Sony Pictures Classics continues its long tradition of releasing the films of Chinese director Zhang Yimou by acquiring his latest film, a remake of the Coen brothers' 1984 comedy thriller Blood Simple, this time set in a Chinese noodle shop. It will be the 11th Yimou film released by SPC. The official release is on the jump.

You can't keep a good man down. Ex-Lionsgate and Paramount Vantage exec Nick Meyer has resurfaced at his new Sierra company, which will take over foreign sales for Sidney Kimmel International, which is shutting down its New York office. (More customers are in the offing.) That means sayanara to outgoing exec Mark Lindsay.

SKE is in a new phase, backing off from producing too many uncommercial movies (read: Charlie Barnett, Management, Adventureland, Synecdoche, New York) in favor of selecting a robust few. SKE execs Jim Tauber and Bingham Ray partnered with Screen Gems on Chris Rock and Aeysha Carr's script for the black family remake of SKE hit Death at a Funeral, this time directed by Neil LaBute and starring Zoe Saldana and Chris Rock. Screen Gems financed and acquired all rights worldwide. Meanwhile Ray is deliberately pushing several projects heading toward a production green light.

Salon's Andrew O'Hehir runs down the current digital distribution landscape.

I'd go on this Beatles mystery tour in a heartbeat. I also confess to wanting Beatles Rock Band, which is selling well in advance of its September 9 release. UPDATE: The LAT raves about the mini-movie inside the videogame.

[Photomontage courtesy USA Today]

First the media touted the uptick in 2009 theatrical business, now they're pointing to a downturn compared to last summer's b.o., a few big flops and the absence of blockbusters. "Through Sunday, summer B.O. revs stood at $1.46 billion, compared to $1.47 billion last year," reports Variety.

Hold on folks, it's early days yet. Everyone knows what the blockbusters will be (besides Up): Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Disney's pairing of Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds in The Proposal should yield strong returns with the femme demo. But word is that neither Universal's Bruno nor Public Enemies will break out huge. And Sony's Year One and Paramount's G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra (which had a disastrous preview) look soft indeed.

Here are some summer lessons:

2. Origin myths sell. Star Trek skipped behind the other ten movies and went back to the beginning. Director J.J. Abrams found the right balance for Trekkies and newbies alike. Gross to date: $233 million so far.

3. Smart R-rated dumb male comedies sell. Always have, always will. The Hangover is the summer's sleeper hit, grossing more than $110 million in its first two weeks. The best news for Warner Bros: no talent profit participants. The bad news: they have to share with partner Legendary Pictures.

4. R-rated dumb male comedians don't sell in family movies. Universal miscalculated by starring Will Ferrell in $100-million remake Land of the Lost. The studio pulled the second weekend print ads on the picture, an unusual move. Gross to date: $36 million.

5. Eddie Murphy without makeup doesn't sell. I rest my case with Imagine That. Put Murphy under pounds of makeup playing a character, and they show up. Give him a role playing someone close to himself and audiences stay away in droves.

6. Lackluster sequels sell--but don't break out big. The key with these tentpole franchises is keeping up the quality.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which cost $150 million, opened huge and dropped off drastically. That means Fox's massive marketing budget pulled the core comics fanbase, but the movie failed to broaden. Gross to date: $176 million domestic, $353 million worldwide.

The sequel to The Da Vinci Code, Angels & Demons, also scored big overseas ($415 million) but did middling business stateside ($124 million). To my mind Ron Howard delivered a better E-ride this time. But the book and the movie lacked the compelling Christian scandale that the first one had. This movie was (expensive) standard-issue.

Despite McG's $200-million budget, Terminator Salvation failed to improve on its predecessors and seemed oddly retro. The highlights were not Christian Bale, who seemed to be channeling Batman, growl and all, but supporting performers Sam Worthington and Anton Yelchin. Gross to date: $115 million, plus $100 million overseas.

So far, with the exception of Jackie Brown (based on an Elmore Leonard novel) Quentin Tarantino has preferred to direct and write originals. While he has exec-produced a few things and been tempted by the odd Speed Racer or James Bond, he has never rarely succumbed to adaptation temptation.

According to this report by the Times of London, the estranged father and brother of bestselling Swedish writer Stieg Larsson (who died unexpectedly of a heart attack in 2004 at age 50 after climbing seven flights of stairs) claim that Tarantino and his Inglourious Basterds star Brad Pitt want to buy the movie rights to Larsson's Millenium Trilogy. The first crime thriller, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, has already spawned a hit Scandinavian movie that screened in the Cannes market.

UPDATE: According to Tarantino's rep, he's never heard of the project in connection with Tarantino, who has never mentioned it.

Because Larsson died without a will, his family is tussling with his common-law wife of 30 years, who is hanging on to his laptop which holds his unfinished sequel to the Millenium trilogy. They accuse her of blocking the sale of remake rights.

Here's Fangoria's Cannes review:

Among the main attractions in the market was the current Scandinavian smash hit MILLENNIUM: MEN WHO HATE WOMEN. Based on the first of three best sellers by Stieg Larsson, THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, Niels Arden Oplev’s gorgeously visual adaptation is without doubt the most nail-biting thriller of the year. Michael Nyqvist stars as a disgraced journalist, sentenced to jail for libel, asked to investigate the cold-case disappearance of a teen heiress. Aided by punk hacker Noomi Rapace, he uncovers an undetected chain of serial killings in this startlingly near-the-knuckle giallo, Swedish style. Think a sexier, more absorbing ANTIBODIES. MILLENNIUM is the European success story of the moment, and the remaining two parts of the trilogy, THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE and THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET’S NEST, will be released later this year. I cannot wait, based on this first expert translation of Larsson’s much-admired work.

And here's the trailer:

Who came out ahead and behind on their Cannes jaunt this year?

Disney

The studio won big by using Cannes as the European launch for Pixar’s Up. John Lasseter and Pete Docter had the time of their lives being treated seriously by the most prestigious festival in the world, which gave them some auteur cred they wouldn’t get any other way. At Disney’s after-party on the Carlton pier, Lasseter got misty-eyed. “It’s one of the greatest things to happen in our careers,” he said. The often stuffy festival stepped up to the times, passing out 3-D glasses to the opening night black-tie glitterati at the Palais.

Disney also took advantage of the global media to introduce the motion capture pic Christmas Carol, bringing director Bob Zemeckis and Jim Carrey to the Croisette for a snowy photo opportunity. (I remember meeting Carrey for the first time when he came to Cannes to promo The Mask.)

Miramax

On the other hand, it’s utterly depressing that Disney may be putting its specialty subsidiary Miramax on the block. Studio boss Robert Iger wants to stick to his family-movie brand/theme park mandate, and Miramax doesn’t fit with its other businesses. While the studio denies the unit is for sale, their asking price is said to be $1.2 billion; buyers are interested, especially in the Tiffany library built by the Weinsteins, but are waiting for the price to come down.

Miramax topper Daniel Battsek has done a solid if not spectacular job, including Oscar winners Tsotsi and No Country for Old Men. But many projects were too pricey to turn a profit in the tough specialty market. Battsek kept a low profile on the Croisette this year, with no buys announced. As Harvey and Bob Weinstein struggle in a sour economy to keep their company afloat, the irony is that if they had not only raised but made some money, they might have been able to afford to buy their company back.

Harvey and Bob Weinstein

15 years after Pulp Fiction, the brothers brought Quentin Tarantino to the Cannes main competition with the raucous World War II drama Inglourious Basterds. Loaded with expectations (always a dicey position) the movie played fine for the global press, especially with its top-notch European cast, but will face a tougher time at home in a challenging environment for specialty pictures. To Tarantino’s credit, he shot it in four languages, French, Italian, German and English. The movie breaks out French actors Denis Menochet (who stars in Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood) and Melanie Laurent as well as German actors Daniel Bruhl, Diane Kruger and language whiz Christoph Waltz (who won best actor). Here's Hollywood Wiretap.

Less interesting in some ways are the titular Basterds, led by a one-note Brad Pitt as a Nazi hunter, supported by Eli Roth and Til Schweiger. It feels like this part of the movie was given short shrift. Tarantino, who was in a rush to Cannes, now has some time to fine-tune his film. Irish actor Michael Fassbender (who also scored in Fish Tank) may get a new scene when Tarantino returns to the editing room. At two hours and 27 minutes, Tarantino has final cut.

The Weinsteins also debuted for buyers and press a featurette made by Rob Marshall of his musical Nine, which was adapted by the late Anthony Minghella from the Broadway musical inspired by Federico Fellini’s 8 ½. In the role of the womanizing director having a midlife crisis (played on-stage by Raul Julia and Antonio Banderas) is Daniel Day Lewis, who looks handsome and charismatic in the movie. (Yes, he sports an Italian accent. And sings. And dances.) Much of the story, like Marshall’s Oscar-winning Chicago, unfolds in the director’s mind as he muses over the women in his life: his mother (Sophia Loren), the village prostitute (Fergie), lover (Nicole Kidman), wife (Marion Cotillard), mistress (Penelope Cruz), interviewer (Kate Hudson) and costume designer (Judi Dench). The movie looks sumptuous, elaborate, visually dazzling. It also looks expensive, and was shot in London and Cinecitta (estimates range from $80 to 90 million). The risk for the Weinsteins: is there a market big enough to pay back the cost of a studio-scale all-stops-out musical? The movie opens during awards season, November 25.

There’s good advance word on John Hillcoat's adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road starring Viggo Mortensen and Charlize Theron, but it looks like a narrow niche up-market film. While the Weinsteins may get what they want: renewed cred from a series of well-reviewed movies that might make it into the Oscar race, these days, that can be as much a curse as a blessing, as Oscar campaigns can turn a profitable movie into a money loser.

