The Circuit

Anne and Pamela report that "Waltz With Bashir" was sold to Sony Pictures Classics. 

Meanwhile, SPC's Michael Barker explains to the NY Times what woke them up:

“We kept telling ourselves and were being told by everyone else what a weak Cannes this has been,” Michael Barker, co-president of Sony Classics, wrote in an e-mail message, “until we woke up one morning and realized that this could shape up to be the best Cannes we ever had. The sleepless nights this year did not come from the parties; they came from debate over merits of films (with colleagues, journalists, exhibitors, people on the street) and images from the films themselves that we could not shake.”

While they also got "Lorna's Silence" and "O'Horten," "Tyson" hasn't finalized yet.

As the fest closes tonight with the big awards, Anne Thompson takes another stroll around the Hotel du Cap, running into "What Just Happened?" Barry Levinson and Art Linson (pictured) on the eve of their closing night screening.

My second fray to the Hotel du Cap in Cap d'Antibes caught What Just Happened? writer-producer Art Linson and director Barry Levinson at the end of a long day of international press in advance of their closing night screening on Sunday. They were far more chipper than they were at Sundance, and wished they had brought the pic to Cannes in the first place, as they had originally planned. "We got ahead of ourselves," says Linson.

In asking Mr. Virtue if I could run his letter, he sent in this Part 2:

Hi Mike,

I don’t know if this makes my story anymore interesting and it may be hard to believe but I couldn’t get accommodation anywhere in Cannes and I thought that the trains/buses etc stopped running from Cannes to Nice or the surrounding areas at around 7pm (misinformation).

So I booked a hire car at Nice airport and drove to Cannes and I had reserved a parking space for the duration at the ‘Parc du Palais’ (underground car park beside the Palais du Festival). I had to sleep in the car for the entire trip. I arrived Friday 16th and left Monday 19th. 5 star living it was not.

The other problem was that I had thought I had found myself a good secluded spot in the car park but unfortunately it must have been too secluded because each morning I woke to a fresh puddle of urine beside the wall next to the car. “I (do not) love the smell of napalm urine in the morning!!”

You can see in the attached photos the box I made to carry the posters, which was extremely heavy.

I just wish I could again thank the chap who told me to jump the barrier (he is the one holding the box in the Spielberg photo) and to Kathleen Kennedy (who looked beautiful) and of course to Mr. Steven Spielberg.

The gates around the red carpet are thronged with screaming fans holding up camera phones or sharpies to get signatures.  In our email box came a story from one that actually got through. 

His name?  Neill Virtue.  No kidding.

Hello,

I am the chap at the Cannes Film Festival who you photographed with the sign that read “I flew 3671 miles to see Indy! Please Sign!”.

In case you’re interested at the premiere nobody signed my poster apart from Ray Winstone who walked across the road to me. Then we went to the after party and waited outside but we were too far over so the stars mainly passed us so I missed Ford and Lucas but then Spielberg came up the stairs and I screamed ‘’Mr. Spielberg, Sir!’’ and he looked at me and pointed to himself and acknowledged me but then he was crowded by the fans behind the barrier.

I screamed as loud as I have ever screamed “Mr. Spielberg for the love and God please come this way” so Kathleen Kennedy (the producer of loads of his movies) comes over to me and takes my big heavy box of posters from me over to him and he signs and then one of his entourage says to me to jump the barrier so I’m just standing there and Mr. Spielberg turns to walk towards me and says “I want to see the guy with the sign” and I say “that’s me!!!”.

He said to me that he signed my poster and I thanked him and asked him if he’d be kind enough to pose for a photo and he said that would be no problem. I was absolutely shaking like a leaf. (photo attached)

I said to my long-time, long suffering girlfriend before I left for Cannes if it was a choice between her and Steven Spielberg I’d have to leave her, I was only half joking. To meet my idol and to have him and his colleagues be so kind to me was something special.

- Neill Virtue

The wise snuck candy into the Palais yesterday for the 4+ hours of Steven Soderbergh's "Che" but hunger wasn't the problem.

Water and sandwich bags were waiting at the intermission.  But at the end of the 15 minutes, lines for the toilets snaked down the stairs. 

