Hey, remember when “The DaVinci Code” premiered at Cannes three years ago, and everybody had to make a big deal out of it? There’s no such strategy for “Angels & Demons”, which is just getting a plain old global opening.  But it’s still big enough that everyone else is getting out of its way …

“Angels & Demons“: Ron Howard, Tom Hanks, Brian Grazer and Akiva Goldsman bring us another sprint through art history with Harvard symbologist Robert Landgon. And unlike “The DaVinci Code”, you can actually watch this one without wanting to track them down afterward and punch them in the jeans.

“Fierce Light: When Spirit Meets Action”: Velcrow Ripper’s look at spiritual activism finds the wandering documentarian dropping in on Alice Walker, Desmond Tutu and Daryl Hannah. Susan found it disappointing; Jason had a more qualified reaction.

“Is Anybody There?“: John Crowley, director of “interMission” and “Boy A”, tries his hand at the sort of prefabricated kids-n-oldies melodrama that we’ve all come to loathe on the film-festival circuit, with Michael Caine as an angry, senile magician who teaches a weird kid about life. It’s excruciating, really.

“The Queen & I“: Iranian-born documentarian Nahid Persson Sarvestani tracks down the Shah’s widow expecting to confront an ideological opponent, and finds a fellow exile instead. I’m not entirely sure why this wasn’t in Hot Docs, but it certainly should have been.

Right, back to work … long weekends mean tighter deadlines, you know!

The Cannes film festival kicked off yesterday with the premiere of Pixar’s “Up”, and I was not there to see it. I am not there now, either. Couldn’t make it work. C’est la vie.

Quite a few publications have had to let the festival slide this year; in what I hope will be the last echo of last fall’s economic convulsion, an expensive jaunt to Europe’s glitziest film festival proved a little too rich for their blood. So I’m kicking around Toronto with Liam Lacey from the Globe and Chris Knight from the Post and a few other unfortunates, deeply regretting that we couldn’t have been in the Lumiere yesterday to see what 2,200 people wearing Real 3D glasses look like.

In my case, the decision was made back when things were at their darkest; if I’d known where things would stand now, I think I could have pulled the whole thing together, but you know what they say about hindsight. I fully expect to be back there next year, though. And I’ll be following the 2009 festival through the reporting of my online friends, with particular interest in Mike D’Angelo’s dispatches for the Onion AV Club.

If I have to pull a positive out of this, well … at least I got to catch the season finale of “Lost” in real time. It took me almost three weeks to see last year’s wrapup, and the spoiler avoidance was a bitch. I can’t imagine it would have been any easier this year — harder, probably, given that the AP was posting major plot twists as news within minutes of the end credits last night — so I’m glad I was able to see it without any accidental revelations.

And yes, I know that if I get my wish and go back to the festival next year, I’ll face the same problem with the presumably mind-blowing series finale. But such are the sacrifices one must make for Cannes, non?

Yeah, I know. Life’s rough.

Actual headline on the AP wire this morning:

Woman finds ‘Twilight’ sequel script in trash

To wit:

Casey Ray found two scripts, one for the vampire sequel “New Moon” and one for a different movie titled “Memoirs.” She decided to return them to the studio making the films. In return, she was invited to attend the movies’ premieres, her lawyer said.

Ray recently was waiting for her fiance to finish work when she spotted two scripts in a trash container. She was outside a hotel where actors were staying during a St. Louis shoot for the upcoming George Clooney movie, “Up in the Air.”

It’s not clear how the scripts wound up in the bin.

The Clooney movie includes actress Anna Kendrick, who is also in the “Twilight” vampire movie. A spokeswoman for Kendrick, Lisa Perkins, said the actress wouldn’t have left scripts lying around.

Oh, and this bit is great, too:

When Ray found the scripts, she considered leaking them to a national tabloid but decided against it, said her lawyer, Al Watkins.

“My client didn’t really want to get paid,” he said, but she was interested in hanging onto the scripts as collector’s items.

