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]

The intercutting of two heavyweight proceedings, a murder trial and a landmark City Hall hearing, provide the story's dramatic crescendo, although even greater tension stems from what comes thereafter. In the end, Changeling joins the likes of Chinatown and L.A. Confidential as a sorrowful critique of the city's political culture.

A dozen filmmakers could have taken a dozen different approaches to the same material — sensationalistic, melodramatic, expose-minded, a kid's or killer's p.o.v., and so on. Perhaps the best way to describe Eastwood's approach is that he's extremely attentive — to the central elements of the story, to be sure (with its echoes of A Perfect World), but also to the fluidity between the private and the public, the arbitrariness of life and death, the distinct ways different people view the same thing, the destructive behavior of some adults toward children and the quality of life in California around the time he was born.

McCarthy has robust praise for Jolie as well, comparing her performance as a mother looking for her son to that of A Mighty Heart, except The Exchange "hits home more directly due to the lack of affectation — no accent, frizzed hair or darkened complexion, and no attempt to consciously rein in emotion." Meanwhile, a "British journalist" at the festival apparently told Jeffrey Wells "there's not a weak point in the entire film" and that Eastwood should be on the short list for the fest's Best Director prize. (With Mystic River Oscar-winner Sean Penn heading the jury, we'd say it's a near-lock.)

Anyway, the film opens Stateside in November but is likely to screen in the Toronto and New York film festivals en route to hogging four months of typically profuse Eastwoodian accolades and Oscar hype. Mix in another Space Cowboys, Clint — remind us you're human. Or, better yet, someone send a heads-up about the backlash. It's coming.

[Photo: Getty Images]

• Changeling [Variety]

• 'Exchange' Praise [Hollywood Elsewhere]

As for all the bad buzz surrounding Valkyrie, from MGM subsidiary UA, Sloan said that photos of an eyepatch-clad Tom Cruise as an SS officer were "a little bit unfortunate," but were released to reassure the German government about the seriousness of the project.

MGM/UA's prepared to prevail over the nay-sayers. "We've had image problems before," Sloan said, alluding to early negativity on hits like Casino Royale and Rocky Balboa. "The film will speak for itself."

Not any more it won't. Let's hope the German government didn't get a look at the Valkyrie trailer or happen to notice when MGM pushed its release date a second time to February 2009; we can probably safely assume they don't read Roger Friedman, right?

• MGM: two up for remake treatment [THR]

But still: Indy takes the day as usual, with Salon's Andrew O' Hehir nicely setting the table for the endless courses to follow:

Part of me thinks that some flea-bitten Parisian radicals should come and close this shit down right now. And part of me thinks: You know what? Cannes needs Indy. We've had five days here of earnest and serious filmmaking, ranging from mediocre to outstanding, but nothing that feels like a movie that will rock the world. ... But if you want to know whether Ford, Spielberg and Lucas can recapture their mojo almost 20 years after Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, the only answers I can provide are frustrating ones, like kind of and maybe and it depends what you mean.

Such qualifications are everywhere this morning as reviews surge forth, but Harrison Ford and company couldn't seem to care less. "It is not unusual for something that is popular to be disdained by some people," Ford said at Sunday's press conference. "I work for the people who pay to get in — they are my customers. My focus is on providing the best experience I can." We have our own (spoiler-rific) ideas about the results, but even the worst lambasting wouldn't prevent Ford's "experience" from raking in upwards of $140 million over the five-day Memorial Day frame.

Meanwhile, down the block, Harvey Weinstein announced a $60 million adaptation of the novel The Alchemist, to be directed and produced by its leading man Laurence Fishburne. The Hollywood Reporter quotes Harvey as saying: "The book means so much to people on a spiritual level. ... I think there is a bridge to the Middle East in this story." Finally — world peace! From the Weinsteins!

