Won't it be amusing if after Warners cuts back New Line Cinema, the label scores a raft of hits? Sex and the City, which appeals largely to women, is expected to score off the charts this weekend for a movie with virtually no allure for men. UPDATE: It may gross $20 million on its opening day, reports Pamela McClintock.

Nora and I will be going to an early Saturday screening, as most prime-time evening slots are pre-sold-out, according to online ticket sites MovieTickets.com (which reports that Sex and the City is now ranked number 19 10 on its list of top pre-sale films of all time) and Fandango, which states that as of Thursday morning, "the movie represents 92% of Fandango’s daily ticket sales, the highest daily percentage for any film so far this summer."

In anticipation of a big-titted hit, DreamWorks has clinched a first-look deal for Sex and the City's writer-director-producer, Michael Patrick King, writes Variety.

Metacritic ranks the film at a mid-range 54%. The NYT's Manohla Dargis does not like the film at all:

A little Botox goes a long way in “Sex and the City,” but a little decent writing would have gone even further. A dumpy big-screen makeover of that much-adored small-screen delight, the movie was written and directed by Michael Patrick King, one of the guiding lights and bright wits of the original series, based on Candace Bushnell’s newspaper columns and subsequent book. Once again, Sarah Jessica Parker has stepped into the dizzyingly high heels of Carrie Bradshaw, that postmodern Lorelei Lee — a hardly working New York writer with a passion for men and Manolos — but this time she’s taken a terrible tumble.

While in New York Magazine, David Edelstein gives Sex and the City thumbs up:

Has there ever been a TV series more polarizing than Sex and the City? It polarized me: First it drove me crazy (like itching powder), now I’m madly in love with it. It’s hard to feel halfway about these women and their unabashed materialism, overprivilege, and self-indulgence, their overdependence on and objectification of men. But what a hoot it is to see babes, for once, doing the objectifying—and talking dirty and sleeping around and measuring their fantasies against the sobering truth of male emotional insufficiency. If the core friendship of Carrie, Miranda, Samantha, and Charlotte is the biggest fantasy of all—they complement one another perfectly; they’re never too competitive—it’s a moving design for living: existential haute couture.

And at The Huffington Post, Us Magazine critic Thelma Adams blogs that the movie is no longer in tune with the times: "Sex and the City jumps the shark."

According to Us and People Magazine, Entertainment Tonight jumped the gun on reporting that Angelina Jolie has given birth to twins in the south of France, where she recently promoted two upcoming films, Kung Fu Panda and Clint Eastwood's Changeling.

This morning, I was scanning pregnancy photos and reading about the names Jolie had given her children. My first reaction was that given that she's carrying twins and was working the red carpet ropes like a pro just last week, it was early to be giving birth. What gives? In the rush to be first, are people just making this shit up?

1. Paolo Sorrentino's Il divo (Italy): concise, focused, accessible, fascinating and entertaining despite arcane Italian political setting, this portrait of Giulio Andreotti won the jury prize. I can't wait to see Sorrentino's next. (Il divo has no stateside distributor.)

2. Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York (USA): utterly disciplined, Kaufman did what he set out to do, brilliantly, with humor. (Still for sale in North America; Sidney Kimmel may not make back his $20 million.)

3. Steve McQueen's Hunger (UK): this masterful directorial debut deservedly won the Camera d'Or and pushes Michael Fassbender toward stardom. (IFC will distribute.)

4. Ari Folman's Waltz with Bashir (Israel): authentic and emotional, this hybrid docu-drama shows that there's a future beyond Persepolis for stylized animation in service of powerful story-telling. (SPC will release.)

5. James Gray's Two Lovers (USA): this director-on-the-rise is back on track and elicits one of Joaquin Phoenix's best perfs. (If 2929 Entertainment doesn't get the deal it's seeking, its own distrib Magnolia will release.)

6. Clint Eastwood's Changeling (USA): the only potential best picture Oscar contender at Cannes this year (among many likely foreign film candidates); Angelina Jolie should land a nom. (Universal will likely take it on the fall fest circuit.)

