By Steven Zeitchik

Specialty film execs like to talk about New York and L.A. as some kind of rarefied place, a sovereign country where the conventions of mainstream filmgoing don't apply.

All well and good — if it were true.

The sobering reality, as anyone who's happened by a Cinema Village or Laemmle Sunset 5 screening knows, is that a smattering of filmgoers — mostly older, mostly days or weeks after a movie opens — turn out to screenings, before said release hurriedly make its way to television and DVD.

All of which came to mind — and was enough to make us depressed  –as we caught Ken Loach's Cannes favorite "Looking for Eric" on Wednesday night in Paris, our last night in the city where we'd stopped to catch a little tennis on the way home from the Croisette.

By Steven Zeitchik

It may seem like it's too early to talk about an awards horserace; we've only now, after months of therapy and hypnosis, begun to rid ourselves of the nagging sounds of Jai Ho.

But after nearly two weeks in the south of France scrounging the best of what the prestige world has to offer, we've come to this unsettling conclusion: Awards season is looking very thin.

On the Croisette this year, there was no breakout best-picture contender. In fact, there was no break-out awards-movie, period.

By Steven Zeitchik

Sure, everyone loves an auteur. But the Cannes festival just ended — and from which we're just now returning (caveat: posting a little slow in the next couple days as we take a few Parisian days to recuperate) — saw a surprising number of actors break out. Some will remember this Cannes as the one where someone finally made a black-and-white film about Prussians circa World War I. You know, that.

But it was also notable for a number of actors who found their niche — actors who soon may have Thierry Fremaux and his crew to thank for the bigger jobs they're about to land. Here are a few of the top ones.

Demetri Martin: Yes, his starring turn in "Taking Woodstock" didn't make waves at a fest where European arthouse badboys (Lars von Trier) and badboys-turned good boys (Michael Haneke) were so busy stirring the waters.  And some critics felt Martin was too bland in his role as Woodstock-enabler Eliot Tiber. But what his nice-guy, boy-next-door turn shows is surprising chops — and a potential to do a lot more than just the deadpan comedy for which he's become known on "The Daily Show" and his own Comedy Central series. It takes guts to do what Ang Lee did — cast a comic-turned-TV star as the likable everyman through which we see one of the seminal boomer moments. It takes even more guts to take the role and turn it into something uniquely likable and charming, which is what Martin does. Whatever happens to this movie (and don't believe the critics, it's a persuasive bit of filmmaking), Martin should get a boost from it.

Katie Jarvis -She was discovered when filmmakers spotted her arguing with her boyfriend at a London tube stop. She spent the two hours on-screen in Andrea Arnold's "Fish Tank" pretty much doing the same, alternately sulking and hassling others, in an astonishingly convincing performance. There's a mixture of anger and vulnerability to Jarvis, the kind of range that producers and directors spent a lifetime looking for. She could go on to big things.

Christoph Waltz – Perhaps the biggest breakout of the festival. Without Waltz — a mid-fifties Austrian actor who has been prolific mainly in German-language roles — "Inglorious Basterds" would have been pedestrian. With him, it's impossible to turn your eyes away, as he turns in a sparklingly vicious performance that avoids all cliche as lead Nazi Hans Landa. He's terrifying and funny (and in three languages to boot). The Cannes jury agreed, giving him the best actor prize. As we've noted, ICM has just signed Waltz, who had no major-agency representation in the U.S. previously, so he's likely to see some big scripts come his way. The question is what those scripts have in mind for him. When a character actor breaks out in the lead – see under: Richard Jenkins in "The Visitor" — he tends to get smaller parts in big movies that reprise that same character. That would be a mistake here. If Waltz can handle the "Basterds," he can handle pretty much anything.

THR's Borys Kit has the scoop on a new "Buffy" movie in development, in what marks another attempt to relaunch a television show on the big screen (though with little connection to the small screen — Joss Whedon isn't involved, and neither are many of the iconic characters). And of course "Buffy" began life as a movie, so in a sense this would close the circle.

Kit, via an interactive poll, also wonders who'd be the person to play the title character (Sarah Michelle Gellar is just a slight bit old for it). Megan Fox could work — she's  already fighting giant robots — a good credential — and plays a high school girl who gets possessed by a demon in "Jennifer¹s Body." "Twilight" star Kristen Stewart could make the jump from one vampire to another — though how much undead can one girl want?  And then there's Teresa Palmer, the "Bedtime Stories" and "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" co-star whose stock is rising in Hollywood. Let the voting begin.

