When you hear journalists at Cannes bemoaning a lack of outlets, it turns out that, for once, they're not talking about firings and cutbacks in paying gigs; rather, they're talking about the crowded push of the Orange WiFi Press Cafe, where getting a socket to plug into between screenings is well-nigh impossible. That's the press room pictured above; not shown is the upper deck, to the right, crowded with couches and journalists sprawled on the floor with their laptops. At its busiest, the WiFi Cafe looks something like a Civil War hospital, if Gettysburg's fallen had carried laptops and cameras instead of rifles.

It seems hard to imagine it's only the second day of the Festival, but it is; journalists and filmmakers are still coming into town, and the tempo of buzz and anxiety is speeding up subtly under the stately glide of stars down the red carpet. I actually wound up, bizarrely enough, at the Kung Fu Panda press screening -- Kim had to cover the Blindness press luncheon -- and, as I said in my review, "Of course, I may be a little inclined to have liked Kung Fu Panda as it made for a bit of a break; my Cannes viewing before this morning's Kung Fu Panda screening included two stabbings, a riot, several acts of sexual aggression, a few beatings, assault with a deadly weapon, family tension, grinding poverty and child endangerment. (That's not the breakdown for the films before Kung Fu Panda, just to clarify; that's the breakdown for the film before Kung Fu Panda.)" Still, I was able to get out and about to take in the scene today; you'll find the gallery below, with more from the shore to come when I can find a place to plug in for my next Cannes dispatch.

While David Lynch prepares to team up with Werner Herzog to make a guerilla-style murder drama, his daughter is doing quite well on her own, thank you very much. indieWIRE reports that Surveillance, the first film by Jennifer Chambers Lynch in 15 years, has been picked up by Magnet Releasing for distribution in the US. The thriller will be playing out of competition at Cannes next week in one of the three Midnight screening slots.

Surveillance is set in the Santa Fe desert, where a blood-curdling killing spree has been unleashed, according to the official synopsis. The FBI arrives and listens to three eyewitnesses, including an eight-year-old girl whose family was brutally murdered. It becomes clear that the little girl knows something about the FBI agents ... and then two more bodies are found.

Creepy, eh? But not nearly as creepy as Lynch's first film, Boxing Helena, in which a surgeon held a woman captive and started amputating her limbs, all in the name of love. Based on the premise, Surveillance sounds much more straightforward, but perhaps the younger Lynch has some surprises up her sleeve.

The film stars Julia Ormond and Bill Pullman (David Lynch's Lost Highway) as the FBI agents, Pell James, Ryan Simpkins, and Kent Harper as the witnesses, and Michael Ironside as the local police chief. French Stewart and Cheri Oteri are also featured. Harper co-wrote the script with Lynch. Magnet Releasing, the genre arm of Magnolia Pictures, plans a fall theatrical roll-out.

Waltz With Bashir, the first official trailer from cinemascopian.com on Vimeo.

An early Cannes favorite, Cinematical's Kim Voynar describes Waltz with Bashir as a "beautiful, disturbing and deeply compelling film" that "could wind up with an Oscar nod come January." The animation looks stunning (love the gold in those beach scenes), and I'd definitely agree with Spout's Karina Longworth who calls it "Grand Theft Auto: Beirut, Meets A Scanner Darkly" in the title of her post showcasing the trailer above. More from Kim's Cannes review: "Waltz with Bashir documents the struggle of the filmmaker, Ari Folman, to come to terms with the gaps in his memory surrounding the part he played in the first Lebanese war and the 1982 massacre of Palestinian civilians in the West Beirut refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila."

Whaddya think?

The deals are already flying fast and furious in Cannes. As befits an international marketplace, most of the action involves far-flung territories, but we're keeping an eye out for US distribution deals too. indieWIRE has a great round-up of the first day's activity, which includes the news that IFC Films has acquired distribution rights to two films.

Good buzz about 24-year-old Joshua Safdie's feature debut The Pleasure of Being Robbed began when it world premiered at SXSW in March. Somehow, the Cinematical crew missed seeing it (hey, we're only human, we miss things sometimes), but David Lowery at Spout raved: "It's pure cinema, and as such it's one of the best films I've seen this year." The comedy revolves around a kleptomaniac, played by co-writer Eleonore Hendricks, with a philanthropic streak. Pleasure is the only US title in the Director's Fortnight this year.

In 2005, Tom Hall declared: "There is not a more important filmmaker working today than Arnaud Desplechin." He previously made Kings & Queen and Esther Kahn, among other critically-acclaimed work. The French filmmaker's latest, A Christmas Tale (Un conte de Noël), features Catherine Deneuve, Jean-Paul Roussillon and Mathieu Amalric "in a contemporary family drama set in France." The film plays in Official Competition and has its first screening on Friday night before opening theatrically in France next week.

