I’ve gotten used to presumptions about Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu‘s Birdman, Bennett Miller‘s Foxcatcher, David Cronenberg‘s Maps to the Stars, Tommy Lee JonesThe Homesman, the Dardennes brothersTwo Days, One Night, Michel HazanaviciusThe Search and Fatih Akin‘s The Cut playing at next month’s Cannes Film Festival. Now I’m warming to the idea of Paul Thomas Anderson‘s Inherent Vice (which has now been mentioned twice in Cannes projection pieces, most recently by Variety‘s Peter Debruge). Give me a week or two and I’ll be (a) completely invested in Vice‘s possible booking and (b) profoundly depressed if it doesn’t turn up.

Cannes selections are always the latest films from the same group of guys, over and over and over — Nuri Bilge Ceylan, the Dardenne brothers, Mike Leigh, etc. I’m very excited about Birdman but Inarritu is also part of this elite Croisette fraternity…Cronenberg, Akin, Hazanavicius…the same names and faces. Miller and Anderson are the only prospective invitees who have an aura of freshness.

I’m down for Ceylan’s Winter Sleep (whatever that uninviting title means), Leigh’s Mr. Turner, David Michod‘s The Rover and Abel Ferrara‘s Welcome to New York. All Asian films involving swords or violence of any kind or rural gloomhead airy-fairy atmosphere will be scrupulously ignored. I have a feeling that Susanne Bier‘s Serena may be a problem on some level. (The idea of Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper in a period piece doesn’t do it for me on some level).