Bob Berney, Bill Pohlad, Jane Campion

Ex-Picturehouse chief Bob Berney and his new partner Bill Pohlad made official their new distribution combine, which will enter the middle ground between art-house distributors Sony Pictures Classics, IFC and Magnolia and remaining studio subsidiaries Fox Searchlight, Miramax and Focus Features. Berney and Pohlad (who are waiting for their company name to clear) boldly acquired all U.S. rights to Jane Campion’s Bright Star sight unseen ahead of the fest (for about $2.5 million). They saw the film two weeks ahead of Cannes, where it played well, but won no prizes. While Berney plans to target young women (it will also score with Anglophiles, Jane Austen fans, and the Academy), the movie is an austere and tragic love story that lacks mainstream appeal. But the two stars, Ben Whishaw and Abbie Cornish, are potential breakouts. After a six-year-gap, Campion reestablishes herself as a major director. But she has never been a particularly commercial one.

Sony Pictures Classics and Pedro Almodovar

Steady as they go, Michael Barker and Tom Bernard came out of Cannes having landed the top two prize winners, Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon and Jacques Audiard’s A Prophet. They came into the fest with Pedro Almodovar’s Broken Embraces, starring Penelope Cruz, which is not the best of the Spanish auteur’s films, but is more fun to watch than most flicks. It was not a factor with the jury, either. But it wasn’t hurt by being in the festival, which sorely needed the combined star power of the director and Cruz.

While American art-house audiences don’t pay much attention to Cannes prizes, they do push the films' countries of origin to submit them for the foreign language Oscar. Thus SPC now has two more potential Oscar submissions for next year, from Germany and France. The Envelope looks at how Cannes impacts the Oscar race.

Word from the Cannes jury is that the votes were often split along director vs. actor lines. (UPDATE: Actress-director Asia Argento said it was more male vs.female; well, except for her, the directors were male.) This makes sense, as actors, writers and directors think very differently. As the reportedly fractious group, led by French actress Isabelle Huppert, talked over the selections (in English) three times during the fest--they saw 20 films-- they eliminated certain films that didn't raise enough votes, like Bright Star and Broken Embraces. Inglourious Basterds and Antichrist were more admired by the actors than the directors, while Fish Tank and Thirst were directors' pictures--and split the jury prize. The votes on the top two films, The White Ribbon and A Prophet were very close. But no award was unanimous. The most contentious debate was over best director Brilliante Mendoza, for Kinatay, which critics despised. The jurors weren't allowed to talk to anyone, and during deliberations, they even gave up their cell phones.

Focus Features and Ang Lee

The decision to bring a filmmaker to the fest is a calculation that, in the case of Focus and Ang Lee’s Taking Woodstock, backfired. I enjoyed the movie thoroughly and with some marketing fixes it could play well in the United States. It is an utterly American movie, culturally sophisticated, sweet and tender, mood-shifting, and fun. Screenwriter James Schamus (and Focus topper) and Lee nail the period. “It was a time when people had t-shirts that didn’t have logos on them,” Lee says.

Schamus and Lee explore the cultural moment that Woodstock crystallized—the ways that old and new were clashing and changing. This behind-the-scenes drama focuses on a family dynamic: two uptight Jewish parents (Henry Goodman and Imelda Staunton) and their vibrant, closeted gay son (Demetri Martin) who, when shoved up against the counterculture, breaks out of their world. Comedy Central star Martin never dreamed of a movie career, but the real discovery is radiant theater actor Jonathan Groff as Michael Lang. Most of the time, Lee and Schamus found that lingo from the period didn’t play, and cut much of it out. But when Groff said words like “groovy” and “far out,” he did so with such conviction that they left them in.

Taking Woodstock is not the sort of movie that goes over well at Cannes. It isn’t even what you’d call a critics’ picture. Lee must have wanted to come to the festival that had always treated him well. He probably wishes now that he hadn’t.

UPDATE: Focus came out ahead with its other Cannes entry, Park Chan-Wook's jury-prize-co-winner Thirst, which is already a hit in South Korea and will likely be a strong genre contender when Focus releases it stateside later this year. Focus Features International continues to be one of the strongest foreign sales companies, because it boasts the A-list projects (like Almodovar's Broken Embraces and the latest pics from Sam Mendes, Roberto Begnini, Zhang Yimou, Sofia Coppola and Noah Baumbach) everyone still wants to buy. "We're flying on all cylinders," says Schamus. "We've got our fingers in so many little pies all over the world."

Alejandro Amenabar's Agora

This Egyptian period drama cost $50 million Euros--and needed Cannes support. It didn't get it. The reviews were mixed, although Rachel Weisz managed to survive. The buyers waited on the sidelines for the price to decline. Clearly, even name stars and a big budget do not guarantee an American sale. Producers can't count on North American money any more. The Wrap looks at the Cannes economy.

IFC: Lars von Trier and Ken Loach

IFC came into the fest having bought the three-part Red Riding Trilogy, and then picked up Lars von Trier’s Antichrist, which built up a swell of want-to-see from Cannes controversy. IFC will show the movie uncut in a few U.S. cinemas and then trim it—working with the director—to show it on VOD. Honestly? It’s a movie-as-therapy that helped to pull Danish director von Trier out of a bout of depression that threatened to keep him from making movies. He indulged himself completely; the movie is a well-made, manipulative mess. Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg give their all; she totally deserved the best actress prize. Any student of von Trier will want to see the movie. The distrib also picked up the feel-good movie of Cannes, Ken Loach's Waiting for Eric, starring soccer player Eric Cantona.

Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus

The reviews were kind (here's Variety), suggesting that Gilliam returned to form with his latest film--despite losing Heath Ledger in mid-shoot, replaced by Johnn Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell. American buyers, who saw the film in L.A. and NY before the festival, or attended an early screening in the market, were playing a waiting game. Nobody is taking risks any more.

Oscilloscope

Adam Yauch's neophyte distrib Oscilloscope Labs bought North American rights to a Cannes film in the official selection, a doc, natch, Michel Gondry’s look at his own family, The Thorn in the Heart.

Francis Ford Coppola's Tetro

Finally, Francis Ford Coppola is rebuilding his career and used a little Cannes pixie dust to help him do it. No, he didn't pull Tetro into the competition. But he opened the Director's Fortnight and was welcomed there. The movie, which he wrote himself with an autobiographical flair, was deemed an improvement over his last, Youth Without Youth, and more accessible and personal than anything he has done in some time. You can sense a filmmaker testing his chops, feeling his way. The next one could be even better. Hopefully he'll stay away from Vincent Gallo. He's toxic.

My Cannes Ten Best Films:

1. Up (check out Rotten Tomatoes reviews)

2. Mr. Hulot's Holiday

3. Fish Tank

4. Drag Me to Hell

5. Bright Star

6. The White Ribbon

7. Taking Woodstock

8. Humpday

9. Samson and Delilah

10. Inglourious Basterds

Disappointments:

11. Broken Embraces

12. Antichrist

13. Tetro

14. I Love You Philip Morris

UPDATE: Here are the results of IndieWire's poll of 16 English-language film writers. And IFC rounds up the Cannes wrap-ups.

It's rare for a European actress to carve out a career in Hollywood. But honing her English with rounds of Berlitz and winning both the best actress Oscar and Cesar awards for La Vie en Rose have spun Marion Cotillard into a whirlwind of film roles. First, she went to Chicago to shoot Michael Mann's Public Enemies, playing moll Billie Frechette to Johnny Depp's gangster John Dillinger (July 1).

Three days later she was on the set of Rob Marshall's Fellini-inspired movie musical Nine, using her own singing voice as Luisa Contini opposite best actor Oscar-winner Daniel Day Lewis (November 25). The script for Nine was the last one completed by the late Anthony Minghella.

After just two days in Paris, Cotillard flew to the Morroco desert to shoot the French-language Le Dernier Vol (The Last Flight), co-starring her boyfriend, Guillaume Canet. Let's hope she catches a well-deserved break before starting her next, Inception, opposite Leonardo DiCaprio and Ellen Page.

Here's the Public Enemies trailer:

New Weinstein Co. honcho Tom Ortenberg has scored his first big buy, Sam Taylor-Wood's Nowhere Boy, a UK feature about the early days of Beatle John Lennon. The picture has been filming for about two weeks; Ortenberg and Harvey Weinstein targeted the pic for a pre-buy in Berlin. They see the film as a possible year-end awards contender. Kristin Scott Thomas plays Lennon's Aunt Mimi, who helped raise him along with his mother Julia. The movie also details young Lennon's close relationship with Quarrymen bandmate Paul McCartney and ends when the early Beatles leave Liverpool for Hamburg, Germany to conquer the world. (I love Malcolm Gladwell's story in The Outliers about how the Beatles put in their 10,000 hours playing long sets in Hamburg.)

"It starts with the script," says Ortenberg, who describes the pic as a "relatable Beatles coming-of-age story about a young boy finding his place in the world, finding his passion, as his mother Julia introduces him to music and guitar when he's 15. There's something in it for everyone."

TWC acquired all rights, U.S., Germany, Latin America. They are planning a year end awards season release with an expansion January. Maple Pictures will release in Canada.

Press release on the jump:

How could Hugh Jackman host the Oscars and not be part of a musical number? And if Slumdog Millionaire's A.R. Rahman is nominated for two songs, we'll certainly get an exuberant Bollywood dance, even if Bruce Springsteen was shut out. The NYT ferrets out as much info as possible about the February 22 Oscarcast, which faces the challenge of fanboy boycotts over Dark Knight and low-boxoffice performances from its top nominees.

