Two Cannes-appraising podcasts have popped up -- Deadline's Pete Hammond talking to some interviewer in the States (strictly audio) and TheWrap's Steve Pond (very faintly heard) talking to Sharon Waxman about Holy Motors (the likeliest Palme d'Or winner), embedded below.

Sasha Stone, Phil Contrino and I will be recording our sum-up tomorrow morning L.A. time, or around 5 pm or 6 pm Prague time. Unless Contrino begs off due to some family event and Sasha and I have to go it alone.

Not to nitpick but if you're going to kill someone softly, you're going to put something in their tea or coffee that will make them nod off first. Or you'll inject something in their veins as they're sleeping. Surprising them with bullets isn't "soft" -- it's just (a) unanticipated on their part so they haven't time to beg for their life, but (b) brutal as hell. So I'm sorry but the title of Andrew Dominik's new film isn't quite right.

Two brief "Trailers From Hell" essays were posted three or four days ago, one from Brian Trenchard-Smith about Peter Glenville's Becket and the other delivered by John Landis, of all people, about Carol Reed and Lewis Milestone's Mutiny on the Bounty. Why aren't these essays better written with better visual materials? And why aren't they shot in 16 x 9?

In a couple of hours I'll be reading Twitter reactions to Jeff Nichols' Mudd, which'll begin screening in Cannes at 8:30 am, or 20 minutes from now. It has to be better than The Paperboy, McConaughey-wise, and given the way Nichols handled Get Shelter...well, here's hoping. I've been told that it's just okay. Not a sophomore slump effort for Nichols, but decent, good enough, respectable.

For me Cannes 2012 was one of the most intriguing and nourishing festivals I've ever attended. Lacking, perhaps, in terms of historic, earth-shaking whateverness, but every day and almost every film was...Read More

It's infuriating to look for an embed code of a video clip that another site has posted, and to be unable to find it. I searched and searched for this Real Time With Bill Maher clip in which he discusses how unradical and in fact underwhelming Obama seems to liberals, and found nothing. So the hell with it -- it's on Gawker.

I knew Don DeLillo's Cosmopolis (published five years before the '08 meltdown) and the basic Ulysses/Odysseus drill. Eric Packer, a young, dead-souled billionaire (is there any other kind?) makes his way across Manhattan in a white, custom-designed, not-quite-soundproof stretch limo, encountering various characters (including his beautiful, not-quite-as-dead-souled-but-getting-there wife) and dealing with all kinds of threats, financial and anarchic, that serve as omens of a coming apocalypse. He's already lost his soul so all that's left to do is lose his fortune, which he manages by day's end. Which strangely comforts him.

So going into David Cronenberg's Read More

Nine or ten hours ago Barack Obama engaged in a brief q & a twitter session about clean energy and job creation, using the @whitehouse twitter handle. Why am I linking to this? I enjoyed the quick sum-ups and abbreviations, and the consistent no-drama attitude.

Cosmopolis morning! Last night's coming attractions reels -- trailers, really -- at the Salle du Soixentieme were mostly a wash. The only standouts were (a) a violent clip from Nicholas Winding Refn's Only God Forgives, showing Ryan Gosling in some kind of posh Thai brothel walking over to two middle-aged Asian guys and kicking the tar out of them, and (b) blah master-teaches-student footage from Wong Kar Wai's The Grandmasters...nice lensing and luscious snowscapes but same-old-seen-it-all-before.

Six years and eight months ago I did a phone interview with actor-producer Norman Lloyd, whose performance as a blind ex-teacher in Curtis Hanson's In Her Shoes had moved me a great deal. After that I visited Lloyd at his home in Brentwood and chatted some more and took some photos and basically felt honored and gratified that I'd gotten to know one of the great old gents of Hollywood and the theatre.

Todd McCarthy, Norman Lloyd following this afternoon's discussion in the Salle Bunuel.

Lloyd was 90 then and sharp as a...Read More

TEN LIKELIEST BEST PICTURE NOMINEES: 1. Lincoln (mid to late December), d: Steven Spielberg; 2. The Master, d: Paul Thomas Anderson; 3. The Great Gatsby (12.25), d: Baz Luhrman, 4. This is Forty (12.21), d: Judd Apatow; 5. The Silver Linings Playbook (11.21), d: David O. Russell; 6. Gravity (11.21), d: Alfonso Cuaron; 7. Les Miserables (12.7), d: Tom Hooper; 8. Anna Karenina (November/early December), d: Joe Wright; 9. Zero Dark Thirty (12.14), d: Kathryn Bigelow; 10. Hyde Park on Hudson, d: Roger Michell. Wild Card: Joel and Ethan Coen's Inside Llewyn Davis.

Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams in Terrence Malick's The Burial, expected to be finished and released sometime between now and fall 2014.

Spring-Summer Distinction/Refinement: The Dark Knight Rises (HE), d: Christopher Nolan, cast: Christian Bale, Tom Hardy, Anne Hathaway. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard, Gary Oldman; Prometheus (HE), d: Ridley Scott, cast: Charlize Theron, Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Patrick Wilson, Idris Elba; Moonrise Kingdom(HE), d: Wes Anderson, cast: Bruce Willis, Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, Frances McDormand, Jason Schwartzman, Harvey Keitel; Take This Waltz, d: Sarah Polley, cast: Michelle Williams Seth Rogen, Luke Kirby. (4)

2011 Holdovers, Winter-Spring Escapees: Wettest County, d: John Hillcoat, cast: Tom Hardy, Shia LaBeouf; 360 (d: Fernando Meirelles), cast: Rachel Weisz, Anthony Hopkins, Ben Foster, Jude Law; Deep Blue Sea, d: Terence Davies, cast: Rachel Weisz, Tom Hiddleston, Simon Russell Beale; The Eye of the Storm, d: Fred Schepisi, cast: Charlotte Rampling, Geoffrey Rush, Judy Davis; Salmon Fishing in Yemen; d: Lasse Hallstrom, cast: Ewan McGregor, Emily Blunt, Kristin Scott Thomas; On The Road, d: Walter Salles, cast: Sam Riley, Garret Hedlund, Kristen Stewart, Kirsten Dunst, Tom Sturridge, Viggo Mortensen, Amy Adams. (6)

Quality-Level Genre Stabs: Cogan's Trade (HE), d/w: Andrew Dominik, cast: Brad Pitt, Scott McNairy, Ben Mendelsohn; Seven Psychopaths (HE), d/w: Martin McDonagh, cast: Colin Farrell, Woody Harrelson, Sam Rockwell, Christopher Walken, Abbie Cornish; The Place Beyond The Pines (HE), d: Derek Cianfrance, cast: Ryan Gosling, Bradley Cooper, Rose Byrne, Ray Liotta, Eva Mendes; Only God Forgives (HE), d: Nicolas Winding Refn, cast: Ryan Gosling, Kristin Scott Thomas, Yayaying. (4)

Stand-alone: Skyfall, d: Sam Mendes, cast: Daniel Craig, Helen McCrory, Javier Bardem. (1)

Anticipated Quality, Presumed Fall-Holiday Release, No Dates: The Master (HE), d: Paul Thomas Anderson; cast: Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams, Laura Dern; Cloud Atlas (HE), d: Wachowski Bros., Tom Tykwer; cast: Tom Hanks, Hugo Weaving, Jim Sturgess, Hugh Grant, Halle Berry, Susan Sarandon, Ben Whishaw; The Burial (a.k.a. Untitled Terrence Malick), d/w: Terrence Malick, cast: Ben Affleck, Rachel McAdams, Jessica Chastain, Rachel Weisz, Michael Sheen, Javier Bardem; Hyde Park on Hudson, d: Roger Michell, cast: Bill Murray, Laura Linney, Olivia Williams. (4)

Harvey Keitel during shooting of Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom.

September 2012: Argo (9.14, HE), d: Ben Affleck, cast: Ben Affleck, Alan Arkin, Bryan Cranston, John Goodman, Kerry Bishe, Kyle Chandler; Looper (9.28, HE), d: Rian Johnson, cast: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis, Emily Blunt, Paul Dano, Jeff Daniels, Piper Perabo; Savages (9.28, HE), d: Oliver Stone, cast: Taylor Kitsch, Blake Lively, Aaron Johnson, John Travolta, Uma Thurman, Benicio Del Toro, Salma Hayek, Emile Hirsch, Demian Bichir. (3)

October 2012: The Gangster Squad (10.19, HE); d: Ruben Fleischer, cast: Sean Penn, Josh Brolin, Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone; Not Fade Away (1.19, HE), d: David Chase, cast: James Gandolfini, James Magaro, Brad Garrett, Bella Heathcote, Christopher McDonald; Nero Fiddled, d: Woody Allen, cast: Ellen Page, Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Allen, Penelope Cruz, Alison Pill, Alec Baldwin, Greta Gerwig; The Impossible, d: Juan Antonio Bayona, cast: Naomi Watts, Ewan Mcgregor. (4)

No Date Yet: Anna Karenina (HE), d: Joe Wright, cast: Keira Knightley, Aaron Johnson, Michelle Dockery, Jude Law, Kelly Macdonald, Emily Watson, Olivia Williams. (1)

