Earlier this afternoon I took part in a Carlton Hotel round-table chat with Nebraska costars Bruce Dern, Will Forte and June Squibb. Dern was the life of the party, going on about everyone and everything, a totally crackerjack raconteur telling the greatest stories about John Wayne, Alexander Payne, Walter Hill, etc. Sharp as a tack and a naturally affable charmer. The Cowboys, The Driver, Drive He Said, Castle Keep, The Laughing Policeman…the publicist had to drag him out of the room.

Nebraska costar and likely Best Supporting Actor contender Bruce Dern, especially if Dern works the circuit. The guy’s a natural and he’s been humping it since the mid ’60s…almost 50 years.

Nebraska costar Will Forte — Friday, 5.24, Carlton Hotel, 2:55 pm.

Nebraska costar June Squibb.

James Gray‘s The Immigrant is a respectably authentic period drama, set in 1921 Manhattan, about a beautiful Polish immigrant named Ewa (Marion Cotillard) and her struggle to survive the cruel, slimy exploitations of Bruno (Joaquin Phoenix), a pimp who doubles as a low-level theatrical showman. Darius Khondji‘s Godfather, Part II-like photography and the general production values are top of the line, but the pace is slow and the story is a ho-hummer.

Maton Cotillard, star of The Immigrant. of

(l. to. r.) Jeremy Renner, director-writer James Gray, Marion Cotillard — Friday, 5.24, 11:15 am.

The Immigrant costar Jeremy Renner.

It’s one thing to doze off during a print or radio interview, but on camera? It’s too blatant — it must be a form of subtle commentary. On some deep-down, perhaps-repressed level Morgan Freeman allowed himself to doze off during this Now You See Me chat because (again, I’m talking about deeply submerged feelings) he thinks the film is basically another negligible programmer and a paycheck job. If he were being interviewed for a major James Cameron or Alfonso Curaon film, do you think he’d allow himself to nod off? Nothing is accidental. Everything we do is intentional self-expression.

(Tip of the hat to Vulture‘s Amanda Dobbins.)

Richard Linklater‘s Before Midnight, which opens Friday, has one of the all-time-highest Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic scores. Todd Phillips‘ The Hangover Part III doesn’t have one of the lowest (RT 22%), but it’s pretty damn low. Anyone with half a brain knows that this final installment is going to take a huge dump on your face. And so it’s naturally going to earn impressive coin this weekend while Before Midnight, playing in far fewer theatres, will do respectably among those with indie-ish, somewhat rarified tastes.

Why? Because apes like the guy depicted above will probably steer clear of Before Midnight for the most part and probably flock to Hangover III, although I’m presuming it’s going to make less that the other two Hangover films. He and his brethren are real, they exist and they’re as much of a blight upon humanity as Bachar el-Assad.

At the end of today’s Roger Ebert tribute at the American Pavilion, the speaker-panelists (moderator Annete Insdorf, Chaz Ebert, Chicago Tribune critic Michael Phillips. L.A. Times critic Kenneth Turan and Indiewire critic Eric Kohn) joined the audience in posing for this thumbs-up “hail, Roger, good fellow” pic. Nice.

Like Sasha Stone, I’ve succumbed to an emotional downshift attitude as far as the Cannes Film Festival is concerned. Tomorrow is my last full day. James Gray‘s The Immigrant at 8:30 am, Jim Jarmusch‘s Last Lovers Left Alive at 7:30 pm and in-between a Nebraska round-table session at the Carlton. I don’t feel like seeing or doing anything more than these three things. I’ve just about had it with the 18-hour days. I’m getting a little ornery about this stuff.

I saw Nebraska this morning and then Blue Is The Warmest Color, which took me into the early afternoon, and then I did some writing in the Orange cafe, blah blah. And then I began to feel a little bummed about the Payne. I guess I was secretly looking for an emotional-aesthetic Nebraska uplift of some kind, and when it didn’t manifest according to expectations, I went into a private tailspin. I felt as I was in a B-17 over Germany with one of my engines on fire. I bailed out with my parachute and I landed somewhere near my apartment at 7 rue Jean Joseph Mero, dazed and shaken and asking myself “What happened? Who am I? Why do I feel this way?”

I spent three hours watching Abdellatif Kechiche‘s Blue Is The Warmest Color (11:30 to 2:30) and then I ran right into the Jerry Lewis press conference and I’ve been diddling around in the Orange press cafe since so I haven’t had time to post anything. And I have to leave for a 5:30 screening in about 15 minutes or so. It’s an involving, very intimate, emotionally readable film about a lesbian love affair…but just one about a love affair, really. People tumble, they’re entranced, they dig into their lives, complications develop and differences occur.

The only presumption that makes sense about why the 11 am press screening for Daniel Noah‘s Max Rose was cancelled is that the sales guys were afraid that the critics would savage it and that they might be forced to take less money as a result. The Rose team wanted the public screening (which is happening at the Salle du Soixantieme this evening at 7:30 pm) to be the only venue, but the festival pushed for a press screening. Or so I gather. At least I got to attend the Jerry Lewis press conference, which happened at 2:30 pm.

Lewis is 87, and he’s still plenty sharp. I laughed out loud several times. He’s cruel and dismissive, okay, but he’s fucking funny.

I don’t want to put Nebraska down too much. I “liked” it as far as it goes, but so much of it is about capturing the banality of sedentary midwestern lifestyles, and the whole thing just feels overly measured and mid-range and almost resigned. Bruce Dern‘s Woody Grant reminded me of my cranky, cantankerous dad during his last days, and Will Forte does a very decent job as a loving if somewhat conflicted and resentful son. It’s a very commendable mood-and-atmosphere piece from a respected, first-rate filmmaker, so I don’t want to be snide or dismissive. It’s fine.