Plus ca change…

The Cannes film festival IS different from recent editions, but not radically. For me, the most noticeable difference between 2009 and 2005/6/7/8 is the absence of stars, be they genuine cinema greats or headline-grabbing celebrities who people care about, however fleetingly.

Sure, there are famous people here — Quentin Tarantino, Penelope Cruz, Mariah Carey, Brad Pitt, (a little later on) and Bill Clinton (in town soon for a charity dinner). But there are significantly fewer than we in the press are used to. In one sense that’s a good thing in that reporters can concentrate more on the film festival itself rather than the red carpets and celebrity-driven stunts. On the other hand, any major festival, and particularly the world’s biggest in Cannes, needs the glamour that star power brings to generate interest around the world.

So that’s what is different. But what is the same is the sunshine, the extortionate prices, the yachts in the harbour occupied by scantily-clad women and not-so-scantily-clad men, the parties (albeit fewer) and that “Cannes attitude”, in other words, “put-on-your-Sunday-best-even-if-it’s-Monday-because-you-never-know, someone-important-might-notice-you.”

After recently speaking to Kate Winslet about “The Reader,” (click here) we remembered this small item about the British star who is favorite for a best actress Oscar at the weekend for her portrayal of a former concentration guard in “The Reader”.

In an episode of the spoof TV series ”Extras” in 2005, the 33-year-old played an actress playing a nun in a Holocaust drama. Asked why she had accepted the role, her character – and it should be said Winslet was playing it firmly tongue-in-cheek in keeping with the spirit of the show — replies: “I’m doing it because I’ve noticed that if you do a film about the Holocaust, (you’re) guaranteed an Oscar. I’ve been nominated four times. Never won. The whole world is going, ‘why hasn’t Winslet won one?’”

“The Reader,” which recalls the Holocaust, now brings Winslet up to six nominations. As yet, there is no Oscar statuette. Was the scene on Gervais’ “Extras” just a coincidence? Or, was it part of a cunning Oscar campaign plot hatched all those years ago?

(Okay, it was a comedy, but you never know).

The real question is, will ”The Reader” land her the big prize in the face of tough competition from Meryl Streep in “Doubt”?

Swedish director Lukas Moodysson might not be the happiest of filmmakers at the moment. It’s hardly surprising, given that his latest movie “Mammoth“, starring Gael Garcia Bernal, was roundly booed by reporters and critics after a press screening at the Berlin film festival.

Critics have panned the examination of globalisation and economic migrants. The film’s average mark in Screen International’s informal poll of reviews is 0.9 out of four, or below a poor rating. Five out of eight critics deemed it plain “bad”.

It must be a crushing blow for someone who has invested so much time and effort in a project, only to have it dismissed with a few strokes of the critics’ pen.

Still, it could be worse. Sally Potter’s ultra-minimalist fashion send-up “Rage” scored even lower in the poll, notching just 0.8 on average. Not even the sight of Jude Law in drag was enough to stop dozens of audience members walking out of its press screening. At least Potter won’t be too badly out of pocket. The movie cost less than $1 million to make.

The overall quality Berlin’s main competition lineup in recent years has come under fire, but I can’t remember seeing two such low-scoring entries, and both premiered on the same day.

On a happier note, well-crafted low-budget dramas from Iran and Uruguay are faring better and are favourites – as we approach the festival’s halfway stage — to take the Golden Bear for best film.

U.S. pop star Madonna has won a bid to move her children to the United States from Britain, ending a battle in her brutal divorce with British director Guy Ritchie, London’s Evening Standard newspaper reported on Friday.

The paper reported that Ritchie had wanted the couple’s biological son Rocco, 8, to be educated in Britain, but that Madonna’s lawyers argued he should not be split up from his siblings, Lourdes, 12, Madonna’s daughter from a previous relationship, and David, 3, who was adopted from an orphanage in Malawi.

“Everything is going to be resolved in the next couple of weeks. Everything is going well. It’s pretty amicable at the moment. Things are progressing,” a source close to the negotiations told the Evening Standard.

Liz Rosenberg, Madonna’s longtime spokeswoman in New York, declined to comment on the report.

Madonna and Ritchie announced their split in October, nearly eight years after their wedding at Skibo Castle in Scotland, and were granted a “quickie” divorce in November.

Ritchie is a British film director who is making Hollywood blockbuster “Sherlock Holmes” starring Robert Downey Jr. as the Victorian-era super sleuth.

The couple’s combined wealth has been estimated at about $525 million, but Madonna accounts for most of it.

There’s not much love lost between off-duty celebrities and the paparazzi, but Kanye West really, really doesn’t like them.

The rapper was briefly arrested in northern England on Thursday night after an apparent altercation with a photographer outside a night club in the city of Newcastle.

Photographer Tony Blackburn claimed West lashed out as he was leaving the club with some female company, shoving the camera into the snapper’s face and causing a small cut on his nose.

British police didn’t think the incident merited a charge against West after questioning him about it. But it all sounded reminiscent of a scuffle West had in September at Los Angeles International airport with a photographer and a TV camerman that ended with a broken camera.

West wasn’t charged in that case either.

Celebrities have come out in force during the long U.S. presidential race, hosting fundraisers, throwing concerts and performing at campaign rallies around the nation.

But not country star Carrie Underwood.

Unlike Barbra Streisand, who’s been doing a round of last minute radio station Q&As in support of Democrat Barack Obama, Underwood is staying mum.

“I lose all respect for celebrities when they back a candidate,”  the “All-American Girl” singer tells TV Guide in its November 10th issue.

