I caught this morning’s 8:30 am screening of Wang Xiaoshuai‘s Chongquing Blues — the general grimness, slow pace and repetition did me in. I tried too late to get into an 11 am screening of Sabina Guzzanti‘s Draquila — Italy Trembles, a docu about Silvio Berlusconi. I’ve just come out of Radu Muntean‘s Tuesday, After Christmas — an emotionally rounded, very well acted Roumanian drama about an extra-marital affair and its inevitable consequence. And now I have 15 minutes to make a 4:30 pm screening of Im Sangsoo‘s The Housemaid. No time to write, much less think things through.

I’ve twice read Mike Goodridge‘s explanation story about why Bob Berney bolted from Apparition….and I still don’t entirely get it. I get the part about Apparition having gradually slid into a weakened financial state due to distribution disappointments such as The Runaways and Bright Star. Then came the coup de grace, he says, when Apparition lost out on distributing Fair Game, the Doug Liman political drama, which apparently led Berney to see the company as a sinking ship.

Indiewire‘s Anne Thompson has disputed Goodridge’s report, saying that the Fair Game deal was “not a factor…Summit always had first crack at North American rights to the Doug Liman thriller, which is budgeted in the $30-million range…not only do Pohlad and Summit have a long relationship, but Participant is a majority investor in Summit.”

Thompson explains that The Runaways was “the movie that most tested the Pohlad/Berney partnership…after a splashy media launch at Sundance, Pohlad altered Berney’s distribution plans, drastically pulling the film back from a planned wide release to a more conservative platform. In fact, the movie played best inside the art-house niche with fans of the original 70s group, topping out at $3.5 million. But in today’s marketplace, many movies don’t get that far.”

Here’s Goodridge’s report:

“Cannes competition title Fair Game appears to be the chief reason behind Bob Berney’s abrupt departure from Apparition, the company he co-founded with Bill Pohlad and unveiled this time last year.

“Doug Liman’s Valerie Plame drama starring Naomi Watts and Sean Penn was never necessarily going to be an Apparition release. Pohlad’s production company River Road Entertainment said that it planned to secure a hefty MG and wide release commitment from any prospective buyers.

“But when Summit Entertainment bought the film last month in a deal closed by CAA for River Road and co-financiers Participant Media/Imagenation Abu Dhabi, the terms of the deal were not as rich as expected. Summit wasn’t required to come up with a huge MG and will probably release Fair Game on a platform basis — Berney’s specialty.

“Berney is thought to have been surprised by the Summit/Fair Game deal which was presented to him as a fait accompli.

“River Road, which is run by Mitch Horwits for Pohlad, has a close relationship with Summit which handled international sales on Fair Game, and was known to be disappointed by Apparition’s release of its production The Runaways, the rock and roll biopic which has grossed just $3.5 million after two months on release in the US.

“‘It got good enough reviews but it didn’t cross over,’ Berney told Screen last month. ‘It plays like an art film.’

“Nor was it easy for Berney and his staff to operate on a reduced budget after Pohlad and CAA were unable to raise additional funding to finance the p & a funds of the new company. The company had been restructured with a lower risk profile in light of the disappointment of Apparition’s first release Bright Star and the failure to raise additional funding.

“Berney is attending Cannes this week, while plans for the future of Apparition are as yet unclear.

“‘I have no comment at this time and wish Bill Pohlad much success,’ said Berney when reached yesterday.”

George Nolfi‘s The Adjustment Bureau (Universal, 9.17) is some kind of trippy spooky thing starring Matt Damon (wearing one of those abominable straw hats that regimented American conformists wore in the ’50s) and Emily Blunt. Based on a 1954 Philip K. Dick short story called “The Adjustment Team,” it’s about the relatonship between a politician (Damon) and a ballerina (Blunt) being “thrown into disarray by the mysterious forces at work beneath the surface of their virtual world,” etc.

Set in the mid ’50s, it’s some kind of Matrix-y type deal. “Do we control our destiny, or do unseen forces manipulate us?,” etc.