Watkins helped her return them to Los Angeles-based Summit Entertainment LLC, the studio making the movies. He said the studio invited Ray to premieres for the two films, and will certify the scripts as authentic after the movies are released.

So, let’s see. We have someone who “spotted two scripts in a trash container” and then “considered leaking them to a national tabloid but decided against it, said her lawyer,” who then “helped her return them” to Summit. By calling the phone number on the front page of the scripts, one would assume.

I love the bit about how, despite a moment of weakness, Ray nobly chose not to sell the scripts — sorry, “leak” them — to the tabloids. Perhaps the fact that no tabloid, respectable or otherwise, would offer a dime for the “New Moon” screenplay had something to do with her deep reserves of decency.

The script for “Iron Man 2”? Oh, they’d totally pay for that. But an adaptation of an existing best-seller, the plot of which is hardly a secret? Yeah, not so much. I wonder whether her lawyer talked her out of it, or whether the tab in question shamed her into returning the scripts to Summit. The AP story certainly feels like it was written with a soupcon of contempt, don’t you think?

With a solid $76.5 million opening weekend, J.J. Abrams’ “Star Trek” is poised to be the “Iron Man” of 2009: A solid critical and commercial hit with major franchise potential. Of course, “Star Trek” already was a franchise, but … well, you know, the whole reboot thing means we’re starting from zero again.

I’m perversely hoping they’ll dispose of the “II” and “III” sequel designations and start using titles that are just slightly to the left of the episodes from which they’ll inevitably be adapted. “The City on the Precipice of Forever”, “Equivalence of Terror”, “Spock’s Cerebellum”, “Thpace Theed” … the possibilities are endless!

And then they can eventually make “The Vengeance of Khan”, which was what “Star Trek II” was supposed to be called in the first place.

See? The particulars might be a little different, but everything eventually ends up exactly where it’s supposed to be.

This was bound to happen eventually: In honor of Mother’s Day, my latest Sympatico/MSN movie gallery offers a look at some fairly extreme examples of motherhood.

I mean, anyone can pick you up and kiss your boo-boo better. It takes someone very special to do it while surrounded by ravenous xenomorphs, is all I’m saying.

With the onset of summer-blockbuster season comes a certain easing of the release schedule. All the studios are moving out of one another’s way, the better to make sure there’s room enough for each great big tentpole to spend a week at the top of the charts. (It also keeps any one title from being humiliated with a third- or fourth-place opening. Smooth.)

Anyway, fewer big movies will mean more small ones soon enough, as various indies jockey to unload last year’s festival acquisitions and suchlike. But right now, today, it’s blissfully quiet, with only four films opening.

“Adoration“: The ossification of Atom Egoyan’s filmmaking style continues unabated with this muzzy thumb-sucker. It’s slightly more bearable than “Where the Truth Lies”, if only because it’s so completely, cluelessly ridiculous in a couple of scenes. (“Have you had lunch?” Oh, we’ve all had lunch, Atom — we just don’t order off the crazy menu.)

“Lymelife”: I’ve managed to miss every opportunity to see this movie, for one reason or another, but Susan loved it — enough that she lobbied to put Alec Baldwin on the cover this week. So that’s an endorsement.

“Star Trek“: A week after seeing J.J. Abrams’ exhilarating, affectionate reboot of the beloved SF chestnut, I’m ready — and maybe even eager — to see it again. You don’t get a lot of that when you’re me, is my point.

“Tyson“: In which James Toback puts Mike Tyson in front of a camcorder and lets him speak, unchallenged, for an hour and a half. The result is a fascinating, uncomfortable and entirely mesmerizing experience; if Tyson is in any way interesting to you, you’re going to want to check this out.

Onward and upward …

You can tell the summer movie season is upon us when suddenly there’s only room for one big movie at a time. This week, it’s J.J. Abrams’ reboot of “Star Trek”, which opens tonight and is kind of awesome.

