When I was in Cannes last year, gorging on world cinema and little pods of espresso, I made a point of wandering into the massive film market beneath the Palais des Festivals at least once a day. The bustling energy and plentiful candy recharged my weary soul, and there was always a new glossy one-page sell sheet for some preposterous cable project flapping around.

One title that became a running gag was “Ice Twisters”, a CineTel Films property that promised to combine the enviropocalypse of “The Day After Tomorrow” with the wall-to-wall thrills of “Twister” — but, you know, on a more affordable budget.

I brought the sell sheet home, to show friends the sillier side of Cannes — sure, the festival is a celebrity mecca and a celebration of indulgence, but it’s also a place where people can show up and try to sell ridiculous movies that don’t have a hope in hell of ever getting produced.

You know what happens next. “Ice Twisters” actually got made, and premiered on U.S. cable over the weekend — on the Syfy channel, home of knowingly ridiculous feature films — as counterprogramming to “2012”.

I’m hoping to go back to Cannes next year. Maybe I should drag out that old screenplay about the killer mutant poodles. Stranger things have happened, obviously.

Well, there you go: “2012” blasted into theatres and obliterated its competition, grossing $65 million domestically — and $225 million worldwide — in its first three days of release.

Quite the haul, particularly for a movie that runs over two and a half hours and pulled reviews that were, at best, mixed. But then you can’t go wrong with a disaster movie, especially if you’re Roland Emmerich; this is really the only thing he’s ever been any good at.

I mean, “Godzilla”? “The Patriot”? “10,000 B.C.”? Come on, that’s just running in place; the world wants you to smash the White House again and bury New York under a tsunami of ice. Embrace your destiny.

In their latest podcast, the fine folks at the Onion A.V. Club point out that Emmerich has become the Irwin Allen of his day, and if nothing else, “2012” does embrace that — it’s “Earthquake”, “The Towering Inferno” and “The Poseidon Adventure” all rolled into one. Of course, he’s mostly referencing the “Poseidon” remake, but I don’t think anybody will notice.

So fess up, folks: Did you catch a little mass destruction over the weekend? Were you part of Hurricane Roland?

My latest MSN movie gallery uses the arrival of “The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day” to roll through a few other sequels that took, like, forever to arrive.

I believe the quarter-century between “The Hustler” and “The Color of Money” makes for the biggest gap, though there’s probably another pair with even more space between them. Did I miss anything else?

I mean, besides “Before Sunset” — which is impossible to discuss without ruining “Before Sunrise” for anyone who hasn’t seen that film — and “Son of the Mask”, which is best left buried in the shallow grave of the discount DVD bins?

Never mind the internal and external disastergasms of “Antichrist” and “2012” — Tucker Max and Troy Duffy have movies opening on the same day. And really, that’s enough to make anyone head for the hills.

“Antichrist”: Lars Von Trier pits Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg against nature, each other and at least one talking fox. Still haven’t seen it. Kinda scared to, actually. Glenn and Jason say it’s pretty potent stuff, though.

“The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day“: A decade later, Troy Duffy returns to his inexplicably beloved cult hit and coughs up a sequel that does its best to be just as loud, bloody and stupid as its predecessor, just with everyone looking older and really tired.

“The Horse Boy”: Michael O. Scott’s documentary about parents who find an unusual treatment for their autistic son was an audience hit at Hot Docs earlier this year, where it screened under the title “Over the Hills and Far Away”; I’m still trying to catch up to it. But Susan likes it.

“I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell”: Best-selling author Tucker Max brings his tales of alpha-male ribaldry to the screen. Let’s see how it fares against the “Boondock Saints” sequel, as it’s basically going after the same audience — and is just as awful, according to Rad.

“Love and Savagery“: John N. Smith, director of “The Boys of St. Vincent” and “Dangerous Minds”, appears to have assembled this period piece — about a thorny flirtation between a Canadian amateur geologist and an Irish barmaid in 1969 County Clare — from his trailer. Everything about it feels lazy and rote — except for the cinematography, which is really quite nice.

“Pirate Radio“: Watching Richard Curtis’ swinging Sixties comedy about the ca-raaazy folk who brought rock ‘n roll to the British airwaves is like listening to an aging, bleary-eyed hippie talk about the good old days … for two straight hours. Wait for the DVD, and then feast on Bill Nighy’s scenes.

“Prom Night in Mississippi“: No disrespect to Morgan Freeman, but Paul Saltzman’s documentary is only peripherally about the actor’s efforts to integrate the high-school formal in his hometown of Charleston; the movie’s really interested in examining the fabric of racism in America, and the ways in which a new generation may finally be able to move beyond it.

“2012“: Roland Emmerich rebounds from the stone-faced idiocy of “10,000 B.C.” with another epic end-of-the-world movie. It’s dumb and derivative, but it’s still surprisingly entertaining, what with all the running from explosions and staring at monitors and shouting “Go! Go! Go!” And yes, that’s Tom McCarthy, director of the excellent dramas “The Station Agent” and “The Visitor”, as Amanda Peet’s boyfriend.

Right, there you go. And if you don’t feel like going out this weekend, stay in with the Onion AV Club’s argument-starting Best of the Decade lists — this week, it’s all about television, and their choices will have you dragging out every boxed set you own.

So I talked to Morgan Freeman a couple of weeks ago; you can read the results in the new issue of NOW. Or you can go to the online version and listen to the audio clips at the bottom of the page to get the full experience — the man really does have a voice like warm honey.