Last month an IMDB guy named “Master Haas” claimed to have seen a research screening of The Adjustment Bureau, and wrote (for what it is worth) the following:

“Surprisingly good movie! Damon and Blunt had great chemistry. The ending was a bit of a letdown though. They seemed aware of this since they asked us specifically about the end. If they can make the ending a bit more interesting or powerful, they might have a great movie on their hands…

“If I were them I’d be worried about opening so close to Inception, as this could get lost in the shuffle. A holiday release seems much more appropriate as [this] is a fairly light, breezy film. Think The Matrix filtered through Catch Me If You Can.”

I caught a film late yesterday afternoon that I need to maintain silence about until tomorrow morning. But it turned me around so I texted a couple of people about my feelings when I emerged, and then I went into the Orange Cafe to fiddle around and ran into Awards Daily ‘s Sasha Stone. We subsequently met Inside Job co-cinematographer Svetlana Cvetko and editor-screenwriter David Scott Smith for a nice noisy dinner around 9:30 pm.

A Robin des Bois fireworks display on the Majestic pier — 5.12, 10:55 pm.

Washington Post critic Ann Hornaday, I learned, had suffered a technological trauma in the late morning when her computer suffered a fatal seizure. Tough breaks add to the stress…I’m sorry. A new hard drive is being installed, or something along those lines.

And then I scooted off to the Robin Hood party, which was lavishly catered and very nice except for two belligerent security guys who wouldn’t let me in because I had a big camera slung around my neck. A Universal publicist gently but forcefully interceded — thanks much! Inside I chatted with L.A. Times columnist Pete Hammond and Fox co-chairman Jim Gianopulos. And then nature called and I learned soon after that the party didn’t have facilities to help guests deal with such matters. So I walked out to a deserted area of the beach about 50 yards to the west. And then the security guy wouldn’t let me back in even though I had an all-access pass. That’s when I knew it was time to pack it in.

Every year I fantasize about being motor-boated out to one of the ships in the bay and having drinks or dinner on-board. It’ll probably never happen.

Late yesterday afternoon at the American Pavilion (photo by Sasha Stone).

Every year I run one of these Orange Cafe videos — an attempt to convey the sense of meditative solace and and safety and serenity, even, that working here provides. It’s the emotional and spiritual ground zero of the festival, for me.

Indie publicist Adam Kersh (formerly of 42West) sent me this video of Daddy Longlegs co-director Benny Safdie in a recent sandwich-board attempt to attract attention for his film, which opens Friday, 5.14 on one screen at the IFC Center. “Benny took to the streets last weekend to make sure he had a few more people on his side as Daddy Longlegs goes head-to-head with Robin Hood (opening on 3,000+ screens),” etc.

Daddy Longlegs is a movie about fathering, or more particularly “a swan song to excuses and irresponsibilities; to fatherhood and self-created experiences, and to what its like to be truly torn between being a child and being an adult.”

I wasn’t picked and therefore didn’t ask Russell Crowe about a perception that Robin Hood is either sympathetic to or in league with tea-bagger sentiments (i.e., against oppressive governments that don’t respect Average Joes and tax without giving anything back, etc.). And Crowe dodged a question about what Robin Hood would be for or against in today’s political world.

He did, however, convey his usual disdain for mainstream media (i.e., “you people”), and particularly its ownership/control by corporations (and its resultant obsession with trivial bullshit). He conveyed this physically, as you’ll see in this video clip, and later verbally. The man is funny, brilliant, perceptive and no fool. And one of the few genuine movie stars left.

I’ve emerged from my second Robin Hood screening with my initial reactions intact — it’s an expertly made, handsomely shot, very well acted film with a story that deserves at least some favor for not doing the same old Robin Hood sha-la-la.

And I was even more taken this time because the projection and sound at the Salle Debussy are unmistakably better than at Manhattan’s Lincoln Square, where I saw it the first time. It really does matter if a film looks and sounds its very best.

Ridley Scott‘s Robin Hood is the first screening of the 2010 Cannes Film Festival, starting at 10 ayem. Give it another go or hunker down in the Orange press room and wait for the 12:45 pm press conference? Scott won’t be there due to knee surgery, but I intend to ask Russell Crowe about perceptions that it’s a tea-bagger movie, or at least that it panders to tea-bagger sentiments.

If I was a commercial airline pilot, I would dodge the Iceland volcanic ash by flying to Europe in the style of Slim Pickens’ Major Kong in Dr. Strangelove, maintaining an altitude of no more than two or three hundred feet. “If we was flyin’ any lower we’d need sleighbells on this thing…”