“Just saw the Despleschin,” I wrote a friend early this afternoon. “Indulgent, too long, at times overheated, generally undisciplined, taxes the patience, no tension to speak of and all over the place. In a word, minor.”

It’s called Ismael’s Ghosts (aka Les Fantomes d’Ismael), and I can’t imagine it’ll make the slightest dent in the U.S., even among admirers of the kind of talky, drifting, oh-so-French films that over-40 urbans used to pay to see at urban arthouses on slow Sunday evenings. Back before streaming lessened their interest in seeing them in theatres.

The story (which is a kind of free-associating fantasia) concerns an impulsive, immature film director (Mathieu Amalric…frequently shouting, slurping alcohol, smoking cigarettes and doing his bug-eyed, intense man-child routine) whose imagination heats up and starts to merge with reality when an ex (Marion Cotillard) returns after a long absence, and thereby stirs up a hornet’s nest of emotions. Charlotte Gainsbourg plays Almaric’s wife, often with a quizzical expression. Louis Garrel plays some kind of handicapped…you know what? Forget it. I don’t care to explain who he plays. All I could think during his scenes was “wow, I hope he’ll be better as Jean-Luc Godard.”

The stand-out scene, or at least the one that many critics have mentioned, comes when Cotillard dances to Bob Dylan‘s “It Ain’t Me, Babe.” I was reminded, of course, of Ralph Fiennes dancing in a similar fashion to the Rolling Stones‘ “Emotional Rescue” in Luca Guadagnino‘s A Bigger Splash. Fiennes totally nailed it; Cotillard is okay.

A 20something guy sat next to me during yesterday’s train trip from Gare de Lyon to Cannes. About 90 minutes after departure he got up and went to the food car, an all-metal enclosure on the upper deck, mostly serving McDonald’s-like eats and drinks. But instead of wolfing his food up there, the guy brought it back to our first-class haven.

Right away the smell of microwaved cheese, pickles and burger meat filled the air. And then he opened the wrappers and it was even worse.

I knew that giving this animal two or three stink-eye glances wouldn’t matter, but I did it anyway.

It would be one thing if he returned with an apple or a cappuccino or a cold sandwich, but subjecting travellers to toxic fast food fumes is only a step away from cutting a series of elephant farts.

On top of which the guy darted outdoors every time we stopped at a big city (Lyon, Toulon, Marseilles) to smoke a cigarette, and when he returned the putrid aroma of nicotine and cheap tobacco was nearly as bad as the cheeseburger.

Did it occur to this guy that that his fratboy manners were a problem? Naaah. One of the key traits of assholes worldwide is not being even faintly aware that they might be irritating others. The thought never even occurs.

While Vanity Fair‘s Rebecca Keegan is sipping Nespresso from the new Terrasse de Journalistes atop the Grand Palais, Hollywood Elsewhere is content to file from a third-floor, west-facing bedroom at 7 rue de Jean Mero. Not that I don’t intend to visit and maybe even file from Keegan’s perch, but it’s a lot simpler to just do it here. A six-minute walk from the Palais. 19th Century building, excellent wifi, quiet, food in the fridge, nice little bathroom, a washing machine, etc. This is the fifth or sixth year I’ve been sharing this place with Washington Post critic Ann Hornaday. The grace and generosity shown over the years by our hosts, Julien and Ann Biri, is much appreciated.

In a 5.17 interview with the N.Y Times Dave Itzkoff, Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon addresses his playful mussing of Donald Trump‘s hair during a 9.16 telecast, which in my view is the worst thing Fallon has ever done and probably ever will do for the rest of his life.

Fallon “acknowledges now that the Trump interview was a setback, if not quite a mistake,” Itzkoff writes, “and he has absorbed at least a portion of the anger that was directed at him by critics and online detractors. ‘They have a right to be mad,’ a chastened Mr. Fallon said in an interview this month. ‘If I let anyone down, it hurt my feelings that they didn’t like it. I got it.'”

Improved Fallon quote: “Yeah, I fucked up. That episode told me that maybe from time to time I play things a little too light and goofy, and that maybe I should develop an alternate mode when certain guests are on and certain subjects come up.”

Posted here on 9.18.16: “Jimmy Fallon‘s talk-show brand is, to him, naturally, a prime consideration. That cheerful, easy, let’s-have-fun vibe. Play games, sing songs, fool around. Fallon will never challenge a guest with even a whiff of contentious political chatter.

“So when Orange Hitler came on, he had to keep that thing going. He presumably despises the fuck, but he had to maintain that Jimmy Fallon vibe. He had to lighten the mood and massage his head and make Trump seem to God knows how many millions like a somewhat more palatable guy than what the news media has been reporting and portraying.

