I’m out in LA for a wedding this week so I haven’t gotten around to seeing Tom Cruise’s latest, “Oblivion,” from “TRON Legacy” director Joseph Kosinski. The film is shaping up to be one of the star’s biggest box office debuts, which is saying a lot. I’ve heard a bunch of different reactions and despite the negative takes, I’m still looking forward to settling in and seeing the movie soon.

For now, though, tell us what you thought of it. Is it a great new sci-fi entry? Does Cruise’s work touch his best? Or is it, well, not so much? Let us know in the comments section and feel free to vote in our poll below.

When the Official Selection for this year’s Cannes Film Festival was announced on Thursday, the film I was perhaps most surprised to see left out was Ari Folman’s “The Congress.” The film was ready in time for the festival, advance whisperings were positive, it has red carpet-friendly stars in Robin Wright and Jon Hamm — and, of course, Folman’s last film, the Oscar-nominated “Waltz With Bashir,” was a hit in Competition five years ago. What gives?

Well, now we know: “The Congress” has been selected as the opening film for Directors’ Fortnight, the independently programmed sidebar that runs parallel to the main festival on the other end of the Croisette.

That could mean that Cannes festival director Thierry Fremaux and his fellow selectors turned Folman’s film down, and the Fortnight was the next best thing. Or it could be that grabbing the opening night of the increasingly prominent sidebar was a more temptingly prestigious offer than a standard slot in the Official Selection. Festival horse-trading is a complex business. 

What it doesn’t mean, however, is that the film is sub-par or unworthy of a place in the bigger show. Just look at last year’s Directors’ Fortnight opener, also something of a surprise exclusion from the Official Selection: Pablo Larrain’s brilliant political satire “No” emerged as one of the festival’s breakout hits and landed up with an Oscar nomination. When it comes to generating festival buzz, being the big fish in the smaller pond can be a sound tactic.

Directors’ Fortnight can be a happy hunting ground for critical hits away from the chaos of the main festival: in addition to “No,” notable recent films to have premiered in the sidebar include Xavier Dolan’s “I Killed My Mother,” Ramin Bahrani’s “Chop Shop,” Bong Joon-ho’s “The Host,” Christophe Honore’s “Dans Paris,” Ray Lawrence’s “Jindabyne,” Francis Ford Coppola’s “Tetro,” Lynne Ramsay’s “Morvern Callar,” Stephen Daldry’s “Billy Elliot,” Bela Tarr’s “Werckmeister Harmonies,” Sofia Coppola’s “The Virgin Suicides,” Todd Solondz’s “Happiness,” Ang Lee’s “Eat Drink Man Woman,” the Dardenne Brothers’ “La Promesse” … even P.J. Hogan’s “Muriel’s Wedding.” Ignore it at your peril, though I’m often surprised by the number of journalists who do just that.

Anyway, fingers crossed this bodes well for “The Congress,” an adaptation of a short story by Stanislaw Lem (“Solaris”). Wright stars as an aging actress who agrees to an experimental procedure whereby her youthful form is scanned and replicated for future use and profit by the studios — it’s billed as a meditation on the future and the future of cinema. Part live-action and part animated using the distinctive rotoscope-esque style from “Waltz With Bashir,” it should be an interesting match for Folman’s sensibility — the stills floating around the internet certainly intrigue. Jon Hamm, Paul Giamatti and Harvey Keitel also star.

Anyway, this news means six of the 10 films I was most hoping to see at the festival will definitely be there — will any others pop up over the next few weeks? The full Directors’ Fortnight lineup will be announced on Tuesday, with the Critics’ Week picks also still to come.

Recently Academy president Hawk Koch made his mark on the 2014 Oscar ceremony, despite the fact that he’s only serving one year in the position and probably shouldn’t be making decisions on the next Academy Awards, by tapping producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron to come back on board. Citing a need to maintain “consistency,” Koch sang the producers’ praises, despite the production being criticized for tastelessness in many quarters.

If consistency is what they’re after then it only stands to reason that Zadan and Meron would like to bring host Seth MacFarlane back on board. But that’ll never happen, right? From the horse’s mouth, MacFarlane said “no way” when asked if he would ever come back to emcee the show. Well, not so fast…

Just Jared is reporting that Zadan and Meron have already made an overture to MacFarlane. “After defending his performance, the producers reached out to Seth and invited him back to host the show again,” the outlet’s source says. “He”s not sure if he”s going to do it, but he has to decide within the next couple of weeks.”

Take that as you will but I kind of doubt MacFarlane would want to come back for another bloodbath. I can only imagine his stern “no way” was partly due to the response. Obviously they’re trying to duplicate the magic of a ratings boost last year, but I say again, if you don’t think the ratings had mostly to do with the movies, you’re just kind of bone-headed.

Anyway, who should host? It’s the age-old question. And presumably the producers are trying to answer that very question lately. Tell us in the comments section. (And for a refresher, check out a few suggestions from last year’s query.)

I imagine like everyone else, you’ve been glued to the TV and the internet watching the events of the last 14 hours or so unfold. I flew into Los Angeles from New York yesterday and was watching all the news about the FBI’s release of video and photos featuring the Boston Marathon suspects, asking for help in identifying them. Then just a half hour before landing, the news break on shots being fired at MIT hit. An hour or so later I’m in the car on the way home watching Twitter explode with the hard work of newspaper reporters on the scene in Watertown unfold in real time. This situation has obviously dominated our attention.

And today comes news that it affects our little, insignificant sliver of the world. David O. Russell’s latest film about the 1970s ABSCAM FBI sting, recently re-titled “American Hustle,” has shut down production because of the on-going manhunt for 19-year-old Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Deadline reports that “the production is heeding the Governor’s request to remain indoors,” those words coming from a Sony spokesperson.

“American Hustle” has been filming in and around the Boston area since April 17 after several days shooting in the Worcester area. Deadline reports that at this time it appears to be the only film currently in production in Boston, but cites the Massachusetts Film Commission as saying several have recently wrapped.

A December 13 release date was recently set for “American Hustle.” The film is the follow-up to Russell’s 2012 Oscar winner “Silver Linings Playbook” and stars Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper, among others. Cooper has also taken time this week to visit some of the victims of Monday’s attack, including Jeffrey Bauman Jr., subject of the now iconic photo of the aftermath.

Zal Batmanglij is building a solid rep and career so far with co-collaborator, actress Brit Marling. Marling starred in his 2011 Sundance hit “Sound of My Voice,” which landed a pair of Independent Spirit Award nominations last year (it was held for an April 2012 release). And “The East” took goodwill from Sundance this year right into SXSW as it aims for an early summer release.

“I very much understand people’s frustration that I think most are feeling right now in our society,” Ellen Page told HitFix back in January, “about corporate greed, about what we’re doing to the environment. I think the film asks a lot of questions and does it in this way that is ethically sticky and murky, which is great.”

Fox Searchlight has passed along a new set of production stills from the film, featuring Page, Brit Marling, Alexander Skarsgård and “Batman” himself. Click on through to take a look.

“The East” opens in limited release on May 31.

