The press conference for Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona was a packed affair. Buzz on the film has been mostly positive, and most of those trying to get in were, unfortunately, shut out. The line of press trying to get shots of Allen and the cast walking in was an utter madhouse; picture something akin to a prison riot, with a mob of press stomping on feet, shoving with elbows, and generally doing their damnedest to jostle into position in the hopes of scoring one or two decent shots in the 15 or so seconds you have to point and click.

I had my foot crushed by a large Belgian woman who muscled her way to the front of the pack on my right, and got smacked quite hard in the head by a Chinese photojournalist's video camera. Working a film fest isn't always quite the glamorous event one might imagine.

"They'll make hypocrite judgments
After the fact
But the name of the game
Is be hit and hit back ... "

-- Warren Zevon, "Boom Boom Mancini"

Boxing is a brutal sport. Does that mean you have to be a brute to succeed in it? Mike Tyson was the youngest ever heavyweight champion in the world; when he stepped into the ring, it was as if he was in absolute control over everything that happened. And when he stepped out, it was as if he had no control over anything that happened. He had a marriage implode in public. He served three years in prison for rape. He became a nightmare-parody of himself, pathetic and terrifying, telling challengers he would eat their children. And now, as seen in James Toback's documentary Tyson, he is older, sadder, sober, off drugs and out of the fight game, trying to battle things you cannot simply strike with your fists.

I've said before that a new film from Woody Allen is something like getting a Christmas gift from your eccentric aunt; you never know if you'll get a crocheted toilet paper cozy, or a piece of priceless heirloom jewelry. Fortunately, Allen's newest film, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, turns out to be more like the latter. The story opens with Vicky (Rebecca Hall) and Cristina (Scarlett Johansson), two best friends heading to Barcelona for eight weeks of fun.

Vicky's distant relations Judy (Patricia Clarkson) and Mark (Kevin Dunn) live in Barcelona, and have invited the girls to spend the summer there, where Vicky will do research for her Masters and Cristina will soak up the local culture. Vicky is engaged to be married to Doug (Chris Messina), a stalwart, likable, but rather boring young man, and Cristina is recovering from her latest breakup and looking for an artistic outlet for her pent-up creativity.

Arnaud Desplechin's film Un Conte de Noel (A Christmas Tale), playing in competition here at Cannes, is a tragically comic tale of love, death, and familial strife and forgiveness. The film centers around Junon (Catherine Deneuve) and her husband Abel (Jean-Paul Roussillon), whose oldest child, Joseph, is diagnosed at a young age with Burkitt's lymphoma.

The boy's disease is curable only with a bone marrow transplant, and neither the parents nor his younger sister, Elizabeth, are compatible. The couple conceives another child in the hopes of making a match to cure their son, but the third child, Henri, is also incompatible, and Joseph dies at the age of six. Eventually the grieving parents have a fourth child, Ivan, and in time the family's wounds over the death of the eldest son heal ... but not really.

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.

Perhaps the best thing about Kung Fu Panda is that it's an action comedy that doesn't skimp on the action. Dreamworks Animation's latest effort may stick out a little on the Red Carpet at Cannes -- where it's screening out of competition -- but it's certainly a well-made kid's film that earns high points for how directors John Stevenson and Mark Osborne clearly crafted and contemplated its look and feel with ambition and style. Anyone can make a computer-animated cartoon with fuzzy animals doing kung fu; you have to be at least a little inspired to make a computer-animated cartoon featuring fuzzy animals doing kung fu in widescreen Cinemascope. ...

Kung Fu Panda opens with a rousing, stylish action sequence, as a narrator (Jack Black, in full-on Tenacious D exposition mode) explains how "Legend tells of a legendary kung fu warrior whose kung fu skills were legendary. ..." But then, the heroic panda we've seen unleashing paws of power on the big screen ... wakes up; it was just a dream. Then Po the panda (Black), whose dreams of kung fu glory are the counterpoint to his unsatisfying life, gets ready for his day of helping his father Mr. Ping (James Wong) sell noodles to the people of the Valley of Peace.

Bonjour! Before I run out to the luncheon and roundtable for Blindness, I thought I'd get up a gallery with some scene pics around the festival and the lovely town of Cannes. I hope they'll give you something of a feel for what it's like to he here.

Cannes is a beautiful city -- lots of old buildings and winding streets, little shops, cafes and restaurants. There's so much to see and do here (besides, of course, watching tons of fabulous films) -- between the view of the Mediterranean Sea, the boats and yachts in the harbor, the islands off in the distance, and the people in designer clothing and fancy cars, it's a bit overwhelming to the senses.

Later in the fest, I plan to get out to wander through the Old Town area of Cannes, and hopefully will take the ferry across to at least one of the islands -- either the Île de Saint-Honorat, which houses a monastery, or the Île Sainte-Marguerite, where the Man in the Iron Mask was held captive. Later tonight or tomorrow, I'll also post some photos of the black-tie folks heading to premieres. Until then, merci, au revoir!

The Cannes Film Festival got off to a kind of dark and depressing start, with two movies about the worst side of humanity screening. But hey, it wouldn't be a film festival without some nice movies about human suffering to brighten your day, right?

