New Years Eve Official Trailer

Thoughts?

Do we have any clue how Robert De Niro's jury at Cannes might vote?

Well, not really (and Lars von Trier's new film 'Melancholia' just debuted today to strong reviews, making this a somewhat stacked festival so far, which can only make the decisions harder), but The Wrap has some details on what's going on with the jury on Day 8 of the Cannes Film Festival:

Pundits have begun to speculate about which film might win this year's Palme d'Or – but there's always a wild card in this card of Cannes speculation, because the award is chosen by a small group of people whose tastes and working relationships aren't always easy to determine.

That's why a report from Jeff Wells is so fascinating. Wells says he's spoken to "a journalist friend with some inside knowledge of the character of this Cannes jury," and that his pal laid out the dynamic. Jury president Robert De Niro, his source says, is "not likely to try to lobby for personal choices or views" (which presumably means he won't carry the same clout as reportedly assertive past jury presidents like Robert Altman and Roman Polanski).
The most knowledgeable jury members, according to this report, are "Carlos" director Olivier Assayas and journalist Linn Ullmann, the daughter of Ingmar Bergman and Liv Ullman, while the least knowledgeable might be Hong Kong director Johnnie To, who "has a somewhat myopic, know-nothing view of other films or filmmakers."

The other jury members – actors Jude Law, Uma Thurman and Martina Gusman, producer Nansun Shi and director Mahamat Saleh Haroun – are not mentioned in Wells' report. The big questions, of course, are whether this info is accurate – and if it is, whether it tells us anything about what film might win. And the answers might be who knows?and probably not, though it's fun to speculate.

Robert De Niro and Martin Scorsese discuss the birth of the Tribeca Film Festival...

...in this story from The Hollywood Reporter:

Robert De Niro was in midtown New York and heading downtown when the second plane hit the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. Jane Rosenthal, his producing partner, was even closer, a block and a half from the first tower, on West Street. She would have been at the foot of the tower, except her driver had, miraculously, slowed at a yellow light. Filmmaker Edward Burns, on his way to do an interview for Sidewalks of New York, had just stepped out of the subway at Chambers Street. Director Martin Scorsese was at his East Side 62nd Street home preparing to go to a Brigitte Lacombe photography exhibition. From her office at 42nd and Sixth Avenue, HBO Documentaries president Sheila Nevins looked out her window and saw the smoke and dust rising.

As one response to that searing moment, the Tribeca Film Festival was launched in 2002 to help downtown New York overcome the devastating impact of the terrorist attacks, which enveloped the neighborhoods surrounding the World Trade Center in fear and financial ruin. Since then, it has generated $600 million in economic activity and has become a permanent community-building event in the heart of the city. Run by Tribeca Enterprises, the festival is now a for-profit entity that just about breaks even, according to co-founder Rosenthal. Built from passion, a belief in the bridge-building nature of film and an outpouring of good will, the first festival, which ran May 8 to 12, was willed into being by Rosenthal, her philanthropist husband, Craig Hatkoff, De Niro and more than a thousand volunteers in just five months.