I’m naturally presuming that this “leaked” 2013 Cannes competition roster is bogus until I hear otherwise from at least two people in a position to know. But if it’s genuine — I say “if” — everyone will be over the moon about seeing Alexander Payne‘s black-and-white Nebraska, which you have to automatically assume will be a Best Picture contender because…you know, the Payne brand. This is just what Cannes needed. But let’s not jump the gun. The official announcement is 12 or 13 hours away.

io9‘s Meredith Woerner reports the following from Cinemacon about some teaser footage from Alfonso Cuaron‘s Gravity: “It was quick and dirty, but completely terrifying. The only bit of information we’ve ever had on this flick is this one-line synopsis: ‘Astronauts attempt to return to earth after debris crashes into their space shuttle, leaving them drifting alone in space.’ What was shown was this moment, and only this moment.

“George Clooney and Sandra Bullock hovering outside of some sort of spacecraft in modern-day space suits. Clooney’s voice crackles over a radio, ‘It’s gorgeous, isn’t it? The sunrise?’ The earth is simply twinkling in gorgeous light. They nod toward each other, a moment of silence while orbiting their home planet. And then they’re hit. You can’t tell what but they’re showered with some sort of space debris. Could be a meteor shower. The space station is shattered. One floating astronaut helplessly drags his or her fingers across the side of the station. The other grapples with some sort of tubing. ‘Don’t let go!’ Bullock cries. But it’s too late. She’s floating away, ever so slowly. You can hear her breathing pick up as she floats farther and farther away from the damaged craft. We’re not 100% sure if Clooney manages to stay near the wreck, but Bullock is 100% gone.

“All in all,” Woerner concludes, “the footage felt like [it lasted] one minute — but it was intense enough to leave a massive impression. Let’s hope Cuaron keeps the real “terror in space” vibe alive through the end.” One presumes that the footage was in 3D, although Weorner doesn’t mention this/

This will not be taken as surprising by anyone in the know, but a European distribution guy told me the following this morning: “Not that it matters much only one day before the official announcement, but I’ve got confirmation from [a 100% reliable source] that Inside Llewyn Davis, the new Coen brothers film, and Only God Forgives, the allegedly ultra-violent Nicholas Winding Refn-Ryan Gosling filme, will indeed play in competition in Cannes. Inside Llewyn Davis will apparently screen on the first weekend, and Only God Forgives on the second Wednesday.

After confirming earlier that a restored Shane would be screened at the TCM Classic Festival in the reviled 1.66 format, N.Y. Post critic/columnist Lou Lumenick tweeted this morning that “TCMfilmfest will now show Shane in 1:37 instead of 1:66 ‘because Paramount is making both available.'” That’s code, trust me, for “the powers-that-be have thrown in the towel.” If Shane Bluray distributor Warner Home Video was in a balls-out, damn-the-defiant mode for the 1.66 version, they would have insisted that it be screened in that format at the TCM festival.

The 1.66 Shane Bluray will still come out in early June, of course, but I’m told that a 1.37 alternative version will be made available later this year, probably via Warner Archives.

Needless to add plans to picket the 4.27 Shane screening at the TCM Classic Film Festival have been called off. And I went all the way downtown yesterday to get my public demonstration permit, or at least to start the process. At least I didn’t buy the poster-picket materials — posterboard, wooden pickets, magic markers, heavy staples.

All hail Team 1.37! Sincere thanks to Woody Allen, Joseph McBride, Bob Furmanek and all the commenters who stood up and said the right thing. And shame on those Home Theatre Forum commenters who kept insisting that 1.66 was a proper way to go because Paramount marketing execs insisted on cropping the original film in order to deliver a faux-panoramic screen experience in first-run theatres back in the spring of 1953.

A black-tie Shane 1.37 “boxy is beautiful” victory dinner for late April (just before or just after the 4.27 Shane screening at TCMfest) is being planned as we speak. I was going to to book a suite at the Beverly Hills hotel for the occasion, but now I’m thinking a rear table at Mel’s on the Strip is a better idea.

Haven’t even watched this yet. About to. Just got home from a screening of Jeff Nichols‘ Mud (Lionsgate/Roadside, 4.26). One of the year’s best in my book. Steady, solid and delivered just right. A coming-of-age story without a drop of treacly sentiment and no pandering to the saps. One of the finest Southern-flavored dramas about small-town rural values that I’ve ever seen, right up there with Sling Blade, Tender Mercies, The Straight Story, The Trip to Bountiful.

Wow…this keeps hitting me in waves. I guess I’ve been in denial on some level. This is really, really going to a boilerplate Superman origin story. Same old story, more or less. Dying Krypton, Jor-El, “goodbye, my son,” Smallville, Pa Kent, General Zod, “sent here for a reason”…all of it. Maybe with better dialogue, perhaps with better acting. But the same drill. Okay, minus Lex Luthor, Otis and Miss Tessmacher. Small favors.