The morning after a disastrous party -- packed, hot, off-site -- the blogs started rumbling, touched off by Todd McCarthy's review hitting blackberries and iPhones:

No doubt it will be back to the drawings board for “Che,” Steven Soderbergh’s intricately ambitious, defiantly nondramatic four-hour, 18-minute presentation of scenes from the life of revolutionary icon Che Guevara.

If the director has gone out of his way to avoid the usual Hollywood biopic conventions, he has also withheld any suggestion of why the charismatic doctor, fighter, diplomat, diarist and intellectual theorist became and remains such a legendary figure; if anything, Che seems diminished by the way he’s portrayed here.

Anne Thompson was there, too:

Soderbergh didn't think he could finish the film in time for Cannes. Why don't these guys ever learn? DON'T TAKE AN UNFINISHED MOVIE TO CANNES!!!! Wait. Give the film the time you need. The good news: there is plenty of fine material here to be edited into one releasable dramatic feature.

indieWIRE:

Soderbergh doesn't have a rabble-rousing bone in his body. "Che" benefits greatly from certain Soderberghian qualities that don't always serve his other films well, e.g., detachment, formalism, and intellectual curiosity.

Cinematical:

Soderbergh serves as director, cinematographer and editor here, and the end result is masterful -- expressive, innovative, striking, exciting.

And commentators are still raging on an earlier post that "Che" was even made:

The utter folly of glorifying Che and the Castro Brother shows the complete blindness and stupidity of Western Liberal Elites. Ask any Cuban about this trio -- their savagery puts them in the bottom rung of hell.

Rajendra Roy, the Chief Curator for MoMA's Department of Film with IM Global's Bonnie Voland, who was thrilled to sit in the Palais for Soderbergh's "Che" -- "This is what Cannes is all about!"

On the Croisette, The Circuit had people take a shot at pronouncing Charlie Kaufman's new film, "Synecdoche, New York," premiering here on Friday.

It's not pretty, until corrective measures are performed by Variety's esteemed John Hopewell at the end (minutes before a car ran over his foot).



Camera by Olivia Hemaratanatorn/Variety.

AMC TV talks with Jennifer Lynch about "Surveillance," her 15 year hiatus, and the influence of her famous dad:

What's funny is that he had nothing to do with this film. The Executive Producer credit is both my gift to him for all his help over the years, and his gift to me. He loved the script, he was thrilled to help make it happen. He saw it for the first time after I was done cutting it. His influence is obviously in there, but if you look through my mother's paintings, you'd see her influence in there too. It never gets tiring. I adore my parents, even when we piss each other off.

More Cannes coverage from AMC here.

Anne Thompson was at "The Changeling" screening and party last night and got this photo of Clint and son.

It was wall-to-wall critics at the official black tie dinner at the Palme d'Or, with round tables and name cards; each table was named after one of Eastwood's movies.

Rebounding from his last Cannes experience with the nastily reviewed The Da Vinci Code, producer Brian Grazer, who had the sense to send the script based on a real 1928 story to Eastwood, admitted that there were several points-of-view on the film's title.

by Patrick Frater
With a party budget reportedly topping $3 million and 200 guests it is possible to make quite an impression. Japanese music, talent and, increasingly, film conglom Avex did not disappoint. Tuesday night's bash at the Martinez was positioned somewhere between uber glitz and corporate rally.

Guests were given Japanese-scripted name cards, tags and escorted by models to their seats in the theatrically-darkened ballroom. Chit chat was brought to an abrupt halt by the chanting of a solo drummer fronting typically Japanese backdrops of Mount Fuji and waterfalls.

Food was a subtle mix of Japanese delicacies (wagyu beef and sushi) and French cuisine, accompanied by rarified sake and Provence wines.

Evening was regularly peppered with Geisha performances, a corporate video, the extended "Red Cliff" trailer on a big screen and a live perf of the movie's theme song by Tibetan chanteuse Alan. But what lifted the evening above simply glossy cabaret was the sense of Chinese-Japanese entente that Avex and its Chengtian subsidiary exemplify and the self-deprecating good humor of the company bosses.

