03.04.09 - Cannes movies, Gervais stand-up, P.R. woman tries to seduce me, UK film piracy, disturbing Stepfather

Booking flights and hotels for Cannes today. As it's one of the bigger media events of the year, one wonders how the hell I am going to get a hotel for Simon and myself to stay in at this late hour. Particularly one which is close enough for us not to need a two hour journey everyday to get there. We shall keep you informed, but I'm almost dreading even trying to look. I know I won't like what I see in terms of prices and availability. Speaking of Cannes, The Hollywood Reporter claim to have a good idea of what's going to be playing at the festival next month. They say Inglorious Basterds (confirmed), Up (confirmed but not in competition), The Imagnarium of Doctor Parnassus, Tetro (Francis Ford Coppola's new family drama, which enough said really), Taking Woodstock (Ang Lee's new movie but it seems a stretch if it can be complete in time), Agora (that epic Egyptian movie starring Rachel Weisz which is in need of a U.S. distributor), Looking for Eric (the movie from Ken Loach about the former Man Utd footballer), Pedro Almodovar's Broken Embraces with Penelope Cruz, Lars Von Trier's Anti-Christ. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's Biutiful, Mother from the director of The Host. Outside chances for A Serious Man (new Coen Bros. movie), The Informant(Matt Damon starrer for Stephen Soderbergh). No word on Thirst(from Oldboy director Chan-wook Park) or The Limits of Control which we previously heard would probably debut at the festival. Terminator Salvation is not out of the realms of possibility for a out of competition slot, just like Indy Jones 4 last year. The movie opens May 21st, festival starts May 13th. Couldn't resist... Gotta say something about Ticketmaster though and it's frustrating practice of holding tickets that you wish to purchase, giving you only a few minutes to type in all your details before you lose your chance at purchasing them. When the tickets went on sale at 10amthis morning, I was straight onto their site and because of my relatively fast internet connection, I had some awesome third row seats until just as I was about to pay... I couldn't remember my bloody bank password. Which in itself is an annoying, pretty new safety device from my bank when purchasing things online from certain vendors and it completely spoilt my chance of getting hold of really great seats. Instead I'm somewhere in the stalls but oh well. According to Gervais' blog, the dates are the first officially set for his new stand-up gig "Science". Something very bizarre happened to me today and something that I don't think I've ever been accustomed to before. I had a run-in on Wednesday with a stunningly attractive P.R. lady. She was Liz Hurley circa Passenger 57 (1992), taller than me (I'm about 6"2 when I'm not slouching), amazing eyes and with a fantastic figure and she knew it. She was in a grey business suite, a one that clung to all her curves. I will not go into the details but she wanted something out of me, and used everything in her power to try and get it. She turned it on... the fluttering eyes, the pushing forward of her chest, an amazing big smile. Obvious to me but subtle enough at the same time that I felt myself being drawn in. It made me weak in the knees but I resisted, somehow. I'm not even sure how I did because my instant reaction to her giving me that look was to give her a cheshire cat smile. I don't particularly want to go into the details of what it was about and I'm sure a lot of you readers have creative imaginations over what she could have wanted but if I told you what it really was you would be disappointed. So I'm just gonna keep it a secret but the whole thing just really got to me about how weak I could easily become around women if they pushed the right buttons. The U.K. film industry are changing the way they are advertising the ongoing effort against movie piracy, moving away from heavy-handedness (i.e. telling everyone they are going to hell for downloading their films), and instead opting for the lighter, gentler approach of kissing our asses and telling us how much we are needed and loved. The You Make the Movies campaign features spoof ads of Lord of the Rings, Jaws and Life of Brian that will be attached to presumably all U.K. screenings from today. They were directed by League of Gentlemen's Apoclaypse director Steve Bendelack and carry a voice-over from Noel Clarke. You can see them all, including behind-the-scenes looks at how they were made and their original film sources, HERE. Does anyone really pay attention to the "away" status on MSN? Vanity Fair have posted online those images from the Inglourious Basterds photo-shoot... "the model is collapsing." says Kim Marsters at The Daily Beast, in regards to movie star's huge salaries claiming that unless your Will Smith, the days of you earning $20 million are over. She points to the low balled $250,000 offers Marvel sent out to Scarlett Johansson and Mickey Rourke for Iron Man 2 as an example, roles in a large summer blockbuster that would previously have earned them millions. It's said they eventually negotiated up to $400,000 each but Marvel would go no higher and would tell them both directly who the next star is they would offer the movie to at that price. €œThey€™re not fucking around,€ says the talent representative. €œThey know exactly who that next person is. Sometimes they€™ll tell you.€Casting calls have begun for Spider-Man: The Musical. It's directed by Julie Taymour (The Lion King musical) and will have music and lyrics performed by Bono and The Edge. And I just have no idea what to expect from it. A new exhibition has just opened at the Proud Gallery in London, going behind-the-scenes on Withnail & I... Tim Robbins claims the news that he was to play Howard Stark, father to Tony Stark in flashback scenes in Iron Man and cross-over movies was just an "internet rumor". Donnie Darko and Southland Tales director Richard Kelly has blogged some "facts" about his upcoming horror movie The Box, including details of a firm release date (October 30th 09) and a running time of just under two hours. The movie stars Cameron Diaz, James Marsden and Frank Langella... based on an absolutely classic Twilight Zone episode scripted by Richard Matheson. Michael Bay tells audience at ShoWest that he has nothing to do with the remake of The Birds (which is suprising because he is involved in remaking everything else), he is not planning to shoot Transformers 3 in 3-D and that he isn't yet attached to a third movie which may or may not come out in 2011 as Paramount suggest.Variety tell us that Paul Weitz, the director ofIn Good Companywill be directing Little Fockers and not Get Smart's Pete Segal. Production begins in July on the third in the "Meet the" series. Sex and the City 2 will be released in 13 months time. Hurray! I've already assigned Ray the task of reviewing the movie for us. Konami and Lionsgate have made a video game out of the Saw movies. If the films weren't sick enough now it's you in control of torturing people. It will be released this fall on PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 to coincide with Lionsgate's Saw VI.

As "Saw" fans might expect, gameplay will center on torturer Jigsaw's signature traps, turned into puzzles. Players control a character in an asylum who has to decide whether and how to solve the puzzles and save Jigsaw's victims.

Vin Diesel claims he spoke to director Jonathan Mostow about a part in Sub-Mariner, a movie I completely forgot was in development. There's a trailer online for the Fame remake. Poster for Screen Gems remake of the fairly well remembered 1987 horror flick The Stepfather with possibly the most disturbing tagline of the year... That's ya lot for now... now to find a flight/hotel that doesn't make me bankrupt.