Do the Michael Haneke Panky! His film, The White Ribbon, won the king shit prize, the Palme d'Or.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.You may know the Austrian director from his sadism-happy foreign fare like the awesome Caché (American remake on the way) for which he won Best Director at Cannes in 2005, and Funny Games (American remake already made). It's a (get this) sadistic movie that received mostly tepid applause about a German village that takes place around WWI, and opens with someone falling off a horse. It's a Michael Haneke movie, so nobody's going to really be able to explain it to you (or why you'd want to watch it) until you actually see it.

The best director prize went to an underdog, Filipino director Brillante Mendoza, for his graphic hitman drama Kinatay, a film that was hugely buzzy before the festival, not so much during. Variety more or less said it sucked, and it sounds too much like last year's Gomorra for American audiences to really care.

Finally, British director Andrea Arnold won a second jury prize for her film Fish Tank; she's sharing it with South Korean director Park Chan-Wook (director of the incredible Oldboy. American, Will Smith-helmed remake on the way. Seriously.) for a film called Thirst, about a vampire-priest. No word on what the Vatican or vampire blog Bloodcopy have to say about this, but chances are that it - like anything American film execs would care about at Cannes that isn't in English - will eventually be given the shitty American remake treatment itself. Foreign languages: fail.

Meet Tiara Dew Dots, our "expert." She knows exactly what Brad and Angie are thinking, solely based on the red carpet photos from Cannes that are all over the internet.

TDD: There is tension here. Brad is trying to "Walk Away," just like the magazines report. Angelina is physically restraining him. Her stance is closed up and powerful; his limbs are all over the place — scattered, like his feelings for her. His brow is riddled with lines; he's worried he won't be able to escape. The one hand raised up is a cry for help.

TDD: Despite the smiles, there is pain in their eyes. She is reaching out to him, and he is recoiling. He would like to pluck her hand from his waist — see how his hand hovers? But he's afraid. His won't let his heels touch the ground, in fear of being literally stuck somewhere with her.



TDD: Angelina turns her back on the cameras the way she turns her back on men, when she's done with them. She's pivoted away from Brad and scanning the crowd for a new victim. Although one of Brad's hands attempts to cling to her, his other hand makes the old comic gesture, "Take my wife. Please."

TDD: They are looking — and moving — in different directions. Need I say more?????

TDD: Hmm. Odd. Here it almost looks like they're in love.

TDD: Her eyes are heavy-lidded with contempt. She is looking at his mouth like she can't believe the bullshit coming out it. She's thinking, why don't the tabloids ever accuse me of walking away? I am the one putting up with the epic vapidity that is your brain. And I hate how I'm always willing to watch whatever you want, but you can't sit through ten seconds of "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency." Oh, wait. Sorry. I'm talking about Mr. Dew Dots now. Where were we?

TTD: His eyebrows show that he is in the moment, enjoying the attention. Her smooth, calm face shows she has checked out, emotionally. In fact, a faraway gaze like that could mean she's remembering that time she had sex with Billy Bob in the back of a limo on the way to the Ocsars. Maybe.

TDD: She looks at him with the same weary bemusement one would offer a tap-dancing monkey. She's so over it. She lets him clasp her hand, but sends a message with her eyes: "You'll never control me." He may or may not be passing gas. One foot is pointed toward her; the other away: Should he stay or should he go? The lady behind them has never been so psyched to have a picture of someone's shoulder.

TTD: You'd think that his arm, placed over hers, means that he is the dominant one. But no! The fact that her arm is sneakily snaked under his proves that she is a back-stabbing husband stealer. Look closely and you'll see that while his hand is relaxed lightly on her back, her hand is spread like a claw across the back of his jacket — she will quickly snatch him away to a hut in a difficult-to-pronounce country should Megan Fox suddenly materialize.

TTD: You can almost hear her whispering, "You're not going anywhere, mister."

TTD: Um. Hmm. Strange. This looks like… Love. But it can't be! I read In Touch, I know what's up.

[Images via Getty.]

In case you don't know, the story revolves around an overweight, illiterate teen from Harlem who is pregnant with her second child and invited to enroll in an alternative school.

Newcomer Gabourey Sidibe plays Precious and Mo'nique plays her mother; Paula Patton and Mariah Carey also make appearances. In addition to a spectacular-looking trailer, the design geek in me has to give Lionsgate props for this poster:
…which is powerful and very much like some of the old posters designed by the great Saul Bass.