If you’re making any kind of realistic ’70s movie your wardrobe and hair choices are going to horrify or sicken a good portion of your audience, even those who lived through that sartorially-disastrous decade. This certainly seems to be the case with David O. Russell‘s American Hustle, a title which alludes to honest entrepeneurship as much as cons and flim-flams. The film formerly known as “Russell’s ABSCAM flick” (and before that American Bullshit) finally got a firm title yesterday.

American Hustle montage stolen from Indiewire.

When I said “realistic ’70s movie” I meant one that excludes X-factor people. Nobody wants to admit this and I’m sure I’ll be called an elitist for saying so, but only semi-clueless bridge-and-tunnel people from lower-middle-class “meathead” neighborhoods (i.e., those who weren’t connected to dynamic big-city culture) wore laughably grotesque ’70s threads.

I was bopping around on the fringes in the mid to late ’70s and I never wore a fucking leisure suit or elephant collars or gaudy sunglasses or had godawful “big-hair.” Okay, I wore flared jeans but I was mainly into T-shirts and Frye boots and Brian DePalma-styled khaki bush-safari jackets and that whole American Gigolo/Giorgi Armani/Milan-influenced thing (i.e., nifty sport jackets, Italian loafers, shirts with small pointed collars).

HE to Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu: Congrats on yesterday’s start of principal photography on Birdman, your Michael Keaton-Edward Norton dramedy about a somewhat faded Hollywood actor from the CG-bullshit-blockbuster realm trying to revive his career by starring in a Broadway play based on a Raymond Carver story. Nobody likes to put pressure on themselves but the Fox Searchlight release suggests that your film could be released at the end of 2013. If you decide to make the effort and add gray hairs.

A rep for Fox Searchlight, Birdman‘s distributor, says “we’re targeting 2014” so that’s that, I guess. Then again David O. Russell‘s ABSCAM film is only a month ahead of you and that will definitely be released by mid December, Sony has announced. I realize it wouldn’t be easy but you could do it.

A ten-week shoot means you’ll be wrapped on July 1st or by July 15th if you go twelve weeks. If you firmly commit to five months in post-production you could have Birdman ready for release by mid-December. Especially if you shoot for ten weeks. Definitely possible and not all that crazy. If the editing goes well and the Movie Godz are favoring.

Shooting for Cannes 2014 is the simpler and more sensible thing — I get that. And you’ve never done a “comedy” so this is new turf. I’ll assume 2014 unless I hear otherwise…howzat?

In addition to Keaton and Norton Birdman costars Lindsay Duncan, Zach Galifianakis, Andrea Riseborough, Amy Ryan, Emma Stone and Naomi Watts. The film will be a New Regency production with Inarritu and John Lesher serving as producers. Pic will be produced by New Regency. Fox Searchlight Pictures will market and distribute.

A Bluray of Andrew V. NcLaglen‘s McLintock (’63) came out three weeks ago. It’s not an especially admirable John Wayne film — a rowdy, overly broad western farce and nowhere near as entertaining in that regard as North to Alaska (’60). Boiled down it has one really good scene (i.e., “the hell I won’t”). And it’s noteworthy for using an exclamation point in the title.

Two questions: What other semi-respectable films have used exclamation points or question marks in their titles? (All I can think of are Them! and Quo Vadis?) And what films are known for being mostly a wash except for one really good or at least half-decent scene?

Roughly 18 hours ago (or sometime yesterday around 2 pm Pacific) Patton Oswalt posted a statement about yesterday afternoon’s Boston bombings. HE is surely among the last sites to link to this but what the hell. While I feel awful for the victims and for the citizens of Boston affected by the sonic impact of this sickening act, I don’t feel the least bit bummed out or dispirited by it, certainly not in a general philosophical sense. Oswalt was bummed by the 9/11 attacks but not this time. He explains as follows:

“This is a giant planet and we’re lucky to live on it but there are prices and penalties incurred for the daily miracle of existence. One of them is, every once in awhile, the wiring of a tiny sliver of the species gets snarled and they’re pointed towards darkness. But the vast majority stands against that darkness and, like white blood cells attacking a virus, they dilute and weaken and eventually wash away the evil doers and, more importantly, the damage they wreak.

“This is beyond religion or creed or nation. We would not be here if humanity were inherently evil. We’d have eaten ourselves alive long ago. So when you spot violence, or bigotry, or intolerance or fear or just garden-variety misogyny, hatred or ignorance, just look it in the eye and think, ‘The good outnumber you, and we always will.'”

Last night the first-ever Chicago Critics Film Festival came to a close, and following a screening of a mint-condition 35mm print of Sorcerer followed by q & a with William Friedkin, the legendary director closed with some Dylan Thomas verse for Roger Ebert.