While Slumdog is humming along to a decent $67 million gross, and at $116.5 million The Curious Case of Benjamin Button looks like a winner (even if it may not win any Oscars or make its money back), the last of the Oscar pack to widen, Gus Van Sant's Milk and Stephen Daldry's The Reader, did not achieve pre-Oscar b.o. liftoff. The Reader broadened to 1,000 screens and has mustered about $12.6 million to date. Milk, on 882 screens, scored about 1.4.4 million for a total of $23.4 million. And Frost/Nixon actually declined 54% and has earned a mere $14.5 million so far.

Don't worry, this year's Oscar show producers Laurence Mark and Bill Condon aren't about to forgo the glamorous ritual of red carpet arrivals. But some stars avoid going to these affairs, not wanting to run the gauntlet--many of them hurry in late so that they can wave at the stands and pass all the press by, ostensibly to run to their seats. Well, this way, the logic goes, they don't have to do all the things they don't like--they just have to show up on the Oscarcast, as surprise bait for the fans who will presumably tune in worldwide.

UPDATE: On the other hand, everybody likes going to the annual celebratory Oscar lunch, where a hundred or so nominees mingle, take a group photo, and get a lecture from Academy president Sid Ganis on making a short acceptance speech. Peter Bart was there.

One of my fave pre-Oscar events comes up next weekend: The BAFTAs, or British Academy Awards. The Brits usually come up with a witty host with a plummy British accent, like Stephen Fry; they tend to get on with it with humor and well-wrought acceptance speeches. Sunday the 8th, 5 PM, BBC America, PST. Order in some cucumber sandwiches.

The Oscar foreign film short list is solid, but there's one glaring omission: the Italian entry Gomorra. Distrib IFC can't complain too much, as the list includes Jan Troell's Everlasting Moments and the Canadian entry The Necessities of Life, which were both expected to make it. But so was Gomorra, a tough slice of real Italian gangster life which was probably too violent for the foreign branch and must have split the exec committee, which added three other films to the final list of nine.

The nine are:
Austria, "Revanche," Gotz Spielmann, director
Canada, "The Necessities of Life," Benoit Pilon, director
France, "The Class," Laurent Cantet, director
Germany, "The Baader Meinhof Complex," Uli Edel, director
Israel, "Waltz with Bashir," Ari Folman, director
Japan, "Departures," Yojiro Takita, director
Mexico, "Tear This Heart Out," Roberto Sneider, director
Sweden, "Everlasting Moments," Jan Troell, director
Turkey, "3 Monkeys," Nuri Bilge Ceylan, director.

Gomorra was the sort of film the new exec committee was supposed to favor: winner of the Grand Prix at Cannes and five European Film Awards, including best film, the movie was nominated as best foreign film for the Independent Spirits, Golden Globes and Broadcast critics. My guess, based on buzz on how the films played: the committee added France's The Class (SPC), Austria's Revanche (Janus) and the Turkish film 3 Monkeys (New Yorker). Gomorra might have been the fourth. UPDATE: Scott Foundas is not happy.

The leading contenders for the final five, which will be announced on January 22, are most likely Der Baader Meinhoff Komplex (Germany, no U.S. distrib), Everlasting Moments (IFC), The Necessities of Life (IFC), Tear This Heart Out (no U.S. distrib), and Waltz with Bashir (Israel, SPC), which won the Golden Globe and may well win the Oscar too.

Universal, Miramax and Paramount/Warners are heaving huge sighs of relief that the Golden Globes rewarded Frost/Nixon, Doubt and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button with five nominations apiece. The three films had been virtually overlooked by influential critics' groups in L.A. and N.Y. this week. Only Frost/Nixon and Benjamin Button were nominated in the Globes' best feature drama category, though, which tends to carry more weight than the comedy category. Doubt scored four acting noms, plus screenplay for John Patrick Shanley.

The Globes are voted on by a relatively small and insular group, the 80-member Hollywood Foreign Press Association, who are often wined and dined by studios eager to get the extra boost of attention from Globe noms at the height of the pre-Oscar nomination season when Academy voters are deciding which DVDs to watch. The noms are not predictive, but do help build momentum.

Thus although the Globes saw fit to only recognize Sean Penn's performance in Gus Van Sant's very American and very political Milk (which won best film from the NYFCC), that should not hurt its overall awards chances. Nor would this group be particularly drawn to a fable beloved by both American moviegoers and critics, The Dark Knight. And Gran Torino's masterful, reflexive performance by actor/director Clint Eastwood is more likely to play to the Academy than the HFPA. (Oddly, they rewarded Eastwood for score for the Changeling and best song for Gran Torino.)

For example, Harvey Weinstein has always done well with The Globes and won their support for Stephen Daldry's The Reader, set in post-World War II Germany and starring Kate Winslet, who also stars in her husband Sam Mendes' nominated drama Revolutionary Road, for which she grabbed a best actress nom. Both films grabbed four noms. And Winslet was given a supporting actress nom for The Reader, to prevent her from competing with herself. Both films needed a boost, as they were also neglected by the critics groups.

Well on their way to awards season glory are Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire (Fox Searchlight) and Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona (Weinstein Co.). which nabbed four noms apiece. And Searchlight's The Wrestler is solidifying more acting noms for Mickey Rourke and Marisa Tomei.

Ben Stiller's Paramount comedy Tropic Thunder scored two noms for Tom Cruise and Robert Downey, Jr., which isn't so surprising when you consider that the HFPA is often voting for who will attend the Golden Globes Awards party. Thus both Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie gained noms for Button and Changeling, a feat that won't necessarily be repeated come Oscar nominations morning January 22.

The noms in the comedy categories are unlikely to have much impact on the Academy voters, who tend to reward gravitas, although Sally Hawkins, who was won best actress from the NYFCC, could score a best actress slot on January 22. Meryl Streep is more likely to land an Oscar nom for Doubt than for the raucous musical Mamma Mia!

Kristin Scott Thomas finally got some recognition for her role in the French film I've Loved You So Long, which was also nommed in the foreign film category, along with Jan Troell's Everlasting Moments, the Swedish Oscar entry, which is picking up support.

I'm not a big fan of live-blogging, but it does work occasionally, as NY Post critic-blogger Lou Lumenick demonstrates with his play-by-play reporting of the New York Film Critics's divisive voting this morning.

Thus, Rachel Getting Married led the first two ballots and Milk pulled ahead on the third, followed by Happy-Go-Lucky and Slumdog Millionaire; Milk star Sean Penn handily beat The Wrestler's Mickey Rourke; Milk's Josh Brolin beat out The Dark Knight's Heath Ledger; and documentary Oscar front-runner Man on Wire beat out Waltz with Bashir and Trouble the Water. Vicky Cristina Barcelona's Penelope Cruz easily defeated Viola Davis of Doubt; third place was a tie between Rachel Getting Married's Rosemary DeWitt and Debra Winger. Happy-Go-Lucky writer-director Mike Leigh narrowly edged out Slumdog Millionaire's Danny Boyle. Wall-E took best animated feature over Waltz with Bashir.

Here's Lumenick on how the best actress vote went down, which helps explain the ballot process:

Sally Hawkins of "Happy-Go-Lucky'' won the New York Film Critics Circle award for Best Actress as voting got under way this morning at the Time-Life Building. Hawkins won on the second weighted ballot, receiving 39 points to 32 points for Melissa Leo of "Frozen River,'' with Kate Winslet ("Revolutionary Road'') and Anne Hathaway ("Rachel Getting Married'') with 22 apiece. In the NYFCC's convoluted voting system, the critics make one choice apiece n the first round. If nothing captures a majority, there follows one or more weighted ballots, each critic ranks choices with 3, 2, and 1 points; the winner also has to appear on the majority of ballots until the fouth ballot (if there is one) -- in Hawkins' case, 18 ballots.

OSCAR ANALYSIS
Finally, the critics voting solidifies my thinking re: the Oscar race. The Golden Globes may add some fuel tomorrow, but for now I see Milk as the front-runner for best picture, followed by Slumdog Millionaire and The Dark Knight, with The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Frost/Nixon, Doubt and Revolutionary Road fighting it out for last two slots. Penn may be the front-runner now, but the man he has to beat is Clint Eastwood, who gives a devastating performance in Gran Torino. The Academy will be moved to tears by him. Mickey Rourke looks solid for a nom. The Visitor's Richard Jenkins could have used more help here.

Thanks to critics, Sally Hawkins and Melissa Leo are moving into best actress contention, while I've Loved You So Long's Kristin Scott Thomas may not. Changeling's Angelina Jolie is fading fast. Milk's Josh Brolin and James Franco could both win supporting slots.

Revolutionary Road will be in the hunt for picture, director, adapted screenplay, actress, actor and supporting actor. But the grim, serious drama needs some love at this point, especially from critics. And may get it.

The Reader, which may have a shot for Kate Winslet in supporting and David Hare for adapted screenplay, has a long way to go. It got slammed by critics today, earning an initial 54 % on Metacritic. That is not good enough. It needs all the help it can get.

Doubt has the support of the dominant actors branch and likely the writers (if not directors); it will be vying for actress, supporting actress, supporting actor and adapted screenplay.

Much as I admire Four Months, Three Weeks, Two Days, it strikes me as oddly perverse for the NYFCC to throw their foreign vote away on a movie that is only available on DVD at this point, rather than trying to boost the theatrical and Oscar fortunes of a new upcoming release. But it's a free country.

The full list of winners is on the jump:

The Washington D.C. Area Film Critics have added more heat to the Slumdog Millionaire awards juggernaut, awarding four prizes to the film including Best Film and Best Director.