Precious premiered at Sundance in January and will be shown at the Cannes Film Festival (which started yesterday) but won't make its theatrical release in the U.S. until November (Oscar season!).

Precious Trailer [Trailer Addict]
Precious/Push: Based on the Novel by Sapphire [IMDb]
Related: Precious [Feministing]
Precious Trailer [Women & Hollywood]

Wenders has reached a new low with Palermo Shooting, a film of startling and embarrassing banality and, yes, even silliness. One is hard-pressed to imagine any commercial future whatsoever for this film, and a pickup by a U.S. distribution company seems virtually impossible. ...

Every time the film goes philosophical on us, the resultant dialogue is sententious and banal. We learn, among other things, that people during the time of the fresco that Flavia is restoring were afraid of death, and that they still are, and that, to live life to the fullest, we should do everything as though it were for the last time. He speaks meaningfully of "absurd freedom" and "desperate futility." [The lead character] Finn also is repeatedly warned that doing this "fashion crap" is hurting his reputation in the art world, another not-exactly-fresh theme. ...

For most viewers, the question of the meaning of it all will come down to this: Where does Wenders find people to continue to invest in his films?

Did the reviewer just indirectly suggest that Wenders should stop making movies? Come on — isn't one German auteur with a bounty on his head enough?

• Wim Wenders' new film an embarrassment [Reuters]

Originally made for TV, the German Valkyrie features The Lives of Others/Black Book actor Sebastian Koch as the eyepatched, would-be Hitler killer Col. Claus von Stauffenberg — also Cruise's role in the American version. Cruise, meanwhile, stars opposite Carice van Houten — Koch's Black Book co-star and real-life love interest. If Harvey has the balls (and/or the cash) to release Operation Valkyrie theatrically, especially before Singer's Valkyrie emerges from hiding, look forward to the most spectacularly awkward Tom Cruise premiere ever.

• TWC buys up German 'Valkyrie' [Variety via Lou Lumenick]

While no studio or production company affiliations have yet been announced, Diddy already knows what actress he wants: Sienna Miller or Angelina Jolie. Both are beautiful, captivating and emotive women. Oh, did we mention this is a comedy? Not to fear, though, since Diddy plans to land Eddie Murphy as his star. A cinch!

Before he gets too far, someone better tell Diddy that he can’t “sample” screenplays, or Murphy might find himself talking about pork belly futures and women from Queens all over again.

• Combs Turns Screenwriter [WWTI]

The most controversial American film of the fest, meanwhile — Steven Soderbergh's as-yet-unsold epic Che — won only a best actor prize for Benicio Del Toro after critics predicted (and/or prayed for) much more. Critics everywhere but Variety, that is, which has us wondering: What did Che ever do to these guys anyway?

It all started after last Wednesday's marathon press screening, when Todd McCarthy's screed credited "scattered partisans" with contrarian buzz before suggesting "the pic in its current form is a commercial impossibility, except on television or DVD." Fair enough, although a survey of reviews suggests McCarthy himself is the most vocal of the anti-Che minority. Which is fine, right? OK! So we thought we'd let it go, but then came Anne Thompson with her all-caps admonition, "DON'T TAKE AN UNFINISHED MOVIE TO CANNES!!!!" But NY Times critic A.O. Scott, while hardly over the moon, later echoed most of his peers when we spoke elegantly and persuasively on the open-ended film's behalf:

This is one of the frustrations of Cannes, for American critics at least. We see lots of fascinating movies — not all good, but very few completely worthless — and then wonder if we, or our readers, will ever see them again. I'm not in the movie business (a mutually beneficial arrangement, believe me), and not inclined to speculate with someone else's money. I do hope, however, that sometime in the near future I can take part in the long and contentious conversation that Che deserves, and also see how my own initial ambivalence about the film resolves itself.

Got it. Adults agree to disagree. But then came Mike Jones's dispatch on Variety's festival blog The Circuit, citing everything from long bathroom lines to the film's bad party to anti-Che commenters on his and other Variety blogs calling out the film's "mass murderer" subject. Now that's just hateful.

Coincidence? Perhaps; these are pretty independent thinkers, but it's a rare concentration of venom to seen directed at one film that doesn't even have American distribution yet. We wish they'd have saved some for that Eastwood backlash we know is coming.

