I think I'm too tired right now to put up my Matabungkay post but I would like to say:

Wong Kar-Wai's 2046 has been announced as part of this May's Cannes Film Festival. My first reaction to this news was utter elation, because I am a super Kar-Wai fan and have been waiting for this film since forever. I mean, when did In the Mood for Love come out? 2000!!! And he was already shooting this! He stopped and started from scratch something like 6 times (remember, he works without scripts, just general plot outlines, and when those change, then the whole film goes as well). The common joke was that it would come out in the year 2046. Anyway, it was supposed to debut at last year's Cannes Festival but they didn't make the deadline. But now it's an announced entry. So I hope that means something. Then again, if I remember correctly I think I read something about him stopping and starting AGAIN earlier this year, but I just phased it out of my memory because it had happened for the Nth time. So now I am more sober about it. But I am DYING to see this film.

Other interesting films at Cannes: Pedro Almodovar's Bad Education, Olivier Assayas's Clean, Walter Salles's Diarios de Motocicleta, Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 (sure to be controversial, and I hope to God it comes out in the US around the time of their elections), Mamoru Oshii's Ghost in the Shell: Innocence (nice to see an honest-to-goodness genre anime film actually in competition), Park Chan-Wook's Old Boy, Joel Coen's The Ladykillers, Emir Kusturica's Zivot Je Cudo, Hirokazu Kore-eda's Nobody Knows, Abbas Kiarostami's Five, Zhang Yimou's House of Flying Daggers, Quentin Tarantino's supposedly going to unveil Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair, and God bless him, Jean-Luc Godard is STILL making films. His latest's called Notre Musique.

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Spent yesterday and the days before my Matabungkay trip reading all the major Hellboy TPBs, and now I am a major fan. So the movie better be good. Since I couldn't watch it yet, Neva and I watched David Mamet's Spartan, and LOVED it. I urge you, seek it out and watch it. It's whip-smart, the actors are excellent, and the structure is a doozy. It packs a wallop and the plot twists are genuinely surprising and entirely logical, which is terrific. Of course, it's Mamet so even if you don't like any of that shit there's his sweet, sweet dialogue. It'll likely disappear this Wednesday, so catch it ASAP.

Dammit, reviews so far of Tony Scott's Man on Fire have been less than stellar. Which is a shame, because I love the trailer and was really hoping for it to be kick-ass.