Here’s my Q&A with Bruce Greenwood, who plays Captain Pike in the reboot. As tempted as I was to get him to answer questions with “yes” or “no”, I thought it would make more sense to let him use complete sentences.

Oh, and tonight’s big Hot Docs event, as far as I’m concerned, is the premiere of “65_RedRoses”, which was the subject of last week’s cover story and remains the best film I’ve seen at the festival. Tickets are still available for Sunday night’s repeat screening at the Bloor; you can order them with the “Buy Tickets” button at the bottom of this page.

You know, if you’re interested.

To no one’s surprise, “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” topped the box-office this weekend, grossing $87 million — nearly six times the intake of the #2 release, “Ghosts of Girlfriends Past”.

Now, it’s no surprise that an icky-looking Matthew McConaughey comedy couldn’t compete with a major studio tentpole — that’s just not the way the world works — but what is intriguing is the fact that “Wolverine” did so well after being available online for a full month in a near-complete version.

Obviously, this means one of two things: Either the piracy issue isn’t as pervasive as the MPAA’s rather hysterical pronouncements would have us believe, or people really do download a movie in order to decide whether they want to see it on the big screen, where the experience will be bigger and louder.

The latter angle is the one the AP is pursuing in this piece, which sends a reporter to ask people leaving a “Wolverine” screening whether they’d already seen the pirated version. (And I’m sure those people were completely honest in their responses.)

But the article leaves out a key factor, which is that “Wolverine” kind of sucks. If piracy was really that much of a threat — or at least as much of a threat as the studio flacks want people to think that it is — then surely word-of-mouth on the film would have been building up to toxic levels in the month it’s been available. Therefore, not too many people were watching it. Certainly not the MILLIONS OF CONTENT THIEVES!!! who we’re told are THREATENING THE VERY EXISTENCE OF THE ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY!!!, anyway.

Of course, it could just be that people who watch illegally downloaded movies don’t care about the quality of said movies. Does anybody know whether “Meet the Spartans” did particularly well on the torrents?

Hot Docs is off and running today, which means it’s time to turn our attention to the world of fiction — well, mostly. It’s a Friday, and movies are opening!

“Act of God“: Fresh from opening Hot Docs, Jennifer Baichwal’s exploration of the metaphysical implications of lightning settles into its Toronto commercial run. I think it’s pretty great, but then I’m closer to the material than most.

“Adrift in Tokyo”: Andrew wasn’t as fond of Satoshi Miki’s droll little study — about a shiftless Japanese student and the loan shark who tries to snap him out of his torpor — as I was, but if you’re in the mood for a small-scale character piece, you could certainly do worse. It isn’t likely to have a long run, so seek it out soon.

“Bart Got a Room”: A nerdy kid tries to build himself the perfect prom, or something. Honestly, all I’ve been able to retain from the trailer is William H. Macy’s hideous perm. And since neither Jason nor Susan found it worthwhile, I think I’ll let it slide.

“Ghosts of Girlfriends Past”: It’s a remake of “A Christmas Carol”. Starring Matthew McConaughey as Scrooge, basically. Only he’s a miser of love, see, having never given himself fully to a romantic partner. And on the eve of his brother’s marriage, he’s visited by three ghosts who show him the true meaning of … oh, Christ, I can’t even type the words. Rad — who tied the knot himself just a couple of weeks ago — takes the bullet.

“Lemon Tree“: Eran Riklis, director of “The Syrian Bride”, takes another look at Israeli border issues with this subtle drama, featuring the wonderful Hiam Abbass as a Palestinian woman caught between bureaucracy and a hard place.

“X-Men Origins: Wolverine“: Hugh Jackman and 20th Century Fox burn off the last ounces of fan goodwill for Bryan Singer’s excellent pair of mutant movies with this utterly unnecessary exploration of the amnesiac furball’s backstory. Hey, it’s totally possible to make vital, ingenious prequels to beloved genre properties — trust me, they’re out there — but this ain’t one of ’em, bub. Review will be online shortly. (UPDATE: There it is!)