"Ocean's 13" To Premiere At Cannes

Now let's hope it's a lot better than "Ocean's 12."

Oddly, Variety talks about how premiering at Cannes hasn't always been a great boost for Hollywood movies. Of course, for many years Hollywood avoided Cannes. What was the point? Cannes was an art exhibit held during the summer, when Hollywood premieres all its mindless blockbusters. And any promotional boost was lost on movies that wouldn't open until the fall and no one in America really follows Cannes anyway. That's all changed, with Hollywood using out of competition slots to boost summer flicks, sneak previews of excerpts to build excitement for fall releases (like "The Lord of the Rings") and so on.

Then they list high profile movies that have premiered recently at Cannes, starting with "The Da Vinci Code," which Variety describes as "panned by jet-lagged critics." Uh, the people who saw it around the world also panned it, so why the jet-lagged tag, as if critics were cranky instead of the movie being a dull mess. And I wasn't jet-lagged; I'd been in Europe for two weeks, and MOST of the critics there live in Europe anyway. But of course, it went on to gross a massive $758 million worldwide.

Then Variety boneheadedly says other films didn't seem to benefit from a Cannes premiere, naming "Marie Antoinette," "Hollywood Ending" and "The Ladykillers." But some movies DID benefit from Cannes, says Variety, such as "Shrek 2" and "X-Men 3." What a puzzle, they seem to be saying. Uh, where's the confusion? The bad movies that premiered at Cannes did poorly around the world. The good movies that premiered at Cannes did great around the world. And some movies -- like "The Da Vinci Code" -- do well no matter how poorly they are received. it's pretty simple, good movies tend to do well and misfires tend to do poorly, whether they debut at Cannes or Venice or just at your local theater. Duh.