In a just-posted cover story, People‘s Sandra Sobieraj Westfall writes that former President Barack Obama delivered the following opinion about President Donald Trump: “He’s nothing but a bullshitter.” The remark was shared early last November, and comes second-hand from two friends of Obama’s. Has Obama’s opinion changed since Trump has been in office? “Well,” said one of the sources, “it hasn’t gotten any better.”

Last Friday AlterNet‘s Steve Rosenfield and others began writing about a pair of 45-minute Dutch-produced docs focused on President Donald Trump, one of which alleges that Trump has “extensive connections to Russia’s ruling oligarchs and a history of illegal racketeering.” 

Doc #1, The Dubious Friends of Donald Trump, Part 1: The Russians, broke last week. Produced by Zembla, it examines Trump’s alleged relationship with, among others, Russian mobster Felix Sater and the people behind Bayrock LLC.

Rosenfield says it also examines Trump’s arrangements with wealthy Russians involved in elaborate pyramid–style money laundering. The financial trail raises questions about whether Trump canned FBI director James Comey “because the FBI’s investigation of his campaign’s collusion with Russia was encroaching into Trump’s world of dark money and dubious business partners.'”

The excitement at the start of any Cannes Film Festival is always tingly, and this year is no exception. The La Pizza press gathering was full of that fizzy stuff. I’ll be dutifully attending Wednesday’s 10 am press screening of Arnaud Depleschin‘s Ismael’s Ghosts, the opening-night attraction. But the real hummer, at least in terms of expectations, is Andrey Zvyagintsev‘s Loveless, which screens for journos at 7:30 pm in the Salle Debussy.

The Depleschin flick, which costars Mathieu Amalric, Marion Cotillard, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Louis Garrel, is about a director (Amalric) whose life is complicated by the return of a former lover (Cotillard) just as he’s about to begin shooting a new film. Zyyagintsev’s film focuses on a bickering married couple, verging on divorce, whose son disappears after one of their fights. They try to put their differences aside as they search for him.

Here I am still filing at 2:30 am. I could’ve crashed hours ago, but I had to put stuff up.

La Pizza table #1 (clockwise from left): Guardian/Vanity Fair critic & contributor Jordan Hoffman, Indiewire critic David Ehrlich, Variety critic Owen Gleiberman, Indiewire editor/columnist Anne Thompson (half-obscured), First Showing‘s Alex Billington, Film Society of Lincoln Center deputy director Eugene Hernandez, critic Tomris Laffly (Film Journal, Time Out New York, Vulture), [standing] TheWrap‘s Ben Croal, Indiewire‘s Eric Kohn, Vulture‘s Kyle Buchanan (left profile, half obscured), New York/Vulture‘s Jada Yuan, Screen Daily‘s Tim Grierson, Washington Post critic Ann Hornaday, Vanity Fair‘s Rebeca Keegan.

La Pizza table #2 (clockwise from left): Film School Rejects Matt Hoffman, WeLiveEntertainment’s Tanner Stechnij, Time critic Stephanie Zacharek, L.A. Times critic Justin Chang, Toronto Star critic Peter Howell, Maclean‘s Brian Johnson, David Scott Smith (obscured), Svetlana Cvetko (profile, staring at table), Alia Salazar, Michelle Foster of Loyola University.

I awoke Tuesday morning at 5 to catch a 7:20 am train to Cannes. Finished packing, tidied up, had a coffee, called for an Uber. Everything felt right and well-ordered. I left the apartment keys on the kitchen counter and dragged two bags — a 24-inch upright suitcase and a leather carrying bag — onto the third floor landing, and for some drooling, jelly-brained reason closed the apartment door with my computer bag still sitting inside.

Did I just do that? My mind went into freeze-panic mode. I’ll be missing my train, but how and when can I get back into the pad? My goal was to somehow do this, snag the bag and catch a 10:19 am train to Cannes from Gare de Lyon. Four hours hence.

I texted Romain, my Airbnb contact guy, but he didn’t answer until 7:40 am. When he finally replied he said I couldn’t get back in until the cleaning person arrives, which would be about noon. I begged him to call this person and offer a 50-euro reward to show up by 9:30 am. A few minutes later I upped it to 75. Romain said he’d try — “It’s not an issue of money” — but that I shouldn’t get my hopes up. A few minutes later I said I’d gladly and happily pay the cleaning person 100 euros to show up early, no questions asked.

Two or three minutes later Romain revealed that he himself had a key to the apartment (new information!) but not the street door or foyer-door key. But he would figure something out. He offered to meet me at the place by 9 am. When I got there he was waiting across the street with my computer bag. I gave him the hundred euros and a pat on the shoulder, and tore off to Gare de Lyon.

I somehow doubt that Michael Moore‘s forthcoming anti-Trump doc, Fahrenheit 11/9, will shake up or double-clarify perceptions of the deranged Trump circus. I say this as a staunch fan and ally of nearly every Moore viewpoint and documentary going back to Roger and Me, but what can he say or show that isn’t on the web and cable news every day?