Harvey Weinstein has been using the Cannes Film Festival to position The Weinstein Company’s awards hopefuls nicely the last few years. How are things shaping up for the 66th annual? First, a brief history…

In 2011, a few months after finally landing a post-Miramax Best Picture Oscar for “The King’s Speech,” he made a big splash in acquiring last-minute Cannes addition “The Artist” and “The Iron Lady” (which screened five minutes of footage on the market) out of the 64th annual fest. We all know how that turned out: the black-and-white French silent skipped like a stone on festival waters throughout the rest of the year, building an army of audience appreciation and, eventually, top honors at the 84th annual Academy Awards in 2012. And Meryl Streep won her third Oscar to date.

A few months after the 2012 Oscars, Weinstein was back in France bigtime, this time to generate chatter around his latter-year releases “Django Unchained,” “The Master” and “Silver Linings Playbook” with a somewhat unusual footage presentation event. It was a nice taste-tester moment to get people looking ahead, but he also had an eye toward acquisitions.

Plenty was made of the pre-fest pick-up of “Seal Team Six: The Raid on Osama Bin Laden” (née “Code Name: Geronimo”), which would hit theaters before “Zero Dark Thirty” but fade away instantly. But Weinstein also picked up a few other titles, including Wayne Blair’s “The Sapphires,” which he also took to a number of festivals throughout the fall — including Telluride and Toronto — before finally releasing it in theaters last month. And that’s before we get to the two films he brought directly to the fest, John Hillcoat’s “Lawless” (acquired at the fest a year prior) and Andrew Dominik’s “Killing Them Softly.”

Of course, Weinstein has enjoyed a healthy history with Cannes, to say the least. Films that either came to the south of France in the Miramax stable or were soon picked up by the distributor, from “sex, lies and videotape” to “The Piano,” “Pulp Fiction” to “Fahrenheit 9/11″* — Palme d’Or winners all — have been landmarks in cinema history.

So…what does Weinstein have on the horizon for the 66th annual fest?

It has already been announced that he’ll be teasing footage of a fall release once again, this time with Olivier Dahan’s Grace Kelly biopic “Grace of Monaco,” starring Nicole Kidman. In the Competition line-up, he’ll have James Gray’s “The Immigrant” (née “Lowlife,” and potentially something to look for in the craft and performance departments in the awards season), as well as, via the RADiUS-TWC label, Nicolas Winding Refn’s “Only God Forgives” (with Kristin Scott Thomas poised to pounce on the season). Not only that but, as he did with “Blue Valentine” in 2010, he’s landed an Un Certain Regard spot with Sundance player “Fruitvale Station” (née “Fruitvale”).

My instinct on that one is that it’s probably a bit small for Oscar (meaning for a third straight year, Weinstein will be a big player at the Independent Spirit Awards), but who knows? People will definitely be talking about performances from Michael B. Jordan and Octavia Spencer. And beyond all that, anything can happen in the acquisitions department.

Suffice it to say, Cannes has become a new sandbox for Mr. Weinstein. He’s finding ways to position his films, sometimes to awards season success, sometimes not. But ever the hustler, the man is — and has been — back in the game in a big way. And the Croisette is clearly a part of that strategy.

Guy and Greg will be covering from the south of France this year. Be sure to check out all the coverage next month.

The 66th annual Cannes Film Festival runs May 15 – May 26.

*”Fahrenheit 9/11″ was a special case (to say the least) of a Miramax film that Disney blocked from being distributed by the company.

We were expecting an all-star lineup for this year’s Cannes Film Festival, and that’s pretty much what fest director Thierry Fremaux delivered at this morning’s press conference — though not without a few surprises along the way. Barring later additions, 19 Competition films will vie for the Palme d’Or; among them are such hotly anticipated auteur titles as Alexander Payne’s “Nebraska,” James Gray’s “The Immigrant” (formerly known as “Lowlife”), Joel and Ethan Coen’s “Inside Llewyn Davis,” Steven Soderbergh’s “Behind the Candelabra,” Nicolas Winding Refn’s “Only God Forgives” and Roman Polanski’s “Venus in Furs.”

But the big names weren’t limited to the Competition; the secondary Un Certain Regard gets a shot of star power in the shape of the indefatigable James Franco, whose latest directorial effort “As I Lay Dying” will unspool there.

Meanwhile, in one of the morning’s most eyebrow-raising announcements, French veteran Claire Denis’s film “The Bastards” — the film I was most hoping would show up on the Croisette — has been restricted to Un Certain Regard. Following yesterday’s announcement that Sofia Coppola would open the section with “The Bling Ring,” that means the two most prominent filmmakers “demoted” (so to speak) to UCR are both female — not a decision that will sit well with many. Still, with six female directors in Un Certain Regard overall, Fremaux is evidently addressing last year’s gender imbalance in some roundabout way.

Still, at least they made the lineup in some capacity: prominent no-shows this year include Ari Folman’s “The Congress,” Jonathan Glazer’s “Under the Skin” (which was perhaps always likelier to turn up in Venice), Jim Jarmusch’s “Only Lovers Left Alive” and Sylvain Chomet’s “Attila Marcel” — several of those among the films I was most hoping to see at the festival. (Not that I’m complaining — this lineup is tasty enough as it is.) 

Unlike last year, however, one woman did make the Competition lineup: Italian actress-turned-filmmaker Valerie Bruni-Tedeschi, whose “A Villa in Italy” is one of a higher-than-usual number of French productions in Competition. (So much for my quota-of-three theory that I used to prove the falseness of yesterday’s “leaked” lineup, though it was indeed a fake.) That group also includes Francois Ozon’s “Jeune et Jolie,” Abdellatif Kechiche’s “The Life of Adele” (formerly titled “Blue is the Warmest Color”) and Arnaud des Palliere’s “Michael Kolhaas.”

The three most prominent French films in Competition, however, are: Arnaud Desplechin’s “Jimmy P.,” starring Benicio Del Toro and Mathieu Amalric; Iranian director Asghar Farhadi’s “The Past,” his follow-up to the Oscar-winning “A Separation” and Roman Polanski’s “Venus in Fur,” where Amalric pops up again, this time opposite Polanski’s wife Emmanuelle Seigner. The former two were widely predicted, and both made my 10 Most Anticipated list. Polanski’s inclusion is more of a surprise; the film is an adaptation of the raunchy Broadway hit that won stage actress Nina Arianda the Best Actress Tony Award last year.

The bulk of media attention, however, will likely be focused on the Competition’s A-list American contingent. the US didn’t fare too well at last year’s festival with the likes of “The Paperboy” and “Lawless”; this year, Fremaux has brought out the big guns. Will jury president Steven Spielberg take an international left turn, or will he be inclined to go with his countrymen? If the latter, he has more than enough to choose from.

There’s much excitement, in particular, around Alexander Payne’s “Nebraska,” which many had speculated wouldn’t be ready in time; the black-and-white father-son drama is Payne’s first Cannes entry since 2002’s “About Schmidt,” and will be looking to match the acclaim and accolades heaped upon 2011’s “The Descendants.”

