From Israeli movie columnist Yair Raveh: “If you’re collecting Cannes hints, here’s another one: Shlomo Bar-Aba, the lead in Joseph Cedar‘s Footnote.

“Bar-Aba is one of Israel’s better known stage and TV comedians — a truly wacky performer in the Robin Williams sort-of-way. (I had the privilege of writing some of his material in the past.) He rarely does movies and here he is at his most quiet, subdued and disciplined role. But just like when Peter Sellers or Jerry Lewis did a straight role you can feel the chaotic energy bustling underneath. And because he’s a virtual unknown outside of Israel (here he’s a huge, huge star) I believe he’ll be one of the big finds in the festival in terms of acting. So check him out and the movie as well.”

Yesterday’s big Twitter meme was “Terrence Malick’s Thor.” You always know something is cool if Matt Zoller Seitz and James Rocchi are on it. But 24-plus hours later “Malick Thor” brings up nothing on Google. No art, no tweet compilations, nothing. The next step, of course, is a mashup video linking dialogue, themes, obsessions, etc. But is this thing even taking off?

The two main sources of 2011 Hollywood agony are (a) the studio bosses and underlings who are afraid to make anything other than comic-book movies, sequels or reboots of old franchises, no matter how lame or disconnected from the zeitgeist these remakes might be, and (b) the millions of moviegoers out there who refuse to patronize anything other than comic-book movies, sequels or reboots of old franchises.

If I could get away with throwing all the afore-mentioned studio bosses and execs into a burlap bag filled with rocks and then throw the bag into a lake in northern Scotland, I would. Not that it would solve anything (i.e., they’d only be replaced), but it would feel good and “right” and the Movie Godz would send me a magnum of good champagne.

Last night’s flight was hell. The agony of sitting in a too-small seat and almost sleeping but not really (i.e., sporadically dozing on the surface of the pond rather than slipping below and sinking to the bottom) was more acute than usual. The price for an exit-row seat was having to sit between two big guys. One was large-bellied and a bit of a wheezy breather and wearing poolside flip-flops (why do people who don’t believe in pedicures do this?), and between his girth and my broad shoulders it wasn’t a good fit.

I’m staying in a 31st floor apartment at 310 Greenwich Ave., or about three blocks west of the Chambers Street A stop and a two or three blocks south of the Tribeca Grill. I’m here for the weekend and a day. A detour into Connecticut tomorrow and then back to the city on Sunday, and then a flight out of JFK on Monday afternoon for Paris and then Cannes with an expected early-morning arrival on Tuesday.

Tonight Jett and I are catching the B’way revival of John Guare‘s The House of Blue Leaves with Ben Stiller, Edie Falco, Jennifer Jason Leigh, et. al. I planned to see a revival back in the late ’80s in Pasadena but something got in the way, so this is my first time.

The two somewhat larger bags aren’t light but at least they’re not steamer trunks out of the stateroom scene in A Night at the Opera, which is what I’ve seen a lot of people lugging around at airports. Always travel with small-ish bags. Either you get it or you don’t.

Apologies to Peter Guber and Brett Ratner for failing to post this last Sunday. It was taken prior to a TCM Classic Film Festival discussion about the relentlessness corporate hunger for sequels (and the cowardice exposed by this). Pete Hammond moderated.

“I enjoy your writing. I enjoy your themes. But your ‘community’ of commenters are like the worst idiots from a Union Square or Santa Monica cafe where the wifi works and the coffee is cheap. I’ve tried only reading your bits but it doesn’t work. If I see you in Cannes I’ll say hello, but I’m afraid I won’t be coming back here.” — Mark Tierney, producer, photographer and general get-around guy, in an email received at 2:16 pm Eastern.

My response: “I share your pain but what precisely pushed you over the edge? Something today or yesterday? What comment in what thread? Because except for the spewings of an occasional loon or loser HE comments are fairly sharp and spot-on.”

With the exception of one or two apparent omissions (i.e., where is the Wednesday, 5.11 morning press screening of Woody Allen‘s Midnight in Paris?), this looks like one of the coolest online screening schedules for the Cannes Film Festival I’ve ever come across. Almost the whole magilla. (I think.) Now, if someone could throw together one of these plus a cool-party schedule…

“A Cannes hint: watch out for Michel Hazanavicius‘s The Artist — a silent movie that will make a lot of noise!” — HE reader Deydou.

“Released a few weeks ago in the UK, TT3D: Closer To The Edge is a documentary following three young motorcycle riders as they tackle the world famous Isle of Mann TT. It’s beautifully shot and cut, uses 3D sparingly and only to enhance the sensational race scenes, and in Guy Martin (one of the riders) has found a genuine star — think Northern English Wolverine, complete with sideburns.

“The most exhilarating film I’ve seen since C’etait Un Rendezvous.” — Dylan Glover, London.

It was the early ’90s, and I was tooling along Santa Monica Blvd. on a nice, sunny afternoon in my relatively new but not quite super-hot Nissan 240 SX. But I felt the car looked and felt pretty damn good, and I was in a pretty good mood. Then I saw a ’60s muscle car of some kind (a yellow ’65 Mustang convertible?) with whitewall tires pull alongside me. It had a FOR SALE sign in the rear window. A very pretty…okay, hot girl was at the wheel, and her passenger window was rolled down.

I pulled up alongside at a red light, smiled at her and said, “How much?” She took one look at me and my wheels, waited a beat or two, shook her head slightly and said, “Too much.” My heart sank like a stone. Fragile as this makes me sound, on a certain level I don’t think I’ve ever recovered from this, the most withering L.A. putdown I’ve ever suffered in my life. That’s Los Angeles in a nutshell. That’s the attitude that runs it. And the fact that I let that remark hurt me means that I’d bought into this mentality as much as she had.

Today is a packing and clean-up and last-minute runaround day before my 11:30 pm flight to NYC. So that’s all she wrote until I arrive around 10 pm at LAX. Speaking of which is there anything more hopelessly gauche than people who travel with oceanic steamer-trunk-sized suitcases? Every time I see a family with 275 pounds of luggage I roll my eyes.

Here’s a nice story from about how Pasquale and Louise Buzzelli & friends celebrated the death of Osama bin Laden last Monday. In an up-with-life, community-hug sort of way, I mean.

Pasquale and Louise Buzzelli are standing at far right.

It’s significant to me because (a) Buzzelli was the Port Authority guy who was in a stairwell on the 22nd floor of the WTC North Tower on 9.11.01 when it came crashing down and who somehow survived, awaking a couple of hours later on a concrete slab with only bruises and scrapes and a broken foot, and (b) because I’ve had dinner with Pasquale and Louise on the Upper West Side and know in my heart that they’re good people.

Buzzelli’s survival story is surreal and almost mystical It’s almost impossible to believe (to this day my son Jett refuses to buy it) but it happened. In fact Pasquale is almost the mythical “WTC 9/11 surfer.”