By Steven Zeitchik

The solid triumph of "Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian" over "Terminator Salvation" this weekend is going to inspire a lot of theories about the best approaches to box-office these days — the importance of going for the under-twelve audience (as opposed to the teens and twentysomethings that T4 aims at); the resurgence of Ben Stiller; the dangers of ranting at your DP, at least when TMZ is there  to buy the tape.

One conclusion that probably shouldn't be drawn — especially by those nervous execs with greenlight power looking for quick takeaways — is that family films are now the better bet than action tales.

The evidence against this speaks for itself. The top four movies of last year were action pictures with barely a trace of the child-like ("Dark Knight," "Iron Man," Indiana Jones" and "Hancock"). and there's no reason to think their power is waning, or will wane, anytime soon.

But here's one thing all those movies didn't do — open against a formidable family film. Of the four, only "Dark Knight" tried it, and it was against the weakling "Space Chimps".

That's because when a robust, heavily-marketed family film goes up against a robust, heavily-marketed action picture, the fight usually goes to the family title. "Wall-E" won handily over "Wanted," and "Bedtime Stories" routed "Valkyrie," to take two relatively recent examples. For whatever reason — parents who would otherwise see the action movie diverted to the family film by persistent kids seems like a logical one — action movies can't hold their own against the kiddie stuff.

In fact, the first "Night at the Museum" itself bested a thriller — the Matt Damon Cold War saga "The Good Shepherd" — when it came out a couple years back.

Action movies may, in the coinage of T4 marketing, eventually fight back. For now, it's probably best to avoid the dinosaurs and cartoon characters.

By Steven Zeitchik

We were glad to see that the Vegas oddsmakers (that we conjured up) were on the money about the Palme d'Or. Michael Haneke's "The White Ribbon," the frontrunner since its premiere on Thursday (side note: it seems like you have an advantage at Cannes if you show late in the fest, maybe by staying front-of-mind for jury members as they deliberate — "The Class" last year screened late too), maintained its lead  and took the big prize Sunday night.

For trivia buffs who must know, by our own count it's the first German-language film to win since "The Tin Drum" (also about the development of modern Germany) did so thirty years ago, and the first black and white picture to win the Palme since  the top prize became that in 1975. And all for a worthy film — for our money, the best pic we say that played in or out of competition. (Btw, the white ribbon of the title is a reference to the accessory worn by schoolchildren who have not yet matured.)

The question now is how Sony Classics, which is releasing the pic, takes the buzz and builds on it. One simple, smart move: it's replacing the German-language narration with an English-language voiceover for the U.S. release. This is a film about a German who comes to America after the war, so it makes sense he'd be speaking English. Plus it will allow marketing materials to say the film is in English and German, potentially making it more appealing for a broader audience.
 
But SPC won't use artificial means to make the movie seem more accessible (ie, the old marketer's trick where the one action or thriller scene is foregrounded in the trailer). This film looks and feels different than pretty much anything out there, and the approach will be not to bury those differences but to showcase  them, make them part of the novelty. That's what will give it the boost at the box-office (Continuing the Ken Jennings theme — top domestic-grossing Palme d'Or film of all time: "Farenheit 9/11".)

Of course all this has to happen carefully. The worst thing that could befall an ambitious movie like this is that the hype keeps getting louder, so that too many people draw the wrong inferences and think this is a  a film that's easily digested. A Palme is great and well-deserved — and will help with a certain part of the arthouse audience — but probably the best thing that could happen now is the movie goes a little quiet, leaving filmgoers to discover and savor it for themselves when it comes out. 

Sometimes, after all, you need to wave a big red cape to get attention. And sometimes it's better to wave a little something white.

By Steven Zeitchik

Last year we got out of Dodge on a high note, having seen Laurent Cantet's excellent social drama "The Class," which went on to win the Palme d'Or, just before our train pulled out.

This year we played no such music –our final film was "A Map of the Sounds of Tokyo," Isabel Coixet's story of a hit woman and the complicated relationship she forms with her assigned target. Starring Rinko Kikuchi and with a Japanese setting, we were hoping for Babel, but with its nagging voiceover and stilted dialogue, it was really more of a Babble. Coixet seems to alternate failures and wins ("My Life Without Me" led to the overlooked "The Secret Life of Words"). And since she had the poetic "Elegy" last year, she's due for a misfire.