Also returning to Cannes are the brothers Coen, with their folk music study “Inside Llewyn Davis,” starring Carey Mulligan and Oscar Isaac; their last Cannes selection, 2007’s “No Country for Old Men,” won nothing on the Croisette, but wound up doing okay for itself. There’s also a sweet symmetry to the inclusion of Steven Soderbergh, whose Liberace biopic “Behind the Candelabra” is supposedly his last film before retirement; 24 years ago, he won the Palme d’Or with his debut, “sex, lies and videotape.” (Yes, “Candelabra” is an HBO film, but will be released theatrically in other territories; similarly the channel’s “The Life and Death of Peter Sellers” played in Competition in 2004.) 

Starring Marion Cotillard, Joaquin Phoenix and Jeremy Renner, James Gray’s period drama “The Immigrant” (which has previously gone under the titles “Lowlife” and “Nightingale”) is also in Competition, representing The Weinstein Company’s big hope. No surprise there — far more revered in France than in his home country, Gray has been here with his last three features. Via their new Radius label, The Weinstein Company also has a hand in “Only God Forgives,” Ryan Gosling’s eagerly awaited reunion with director Nicolas Winding Refn.

The Weinsteins also secured the annual, unofficial “Sundance slot” in Un Certain Regard, which has previously gone to such films as “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” “Blue Valentine,” “Precious” and “Martha Marcy May Marlene.” Yesterday’s announcement of a title change for Ryan Coogler’s Sundance Grand Jury Prize-winner “Fruitvale” — now “Fruitvale Station,” if you please — was a heavy clue that it would be the one, and so it is. “Fruitvale Station” will be looking to parlay this extra prestige into serious Oscar buzz, as “Beasts” and “Precious” did; with Harvey at the wheel, don’t bet against it.

Big names also feature in the out-of-competition section. James Gray pops up again with a writing credit on Guillaume Canet’s thriller “Blood Ties,” starring Mila Kunis, Clive Owen and another Cannes double-dipper, Canet’s wife Marion Cotillard. Also bulking out the star quotient is Oscar-nominated “Margin Call” director J.C. Chandor’s “All is Lost,” starring Robert Redford. 

Meanwhile, “Behind the Candelabra” isn’t the only HBO true-life study getting the Cannes treatment: there will be a special screening of Stephen Frears’s “Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight,” starring Christopher Plummer and Danny Glover.

Right, that’s enough to chew on for now — we’ll have plenty more Cannes talk in the next few weeks. On Monday, I launch my annual Cannes Check series, in which we’ll be sizing up a different Competition feature every day. Stay tuned, and check out the full lineup here.

Right, the waiting is over. Cannes Film Festival director Thierry Fremaux has announced a name-heavy Official Selection for this year’s fest. Among the 19 Competition films vying for the Palme d’Or are Alexander Payne’s “Nebraska,” James Gray’s “The Immigrant,” Joel and Ethan Coen’s “Inside Llewyn Davis,” Steven Soderbergh’s “Behind the Candelabra,” Nicolas Winding Refn’s “Only God Forgives” and Roman Polanski’s “Venus in Furs.” The indefatigable James Franco, meanwhile, shows up in Un Certain Regard. More detailed commentary here, while you can check out the full lineup after the jump. 

OPENING FILM
“The Great Gatsby” (Baz Luhrmann)

CLOSING FILM
“Zulu” (Jerome Salle)

COMPETITION
“A Villa in Italy” (Valerie Bruni-Tedeschi)
“Inside Llewyn Davis” (Joel and Ethan Coen)
“Michael Kolhaas” (Arnaud des Pallieres)
“Jimmy P.” (Arnaud Desplechin)
“Heli” (Amat Escalante)
“The Past” (Asghar Farhadi)
“The Immigrant” (James Gray)
“Grisgris” (Mahamet Saleh-Haroun)
“Tian zhu ding” (Jia Zhangke)
“Like Father Like Son” (Hirokazu Kore-eda)
“Blue is the Warmest Color” (Abdellatif Kechiche)
“Straw Shield” (Takashi Miike)
“Jeune et Jolie” (Francois Ozon)
“Nebraska” (Alexander Payne)
“Venus in Furs” (Roman Polanski)
“Behind the Candelabra” (Steven Soderbergh)
“The Great Beauty” (Paolo Sorrentino)
“Borgman” (Alex van Warmerdam)
“Only God Forgives” (Nicolas Winding Refn)

UN CERTAIN REGARD
“The Bling Ring” (Sofia Coppola) (Opening Film)
“Omar” (Hany Abu-Assad)
“Death March” (Adolfo Alix Jr.)
“Fruitvale Station” (Ryan Coogler)
“The Bastards” (Claire Denis)
“Norte, hangganan ng kasaysayan” (Lav Diaz)
“As I Lay Dying” (James Franco)
“Miele” (Valeria Golino)
“L’inconnu de lac” (Alain Guiraudie)
“Bends” (Flora Lau)
“L’image manquante” (Rithy Panh)
“La Jaula de Oro” (Diego Quemada-Diez)
“Anonymous” (Mohammad Rasoulof)
“Sarah prefere la course” (Chloe Robichaud)
“Grand Central” (Rebecca Zlotowski)

 OUT OF COMPETITION
“All is Lost” (J.C. Chandor)
“Blood Ties” (Guillaume Canet)

SPECIAL SCREENINGS
“Week End of a Champion” (Roman Polanski)
“Seduced and Abandoned” (James Toback)
“Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight” (Stephen Frears)
“Max Rose” (Daniel Noah)
“Otdat Konci” (Taisia Igumentseva)
“Stop the Pounding Heart” (Roberto Minervini)

MIDNIGHT SCREENINGS
“Monsoon Shootout” (Amit Kumar)
“Blind Detective” (Johnnie To)

GALA SCREENING
“Bombay Talkies” (Anurag Kashyap, Dibakar Banerjee, Zoya Akhtar and Karan Johar)

It’s practically Christmas Eve in the cinephile realm today, as we await tomorrow morning’s unveiling of the full Cannes Film Festival lineup — the press conference begins at 11am in Paris, or 2am PST — with varying degrees of impatience. Some are so eager they’ll go so far as forging a “leaked” lineup, but we’ll get to that in a bit.

But first, with “The Great Gatsby” and “Zulu” confirmed as the festival’s opener and closer, respectively, a third feature has been formally announced as part of the Official Selection: Sofia Coppola’s “The Bling Ring.”

That’s no surprise. Coppola has been to Cannes before, and with her fifth film set to hit screens in the summer, a Croisette premiere seemed the obvious launchpad for it. What was less certain, however, was in what section of the festival it would show up, and now we know: “The Bling Ring” will open the Un Certain Regard strand, the juried section widely (though not always fairly) seen as secondary to the Competition.

That might be seen in some quarters as a demotion for Coppola. Given that her last film to debut at Cannes, 2006’s divisive “Marie Antoinette,” was in Competition, while her most recent work, 2010’s “Somewhere,” won the top prize at Venice, she’d appear to be an automatic candidate for the Palme d’Or shortlist.