What half-reasonable person could possibly support this unhinged authoritarian orangutan at this stage of the game, post-Comey firing and sharing of hush-hush intelligence with the Russians plus the just-revealed Comey memo about Trump asking him to shut down investigations of former national security adviser Michael Flynn? And yet a third of the country does. Because Trump is the only thing standing between them and the multicultural lefties, and that, to rural nutters and dumbshits, is the primal thing. White rule is on the ropes, and they don’t want to know or hear anything else.

Fahrenheit 11/9 will most likely illuminate and confirm what sane people already think, and yes, it’s conceivable that the the content might help to weaken support among Trump’s “soft” supporters, but the crazies are immovable.

Moore has himself acknowledged this problem in a press-release statement about Fahrenheit 11/9, which Bob and Harvey Weinstein‘s Fellowship Adventure Group will release, presumably later this year.

“No matter what you throw at him, it hasn’t worked,” Moore said about Trump. “No matter what is revealed, he remains standing. Facts, reality, brains cannot defeat him. Even when he commits a self-inflicted wound, he gets up the next morning and keeps going and tweeting.” And yet, Moore insisted, “That all ends with this movie.”

Fine — maybe it will on some level. I just can’t imagine how. A documentary can’t hope to reach these loons. They’re over the waterfall and don’t give a damn.

Some of you presumably saw or at least remember Werner Herzog‘s Woyzeck (’79), an adaptation of George Buchner‘s 19th Century play of the same. Tonight I joined Svetlana Cvetko and David Scott Smith for an opera version of same at the Bastille Opera. It was the final night of the season. Afterwards we had some exquisite eats at Camille (24 Rue des Francs Bourgeois, 75003 Paris), which Svetlana recommended and is definitely a place I’ll be returning to. Now I have to crash. It’s 12:18 am, and I have to wake up at 5 am (okay, 5:15) to make the Paris-to-Cannes train at Gare de Lyon.

A couple of months ago (March 14th) I ran into Brad Grey at the Wilshire Screening Room. I was there for my second viewing of Cristian Mungiu‘s Graduation.

“Have you seen it?” I asked Grey. He shrugged, shook his head. “You should! It’s brilliant. You know Mungiu…Four Months, Three Weeks, Two Days?” Another 20 or 30 seconds of chit-chat and “see ya.” I liked Grey as far as it went. I felt I could talk freely with him. We had spoken at a Paramount lot gathering a few weeks earlier, and again at a pre-Golden Globes party at the Chateau Marmont. He was fairly open and candid at the former event, at least as far as his position (he was still running Paramount) allowed.

And now he’s gone. Cancer. Jesus, he didn’t look ill or anything. A slap to the system. Heartfelt condolences to his family, friends and former colleagues. This came out of nowhere.

Straight from Variety: “Brad Grey, the former Paramount Pictures chairman and CEO, died on Sunday night of cancer. He was 59. His family issued a statement on Monday morning, Los Angeles time:

“Brad passed away yesterday evening at his home in Holmby Hills, his family by his side. The cause of death was cancer. He was 59 years old.

Two scenes dissipate John Frankenheimer‘s Seven Days in May (’64), an otherwise gripping thriller about an attempted military takeover of the U.S. One of them is fairly ludicrous in its action plotting, and both take your attention away from the story by suggesting that the film was made for a modest sum — something an audience should never be allowed to contemplate.

(l. to r.) George Macready, Edmond O’Brien and Fredric March in a second-act scene from John Frankenheimer’s Seven Days in May.

#1: President Jordan Lyman (Fredric March) and a team of anti-conspiracy allies are watching filmed footage of two Pentagon higher-ups (including John Larkin‘s Col. Broderick, a close confidante of Burt Lancaster‘s General James Mattoon Scott) spying on the President’s vacation home from a rowboat. Someone notes that the conspirators must be small in number or else why would Broderick, a Pentagon bigwig, be engaged in routine surveillance work? And it hits you that this whole menacing conspiracy is a small-scale affair. Just six or seven middle-aged men on either side, playing for opposing teams. The film needed a scene or two demonstrating the overwhelming military power that the bad guys had at the ready. Jets, tanks, warships, armed battalions.

#2: A nighttime scene at a secret New Mexico air base (“Site Y”) being used by the bad guys shows Colonel William Henderson (Andrew Duggan) escaping with Senator Ray Clark (Edmond O’Brien) in an open-top military tank. Henderson rifle-butts a soldier and guns the tank over a sand dune and into the night. And nobody chases after them? Site Y security chiefs presumably have all kinds of jeeps and helicopters at their disposal, and they can’t catch a tank driving through the desert at 35 or 40 mph? Broderick and O’Brien should’ve escaped in a chopper. That I would half-buy.