Juno, a quirky coming-of-age comedy about a pregnant teenager was named best feature film at yesterday’s Independent Spirit Awards which honor the best independent films.

Made on shoestring budget of $6.5 million, “Juno” was the only nominee for best picture to pass $100 million at the box office and has been embraced by supporters of independent films.

Juno also captured best female lead for the films star Ellen Page and best first screenplay for screenwriter Diablo Cody.

The best director nod went to filmmaker Julian Schnabel for The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Scribe Tamara Jenkins won best screenplay award for The Savages, a tale of adult siblings caring for their aged father. Philip Seymour Hoffman who plays one of the siblings took home the award for best male lead.

Supporting male and female Spirit awards were given to Cate Blanchett, one of four actors playing Bob Dylan in Todd Haynes film I’m Not There, and Chiwetel Ejiofor for the film Talk To Me - a bio-pic about the life of former Washington dee-jay Petey Greene.

The best documentary prize went to Dan Klores’ film Crazy Love. The Someone to Watch Award was given to filmmaker Ramin Bahrani for his film “Chop Shop.”, while the best foreign film Spirit went to the Irish musical “Once” and Scott Frank took the award for best first feature for his film “The Lookout.”

The John Cassavetes Award which honors filmmaking on an extremely low budget went to “August Evening” and the best cinematography prize went to Director of Photography Janusz Kaminski for The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.

The Independent Spirit Awards, which consider themselves as more avant-garde than the Academy Awards were awarded yesterday in Santa Monica, California. To be eligible, a films budget must be less than $20 million to be considered.

The Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic was presented to FROZEN RIVER, directed by Courtney Hunt, about a desperate trailer mom and a Mohawk Indian girl who team up to smuggle illegal immigrants into the United States from Canada.

The World Cinema Jury Prize: Documentary was presented to MAN ON WIRE/United Kingdom, directed by James Marsh. The film chronicles French artist Philippe Petit’s daring dance on a wire suspended between New York’s

PEOPLE’S CHOICE AWARD

The People’s Choice Award is voted on by the film festivals audiences. This year’s award goes to David Cronenberg’s EASTERN PROMISES. Cronenberg reunites with his A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE leading man Viggo Mortensen for a new thriller. EASTERN PROMISES is a film which follows the mysterious and ruthless Nikolai (Mortensen), a Russian gangster tied to one of London’s most notorious organized crime families. His carefully maintained existence is shaken when he crosses paths with Anna (Naomi Watts), an innocent midwife who accidentally uncovers potential evidence against the family. First runner-up is Jason Reitman’s JUNO and the second runner up is Phil Donahue and Ellen Spiro’s BODY OF WAR.

PRIZE OF THE INTERNATIONAL CRITICS (FIPRESCI PRIZE)

The Prize of the International Critics (FIPRESCI Prize) is awarded to Rodrigo Plá’s LA ZONA. This prize is annually bestowed upon a feature film directed by an emerging filmmaker, and making its world premiere at the Festival. The Festival welcomed an international FIPRESCI jury for the 16th consecutive year.

ARTISTIC INNOVATION AWARD

The Artistic Innovation Award honours the artistry, innovation and audacity of one of the Festival’s inventive Visions titles as selected by an international industry jury of major visual artists. This year’s award goes to Anahí Berneri’s ENCARNACIÓN, the second feature film by Anahí Berneri (A YEAR WITHOUT LOVE). The film is the story of aging B-list actress Erni Levier (Silvia Pérez) who decides to make the difficult trip back to her hometown and face her family who knew her as Encarnación – the girl who fled to the city to sell her body in salacious B-films. The jury notes that the film “stands out for its economy of vision. We attribute this to its superb direction and editing. We appreciate the director of the films ability to render the fetishized female body in a distilled and forceful examination of both the “movie star” and “movie industry” and their relationship to everyday life. ” The jury consists of Dutch multimedia artist Lonnie van Brummelen; Vancouverbased influential pioneering photoconceptual artist Ian Wallace and renowned curator Christopher Eamon.

DISCOVERY AWARD

The Discovery award goes to Israel Cárdenas and Laura Amelia Guzmán’s COCHOCHI. After returning home from elementary boarding school, two brothers Tony (Luis Antonio Lerma Torres) and Evaristo (Evaristo Lerma Torres) are sent to deliver a package to a far community in the Sierra Tarahumara, Mexico, by their grandfather. Without permission, the brothers take the family horse but lose the horse and one another after making a wrong turn. They each then embark on a separate adventure, leading them to discover a new world. The Festival press corps, which consists of 1000 international media, voted on the Discovery Award.