But Cannes has a habit of throwing an A-list auteur or two among the up-and-comers in the Un Certain Regard lineup, particularly in the opening slot. Two years ago, former Palme d’Or winner Gus van Sant did the honors with “Restless”; last year, three-time Competition entrant Lou Ye’s “Mystery” was picked as the curtain-raiser. Both films were widely agreed to be misfires from their directors; here’s hoping “The Bling Ring” doesn’t continue the pattern, though pundits will inevitably speculate why choosy festival director Thierry Fremaux didn’t deem it suitable for Competition.

Before you get too pessimistic, however, remember that not every director shifted from Competition to Un Certain Regard has floundered in the smaller pond. Two years ago, Andrei Zvyagintsev’s masterful “Elena” closed out UCR and was declared one of the festival’s best films by many a critic; Jean-Luc Godard’s “Film Socialisme” and Bruno Dumont’s “Beyond Satan” have also found devoted critical adherents.

With its teen-oriented subject matter and lip gloss veneer, “The Bling Ring” never looked a likely Palme d’Or contender anyway. It could be that its frisky youthfulness will fare better without the pressure of a Competition premiere, and with the added exposure and prestige of an opening-film slot.

In other Un Certain Regard news, Danish director Thomas Vinterberg has been named the section’s jury president, following in the recent footsteps of Tim Roth, Claire Denis and Emir Kusturica. Vinterberg, a Jury Prize winner in 1998 for “The Celebration,” was in Competition last year with the widely admired moral drama “The Hunt,” which won Best Actor for Mads Mikkelsen. (The film opens in the US this summer, and is a strong contender to be named Denmark’s official Oscar submission later this year.)

What, meanwhile, can we expect from tomorrow’s announcement? A few weeks ago, I listed the 10 films I most hoped would show up at the festival — though we now know that one or two of them, including Steve McQueen’s “Twelve Years a Slave,” won’t be seen until later in the year. Still, the current Competition speculation includes any number of heavyweight names, from the Coen Brothers to Claire Denis to Jim Jarmusch to Alexander Payne.

Earlier today, Indiewire reported that they’d received an anonymous email purporting to contain the leaked Competition lineup, though I’m pretty confident it’s a hoax. The giveaway, to me, is that it features no fewer than eight French films: from Denis, Arnaud Desplechin, Francois Ozon, Sylvain Chomet, Guillaume Canet, Catherine Breillat and Luc Besson, plus Asghar Farhadi’s “The Past.” Fremaux has previously spoken of a three-film French quota in Competition; he broke that quota in 2011 with the late addition of “The Artist,” but it’s hard to imagine him stretching it quite that far. 

Still, that’s not to say the “leaked” list is wholly inaccurate. It does indeed feature many of the titles that most Cannes experts are expecting to hear tomorrow. Farhadi’s film is generally seen as a shoo-in, and it’d be a major surprise if James Gray, a great favorite among the French, doesn’t make the lineup for his Marion Cotillard-starring period piece “Lowlife.” Still, I’m loath to call anything safe: Claire Denis’s “The Bastards” seems an ideal Competition candidate on paper, but she’s only been there once before, and for her 1988 debut at that.

Of course, Fremaux will face hefty criticism if this year’s Competition lineup doesn’t feature at least one female director, after last year’s controversially all-male slate. That gives credence to the Denis and Breillat talk, though that in turn takes up two of the hotly contested French slots. Such are the knots you end up tying yourself in if you try to predict these things, and that’s before we get to the burning question of which critical hit from earlier in the year will land the annual if unofficial “Sundance slot” in Un Certain Regard. (“Ain’t Them Bodies Saints?” “Fruitvale?” It can’t be “Upstream Color.”)

And speaking of Sundance, can David Gordon Green’s Nicolas Cage-starring “Joe” really be ready for a Competition slot less than four months after “Prince Avalanche” premiered in Park City? Indiewire’s source says yes. All will be revealed tomorrow morning.

What are you hoping or expecting to see in the Cannes lineup tomorrow? And has its Un Certain Regard placing given you any pause about “The Bling Ring?” Tell us in the comments.

Nearly a year on from Nora Ephron’s death, the caustic New York-based writer and filmmaker is still very much on the collective mind of her home city. Ephron’s final play, “Lucky Guy” — which Kris described as “perhaps the best thing [she] ever wrote” in his extensive appreciation last month — is currently one of the hottest tickets on Broadway. Meanwhile, the Tribeca Film Festival, which kicks off today, is doing its own bit to honor her cinematic legacy.

Yesterday, Tribeca organizers announced that the festival has introduced a new award named for Ephron. The Nora Ephron Prize will be presented to the female writer or director whose work “embodies the spirit and vision of the legendary filmmaker and writer.” The winner of the $25,000 award will be announced at the Woman’s Filmmaker brunch next Thursday. 

All women whose films are having at least their North American premiere at the festival are eligible. The eight finalists for the inaugural award are: Laurie Collyer, “Sunlight Jr.”; Steph Green, “Run and Jump”; Jenee LaMarque, “The Pretty One”; Meera Menon, “Farah Goes Bang”; Mo Ogrodnik, “Deep Powder”; Marina de Van, “Dark Touch”; Jane Weinstock, “The Moment”; and Enid Zentelis, “Bottled Up.”

Three of the finalists are making their feature directing debut; one of those, Steph Green, was nominated for the Best Live-Action Short Oscar four years ago for “New Boy.” Cesar-nominated Frenchwoman Marina De Van is the most established of the other five, though the name that might ring the most bells for you is Laurie Collyer: her 2006 narrative feature debut “Sherrybaby” nabbed a Golden Globe nod for Maggie Gyllenhaal, among other accolades. That it’s taken this long for her to make a follow-up is indicative of how rough the road can sometimes be for independent-minded female filmmakers — surely one reason why Tribeca thought this award necessary. 

Festival founded Jane Rosenthal states: “Nora Ephron’s work influenced screenwriters, filmmakers and movie goers. She was a great friend to the Festival since its inception, and I had the privilege to know her and be in absolute awe of her. She did it all brilliantly, with wit and wisdom that went straight to the heart.”

The Tribeca Film Festival runs from today until April 28. The programme features its fair share of hits from other festivals, including Richard Linklater’s “Before Midnight” and David Gordon Green’s Berlin prizewinner “Prince Avalanche.” But some of the world premieres are intriguing, notably “Some Velvet Morning,” Neil LaBute’s rumored return to form, and “Almost Christmas,” Phil Morrison’s long-awaited follow-up to “Junebug,” starring Paul Rudd and Sally Hawkins. Keep an eye out. 

In somewhat surprising news, The Weinstein Company has modified the title to Sundance grand jury and audience award winner “Fruitvale.”  The crowd-pleasing drama will now be known as “Fruitvale Station.”