We'll have to wait to hear about IFC's specific plans for distribution.

Wanna know what's going on in Cannes 24 hours a day? Bookmark this post and keep it tuned into the gallery below for up-to-the-minute images all throughout the fest.

Fernando Meirelles's new film Blindness begins with the rush and push of urban life; traffic, crowds, activity, purpose. And then, one man cries out: "I'm blind." He eventually makes it to an ophthalmologist, but there's nothing physically wrong with his eyes; he simply can't see. "It feels like I'm swimming in milk," he explains, and we see, through his eyes, the blank, empty swirl of what used to be the world. And then another person says they are blind, and then another, and soon those few, frightened voices form a chorus of chaos as "the White Sickness" spreads like wildfire and leaves a ruined world in its wake.

Adapting Nobel Prize winner Jose Saramago's novel, Blindness feels like a curious mix of highbrow literary aspirations and lowbrow genre fiction; as the White Sickness spreads from person to person in a clear chain of connection and things fall apart, it'd be easy to dismiss Blindness as Dawn of the Dead for NPR listeners or Outbreak for grad students. Meirreles has taken a similar two-pronged approach before -- The Constant Gardener is an excellent critique of the failings of modern capitalism that also works as a strong, suspenseful thriller -- and while Blindness may not work as well as that film, it's also a clear case of a film, and filmmaker, failing to hit the mark occasionally only because they've set the bar so high for themselves.

Cinematical has received two brand new exclusive Blindness images ahead of the film's world premiere tonight at the 2008 Festival de Cannes. Directed by Fernando Meirelles (The Constant Gardener), Blindness was selected as the opening night film for this year's Festival de Cannes, and it stars Julianne Moore as the wife of a doctor (Mark Ruffalo) who suddenly becomes the only one who can see in a town where everyone is struck with a mysterious case of blindness. Based on the novel by José Saramago (adapted by Don Mckellar), Blindness also stars Gael García Bernal, Alice Braga and Danny Glover.

Cinematical is on the ground in Cannes, and both James and Kim have already seen Blindness. We'll have our review of the festival's opening night film later on in the day. Check out our second exclusive photo below, then head to the gallery for more. Blindness arrives in theaters on September 19.

Find out here:

If you thought leading a revolution was easy, try filming one. In The Huffington Post, Jeffrey Wells of Hollywood Elsewhere discusses Steven Soderbergh's two-part Che Guevara biopic, comprised of The Argentine and Guerilla. Despite earlier rumors to the contrary, it appears that both movies will definitely screen next month at the Cannes Film Festival, where Soderbergh was warmly welcomed last year for the premiere of Ocean's Thirteen. The reception of his latest project could be even more positive, but its distribution prospects are another story: As Wells explains, Soderbergh's project guarantees to offend some people for its apparent exclusion of Che's stint as the overlord at La Cabana fortress, where he ordered the execution of over 600 political prisoners. Add to that the heavy amount of Spanish dialog and the director's insistence that the two movies should be enjoyed as a four hour-plus package, and you've got enough red flags to send even the bravest U.S. distributors packing.

Wells, who read both scripts, analogizes the project to Lawrence of Arabia. "Hey, how about presenting the two films as a single, gargantuan Lawrence of Arabia-styled deal with an intermission, running between four or four and a half hours?" he suggests, perhaps somewhat tongue-in-cheek.

Jon Stewart had it right during the Oscars this year when he ironically geeked out over Lawrence of Arabia on an iPod. If most audiences can't appreciate that movie on the big screen now, why would they turn up for something like this?

For the first time in Cinematical history we'll have two (count 'em TWO) writers on the ground at this year's Cannes Film Festival: James Rocchi and Kim Voynar. Rocchi's been covering Cannes for us for a few years, and this will be Kim's first time. (Shhh ... she's super nervous, but don't tell anyone.) Anyway, this year's Cannes lineup was just announced, and among the larger, more talked-about films we find Steven Soderbergh's two Che biopics, The Argentine and Guerilla, and Clint Eastwood's Changeling, starring Angelina Jolie (in a role that doesn't find her hanging out the side of a red sports car). According to Variety, the Soderbergh move seems to come last minute, as word had it he wasn't going to finish the films in time for the festival.

