If I had one wish and one wish only, I think I'd like to be Javier Bardem throughout the duration of filming Vicky Cristina Barcelona, the latest film from writer-director Woody Allen. A new trailer for the flick has just debuted over at Moviefone, and while it's kinda hard to make out what's going on in the movie (there's no dialogue; just music), this definitely looks steamy, romantic, dramatic and, ahem, hot. Starring Javier Bardem, Scarlett Johansson, Penélope Cruz and Rebecca Hall, Vicky Cristina Barcelona marks Allen's first film shot in Spain and it revolves around a painter (Bardem) who winds up "involved" with two American tourists (Johansson and Hall). Cruz plays Bardem's jealous ex-girlfriend, and if the final shot of the trailer is any indication, she definitely takes her jealousy to the next level.

Based on early buzz, there's apparently a sexy threesome scene between Bardem, Johansson and Cruz in the film, as well as a little back-and-forth kissing between Johansson and Cruz (which is teased in the preview). Needless to say, the 2008 Festival de Cannes is the perfect place to premiere such a film -- and our own James Rocchi and Kim Voynar are currently on the ground in France, itching to bring you tons of coverage later this week (including a review of this seductive-looking film).

Check out the trailer above (or over on Moviefone) and let us know what you think below. Vicky Cristina Barcelona arrives in theaters on August 29.

With five nominations, it looks like Superbad will be the star of the 2008 MTV Movie Awards, and its three jubilant male leads -- Michael Cera, Jonah Hill, and Christopher Mintz-Plasse -- deserve the kudos. But one major talent behind the whole affair has stayed relatively anonymous while these young up-and-comers bathe in the spotlight: Director Greg Mottola. The erstwhile independent filmmaker, responsible for some of the best installments of Arrested Developed and Undeclared, launched his career a solid decade before the rise of Judd Apatow with a charming little low budget comedy called The Daytrippers. Starring Stanley Tucci, Hope Davis, Liev Schreiber, Parker Posey and a host of other fantastic character actors, the film follows a wildly dysfunctional family over the course of a single day, as Davis, playing a worrisome housewife, tries to track down her unfaithful husband (Tucci).

Mixing warm humanity with pitch-perfect screwball timing, Daytrippers marked the sort of debut that told you a filmmaker had a big career ahead of him. After a modest premiere at the Slamdance Film Festival, it landed at Cannes, barely got a theatrical release and promptly vanished thereafter. Mottola turned to TV work, and slipped out of the film scene for a good ten years. These days, it's no easy task to track down Daytrippers on DVD -- you can nab second-hand copies on Amazon for decent rates, but not a single retail outlet carries it. Aside from the occasionally airings on cable, the movie has vanished.

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.

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.

There's almost always some controversy around the Best Foreign category at the Oscars. This or that film doesn't make it in because of some minutae of the rules, and critics (and sometimes, directors and producers) howl in protest. When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced the nominees for the category this year, though, it was a bit different. The loudest howls of protest were not over the films excluded for various obscure rules, but over the exclusion of Romanian filmmaker Cristian Mungiu's Cannes winner, 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days (aka, "that Romanian abortion film." )

The Chicago Tribune's Michael Phillips wrote on his Talking Pictures blog recently (originally posted February 5, and rerun today) about the film's exclusion. Phillips writes that the film was third on his own Top Ten list for the year, saying, "It is a rare film indeed that shows you so much in the way of dire circumstances, yet does not exploit or cheapen the human factor." Phillips talked to Mungiu about the film for this post, and the director has some rather astute things to say about some specific decisions he made with regard to the filmmaking.