TORONTO-CITY AWARD FOR BEST CANADIAN FEATURE FILM

The Toronto-City Award for Best Canadian Feature Film goes to Guy Maddin’s MY WINNIPEG. Maddin’s very personal portrait of his hometown is a poetic meditation – a docu-fantasia – on Winnipeg’s history as well as his own childhood. The jury states “in a year when many masters of Canadian cinema have made new and exciting movies, one film stands above as a work of remarkable ingenuity, originality and that, within its specific, personal vision finds a universal appeal.”

CITYTV AWARD FOR BEST CANADIAN FIRST FEATURE FILM

The Citytv Award for Best Canadian First Feature Film goes to Stéphane Lafleur’s CONTINENTAL, UN FILM SANS FUSIL. The film follows four people whose lives unexpectedly intersect due to one man’s disappearance in the woods. The jury is pleased to present this award to “a film with singular vision, an economical and subtle beauty and a cinematic maturity that belies the director’s relative inexperience.”

AWARD FOR BEST CANADIAN SHORT FILM

The award for Best Canadian Short Film goes to Chris Chong Chan Fui’s POOL. The jury states, “in an unforgettable film about overcoming devastation, the main and title character is a water reservoir.” The award goes to POOL “for telling us this story with restraint, subtlety and compassion.”

“Pass” - Oscar winner Cate Blanchett said with a laugh, declining to discuss the award prospects for her performance in the film “Elizabeth: The Golden Age,” the follow-up to 1998’s “Elizabeth” which earned the actress her first Oscar nomination.

Surely people who haven’t won an Oscar must fret over their chances?

“No” - said Brad Pitt, the one-time nominee, who delivers a potent performance as the legendary Old West outlaw in “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.” “And I don’t read the tabloids, either.”

Both Blanchett and Pitt’s movies are playing the Toronto International Film Festival, which (with its Telluride and Venice counterparts) marks the unofficial start of the award season by spotlighting independent films and prestige productions looking to catch some early Oscar buzz.

Whether any film festival entries will maintain awards momentum through nominations day on Jan. 22 and the 80th Academy Awards ceremony on Feb. 24 remains to be seen. The idea for studios and publicists is simply to trot out the films, get the stars and filmmakers to mug for photographers at red-carpet premieres and hope the critics say nice things such as “Oscar-worthy performance” or “best-picture contender.”

Other Toronto films that will get the once-over by awards watchers include “Michael Clayton,” with Oscar winner George Clooney in a sober legal drama; director Sean Penn’s “Into the Wild,” the real-life tale of a fiercely independent young man based on the Jon Krakauer novel which was an audience fave at Telluride and “The Brave One,” with two-time Oscar winner Jodie Foster delivering a chilling performance as a woman who turns vigilante after a violent ordeal.

Other films appearing at Toronto are; “Sleuth,” an update of the 1972 romp that earned Laurence Olivier and Michael Caine best-actor nominations, the new version starring two-time Oscar winner Caine in the Olivier role and Jude Law in Caine’s part; and “In the Valley of Elah,” a somber murder mystery set among returning Iraq war veterans that stars Oscar winners Tommy Lee Jones, Charlize Theron and Susan Sarandon.

Actors brush aside Oscar questions, not wanting to appear covetous of that little golden statue. Clooney, a supporting-actor winner for “Syriana,” said they all think about the Oscars, though.

“Every actor in the world would be lying if they denied that somehow in their head they had always wanted to win an Oscar,” Clooney said. “The funny thing is, once you’ve won one, you actually have beaten your expectation of what you thought you’d achieve. I’ve got a statue sitting at home somewhere in a room.”

Oscar candidates have emerged from films released early this year, notably best-actress winner Julie Christie, who delivers a powerhouse performance in “Away From Her”.

At this point, many potential Oscar contenders remain under wraps. December releases on the awards radar include “Charlie Wilson’s War,” a foreign-policy drama starring Oscar recipients Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts and Philip Seymour Hoffman from best-director winner Mike Nichols, and Tim Burton’s musical “Sweeney Todd,” with past nominees Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter.

Last year’s breakout film was the German spy drama “The Lives of Others,” which rode its Telluride buzz all the way to the Toronto International Film Festival and went on to win the Oscar for best foreign language film.