The actress's radical theory posits that mistreatment of Tibet and her "good friend" the Dalai Lama might have upset the Earth's crust just enough to topple schools, threaten nearly a million people with flooding and yield two recent aftershocks wiping out another 420,000 homes. Who knew? Stone acknowledges her "big lesson" in the end, however, promising to put her "head down and be of service even to people who aren't nice to you." OK — but just this once, Sharon. And be careful! Word on the street is that those tent-city refugees are looking for payback, and how.

• Sharon Stone Blames China's Treatment Of Tibet For Earthquake [Breitbart via Radar Online]

First, Ferrara tagged a comment about the remake on to his answer to a question about working outside the Hollywood system. "As far as remakes go, Harvey [Weinstein? Not mentioned ... in connection to the project. Keitel, who starred in the original? Hmmmm....] begged me not to say anything mean, or stupid. [pause] But I wish these people die in Hell. I hope they're all in the same streetcar, and it blows up."

Later, a different journalist mentioned the remake in the run-up to answering a different question, and Ferrara interrupted.

"It hasn't been remade yet."

"But it will be," the reporter said.

Ferrara shook his head before putting it in his hands. "Don't count on it."

Come to think of it, we don't know why we originally thought Ferrara ever might have blessed such a random-ass duo reimagining his NC-17 baby for anyone, let alone a mass market. Though it's altogether possible that one glimpse at the new Lieutenant poster unveiled last week at Cannes — with everyone's name on it but Ferrara's and the words "From the star of National Treasure and Ghost Rider" reportedly removed at the last second — may have been the garish, godawful tipping point the aggrieved director was waiting for. Either way, this is fallout we can't wait to witness — anything to relieve these nightmares.

• Bad Lieutenant Remake: Abel Ferrara Says, 'Don't Count On It.' [Spout Blog]

It's not like we didn't see this coming, although even the most cynical of marketplace buyers probably wouldn't have guessed the accompanying snapshots might be the biggest pick-up of the festival. And really, is this tame glint of intimacy any more suggestive than the hickeys, cohabitation, cattiness and mutual shopping excursions of their recent, torrid past?

Whatever. Hey, look! Another glowing Che review from Salon's Andrew O— What? You want... Oh, for Christ's sake. Fine. Just this once, though:

Here are a few fantastic round-ups of aQuentin Tarantino lecture from the other day. We admit we've always had a soft spot for his cockiness, his divisiveness, his... What? OK, OK — but this is the last one! We mean it!

Ahem. So. The Variety review of Charlie Kaufman's directing debut Synedoche, New York is about as cautiously optimistic as critic Todd McCarthy gets, at once praising its ambition while pointing out its certain doom among buyers, viewers and history alike:

Like an anxious artist afraid he may not get another chance, Charlie Kaufman tries to Say It All in his directorial debut, Synecdoche, New York. A wildly ambitious and gravely serious contemplation of life, love, art, human decay and death, the film bears Kaufman's scripting fingerprints in its structural trickery and multi-plane storytelling. ... On the most superficial level, many viewers will be nauseated by the many explicit manifestations of physical malfunction, bodily fluids, bleeding and deterioration. A larger issue will be the film's developing spin into realms that can most charitably be described as ambiguous and more derisively will be regarded as obscuritanist and incomprehensible.

"Obscuritanist," Todd? Really? We liked it so much better when we could just read from afar without feeling like it's our turn in a Scrabble game. Anyway, one of these films from the last week of dispatches will claim this year's Palme D'Or on Saturday; we'll bring you the news when it happens, assuming it immediately precedes or follows another torrid, yachtside lesbian encounter. Otherwise? It can wait.

• Looks Like Lindsay Lohan is a Lesbian, Kissing Samantha Ronson [Egotastic]

Meanwhile, bigger American titles — particularly Che, Two Lovers and screenwriter Charlie Kaufman's mindfuck directorial debut Synecdoche, New York (pictured) — remain on the market after less-than-rapturous response from critics and industry alike. What gives?

In the case of Kaufman's film, which premieres today at the festival, an early buyers screening last weekend yielded little but scratched heads and closed wallets, though with a cast top-lined by Philip Seymour Hoffman, most observers presume a deal is imminent. The same goes for Steven Soderbergh's even more challenging Benicio Del Toro-starrer Che — a 268-minute Spanish-language epic you may have heard left more than a few people skeptical of its commercial viability.