Here are the winners:

Best Film: Slumdog Millionaire/Fox Searchlight
Best Director: Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire)
Best Actor: Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler)
Best Actress: Meryl Streep (Doubt)
Best Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight)
Best Supporting Actress: Rosemarie DeWitt (Rachel Getting Married)
Best Original Screenplay: Jenny Lumet (Rachel Getting Married)
Best Adapted Screenplay: Simon Beaufoy (Slumdog Millionaire)
Best Animated: Wall∙E/Disney&Pixar
Best Documentary: Man on Wire/Magnolia Pictures
Best Foreign Film: Let the Right One In/Magnolia Pictures and Magnet Releasing
Best Ensemble: Doubt/Miramax
Best Breakthrough: Dev Patel (Slumdog Millionaire)
Best Art Direction: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button/Paramount

Gomorra, the Italian submission for the Oscars, won five prizes at the 21st European Film Awards held on December 6 in Copenhagen. The gangster movie based on a novel book by Roberto Saviano won best film, best actor (Toni Servillo) and best director (Matteo Garonne). Gomorra will be released stateside by IFC Films, which is also releasing Hunger, which won an discovery award for Steve McQueen. (Here's Variety's review from Cannes, where it won the Grand Prix.)

Kristin Scott Thomas, a British actress who has lived in France for 25 years, won best actress for the French film I've Loved You So Long, which Sony PIctures Classics is releasing in the U.S.

The full list of winners is on the jump:

Before the American Cinematheque starts off its tribute evening to Samuel L. Jackson Monday night, board chair Rick Nicita will present the inaugural Sydney Pollack Award to Sundance Film Fest director Geoff Gilmore, who is currently prepping his 19th fest.

Cinematheque director Barbara Smith wanted to create a lasting memorial to the late producer-director, who as a long-term board member and one-time board chair had kept the wolf from the door many times over the years. The award will be presented each year to someone "who has been of critical importance and continuing influence in non-profit film exhibition, film preservation and/or independent film promotion and distribution – people whose work Sydney supported and found to be so valuable, who are not often recognized for their efforts," the Cinematheque said. It takes one to know one.

[Posted by Steve Chagollan]
Having covered a few City of Lights, City of Angels French showcases, I’ve been invited to the occasional lunch at the French Consul General's home in Beverly Hills. One such event last year, for La Vie en Rose Oscar-winner Marion Cotillard, was mobbed by media and industryites. But last Wednesday was more typical of such affairs. Laurent Cantet — director of Cannes Palm d’Or winner The Class, France’s official entry for Academy’s foreign-language competition — was the guest of honor, sitting at the head of an outdoor table lined with few more than a dozen attendees, including the host, David Martinon.

The 46-year-old filmmaker, handsome in an austere way with a head of silvery hair and a no-nonsense air, spoke good English but occasionally relied on an interpreter. We talked about Cantet’s cinema verite methodology on The Class; he workshopped his on actors for a year before shooting began.

Because Cantet has been promoting the film — which covers a year in the life of an inner city junior high school teacher and the relationship with his combative, racially mixed students — practically nonstop since its triumph in Cannes, he shook his head in bewilderment when asked what he was now working on now. He hasn’t had a moment to think about it, much less spend time with his family in Paris.

The film was three years in the making. And despite the fact that he’s used largely non-actor casts in past films — most notably in Human Resources (1999) and slightly less so for his devastating Time Out (2001) and the equally penetrating Heading South (2005), which starred Charlotte Rampling — he says his experience on The Class convinced him that this was the way he wanted to work from now on: unadulterated naturalism from non-pros who are re-enacting everyday situations. The most obvious parallels are the films of Mike Leigh, but Cantet takes it even further, to the point where the camera seems like a fly on the wall.

IFC exec Ryan Werner is a tireless marketing machine. He's the guy who is shepherding an amazing number of films into release this fall and winter, from Steve Soderbergh's Che to Jan Troell's Everlasting Moments, one of five movies IFC is releasing that have been submitted for the foreign Oscar.

IFC Films is able to release so many films because the distrib doesn't spend much to market them in just a few cities, via IFC in Theaters, their day-and-date distribution platform, or their Festival Direct video-on-demand service.

Any lover of sophisticated foreign cinema is well-advised to check it out. IFC President Jonathan Sehring is committed, he says, "to bringing original, exciting and prestigious product from around the world to U.S. audiences. The exceptional reach of our distribution platforms means these acclaimed foreign films will soon have the opportunity to be seen by millions of people."

The company boasts 12 pics nominated for European Film Awards, led by Italy's Oscar entry Gomorrah, with five noms, which IFC just added to its December line-up. The gangster pic has grossed over $14 million in Italy since its release, and won the Grand Prix at Cannes.

Other nominated European Film Award titles from IFC were Steve McQueen's Irish drama Hunger, starring Michael Fassbender as Irish Republican hunger striker Bobby Sands (three European Film Award noms); Israel's Lemon Tree, starring The Visitor's Hiam Abbas (two noms); Arnaud Desplechin's A Christmas Tale, starring Mathieu Amalric and Catherine Deneuve (a nom for editor Laurence Briaud); Denmark's highest-grossing film of the last decade, Flame & Citron (a joint nom for stars Thure Lindhardt & Mads Mikkelsen); and Germany's The Wave (best actor nom for Juergen Vogel). Last year, IFC's 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days won Best Film.

While Charlie Kaufman's films Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Adaptation were art-house hits in Israel, his directorial debut Synecdoche, New York is being unceremoniously dumped by its Israeli distributor.

France's Arnaud Desplechin is one of the most exciting directors working today. I went to hear the writer-director speak at the LA County Museum recently before a screening of Kings and Queen, a movie that makes a lot of sense as a ramp-up to his current A Christmas Tale, which played Cannes, Toronto, New York and AFI. IFC is releasing it in NY and L.A. November 14.

Both Kings and Queen and A Christmas Tale are unpredictable, unusually structured, sprawling family stories starring the always compelling Mathieu Amalric-- Desplechin's discovery and alter-ego who is now a global star and current Bond villain-- Hippolyte Girardot, Emmanuelle Devos, and icon Catherine Deneuve. You get the sense watching them that the filmmaker will try anything, take a hairpin turn into the past or someone's imagination or dreams or fantasies--to get his complex, often autobiographical stories across.

At the LACMA interview by critic Scott Foundas, Desplechin says he shot his first film, 1991's La Vie des Morts, as if it would be his last--with 25 actors. "That's how we started," he says. "When you meet the family you see details of the characters, you see their humanity."

In Desplechin's films, family members go after each other with abandon; resentments run deep. "I am not pro or against family," he says. "It's dysfunctional by nature. It's not here to work. It's here to not work. This film [Kings and Queen] is still a cinematic enigma."

Martin Scorsese inspires him on every film, he says. Desplechin keeps things fluid during filming, uses no storyboards, improvises with the actors, makes many changes on set as he chooses how to express a scene. "I'm not able to say this is my style," he says. "I'm looking at what's happening on set and finding the appropriate style to have it. Even if my characters are very talkative it's a way of reminding that film is a silent art. The perfect movie is the one where you don't recognize me at all as a film by Arnaud Desplechin."

Indiewire interviews Desplechin and NYT's Dennis Lim profiles him. Reviews are strong (87 on Metacritic): here are the NYT's A.O. Scott and EW's Lisa Schwarzbaum. UPDATE: Here's Variety's profile and IFC's Desplechin interview.

[Photo courtesy Indiewire]

Slumdog Millionaire played great at my Sneak Previews series. While these film fans are slightly older than the pic's target audience, they ate it up.

A show of hands during the Q & A with director Danny Boyle did reveal that slightly more of them believe the movie deserves its R rating. Boyle admits that he lost that rating on appeal after trying to earn a PG-13. The ratings board couldn't tell him anything to cut. The rating was for overall intensity. Which is certainly the case. Fox Searchlight accepted Boyle's cut.

On a second viewing, Slumdog--executed with great energy by Boyle's team--owes a great deal to the script by Simon Beaufoy and the propulsive score by A.R. Rahman, who Boyle hired after Jack White proved unavailable. (He did find time to write the Quantum of Solace Bond theme).

Boyle set out to make an English language movie, but his casting director told him that the kids he liked best didn't speak English. So he translated the material with the kids into Hindi, about a third of the movie, he said. And he uses subtitles in a different way, coloring them and moving them around the screen, not sticking them on the bottom. Some of the folks in the class were challenged by not having white titles where they expect them. Boyle wanted to move their focus around the screen, he said.

Todd McCarthy thinks Boyle should direct the next Bond film.

The European Film Academy has announced noms for the 21st European Film Awards. 1,800 EFA Members will now vote for the winners which will be presented at a December 6 awards ceremony in Copenhagen. Getting an awards season boost are foreign film Oscar submissions from France (The Class), Italy (Gomorra) and Israel (Waltz with Bashir) as well as Happy-Go-Lucky star Sally Hawkins and Kristin Scott Thomas of I've Loved You So Long.

IFC might have a shot with Michael Fassbender of Hunger for best actor (in a very competitive category) but would need to commit some bucks to the campaign to make sure members see this extraordinary performance.

Nominated are:

EUROPEAN FILM 2008
IL DIVO, Italy
written and directed by Paolo Sorrentino produced by Indigofilm, Lucky Red, Parco Film, Babe Films, StudioCanal, Arte France Cinéma
ENTRE LES MURS (The Class), France
directed by Laurent Cantet written by Laurent Cantet, François Begaudeau & Robin Campillo after the novel of François Begaudeau produced by Haut et Court, France 2 Cinéma
GOMORRA (Gomorrah), Italy
directed by Matteo Garrone written by Maurizio Bracci, Ugo Chiti, Gianni di Gregorio, Matteo Garrone, Massimo Gaudioso & Roberto Saviano produced by Fandango, RAI Cinema
HAPPY-GO-LUCKY, UK
written and directed by Mike Leigh produced by Thin Man Films Ltd., Summit Entertainment, Ingenious Film Partners, Film4, UK Film Council
EL ORFANATO (The Orphanage), Spain
directed by Juan Antonio Bayona written by Sergio G. Sánchez produced by Rodar y Rodar S.L., Telecinco Cinema
WALTZ WITH BASHIR, Israel/France/Germany
written and directed by Ari Folman produced by Bridgit Folman Film Gang, Les Films d’Ici, Razor Film Produktion, ARTE France, ITVS International

True confession. I am into vampires.