7. Kim Jee-Woon's The Good, The Bad and the Weird (Korea): this stunning Oriental Western homage to Eastwood and Leone boasts high-speed action like you've never seen before: think Stagecoach meets Jackie Chan meets The Road Warrior. This broad action comedy could be hugely commercial.

8. Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona (USA): thanks to Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz's entertaining hijinks, this is Allen's best film since 1997's Deconstructing Harry. With Harvey at her back, Cruz is on her way to a supporting Oscar nod.

9. James Toback's Tyson (USA): this psychologically intimate interview with an iconic figure who is not all that he seems is not just for fight fans. (SPC will release.)

10. Atom Egoyan's Adoration (Canada): yet again, brainy auteur Egoyan explores the faulty fiction of family, history and memory. (SPC picked it up before Cannes.)

11. Barry Levinson's What Just Happened? (USA): as expected, this edgy Hollywood comedy showcasing Robert DeNiro's best role in ages (channeling writer-producer Art Linson) played better in Cannes, where it should have debuted all along. (2929's own Magnolia will most likely distribute.)

Mainstream commercial triumphs:
Steven Spielberg's Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (USA): Spielberg and Co. took the gamble that the movie would score at Cannes and sure enough, it did.
John Stevenson and Mark Osborne's Kung Fu Panda (USA): DreamWorks and Paramount launched yet another global animation juggernaut out of the Cannes fest, which loves Jolie and Jack Black.

Noble Failure?
Steven Soderbergh's Che (Spain): there's a potential masterpiece buried within this sprawling, unfinished bio-epic (in which Benicio del Toro delivers a subtle, non-showy performance which was rightly rewarded with the best actor Prix). Whether Soderbergh will try to find it is another question. At this point HBO would be best suited to handle the film at its current four-hour, 18-minute length.

Director Sydney Pollack died in Los Angeles Monday after a long bout with cancer. He was 73.

Pollack's cancer was inoperable because it riddled his entire body and the original site was never found.

Trained as an actor, Pollack enjoyed an unusually long and prolific career as a producer and director distinguished by his uncanny knack for delivering high quality, commercial films in just about any genre, often with notoriously demanding stars, from Barbra Streisand (The Way We Were) to Dustin Hoffman (Tootsie). He also made several films with Robert Redford (The Electric Horseman) and Harrison Ford (Sabrina). Always hard on himself, Pollack never assumed that he had scored a hit; he was in despair in the editing room before audiences fell in love with his Oscar-winning Out of Africa. And the same was true of the challengingly difficult Tootsie, in which he played one of many memorable supporting roles. Pollack also enjoyed acting in other directors' films, such as Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut, and most recently, Tony Gilroy's Michael Clayton.

Crafting quality studio entertainment is a lot harder than it looks: at the end of his long career, Pollack boasts a number of films likely to be remembered as classics. And he is respected, admired and personally revered as one of the more gifted, capable and generous talents to come through Hollywood. He certainly has a place in my own pantheon of all-time Hollywood greats.

Pollack told The New York Times in 1982:

"Stars are like thoroughbreds," he said. "Yes, it's a little more dangerous with them. They are more temperamental. You have to be careful because you can be thrown. But when they do what they do best -- whatever it is that's made them a star -- it's really exciting."

..."if you have a career like mine, which is so identified with Hollywood, with big studios and stars, you wonder if maybe you shouldn't go off and do what the world thinks of as more personal films with lesser-known people. But I think I've fooled everybody. I've made personal films all along. I just made them in another form."

Pollack Classics:
The Way We Were
Tootsie
Out of Africa
They Shoot Horses, Don't They?
Three Days of the Condor
The Yakuza

UPDATE: Kris Tapley, interning at The Times of London, assembles Pollack obits.

The day after the Cannes fest jury failed to award the Israeli animated doc Waltz with Bashir a prize (Todd McCarthy's story on the winners, including Entre les Murs, is here) Sony Pictures Classics closed a deal for North and Latin American rights. After declaring that they might go home empty-handed, the distrib has also chased down three other films, including the Dardenne brothers' The Silence of Lorna, Bent Hamer's O'Horten and are expected to close James Toback's Tyson soon. Here's Variety's Waltz with Bashir Review.