The feature film directorial debut of Ryan Coogler, “Fruitvale” follows the last day in the life of Oscar Grant (MIchael B. Jordan), a 22-year-old San Francisco area resident who was fatally shot by BART police officers the morning of Jan. 1, 2009.  Oscar winner Octavia Spencer, Chad Michael Murray, Kevin Durand, Melonie Diaz and Ahna O’Reilly also star and Spencer and Forest Whitaker are two of the film’s producers.

“Fruitvale Station” is hardly the first Sundance feature that has changed its title after being acquired for distribution. Most recently 20th Century Fox renamed 2011 coming of age drama “Homework” to “The Art of Getting By,” Lionsgate was forced to change “Push” to “Precious: Based on the novel Push by Sapphire” after a Sci-Fi movie of the same name was released months before and CBS Films just tweaked word of mouth favorite “Toy’s House” to “The Kings of Summer.”

“Fruitvale Station” will open in limited release on July 26.

There were 183 seconds that got a lot of fanboys excited yesterday, (insert dirty joke here), and we might as well get into it in this space. Yes, the trailer for Zack Snyder’s “Man of Steel” landed a solid punch when it dropped during CinemaCon and then hit the net immediately after. To say the least, it had some impressive stuff to offer.

To get this out of the way, I have warm blood flowing through my veins and I’m not too cool for school; I’m DEFINITELY looking forward to this film. HitFix just launched a great feature this week building up the top 25 most anticipated movies of summer 2013, a site-wide poll of the editorial team that yielded some surprising results, as you’ll see. I don’t mind saying that at the top of my own submitted list was this film. I want Superman back on the screen in a big way, and most importantly, I want it to lead somewhere. That having been said…

I didn’t expect to be defending Bryan Singer twice in one week but let me say I think “Superman Returns” gets too much flack. The worst thing it spawned was the facile “I want to see Superman throw a punch, dammit” talking point, as if that’s what defines the character. It was good for Singer to dig into the tortured God/introspective deity element. And, for a guy who clearly cherished the work Richard Donner put into the first two films, it was a lovely send-off to that era of the character. I’m fine with it. I wish others were, too.

Nevertheless, it’s time to break away from that, and obviously director Zack Snyder, producer Christopher Nolan and writer David Goyer are doing just that. I don’t care about “Justice League.” I just want this one to get something very crucial right: tell the story of an iconic superhero wonderfully at a time in the world when the kind of awe it can inspire will matter most. “You’ll believe a man can fly” needs to mean something again.

To that end, “You will give the people of Earth an ideal to strive towards” is the whole show here, in my opinion. That line, from Russell Crowe’s Jor-El, probably couldn’t be a more apt summation of what Superman is. I truly hope it’s woven into the very thematic fabric of the thing, and I have to imagine Nolan has had fun getting into this. To go from a trilogy about a broken man’s quest of betterment toward a greater calling to a story about a being of perfection galvanizing by sheer wonder, it’s fascinating turf. These characters are symbols, but they are so very different even within that.

Anyway, let me rein in the geek. Let’s talk about the trailer.

The first thing that stands out to me is Hans Zimmer’s building and instantly iconic (yep) original score. Beginning with the lighter notes is expected, but over the visual chaos of whatever is happening on Krypton is a bold move. Maybe it feels like some J.J. aping but so be it. As the music drives, it finds its stride in a theme, and that theme — percussive and relentless — is really kind of beautiful. That stuck out.

Henry Cavill looks to be filling the boots just fine but I find myself more interested in the rest of the cast, particularly the father figures. Crowe’s Jor-El has a tingle of superiority to him highlighted by a humility that seems perhaps out of place in his world (I’m tip-toeing here). Lara Lor-Van warns that the people of Earth will kill their son when they find out what he is. “How,” Crowe asks, in a way only he can. I can’t quite explain that, but I’m eager to see more from him in the film.

Kevin Costner’s Pa Kent, meanwhile, seems to be working on a deeper level than the usual vanilla stylings. “You’re the answer to ‘are we alone in the universe'” and “You ARE my son” really struck a note. And of course, Amy Adams seems to have been given something interesting to play with with this narrative device of tracking Superman for a while before he’s revealed as, indeed, a super man.

I don’t think the trailer is the face-melting, cry-like-a-baby moment it was considered in some quarters yesterday or anything. And I think both this film and particularly “Pacific Rim” (both Legendary/Warner Bros. endeavors) are in dangerous overhype territory, largely because of the web. But I was impressed and turned on by what I saw, and I’m eager to see more. I might have liked more of Michael Shannon, though I hope that merely means we’re being primed for some glorious surprises. Given how little this trailer really gives out, I imagine we absolutely are.

“Man of Steel” opens everywhere on June 14. Will it have a life into the awards season? I guess we’ll find out soon enough!

Shane Carruth is more than happy to talk about his remarkable new film “Upstream Color” in substantial detail, poring over its staggered themes and elliptical construction with a discursive chattiness that suggests he, too, is still discovering further possibilities within it. Just don’t ask him for a nutshell synopsis.

“Here’s the thing,” he says breezily, after I ask him if such summarization is even possible with this glistening glass onion of a film, a kind of physiological romantic thriller suffused with surgical sci-fi. “Because that’s something I’ve been so averse to, I’ve tried to craft the marketing in such a way that conveys what’s on the film’s mind. I’m more comfortable with creating trailers and key art that suggest what the film is, that encapsulate and maybe even contextualize it, more than I’d be willing to synopsize it.”

What Carruth refuses to do, many a critic has painstakingly attempted since “Upstream Color” dazzled and flummoxed audiences in equal measure at the Sundance Film Festival in January – the same festival, of course, where Carruth’s equally teasing, genre-melting debut feature “Primer” won the Grand Jury Prize in 2004. The internet is awash with reviews and navigational articles boasting an authoritative interpretation of the film; inevitably, hardly any of them overlap completely.

Two viewings later, I feel neither qualified nor inclined to join the critical code-cracking. There are stray strands of “Upstream Color” that I still find inscrutable, which is not to say I’m not moved by them. Carruth, who also acted as his own writer, cinematographer, composer, co-editor, co-producer and leading man, has fashioned a film that is somehow at once fastidiously technical and emotionally overwhelming; aided by the grandeur of its imagery and sonic design, it’s possible to intuitively understand “Upstream Color” even as the brain is still disentangling the narrative’s dense series of life cycles.

“Many of my favorite films, if someone were to tell me simply what they’re about, I probably wouldn’t be that interested,” Carruth says. “Plot often has so little to do with what’s at the heart of a film. Maybe this is just stubbornness on my part, but if I don’t have to describe it that way, and there’s a way not to, then I want to figure that out.”

It may be interfering with the intended approach path Carruth has laid for first-time viewers to say that “Upstream Color” is a love story, though not before it’s a serene exercise in body horror. The film’s young female protagonist, Kris (Amy Seimetz), is violated with a bio-engineered worm that spawns inside of her; when that biological experiment is countered with another involving pigs, she’s left with no memory of the ordeal – only the trauma. 

She finds solace in a similarly damaged man (played by Carruth himself) who appears to have been absorbed into the same ruling life cycle – it’s here that the film gives itself over almost exclusively to cinematic language as opposed to dialogue. Oh, and there are orchids. Many orchids. Carruth’s right: verbal descriptions, both within the film and about the film itself, don’t quite do the trick.