Crowd pleasers at this year’s 34th annual festival, which finished up on Labor Day after screening about 40 features over a four day period, included Penn’s “Into the Wild,” Schnabel’s “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly,” and Austrian filmmaker Stefan Ruzowitzky’s “The Counterfeiters” - all fact-based sagas of survival.

Other favorites included Cristian Mungiu’s “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days,” Israeli filmmaker Eran Koliri’s “The Band’s Visit,” and the animated movie “Persepolis,” based on the coming-of-age graphic novel of the same name set in Iran under the rule of Ayatollah Khomenei.

Attendees were decidedly split on “I’m Not There,” Todd Haynes’ original take on the life and times of singer/songwriter Bob Dylan. Whether they responded to Haynes’ artistic vision or not, they were all in agreement when it came to Cate Blanchett’s remarkable portrayal of the picture’s main man.

Reactions were also mixed for “Margot at the Wedding,” the latest dysfunctional family tragicomedy from “The Squid and the Whale” filmmaker Noah Baumbach. But again, there was little dispute about the performances of leads Nicole Kidman and Jennifer Jason Leigh as a pair of estranged sisters.

This year’s selection also included Brian De Palma’s shocking Iraq War drama “Redacted”; Tamara Jenkins’ “The Savages,” starring Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman; and “Juno,” Jason Reitman’s follow-up to his well-received political satire “Thank You for Smoking,” with the latter two titles receiving the strongest reactions. All three films will also be screened at the Toronto Film festival, which begins on Thursday.

Longtime Telluride festival-goers found themselves having to show up earlier than ever for an increasing number of the movie screenings. Pass-holders complained of having to line up more than an hour in advance outside venues with no guarantee of even getting in.

Once inside the theaters, it wasn’t unusual to spot the likes of Laura Linney, Sean Penn and wife Robin Wright Penn, Marcia Gay Harden, and acclaimed theater director Peter Sellars taking in as many films as their schedules allowed.

Golden Space Needle Awards (audience-voted)

Best Film:

1. “Outsourced,” directed by John Jeffcoat

2. “Vitus,” directed by Fredi M. Murer

3. “La Vie en Rose,” directed by Olivier Dahan

4. “The Bubble,” directed by Eytan Fox

5. “Sex and Death 101,” directed by Daniel Waters

Best Documentary:

1. “For the Bible Tells Me So,” directed by Daniel Karslake

2. “King of Kong,” directed by Seth Gordon

3. “In the Shadow of the Moon,” directed by David Sington

4. “The Devil Came on Horseback,” directed by Annie Sundberg and Ricki Stern

5. “Doubletime,” directed by Stephanie Johnes

Best Director:

1. Daniel Waters, “Sex and Death 101″

2. Eytan Fox, “The Bubble”

3. Frank Oz, “Death at a Funeral”

4. Olivier Dahan, “La Vie en Rose”

5. John Jeffcoat, “Outsourced”

Best Actress:

1. Marion Cotillard, “La Vie en Rose”

2. Jordis Triebel, “Emma’s Bliss”

3. Hannah Herzprung, “Four Minutes”

4. Claire Danes, “Evening”

5. Parker Posey, “Broken English”

Best Actor:

1. Daniel Brühl, “Salvador”

2. Hugh Dancy, “Evening”

3. François Cluzet, “Tell No One”

4. Mads Mikkelsen, “Prague”

5. Simon Baker, “Sex and Death 101″

Best Short Film:

1. “Pierre,” directed by Dan Brown

2. “Fortune Hunters,” directed by Thom Harp

3. “High Maintenance,” directed by Phillip Van

4. “Tommy the Kid,” directed by Stuart Clegg

5. “The Job,” directed by Jonathan Browning

Jury Awards

New Director Award

Grand Jury Prize: “Sons,” directed by Erik Richter Strand

Special Mention: Actress Valérie Donzelli in “7Years,” directed by Jean-Pascal Hattu

New American Cinema Award

Grand Jury Prize: “Shotgun Stories,” written and directed by Jeff Nichols

Special Jury Prize: “Lovely by Surprise,” directed by Kirt Gunn

Best Documentary

Grand Jury Prize: “Out of Time,” directed by Harald Friedl

Special Jury Prize: “Angels in the Dust,” directed by Louise Hogarth

Short-Film Awards

Narrative Short:

Grand Jury Prize: “Wigald,” directed by Timon Modersohn

Special Jury Award: “Look Sharp,” directed by Amy Gebhardt

Special Jury Award: “Pick Up,” directed by Manuel Schapira

Animated Short:

Grand Jury Prize: “Everything Will Be OK,” directed by Don Hertzfeldt

Honorable Mention: “The Girl Who Swallowed Bees,” directed by Paul McDermott

Documentary Short:

Grand Jury Prize: “Chocolate Country,” directed by Robin Blotnick

Honorable Mention: “Freeheld,” directed by Cynthia Wade

Special Awards

Heineken Red Star Award: Kirill Mikhanovsky, “Fish Dreams”; Women in Cinema Lena Sharpe Award: Annie Sundberg and Ricki Stern, “The Devil Came on Horseback”; Wavemaker Award for Excellence in Youth Filmmaking: “Jewmaican,” directed by Melinda Tenenzapf; FutureWave Audience Award: “Laundry,” directed by Darrow Stettes, Allex Bullard and Hanna Overman

 This year’s festival screened more than a dozen highly anticipated world and U.S. premieres, launched a Mexican sidebar (La Próxima Ola) and honored several entertainment icons (Anthony Hopkins, Ben Kingsley, Charlize Theron, Mike Newell and Ocean’s producer Jerry Weintraub) during its run at the Palms Casino Resort and Brenden Theatres from June 6 – 16, 2007

“2007 marked a major milestone for the festival,” said Artistic Director Trevor Groth commenting on this year’s success. “The quality of the films as well as filmmaker, talent, industry and audience turn-out has reached an all-time high.”

Feature Jury Competition
This year’s feature jury was presided over by acclaimed producer Effie T. Brown, Screen International’s U.S. Editor Mike Goodridge, Editor and Chief Critic for Los Angeles City Beat Andy Klein, and Scott Macaulay, New York-based producer and Co-President of Forensic Films and Editor and Co-Founder of Filmmaker Magazine.

The Grand Jury Prize went to “LOOK,” directed by Adam Rifkin. The film was shot entirely from the point of view of the hundreds of surveillance cameras which we live under everyday, “LOOK” is a film about the things people do when they don’t know they’re being watched.

A Special Jury Award for Best Directing was awarded to Joy Dietrich for “Tie a Yellow Ribbon,” a rare view into the emotionally complex interior of Asian-American women, featuring a Korean adoptee who needs to come to terms with her damaged past.
“All God’s Children Can Dance,” which was directed by Robert Logevall received a Special Jury Award for Distinctive Visual Expression. Based on Haruki Murakami’s short story, the film tells the story of Kengo, a teenager living in Los Angeles’ Koreatown, whose fervently religious mother insists that he is the son of God.

Sol Tryon’s “The Living Wake” recieved the Heineken Red Star Award. A dark comedy set in a storybook universe, “The Living Wake” chronicles the final day of K. Roth Binew, a quixotic character who attempts to probe life’s great mysteries before his final hour.

The Heineken Red Star Award recognizes films that push the boundaries of creativity and provide a unique vision and execution; this award was created in an effort to promote up-and-coming filmmakers by providing additional exposure and visibility for their films. To this end, Heineken has partnered with two venerable media partners – Variety and the Independent Film Channel (IFC) – to bring well-deserved publicity and visibility to the Heineken Red Star Award recipients and their films.

Audience Awards
This year’s festival boasted record attendance and Vegas crowds anointed “I Have Never Forgotten You: The Life and Legacy of Simon Wiesenthal” and “Throwing Stars” with the CineVegas Audience Awards for Documentary and Narrative Features.
Featured in the festival’s Modern Crusaders section of political docs, Richard Trank’s “I Have Never Forgotten You: The Life and Legacy of Simon Wiesenthal” examines the Austrian-Jewish architectural engineer who became a Nazi hunter after surviving the Holocaust.

In director Todd Breau’s “Throwing Stars,” the bond between four childhood friends is put to the test when they have to cover up a murder.

La Próxima Ola Jury
Sundance Film Festival Co-Director Geoffrey Gilmore, lauded actor Clifton Collins, Jr. and filmmaker Justin Lin headed the jury for the festival’s new Mexican cinema section, La Próxima Ola, charged with discovering and celebrating the freshest voices of Mexican film today.