But the downbeat end to our fest viewing didn't stop us from running through some of the  better movies we saw this past ten days, and even offer some final handicapping for the Palme d'Or (in which we pretend there are people in Vegas taking out bets on the thing.) Here are the odds on tomorrow's prize, along with our own top five of the movies we caught in various sections of a solid but not groundbreaking festival (we'll have some more news and notes from the fest in the coming days as finally catch our breath).

Palme d'Or Odds:

"The White Ribbon" – 3:2
"A Prophet" – 2:1
"The Time That Remains" – 5:1
"Inglourious Basterds" — 8:1
"Fish Tank" — 10:1
"Antichrist" – 150:1

And our own five (ok, six) best films of the festival:

1) The White Ribbon — It's like nothing you've seen anytime in the last four decades, and that alone is reason for it to top this list. Fortunately there are plenty of others.

2) Tales from the Golden Age — Five pristinely perfect shorts about life in Communist Romania. Can the Romanians even make a bad movie? (And as we write this, another Romanian movie, "Police, Adjective," wins the top prize in Un Certain Regard — look for that movie to land a deal soon, maybe with IFC.)

3) Fish Tank — The British underclass, both funny and poignant, never patronizing. And a killer lead performance.

4) Mother — This Un Certain Regard Japanese-language picture about a doting older woman and her developmentally challenged son charged with murder (from the director of The Host) sneaks up on you  – it doesn't seem like Kafka, until it is.

4) A Prophet — There's a prison drama and a mob movie in this French ethnic examination. The first one works. The second doesn't.

5) Taking Woodstock – Charming and unpretentious, it dares you to like it. Who said the summer of love had to be all about angry rebellion?

By Steven Zeitchik

We wish we didn't have to say it, but we caught Dr. Parnassus at its Cannes world premiere last night, and we're afraid we're with the naysayers.

The movie is as head-trippy and expressionistic as advertised, and as light on (coherent) plot. It manages to be full of noise and color and hectic visuals — and yet not filled with very much at all.

That's the bad news. The good news is that it actually gets better as it goes along, which is not something one often says about rainbow-colored, acid-trip movies.

For the first forty-five minutes or so it muddles through one mainly generic carnival sideshow scene after another, before finally coming to life when Heath Ledger drops in — quite literally, hanging by a rope as a mysterious 'Hang Man' (whether it was a conscious homage to his final scene in "The Dark Knight" we don't know, but the symmetry is hard to miss).

Ledger, playing a character named Tony, has an idea to revive the ratty carnival that Chrstopher Plummer's Parnassus and his small band of workers peddle, and suddenly ordinary people are going through portals, where they see and live through a brought-to-life version of their own imaginations. The visuals in these scenes — featuring a rich palette rife and video game-style photorealism — are indeed impressive. If Hunter Thompson tried to direct "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" while on a serious acid trip, it would probably look a lot like this. (Tim Burton's "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" is another obvious visual reference point.)

Ledger's appearance isn't just a pivot in the plot, of course — it's also a part of the backstory, since he's only in the film for about twenty-five minutes when he's replaced by Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell, who are all dressed in exactly the same suit and facial hair but represent different aspects of whomever's subconscious we happen to be in at that moment (we would say it makes sense when you see it, but, truth be told, it doesn't)

Still, Gilliam moves between these various Tonys with a certain aplomb (Ledger is also deftly brought back a few times), as these switches actually become an important part of the story, since Tony's shapeshifting is also a subject of increasing mystery and concern to the others. It's such an important (and, at times, intriguing) turn, that we had to wonder what filled the second half of the movie before Ledger's death.

In the end, though, it's not quite enough. We hate punishing a film for strong visuals; just because it's cool to look at doesn't necessarily mean it's boring to watch. But watching this one nonetheless has the sense that Gilliam puts so much effort into visual flash he forgets to build up the rest of the story to match it.

At the Palais screening, there was a distinct lack of glamour when none of the three actors who stepped in to play the Ledger part turned up (hungry paparazzi were left to play with the ball of yarn that was Verne Troyer, who plays a sidekick in the pic). After all the hype, the movie may make auds feel similarly let down.