November 2012: The Silver Linings Playbook (11.21, HE), d: David O. Russell, cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper, Robert De Niro, Jacki Weaver, Chris Tucker, Julia Stiles; Gravity (11.21, HE), d: Alfonso Cuaron; cast: Sandra Bullock, George Clooney. (2)

December 2012: Les Miserables (12.7, HE), d: Tom Hooper, cast: Russell Crowe, Hugh Jackman, Anne Hathaway; Great Hope Springs (12.14), d: David Frankel , cast: Meryl Streep, Tommy Lee Jones, Steve Carell; The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (12.14); Zero Dark Thirty (12.14, HE), d: Kathryn Bigelow, cast: Kyle Chandler, Joel Edgerton, Jessica Chastain, Edgar Ramirez, Mark Strong, Chris Pratt, Jason Clarke; This Is Forty (12.21, HE), d: Judd Apatow, cast: Paul Rudd, Leslie Mann, Albert Brooks, Megan Fox, Melissa McCarthy; World War Z (12.21), d: Marc Forster, cast: Brad Pitt; Lincoln (mid to late December, HE), d: Steven Spielberg, cast: Daniel Day Lewis, Sally Field, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Tommy Lee Jones; Django Unchained (12.25, HE), d: Quentin Tarantino, cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, Samuel L. Jackson, Sacha Baron Cohen; The Great Gatsby (12.25, HE), d: Baz Luhrman, cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, Joel Edgerton, Carey Mulligan, Isla Fisher; Life of Pi, d: Ang Lee, cast: Tobey Maguire, Irrfan Khan, Tabu. (10)

Floaters: He Loves Me, d: Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris; Fork in the Road, d: Alexander Payne; Cosmopolis, d: David Cronenberg; Amour, d: Michael Haneke; All You Need Is Love, d: Susanne Bier. (5)

Hugo Weaving, Halle Berry and director Tom Tykwer during shooting of Cloud Atlas.

I don't know if that rumored presentation of footage from unseen films is on or not at le Salle du Soixentieme, but The Impossible director Juan Antonio Bayona, here in Cannes, has informed me that "a clip for The Impossible is not going to be shown tonight." Too bad but okay.

The Playlist is reporting that Cosmospolis star Robert Pattinson has told a French magazine, Les Inrockuptibles, that he'll star in another David Cronenberg film that'll shoot in France. "I don't know when he wants to start filming," Pattinson said, "[but] it's going to be his first one in France and he promises it's going to be very strange." This suggests that in Cronenberg's head at least Cosmospolis turned out okay, or at least that RPatz's performance made the grade.

Today will be my ninth sixteen-hour Cannes Film Festival work day in a row. Is it okay with Glenn Kenny if I'm feeling a bit whipped at this stage? Tomorrow will be a halfer with my final viewing, David Cronenberg's Cosmopolis, at 8:30, followed by a review, packing and then a bus to Nice Airport for a 4:45 pm flight back to Berlin. My favorites in this order: Holy Motors, No, On The Road, Like Someone In Love, Killing Them Softly, Into The Hills. Sincere Respect, Painful Sit: Amour. Top Stinkers: The Paperboy, Lawless, Post Tenebras Lux.

I won't see Men in Black 3 until this weekend, but if a mildly grumpy guy like Marshall Fine half likes it then maybe. The Rotten Tomatoes rating is 67%. Presumably some HE regulars caught it yesterday. Reactions?

"I will admit: I tend to have a bias against movies with the number '3' in the title," Fine begins. "If there's ever a dead giveaway that all imagination has been sapped from a movie, it's that second sequel (as if the first sequel wasn't bad enough). Sure, the filmmaker can say, 'Oh, I planned to make it a trilogy all...Read More

Two and a half hours after it finished screening in the Grand Palais, Lee Daniels' The Paperboy is being primarily spoken of as the Nicole Kidman-pees-on-Zac Efron flick. Her line before she does so -- "If anyone's gonna pee on him, it's gonna be me" -- is also tweeting around.

Matthew McConaughey, Zac Efron in Lee Daniels' The Paperboy.

In other words, the press gang at Cannes thought The Paperboy was mostly a joke. Which is what Daniels apparently intended on some level -- to flavor or season it with foolery. I love it when referenced goof humor...Read More

A producer who's been around forever (and whom I've known for a couple of decades) said something interesting at tonight's On The Road after-party: "Whenever there's strong sexuality in a film, you always lose about 30% of the critics." He may have meant precisely that, but I don't think he was saying that this 30% hates any film with strong sexuality. I think he meant that pronounced sex scenes tend to diminish their enthusiasm, either somewhat or significantly. Thoughts?