Raised on Hammer Dracula films starring Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, when I was nine I dressed up as a Chinese vampire on Halloween. F.W. Murnau's Nosferatu is a fave. I devoured Bram Stoker's novel Dracula, as well as the classic movie starring Bela Lugosi. ("I don't drink...wine.") I read all of Anne Rice's Lestat novels. Interview with a Vampire the movie was pretty good; so was Francis Coppola's Dracula. I even went to see Underworld, though not the sequel, and suffered manfully through Van Helsing. (A third Underworld, Rise of the Lycans, pitting vampire leader Bill Nighy vs. werewolf Michael Sheen, is due in January.)

I rushed through the first two Stephenie Meyer young adult Twilight vampire romances, and witnessed the femme takeover of Comic-Con at the Twilight conference in Hall H, when thousands screamed en masse for Rob Pattinson. Here's my pre-Comic-Con interview with Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke (the full interview is on the jump). The movie junket is coming up. A cadre of women in my office are begging to screen the movie ASAP. This is not normal.

Even though Twilight doesn’t open until November 21, moviegoers are already buying advance tickets for the film via Fandangotwilighttickets.com. According to the results of a Fandango survey of 5000 moviegoers interested in Twilight:

92% of respondents say they’ll see Twilight on opening weekend; 85% say they plan to see the film more than once; 56% are planning to see the movie with a group of friends; 97% have read the novel by Stephenie Meyer; 86% would be interested in visiting the locations where the movie was filmed; 95% of the respondents to the survey are female; 42% of respondents are 25 or older; 58% are younger than 25.

HBO's True Blood also plays around with similar romantic ideas, but does so with a more mature, sexy edge. I can't get enough of this bloody stuff. What's the appeal? Brian Lowry sinks his teeth into the vampire trend. The WSJ parses the movie power of the vampire. Here's the Twilight trailer:

This trailer for Let the Right One In, a well-reviewed Scandinavian vampire romance that is currently in theaters, also creeps me out:

This teaser was prepared for Slumdog Millionaire's recent screening at the London Film Festival. Check out the fluid, high-speed camera work. This could not be done with a steadicam operator. The camera man is running with a hard drive in his backpack, holding the lightweight SI 2K gyro with a camera lens in his hand, which shoots a high-res digital image. Boyle shot about 70% of the film this way.

Fox Searchlight went from zero to 100 when it took over the release of Danny Boyle’s rags-to-riches romance Slumdog Millionaire (from partner Warner Bros.) just before its launch at September’s Telluride and Toronto Film fests. (Here's an exclusive first look at the official poster.)

The specialty label wasted no time in getting up to speed on Slumdog marketing materials in advance of a November 12 limited opening. They had Boyle, a director who has built a core indie cinephile following, but no name stars. The movie, which is 80 percent English, 20 percent Hindi, is about a teen from the slums of Mumbai, India who answers every question right on India’s “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” The movie is less about how he won—although it answers that question—than why he needed to win. The final answer: Love.

“We do some of our best work under extreme pressure,” says Searchlight COO Nancy Utley. “You have to go with your gut. We tried to capture the spirit of the movie. The upside of the title is it doesn’t seem like anything you’ve ever heard before: it’s a contradiction in itself. We picked up the color palette of the foreign locale, and a beautiful girl, in action."

Searchlight is sending Boyle to spread his Brit charm on a press tour of a dozen American cities through October and November. And Searchlight will do what they did with “Little Miss Sunshine”: wrestle up pre-opening buzz with word-of-mouth screenings, 215 to be exact, in 50 cities. “They’re starting now,” says Utley.

TV spots will take advantage of the movie’s Bollywood soundtrack and closing dance number, and eventually reviews and awards. Natch, Searchlight is supporting an Oscar campaign for the filmmaker—“it’s time,” says Utley—and adapted screenplay writer Simon Beaufoy, who was Oscar-nominated for the label’s The Full Monty. “We always have the little underdog,” says Utley, who’s banking that Slumdog will place favorably against darker, grimmer Oscar competition. “This movie makes you feel good in a time of deepening anxiety.”

UPDATE: As to the controversy about Slumdog's R rating--which Boyle himself is helping to fuel--look at the movie. While it ends up in a good place and is exhilarating to watch, the film puts the viewer through some tough nasty violent real world shit (literally). I spoke to some media folks last night who, while they liked Slumdog, disagreed with its "feel-good" rep. They felt a little beat up along the way. "Definitely an R," said these two parents of a ten-year-old.

While it's a crowded weekend at the boxoffice, there isn't that much worth seeing. Body of Lies should score: the power combo of Ridley Scott, Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe in a commercial thriller will trump mixed reviews.

While I am a big fan of animator Gil Kenan (Monster House), advance footage of the family fantasy City of Ember led me to expect a movie that was more visually exciting than narratively compelling. This young director is gifted; he admits that he missed the freedom of working in a CG environment, so I hope he goes back to that. Ember rates 59% on Rotten Tomatoes.

The must-see this weekend is Mike Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky. Leigh's unique brand of cinema verite works its charms yet again, as he and Brit actress Sally Hawkins create an unforgettable character, Poppy, who remains perky and cheery no matter what horrors are going on around her. Here's my interview with Leigh from Telluride, in which he talks about his remarkable method, as well as a passion project he has not been able to get financed: a biopic of the great landscape painter Turner. Happy-Go-Lucky's rave reviews (82 on metacritic, the same score as The Dark Knight) will help Miramax launch an Oscar campaign.

If you haven't caught up with them yet, other must-sees are the critically-hailed Appaloosa, Ballast, Choke, Frozen River, Trouble the Water and Man on Wire.

While I think I'll skip the 99 Cent Chef's white wine tasting (Two Buck Chuck gives me a headache), I like his approach to promoting the Nuart's showing of Jean-Luc Godard's must-see classic Vivre Sa Vie this week. As Monty Python would say, the answer is pork!

After the frenetic fest circuit, I've been screening up a storm lately. I finally caught up with a couple of pics I missed in Sundance and Toronto:

Ballast: Sundance critics raved about this small-scale indie, which was initially picked up by IFC, but director Lance Hammer decided to self-release the pic. Beautifully framed and shot in North Carolina, the drama explores the aftermath of a suicide on a dysfunctional, poverty-stricken extended family who painstakingly figure out that they need each other to survive. But the actors, while authentic, are extremely inexpressive, which flattens the experience. The movie opened in NYC October 1, and will hit L.A. on November 7. Here's Manohla Dargis's review. And the trailer.

Choke: Greencine rounds up coverage of Choke, adapted by actor-director Clark Gregg from Chuck Palahniuk's novel, which opened this weekend to mixed reviews. Here's a report from the set and Mark Olsen's LAT feature on Gregg, who is funny in a supporting role. This is by far Sam Rockwell's best role to date. He's sometimes willing to make his characters too dark and off-putting. Not so here.

His compulsive sex addict is dealing with his dying, wacky mom (Anjelica Huston) and lusting after every woman in sight except the one he really likes (Kelly Macdonald), and yet he is charming and winning. (Not that we care what they think, but the Two Bens on At the Movies both hated it.) This is the kind of archly comedic movie that could easily lose its bearings and be a disaster. Gregg nails it. But catch Choke soon, it won't be around long.

Sony PIctures Classics is claiming first screener of the season this year. Academy voters should be getting today their copies of Frozen River, starring Best Actress candidate Melissa Leo (here on the cover of Filmmaker). Gold Derby weighs her Oscar chances.

Remember, when SPC started lobbying for Amy Adams for supporting actress in Junebug, nobody thought she had much of a shot. And Ryan Gosling was a long shot too, for Half Nelson. The actress race is weak this year, which helps Leo's cause.

But SPC is also pushing Anne Hathaway for Jonathan Demme's Rachel Getting Married, as well as Kristin Scott Thomas for I've Loved You So Long. That's three women chasing actress slots. Of the three I'd give Thomas the best shot. She's due. She's British. Wears no makeup. And acts in French.

As I previously reported, Ari Folman's animated doc Waltz with Bashir won't be tracking a documentary nod, SPC confirms, although it's eligible in the foreign film and animated categories. Documentarian/writer/ blogger A.J. Schnack has more.

There's no question that the field of submissions for the foreign Oscar in 2008 is going to be very very competitive. (Here's Variety's most recent tally.) It's been a good year.

Sony Pictures Classics is delighted that Ari Folman's Waltz with Bashir has been submitted by Israel; the animated doc is also a likely contender for best animated feature, and possibly, but not doc, as it didn't get a qualifying run before playing the New York Film Fest.

SPC was banking that many of its foreign acquisitions would wind up being submitted by their countries, and so they have: besides Bashir, SPC is also releasing Norway's pick, Bent Hamer's O'Horten, as well as Laurent Cantet's Palme d'Or winner and NYFF fest opener The Class, which France selected over IFC's smart dysfunctional family drama A Christmas Tale, which played well at Cannes and Toronto.

SPC opted not to pick up Sweden's Everlasting Moments, knowing that they already had too many potential Oscar competitors to service this year. So IFC took on the Jan Troell career-capper, which should play well to Academy voters, who may remember 1973's foreign Oscar-winner The Emigrants.