“I basically needed to strip our central character, Kris, of her personal narrative, to make her a raw nerve and a blank slate,” says Carruth. “I needed her to adopt a new narrative based on potentially the wrong information that she wakes up to, to be affected at a distance by things she couldn’t necessarily speak to. That’s a way into exploring all the things that affect our subjective experience: be it religion or physiology or psychology or pharmaceuticals or ethics or politics systems. All these things come to shape us, or we come to shape them. That was the core of it, so I then came up with a structure around it: this life cycle – of worms, pigs, orchids – to support that.” 

In conceiving the film, the abstract ideas unsurprisingly came to Carruth before the human dynamics did, though the elements ultimately shaped each other: “I knew it was going to be a love story when I started writing the script in earnest. I had been accumulating these ideas, but only as a thought experiment, really. And the more I stripped away these layers of a person’s identity, the more it felt really heartbreaking to me. It’s horrific to find yourself vacant, not certain of anything. Once it registered how much this person would be broken, that lent itself to a romantic premise. And that’s when I fell in love with the story, knowing that would be its heart.” 

Carruth enlisted hot new multi-hyphenate David Lowery (who unveiled his own directorial effort, “Ain’t Them Bodies Saints” alongside “Upstream Color” in January’s Sundance competition) to edit the film with him; a significant collaboration for an artist who is otherwise so self-sufficient. Did Carruth have the film’s splintered narrative planes mapped out beforehand, or did much of it come together in the editing room? 

“This is difficult, because it’s nuanced,” he says with an airy laugh. “A lot of it was known in the writing, but then the visual language came to be, and that in turn affected some of the music I had written. So I had to change that. And then that affected some of the script again. And when Amy [Seimetz] showed up and I saw how effective she was going to be, that meant some of the other filmic elements could step back a little bit. So in the final two weeks before production, things more or less coalesced. 

“But there are always moments when we walk into a room with a Plan A, but there’s something there that’s really interesting that wasn’t there before, and it works better. And first I’ll think, ‘Oh, what a happy accident’ – only to look back and see, no, that was actually in the liner notes. Everything becomes a storm. The part of the film that deals with shared memory is an example where we had such a clear idea by that point of how the film was going to work in terms of editing and camera and performance that we could follow our intuition – it wouldn’t have been any more effective if we’d scripted it that way. I wouldn’t call it improvisational, but it is definitely led by something beyond the page.” 

He is unreserved in his praise for Seimetz, who herself made an acclaimed directorial debut last year with the solemn, “Badlands”-echoing road movie “Sun Don’t Shine.” Carruth describes the experience of working with another actor-director, as opposed to simply an actor, as “like night and day”: “With her being a filmmaker, she could be quite intuitive herself with the story. Her film is so wonderful and lyrical itself; she gets how it works, maybe better than I do. So it was a collaboration, not me instructing her, which made everything a lot easier.” 

Arguably Carruth’s ultimate declaration of independence with “Upstream Color,” meanwhile, was his decision to self-distribute the film in the US, a tactic that he admits has involved “an enormous amount of work and stress, and still the chance that it could fail in some way.” So far, however, it seems to be working: the film is gradually being rolled out to an impressive 50 markets in North America, with cable VOD, DVD and Blu-ray release set for May 7 – a shortened window that bigger distributors might not opt for, but one that makes perfect sense for a film that demands repeat viewings as urgently as this one. 

Carruth’s team even managed to arrange an official Academy screening of the film last week: a significant step for a film that lies a long, long way from standard ideas of Oscar bait. Whether Carruth winds up campaigning or not, he’ll be able to do so on precisely his own terms, just as he’s steered the non-standard marketing of “Upstream Color” to audiences. It’s the latter liberty that he describes as his “number-one motivation” for facing the challenges of self-distribution. 

“There are things we need to change next time around, and we’ll do a better job next time out,” he admits, “but at this point I can’t imagine giving up the ability to craft the context, the way in which the audience receives the work. I wanted to be really earnest about it: I didn’t want to trick anyone into theater, expecting one thing and getting another.” 

Before the film made its Sundance premiere, Carruth set about crafting three trailers that, more than selling the film on story itself, gave potential viewers some idea of how the storytelling would actually work, and how they might be required to absorb it. “The first one was really just selling the idea of being confounding. It showed a lot of the visuals from the film without a lot of context, and suggested that there was something weighty, something detrimental happening to the minds of our characters. And that’s all I wanted to convey; an introduction.” 

“The second one had none of the otherworldly elements: no weird pigs or worms or anything. You might just think this was a drama of a relationship falling apart; it was more focused on the lyrical, the emotionally angsty – which the film also ends up being. And the final trailer mixed those two approaches together, suggesting roughly the execution. And that was the gate, in my mind: it says, ‘Here’s what the film has going on in it. If you’re okay with this, great – we’re going to get along swimmingly.’” He pauses: an audible shrug, his tone still chipper. “If not, maybe we should talk again a couple of years down the road.”

So I guess no one at the Academy got the memo that no one really liked the way the Oscars were put on back in February (I was mostly fine with them, mind you), and so they’re bringing Craig Zadan and Neil Meron back for more. This last year featured high profile tributes to Zadan/Meron-produced musicals and specifically two big moments for the (granted, 10 years old at the time) “Chicago.” What will we get in 2014? A tribute to television’s “Smash?”

Says Academy president Hawk Koch via press release, “Craig and Neil have the overwhelming support of the Academy”s Governors to produce the Oscars again in 2014. In order to establish continuity with this year”s enormously successful show, we felt it was important to give these consummate professionals the green light now to begin creating another great evening.”

Enormously successful? Yeah, ratings were up. But…

Again, I was fine with the Oscars this year. Everyone belly-ached the toilet humor as if hiring Seth MacFarlane signaled something more than that. But I’ve talked to an overwhelming amount of people who were in the room — running the gamut from journalists to filmmakers to celebrities — who were grossed out by it. So I don’t know if I’d be pimping “continuity,” but hey, it’s their show.

Quoting again from the release:

“The February 2013 Oscars hosted by Seth MacFarlane, drew an average audience of 40.3 million total viewers and delivered a 13.0 rating among adults 18-49. The show was TV”s most-watched entertainment telecast in the last 3 years, and grew its overall audience for the 2nd straight year (+3%), surging 11% in adults 18-49 (13.0 rating vs. 11.7 rating) to its best numbers since 2010. In addition, the show scored gains year-to-year with adults 18-34 (+20% – 11.3 rating vs. 9.4 rating), hitting its highest number in 6 years – since 2007. Overall, it was the Oscars second-most-watched telecast since 2005.”

Was that the show that did that, though? Or was it, I don’t know, a slew of movies that did extraordinarily well at the box office being in the mix?

The 86th annual Academy Awards are set for Sunday, March 2, 2014.

