-time errand boy for a local syndicate in Manila. Most of the money he earns, he ends up spending on his girlfriend Cecille. When Peping decides he is going to marry her, he knows he will need even more money. So, when Abyong contacts Peping to join a “special project” that pays more than normal, he finds the offer intriguing.

“I’ve seen several other films here already, but “Kinatay” seized my attention. I was talking the other day with Thierry Fremaux, the director of the festival, and I mentioned that he has many big names among the directors of this year’s Official Selections. “Yes,” he said, “but not every great director makes only great films. And we cannot show only great films, although every film is one we believe deserves to be seen.” Fremaux knows his films, his festival, his audience. His taste is exceptional. He was not, of course, referring to any particular films or directors. I quote him because some of my film critic colleagues, staggering out into the light after “Kinatay,” were banging their palms against their foreheads and crying out, “what got into them when they programed this film?” To them I say, Now, now. They can’t only show great films.” – Roger Ebert

Vengeance

Vengeance starts with the massacre of a family. The father of the matriarch of the decimated family arrives from Paris and promises his dying daughter that he would avenge the act.

He employs three local hitmen in his quest to find out person behind the act in a place completely alien to him. One thing leads to another, and overcoming a brief period when he loses his memory, which later returns partially, he finds out who the mastermind was, and in short violence ensues.

“We have many films, of all categories, with violence at its core, but Vengeance becomes such a unintentionally comic and tedious journey for the viewer that even many of typical Bollywood revenge blockbusters would make a much better viewing. And Charles Bronson’s Deathwish could be almost a masterpiece in comparison to this one. It is hard to believe that this is a film from a director whose immediate past film is Sparrow, which made action such a pleasurable thing to watch.” – Utpal Borpujari, DearCinema.com

THE BEST

Aishwarya Rai Bachchan , whom many consider the most beautiful woman in Cinema, completely stole Cannes this year, with her strapless white gown.

Somehow Asia Argento pulls off this look (which reminds me of my grandmother’s sofa). Don’t know how she did it, but wow!

And just in case you didn’t think she was beautiful before, here is some more Aishwarya Rai Bachchan.

THE WORST

We can’t tell if this is Elizabeth Banks’ dress or someone merely wrapped her in ribbon.

I mean, I guess being feminine isn’t important to everyone. A “suit dress” takes that to a whole new level though.

Robin Wright Penn trying to show everyone that dressing up in your bedsheets from the 80’s is OK if you are a jury member.

THE BEST

Martin Scorsese’s presentation of the Technicolor classic, The Red Shoes.

According to indieWIRE.com, Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda is distributing blow up press kits to promote his latest flick, Air Doll, about a man in a long-term relationship with a blowup doll. I mean the awesomeness of any blowup doll cinema cannot be ignored.

Director Lee Daniels introduced the film Precious, alongside stars Paula Patton, Mariah Carey, Lenny Kravitz and Gabbie Sidibe, who plays the title role, a 16-year-old girl struggling with abuse. Daniels, visibly exhausted, still charmed the crowd: “Je suis fatigué [I'm very tired]. I’ve had too much champagne, so I’m not able to give the speech I spent three weeks preparing…” This film and the story if its making are an amazing testament to the fact the cinema continues to be art.

THE WORST

According to TMZ.com, Robert Deniro was spotted jet skiing in Cannes with “his moobies in full bloom.”

It really just makes us sad because one of our favorite actors is getting old.

From RiskyBizBlog on Twitter, “Tilda Swinton on Cannes red carpet, w/hair that’s half buzz-cut, half Zack from Saved by the Bell.” That’s right, she made two of our worst lists for this appearance.

Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are reportedly fighting over whether to make an appearance on the red carpet at Cannes. Sources say Pitt wants Jolie by his side while he promotes his new movie ‘Inglorious Bastards,’ but the actress is refusing to go. We are really hyped about this movie, and hate the fact the Angelina is being such a spoiled …. Well you know.

“Angelina does not want to go. Brad told her if she does not go to Cannes it will cause him huge problems and will outshine the promo for his new Quentin Tarantino film,” says an insider.