When I first heard that the 2007 Cannes jury had chosen Cristian Mungiu's 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days to receive its prestigious Palme d'Or, I was crushed. They had chosen the abortion movie, the "issue" movie, over an actual work of art, like Ethan and Joel Coen's No Country for Old Men -- how unlike them. This festival had routinely been ahead of the curve, honoring Orson Welles, Robert Altman, Martin Scorsese, Akira Kurosawa, David Lynch, the Coen Brothers, Jane Campion, Quentin Tarantino, Abbas Kiarostami and Gus Van Sant while the Academy was busy doling out awards to George Roy Hill, Ron Howard and Mel Gibson. However, when I finally got a chance to see it at the end of last year, I realized that, once again, the jury had been ahead of the curve. They had identified a new movement, perhaps even a "New Wave," coming from none other than Romania. And I'm not talking about the werewolf movie Blood and Chocolate.

Cristi Puiu's The Death of Mr. Lazarescu opened to enthusiastic notice in the U.S. in 2006, and I chose Corneliu Porumboiu's 12:08 East of Bucharest as one of the ten best films of 2007. And these are just the films that have been blessed with U.S. distribution. What do these three films have in common? Several actors appear in at least two of the films, and actress Luminita Gheorghiu appears in all three. Cinematographer Oleg Mutu shot both Lazarescu and 4 Months, and Daniel Burlac produced 12:08 and 4 Months. Yet all three films have a similar approach and a similar tone. All three favor long shots, and a slow patient buildup of small details. Each withholds its major plotline until well after the characters are established. It must be something more, something in the air perhaps. Perhaps it's something similar to what was in the air in France in the late 1950s, Hollywood in the early 1970s, Hong Kong in the late 1980s, Iran in the mid-1990s and Argentina in the early 2000s.

One of my dreams for when I'm a millionaire is to spend a year crisscrossing the globe, just traveling from one film festival after another. I've already got the major ones lined up: Sundance in January, South By Southwest in March, Tribeca in April, Cannes in May, Toronto in September; the rest of the slots are still to be determined. I bet if you had unlimited resources, you could literally spend every day of the year at some film festival somewhere.

Well, the helpful folks at Variety have got my back. In Monday's issue, they have an article called 50 Unmissable Film Festivals, and it reads like a wish list for avid film lovers. They list the "Big Five" -- Berlin, Cannes, Sundance, Toronto, and Venice -- right off, then list the rest alphabetically, from Adelaide to Warsaw.

Some of the ones you'd expect to see are on the list. South By Southwest, Telluride, AFI, CineVegas. And then there are others, mostly foreign fests, that I'd never heard of. And I am intrigued!

Camerimage, held in Lodz, Poland, is where "cinematographers are given the rock-star treatment"! What about Courmayeur Noir, at the foot of the Italian Alps, where the focus is mysteries, horror, and suspense films? I've never been to Iran, and can't imagine ever going -- so perhaps my future millionaire self, flanked by dozens of bodyguards, will visit some February for the Fajr Film Fest.

From Guadalajara to Eastern Europe to Seoul to Nantucket (I once knew a man from there!), there's a cool-looking film festival in just about every corner of the world. If you love movies and traveling, check out Variety's list and feel jealous about what you're missing.

Cinematical was lucky enough to land the final one-sheet for the award-winning (and highly-anticipated) drama Control, which marks the feature film directorial debut of photographer and visual artist Anton Corbijn. Control follows the life and times of Ian Curtis (Sam Riley), the enigmatic lead singer of the British band Joy Division. The film has already won tons of praise following its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, where our own James Rocchi had this to say: "I joke that any rock and roll film can be judged solely on how fiercely it makes you want to go to the record shop immediately afterwards, but Control doesn't just capture the music of Joy Division; it brings Ian Curtis off the posters, out of the speakers, and in doing so rescues a man from his own myth." Control has already snagged one award in Cannes, as well as two more (Michael Powell award for Best New British Feature, PGA Award for Best Performance in a British Film -- Sam Riley) at the Edinburgh Film Festival back in August. Control will begin its screenings at the Toronto International Film Festival tomorrow night, and is set to arrive in theaters on October 10.