Also on the agenda are the premiere of the animated Kung Fu Panda, Woody Allen's new hot, threesome flick, Vicky Christina Barcelona and Charlie Kaufman's directorial debut, Synecdoche, New York. A few foreign titles making their way to Cannes include Jia Zhangke's 24 City (only Chinese film at the fest), Walter Salles' Linha de passe, Wim Wenders' The Palermo Shooting and Waltz with Bashir, an animated film about Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon. Of course, enjoying its world premiere on May 18 will be Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I don't think I have to tell you that a) I'm extremely jealous of James and Kim, and b) we'll be bringing all of this from France to your computer monitor in just a couple weeks. So keep it tuned in here, folks.

Full Cannes lineup after the jump.

When you're dealing with one of the most controversial figures of 20^th century counterculture, it's important to take your time and get things right. That's exactly what Steven Soderbergh appears to be doing with his two upcoming Che Guevara biopics, The Argentine and Guerilla. While both movies looked like they were set to premiere at next month's Cannes Film Festival just a few weeks ago, Variety now reports that Soderbergh is still tweaking the final cuts-and doesn't want to unveil one movie without the other.

Judging by the polarizing figure at the center of the story, that's probably a good thing. Since Soderbergh envisioned these two films as a single unit, it wouldn't make sense to reveal one half of the saga and let people start tearing into it. Considering Fidel Castro's recent retirement, this essential component of Cuban history seems especially relevant, but that's not enough to develop interest in it (topicality didn't help Steven Spielberg's Munich). It's hard to keep audiences interested in a story that stretches across two movies, as we learned with the muted reaction to Clint Eastwood's second Iwo Jima film. Soderbergh will need to get strong reactions to both movies early in the game if they're going to have any success in theaters.

Quentin Tarantino loves to talk. In Pulp Fiction, he wrote one of the movie's breathlessly furious monologues for himself ("Do you see a sign..."). He's been known to deliver talks at universities and special screenings where he fields questions at a characteristically frenetic pace; it's almost like his crazed love of cinema is fueled as much by a constant supply of caffeine as it is by his authentic passion for the art form.

Today's Variety announces that Tarantino will deliver the highly vetted cinema masterclass lecture at the Cannes Film Festival next month, which certainly gives him a major audience on which to unleash his ideas. Filling a slot taken last year by Martin Scorsese, it's easy to imagine that Tarantino will touch on his wide variety of international influences, his ability to become an iconic filmmaker with only a handful of films, and the changing climate of the independent film scene.

A new trend seems to find these big summer blockbusters premiering at the early summer film festivals. Last year, Spider-Man 3 took over Tribeca (and I'd expect the Tribeca folks to try to woo Iron Man to premiere this year), and films like Ocean's 13 premiered at the Cannes Film Festival a couple weeks later. Now, Fox News says folks from the Cannes festival are in talks with Steven Spielberg's reps in an attempt to premiere Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull at the festival this May. While it will debut only a week or so prior to the official release here in the states, it will give those attending Cannes the jump on getting the first reviews out there.

Cinematical will hopefully be at Cannes again this year, though accreditation is always tight and always up in the air. If Indy does premiere at Cannes, it will likely be the talk of the festival and we assume folks like Spielberg, George Lucas, Harrison Ford, Cate Blanchett, Shia LaBeouf and Karen Allen will be on hand to walk the red carpet. I imagine those peeps heading to Cannes in May just found a new reason to get excited. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull officially arrives in theaters on May 22.

Palm trees and promotional materials, stars and crowds, red carpets and sunburn -- it must be Cannes. Here's some more photos from this year's 60th annual Cannes Film Festival. ...



A still of Mark Ruffalo greeting the crowd on the Palais jumbotron as Zodiac played inside. ...

(More after the jump. ...)

A young girl faces a piano examination; the piece is a challenge, but she seems up to the task. But one of the judges -- a famed pianist -- lets an avid fan come in for an autograph during the test. Thrown, the girl's concentration shatters; she fails the exam, and goes home to lock the family piano and never play. Years later, the girl -- now a woman -- is interning with a lawyer and volunteers to help tend for his son while he's away on business. When she meets her boss's family, it turns out he's married to the famed pianist whose unintentional rudeness years ago ruined her aspirations. ...

Written and directed by French director Denis Dercourt, La Tourneuse de Pages -- literally, The Page Turner, the job Melanie (Deborah Francois) takes up for Ariane Fouchecourt (Catherine Frot) -- is a careful, subtle handling of material that could have been sensationalized or phony that, instead, stays real and subtle -- and, by doing so, becomes even more suspenseful. It's easy to joke that the American treatment of a similar plotline would at some point involve Melanie leaping at her idol/tormentor with a butcher's knife, or something similarly broad; it's funny because it's true. Instead, the suspense in La Tourneuse de Pages comes out of two incredibly strong performances by Francois and Frot, which mesh not only with each other but also with Dercourt's meticulously crafted and careful script and direction.