With Cannes starting to wind down — or with people probably starting to leave in the manner of Hollywood folk at lengthy fests much in the way Los Angelenos leave sporting events early — maybe the news will start to slow down a bit as well. In any case, it’s looking like I won’t be around to cover it tomorrow, and then comes the weekend movie preview, so this will have to tide you over for a bit.
* Our top story tonight, however, is far away from anything likely to screen in, or even out of, competition at the world’s most famous film festival. Seems that Megan Fox, who you might remember compared director Michael Bay to Hitler some time ago, will not be returning in “Transformers 3.” Apparently Bay has finally realized there are lots and lots of unnaturally attractive young women in Hollywood and some of them can act a little.
In any case, Nikki Finke brings you a crash course on the apparent Fox/Bay hate affair, while AICN’s Merrick reminds you of some of those other unnaturally attractive women.
* I had a feeling that Paul Greengrass’s style of hand-held action mayhem might not be a fit in 3-D. Of course, I had no way of knowing if the director was going to maintain his “Bourne” style for the upcoming remake of “Fantastic Voyage,” but now I guess we’ll never know.
* Getting back to Cannes, Anne Thompson brings us up to date on some of what has been picked up by the studios for release, including Mike Leigh’s “Another Year,” which has been doing fairly well in terms of response.
* A.J. Schnack summarizes the hugely impressed reaction to what might be the important film to screen at Cannes in terms of real-world consequences. It’s “Inside Job” from Charles Ferguson, he of the outstanding Iraq war documentary, “No End in Sight.” This time the topic is Wall Street and last year’s worldwide economic debacle and near depression. Not at all surprisingly, it apparently contains some sharp words regarding some of President Obama’s economic appointees many of whom have deep Wall Street ties that are regularly flailed by progressives and populists.
As for Logan Hill‘s breathless query: “Is Matt Damon’s Narration of a Cannes Doc a Sign that Hollywood is Abandoning Obama?” there are so many wrong assumptions folded into those fifteen words, I don’t know where to begin.
* Speaking of Wall Street exposes, the new film about fallen Wall Street scourge and ex-New York governor Eliot Spitzer from Alex Gibney, who produced “No End in Sight,” has been picked up. I’m also amused by the description of the film as a “Downfall Doc.” Somehow, I expect to hear about ‘net denizens in Germany making hilarious videos in which ex-Gov. Spitzer rants via subtitles about bad video games and David Hasselhoff.
* Department of intra-critic controversy. First, in the interest of equal time, we have the brilliantly petulant Glenn Kenny‘s response to a review of Jean-Luc Godard’s latest and possibly last film from Todd McCarthy (which I linked to yesterday) and a Tweet, or something, by Roger Ebert, which I can’t seem to find. If you’re into this kind of thing, be sure to check out the really interesting colloquy in comments, which I would say even if if I hadn’t just left a comment there of my own. Really interesting thoughts from a bunch of smart people, not necessarily including me.
Speaking of really smart people, Dennis Cozzalio has his really interesting two cents on a controversy about the audience for classic film screenings sparked by his own piece on the TCM Fest. And then he talks about westerns. Yee-freaking-haw.
*And speaking of Todd McCarthy, his rave review of “Carlos,” about the legendary and utterly ruthless terrorist of seventies and eighties, has me way excited to see it. It sounds like it might pair nicely with “The Baader Meinhof Complex.”
* Nicholas Cage doesn’t like how pigs pork, so he won’t pig out on pork.
* Steven Soderbergh is even busier than Alex Gibney, I think. And he’s doing George Lucas one better by fixing an old movie of his that I thought was actually fairly broken, 1991’s “Kafka.” To me, it started out like a really strong homage to Franz Kafka — with the conceit that Kafka’s life was, you know, Kafka-esque. Then, it turned into an episode of “Wild Wild West” — or I guess “Wild Wild Central Bohemia” — and not in a good way. So, I’m curious to see how this new version will come out, even if we have to wait two more years for it.
* Hercules is right, I think. Jemaine Clement should make a nice alien-villain type guy.
* Some “Twilight” news for those who care.
* I saw “Get Him to the Greek” last week and am looking forward to a press day coming up this weekend. Anyhow, I don’t think it’s breaking any press embargoes to say there’s probably more than enough material for an “Infant Sorrow” EP, if not a full-on album. There’s certainly more than enough music, good and not so good, for a decent soundtrack.