Waltz with Bashir's Folman almost bit my head off at Telluride when I asked him if there was any rotoscoping involved. As a trained animator, he made sure I understood that this was no mickey mouse Richard Linklater situation: Bashir was hand-drawn from start to finish. Yes, it was videotaped and sound-recorded first, but hand-drawn by a team of animators nonetheless.

UPDATE: The combination of Folman's drive to reexamine his own past and tell this horrific story, combined with the artistry of the animation, is powerful indeed. Spoutblog spoke to Folman in Toronto.

Folman, who wrote for the Israeli TV series that formed the basis of In Treatment, is working on another project which is fun to think about: a to-be-retitled adaptation of Solaris author Stanislaw Lem's sci-fi tale Futurological Congress. It's about a gorgeous American actress on the cusp of losing her movie star luster who sells her likeness to Hollywood and can never work again. The movie will mix some live action with animation, and take the character forward 20 years. Who would be the perfect casting for this, someone who would be brave enough to play it? She'd have to be in her prime now. It could be Nicole Kidman, Cameron Diaz, Jennifer Jason Leigh...the list isn't that long. Any ideas?

Here's the trailer:

After Telluride, Toronto and a taste of NYFF press screenings here in New York, as this cartoon suggests, I'm ready to go home.

The packed Walter Reade press screening of NYFF opener Laurent Cantet's The Class, which won the Palme d'Or, played a little flatter than I expected. Sony Pictures Classics is releasing. (How many times is Patrick Goldstein going to write about Michael Barker and Tom Bernard out of Toronto? I don't disagree with his take on them; it's just that he's written the same story before.)

The Class is terrific three-camera cinema verite that combines some of Mike Leigh's advance improv prep methods with throwing a real teacher (Francois Begaudeau, author of the book Entre les Murs) into a situation with real kids and seeing what high energy results. Cantet directed the action and asked for certain beats and content. He wanted an energetic first take, and then worked on the scene going forward, but he says much of the subsequent "acting" was as good as the first take.

The ping-pong ball interaction between the teacher and the kids is infuriating and exhilarating. Cantet has points he wants to make--so the film is a tad didactic. But the movie leaves wriggle room in terms of what's at stake and who's right or wrong. It rings true. All too true.

I saw Gary Giddins, David Edelstein, Andrew Sarris and Molly Haskell, David D'Arcy, Bill Wolf, Kathleen Carroll, Jamie Stuart, and sat next to a young guy who runs a site called nycmovieguru who ranks films on the Wizard of Oz scale: heart, brains and courage. On that basis The Class gets a 7, 9 and 9 out of ten from me. Pas mal.

Two companies are leading the way in experimenting with new distribution models: IFC and Magnolia. Filmmaker Steven Soderbergh has been at the forefront as well, with Bubble and now, Che, which IFC is releasing for a week at year's end as one four-hour movie with an intermission and in January as two separate releases in theaters and on VOD.

Joining the club pushing into the new digital world is Wayne Wang, who is world-premiering his film The Princess of Nebraska on YouTube on Friday, October 17, 2008. The free release at the YouTube screening room is part of Magnolia's unique distribution plan for Wang's two films.

The first film, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, opens conventionally on September 19 in theaters. The Princess of Nebraska is the second film in a series of films adapted from a collection of short stories from author Yiyun Li. Like many of Wang's films, it explores the bonds of family and Chinese identity in the modern world.

A year after his film debuted at the Toronto Fest (here's Cinematical's review), Wang pushed the YouTube release plan, even though there's still no business model in terms of revenue. For Magnolia, it's an experiment. They'll make money the conventional way on Thousand Prayers and stir up attention for both films via Princess of Nebraska. They'll see how it works and figure out an ad-based model later. To get 250,000 people to click in is worth it, said Magnolia Pictures' Ray Price. "Why not go off into uncharted lands and try something new?"

For Wang, Magnolia's pioneering distribution plan ties in with the Princess of Nebraska's theme: in the film, a young Chinese woman "tries to locate her identity through different kinds of new media," said the filmmaker, who shot the film "with various kinds of easily accessible digital sources. I am very excited that the distribution will be consistent with the way the piece was conceived and produced."

"The internet's ability to provide free streaming video is going to radically redefine independent film's access and availability to its audience," said Price, who coordinated this strategy with Wang, Cinetic Rights Management and YouTube. "It provides a new platform which can free us from the 'Top Ten' mentality in the same way that FM radio did for the music business."

Many people have been waiting for a name auteur is put his film online for free, points out Matt Dentler of Cinetic Rights Management. "That time is now."

Here's the Thousand Years of Good Prayers trailer:

And the Princess of Nebraska trailer:

One of the tricks of the fall film fest trade is to launch a few movies that will gain awards season traction. Telluride has often done well picking some of these pics in advance, such as Brokeback Mountain, Walk the Line and last year's Juno. So given this year's short supply of completed specialty division fare, as many distribs have opted to take the late-year approach to chasing Oscar, Telluride dug up its own indie and foreign gems to help them get some attention.

What these films desperately need is good reviews and buzz.

One unfinished big-studio film came to Telluride anyway. David Fincher's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button played well in the Opera House with the folks who actually saw it, but risked the Wrath of the Internet--bloggers reviewed the tantalizing 20-minute assemblage (edited by Fincher's editor, Kirk Baxter), which could hardly be reviewed as a real movie, including one blogger who hadn't even seen it. (On the other end of the time continuum, GQ sent a writer here who is prepping a 6000-word Fincher profile.)

What worked for Paul Thomas Anderson the year before seemed to backfire this time. For one thing, unpredictably, there were more bloggers and fan sites covering the fest this year. This instant reaction from Slashfilm gives a sense of how the blogosphere can weigh in on a movie. Fincher couldn't show one long sequence--the usual practice-- because he needed to show the passage of time and the different faces of Button (Brad Pitt), so the concept of the movie would be clear. (Telluride wanted fewer, longer clips, but didn't get them until the eve of the showing.)

The other difference between Button and There Will Be Blood is the difference between a Paramount Vantage indie directed by PTA and a big studio director who has commandeered a major movie star and $150-million in big-Paramount resources. Insiders can't help but speculate on the eventual outcome of the movie. Will it get good reviews and be an Oscar contender? Will it lose a fortune? (Is it Memoirs of a Geisha all over again?) The real folks in Telluride will spread good word in their communities, which was Paramount's intention here. But the fanboys are interested in this movie too, and it may not be for them.

No matter how the film turns out, the buzz on Brad Pitt--who was impressive in the Fincher Tribute scenes from Seven and Fight Club-- is getting louder. It could be his turn.

Among the relative unknown pics with Oscar hopes on their sleeves are Flash of Genius, a heart-tugging David-and-Goliath story starring Greg Kinnear in a moving performance as the inventor of the intermittent windshield wiper who takes on Ford and loses everything in the process. Universal backed this deliberately old-fashioned drama from producer-turned-director Marc Abraham (Children of Men, The Family Man). Kinnear was nominated for As Good as it Gets, so he's in the Oscar zone. But while he and Lauren Graham give their all, the tearkjerker has not built much momentum here, and even with mighty Universal behind it, will need great reviews to get anywhere.

Mike Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky comes out of Telluride with some heat for actress Sally Hawkins, yet another relative British unknown like Vera Drake's Imelda Staunton, who went on to win an Oscar nomination (along with Leigh for writer and director). Leigh insists on picking his own actors and says he will never ever succumb to pressure to hire anyone, much less an American star. (He desperately wants to make his biopic on the great Romantic painter Turner, but no one will fund it.) Miramax is releasing.

Leigh also held his own on Friday's Director/Actors panel, moderated by Annette Insdorf--and went up against Fincher, insisting that although they work with actors entirely differently and with an enormous budget differential, they're actually after the same thing: creating authentic characters. Here's a video snippet featuring Fincher.

A movie that does not have a distrib is Paul Schrader's Adam Resurrected, which stars Jeff Goldblum in an astonishing role as a Berlin cabaret performer who survived a concentration camp by playing a dog for a commandant (Willem Dafoe). The movie is magical, fictional and outrageous, like the popular Yoram Kaniuk novel it is based on, and marks a feat of daring on the part of Schrader and Goldblum. Some small distrib will figure out that there is a long-shot Oscar play here for Goldblum, who uses every skill he ever learned in his career for this juicy sexy crazy role.

UPDATE: Another possible awards contender is Brit actress Kristin Scott Thomas, star of French novelist Philippe Claudel's intense two-hander I've Loved You So Long, his directorial debut. Thomas plays a mysterious woman who comes to live with her younger sister (an impeccable Elsa Zylberstein). Slowly we begin to learn the details: the elder sister has been in prison for fifteen years, and is shut down. Slowly, she begins to wake up to the family around her, two little nieces, her sister, husband, and her father-in-law. She starts to talk. Gets a job. Engages with her sister about what happened. While Claudel started out wanting to explore his experience teaching in prison, this story of two sisters emerged. Thomas has lived in France for 25 years, but this is her first role carrying a French movie. Sony Pictures Classics is also taking this to Toronto. France has a plethora of films for possible Oscar submission this year, led by Palme d'Or winner The Class (which opens the NYFF). But if the actress field is open enough, Thomas could sneak in. This is more than just an accent or a beautiful woman made plain.

Here's Kim Voynar's Cinematical review.

The discovery of the fest for Leigh, me and many others was Swedish auteur Jan Troell's Everlasting Moments, which is based on a true story of a downtrodden turn-of-the-century woman who learns to use a camera. Silent images convey much of the story, and the photography and detail of daily life are stunning. So is the performance of Maria Heiskanen as the mother of an ever-increasing brood who finds joy in observing the world around her through a camera lens, just as Troell does. He has been making films in Sweden for more than 40 years (as well as a few Hollywood pics such as Zandy's Bride). He was Oscar-nominated for writing and directing 1973's foreign Oscar winner The Emigrants. Thanks to Telluride's cajoling, Troell, 77, came to the fest to accept a silver medallion and brought his spanking new film, which will now go to Toronto to seek a North American distrib. It will open in Sweden in September; it is a strong candidate foreign Oscar submission. Todd McCarthy also raves in his Telluride Wrap.