"Avex is a company of fools which had made many mistakes," Ryuhei Chiba, co-CEO said. "But now we have a clear goal. We want to be bigger fools, to become great fools and make Asia the center of the film-making world."

"Red Cliff" cast and crew out in force included  John Woo, Terence Chang, Tony Leung, Chang Chen, Zhao Wei and supermodel Lin Chiling. 

The Guardian goes deep into Harrison Ford's slick chest.

He's been put into the deep freeze by Darth Vader and tortured by the Nazis, but finally Harrison Ford has faced his greatest on-screen torment – getting his chest waxed.

The 65-year-old Star Wars and Indiana Jones star succumbed to the painful beauty treatment to raise awareness about the effect of deforestation on global warming.

James Toback talks to AMC on the tortured soul of Mike Tyson:

"He was in rehab when we shot.  What rehab appears to have given him is a constancy; an evenhandedness of temperament that was never true in the past."

More Cannes coverage from AMC here.

by Nick Holdsworth
Romanian director Radu Muntean does not normally like to mix family and business but when a kid cast in his new film "Boogie" turned out to be not up to scratch he turned to his four year old son Vlad to rescue the project.

The 36 year old Bucharest film school graduate who carved out a successful career in television advertising during the lean years of Romanian filmmaking in the 1990s, said the early mid-life crisis - about a family man who tries to relive his youth during one night of drunken, whoring debauchery - demanded a child actor able to take the strain of long takes.

“We had another boy but he was not prepared well enough. Vlad was really good. He really helped me a lot and a lot of what we did was based on our experiences together, although even he did not like repeated takes eight or nine minutes long,” said Muntean, who speaks fluent English.

His film, which is playing at Cannes in Directors Fortnight, is his third feature and marks a steady progression into international festival note.

Muntean, who turned down an offer from Berlin’s Forum gambling that Cannes would want his film, is clearly comfortable on the Croisette.

"Boogie", which is being handled for international sales by Canada's Maximum Films, takes a theme he believes is common to many young mothers and fathers - a sudden realisation that the carefree days of youth are gone.

Muntean, whose feature debut "Rage" picked up best photography at Toronto in 2003 and second film - about the Romanian revolution of 1989 - "The Paper Will Be Blue" opened Locarno two years ago before going on to screen at a further 60 international festivals, says the theme is a wider one than those he followed in his earlier films.

Although Romanian film has come to world attention in recent years - particularly since last year’s Palme d’Or win for Cristian Mungiu’s "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days" - Muntean denies there is any cohesive new wave of Romanian films despite the limelight last

“Filmmakers in their mid 30s or early 40s in Romania are united by the frustration they felt by national cinematography until around seven or eight years ago. We really did not like what was happening in cinematography - lots of metaphor and symbolism. We felt the need to be honest with ourselves and honest with our movies,” Muntean said.

An urge to move away, as he puts its “from poetry to the more direct language of film” is the identifiable thread that unites new Romanian cinema.

“This is what is common to the young Romanian cinema, otherwise we are not a group. We have no stylistic platform although you can see there are similarities in our movies.”

If Muntean’s last film dealt with events specific to recent Romanian history, his new film is spread across a broader canvas.

The early mid-life crisis of a 30-something father and family man who runs into his old crowd of student mates during a visit to the seaside, "Boogie" is about the nature of personal nostalgia and the challenge to accept and be matured by life’s changing seasons.

Naturalistic direction - nine minute single takes and unobtrusive camera work - together with the theme of how individual histories are interpreted afford it common ground with "The Paper Will Be Blue".

Otherwise the film is very different and potentially has a wider audience, given that anyone past their mid 30s will have gone through similar yearnings to recapture their youth at some point.

“There is a danger in taking a common subject, but I think the film does build up the end and should give audiences food for thought; when I went to the screening here in Cannes at Studio 13 - attended by ordinary local people - I was surprised at how much older people, particularly women, were affected by it.”

Muntean, who believes his experience in Romanian advertising - where the tendency is to make 30 second three act dramas with characters and humour familiar to viewers - has helped hone his directorial instincts.