I need to find a staunch Carlos Reygadas fan who caught tonight's screening of Post Tenebras Lux, as I did, who could maybe share his or her interpretations. (Is Manohla around?) There's an undercurrent of dread throughout, but mostly it lacks connective tissue. Three scenes of abrupt violence (especially the final one) are...well, I suppose the term is "noteworthy." And it contains a truly strange, Hieronymous Bosch-like orgy scene in a Turkish bath sex club. And a moving deathbed soliloquy (although there's no clue that the speaker is dying when he delivers it). But otherwise I found it slow, lumpy, indulgent and mystifying....Read More

Last night Deadline's Nancy Tartaglione reported that clips from a few unseen, keenly awaited films will happen tomorrow (Thursday) in Cannes at the Salle du Soixentieme. Footage from Juan Antonio Bayona's The Impossible, the Asian tsunami movie starring Ewan McGregor and Naomi Watts, may be included in the presentation. (The Lionsgate/Summit release was shown in its entirely to elite journos in Los Angeles a couple of weeks ago.)

Good on the USPS for putting these out, but when was the last time anyone bought or used a stamp? I'm honestly having trouble trying to remember when I last did, but it must be two or three years, and perhaps longer. Packages, yes. FedEx and UPS, sure. But...?

I got out of the noon showing of Leos Carax's Holy Motors about 100 minutes ago...holy moley! Holy Paris, holy Trip City, holy nocturne, holy inferno, holy freedom, holy holy, roly poly, put on the wackazoid. Holy white stretch limo. Holy wigs and fake beards and long nails and spirit gum. And holy Denis Lavant, Eva Mendez, Kylie Minogue and Michel Piccoli! Dali/Bunuel/Lynch/Carax live large. Welcome to Holy Nuttervile in the best, most spirit-releasing sense of that term.

If only an American filmmaker was this mad, this imaginative, this unchained, this willing to leap. I wonder...Read More

Walter Salles' On The Road is masterful and rich and lusty, meditative and sensual and adventurous and lamenting all at once. It has Bernardo Bertolucci's "nostalgia for the present" except the present is 1949 to 1951 -- it feels completely alive in that time. No hazy gauze, no bop nostalgia. Beautifully shot and cut, excitingly performed and deeply felt.

It's much, much better than I thought it would be given the long shoot and...I forget how long it's been in post but it feels like ages. It's so full of life and serene and mirthful in so...Read More

I'm not saying we should applaud this Auburn, Washington man who slapped a kid who wouldn't shut the fuck up in a theatre playing Titanic 3D, but deep down you know he was right. He acted intemperately and broke a social rule and will probably pay some sort of price, but behind closed doors the Movie Godz are smiling. And you know that kid who lost a tooth will now think twice about yapping off in a theatre.

This isn't the same reel that played at Cinemacon, but it's fairly similar to it. I repeat: this is looking more and more like one of the most intriguing awards-season headliners. The 1920s have been removed from that feeling of veiled sepia antiquity -- they feel electric, refreshed, wild. And although the CG still looks a wee bit primitive in the final New York City cut, the idea of glimpsing the Manhattan of 90 years ago has my pulse racing. Plus the actors all seem in fine form.

Yesterday's mistake was failing to arrive early enough for the 7:30 pm Holy Motors screening at the Debussy. I had decided to relax and just stroll around and take in the sunshine late yesterday afternoon. This festival suffers no dilletantes or fools. The second you ease up and stop looking at the clock, it goes "hah!...gotcha!" It won't happen again. Holy Motors happens at noon today.

The sky is bright radiant blue with a few soft white clouds. Now all it has to do is warm up a bit more and everything'll be fine. It's 5:50 pm and my next film, Leos Carax's Holy Motors, starts at 7:30 pm. Take a walk, shake it out. Update: The Carax is filled with the next screening at 10 pm...eff that. Tomorrow morning is Walter Salles' On The Road, Carax/Motors at noon, Carlos Reygadas' Post Tenebras Lux and 7 Days in Havana.

When I was drinking this was my beer whenever in Europe...

Last January I wished upon a wishing well for a Criterion Bluray of Carol Reed's Odd Man Out, and oh, Lordy Lordy -- there's a British Bluray coming out on June 18th.

This is one of the saddest and most tragic noirs of all time. I saw it a couple of times on laser disc in the mid '90s, and I have indelible memories of a sweating, barely conscious James Mason (as IRA combatant Johnny McQueen) and of constantly falling snow in a darkened Belfast. The exquisite photography is by Robert Krasker, who also shot...Read More