I paid a brief visit last Monday to the Studio Babelsberg set of Brian Percival‘s The Book Thief, which was shooting on the outdoor World War II-era “European street.” This theatrical neighborhood has been used by Roman Polanski‘s The Pianist and Quentin Tarantino‘s Inglorious Basterds, among many other productions. During a chat with producers Ken Blancato and Karen Rosenfelt I was reminded that Studio Babelsberg has lost its lease on the section of the lot where the set stands, and therefore the entire street is being demolished to make way for residential real estate. It breaks my heart but the same thing happened 50-odd years ago to the old MGM backlot in Culver City.

Studio Babelsberg’s European WWII set adjacent to main lot — Monday, 5.13, 3:45 pm.

Update: Zach Braff has responded to Pamela McLintock‘s 5.15 Hollywood Reporter story about his having landed a “full” financing deal for Wish I Was Here through Worldview Entertainment, which has prompted some to ask (a) why he’s holding on to his Kickstarter fund ($2.6 million) and/or (b) why Kickstarter contributors don’t just pull their support.

“The story out there about the movie being fully funded by some financier is wrong,” Braff writes. “I have said on here and in every interview I’ve done on this project that the film would be fully financed from three sources: (a) My Kickstarter Backers, (b) my own money and (c) Pre-Selling foreign theatrical distribution. Those three amounts will bring us to a budget of around 5 to 6 million dollars.

Every fledgling filmmaker is allowed at least one rank embarassment. This is a stab at an opening-credit sequence for a curiously lame short film that I made with a couple of friends in the ’70s. Never mind the particulars. It was called Beyond Embarassment (and not “embarassing,” as the clip is called). What the hell, I’m not that embarassed. It was just a little wank. No animals were killed during the making. The raincoat routine was inspired by a bit in Robert Downey Sr.‘s Putney Swope.

I think I knew it would prove vaguely embarassing later in life, whch is why I used the nom du cinema Peter Bongo.

I’m sitting in my Cannes apartment, damp and chilled from the rain and trying to get Amat Escalante‘s Heli out of my head. It’s a starkly drawn, no-frills, deeply ugly Mexican art film about the ravaging of Mexican society by drug traffickers and how poor people always take it in the neck. I respect Escalante (Sangre, Los Bastardos) and his austere mindset, but there would have to be something wrong with anyone who says they “liked” this movie. It uncovered every dark and fatalistic thought I’ve had about my life and about life in general, and generally sent me into a black-dog mood pit.

I know that vampires have great sex. We all know that. I first considered this notion when I was a kid and saw…well, not Bela Lugosi‘s Dracula but certainly Christopher Lee in The Horror of Dracula. So a teaser for a vampire movie that conveys this yet again isn’t doing enough.

After all the complaining about the excessively flamboyant tone and cotton-candy gloss of Baz Luhrman‘s The Great Gatsby, I was surprised to discover that it’s not that that crazy. I suppose I’d been so well prepped that it didn’t bother me like I thought it might. Near-psychedelic fizz-pop is the style in which Luhrman dreams and composes. Faulting it for being excessive in this regard is like faulting Vincent Van Gogh for painting too fast. You can say “I prefer films that are more naturalistic and moderate in their manner” and that’s fine, but the fact that this movie delivers in a swirling, non-naturalistic form doesn’t constitute a “problem” in and of itself.

Early this afternoon The Great Gatsby star Leonardo DiCaprio, whose performance as Jay Gatsby is rather broad and exaggerated and yet sad and affecting, delivered a pretty good riff about what drew him to Baz Lauhrman‘s film and particularly to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel. The moment happened early in the 1 pm press conference, which was also attended by Luhrman and costars Carey Mulligan, Tobey Maguire, Joel Edgerton, Isla Fisher, Elizabeth Debicki and Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan, who is a totally inappropriate distraction and generally a bizarre presence due to the obvious fact that he’s had facial work done.

A beach-frolic shot from Terrence Malick‘s Knight of Cups (Christian Bale, Natalie Portman, sandy feet, waves, laughter) is being called an exclusive and the pic’s “first official still” by The Hollywood Reporter‘s Pamela Mclintock. Which it is, apparently, except loads of similar shots were posted last May by Indiewire and other sites. I don’t feel the thrill.

The Hollywood Reporter‘s exclusive image from Knight of Coups.

One of many shots that appeared online last May.

Footage from Cups, which will presumably be ready for release sometime in 2014 (although with Malick you never know) is being screened for Cannes buyers by Glen Basner‘s FilmNation. (Last year Basner’s team blocked me from attending buyers’ screenings of Mud, and therefore kept me out fo the conversation until just before it opened stateside — thanks, guys!) McLintock writes that “the film’s tightly guarded plot is said to be about celebrities and excess.” Don’t you believe it. Knight of Cups, trust me, is going to be about whatever is swimming through Malick’s head as he’s cutting it — nothing more and nothing less.

Hollywood Reporter critic Todd McCarthy is hearing that J.C. Chandor‘s All Is Lost, an old-man-and-the-sea survivalist drama starring Robert Redford, is a “non-CG Life of Pi.” And dialogue-free, according to a Redford quote that apppeared last January. As long there’s no Bengal tiger involved I’m okay with that. But Redford is in his mid 70s, right? Born in ’36. Okay, next year he’ll be in his late 70s.

It’s highly doubtful I’ll be sharing any original impressions of The Great Gatsby after catching it this morning at 10 am, or 100 minutes from now. The Gatsby conversation is over and done with. I just have to see it now and get it over with. (Thanks again, Warner Bros. publicity, for not letting me catch that 10.2 screening in NYC.) I’ll be seeing it with the four or five other American stragglers who haven’t yet had the pleasure plus all the European critics and journalists.

After last night’s La Pizza gathering I walked around for an hour or so. Even with workmen painting crosswalks and drilling down street barriers and all the other last-minute stuff, Cannes can be quite peaceful and serene, even, before the festival begins. Obviously good for the soul, reminding the traveller that life is about more than just the rumble and the hubbub. Speaking of which I’d better hurry up — The Great Gatsby screening begins in two hours.

Tuesday, 5.14, 10:35 pm.

I walked by the marina last night and took shots of the super-yachts, which are vulgar as the day is long. For every beautiful wooden sailing ship, there are 15 fat-assed, elephant-penis yachts that are all about conveying how rich their owners are and how fearful (or disdainful?) they are of the sea and the natural order of things. I walked by a dark-blue yacht that looked an awful lot like Spielberg’s, moored in a closed-off security area and protected by goons. I guess the yacht was waiting for him to return from dinner, and then it would take him out to the middle of the bay. Talk about serenity — that’s about as tranquil and soul-soothing as it gets.

There’s something oddly affecting about being up at 4:30 am at my 19th Century rental not far from the Cannes marina (7 rue Jean Joseph Mero) and hearing the seagulls cawing and meowing and almost barking like seals overhead. The light is somewhere between dark blue and shrouded gray and the city has yet to stir, but the gulls, man….”Eerrrraaaaww! Earhahw! Earhahw…muck, muck, muck, muck!” Gulls have sounded like this for thousands of years, but there’s something about being here and really listening to them in the pre-dawn quiet…it’s a moment.