Freeman was doing a round of press for Paul Saltzman’s documentary “Prom Night in Mississippi”, which opens in Toronto tomorrow. Freeman will also be in Toronto tomorrow night, introducing the movie at a benefit screening … which, I’ve just learned, has sold out. But the movie’s still worth seeing; check your local listings, as they say.

In other, entirely unrelated news, Joss Whedon’s “Dollhouse” has been cancelled. But it hasn’t been struck dead so much as taken off life support, with Fox pledging to air the rest of the season over the dead zone of December and January.

Poor Whedon. The man just can’t catch a break. But now I have something else to bring up when I talk to Patton Oswalt later this month …

Well, this is disheartening: “Disney’s A Christmas Carol” decked the halls — and its competition — at the megaplex this weekend, earning $31 million in North America and guaranteeing that Robert Zemeckis gets to keep his mad dreams of motion-capture features alive for another few years.

This makes me sad. Do you realize that Zemeckis hasn’t made a live-action feature since “Cast Away”, nine years ago? He’s spent most of this decade burrowing deeper and deeper into the digital realm, and what do we have to show for it? “The Polar Express”, “Beowulf” and the new thing.

Zemeckis hasn’t gone crazy or anything; he’s just followed his obsessions as far as he could, and ended up in the wrong place. His movies used to be light on their feet and filled with cinematic joy; around the time of “Forrest Gump”, they started to slip into self-importance and self-consciousness, with digital dazzle standing in for emotional beats, and now — with the exception of “Cast Away”, which strikes a balance between its elaborate construction and the rawness of Tom Hanks’ performance — they’ve been consumed entirely by technique. (There’s an interesting parallel here to Michael Mann, another director led astray by a different digital fetish.)

Dave Kehr, with whom I’ve had several entirely civil arguments about Zemeckis’ decline, interviewed the director for the New York Times’ holiday movie special last weekend; it’s a good piece, and you should read it. At no point does the director of “Used Cars”, “Back to the Future” and “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” acknowledge he now traffics exclusively in empty light shows, but I suppose that’s to be expected.

The real tragedy here? “Monster House” — which Zemeckis produced, but didn’t direct — is still the most entertaining example of motion-capture animation, precisely because it doesn’t attempt photo-realistic characters or settings. It embraces the unrealistic possibilities afforded by the process, and avoids most of the traps Zemeckis’ own films fall into. That has to sting.

“The Fourth Kind” may not be a particularly good movie, but its fact-based packaging (which is, again, total bollocks) has sparked some conversation, and put the alien-abduction genre back in play.

Ever the opportunist, I made it the subject of my latest MSN Movies gallery … and yeah, I know, it’s all the usual suspects, but in my defense there just aren’t that many alien-abduction movies.

If you’re in a more serious mood, I’ve also got a piece up on the NOW site about Cinematheque’s essay-film series, which is screening some very rare titles over the next few weeks.

Sure, you could pick up the Criterion DVDs of “Sans Soleil”, “Night and Fog” and “F for Fake” — come to think of it, why don’t you? — but good luck finding “Je Tu Il Elle” or “Letter to Jane” on this side of the Atlantic. Best to see ’em with a crowd.

It’s the battle of the freaks this week, with your local megaplex is flooded with fact-based aliens*, psychic soldiers, spastic Scrooges, and the terror of the scary button. Shall we leap right in?

“The Box”: Richard Kelly expands Richard Matheson’s short story “Button, Button” into an epic study of temptation, manipulation and creepy stares. It doesn’t work, but it doesn’t work in a really interesting way. My NOW review should be online later today.

“Disney’s A Christmas Carol“: In which Robert Zemeckis admirably retains much of Dickens’ dialogue, and not so admirably turns everything around it into a theme-park ride. And that motion-capture technology? It’s still not quite there.

“The Fourth Kind“: Olatunde Osunsanmi’s alien-abduction thriller — in which Milla Jovovich plays a therapist who uncovers otherworldly goings-on in Nome, Alaska — insists it’s based on factual studies and evidence. It’s not, but it got your attention, right?

“Gentlemen Broncos“: A deeply repressed kid (Michael Angarano) writes a ridiculous sci-fi novel, which is immediately stolen by his pompous idol (Jemaine Clement). That doesn’t sound like the hardest sell of Jared Hess’ career, but throw in the projectile vomiting, the Battle Stags, the general unpleasantness of the film’s universe and Mike White in wrestler hair, and there you go.

“Inside Hana’s Suitcase”: I feel like a heel for not liking Larry Weinstein’s adaptation of Karen Levine’s children’s book about the Holocaust, but it’s an awfully patronizing work, undermining its powerful true story with mawkish re-enactments and a manipulative musical score. Best viewed as a teaching tool for middle-schoolers, rather than a documentary for adults; Susan had similar reservations, but she was nicer about it.

“The Men Who Stare at Goats“: Grant Heslov’s adaptation of Jon Ronson’s fne book about the U.S. Army’s attempts to develop a force of psychic warriors is a lot of fun for its first hour, as George Clooney and Ewan McGregor goof around in the Middle Eastern desert. But then it tries to get serious, and that’s just wrong.

“When We Were Boys”: Both Susan and I have far fewer reservations about Sarah Goodman’s documentary, which takes DV cameras into a Toronto boys’ school and tracks the development of the student body over a couple of years.

And that’s everything. Which is good, because there’s plenty of other stuff ahead of me today and I should really get on it …

* aliens not actually fact-based.