He confesses there are some autobiographical elements in the film - which he co-wrote with Alexandru Baciu and Razvan Radulescu - and says the three are working on a new script together.

“It will most probably be about couples, that kind of relationship as that is the water that we are swimming in at the moment,” he said.

"Boogie" official site at boogiemovie.com.

 

Todd McCarthy raves about Eastwood's new film, "Changeling":

A thematic companion piece to "Mystic River" but more complex and far-reaching, "Changeling" impressively continues Clint Eastwood's great run of ambitious late-career pictures. Emotionally powerful and stylistically sure-handed, this true story-inspired drama begins small with the disappearance of a young boy, only to gradually fan out to become a comprehensive critique of the entire power structure of Los Angeles, circa 1928.

Graced by a top-notch performance from Angelina Jolie, the Universal release looks poised to do some serious business upon tentatively scheduled opening late in the year

 

Here's better quality video from the end of the lunch for Woody Allen's "Vicky Cristina Barcelona."  Before Woody, Penelope Cruz said she told her agent she wanted to be in a Woody Allen movie no matter what. 

The video below begins with Woody's answer on why he doesn't shoot in New York anymore and goes on from there.

It's also an accurate window into these press sitdowns - a mix of good questions, terrible ones, and overly fawning journos wrapping their question into a sugar-coated compliment. 

Nevertheless, Woody is good. 

"I'm still a militant Freudian atheist.  It's still very pessimistic and terrifying and grim and meaningless and chaotic.  You'll see it in my next film.  It's clearly stated.  And you can imagine the box office."

(He speaks softly.  Use headphones.)

The Turkish party on the Croisette beach, ranking as one of the most joyous.

Outside the after-hours destination for press and buyers, The Grand Hotel, something called Cannes in a Van set up - "the smallest mobile film festival in the world" which may also have the world's smallest audience.

Anne Thompson looks at the decision to screen Charlie Kaufman's directorial debut early for buyers.  The official screening isn't until Friday.

Sidney Kimmel Entertainment and UTA's decision to screen their Charlie Kaufman movie, "Synecdoche, New York," early at the fest was a throw of the dice. First, the movie is one of the few hot tickets for sale in the U.S. at Cannes, but was given what is considered a "lucky" Friday slot at the fest, which has delivered for such films as Roman Polanski's The Pianist and Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction in the past.

But it's far too late, apparently, for the top-execs at the U.S distrib companies with which SKE is hoping to close a sale during the fest.

by Patrick Frater
Emotions were ratcheted up to a high notch Sunday night for the preem of "Ashes of Time Redux," Wong Kar-wai's revisiting of his 1994 martial arts fantasy.

Festival topper Thierry Fremaux was on hand to present the Wong and stars Tony Leung Chiu-wai, Carina Lau, Charlie Yeung and ebullient lenser Chris Doyle (pictured with Kar-wai).

Wong accepted rounds of applause as he entered and promptly called for a minute of silence in honor of victims of natural disasters.

The minute extended to two or three. Perhaps more. But nobody was in a hurry to bring it to an end.

Wong looked impeccable, immaculate and inscrutable in a tailored tuxedo, dark glasses and slicked hair. But his body language was all pain -- head hung, shoulders bearing the strain.

When the reverence came to an end, credits rolled on Wong's heady mix of desert action and hopeless love. Gaudy new package is heavily rescored, rechaptered and painfully romantic.

Screening also underlined another natural disaster. Pic is the career highlight of Leslie Cheung, the sorely missed Hong Kong star who killed himself five years ago.

Leo the Lion's new keepers held a coming-out panel at the American Pavilion Saturday as MGM chairman-CEO Harry Sloan and motion-picture group topper Mary Parent showed a flashy demo reel of the studio's hefty library under the headline "The Lion roars again."

"I've been spending a lot of money," Parent said of her first eight weeks on the job. Parent and Sloan said they are now working to fill a 20-films-a-year slate.

"We need world rights on 10 films," Sloan said at the panel moderated by Variety editor Timothy M. Gray, "and you'll see us acquire eight to 10 indies."