The UK's Daily Mail columnist Liz Jones is shocked, shocked by all the sordid goings on in Cannes, with raunchy older men and much younger models reveling at yacht parties galore. Of course she goes out of her way to track down all this stuff, of which she heartily disapproves. If she had ignored all of it, on the other hand, and watched some good movies instead, it wouldn't have made such gossipy, salacious, entertaining copy. Tropicana girls are not news. But the Mike Tyson quote is money.

My second foray to the Hotel du Cap in Cap d'Antibes caught What Just Happened? writer-producer Art Linson and director Barry Levinson at the end of a long day of international press in advance of their closing night screening on Sunday. They were far more chipper than they were at Sundance, and wished they had brought the pic to Cannes in the first place, as they had originally planned. "We got ahead of ourselves," says Linson.

We walked from the beach cabanas where they had done the interviews over to the Eden Roc, the Du Cap's seaside restaurant, to talk over a drink until Linson got a call from Robert DeNiro up in the main hotel lobby (that's DeNiro on the phone, below, asking where he is).

It's been exactly a year since they shot the finale of their movie in Cannes, and here they are back again, in the festival. "It's life imitating art imitating life or something," says Linson, who wrote the screenplay based on his book about a hard-pressed Hollywood producer.

The new cut in Cannes is just "refined in many ways," says Levinson, who had never been at the fest before and marveled at Linson's command of French. Linson has a French country house, which helps. Linson had been at the fest with Car Wash, many years before.

"At Sundance, a movie about acting or script or story," says Levinson, "becomes a story about distribution. We got all these wonderful actors to work for free because they loved the project. I know when a comedy is working, because people laugh. It was about five distributors with no stake in the movie asking why they should put up $40 million."

Finally, the movie will be released by someone, whether financeer 2929 Entertainment's own distrib Magnolia Pics or someone else, in October, with ex-New Line Cinema marketing head Russell Schwartz handling the marketing campaign. He already came up with the ad line: "In Hollywood everyone can hear you scream." The decision will be made in four weeks.

For his part Linson will stick to producing indie movies like this or Sean Penn's Into the Wild, whether he's welcome in Sundance or not. "I have no choice," Linson says. "The studios are not designed to do anything but repeat themselves. The corporations don't like to be in a business they can't predict."

At the Adoration dinner-party on the roof of the Palais Thursday night, Sony Pictures Classics execs were huddling in the corner talking deals. But producer Robert Lantos and Cinetic Media's John Sloss were relaxed and enjoying the balmy moonlit evening.

They had approached SPC before the fest and showed them the latest opus from brainy Canadian helmer Atom Egoyan, whose work ranges from the high of Sweet Hereafter to the low of the muddled Armenian history lesson Ararat. SPC snapped up this smart, thoughtful, intense drama about a teenager trying to make sense of the death of his parents through provocative fictional theater pieces and chats on the Internet. This way Adoration came to Cannes with an experienced distributor behind it and no anxiety about having to sell.

There's something to be said for this old-fashioned approach. Pick the distrib who best suits your movie and nail down an exclusive sale in advance of a big fest. Harvey Weinstein denies that he was in that position on Steven Soderbergh's Che. French sales co. Wild Bunch is trying to unload North American rights to the four-hour, 18 minute biopic.

The word on the Croisette is that jury prexy Sean Penn will somehow coax his politically-aware jury into making a statement by awarding the Palme d'Or to Che. The movie is so flawed that I find this scenario implausible, but it would certainly make a statement. I could see Benicio del Toro deservedly winning an actor prize. On the other hand, Toni Servillo, the star of two strong Italian entries here, Il Divo and Gomorra, may beat him out.

At Thursday night's AMFAR Cinema Against AIDS benefit in Mougins Harvey Weinstein made a passionate plea to the jurors in the house to award the fest's big prize to Che. But will he put his money where his mouth is and acquire the film? He may well be the only willing stateside buyer, no matter how enthusiastic some of the film's critical supporters.