Robert Downey Jr. sure is in a good way lately, no? Wind the clocks back, oh, seven years — certainly less than a decade — and you’re talking about an uninsurable has been. Drugs, scandal, fall from grace, the whole thing. Then he married one of Hollywood’s youngest and brightest, Susan Downey (née Levin), in 2005. She helped him get his act together and now he’s the face of two major franchises. It’s storybook, really, and a perfect awards narrative, by the way, should an awards project ever come along for the actor.

It may yet be in the cards. The kind of success Downey has enjoyed over the last few years is fertile ground for branching out creatively and artistically. If you ask him — and GQ did just that — he’s cheekily confident that a golden guy will be on his mantle one of these days.

“I”m probably one of the best [actors of my generation],” he told the magazine. “But it”s not that big a deal. It”s not like this is the greatest swath or generation of actors that has ever come down the pike…

“I, personally, would be shocked if we went to the end of the tape now and I didn”t have at least one [Oscar]…Because I”m young enough, and I”m running down being occupied with these kind of genre movies, close enough. Even the next thing we”re doing with [my wife], I”m so confident about it. It”s the best script the studio has; it”s the best thing I”ve read in years.”

And then the refreshing take:

“You know, honestly, my real answer to that is: I don”t care. I used to think I cared, and I couldn”t care less. Now, I”m not saying I wouldn”t get a little choked up, but it is amazing to see how people are literally hyperventilating when they get up there, because they have such an attachment to this outcome. I mean, it”s not like we”re at the f–king Olympics or something.

“Look, even if I don”t get one directly, eventually they”re just going to have to give me one when I get old. So no matter how you slice it, I”m getting one.”

You can only really smile at that kind of confidence. And Downey can only smile at his big, fat paycheck for “The Avengers,” too, which he confirmed to GQ was upwards of $50 million. In a nutshell, the contract Downey signed back when he agreed to star in 2008’s “Iron Man” allowed him a share of the team-up film’s payday “far bigger than anyone could have anticipated,” the article notes. Rumor was it was around $50 million (which is the kind of money Jack Nicholson brought in when his “Batman” contract smartly included merchandizing proceeds).

So was that indeed the number? Here’s the excerpt:

“Yeah,” he says, smiling.

Is that number about right?

“Yeah.” A broader smile.

That”s amazing.

“Isn”t that crazy?” he says. “They”re so pissed. I can”t believe it. I”m what”s known as ‘a strategic cost.””

Hollywood is just coming off a comeback story in Ben Affleck and “Argo.” Rest assured, if Downey ever sinks his teeth into a quality project, he’ll be on similar turf. We all know he has the talent. He already has a pair of Oscar nominations, for 1992’s “Chaplin” and 2008’s “Tropic Thunder.” It’s really only a matter of time.

“Iron Man” 3, meanwhile, hits theaters May 3.

Add up the belly laughs in Mexican director Alejandro González Iñárritu”s first four features — “Amores Perros,” “21 Grams,” “Babel” and “Biutiful” — and, well, you’ll find you have a lot of fingers going spare. Accomplished and sometimes exhilarating as his films (all of which have found favor with the Academy to some degree) have been, a change of pace wouldn’t hurt him at this point.

That appears to be very much what he’s going for in his new project, “Birdman,” which began principal photography in New York City yesterday. Billed as a black comedy, it stars several names you might not have expected to see in an Iñárritu film, including Michael Keaton, Emma Stone and Zach Galifianakis, as well as a few more regularly drama-inclined stars. Among them is Naomi Watts, who received her first Oscar nomination for “21 Grams” nearly 10 years ago; this will be her first collaboration with the director since then.

Also on board this all-star endeavor: Edward Norton (who has settled into a routine of ensemble pieces lately), Amy Ryan (an Oscar nominee five years ago for “Gone Baby Gone”) and new British hope Andrea Riseborough (fresh from “Oblivion,” so to speak).

New Regency is producing, with Fox Searchlight set to distribute; the project certainly seems to fit Searchlight’s scrappy-glossy indie brand.

What’s interesting is that it’s Keaton who has the lead role. The “Beetlejuice” and “Batman” star hasn’t exactly been absent from our screens in recent years, though you could be forgiven for thinking so — voice work aside, his last big-screen outing, albeit in a supporting role, was the 2010 action comedy “The Other Guys.” In “Birdman,” subtitled “The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance,” he plays a seemingly rather self-reflexive character: a deflated actor, most famous for playing a beloved movie superhero, trying to repair his career and personal life as he mounts a Broadway play. Sounds somewhat Kaufman-esque to me; expect the word “meta” to pop up a lot around this one.  

It marks Iñárritu’s second film without Guillermo Arriaga, formerly his regular screenwriter: the original screenplay was written by the director with Armando Bo and Nicolas Giacobone — with whom he also co-penned “Biuitiful” — as well as newcomer Alexander Dinelaris. Searchlight president Claudia Lewis calls it “an imaginative and original dark comedy”; the film’s producer John Lesher (“End of Watch”) echoes her with “deeply original.” We can always use more of that.

Do you think Iñárritu can pull off a quirky comedy, or would you rather the Oscar-nominated auteur stuck to his somber palette? And are you ready for a Michael Keaton comeback? 

(PLEASE NOTE: The following interview mentions plot developments in “Simon Killer” that may be considered spoilers.) 

As ‘American in Paris’ movies go, “Simon Killer” is one of the less romantic you’re ever likely to see. Formally immaculate and profoundly unnerving, Antonio Campos’s second feature – following 2008’s equally striking and eerie “Afterschool” – sent shockwaves through the Sundance Film Festival last year: with the film finally on limited release and available on VOD, audiences can make their minds up about a film that’s still proving excitingly divisive. 

A subtly brutal character study of a bright, good-looking American graduate who unravels psychologically (if indeed he ever was raveled, so to speak) on a gap year in Europe, it’s a film where the title may be either a spoiler or a red herring. Extreme violence lies between the lines in a story where scarcely a drop of blood is shed on screen, but it’s sex, used either as a weapon or a medium of communication, that “Simon Killer” scrutinizes most unstintingly. 

With Gregg Araki’s “Mysterious Skin,” Michael Haneke’s “Funny Games” remake, Lars von Trier’s “Melancholia” and Sean Durkin’s “Martha Marcy May Marlene” already on his CV, 24-year-old actor Brady Corbet has form when it comes to playing margin-residing characters in equally off-center films. But “Simon Killer,” which Corbet also co-wrote, is the most expansive showcase yet for his talents: it’s his knack for outcast empathy, even while dismantling Simon’s clean-cut exterior to reveal the tortured sociopath within, that makes the film more than a cool technical exercise. 

Small wonder that Borderline Films – the independent production company founded by Campos and Durkin with fellow filmmaker Josh Mond – has called on Corbet so frequently. (In addition to “Simon Killer” and “Martha Marcy,” the actor was a major presence in Durkin’s name-making short “Mary Last Seen.”) Speaking together over the phone from New York, Corbet and Campos come across as such fully welded creative partners that it’s sometimes hard to separate their words in the interview transcript. With its near-surgical construction, it’s clear “Simon Killer” benefited from this unity of vision. 