For future projects, Parent said she will tap into MGM's bank of franchises. Among the projects are a redo of "Robocop" (which Parent said might be fun in 3-D) a contempo re-telling of the cold-war actioner "Red Dawn" and waiting on "the right script" for "The Thomas Crown Affair 2." Sights are also set on "The Hobbit," a two-film prequel to "The Lord of the Rings" set for Christmas 2011 and 2012.

Sloan wouldn't name the writers attached to the project, "but you can probably guess," he teased.

As a member of the AMPTP, Sloan also spoke about the disastrous effect of a possible actors strike. "If SAG goes on strike, I don't know what brings them back to the table. ... I don't think there will be enthusiasm for the strike. The negotiations are going OK. There's not as much rhetoric this time."

Sloan On Sony:

"Sony didn't manage MGM well.  But they did win the HD DVD format war by using our library."

On getting material to them:

"Attach Will Smith."

On the Tom Cruise-starrer "Valkyrie":

Sloan said the widely-ridiculed photo on Cruise wearing the eyepatch was unfortunate, "because it's not what the movie is about."  However, Cruise told Sloan that they needed to demonstrate to the German government that they were being historically accurate.  It helped win the German's over, despite the blog scorn.

On "The Hobbit":

Sloan had a four-hour dinner with Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh, where they laid out their vision for the dual-film prequel.  "They knew every scene, every moment.  We knew we had to do it with them."

On another "Rocky":

Parent said Stallone came to them with another idea.  Parent looked into the audience: "We should take a vote.  Whose interested in another 'Rocky'?" 

Not many hands went up.

Panel photo by John Shearer/WireImage.com

Sharon Swart and Patrick Frater look at the Cannes Market, where there's not as many boots on the ground this year.

"All the contraction going on in the (U.S.) business creates a certain apprehension and unease in the market. People are waiting for the next shoe or two to drop," Overture's Chris McGurk added.

Woody Allen talks about "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" to a table of reporters. 

After the camera settles he talks for a good 15 minutes on Javier Bardem's artwork, not filming in New York, and his next film with Larry David. 

As I write this, the town is up to its neck in "Indiana Jones."  Dozens of people with homemade signs are stalking outside the Palais, desperate for a ticket.

Here's Todd McCarthy's review.

One of the most eagerly and long-awaited series follow-ups in screen history delivers the goods -- not those of the still first-rate original, 1981's "Raiders of the Lost Ark," but those of its uneven two successors.

"Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" begins with an actual big bang, then gradually slides toward a ho-hum midsection before literally taking off for an uplifting finish.

The press conference video is here.

Anne Thompson talks with Karen Allen at the Indiana Jones cocktail recep.

Pamela McClintock reports that someone walked the red carpet in brown shoes - a giant panda.

Ever the showman, DreamWorks Animation's Jeffrey Katzenberg arranged for the costumed man to climb the Palais steps, without giving a heads-up to festival bigwigs.

The fest has strict rules and regulations on its dress code, but Katzenberg broke decades of tradition for the "Kung Fu Panda" world premiere.

Nashwa Al Ruwaini, Executive Director of Middle East International Film Festival extends an invite to Goldie Hawn to attend the fest in October.  Hawn was one of many celebs at the Century Club.  Woody Harrelson and Ray Winstone also drank champaign and ate from a stock buffet of Middle Eastern dishes.

Jon Fitzgerald, pictured with Denver's Britta Erickson, returns this year as festival programmer.  He said the finance conference is moving to proceed the fest, which is being extended to ten days to accommodate more films.

 Morgan Spurlock dusts off the tux for "The Third Wave" preem.  Sean Penn has been pushing this.

At the Cannes press conference for "Blindness" Julianne Moore and Danny Glover talk about being two of only three Americans on the international shoot.

More Cannes coverage from AMC here.

Michael Moore talks to Anne Thompson about his yet untitled new film, a sequel to "Fahrenheit 9/11."   He's got a lot to say:

"In this film, I'm going to take a look at the empire that we're created and ask the question: How did we get here? And exactly when the lights are going to be turned out on this empire?"