Here's a clip from Il Divo, which I enjoyed thoroughly. (Here's Variety's rave review.) Even though the movie is a densely-packed exploration of the intricacies of corrupt Italian politics, it managed to be an accessible, entertaining and perceptive portrait of controversial political enigma Giulo Andreotti. Steven Soderbergh could learn from Paolo Sorrentino.

At fest's end, several pics remain unsold, including James Gray's polarizing Two Lovers. Here's my column on the Cannes sale issues faced by Che, Two Lovers and Synecdoche, New York.

But after saying they might leave town empty-handed (like many of their rivals), SPC moved in on a few titles after sampling more movies at the fest than ever before--they combed through the stuff that was available in the fest and market--and went on a late-fest buying spree, bidding on James Toback's Tyson and closing North American deals on Norwegian director Bent Hamer's O'Horten and the Dardenne brothers' The Silence of Lorna.

What was left of the Cannes contingent finally saw Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York, long after the distribs who attended an early buyer's screening had been spreading bad word all week. The job of buyers is to assess commerciality. Not just artistic achievement. I went to see the movie Friday night and kept waiting for the supposed incoherent indecipherable parts to kick in. The movie was clear as a bell and well-executed. No problem. High-end sophisticated art-house crowds will eat this up.

Charlie Kaufman's genius has always been a crafty blend of ingenious surprise, unexpected whimsy and genuine heartfelt human emotion.

If this movie was played as straight drama it might have a problem. But this is far more clever than that. Synecdoche has a mother-lode of humor and comedy running through it. Sure, Philip Seymour Hoffman's character is sad, bereft, lonely, plagued by Job-like maladies, deluded, obsessed with achieving artistic cred etc., but Kaufman is also laughing at him, his crazy German-speaking tattooed daughter, his problems with women, and his insanely ambitious out-sized theatre installation. The actors, especially Hoffman (below, after the press conference on Friday with co-star Tom Noonan and producer Spike Jonze), are all excellent. (Not enough of Catherine Keener, sadly.)

I had no trouble following this at all. And I might add I seemed to be the only person in the Palais laughing my head off. UPDATE: Apparently, the NYT's A.O. Scott was too. Here's his elegant Cannes wrap-up.

Synecdoche is much like Memento or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind or Being John Malkovich--the very thing that makes people want to see it a second time will make it worth debating and discussing. SPC's Michael Barker told me that years ago he bought a movie at Cannes after he witnessed the LAT's Kenneth Turan and me having a big debate over it. The French pic The Dreamlife of Angels turned out to be a huge hit in France and a small hit in the U.S. A movie that gets people arguing always has a chance. (Here's SPC's Michael Barker at Wild Bunch's offices with the other hardest-working man in Cannes: IFC's Jonathan Sehring.)

While some have suggested that I should cut Soderbergh some slack on Che, I will argue that as hard as he worked on the pic over many years, he did not figure out the appropriate, disciplined shape the movie should have. By contrast, equally ambitious but thought-out is Synecdoche, which is not at all self-indulgent. Audacious and bold, Kaufman wrote carefully and well and delivered something brilliantly executed as his first directing gig. Soderbergh may have a bit of John Sayles-itis. You don't have to do it all yourself. Let some professionals help you.

I had to miss Quentin Tarantino's Master Class because it was opposite yet another panel about the new distribution future that I moderated at the American Pavilion. But the night before at the Hotel du Cap, Tarantino, Marina Zenovich (Polanski: Wanted and Desired), Tim Robbins and I had a blast talking about Sam Fuller (Robbins tapped Tarantino for his doc on Fuller which has yet to be cleared for DVD, though Robbins is working on it), how hard it is to set up movies if you don't have Harvey Weinstein as your benefactor (Robbins is in town trying to push a few things through) and how if you find a great editor like Sally Menke, you stick with her for life.

Tarantino is wrapping up writing his magnum WWII opus Inglorious Bastards. Hopefully he will learn from Soderbergh and not make it too long--he got away with releasing both Kill Bill I and II but not the double feature with Robert Rodriguez, Grindhouse--unless it goes to HBO. I could also see Che go out in long cable form. Time's Richard Corliss calls both Soderbergh and Tarantino Warrior Auteurs. Agreed: listening to Tarantino talk is almost as much fun as watching his movies.