But even the Joaquin Phoenix/Gwyneth Paltrow film Two Lovers, easily the most mainstream, best-reviewed and least-expensive (with its $12 million budget) of the three, has drawn few serious inquiries more than three days after its premiere. Buyers are increasingly content to wait for the right price (it's easier when the troubled likes of the Weinstein Company and ThinkFilm can't afford to drive up costs); they're also determined to outlast the sluggish theatrical marketplace by accruing fewer titles on their release calendars. (See Fox Searchlight and Focus Features, which expensively nabbed Choke and Hamlet 2, respectively, out of Sundance and haven't bought since.)

The skittishness is conspicuously rubbing off on sellers now as well — especially Europeans, as The Hollywood Reporter's Gregg Goldstein and Steven Zeitchik discovered Wednesday:

European sellers are not necessarily sympathetic to American fears over less easily marketable product. "The Americans are lazy, they're arrogant and too scared to do any deals," said one European sales exec. "I tell them: get some balls — your companies are all going down the toilet, maybe now's the time to get some films before it all collapses." ...

[T]he word is new strategies are needed to jump-start the market. Films will need be approaching completion before they are presented to buyers. "Buyers perceive that it's a buyers' market and they don't have to buy off footage; they can wait for the whole film," [William Morris Independent's] Cassian Elwes said.

That scenario likely applies to the $61 million Che, which even with Soderbergh at the helm likely faces months of cutting and revision before a distributor would take it on. Then there's the case of Tyson, the Mike Tyson documentary over which director James Toback was heard referring to his "prospective distributor" Sony Pictures Classics — even as the company was credited only with a "lowball," then "modest six-figure bid" and co-president Michael Barker was quoted elsewhere as saying, "I'm trying to find a year when we left without buying a film. ... If we ever did it was a long time ago. There are no gems in the market." Ouch! Oh well — there's always Toronto.

"I find it hilarious that people always complain about movies being the same, and then when something different comes along — a film that deals the cards in a different way — they say why isn't it more conventional?" [Soderbergh said.]

"There's the painter who did a portrait of a woman, and when she saw it she said, 'It doesn't look like me.' And the painter replied, 'Oh, it will.'" — Benicio del Toro responding more or less to the same.

Deep! Though maybe not deep enough for Todd McCarthy, the Variety grump who held forth with easily the most vicious (and potentially fatal) pan to yet emerge among critics: "Neither half feels remotely like a satisfying stand-alone film, while the whole offers far too many aggravations for its paltry rewards. Scattered partisans are likely to step forward, but the pic in its current form is a commercial impossibility, except on television or DVD." His colleague Anne Thompson agreed, likening Che to previous rough-cut Cannes clusterfucks including Southland Tales, The Brown Bunny and 2046 and scolding: "DON'T TAKE AN UNFINISHED MOVIE TO CANNES!!!!"

But... but... the producers even splurged for a brown-bag dinner during intermission! With Kit-Kats! Anyway, Che has its defenders as well; Kim Voynar thinks it's a Palme D'Or (and maybe even Oscar) front-runner, Jeffrey Wells is over the moon and Glenn Kenny has high praise at indieWIRE:

Che benefits greatly from certain Soderberghian qualities that don't always serve his other films well, e.g., detachment, formalism, and intellectual curiosity. ... Benicio del Toro, despite being ten real years older than anybody playing the part in any period should be (and in fairness to him, let's note that this has been a very LONG gestating process; the original plan had Terence Malick directing with Soderbergh producing, and that was many years ago), works almost demonically at making Che's appeal palpable. But his performance is just a remarkable cog in Soderbergh's meticulous examination of process. Both parts of the film are largely about revolution as a job of work.

We'll indeed see how (or if) revolution works in the months ahead as distributors kick its sizable tires. Meanwhile, a few other long-distance odds and ends from the Croisette:

—Jennifer Lynch — daughter of David, survivor of Boxing Helena and Cannes '08 contributor with the thriller Surveillance — has a word with the LA Times about her checkered past: "I still can't Google myself today." But! "It's great to have fallen flat on my face and to stand up again."

—Guardian critic and infamously grumpy old man Ronald Bergan wants to know what happened to all the "great lost directors" whose careers have faded over the years. We'd empathize, except the mention of lucky hacks John G. Avildsen (Rocky, The Karate Kid) and John Badham (Saturday Night Fever, Short Circuit) isn't touching us quite so persuasively.

—Finally: Why the long face, Petra Nemcova? Oh. Sorry.

Nolte is essentially trapped in an office with his own thoughts, often mumbling along in stream-of-consciousness soliloquies.