Peter Bradshaw at The Guardian has a nice recap of this year's Cannes Film Festival, saying "This was a very good year for Cannes in its 60th anniversary, only just short of vintage level. There were no real disasters (excepting perhaps the clunker My Blueberry Nights by Wong Kar-Wai) and plenty of outstanding films." Bradshaw was thrilled to see The Palme d'Or -- the fest's highest honor -- go to a low-budget Romanian film about abortion called 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days.
Sounds like a fun one, no? Bradshaw, like most, loved the film, and calls the award "a magnificently insouciant gesture showing that Cannes is still capable of being unimpressed by established reputations, even the reputations of its own stalwarts. Decisions like these make Cannes look, in the best possible way, like a heavily besieged city state, stubbornly holding out for world cinema against the mighty forces of Hollywood-globalization."

Not making Bradshaw happy is that the Coen Brothers were snubbed at Cannes this year. Many are saying the Coens' new movie, No Country for Old Men, ranks among their best, which is extremely high praise indeed. Says Bradshaw, "the big disappointment was that no gongs of any shape or size were handed to the Coens - especially exasperating, given that Gus Van Sant won an award for his disappointing slacker movie Paranoid Park, a real cut below his previous movies, Last Days and the Palme d'Or-winning Elephant. When the Coens' No Country for Old Men is released here in the UK, I'm confident that it will be regarded as one of their best films. It's weird that Cannes, which has so greatly sponsored the Coens' reputation over the years, should be so obtuse as to pass over such an excellent film." Read Ryan's Cannes recap here and for more on these movies, be sure to check out James' Cannes reviews of No Country for Old Men, Paranoid Park, and 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days.

It might be the strangest description I've ever heard, but right now they're calling this one "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid meets Snow White." Apparently, a new book about Princess Diana was all the rage in Cannes last week, sparking an all-out, balls-to-the-wall bidding war with plenty of folks (including Paramount, who is said to be "desperate for the rights") itching for some of what got Helen Mirren that Oscar. Diana and the Paparazzi, according to its cover, reveals "the true stories we have never dared tell, until now ... " Dun Dun Dun! And, as the title of this post suggests, Keira Knightley's name is currently circling atop everyone's wishlist. That said, this is tough ground to cover as it's so easy to fall into made-for-TV territory; a fear a lot of critics (including me) had when first sitting down to watch The Queen. Thus, pic's cast will depend heavily upon who ultimately ends up with the rights, as well as who decides to step behind the camera.

The only one talking the film up to the press has been producer Quentin Reynolds, whose only producing credit to date was as an exec producer on the ultra campy horror flick Evil Aliens. Um, yeah. Said to be among those bidding for the project, Reynolds notes: "Already the word in Hollywood is 'get Knightley!' It's a story that has everything; pathos, tragedy, comedy, adventure ... and Princess Diana. For every pound The Queen makes, a film about Diana would make 10." Really? I don't know if I'd go that far; The Queen made most of its money based off Mirren's Oscar-winning performance. Sure, Peter Morgan's script was exceptional and Stephen Frears always does good work behind the camera, but Mirren enticed people into buying tickets. In order for Diana and the Paparazzi to do the same, it would have to include Knightley (or someone of her caliber). End of story. But even with Knightley, do we even want another Diane-esque soap opera to hit the big screen? Maybe this kind of stuff is like crack for those across the pond, but here in the states the subject is beginning to feel a little played out. What do you think?

The 60th annual Festival de Cannes has concluded, and the Palme D'Or goes to ... not the Coens? Despite all the praise and hype, No Country for Old Men was passed over for the prize in favor of 4 Months, 3 Weeks & 2 Days, an abortion drama that our own James Rocchi called "incredibly affecting, magnificently acted and superbly made." Looks like he called that one. The Grand Prix, which is second prize, went to Naomi Kawase's The Mourning Forest, a French-Japanese co-production that Variety says "had viewers and critics streaming for the exits." The 60th anniversary prize, which is third place, went to Gus Van Sant's Paranoid Park, a drama about a teen skateboarder in denial over having caused someone's death. James reviewed that one too, but wasn't exactly blown away by it. "I have to wonder when -- or if -- the fierce filmmaking of [Van Sant's] earlier career will return," he wrote.