Director Roman Polanski is a frequent visitor to Cannes: he famously walked out of the Chacun Son Cinema press conference last year in a huff when a journalist asked a question that he didn't like. But he's staying in Paris this year, even though he has a doc about him here, partly because he hasn't seen Marina Zenovich's doc on the justice that he did or did not receive in the U.S. before his exile, Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired.

The director has given Polanski, who lives in Paris, many opportunities to see the film about his 1977 rape trial. But he told her that he'd rather that Zenovich do the talking in Cannes and be the spokesperson for the film. He just may not be ready to deal with revisiting his painful ordeal.

Here are some of the high points of the Che press conference Thursday:

"The process of editing was intense," said director Steven Soderbergh. "The further you get into it, you need context. That's why you need two movies."

Soderbergh visited Cuba five times but never met Che Guevara cohort Fidel Castro: "I was told, 'Pedro may call you.' He has a reputation for calling at 2 am and saying 'Come over. Let's talk.' I also heard that he likes to stop the film and talk about it when it moves him to. This film he may not survive."

Soderbergh admired Water Salles' The Motorcycle Diaries, starring Gael Garcia Bernal as the young Ernesto Guevara: "Walter's movie is really an Act One. With these, now it's a trilogy."

He defended his film's friendly approach to the iconic and polarizing revolutionary: "I've read the anti-Che literature out there. I get the arguments. I feel there's no amount of barbarity I could put on the screen that would satisfy them."

The shoot was rough and tumble:

"On the set I told the actors that I'm not going to be able to take care of you. I'm just trying to get this movie shot on schedule. And they formed a support group to survive it.

It sounds like he wants to use Smello-vision: "I wish we could transit the smell to the screen. There was a smell on the set."

[Photo of press conference by Jeffrey Wells]

IFC Films has acquired yet another film in Cannes, Steve McQueen's "Hunger" which opened the Cannes Film Festival's Un Certain Regard. Produced by Laura Hastings-Smith and Robin Gutchan, "Hunger" is a Blast! Films production for Film4, made with Northern Ireland Screen, the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland and the Wales Creative IP Fund.

Sony Pictures Classics has made a low-ball modest bid on James Toback's well-reviewed doc Tyson, a probing look at the ex-heavyweight champion. The bid is for all rights and I just left Toback on the Croisette asking to be left to talk with Michael Barker, "his prospective distributor." Toback was hoping to close one of several offers before he left town.

"A folly." "A mess." "Great." These words came from critics coming out of Steven Soderbergh's four-hour 18 minute Spanish-language Che Wednesday night. At the end there was slight applause; no boos. My own description: noble failure. Click here to read Todd McCarthy's review.

The global press corps jammed into the Debussy for the 6:30 PM screening. After two hours and nine minutes of The Argentine of the double feature, the press tucked into tasteless white-bread sandwiches in brown paper bags labeled "Che" and started dissecting part one. If you left the hall, you couldn't come back-- some took off. (After all, there was a major soccer match under way.) But many stayed for part two--which was even less dramatic.

Benecio del Toro gives a great performance, but Soderbergh's roving HD camera keeps its distance as Che trains guerillas in the jungle, leads his troops through various skirmishes and the takeover of Santa Clara, talks to TV interviewers and gives moving speeches at the U.N. The movie is well made and watchable. I was utterly inside it. I wasn't bored with the the first half, which offers plenty of narrative cut-backs and diversity; some periods are shot in black and white, some in color. There are ideas and dialogue galore.

But the second--which is also two hours and nine minutes--becomes a focused cinema verite account of Che's doomed adventures in Bolivia, the point of which becomes clear and inevitable. As my pal Larry Gross put it, the film is about "process." Soderbergh isn't interested in the things that compel moviegoers to engage with characters: drama, psychology, motivation. He doesn't dwell on the relationship between Che and Castro. He doesn't tell you how "Ernesto" turned into "Che." He doesn't share the inside of Che's relationship with the woman who becomes his second wife. He doesn't let you see the iconic photo being taken. He withholds the takeover of Havana.