It's no less ambitious than restoring Woody Allen's name, we suppose, which the Weinsteins may have done as well with his much-appreciated Cannes premiere Vicky Cristina Barcelona. (The film even has Timecritic Richard Corliss flirting with relevancy with one of his best reviews in years.) Not to be outdone, Harvey's wife Georgina Chapman is designing its stars' premiere attire. Synergy is a beautiful thing, especially when it comes in the form of a "creme silk gown with embroidered straps" on Penelope Cruz. Alas, Harvey, we have not forgotten about Fraggle Rock. You can't stop what's coming.

[Photo Credit: Getty Images]

And why bother traveling thousands of miles and spending thousands of dollars just to hear Glenn Kenny call Sean Penn a dick in person? Look at it this way: Spout's Karina Longworth is doing some of her best writing from the airport, and her subject — Vogue's recent Sex and the City issue — addresses a movie not even screening at Cannes:

The Vogue spread restores a bit of the legitimate, grown-up class that has seemed to be lacking from the SATC campaign all along. ... Cannes likely would have been able to accomplish the same thing; the Vogue spread is probably cheaper, and it has the affect of reaching an audience of comparable demographics as those who would be exposed to as Cannes coverage, without ever having to make the actual quality of the actual film an issue. ... New Line just fired hundreds of people. Such frugality on their part is almost respectable.

There are some actual reviews floating around as well — Jeffrey Wells loves Three Monkeys, while Manohla Dargis is over the moon about Waltz With Bashir, an animated documentary about a massacre at Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon in 1982. The grim gets grimmer at Variety, where Leslie Felperin has a long shrug over Hunger, which chronicles IRA leader Bobby Sands' imprisonment, hunger strike and eventual death in 1982:

McQueen really overeggs the pudding is in the final reel, where (and this is no spoiler for anyone glancingly versed in Sands' story) the protagonist wastes away, the camera focusing intimately on his bedsores and emaciated frame. Tawdry, cliched images include Sands' vision of himself as a child sitting in the room, topped by a near final image of a flock of birds — free at last! — that seemingly symbolizes his soul's last flight. It's a disappointing last gasp for a film that otherwise demonstrates confidence, guts and the abundant promise of its helmer.

And which will likely be coming to a theater near you as distributors kick its tires today and tomorrow. The busy weekend ahead brings the world premiere of Indiana Jones 4, followed by another throng of reviews carrying over into Monday. We'll have ours then as well — we know, we're not holding our breath either.

[Photo Credit: Hollywood Elsewhere]

But the Lynch/Alejandro Jodorowsky film? With Asia Argento, Marilyn Manson and reportedly "enough sex and violence to guarantee an NC-17 rating"? Fine, Hollywood Reporter, we're listening:

Herzog and his longtime assistant director Herbert Golder co-wrote [My Son, My Son], loosely based on the true story of a San Diego man who acts out a Sophocles play in his mind and kills his mother with a sword. The low-budget feature will flash back and forth from the murder scene to the disturbed man's story. A guerrilla-style digital video shoot on Coronado Island is tentatively set for March. ...

In a separate development, Lynch's Absurda production company has attached Asia Argento and Udo Kier to star with Nick Nolte in Alejandro Jodorowsky's metaphysical gangster movie King Shot. Marilyn Manson is touted to appear as a prophet in the Sin City-style film.

Having essentially gone DIY since his own unwatchable digital epic Inland Empire, Lynch will executive produce both films and handle their sales at Cannes, hitting the Croisette with his cow and selling Herzog impersonations to foreign buyers for $100 apiece. We hear Herzog, meanwhile, had to be forcibly removed from the Kung Fu Panda press conference after pitching a Grizzly Man remake to Jack Black.

• Directors team for 'My Son' [THR]

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Jack Black acted as a bodyguard to his Kung Fun Panda co-star Angelina Jolie at the Cannes Film Festival. Black warned the press corps to keep their distance from the "any moment now" Jolie and, if they were to get any closer, Black would have to bust out some serious karate moves. He then added that Dustin Hoffman would join in on the karate action, too. Black said, "You're not going to like me when I'm cheesed off, but you're totally going to hate the Hoffeweizen when he's cheesed off."

[Photo Credit: Getty Images]

Paramount, producer George Lucas and director Steven Spielberg have made some changes in their game plan to avoid the Da Vinci scenario. For one thing, they're not having a big party. ...

