Dear Gossips,

Tristan Ludlow came to Cannes. With a little bit of Miami Vice.

Welcome back to those of you returning from long weekend in Canada. It was gossip as usual here on the blog yesterday. Please scroll down to get caught up. As for the status of my Summer Crush or, as I keep calling it, my major Tom Hardy problem, the thing about the Summer Crush is that, at least in my experience, you can control how you control it. That is, it’s up to you if you want to fuel it or to kill it. Fueling it, um, would consist of indulging the silly, googling him over and over again on YouTube and watching all the hot parts. Killing it involves abstaining from the adolescent mooning and the daydreaming. I haven’t decided.

Anyway, dragged myself out of bed at the crack of ass this morning to queue for Killing Them Softly, Brad Pitt’s latest Cannes entry. Already some are calling for it to factor in during award season. That doesn’t mean it’s getting love across the board though. The ones who hate it think it’s boring. But there are certainly those who are wanking all over it, calling it a brilliant metaphor for the modern American experience, with one of the most memorable closing lines in recent cinematic history - I won’t spoil it - that Brad Pitt delivers with sinister perfection.  More on Brad’s performance later.

Right now, just know that Harvey Weinstein’s chest is puffing out all over the Croisette because Killing Them Softly is already being mentioned in conversations about awards and, given that 3 days earlier, Weinstein’s Lawless also received a very warm reception, this festival appears to be just the early push - Weinstein was already riding a high from The Artist; he’s just extended it here in Cannes. And that’s before we’ve even started talking about Django Unchained. A 7 minute preview was screened last night and, well, it’s like entire room got hard at the same time and stayed there until it was over. The same happened when they showed early footage of Django at Summer of Sony. Harvey’s selling it like this is the one you’re waiting for. And this time I might actually believe him.  

Yours in gossip,

Lainey