“It’s saying that the American public isn’t smart enough to make their own decisions,” she said.  “I would never want anybody to vote for anything or anybody just because I told them to. 

“Music is where you go to get away from all the BS.  Whether it’s from politics or just the world around you, music should be an escape,” the former “American Idol” winner said.

We’ve had a lot of competing views on celeb endorsements this election season, but this may be your last chance to speak up during this cycle. How much have celebrity endorsements affected your voting decisions in 2008?

Depending on who you listen to or read, Guy Ritchie may look to get up to $260 million in any divorce settlement with his wife Madonna, or he may try to get nothing and live off his own fortune,  variously estimated at anywhere between $30-50 million.

When big celebrity divorces are announced, as Ritchie and Madonna’s was on Wednesday, a frenzied bout of speculation by media and lawyers alike tends to follow, and more often than not it ends up being a load of rubbish.

You only have to look back to the divorce between Paul McCartney and Heather Mills to see how wide of the mark the theories generally are. Some lawyers were confidently predicting McCartney would have to pay out $350 million to Mills. (It is only fair to point out that one such expert was quoted by none other than Reuters at the time.) The actual sum? Less than $50 million.

Still, perhaps it is true that the bigger the amount in the headline, the more copies a newspaper sells. Surely the press wouldn’t be so cynical?

Gwyneth Paltrow might be wishing she had never ventured into the world of online lifestyle advice.

Her new site, goop.com, has irritated commentators on both sides of the Atlantic who say that the pearls of wisdom she shares with us are, at best, rather general, and at worst downright smug.

“My life is good because I am not passive about it,” writes the Hollywood star in her mission statement. “I want to nourish what is real, and I want to do it without wasting time.”

Elizabeth Renzetti wrote in the Globe and Mail: ”Why is it called Goop? Perhaps ‘Any Old Load of Rubbish’ and ‘Learn From Me, Ungrateful Peasant’ were both taken.

“In essence, Gwyneth would like to reach down from her aerie in north London and show you how to live, and shop, meaningfully,” she continues. ”Except that the point is completely moot: You and I will never be six-foot tall blonde goddesses constructed entirely of lentils and self-righteousness.”

Maria Russo of the Los Angeles Times criticizes not only the content, but the format of the new site, which is on the web in preview form. Click on the six sections (make, go, get, do, be, see) and you get the same statement from Ms. Paltrow.

“It’s not just that apparently no one wants to take life direction from the girl who has it all,” writes Russo. “There are also some more basic technical problems, starting with the layout of the two-page site. It’s not clear why she bothered to put it up with so little content. It feels like something that won an award for Web design in 1998.”

Perhaps Paltrow and her team should be given more time to develop the site before the critics weigh in. Trouble is, in this day and age noone seems willing to wait.

Dita Von Teese says Parisian men appreciate their showgirls more than Americans, no matter what their age. Perhaps with an eye on Hollywood’s ageist reputation, the 35-year-old dancer is even considering a move from L.A. to the French capital.

“I’m going to move to Paris like all the other glamorous stars of the past that moved to Paris,” the brunette said at the London launch of her new underwear range for Wonderbra, inspired by the 1940s and 1950s. ”There are certain places that men always appreciate their glamour girls and especially their showgirls of any age, so I really am going to move to Paris, I think.”

Von Teese, something of a throwback to movie stars of another era, is a big departure for the underwear range. At the press launch in London’s Covent Garden she posed for photographers swinging on a giant model of one of her bras wearing a peach dress and ultra-high heels.

“My first job when I was 15 years old was working in a lingerie store,” she told Reuters. “I worked there for many years and my obsession and love of lingerie is really what made me become a pinup model and burlesque dancer.”

Famed for erotic dance routines in giant cocktail glasses, Von Teese says that, despite her divorce from singer Marilyn Manson, she considers herself lucky in love.

“I think I’ve been very lucky in love. I’ve had lots of wonderful affairs and, you know, I haven’t found the great love of my life … I think I’m pretty lucky in love. May be not the way other people consider love to be lucky, but I’m all for the adventure of life and I don’t want it all to be one way and I don’t really need a storybook ending.”

(Reporting by Michael Davidson)

“Entourage” star Jeremy Piven started rehearsals this week on another show about the inside world of show-business, only this time it’s on a Broadway stage.

Piven is starring in a revival of David Mamet’s play “Speed-the-Plow,” billed as a “scathing portrait of the film industry and the people who are willing to sell their souls for sex, fame and fortune.”

“It’s an incredibly timely piece. It’s actually more true today even than when he wrote it,” Piven told reporters at the start of the second day of rehearsals on Tuesday.

“We did a reading yesterday and I was surprised yet again how powerful and funny this piece is,” said Piven, looking a little-bleary eyed before the morning rehearsal.

The cast also includes Elisabeth Moss, star of the hit TV show “Mad Men” and familiar to many as the president’s daughter in “West Wing.” She is reviving a role played by Madonna in the last Broadway production of the play 20 years ago.

The third major role is taken by Raul Esparza, the only one of the three who has trod the boards on Broadway before.

Piven starred in the off-Broadway play “Fat Pig” by Neil LaBute in 2004 but this will be his Broadway debut.

Previews start on Oct. 3 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre and opening night is Oct. 23. 

PICTURE: Reuters/Mike Cassese (Actor Jeremy Piven arrives at special presentation screening of ‘RocknRolla’ at Toronto International Film Festival, 4 Sept. 2008)