Seriously, though, we can see light-hearted rom-coms anytime; a festival like Cannes is where you go to see movies that make you ponder life, wax philosophical with friends about the use of voice-over in film and the deeper metaphorical meanings of this or that scene, and geek out over things like editing and cinematography.

I spent three days at the very first Marfa Film Festival, plus two days in transit -- more than 1,000 hard miles of driving -- and it was worth every effort to get there; even the post-fest illness that felled me for an entire week. I saw wonderful outdoor screenings, enjoyed some good docs and short films, and witnessed the debut of two music videos directed by Heath Ledger. Oh, and met many friendly local residents, talented filmmakers, and visiting film lovers.

Located in West Texas, roughly halfway between El Paso and San Antonio, the town of Marfa (population 2121) has the rare distinction of being the setting for two recent films that won Academy Awards: No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood. Some of the sets for the latter film are still standing, and I traveled there on a sunny afternoon with a small group of intrepid friends over a bumpy, curving, tail-bouncing dirt road that stretched for miles across a ranch just south of town. After depositing our load of bottled water for the opening night reception that would begin a few hours later, we wandered around the fictional town of Little Boston.

As authentically aged and real as the buildings look, it's not a real town, of course, it's a set, meant to evoke Bakersfield, California, circa 1911. Check out the gallery for pictures of the Blood set, visiting filmmakers and other sights of the festival. Read on for more about the festival itself.

The horrors of war and the atrocities of which humans are capable of have, of course, been documented extensively in film since the birth of the medium. From the recent slew of documentaries on the Iraq war to Atom Egoyan's controversial 2002 Cannes debut Ararat (about the 1915 massacre of Armenians in the Ottoman empire); from Schindler's List to The Killing Fields; from The Battle of Algiers to Apocalypse Now; from Ousmane Sembene's last film, Moolaadé (inspired by the genital mutilation of young girls in Burkina Faso) to The Devil Came on Horseback (a documentary chronicling the genocide in Darfur), recent cinematic history is filled with tales of human suffering, inflicted not by natural disasters, but by human beings upon one another.

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. Where Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis (to which this film will be inevitably, if somewhat inaccurately, compared) used stark black-and-white animation based on Satrapi's graphic novels to tell the history of one girl growing up during the Iranian revolution, Waltz with Bashir uses vivid, hand-drawn animation to bring to life interviews Folman conducted with friends who were involved in the Lebanese war in the early 1980s to bring to life harrowing memories of death, guilt and regret.

This morning James and I and a couple thousand other press folks took in a screening of the Opening Film at Cannes 2008, Fernando Meirelles's Blindness, starring Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Danny Glover and Gael Garcia Bernal. You can check out James' review here, and tomorrow I'll be attending a luncheon/roundtable for the film. And in related Cannes news, Jack Black arrived at the 2008 Festival de Cannes in style. He's here to promote Kung Fu Panda, which premieres later in the week. Check out our gallery of Black and tons of panda bears down below.

Meantime, though, my take on Blindness is that it's ambitious and good, but falls short of being great. In part, I think, this is because the source material was challenging to adapt to a visual experience, but it's also due to some clunky expositional voiceover that detracts from the experience more than it adds. I don't want to be told how this or that person feels or reacts, I want to see it.

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.

James Rocchi and I got into Cannes late this afternoon after a rather adventurous journey that included my flight being delayed, first by a medical emergency on the incoming plane I had to get on to get to Detroit, then by an unauthorized passenger being on my plane (how the hell does that happen in this day and age? I have no idea ...). Those delays very nearly caused me to miss my connection to Amsterdam, and then I realized when I got to the gate that I'd lost my boarding pass. Yes, I am officially the world's biggest travel dork. I did make the flight, though, and then James and I were treated to a screaming infant in front of us for the eight-hour flight to Amsterdam. Whew. Fortunately I brought my travel Scrabble to keep us busy.

We finally got to Cannes and found our flat. Thanks to James and his travel ingenuity, we have a lovely flat with a terrace that has a teensy view of the Mediterranean Sea and the all-important wifi connection. Once we dumped off our ten tons of luggage and freshened up, we were off to the Palais de Festival to collect our press badges. We managed to take a slew of pics of movie posters while enjoying the nice 20-minute walk from our flat, and spotted Juliette Lewis and Danny Glover strolling the Croisette.

James Rocchi and I got into Cannes this afternoon, checked into our flat, and then promptly headed out to the Croisette to get our press badges and take a slew of pics. Movie posters abound on the Croisette. They're draped on luxury hotels and adorning the sidewalks; pretty much everywhere you look, it's movie marketing central around here. I'll have a Live from Cannes post up later with some other pics of the Cannes scene and the lovely Croisette, but in the meantime, here's a bunch of movie poster pics for your viewing pleasure.

We'll be up bright and early tomorrow to catch the opening film, Blindness, and we'll be posting regularly throughout the fest, so keep checking back for more. Let us know what you're most interested in hearing about from the fest, and we'll do our best to oblige.

CINEMATICAL'S 2008 CANNES PREVIEW

With the 2008 Festival de Cannes right around the corner, we thought we'd give you a preview of the films we're most excited about watching at this year's fest. From Indy to Angelina, there's something for everyone this year -- and while Cinematical's James Rocchi and Kim Voynar set up camp in France (daily coverage starts Wednesday), here are the ten films we're looking forward to the most. To get started, just click on any of the images below to find out more about that film ...