Some people may consider the New York Film Festival a simple "Best Of" sort of event, but the fact that it compiles selections from earlier film fests and merely showcases them in a competition-free program is what I love about it. For those of us New Yorkers who can't always make it to the highlands of Utah and Colorado or the exotic seaside locales of Italy and Southern France, it's nice to know that major festival highlights will likely make their way to Lincoln Center in late September, early October.

This year, the lineup for the 46th NYFF is being noted for its inclusion of films that previously screened at Cannes back in May. Even Steven Soderbergh's four-hour Che (aka The Argentine and Guerilla), which played to mixed reactions in France, even while picking up a best actor prize for star Benicio Del Toro, has been given a spot. Also featured are Cannes leftovers Waltz With Bashir, Wendy and Lucy, Grand Prix-winner Gomorrah and Clint Eastwood's Changeling, which stars Angelina Jolie and has the honor of being NYFF's centerpiece film. Opening the festival is the Palm d'Or winner The Class, while the closing film is Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler, which premieres a few weeks prior at the Venice Film Festival.

Other exciting big name films include Mike Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky, Wong Kar-Wai's Ashes of Time: Redux, Lucretia Martel's The Headless Woman and Olivier Assayas' Summer Hours. Surprisingly, Charlie Kaufman's Synechdoche, New York, which screened at Cannes, is New York appropriate and is scheduled to open in October, is missing from the lineup.

The complete list of NYFF selections, courtesy of The Hollywood Reporter, can be found after the jump:

There's good news and bad news, Soderbergh fans: The bad news is that the director's two-part, Benicio Del Toro-starring Che Guevara biopic Che, as noted in a recent piece in The Hollywood Reporter, still doesn't have a U.S. distributor. Gregg Goldstein's piece (which also looks at the similar challenges faced by Cannes '08 films Synedoche, New York and Two Lovers) notes that there are four offers on the table from independent distributors, but no deal has yet been signed.

For many who saw Che at Cannes (including myself), this is vexing news. Goldstein also relates that one distributor's hopes to purchase Che as a single film with a three-hour running time has been roundly rebuffed. However, in case anyone would like to see what all the fuss is about -- albeit in blurry, bootleg fashion -- a grainy, blurry bootleg of the trailer (in all Spanish with no subtitles) for the first half of Che, The Argentine, has hit YouTube (see above) -- and while the bootlegged trailer may lack clarity and definition, it also gives a great sense of the look and the feel of the film.

Does The Argentine's trailer make you hunger for all of Soderbergh's Che? Or does it just make you appreciate how hard it's going to be to get a distributor to back a four-hour long historical drama in Spanish?

Plenty of people are going to be talking about Steven Soderbergh's Che Guevara biographical films -- The Argentine and Guerrilla, screened at Cannes tonight as one presentation simply called Che -- over the next few months. There will be arguments about the politics of the films; there will be discussions of whether or not the films have any emotional center; there will be questions of if, when the film gets some kind of U.S. distribution deal, exactly how they should be released -- two films released staggered throughout the last half of the year or cut down to one three-hour film or shown as a long, big double bill that presents the separate films back-to-back. There will be talk of if Benicio Del Toro deserves a Best Actor nomination for his work as Guevara, or if Soderbergh's portrait of Che is too flat to engage us; I can easily imagine discussions of the look and feel of the film, shot in high-resolution digital with all the craft and care Soderbergh usually brings to shooting on film. I can't predict how all of these questions and possibilities will play out, but I can say -- and will say -- what a rare pleasure it is to have a film (or films) that, in our box-office obsessed, event-movie, Oscar-craving age, is actually worth talking about on so many levels.

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.

Back in 2006, Javier Bardem was going to play Fidel Castro in Steven Soderbergh's double Che Guevara pics -- The Argentine and Guerrilla. But then Mr. Director had to go and make Ocean's 13 first, for whatever reason, which made Bardem move on. For Javier, that wasn't so much of a bad thing. Instead of playing the famous President of Cuba, he's been wowing everyone with his portrayal of Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men, and has a slew of interesting projects on the way. As for Soderbergh, he had to find someone else, and settled on Mexican actor Demián Bichir.

While we won't be able to tell how well Bichir does with the role until the movies hit the screen, AICN did nab some photos of the actor in full Fidel attire. If photos are any indication, Demián is destined to impress. There are three shots -- a close-up on his face, one with a pipe, and a full-body pipe shot that could almost be confused with the infamous Cuban himself -- if the pictures weren't so crisp and new. Between these and the image of Benicio del Toro as Che, which came out in October, I'm pretty excited.

The films also star the likes of Franka Potente, Benjamin Bratt, Catalina Sandino Moreno... the list goes on and on. The Argentine follows Che and a group of Cuban exiles led by Castro who topple the regime of Fulgencio Batista. Guerilla then jumps into the '60s as Guevara makes a trip to New York City to address the United Nations. Both films are set to come out some time this year.

I'm still waiting for the day when we get Benicio Del Toro as Che Guevara t-shirts -- you know it would be a good promotional item -- but for now we must settle on this bright image put up by Jeff Wells over at Hollywood Elsewhere. It's a photograph taken on location in the Andalusian section of Spain, subbing for Bolivia, and it features Del Toro just chillin' with a big pipe, a flat cap (not the iconic black beret with a star on it!) and some books. Behind him are some fellow guerrillas with guns, also just hangin' out. The scene comes from, Guerrilla, the second installment of Steven Soderbergh's double-dip look at the legendary revolutionary. If it's any indication of how exciting the film will be, then Wells is certainly right by predicting that the first film, The Argentine, will be the more engaging.

Apparently this shot was also taken a little while ago, because The Argentine is now filming in Puerto Rico. Or is it just part of that film being shot now? Are the films being shot simultaneously? If not, I think it's strange that Soderbergh shot the second one first and vice versa. If you were to believe what the Daily News wrote about the films yesterday, you'd think Guerrilla hadn't even begun production yet. So, who knows? (Surely somebody does and can help me out in the comment section). I guess it doesn't matter how the shooting is going. All that is important is that both films are due sometime late next year.

Bit by slow, lingering, snail-like bit, we've gotten news on Steven Soderbergh's upcoming $70 million (approximately) Ernesto Che Guevara films -- The Argentine and Guerrilla. It all started back in November of 2005, with one film and Benicio Del Toro. Then, the team had to scramble to shoot footage before some refurbishing at the UN, some pics were released, Julia Ormond joined the cast and the film got split in two. After a long wait, production is finally scheduled to begin next week in Spain, and we've got another name to add to the cast -- Columbian actress Catalina Sandino Moreno.

Of course, the actress is best known for her starring, Oscar-nominated role in Maria Full of Grace, but she's also spent time in Richard Linklater's world of Fast Food Nation, and the Ethan Hawke-helmed The Hottest State, which is getting released next month. Unfortunately, there is no word about who she is going to play. Whoever it is, she's a great addition to an already intriguing cast. Really, you could throw almost any name at me, and I'd still pay to see Del Toro as Che and Franke Potente as Tamara Bunke -- the only woman to fight alongside communist rebels under Guevara. Shooting is scheduled to continue for nine weeks in Madrid and Andalusia, and hopefully once the cameras begin to officially roll, we'll have some more information on just what Soderbergh has up his sleeve for the epic man of t-shirts.