The lineup for Cannes has been announced, with only two American films entered into formal competition. Those would be Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds and Ang Lee's Taking Woodstock, which curiously stars mild comedian Dmitri Martin. Other movies, in and out of competition, that we're interested in: provocateur (with only middling success) Lars Von Trier's horror movie Antichrist, Terry Gilliam's Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, and a new creeper by Michael Haneke called The White Ribbion, an allegory about fascism set at a German boarding school in 1913. [Variety]

Naomi Odenkirk, who reps a bunch of SNL stars, and Marc Provissiero, who has repped many sitcom writers, have come together in a blessed Hollywood business marriage to form Odenkirk Provissiero Entertainment, a representation firm for funny people. So you hear that class clowns and Rude Mechanicals in college productions of Midsummer's everywhere? There is a place for you in California. [Variety]

Oh good. Speaking of comedy! Comic genius Cameron Diaz has signed on to play the lead in Bobbie Sue, about a "hard-charging female ambulance chaser" who becomes the face of a big firm that is being sued for sexual discrimination or something, so she probably learns a lesson about being a woman instead of chasing a paycheck and isn't that terrific. [Variety]

If you were to consider one actor the younger Dustin Hoffman, you would immediately think of James Marsden, right? Good. Director Rod Lurie agrees with you. He's just cast the Second Noah star in the Hoffman role in a remake of Straw Dogs. Instead of rural England, the new version will take place in the deep South. Hm. [THR]

The inevitable third Twilight movie, called 'Pire Walk With Me, has found a director. David Slade has experience with the vampire genre, as he directed the Josh Hartnett Alaskan boondoggle 30 Days of Night. Only in that movie the vampyrs ate your face off. In Vamps 3: Hardbodies, they just sparkle at you and refuse to boff. So, slight nuances. [THR]

Oh, fun. Director/writer Rian Johnson has posted the opening sequence from his new film The Brothers Bloom on Hulu. We lurved Brick and have been excited for this movie for some time. And the clip doesn't disappoint. [EW]

We were actually kind of stunned to read that Ruby Dee, an Oscar nominee this year for American Gangster, was not yet a member; other invited actors include Josh Brolin, Allison Janney and Ray Winstone. Directors Gore Verbinski, Kimberly Peirce and Walter Salles received nods alongside '07 Oscar screenwriting alums Tamara Jenkins (The Savages) and Nancy Oliver (Lars and the Real Girl). Variety notes that the invitations are merely that, and that official inductions for those who accept (most do, though some decline, forget to reply in time or, on rare occasions, accidentally throw the letter out with the Crate and Barrel catalog) will follow upon acceptance.

Congratulations to the invitees, and may the traditional Bruce Vilanch Inductee Roast be painless for all!

• AMPAS invites 105 to join its ranks [Variety]

Finally when it was over and my "friend" looked like a deer in the headlights — I was physically sick. I demanded my money back from the box office only to have the girl laugh at me — at first. I threw up on the floor right in front of her — and it splattered.

She gave me the money, helped me clean up and actually cried. My "friend" was embarrassed by my behavior — and therefore has lost my friendship. This whole last scene (starring me, my friend, the cashier at the box office), seemed a sequel to the movie.

• "Funny Games" spills out into the lobby [RogerEbert.com]

While won't put on a front and pretend that we have seen Haneke's 1997 original (we wonder what percentage of critics who have claimed to see this movie in their reviews actually did), we are big fans of both The Piano Teacher and Caché. And when you combine our appreciation for Haneke with a terrific cast (featuring Naomi Watts — easily one of the finest and most underrated actresses working today — Tim Roth and Michael Pitt), we have a must-see movie on our hands, despite what some of the critics have to say. Here's a quick sampling of some of the critics pre-reviews, none of which can dull our anticipation for Friday's release:
· "A highly, if grotesquely, skilled exercise in Snuff Guignol, Funny Games doesn't come out of nowhere. It has many antecedents, from the mocking cool sadism of A Clockwork Orange to the pressure-cooker intensity of Peckinpah's Straw Dogs to the house-party torture games of Roman Polanski's 1966 classic, Cul-de-Sac." [EW]
· "it was only a matter of time before the cinema of sadism would seek a new, virtually untapped market among the egghead arthouse crowd." [News Blaze]
· "There's disturbing, there's scary, there's terrifying. And then there's this movie." [Kyle Smith]
· "Shocking and deliberately manipulative." [Variety]
· "The most perverse movie ever released by a major American studio." [Esquire]

• Funny Games [Warner Independent Pictures]