La Próxima Ola Jury Prize was awarded to “Bad Habits (Malos Hábitos),” directed by Simón Bross. “Bad Habits (Malos Hábitos)” is the story of three women whose eating habits determine and dominate their lives.

Shorts Jury
This year’s shorts jury included film and television production pro Emily Jillette, film and television director Gary Nelson, and local NBC anchor Mitch Truswell.

Jennifer Aniston and Andrea Buchanan’s “Room 10″ was awarded the CineVegas Short Film Jury Prize while David Schmoeller’s “Spanking Lessons” took home the CineVegas Nevada Short Film Jury Prize. The jury also acknowledged “BITCH,” “Equal Opportunity,” “Year of the Dog” and the local film “Danuta” with Honorable Mentions.

CANNES - A graphic movie about an illegal abortion took the Palme d’Or last night at the closing of the 60th edition of the Cannes Film Festival.

Titled 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, a realistic drama Romanian director Cristian Mungiu said he almost didn’t make due to lack of ideas and funds won the prize that is second only to Oscar’s Best Picture for film glory. His film beat 21 competitors, including ones made by such international heavyweights as Joel and Ethan Coen, Quentin Tarantino and Wong Kar-wai.

“It looks a little bit to me like in a fairy tale, to be honest,” the shy director, 39, told a glittering audience at the Palais des Festivals, after receiving the Palme trophy from actor Jane Fonda.

“Some one year ago, we didn’t have any idea about this project. And some six months ago, we didn’t have any money to make it. And finally, we were just hoping that we were going to be in Cannes in any kind of competition, anywhere.”

Mungiu called the win a victory for small filmmakers the world over. Set in a small Romanian town before the fall of Communism, a time when abortion was punished by harsh jail sentences, the movie makes no judgments but spares no sensibilities; every stage of the procedure is shown.

It unspools in what seems like real time, as a young university student seeks to end an unwanted pregnancy despite the ban against the procedure and her risky decision to wait beyond the first trimester. The student and her female roommate become the prey of the male abortionist who exploits them.

The film had been one of the leading contenders for Palme glory in straw polls by journalists attending the festival. It had been running neck-and-neck with No Country for Old Men, the latest film by U.S. directors Joel and Ethan Coen.

The runner-up film prize, the Grand Prix, went to The Mourning Forest by Japan’s Naomi Kawase, for an intense movie about a troubled young nurse’s attempt to protect an elderly Alzheimer’s patient as he wanders in a forest searching for the grave of his wife.

It was an emotional moment for Kawase, who is one of the very few female directors to have received one of the top two prizes at Cannes. Only one woman, New Zealand’s Jane Campion, has won the Palme.

A special 60th-anniversary prize was given to U.S. filmmaker Gus Van Sant for Paranoid Park, his low-key work about an accidental death and a young man’s grief that many critics here considered inferior to Elephant, which won Van Sant the Palme in 2003.

Two films received special jury prizes: the animated memoir Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud, based on Satrapi’s humorous and harrowing account of life before and after Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution; and Stellet Licht (Silent Light), a drama of faith and morality by Mexico’s Carlos Reygadas, set amidst Mennonite farmers in northern Mexico.

Another American filmmaker, Julian Schnabel, won Best Director for his visually striking The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, his screen adaptation of the true-life account of a French magazine editor who became paralyzed after a stroke.

Acting awards went to big performances in small films. South Korea’s Jeon Do-yeon, who plays a young widow and mother struggling to maintain her sanity following twin tragedies in Secret Sunshine, was lauded for Best Actress.

Russia’s Konstantin Lavronenko, who played a distraught husband in The Banishment, a film about a marriage on the rocks, won for Best Actor. The award for Best Screenplay went to German writer/director Fatih Akin for The Edge of Heaven, a story of loss and forgiveness.

At a post-awards news conference, Canadian jury member Sarah Polley spoke of how intensely the two-week experience of watching great films from around the world had affected her. “I feel like I learned more in the last 10 or 11 days than I have in my whole life,” she said. “Everyone seemed to approach the discussions with immense curiosity and engagement. And I’ve never seen a group of people listen to each other so carefully. It was an absolute joy.”

