I was going to give Takashi Miike‘s Straw Shield (Wara No Tate) a try, but a colleague told me it wasn’t reviewed all that favorably when it opened last month in Japan. So due respect but I guess not. I’ve got a James Toback interview at the Carlton 11 am and then an Inside Llewyn Davis press luncheon/roundtable thing in the same hotel, between 12:45 pm and roughly 2 pm.

Would it be impolite to blow off a portion of the ILD roundtables? Because James Franco‘s As I Lay Dying screens at the Salle Debussy at 2 pm, and if I miss that there’s the 2:15 pm Salle du Soixantime screening of Inside Llewyn Davis, which I really want to see again. There’s a 4 pm of Valeria Bruno Tedeschi‘s Un Chateau en Italie but the big film of the day is Paolo Sorrentino‘s La Grande Bellezza, which I gather is some kind of 21st Century La Dolce Vita. It screens at the Salle Debussy at 7pm, and there’s going to be a crowd.

Tomorrow marks my seventh day of humping around in this town, 18 hours a day. Five full days left starting today, and then a wake-up, Roman Polanski‘s Venus in Fur and some filing before flying to Paris late Saturday afternoon, 5.25.

Tomorrow’s big films are Steven Soderbergh‘s Behind The Candelabra, Frank Simon‘s Weekend of a Champion and Claire Denis‘ Les Salauds. Wednesday’s headliners are Nicholas Winding Refn‘s Only God Forgives and J.C. Chandor‘s All Is Lost. Thursday’s big draws are Alexander Payne‘s Nebraska,Daniel Noah‘s Max Rose and the Jerry Lewis press conference. Friday’s are James Gray‘s The Immigrant and Jim Jarmusch‘s Only Lovers Left Alive. My only Saturday screening will be Roman Palanski‘s Venus in Fur at 8:30 am.