I’m not trying to be a nitpicker but I suffered a basic blockage with Alexander Payne‘s Nebraska that I couldn’t get around. The primary plot driver, contained in Bob Nelson‘s script, is a belief by Bruce Dern‘s Woody Grant, an ornery 70-something alcoholic who’s at least partly out to lunch, that he’s won a million dollar prize from a Publisher’s Clearing House sweepstakes drawing.

It’s 8:20 pm, you bet, and I’m sitting in a small park in the 6th arrondissement, and I’ve just pulled out the phone and read that Blue Is The Warmest Color has won the Palme d’Or, and that Nebraska‘s Bruce Dern and The Past‘s Berenice Bejo have won acting awards. Good for them.

Congrats also to Grand Prix Jury prize winner Inside Llewyn Davis, Heli‘s Amat Escalante for winning Best Director (what?), Best Screenplay winner Jia Zhangke for for A Touch Of Sin, and Jury Prize winner Kore-eda Hirokazu for Like Father, Like Son.

So the Dargis-Schwarzbaum complaint about Blue (i.e., too male horn-toady) fell upon deaf ears. “Once Dargis put down Blue Is The Warmest Color in NY Times the jurors felt obligated to ignore her,” a filmmaker friend opines. “All have been her victims. And her review was a clear attempt to show her power, by [attempting to destroy] the momentum of the film.”

These snaps aren’t particularly haunting or handsome or evocative of anything — they’re just leftovers. But at least they imply a pleasant fiction, which is that the 2013 Cannes Film Festival was a pleasant, warm-weather experience. It was actually one of the most unpleasant film festivals I’ve ever attended in my life from a meteorological perspective. Constant rainshowers, cool gusty winds, dampness, occasional downpours, lost umbrellas, sweaters, damp socks…just awful.

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.

J.C. Chandor‘s All Is Lost has completely blown everyone away at the Cannes Film Festival. (I didn’t see it until this evening.) It’s a knockout –a riveting piece of pure dialogue-free cinema, a terrific survival-on-the-high-seas tale and major acting triumph for Robert Redford, who hasn’t been this good since…what, Brubaker? All The President’s Men? A long time.

Robert Redford during post-screening yacht party in Cannes — Wednesday, 5.22, 9:55 pm.

Two years after Margin Call, director-writer J.C. Chandor has achieved the exact opposite of a sophomore slump.

Has there ever been a mostly-dialogue-free commercial film that has worked so successfully since the advent of sound in 1927? What a landmark this film is. And every minute is absorbing. It has you by the head and the throat, and it never lets up. And it ends so beautifully and succinctly.

The question on everyone’s mind tonight was “why wasn’t this film chosen to play in competition?” If it had been All Is Lost would be a clear contender for the Palme d’Or and Redford would certainly be neck-and-neck with Behind The Candelabra‘s Michael Douglas and Inside Llewyn Davis‘s Oscar Isaac for Best Actor, and perhaps on the verge of edging them out.

I was told during tonight’s after-party that the festival honchos didn’t want All Is Lost in competition because it was “too commercial” What? Nothing about All Is Lost says “overtly commercial” It may turn out to be a hit and good for Chandor, Redford and Lionsgate if that happens, but it’s going to be a bit of a struggle to get Joe and Jane Popcorn to pay to see an almost entirely talk-free movie about an older guy struggling to stay alive on the open seas. But I’m telling you straight and true it’s one of the most powerful, absorbing, original-feeling survivalist dramas ever made.

In this alone-at-sea aspect, it’s five times better than The Old Man and the Sea and far more interesting that Life of Pi.

All Is Lost director-writer J.C. Chandor, publicist David Pollick.

All Is Lost producer Neal Dodson, Redford.

For whatever reason Jessica Chastain, here in Cannes on a promotional venture I’ve yet to learn the nature of, was asked by Fox Filmed Entertainment chairman & CEO Jim Gianopulos to offer a few remarks before tonight’s Salle du Soixantime screening of the digitally restored Cleopatra (’63). Nebraska director Alexander Payne also attended the black-tie event, along with Laura Dern (are they “happening” or are they just pallies based on Dern having starred in Payne’s Citizen Ruth way back when?).

Fox Filmed Entertainmetn chairman & CEO Jim Gianopulos, Jessica Chastain at Salle du Soixantieme earlier this evening.

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.

I’ll have 10 and 1/2 days at the Cannes Film Festival (Wednesday, 5.15 thru Saturday midday, 5.25) and at least 27 films to view, and that’s with a lot of trims. The non-competitive Great Gatsby on 5.15 (thanks again to Warner Bros. publicity for refusing to let me catch it in NYC last Thursday morning) plus 12 Competition films (Nicolas Winding Refn‘s Only God Forgives, Paolo Sorrentino‘s La Grande Bellezza, Jim Jarmusch‘s Only Lovers Left Alive, Steven Soderbergh‘s Behind the Candelabra, Roman Polanski‘s Venus in Fur, Alexander Payne‘s Nebraska, Francois Ozon‘s Young and Beautiful, Takashi Miike‘s Straw Shield, James Gray‘s The Immigrant, Asghar Farhadi‘s The Past, Arnaud Desplechin‘s Jimmy P., Joel and Ethan Coen‘s Inside Llewyn Davis) for a total of 13.

What’s with the “aaahh, crap…what is all this?” look on Bruce Dern‘s face? Older guys often wear this cranky expression. Fucking crap, getting older and older, my pants are too lose around my waist, eff me, I need a snort. My late father, who stopped drinking in his 50s, used to walk around with this pissed-off, crabby-ass attitude….”aaaahhhh!” He basically hated what age was doing to him.