Soderbergh didn't think he could finish the film in time for Cannes. Why don't these guys ever learn? Remember Richard Kelly's Southland Tales, Wong Kar Wai's 2046, Vincent Gallo's The Brown Bunny, and Edward Norton-starrer Down in the Valley? DON'T TAKE AN UNFINISHED MOVIE TO CANNES!!!! Wait. Give the film the time you need.

The good news: there is plenty of fine material here to be edited into one releasable long dramatic feature and hopefully French producer/sales co. Wild Bunch, which paid for 75 % of the $61 million film, and Telecinco, which came up with 25%, will give the filmmaker the time he needs to find this promising film's final form.

One thing is likely: it will not be released stateside as it was seen here. And it will not sell overnight--unless a distrib promises to help Soderbergh to find his movie. It seems that Peter Rice of Fox Searchlight, Daniel Battsek of Miramax and James Schamus of Focus knew that they didn't need to see Che before they left town.

UPDATE: I saw Harvey Weinstein after the screening at the Hotel du Cap; he says he neither placed a bid nor saw the movie in advance; he loved it and supports Soderbergh. Whether he will go after it is a matter on which he was not willing to comment.

Here's a sampling of photos from Cannes 2008:

Henri Behar, at the Fortissino party, is the New York-based moderator for most of the American press conferences. I'll never forget the time years ago that he snuck me through the back of the Palais, through winding corridors, and out onto the stage of the Lumiere for an impossible-to-get-into press screening. He drives a moped through Cannes. On the other hand, Sony Pictures Classics's Tom Bernard, here at the Carlton Terrace with co-prexy Michael Barker, rides a bike to meetings.

Kyle and Clint Eastwood at the Changeling after-party at the Martinez Palme d'Or.

Brett Ratner on the Croisette. He came to Cannes to support his pal James Toback and Tyson.

Two Lovers producer Donna Gigliotti at the Carlton Beach, and director James Gray with his family.

Cannes Fest topper Thierry Fremaux at the top of the Palais red carpet steps waiting for the Two Lovers gang to arrive.

Wong Kar Wai brought Ashes of Time Redux to Cannes.

John Woo showed 8 1/2 minutes of Red Cliff footage.

More Cannes snaps on the jump:

At Cannes, stateside distribs have been viewing back-to-back movies in the fest and market as well as checking out advance footage on view from foreign sellers. “We’re seeing movies from 8:30 AM to 11 PM every day,” said Sony Pictures Classics co-prexy Tom Bernard, who arrived at the fest with two films already in hand, Atom Egoyan’s Adoration and Wong Kar Wai’s Ashes of Time Redux. “We also have a lot of meetings and scripts to read in the room.”

But buyers are proceeding with caution, with Fest Opener Fernando Meirelles’ tepidly received Blindness, which sold 42 territories at last year’s Cannes market, as a cautionary omen, and the awareness that even Oscar contenders that look like winners can wind up loss leaders.

In addition to Steven Soderbergh’s anticipated $61 million two-parter Che, which screens Wednesday night (Wild Bunch was seeking about $8 million for North American rights), buyers at Cannes are bidding on James Gray’s $12-million Two Lovers, which has generated great reviews and buzz for Joaquin Phoenix’s performance, and scribe Charlie Kaufman’s feature directorial debut Synecdoche, New York, which cost $20 million and failed to score a sale out of an early buyers' screening. The irony may be that 2929’s pricey $20-million What Just Happened?, which didn't sell at Sundance, may get a new lease on life if it plays well here, and sell for a fraction of its original asking price. Several specialty distribs are lying in wait. Magnolia may wind up releasing both Two Lovers and What Just Happened? if it doesn't get the offers it is seeking.

A few Cannes diehards left in town will be able to see the new Charlie Kaufman film Synecdoche, New York on Friday. Slash has posted three clips.

Here's Mike Jones' video on the movie's pronunciation issues:

Clint Eastwood's Changeling screened well Tuesday, although the press conference was slightly muted, partly because so many of the world press had already interviewed Angelina Jolie for Kung Fu Panda. Here's Todd McCarthy's review