Joel and Ethan Coen‘s Inside Llewyn Davis, which just let out, is some kind of brilliantly sombre, wonderfully atmospheric, dryly hilarious, pared-down period masterpiece — a time-tunnel visitation to 1961 Greenwich Village that feels so meditatively right and authentic and resonant that I can’t wait to see it again. I read the script about 14 months ago and I still don’t know what it’s really “about.” Well, I do but the Coens sure as shit don’t spell anything out. But I know a profound American art film when I see it. I know what exquisite less-is-more movie backrubs are all about. I know the real take-it-or-leave-it when I experience it.

You need two and possibly three things to get into the Catching Fire party tonight at 10 pm at Baoli Beach (across from the JW Marriott). A white cardboard invitation, a silver pin worn on your lapel (first time in my life I’ve been given a special admission pin for a party), and ID to back it up. So crashers are going to have a tough time. The event is actually being called a celebration of “the 75th Annual Hunger Games.” And its going to be raining the whole time…great.

The dismissals of Arnaud Desplechin‘s Jimmy P.: Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian are pretty much universal. It’s the 2013 Cannes Film Festival’s first wipeout. And yet! It’s an intelligent, decently composed, pleasingly acted thing. Adult, probing, patient. As usual, Benicio del Toro‘s performance is steady and rooted. It’s just that you can’t understand how anyone came to believe it was compelling enough to be financed and made into a feature.

If I was to walk outside and run into Idris Elba at the local fruit market, I probably wouldn’t recognize him. I might go “wait, do I…? Nah, I guess not.” I’m not a fan of The Wire (I respected the two episodes I saw but chill the eff down) and I never paid much attention to Elba’s work in RocknRolla, Takers, The Loser, Thor, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance or Prometheus. He’s like Lady Gaga in the sense that he’s famous without having a household face. Maybe the Weinstein Co.’s Mandela flick will change that.

Make me miserable. Make me damp. Drench the festival. Have an umbrella at the ready or die. Misery loves company. Cats and dogs. Little rivers and flash floods on the streets. Philippine monsoon. Apocalypse Now. At around 1:30 or 1:45 pm it stopped raining and it started pouring, you see. It didn’t come down in sheets, but almost that. Right now there 20,000 people in this town with damp socks.

In a Cannes interview with Vulture‘s Kyle Buchanan, Paris Hilton talks about allowing director Sofia Coppola to use her actual mansion in The Bling Ring and blah blah. Except the film reveals some embarassing design details. Well, embarassing to a person with any taste, I mean. Images of Hilton are all over the house (her face is even emblazoned on throw pillows), and yet Hilton tells Buchanan that she’s proud of the nouveau riche-ness of the place.

“I designed everything in the house, so it was really cool to see it on film,” Hilton says. “That house is like my dream house. I worked so hard on every detail.” Good effing God.

It’s Saturday, 5.8 at 6:30 am — a big day for me because Joel and Ethan Coen‘s Inside Llewyn Davis screens this evening at 7:30 pm at the Salle Debussy. I’ve been waiting on this for a long time, ever since I read the script and posted a favorable review in early March 2012. I’ll also be catching Arnaud Desplechin‘s Jimmy P. (Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian) at 8:30 this morning and Rebecca Zlotowski‘s Grand Central at 11 am. I’m on the fence about Laura Lau‘s Bends, which screens at 2 pm…but maybe.

TheWrap‘s Lucas Shaw is saying that The Great Gatsby opened well last weekend ($51 million) and is expected to hold strongly this weekend because (a) general audiences don’t care about the mixed or troubled advance buzz, (b) their responses to Baz Luhrman‘s film, as implied by Rotten Tomatoes ratings, are significantly more positive than those of the critics, and (c) Gatsby is serving an older female audience that is otherwise being ignored with all the comic-book superhero CG action crap that the studios always serve in May-June-July.

But here’s a fourth factor: Leonardo DiCaprio‘s Gatsby is a touching figure. He’s such a clueless romantic in a sense — so constipated and totally persuaded by the importance of appearances and so in love with Daisy and yet so delusional about her true nature that your heart goes out to him. He’s so far from getting it that you want to take him aside and give him a pep talk and maybe offer some advice. You feel for him. Which is more than you can say for Robert Downey‘s Tony Stark.