This is a still, of course, from Alexander Payne‘s Nebraska. It was released yesterday with a USA Today story about the film, which will have its big debut at the Cannes Film Festival.

“I had been sitting on this Nebraska script even when I did Sideways,” Payne tells Bryan Alexander. “But I didn’t want to go back to a road-trip movie right after that. I was really tired of shooting people in cars. I’m serious. It’s a drag. But after Descendants, I came back to this story.”

Nebraska is about Woody and son David Grant (Dern, Will Forte) and debts and a possible winning pot from Publisher’s Clearing House. Has anyone ever won anything from Publisher’s Clearing House? Ever? PCH was used for a joke in a Fletch movie, as I recall.

Payne tells Alexander that he shot Nebraska in black and white because it’s “cool…[it] just felt like the right thing to do.” That’s fine, Mr. Payne, but did you check with Vinny Bruzzese before committing to monochrome?

Some interesting analysis/background on the official Cannes Film festival slate has been suppled by Deadline‘s Nancy Tartaglione. Here are some highlights:

Festival honcho Thierry Fremaux told Tartaglione that he only saw Alexander Payne‘s Nebraska “48 hours ago” (I guess that translates to 60 to 72 hours ago in immediate terms) and very soon after confirmed its inclusion.

A reluctant Steven Soderbergh was persuaded by Fremaux to accept a competition position with Behind The Candelabra “after originally saying he’d prefer another slot,” Tartaglione reports. “Fremaux wrote Soderbergh a diatribe on why he should accept a competition berth, [and] Soderbergh responded by email with a simple ‘Yes.'” Wells comment: I’m fairly certain that Fremaux’s plea included a statement along the lines of “this is your last film before taking your Frank Sinatra retirement — you deserve the respect of having your ‘final effort’ in competition, if only as a tribute to your filmography thus far.”

Fremaux “called Nicholas Winding-Refn‘s Only God Forgives the ‘radical and punk‘ film of the selection and warned, ‘Don’t expect Drive 2.'” Wells comment: I realize that — it’s going to be Drive 2: Sadistic Slicings with swords and bruisings and gougings and buckets of sticky red vino.

If you ask me the coolest-sounding competitors in the official 2013 Cannes Film Festival slate, announced in Paris five or six hours ago, are Alexander Payne‘s Nebraska, Joel and Ethan Coen’s Inside Llewyn Davis, Takashi Miike‘s Wara No Tate, Steven Soderbergh‘s Behind The Candelabra — the latter a surprise inclusion in the competition slate — and Roman Polanski‘s Venus in Fur.

I’m also especially keen to see four out-of-competition titles — Guillame Canet‘s Blood Ties, James Toback’s Seduced and Abandoned, Stephen Frears’ Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight and J.C. Chandor‘s All Is Lost (Robert Redford doing a variation on Spencer Tracy in The Old Man and The Sea?). And Sofia Coppola‘s The Bling Ring, of course, which will kick off Un Certain Regard.

I’m taking credit for being the only person predicting that Toback’s doc would be part of this festival in some capacity (which I posted on 4.6). I’m not aware that anyone else in the entire world even toyed with this possibility. Full disclosure: Toback told me his film was in but that I couldn’t mention it until the official announcement so I “predicted” instead.

I’m not that interested in Nicolas Winding Refn’s Only God Forgives, a competition selection, as early footage indicates an extremely fetishy ultra-violent tribute to Asian action-machismo, and as such will quite possibly feature swollen eyes, litres of spilt blood, swords, disembowelings, slicings, possible finger-and-toe choppings and you name it. I’m not trying to be a kneejerk contrarian but Ryan Gosling‘s pecs stained with dried blood and perhaps a speck or two of brain matter…later.

I was going to stay up until 2 or 3 am to file a Johnny-on-the-spot piece but eff that. I willfully screw up my sleep schedule for no man and no festival.

Payne’s Nebraska being part of the competition slate puts a nice juicy strawberry on top of the short cake and whipped cream — just what I needed and wanted.

Yesterday’s bogus leak slate was imagined, yes, but it wasn’t too far off the mark either — substitute a competition title or two and the only discredited predictions are Jim Jarmusch‘s Only Lovers Left Alive, Luc Besson‘s Malavita, David Gordon Green‘s Joe and one or two others. It’s significant that it forecasted Nebraska, I think, when certain handicappers (such as Deadline‘s Nancy Tartaglione) were predicting that Payne’s film would more likely play Telluride/Toronto.

I’m still trying to understand why James Gray‘s The Immigrant had been referred to in some quarters as The Lowlife. Was the more intriguing-sounding The Lowlife the initial choice or vice versa? Update: What does it matter? The point is that when a title switches around a lot it tends to mean something.

We all knew that Asghar Farhadi‘s Le Passe would be among the competition films but it’s good to have this confirmed.

I have to start boning up on the two Polanski films that will be shown during the fest — Venus in Fur and a special showing of Weekend of a Champion. I don’t know squat about either of them when you get right down to it.

My “Dream Cannes” picks would have include Paul Greengrass‘s Captain Phillips (why not?), Steve McQueen‘s 12 Years A Slave, Jason Reitman‘s Labor Day (which was test screened two or three months ago), Spike Lee‘s Oldboy and one of the two Terrence Malick films (Knight of Cups and the other one) that are still in editing and will probably remain there for another several months if not a year-plus.

Nobody in the U.S. press ensemble will express much enthusiasm much about Baz Luhrman‘s The Great Gatsby as it will have opened commercially in the U.S. on 5.10. The period drama will open the festival.