“The film is essentially about the thirst of a killer, but my interest in approaching the film was never to focus on the violence,” says Campos. “It was more to focus on sex and the way that the characters emerge through the sex. But it’s clear there’s always been inclinations toward violence and his character carries them. I think that”s in large part to do with Brady”s brilliant performance, which is sort of always keeping that under the surface. And that energy is felt throughout the movie. A lot of people actually get upset that the film has the word ‘killer’ in it and there”s not more killing in the movie! We knew who this character was going in – but were more interested in the psychology: trying to understand how he could be capable of such violence.” 

For Corbet, meanwhile, the direction of the camera’s gaze more toward Simon’s sexual impulses was crucial to unpacking that psychology: “In making the movie, we were addressing themes of misogyny. We weren’t interested in making a movie where we saw a great deal of violence against women. It was something we tried to be pretty consistent about. We never wanted to force people to look at something that ugly for very, very long. It would”ve run the risk of being quite exploitative.” 

Looking, however, is a key preoccupation of “Simon Killer,” which steers and sometimes intentionally interrupts our understanding of the character with what Campos does and doesn’t allow us to see. Not for nothing are we repeatedly told that Simon’s specific field of study at university was the relationship between the eye and the brain. It’s a recurring fascination as he winds up romancing two women with optical defects, one of them a myopic prostitute played by excellent French actress Mati Diop (who also takes a story credit on the film). 

Corbet describes the ongoing optical motif as “a potential key to unlocking the film’s various mysteries.” He continues: “It really tickled my brain that Antonio had been reading various theses on the subject of the peripheral vision. It seemed rife with potential of metaphor, and all fables have strong metaphors. So then the whole movie became about seeing. Especially with the narrative so elusive at times, we liked the idea of having such a simple metaphor at the heart of the film.” 

Campos’s framing and shot construction also toys with the notion of peripheral vision, or lack thereof – many scenes find the camera placed at waist level, denying the audience a complete view of the characters or leaving us to interpret certain slices of body language. “That was partially organic and sort of where my brain has gone,” Campos says of the film’s idiosyncratic aesthetic. 

“I”m moved by, or motivated by, the character that we”re observing – and I also want to give the camera character itself. The reason I feel comfortable doing what I do is because I have a good understanding of a frame and what composition is traditionally and what people are comfortable with – I know what that shot should look like if done in the classic way. But what I want to see is different: there”s always something more you can achieve through composition that says more about the character and more about the story that you”re telling.” 

Though many critics have drawn thematic lines between “Simon Killer” and Patricia Highsmith’s Ripley novels – or even Bret Easton Ellis’s “American Psycho” – Campos’s chief literary inspiration was prolific Belgian Georges Simenon. Best known for his melancholy Maigret detective series, but also the author of numerous penetrating psychological novels that slid calmly into the skin of loners and the lonely, he might well have endorsed “Simon Killer”’s measured balance of cruelty and compassion as it plunges into the void. 

“That there was something about the central male figures of his books that was fascinating to me,” he says. “All these mysterious men, these men making strange decisions, fascinated by these other worlds that they’re sort of visiting but aren”t brave enough to enter or live in. They seemed so mundane and normal but there was something in the surface that was boiling, that then came out in such a sudden and aggressive way.” 

Campos is happy to admit that he finds more inspiration in literature than in other films when it comes to conceiving his own work, and Simenon has long been a reference point: his novel “The Stranger” played a significant role in the development of “Afterschool.” He continues, “There’s an elliptical quality to everything he writes that I really love. His writing is so simple and exocentral, and that exocentralism is a school of thought that I”ve always responded to more than anything else.” 

A further source of French perspective came to the project came from young actress Mati Diop — best known for her role in Claire Denis”s “35 Shots of Rum,” but also acclaimed shorts director in her own right — when Campos and Corbet decided the project required a female voice too. 

“At a certain point we”d have just settled for a decent actress, we were having such a hard time finding someone,” says Corbet. “And then we met Mati just a few days before principal photography was due to start, and we ended up with not only a beautiful and talented actress but a fiercely intelligent filmmaker to collaborate with. I mean, all of the actors on the film contributed to the screenplay, if you will, but Mati had a special relationship to the film as a whole. She took this trip with us. She”s honestly the best actress I”ve ever worked with.” 

Corbet and Campos”s collaboration, meanwhile, was a long time coming; the pair had discussed making a film together for a few years, and initially devised the premise for “Simon Killer” based on their mutual experience of having lived in Paris. “We basically started talking about our experiences as young foreigners in France,” says Corbet. “We started talking about his relationship to various hard-boiled genres, and ways to subvert genre expectations. And this is something that has all of the genre conceits that we can deconstruct into the type of story that was ultimately a little more true to us.”

So what will be the seventh installment in Fox’s “X-Men” film franchise, “X-Men: Days of Future Past,” begins shooting today. And guess what? I’m really excited. Why? One reason: Bryan Singer.

I know Singer’s work on the series has yielded some divisive returns since he last directed one of these a decade ago. And I know him saddling up is a clear sign of retreat in the view of many (“Jack the Giant Slayer” bombed, and “Superman Returns” — which I actually like in many ways — still stinks for some). But the fact remains my favorite comic book movie is 2003’s “X2,” and I’m hoping for a little bit of that spark once again.

It’s funny because the whole X-Men-on-film universe is precariously…okay. Brett Ratner’s “X-Men: The Last Stand” didn’t ruin it, in my opinion (others feel differently) and Matthew Vaughn’s “X-Men: First Class” came at things from a different angle while still feeling a part of the world. Indeed, that story is being brought into the time traveling fold for Singer’s latest.

“X-Men Origins: Wolverine” was a disaster of epic proportions and we’d all be better off just pretending it doesn’t exist (and indeed, much of it butts up against the series so much that we might as well). We’ll see if James Mangold’s “The Wolverine” does anything to mend that next month, though the cavalcade of materials has me…cautious so far. But getting back to “Days of Future Past,” there’s a lot of opportunity here, particularly with the unique setting the films have carved, to cook up something special.

I went back and re-read the Chris Claremont’s two-shot recently (Uncanny X-Men #141 and #142), which happens in the wake of the Dark Phoenix Saga (which was kind of dealt with in “The Last Stand”), and I was struck by how much simpler it was than what I remember. Probably because when I read it as a kid, any time traveling element was mind-bending, but there’s room for adaptation, and again, with the casts of the two franchises on board, it could be really, really fun. And assuming Ellen Page’s Kitty Pride gets the front-and-center attention she gets in the comics, it’ll be a great project for her, too.

So count me exceptionally optimistic. Singer Tweeted the above photo yesterday of Patrick Stewart gearing up for production. Fingers crossed.

Meanwhile, it’s set to be a big superhero summer at the multiplex. Films like “Iron Man 3,” “Man of Steel” and “Thor: The Dark World” are on deck. And they’re just moderately representative of the superhero films that are in the pipeline. So tell is in the poll below which one of these films you’re most looking forward to.

“X-Men: Days of Future Past” is currently set for release on July 18, 2014.