Awards presented at the 60th Cannes Film Festival, selected by a nine-member jury headed by British director Stephen Frears:

Palme d’Or (Golden Palm): 4 Luni, 3 Saptamini Si 2 Zile (4 Months, 3 weeks and 2 days) - Cristian Mungiu, Romania

Grand Prize: Mogari No Mori (The Mourning Forest) - Naomi Kawase, Japan

Jury Prize: Persepolis - Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud, Iran and France; and Stellet Licht (Silent Light) - Carlos Reygadas, Mexico

60th Anniversary Prize: Paranoid Park - Gus Van Sant, US

Best Director: Le Scaphandre et le papillon (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly) - Julian Schnabel, US

Best Actor: Konstantin Lavronenko (in The Banishment), Russia

Best Actress: Jeon Do-yeon (in Secret Sunshine), South Korea

Best Screenplay: The Edge of Heaven - Fatih Akin, Germany

Golden Camera (first-time director): Meduzot - Etgar Keret and Shira Geffen, Israel

Best Short Film: Ver Llover (Watching it Rain) - Elisa Miller, Mexico

The buzz machine slammed the French Riviera this weekend. Its target was one film: The Coen Brothers’ noir-tinged, darkly comical and meditative Western, “No Country for Old Men.” Critics and audiences have gone berserk over the film, and the Coens and their cast of Javier Bardem and Josh Brolin are already fielding Oscar questions (Tommy Lee Jones would be as well, but the notoriously testy actor steered clear of Cannes). A colleague wrote me late last night and asked whether the hype was justified, whether the Oscar talk could possibly be true. I can’t predict anything about the Oscars, because Miramax won’t release the film until November. But I can answer the first question.

Yes, it’s that good and, no, it’s not overhyped. I’m a rabid Coen Brothers fan, and for me, this near masterpiece is their best, most mature and beautiful work since 1990’s “Miller’s Crossing” (”The Big Lebowski” is on another plane, so I can’t even compare the two). But I won’t use the M word until I’ve seen it again — which I almost did this morning (I’ve never seen a film twice at the same festival) — until I saw the line around the block.

For those unaware, “No Country for Old Men” is the Coens’ adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s 2003 novel (if you haven’t read it, you should; I think it’s better than his recent Pulitzer Prize-winning “The Road”). In retrospect, the pair seems perfect. “Country” is McCarthy’s most accessible novel, a genre blur loaded with the type of colorful, local characters (West Texas, in this case) and the sharp, pitch-black funny dialogue that the Coens have written for more than two decades. It starts when ex-’Nam vet Llewlyn Moss (Brolin, in the type of rugged performance for which the word “breakthrough” was created) blindly stumbles upon a horrific desert scene while hunting: dead bodies and shot-up pickup trucks littering the sand. Inside one of the trucks, Moss finds enough heroin to keep a city on the nod for years and a case full of $2 million. When he decides to grab the money, he sets off a chain reaction of cataclysmic events for everyone involved. And there are a lot of everyones in “Country.” There is Moss’s wife, Carla Jean (Kelly Macdonald), whose unquestioning trust of her husband drives his insane ambition; there’s Sheriff Bell (Jones, born to play this role), who knows Moss is in over his head and tries to chase him down; there’s bounty hunter Carson Wells (Woody Harrelson), who’s simply tracking Moss and the money as another paid gig; and most importantly, there is Chigurh (Bardem … sure, start the Oscar talk), a Mexican assassin with a page-boy haircut, a ghost-white face, pink eyes and a coin he likes to flip for human lives. Chigurh is death and violence embodied; rarely has there been a badass like this on the big screen, one who kills for pure pleasure, without conscience and just because, well, as Nick Cave once sang, “All God’s creatures, they all gotta die.”

The plot is labyrinthine and ambiguous, but the Coens handle it with ease. It’s bloody and messy, but also laugh-out-loud funny (”I laugh to myself sometimes,” says Bell. “It’s all you can do”) and startlingly creepy. Good chunks of the film are shot in silence, with little, if no music, and only the Texas wind on the soundtrack. It’s the sound of a country withering and dying, where money is worth any sacrifice, where violence has escalated to the point of inane hysteria and a simple, aging sheriff like Bell muses about “dismal tides” that he can no longer contain. And this is, at its core, what “No Country for Old Men” is about: an America now without logic, reason or conscience.

We’re only halfway through the festival, but it looks like a two-horse race between “No Country” and “4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days” for the Palme d’Or. And win or not, prepare yourself for “No Country”: It’ll floor you.