More anon. Here are my interviews with Hunger's Steve McQueen and Danny Boyle, whose Slumdog Millionaire is the breakout hit of the festival. Here's Todd McCarthy's review.

UPDATE: The irony is that by shutting down Warner Independent, Warner Bros. gave away the biggest hit they might have had; nonetheless sharing the release with Fox Searchlight is smart because big Warner would have had no clue what to do with it. The movie is brilliantly structured and executed; a thrill ride inside the bustling world of Mumbai. As the 18-year-old Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? contestant answers each question, the movie flashes back to his life to show how he learned the answer. The movie is painful and sordid, exhilarating and joyous. Will it go all the way? To a smash hit, yes. Then you think: cinematography, writing, directing, editing, score...and yes, there's a Bollywood musical number under the closing credits.

[Actor-director panel participants from left, Greg Kinnear, Mike Leigh, Elsa Zylberstein, moderator Annette Insdorf, David Fincher, Jean Simmons and Jeff Goldblum; Danny Boyle, bottom.]

More Telluride photos on the jump.

Believe it or not, between all those wall-to-wall Abba songs in Mamma Mia!, there is a plot, of sorts. A teen daughter (Amanda Seyfried) reads the diary of her mother (Meryl Streep) and discovers that not one but three men (Stellan Skarsgard, Colin Firth and Pierce Brosnan) had intimate relations with Mom nine months before she was born. The girl invites all three men to her wedding, convinced that she will instantly divine her true father. All three, it turns out, are happy to take on the job.

All of which brings to mind the 1968 comedy on which Mamma Mia! is based. Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell is about a one-time-war-prostitute-turned-single mom (Gina Lollobrigida) who tells her daughter (Janet Margolin) that her father is dead, while collecting child support from three of her former clients (Phil Silvers, Peter Lawford and Telly Savalas). When the ex-G.I.s come back to Italy for a 20th anniversary reunion, all hell breaks loose as they all ask to meet their daughter. Buona Sera, Mrs. Campbell also served as the basis for the unsuccessful 1979 stage musical Carmelina.

This is the season when we try to find out what's going to turn up at Toronto, Telluride, New York and Venice. It turns out that many of the studio movies that might have been expected to debut at these fall fests will not be ready in time.

Neither Sam Mendes' Revolutionary Road nor John Patrick Shanley's Doubt will be ready for the NYFF, as previously reported here. Gus Van Sant's Milk, starring Sean Penn as Harvey Milk, will also not be finished until late October or early November, while John Hillcoat's film version of Cormac McCarthy's The Road, starring Charlize Theron and Viggo Mortenson, will not be complete until December.

As for Steven Soderbergh's Cannes entry Che, I hear that it will only turn up at a fest willing to screen it as a 4 1/2 hour feature, as Cannes did. UPDATE: Word is, that fest is New York.

The Cannes Palme d'Or winner The Class, directed by Laurent Cantet, will open the New York Film fest, reports Winter Miller.

At the recent LAFF, Matt Dentler, the former SWSX Film Fest program director who is now at Cinetic Media, laid out his view of the indie digital distribution future. Make that present.

IM Global CEO Stuart Ford has taken matters into his own hands and bought out beleaguered financeer David Bergstein's minority stake in foreign sales and distribution company IM Global. The deal was closed several weeks ago, sources say. Ford was on vacation and had no comment.

Aramid Entertainment Fund and Screen Capital International financed the transaction, acting as IM Global's bank. Ford bought out Bergstein's shares.

Meanwhile, the troubled project Nailed, which was shut down four times for not being able to meet its payroll, wrapped production last week. IM Global was selling rights to the Bergstein-financed picture at this May's Cannes Film festival. It is unclear whether Global will continue to sell the David O. Russell pic, which stars Jake Gyllenhaal.

IM Global is selling rights to thriller 44 Inch Chest, starring Tim Roth, Bunraku, starring Ron Perlman, horror title Paranormal Activity, the Tennessee Williams drama The Loss of the Teardrop Diamond, the Bill Maher doc Religulous, and Shelter, starring Julianne Moore.

Bergstein-owned ThinkFilm, which has been financially strapped, went ahead and opened Marina Zenovich's well-reviewed Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired in New York today; L.A., Boston and Washington, D.C. follow next week. Also in current release is Werner Herzog's doc Encounters at the End of the World.

Part One of John Woo's two-part, four-hour Red Cliff will open in Asia on July 10. Woo and his producer Terence Chang took on the Herculean task of mounting--on their own, with backing from five Asian countries--the $80-million production, the biggest ever in China. Part Two of this period epic romance, based on 2000-year-old Chinese history, comes in January, plus a 2 1/2 hour edit for western audiences. After that cut is complete, Woo and Chang will seek a North American distributor.

One Asia spy writes: "It is great. This feels like the film that John Woo has been saving up his skills to make for the last decade. Two hours 20 went by in a canter. Lots of strong action, but not as gory as some I've seen. It should be an absolute smash in Asia where the story and 22 characters are well known. Elsewhere, will it be the breakthrough or a new CTHD? Not sure as it is not Jackie Chan style chop socky."

At Cannes, Woo unveiled some pretty stunning battle footage. He told the film's global buyers that he was thrilled to be able to bring western movie techniques--including VFX, special effects and CGI (like The Orphanage from the U.S.)-- to the Chinese film community via his "dream project," which he had wanted to make for over 18 years. The movie's pan-Asian ensemble is led by Tony Leung and Takeshi Kaneshiro.

Even Woo seemed staggered by the film's scale and scope. "Thousands of horses, 800,000 soldiers, so many battle ships." Woo burned three large boats, and sixteen smaller boats. With CG, it looks like 2000, he said. The great battle was 50,000 against 800,000, he said. "They needed great wisdom and smarts and skill to win it. I wanted to make this the biggest action sequence ever." Woo enjoyed working with freedom away from the constraints of commercial Holllywood filmmaking. "I did whatever I want," he said.

The weather didn't help. "It was extremely hot and extremely cold," he said. "Some scenes needed 100,000 people running in the heat. A lot of people got heat fever. It took a lot of time and patience to let the crew know how to make the shots work. After this experience they can handle all kinds of movies."

"Welcome home, director Woo," said veteran actor Zhang Fengyi.

The LAT's Rachel Abramowitz talked to Chang about what happened on the set of Red Cliff, when a stuntman was burned to death. When the wind turned and fire headed for the Red Cliff stuntmen, Chang said, "It was horrible, truly horrible."

The indie crisis continues as U.K. distrib Tartan Films is shutting down. UPDATE: This distrib released many of the edgier pics out there, including one of the best films of recent years, The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (below), which few people ever saw.

Here's Variety:

U.K. distrib Tartan Films has finally shuttered. Sources told Variety that Tartan employees found the London office doors closed Thursday June 26 and were then informed later in the day by Tartan topper Hamish McAlpine the company was closed for business.

Speculation over the future of Tartan has been rife for several months. The distrib was believed to be in takeover talks with David Bergstein of the Capco Group, the firm that owns ThinkFilm, a stake in I.M. Global as well as the U.K.'s Capitol Film and has itself been plagued by rumors of financial troubles, for much of last year before negotiations broke down following disagreements over Tartan's financial worth.

Last October Tartan announced it had received a cash injection of £3 million ($6.2 million) in the form of a convertible loan from a private investor and also had restructured its Brit operation, with managing director Laura De Casto ankling. The company's theatrical and home entertainment departments, previously run out of separate London offices, were also merged into one entity based at Tartan's head office.

Tartan USA, the company's U.S. arm, announced at this year's Cannes that it was being foreclosed. Film print and advertising financing company Palisades Media Corp. has since bought the U.S. rights to its library.

UPDATE: McAlpine is a hard-driving, colorful figure who once inspired director Larry Clark to deck him one in London in 2002. Here's the LA Weekly. Presumably the Tartan Asia Extreme library was also sold to Palisades. Here's Cinematical.

Bravo to the Academy for making the long called-for tweaks in the Oscar rules for songs and foreign films. Now only two songs per film can get nominated, which would avoid what happened last year when three nommed songs for the Disney musical Enchanted knocked each other out.

After a concerted reform push by producer Mark Johnson, the Academy also approved a new selection process for the foreign language category, reports Variety.

The only other significant change involves the procedure for the foreign-language film voting. It's still a two-phase process. Now, the phase one committee will vote to determine only six of the nine films that will ultimately go to the phase two committee. The other three titles will be determined by members of the 20-person foreign-language film award executive committee. The executive committee's selections will be made after the phase-one voting has been tallied.

This would give the foreign language exec committee a chance to fill in a less popular but deserving title like last year's Palme d'Or winner Four Months, Three Weeks, Two Days, which was overlooked by the foreign film branch.

A federal investigation into overseas corruption is making some Hollywood folks nervous, reports Portfolio:

For federal prosecutors, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act has become a sleeper hit—but no Hollywood types will be celebrating when this once-dormant bribery statute makes a September Tinseltown debut.

The F.C.P.A., after decades of being ignored, is ensnaring an increasing array of companies, from energy exploration and telecom concerns to medical-device makers and freight forwarders, for alleged kickbacks to government officials around the globe. Now, even Hollywood is in prosecutors' crosshairs for bribery along the film-festival circuit—a case that could mark the beginning of the industry's own serious Syriana-style woes.