Julian Schnabel took the best directing prize for The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, which has been snapped up by Miramax. Get a load of this line, again from Variety: "Perhaps imagining he was at the Oscars, Schnabel overstayed his welcome at the spotlight at least three times over, shaking the hand of every jury member, making his cast stand up and rambling as he thanked everyone he could think of." The screenplay prize went to The Edge of Heaven, from a Turkish-German filmmaker, while the best actress prize went to Jeon Do-yeon, a South Korean actress who appeared in Lee Chang-dong's Secret Sunshine. Best actor went to Konstantin Lavronenko for The Banishment. The jury prize was a tie vote between Persepolis, a French-U.S. production and Silent Light, about a mennonite community in Mexico.

At the jury press conference following the prizes, Stephen Frears was asked how Javier Bardem didn't win the best actor prize, Frears joked: "He's terrible, absolutely dreadful ... he's a wonderful actor. Why did we not give it to Javier? He owes me 500 pounds." Sarah Polley and Toni Collette were also asked to defend their odd choices, with Polley saying "I've never seen so many people listen to each other so closely." The jury also included Maggie Cheung, Maria de Medeiros, Abderrahmane Sissako, Marco Bellocchio and Orham Pamuk. If you want the full rundown, you can go to Variety and check it out.

Last November, when I interviewed Melissa George for the horror film Turistas, we ended up talking about another project on her horizon, the psychological thriller Waz, with Stellan Skarsgard. George said the film had a "genius storyline" but sort of went around the world when describing it, not wanting to be pinned down on an actual plot description. "It's about altruism in nature and whether you'd kill someone you love in order to survive yourself," she said. When pressed, she gave me a monkey analogy. "In nature there are some animals who will put themselves on the front line to be killed in order to save the kingdom, because they are the same gene pool. They don't care. They just want to survive. One monkey will go out in front of another and get killed in order to save 300 of them behind him. You know what I mean? Whereas, humans, we're a separate gene pool." Hmmm ...

Anyway, the trades are reporting that just as the Cannes fest was closing, the Weinsteins made a couple of last-minute deals, and one of them was to pick up North American home video rights to Waz. The film, which is described in the article as "the story of a detective (Skarsgard) stalked by a serial killer," will be released through the Genius home video label, although when hasn't been specified. In addition to Waz, the Weinsteins also picked up North American rights to the Joy Division biopic Control and Australian rights to the animated film Persepolis -- both of the latter were reviewed by our own James at Cannes.

You know you're an expert at causing controversy when you earn your very own investigation from the Treasury Department. So, we should all probably get comfortable with the arrival of Michael Moore's new documentary Sicko, which just recently screened at Cannes, and will be stirring up who knows what kind of trouble as its release date gets closer. Moviefone is now hosting the trailer for the documentary, which gives us a look at what looks to be another well-meaning, if not-a-little-biased entry from the socially conscious filmmaker. It includes a quick look at the stunt that landed Moore in trouble with the Treasury Department in the first place.

The film, as you probably know, is Moore's expose of the U.S. health care system. The response to it has been pretty positive so far, and inexplicably the doc even managed to get thumbs up from Fox News. But not everyone is feeling the love for the film -- a group of disgruntled Canadian journalists recently confronted the filmmaker at a press conference claiming, "We Canucks were taking issue with the large liberties Sicko takes with the facts." Mainly, their problem is that Moore patronized Canada by claiming their health-care system was problem-free, which, as I am sure my fellow countrymen know, is not the case. Sicko is set to hit theaters June 29th.

What's the point of going to a festival like Cannes? Is there really a bigger appreciation of 'art' films in Europe? Why do movie studios spend millions of dollars for stunts and publicity at Cannes? When you're blogging, is anything ever really off the record? Joining us this week from the shores of France is South by Southwest Film Festival senior programmer -- and IndieWire Blogger -- Matt Dentler. Matt and I talk about these topics and much more in this latest edition of The Rocchi Review. You can download the entire podcast right here -- and we hope you enjoy.