At times, No Exit can play like a combination of an intervention meeting and a great episode of Behind the Music. Like private investigator Anthony Pellicano's discussing his crimes while serving as his own attorney, Nolte sometimes talks of himself in the third person.

In discussing his 2002 arrest for driving under the influence, Nolte steers his remarks about that highly public transgression toward his less well-known 1961 case for selling fake draft cards. "It seems like a much bigger criminal action than that silly, goofy guy that was picked up not long — about two or three years ago — which has now been voted the best celebrity mug shot. Are you proud of that? Do you want to talk to me or some celebrity that you are chasing?"

It may not be the comic treasure of Woody Allen cross-examining himself in Bananas, but for pure, rambling conversations with oneself, Nolte is a tough act to beat. Moreover, the potential influence of his breakthrough has James Lipton hoarding blue cards and Inside the Actors Studio clips for an hour-long interview with himself while Barbara Walters plots her own tell-all expose for Oscar night '09. Meanwhile, in New York, an angry Jon Stewart is claiming Nolte stole his own well-established All Me™ interview format from The Daily Show. We hear a winner-take-all self-Q&A is in the works for the months ahead.

• Nick Nolte documentary: The actor talks about the actor [LAT]

boomp3.com


The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford star Brad Pitt continues to be amazed by his life partner Angelina Jolie's ever expanding belly. Pitt knew what to expect with pregnancy, but as he put it, "Angie just keeps on growing as if she's been eating her weight in Godfather's Pizza with Chunk." Additionally, Jolie's growing collection of maternity clothing has provided a small windfall for Pitt and his children. Pitt said, "Yeah, the boys and I tie some of her old dresses to big wheels and it feels like we're dragging race. It's pretty sweet. We might go parachuting with the thing she's wearing tonight in a couple of days. Maddox might get some sweet air time with it."

[Photo Credit: Splash Pics]

"Clint Eastwood made two films about Iwo Jima that ran for more than four hours total and there was not one Negro actor on the screen," Lee told reporters. "If you reporters had any balls you'd ask him why. There's no way I know why he did that — that was his vision, not mine. But I know it was pointed out to him and that he could have changed it. It's not like he didn't know."

Incidentally, when Eastwood was asked about Lee's comments during Tuesday's Exchangeling press conference, the Cannes moderator reportedly rebuffed the inquiry. But! We digress! Lee also squeezed in a Coen brothers smackdown ("Look, I love the Coen brothers; we all studied at NYU. But they treat life like a joke. Ha ha ha. A joke. It's like, 'Look how they killed that guy! Look how blood squirts out the side of his head!' I see things different than that.") and announced a new documentary about Michael Jordan he's planning to unveil at next year's festival.

Elsewhere, we finally found someone who doesn't like Eastwood's latest, and the Croisette cascades with hype as Steven Soderbergh's two-part, four-and-a-half-hour Che prepares to unspool in its entirety. "From a press and industry perspective, people are definitely talking about the film," writes Karina Longworth, "but everyone seems less interested in what's going to be on screen tonight than in how it'll eventually be seen." All together? Kill Bill-style? Straight-to-video serialization? Buy one, get one free?

Also among the debris:

—Hide the kids! Oscar-fetish grunt and Blurb Whore Hall of Famer Pete Hammond has been hyperventilating over Vicky Cristina Barcelona and co-star Penelope Cruz in particular, and it's all unflinchingly caught on video.

—Sadistic Variety blogger Mike Jones also videotapes a succession of fest attendees mispronouncing the title of Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York. (Don't be fooled — that's a hard "K" at the end of "York.")

—The brilliant if frustrating Argentinian director Lucretia Martel showed off her new film La Mujer sin Cabeza (The Woman Without a Head) on Tuesday; she was rewarded promptly with mystified reviews and the helm of a big-budget film about "alien invaders and their army of giant insects." Like Indiana Jones 4, kind of, but with even less story.

[Photo Credit: Getty Images]

My source says all of Scarlett's Cannes requests/needs had been agreed on by April 27 — hair, makeup, security, hotel — and she was good to go. She'd done all the press for her new album — Anywhere I Lay My Head — and was on the final fitting for her Cannes premiere dress designed by Dolce & Gabanna.

Then she announced her engagement to actor Ryan Reynolds on May 5. On May 6, she attended the Costume Institute Gala at the Met wearing Dolce & Gabbana and a diamond engagement ring.