The Department of Justice has accused critically acclaimed Rescue Dawn producer Gerald Green and his wife Patricia of attempting to pay more than $900,000 in bribes to a high-level Thai government official in the hope of gaining the concession to run an international film festival in Bangkok. The Greens have plead not guilty on all charges.

Tonight I will see the first two parts of the four part, seven hour 1967 Russian War and Peace at the Los Angeles Country Museum of Art. I saw it for the first time when I was in high school at Manhattan's Elgin Theatre; it played from midnight to six A.M. in a dubbed version; my whole family went and we did not sleep a wink. It was one of the best movies I have ever seen. (It's based on one of the best works of literature, too.) We'll see how it holds up in this longer, subtitled version. Apparently the version the Academy screened back in 1967 was subtitled. It won the foreign film Oscar.

LACMA will screen War and Peace on three consecutive weekends, Friday and Saturday nights, so folks will have a chance to catch up with it. UPDATE: There is no way to rent this on DVD a PBS DVD of a six-hour subtitled version. There are probably old VHS copies of the dubbed one kicking around. Each of the four-part Russian TV series segments ended in a cliffhanger; they ran eight hours. Russian New Yorker Alla Verlotsky's Seagull Films finds undistributed Russian films and makes subtitled prints of them. When the Russians did their restoration of the 70 mm War and Peace, they made a 35 mm print.

According to LACMA film curator Ian Birnie, the Russians actually created an army unit of some 100,000 soldiers to act in the movie. "There are a lot of people on-screen," he says. "It must have been horrible to make."

UPDATE: Here's the LAT's interview with Verlotsky. She and Edward Goldman are a bit tough on actor-director Sergei Bondarchuk, who plays the role of Pierre Buzukhov, quite well. During the first two installments of this $100-million epic, even after a tough work-week, I remained alert. The mise-en-scene is a tad heavy-handed and very 60s, true, but the narrative carries the day. These are great characters. And the scale and scope of the CG-free battles, the vistas, the cannon-fire and fast-moving horses, is stunning.

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]

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, which hit the web within minutes of the end of the press screening, because Todd saw the film in L.A. and prepared the review in advance. And here's Kenneth Turan's LAT feature. Here's a collection of reviews.

UPDATE: And my red carpet commentary with IFC's Matt Singer:

It was wall-to-wall critics at the official black tie dinner at the Palme d'Or, with round tables and name cards; each table was named after one of Eastwood's movies. Rebounding from his last Cannes experience with the nastily reviewed The Da Vinci Code, producer Brian Grazer, who had the sense to send the Changeling script based on a real 1928 story to Eastwood, admitted that there were several points-of-view on the film's title. Basically, when Changeling was translated into French as "L'Echange," many folks liked The Exchange better. Eastwood was noncommital at the press conference. But Grazer thinks it will stay Changeling in the U.S.

Universal brass Ron Meyer, David Linde, James Schamus and Donna Langley joined a bevy of les meilleurs critiques du monde. Eastwood sat with wife Dina Ruiz, fest topper Thierry Fremaux, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, who feels strongly that movies should be allowed to run at whatever their best length, whether it's Changeling or The Assassination of Jesse James, which he insists made no sense when it was cut down.

Eastwood's long-time editor Joel Cox said Eastwood has one of his great roles in his next, Gran Torino, as a curmudgeonly Korean War veteran who gets to know his neighbors. "One last time," added Eastwood, who says he's easing out of acting roles, and certainly won't play Dirty Harry again, despite rumors to the contrary. "Dirty Harry would not be in the police department at my age," he said at the press conference earlier in the day. Eastwood admitted that "The Man with No Name" was a marketing ploy when he was a no name himself, he said. "It all worked out."

Mystic River stars Tim Robbins and Sean Penn showed their support, while Zhang Ziyi was pushing a charity effort on behalf of China’s earthquake victims. Also on hand were Eastwood's kids Kyle and Alison, who's waiting on a script for a new movie. A chip off the old block.

I saw it coming. Ever since Paramount announced that Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom Kingdom of the Crystal Skull would not screen for anyone before its May 18 unveiling at Cannes (in advance of its worldwide launch May 22), I felt that Spielberg and Co. might be setting themselves up. The anticipation of this film is too great, the pressure for information is wrecking havoc on the internet. As the NYT reports, several exhibitor screenings have added to the din surrounding this film. So far the PR strategy has been to dole out interviews to press who have not yet seen it; Vanity Fair, EW, the LAT and others have played ball.

And at Cannes, select press are being invited to do interviews before the official press screening at 1 PM on May 18. This will add more pressure to the press conference that day. UPDATE: Paramount is also not throwing a party, instead sticking to a small exclusive film dinner. That's not winning them any popularity contests.

Sony learned the hard way the power of a roomful of 4000 critics waiting to find a movie wanting at Cannes with the Da Vinci Code. Moviegoers ignored their complaints and made the film a worldwide blockbuster. But the filmmakers had hoped to score a prestige win at Cannes. Ron Howard and Brian Grazer left Cannes with their egos badly bruised.

Spielberg, who is staying in one of the big yachts in the harbor, may be hoping to return to the site of his early career triumphs with Sugarland Express and E.T., which was such a huge smash at Cannes that it burnished Spielberg's profile as a star director with a special place in filmgoers' hearts. Indiana Jones is a favorite franchise returning after 18 years. It may fulfill all that is hoped for; it will certainly score a huge global opening. That's not the issue. It will be fascinating to see if Cannes gives back to Spielberg what he may be hoping to get from it.

If the audience skews older, as I suspect it will, I wonder if Paramount might not have lured more of the key younger demo by waiting to open the film after they get out of school. It's early summer days yet.

Introducing a new foreign-language auteur to American moviegoers has never been tougher.

So producer Scott Rudin is lending his name to the upcoming Norwegian film Reprise to provide an extra push.

Shocked to discover that Norwegian shorts writer-director Joachim Trier's stylishly hip feature debut, which earned strong reviews at Sundance and New Directors, New Films in 2007, didn't have distribution, Rudin persuaded Miramax to release the story about two fledgling novelists who respond to early literary success in radically different ways. Netflix's Red Envelope is partnering on the release. Here's the full story.

Here's the trailer:

As expected, Fernando Meirelles’ Blindness will open the Cannes Film Festival, screening in the competition, while Hunger, from Brit director Steve McQueen, will kick off Un Certain Regard. The Cannes Fest has also added Laurent Cantet's Entre les murs to the competition entries, along with James Gray's Two Lovers, an additional American title. Robert DeNiro will accompany Barry Levinson's Sundance entry What Just Happened? to the fest for closing night May 25, and will present the Palme d'Or at the award ceremony. DeNiro stars as a Hollywood producer modeled on writer Art Linson, who penned the screenplay; Cannes jury president Sean Penn co-stars with Robin Wright Penn and John Turturro.

The Cannes Film Fest announced its lineup Wednesday, and lo and behold, Steven Soderbergh's two Che films were included in the competition after all, as one four-hour entry. There had been some question if Soderbergh could finish the pics in time. Clint Eastwood's The Changeling and Charlie Kaufman's directorial debut Synecdoche, New York are the three American films in the competition. Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Steven Spielberg's Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and DreamWorks Animation's Kung Fu Panda will show out of competition. Spielberg will return to the Croisette for the first time since The Color Purple in 1986. New films from Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, Walter Salles, Wim Wenders and Atom Egoyan will also be in competition. The opening and closing films have not been announced--Fernando Meirelles' Blindness, an Agnes Varda doc and Barry Levison's What Just Happened? were expected to be in the line-up.

Sean Penn will lead the main jury, comprised of Sergio Castellitto, Natalie Portman, Alfonso Cuaron, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Alexandra Maria Lara, and Rachid Bouchareb. UPDATE: Penn has programmed a U.S. film by Alison Thompson, The Third Wave, as a special jury president presentation. Interestingly, Penn won an Oscar for Mystic River under the direction of competition director Eastwood, so that complicates the jury/competition dynamic just a tad.

Americans Abel Ferrara, Kelly Reichert and James Toback have films in the official Un Certain Regard selection, while David Lynch sprig Jennifer Lynch of Boxing Helena fame is in the midnight category.

The full line-up is on the jump:

Stateside, the Tribeca Film Fest kicked off Wednesday night in New York with Tina Fey's comedy Baby Mama. Still to unspool are David Mamet's jujitsu drama Redbelt, Errol Morris's Abu Ghraib doc Standard Operating Procedure and the Wachowski's family FX adventure Speed Racer.

La Vie En Rose producer Alain Goldman is launching Légende Films, Inc., a subsidiary of his Paris-based production house Légende. Former Hollywood journalist Nancy Griffin (Premiere, AARP Magazine, Hit and Run, co-authored with Kim Masters) will head development and production in Los Angeles.

“We have been growing the company with the intention of developing more films for the international market," says Goldman, "and the moment is right to establish ourselves in the U.S."

Goldman has secured a new financial partnership with the French investment company Serendipity, co-owned by industrialists Bouygues and Pinault and headed by Patrick Le Lay, which now holds 35% of Légende. The company has also extended its worldwide (except U.S.) distribution deal with StudioCanal.

Founded in 1992, Légende started out with Ridley Scott’s big-bucks Christopher Columbus epic 1492. The company co-produced Martin Scorsese’s Casino with Universal and TF1 and also produced Roland Joffé’s Vatel. In France, Légende produced The Crimson Rivers 1 & 2, L'Enquête Corse, La Vie en Rose and 99 Francs. Legende has completed production on the upcoming summer release Babylon AD for Fox and StudioCanal, starring Vin Diesel.

Goldman wants to work with English-speaking directors, writers and actors on a variety of genres.

Richard Corliss explains why Hong Kong stars like The Forbidden Kingdom's Jet Li and Jackie Chan are unstoppable.