In contrast, Indy's producers have skedded a "filmmakers party" for 250 people — no press invited. There will be the usual press conference following the screening; the only TV and print junket interviews with the cast are scheduled the day before the screening, instead of afterward; access to Spielberg outside the press conference is strictly interdit.

We didn't want to go to your stupid party anyway; we're too busy joining Pete Hammond in handicapping the Oscar chances of this year's higher-profile fest selections. Actually, we're doing no such thing, and we wish Hammond wouldn't either, but there it is: Jury chair Penn might help shepherd his ex-director Clint Eastwood's Changeling to the Palme d'Or! Che is a front-runner, except it's not finished! Kung Fu Panda is an animated film contender! Only 10 more days of this; thanks for nothing, LA Times.

Elsewhere, Anne Thompson is making the rounds in smoke-filled rooms, and Jeffrey Wells was on the scene at a panel during which David Poland — via Skype! — apparently predicted the end of The Hollywood Reporter within three years. So, you know, don't renew your subscription.

Also on the bright side, we won't get robbed on the Croisette like seemingly everyone else in an increasingly frequent rite of passage known as "Cote d' Ass-Losing":

Bill Pence, director of Dartmouth's film school and a co-founder of the Telluride festival, was lining up for a Cannes screening in the early 1990s on the Rue d'Antibes with his wife, Stella, when he felt a light touch on his buttocks. "I said, 'Stella, will you stop that!' And she said, 'I'm not touching you.' " A pickpocket was, and Pence's wallet was gone.

Finally, reviews of Cannes' opening-night film Blindness, which screened for critics this morning, are trickling in. The results are pretty much what we heard a few weeks back: Qualified praise, lukewarm at best, with Jeffrey Wells noting, "I respected Blindness — I certainly agree with what it's saying — but it didn't arouse me at all," and the Telegraph's Sukhdev Sandhu praising castmates Julianne Moore and Alice Braga before concluding, "They do well to save a film that, in trying so hard to be faithful to the novel, falls prey to tone-deafness." Yes, it's only May, but consider this the beginning of the end for its Oscar hopes.

• Jack Black takes on forty pandas [Fest Central]
• What's also playing at Cannes... [LAT]
• Cannes 2008: Blindness Review [Telegraph]

But isn't this the same festival that opened in 2006 with The Da Vinci Code? Just how bad is "bad"?

Look at it this way: Festival organizers knew what they wanted two years ago, announcing Da Vinci's selection in January of 2006 — nearly four months before it screened. Moreover, Sony knew what it had: A shabby, critic-proof, mass-market lark. Cannes' previous two openers were different — Lemming (2005) and Bad Education (2004) were announced April 19 and Feb. 21 of their respective years. Wong Kar-wai's 2007 opener My Blueberry Nights was locked in by April 19 of last year. We're pushing May Day, and the odds-on favorite for 2008 — which most observers were already surprised to see left off the competition slate last week — has yet to receive the festival's official blessing.

Director Fernando Mereilles was being either skeptical or falsely modest a few months back when he told one of us in a interview: "I'd love to take it to Cannes. I don't know if I'm going to get a slot, but I'd love to. It's a very dark story. But that's our goal. It's sold all over the world — there will be some support." Hey, man, you don't need to convince us. Also, we know there have been at least a few Miramax test screenings, and if the studio knows it has a misfire on its hands, the last thing it wants is to sacrifice it publicly four months before Oscar season.

If it were up to us, we'd just insist that Cannes get Indiana Jones 4 out of the way on opening night and let the rest of the fest speak for itself. But if it's not Blindness, what else should we be looking for? Four hours of Che? We'd take anything at this point.

UPDATE: Surely in swift response to our well-placed suspicions, the Cannes Film Festival just officially announced Blindness as its opening-night selection. Confirming other speculation in its same dispatch, the fest also named the Barry Levinson/Robert De Niro pairing What Just Happened? as its closing-night film.

• 'Blindness' Tipped to open Cannes [Variety]