Suddenly, everything changed. "Within 24 hours of the announcement of her engagement, the studio renigged [sic] on the agreed-on terms for Scarlett's appearance at Cannes. It was insane. She was backed up against a wall. Finally, she personally made the decision not to go."

I just had to ask. Is it possible that Woody Allen was annoyed over his muse's sudden engagement?

"Yes," said my source, who pointed out what she says are inaccuracies in the Daily Mail story. [...]

The Weinstein Company has released an official party line to defend Scarlett's honor: "These reports circling about Scarlett are simply untrue and unfair. Both she and Javier were unable to attend Cannes because of various scheduling conflicts. We look forward to working with them when the film is released in late summer."

So there you have it: Johansson was never the avaricious villainess painted by the report; rather, it was her mentor/father figure/source-of -unsettling- smacking-sounds Allen who was to blame, possessed by the green-eyed demon upon learning he'd lose his cherished muse to a no-talent, prettyboy B-actor from Canada of all God-forsaken places. Ultimately, he lashed out the only way he knew how: by refusing to sign off on a $4000-per-day makeup artist, which as everyone knows is director shorthand for, "Congratulations. I hope you both rot in happiness."

• Is Scarlett Johansson a demanding diva? You decide! [LAT]

Anyway, myriad couplings follow, though the accompanying teaser is a bit vague in the how-and-who. However, Longworth also points out the entire film is available free on YouTube, both promising a waste of at least 40 minutes of our afternoon and officially confirming we made the right call in staying home this week. Happy viewing (we hope)!

• Cannes Market Watch: 'Sex and Breakfast' [Spout Blog]

Like his resilient cousins in the roach family, Roger Friedman naturally outlasted the meltdown and later delivered his sterling, tasteful review, "Gwyneth Paltrow Bares a Breast in Film":

You don't really think of Oscar-winner Gwyneth Paltrow as the racy type. But in her new film, Two Lovers, which debuted at the Cannes Film Festival Monday night, she quite surprisingly bares a single breast. The shot is, shall we say, head-on into the camera. And it's for more than a couple of seconds. This is no wardrobe malfunction. It's on purpose. (To paraphrase a great Seinfeld quote: "They're real ... and they're spectacular!")

Of course, this moment — it's the left breast, by the way — is meant to be part of the story; it's exactly what her manipulative character would do to land her man, in this case a character played by Joaquin Phoenix. In Two Lovers, Phoenix plays a mentally jumbled lonely guy who tries to juggle romances with both Paltrow's selfish car crash of a mistress and Vinessa Shaw's girl next door.

Thank you, Roger — back to the hospital, now. Other viewers including Anne Thompson, Glenn Kenny and even Jeffrey Wells (who, mere months after notoriously requesting nude stills of Shaw from 3:10 to Yuma director James Mangold, thinks she's miscast here) managed entire reviews without mentioning the nudity, expressing admiration for the film overall. It's still looking for US distribution, which we hear films featuring Oscar-winning actresses' breasts are highly likely to find.

Also seeking a buyer is Charlie Kaufman's directorial debut Synecdoche, New York. The film stars Philip Seymour Hoffman as a theater director creating "the ultimate play: a city within a city within a warehouse," according to The Hollywood Reporter's interview Monday with Kaufman — who would like to object to his reputation as a recluse, damn it:

The first thing people will say to me in interviews is that you don't do interviews and I'll say "Well, I'm sitting here talking to you!" I don't particularly like to be photographed and I don't like to talk about my personal life — that doesn't make me a recluse. My feeling is that my work speaks about my life in ways that are very generous. ... I live a regular mundane life in Los Angeles. Don't know what else to say except I'm not here cowering in a corner. I don't have a veil over my head. I don't say "I vant to be alone."

Got it! Now that that's settled, perhaps Kaufman and his backers at Sidney Kimmel Pictures might want to answer Anne Thompson's fantastic question: Why the nervous rush to screen it for impatient buyers before its premiere on May 23? "If they had the goods," she writes, "the sellers would hang tough and force the buyers to just stick around and wait." It's still inconclusive to those of us stranded on this side of the Atlantic, but a new batch of clips featuring an aged Hoffman, a tattooed Michelle Williams and the word "urologist" used as a punchline has us smelling a hit. Happy selling, gang.

UPDATE: Our hunch-dar appears to have betrayed us; we've heard from Manohla Dargis herself that she was not the angry critic who fled the Two Lovers scene. We regret the misread; these blind items just get harder and harder!

[Photo: Getty Images]