Palme D'Or sports book...

Jeff Wells is reporting on some "scuttlebutt" that Steven Soderbergh's controversial (yet terrific!) Che "may—I say 'may'—be in a favoring position to win the Palme D'Or."

Way to hedge your bets there, my friend. Jeff goes on to surmise that Jury president Sean Penn's "lefty political views" are motivating his push for the movie. Maybe so. Although I must point out that >Che itself is not in any particular way a lefty film. I imagine Penn would have preferred a more overt piece of agitprop to the measured, almost Rossellini-esque vision Soderbergh's put forth. In any case, for a Cannes jury led by Sean Penn to give a Palme d'Or to a movie named Che is just too obvious. Me, I'm sticking with the prediction I made to pals on the first night of the festival—that Ari Folman's animated inquiry into Israeli guilt, Waltz With Bashir, would take the Palme. Not only does it fulfill Penn's obnoxious requirement of being conscious of the world we're living in today, but it examines a phenomenon that most Israel-boosters in the U.S. would baldly deny even conceivably exists. Also, the mere act of a French film festival honoring an Israeli film would be big symbolic/semiotic news to those who pay attention to such things. How could Penn resist? Unless he's so anti-Israel he can't even countenance Folman's vision, which is entirely possible, I guess. But still. That's my prediction, and I'm sticking to it.

"But Glenn," you say,"you're blogging as if Sean Penn is the only member of the Cannes jury. He's just the president of it. Don't you think he's going to be obliged to listen to his fellow jurors?"

In a word, no. You think Natalie Portman's actually going to stand up to Sean Penn? You think Alfonso Cauron and Sergio Castellitto don't have better things to do with their lives than bicker with a steamrolling Yankee asshole? (Castellitto, many of you will be happy to learn, was just cast in a new film by...wait for it...Jacques Rivette, to co-star Jane Birkin.) You think Apitchatpong Weerasethakul is anything but just happy to be there? No. The only jury member I can see giving Penn any significant resistance is feisty Persepolis creator Marjane Satrapi, who delivered the lone rejoinder to the president's asinine relevance rules at the opening press conference. And she's likely to be pretty partial to Waltz, for reasons easily inferable.

We'll see in a few hours. For myself, I'm about to get on a plane, bound for home, sweet home. Anybody interested in a friendly wager...?

Comments

[Aaron Aradillas]

I won't wager.

Instead, let me be the first to welcome you home.

[don lewis]

Apitchatpong Weerasethakul called me and said she's not just more than happy to be there. Or he I mean. Or...uhhh...

[viagra online]

what is a good sports book to read thats not hoop dreams?

10 points for anyone with at least a decent book