Lunch With the “Men”

How much did “No Country” floor me? So much so that I agreed to join the Coens, Brolin, Bardem and a small horde of quote-hungry journalists at a roundtable lunch on Sunday afternoon. I never do these. My reason for attending this time was simple: I just wanted to meet the Coen Brothers (though I must say that Bardem is one of the more thoughtful, intelligent actors I’ve met, and Brolin’s enthusiasm for actually being in a good movie was endearing). And I did … and I gushed to Ethan Coen like a silly fan … but I had to suffer through some brutal personalities and ridiculous questions to do so. Honestly, I don’t understand how people do roundtable discussions for a living. It was brutal. I was eating lunch and nearly spit out my food half a dozen times. I only had one question, actually: Did the duo show the movie to McCarthy and, if so, what was his reaction? “Yes, we did,” said Joel Coen. And? “He sat through the whole thing. We heard him laugh a few times.” So, will you be doing “The Road”? While laughing, Ethan and Joel simultaneously answered a resounding “No!” That was it for me. I got up and headed to another movie.

Saint Michael

The weekend’s other big event was Michael Moore’s return to Cannes — his first visit since his 2004 Palme d’Or win for “Fahrenheit 9/11″ — with his latest doc, “Sicko.” The Coen Brothers and Moore films couldn’t be more different: “Sicko” is as confused but more angry about America than “No Country for Old Men.” In Moore’s usual first-person, sarcastic, left-leaning and self-promoting style, he takes a scathing look at America’s health-care system. Moore asked people to submit to his Web site stories about how the system had let them down. By the end of that week, he had received tens of thousands of messages. And for the first chunk of “Sicko,” we meet these people and Moore lets them tell their stories: The couple who had to sell their home because they couldn’t make their co-payments; the woman whose infant child died in her arms, because the Kaiser insurance company wouldn’t let another doctor work on her; and several people who were insured but whose life-threatening claims were denied (they all died before the end of the making of the movie). And for a whole hour, Moore stays behind the camera! And then he decides to visit other countries and explore their government-supported health systems. We visit Canada and England and France (oh, how Moore panders to the French … and the crowd loved it), and through interviews with residents, doctors and administrators, it’s driven home that America has the worst health-care system on the planet. And, yes, at the climax of the film, he takes a boatload of Sept. 11 rescue workers to Cuba, where they receive amazing medical attention (would they have if a camera hadn’t been there? Dunno). Moore offers solid arguments throughout all of this, but he also neglects to investigate ANY of the criticisms of social medicine. It’s a no-brainer that our health system is a joke, but Moore could have made a stronger argument with a bit more research. But, hell, this is Michael Moore! He’s not interested in arguments as much as creating a revolution. And if this film can somehow create some type of anger to spur change, I’m all for it. And I know I was manipulated, but it wasn’t by Moore (he’ll never learn that his presence hurts his ideology) — it was by the interviewed Americans I saw and heard. For the first time after a Moore film, I didn’t feel anger at our government. I just felt shame.

More Movies

I saw other films last weekend, but I don’t have space to review all of them. So here are a few comments:

“Boarding Gate”: Walked out. Olivier Assayas takes a major step backward after “Clean.” Michael Madsen and Asia Argento as your two stars? Dude …

“Triangle”: Three great Hong Kong action directors — Johnny To, Tsui Hark and Ringo Lam — teamed up for this fun thriller about three drinking buddies who decide to steal a chest full of gold. It’s a blast, wryly comical, moves like a shark and, two days later, I can’t tell you a single thing about it.

“Magnus”: An Estonian “Harold and Maude,” except substitute Maude for the death-loving kid’s father. Magnus wants to die; Dad decides, through acid, coke, hookers and other exciting means, to show the kid that life is worth living. Doesn’t work. The most powerful thing about this, however, is it’s a true story and Magnus’ dad is played by the real father.

“Breath”: I love me some Kim Ki-duk (”The Isle,” “3-Iron,” “Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter … and Spring”), but he’s starting to cover the same territory repeatedly. This is another odd tale of screwed-up lovers (a wife who falls for a mute death-row inmate), silence and death … I dug it for the first six or seven films. This one left me numb. The crowd seemed to like it, and it’s screening in competition, so …

Cannes Stories

Cannes of course isn’t just about the movies … here are some other things I experienced or heard about this weekend:

Fish soup … or U2? That was my quandary. I heard on Saturday night that the Irish lads would be playing a free concert on the steps of the Palais around midnight (to help promote the documentary “U2 3D”). I overheard this while hanging out with three sexy Swedes at a Finnish party where a band, all members wearing Orc-esque masks, called Lordi was going to perform. But that’s another story. Anyway, U2. So, I was hungry and I had to make the call: Watch U2 or grab some amazing fish soup at La Pizza. If this were 1987, I would have joined the mob on the Croisette. But it’s not and the fish soup was great. I heard “Where the Streets Had No Name” walking home and later learned they only played two songs (”Vertigo” being the other). Chalk one up for the Kid!

