In the Cannes

Right now, most of the Hollywood machine is in France, partying it up old-school style. No, it’s not a massive wave of defection–the filmmaking elite are making deals and copping feels at the Cannes Film Festival, where celebrities rain down from the sky like so many plasticized, big-boobed droplets. Obviously, where celebrities congregate there will be news, so here are some reports from the frontline of the entertainment war (as reported by the Associated Press).

Do you feel racist?

Spike Lee is slamming Clint Eastwood over his two recent Iwo Jima movies, saying the filmmaker overlooked the role of black soldiers during World War II.

Lee? whose next film is this fall’s Miracle at St. Anna, the story of an all-black U.S. division fighting in Italy during the war, said Eastwood’s 2006 movies, Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima, were whites-only affairs.

“He did two films about Iwo Jima back to back, and there was not one black soldier in both of those films,” Lee said Tuesday at the Cannes Film Festival, where he was a judge in an online short-film competition.

“Many veterans, African-Americans who survived that war, are upset at Clint Eastwood. In his vision of Iwo Jima, Negro soldiers did not exist. Simple as that. I have a different version,” Lee said.

Eastwood was in Cannes for his missing-child drama Changeling, starring Angelina Jolie. At a news conference for the film, a reporter tried to ask for his reaction to Lee’s criticism, but the moderator cut her off and told journalists to limit questions to Eastwood’s own movie.

Due in U.S. theaters in October, Miracle at St. Anna centers on four Americans–played by Derek Luke, Michael Ealy, Laz Alonso and Omar Benson Miller–in the Buffalo Soldiers division in Tuscany.

-Associated Press

Mike Tyson has friends?

Mike Tyson considers it a miracle that he lived to tell his tale. And he’s telling why–in graphic detail–in a new documentary at the Cannes Film Festival.

“I lived a wild and extreme life,” the former heavyweight champion told reporters Saturday. “I used drugs. I had altercations with dangerous people. I slept with guys’ wives that wanted to kill me. I’m just happy to be here, you know. It’s just a miracle.”

The 41-year-old former boxer got a prolonged ovation at the Cannes screening for Tyson, directed by his old friend James Toback (Fingers).

In the movie, which blends old video footage and TV interviews, Tyson talks about getting beaten up and stolen from when he was an overweight kid. He chokes up when reminiscing about his late trainer, Cus D’Amato, who transformed the troubled teenager into a world-class champion.

Tyson spares no details in describing his sex life, and covers his career’s low points, like biting Evander Holyfield’s ear in 1997. He admits to many, many bad decisions.

But on one issue, he still refuses to take responsibility. He insists he is innocent of the 1991 rape of an 18-year-old beauty queen, for which he served three years in prison.

“I’ve been abusive to women before in my life,” he acknowledged. But in this case, “I thought [the conviction] was wrong, I thought it was unfair.”

Toback, who has known Tyson for 23 years and gave him small parts in Black and White and When Will I Be Loved, said he talked to Tyson in a soothing, hypnotic voice to get him to open up for the film.

-Associated Press

Sean Penn spouts off

Sean Penn may be president of the Cannes Film Festival jury, but don’t expect any buttoned-up presidential behavior from the Hollywood rebel.

During a news conference on opening day Wednesday, the actor-director lit up two cigarettes in defiance of French laws against smoking in public buildings, and he poked fun at his reputation.

Asked by a reporter if he could confirm that he had hesitated before taking the jury presidency because it means being “wise and sober” for 12 days, the Into the Wild director quipped, “How many days have I got left?”

Penn, a regular at Cannes, won the best actor award there for She’s So Lovely, and he showed his own movies The Pledge and The Indian Runner there. When Clint Eastwood’s Mystic River played at Cannes, it generated early buzz for Penn’s performance, which went on to win an Academy Award.

Penn wasn’t all jokes and antics at Cannes–he also let his serious, thoughtful side shine through, urging reporters to see a documentary that the festival included at his special request. The Third Wave is Alison Thompson’s look at volunteers who joined relief efforts in Sri Lanka after the 2004 tsunami.

“I thought that it was the closest thing that I had ever seen on film to giving any kind of answer to ‘what’s the purpose of life?’–at least for those who might be lucky enough to have two good legs and a dollar in their pocket,” he said.

Penn also talked politics, saying he’s not supporting any particular candidate in the U.S. presidential election, though he is “encouraged by the kind of exciting support that Barack Obama has.”

As he often does, Penn railed against President Bush. Asked about Bush’s politics, he said the choice of the word “politics” was unfortunate.

“It’s just a shame that we have to bastardize the term ‘politics’ in attributing it to people like that, because politics, again, should really be an organization of helping each other,” he said.

Over the next 12 days, Penn will lead a jury made up of director Alfonso Cuaron (Children of Men), actress Natalie Portman, comic book artist-filmmaker Marjane Satrapi (Persepolis), actor-director Sergio Castellitto (My Mother’s Smile), actress Jeanne Balibar (Clean), director Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Tropical Malady), director Rachid Bouchareb (Days of Glory) and actress Alexandra Maria Lara (Downfall).

The winners will be announced May 25.

-Angela Doland, Associated Press