Finally, at a press conference on Sunday morning, where a ton of big-name directors gathered to discuss a collection of three-minute-long short movies called “Chacun Son Cinema,” Roman Polanski stood out. Or rather, he stood up … and walked out. But not before chastising the press for asking stupid questions. He should have attended the Coen Brothers lunch later that day. Oh, and in other news, David Cronenberg apparently said cinema is dead and people won’t be going to the movies soon. Which begs the question: Why am I here?

This year’s international film festival in Cannes, France opened with a heavy dose of political imagery. From Hollywood star Leonardo DiCaprio to little-known Romanian director Cristian Mungiu, non-fiction was the dominant format during the opening weekend of the Cannes film festival.

And of course, where there is political film-making, there is Michael Moore. At Cannes, the muckraking film-maker presented his latest documentary, “Sicko,” which takes a harsh look at America’s private health care system.

Moore also took advantage of the media spotlight to lambaste his favorite target, the administration of US President George W. Bush.

“This is an administration that flouts the law, flouts the constitution,” Moore told the AFP news service as he criticized a US government probe into a trip he made to Cuba in connection with his latest film.

“The point was not to go to Cuba, it was to go to American soil, to Guantanamo Bay and to take 9/11 rescue workers there to receive the same medical care given to the Al-Qaeda detainees,” he railed.

In a theme that is common to all of his works, Moore’s “Sicko” also depicts US politicians — Bush above all, but others as well — as having been bought off by big business. The film celebrates what it calls the “socialist” model that provides effective state health care in other Western countries such as Germany, and laments the fact that the United States has rejected this model.

“Titanic” star joins green bandwagon

Meanwhile, Hollywood movie star Leonardo DiCaprio screened “The 11th Hour,” an environmental documentary he produced.

But the film disappointed critics who were expecting a film similar to “An Inconvenient Truth,” the acclaimed documentary that was fronted by Al Gore and presented at Cannes last year.

Neither Michael Moore nor Leonardo DiCaprio are competing for the Palme d’Or, or Golden Palm, this year.

After the screening of his film, DiCaprio, who became famous for his lead role in the hit movie “Titanic,” talked to reporters about environmental issues.

The superstar reacted with indignation over suggestions that his green commitments were hypocritical in light of his own grandiose lifestyle.
 
Asked whether he had taken a fuel-guzzling flight on his way to the French Rivieria, DiCaprio was sarcastic. “No, I took a train across the Atlantic,” he quipped, adding: “We’re all trying the best we can, truly, we really are.”

The “Titanic” star’s sensitivity can be traced back to 2000, when environmental activists claimed his film “The Beach” damaged part of a Thai national park during shooting.

Two years ago, DiCaprio bought Blackadore Caye, an island off the coast of Belize in Central America, with the aim of building an eco-friendly resort.

“Fear cancels out freedom”

Other contenders also covered a wide range of international issues in their films.

In “Four Months, Three Weeks and Two Days,” director Cristian Mungiu examines the horrific events surrounding an illegal abortion in Romania under the rule of dictator Nicolae Ceausescu.

The film takes a look at feminism under communism, and director Mungiu says the message was simple: “Fear cancels out freedom.” She said that the legalization of abortion after the fall of the Iron Curtain was seen as “the ultimate freedom” by Romanian women.

And in Raphael Nadjari’s “Tehilim,” a family drama in Jerusalem at first seems markedly apolitical. But, little by little, the French film-maker introduces the viewer to a world that is “stuck between modernity and tradition, between spirituality and pragmatism, a world where a father figure — maybe a representation of God — is missing,”.

The Cannes festival ends next week, and the socio-political themes are expected to continue throughout.

On Wednesday, an exiled Iranian living in Paris, Marjane Satrapi, will show “Persepolis,” an animated movie that purports to expose religious repression in the director’s homeland. The film is based on Marjane’s popular comic book series.