24 Hours to Cannes: Harvey Preps, Moods Swing

Get! Excited! The 62nd Cannes Film Festival launches Wednesday, and the news doesn't stop just because of a lack of stateside swagger on the Croisette. After all, Harvey Weinstein is readying his circus acts, the Chinese may spark an international incident, and we have the wildly bipolar collision of economics and tradition to keep an eye on as the fest rolls through May 24. Movieline will have a correspondent on the ground, but for now, we go to the advance team:

· USA Today offers a preview featuring some of the bigger names debuting at Cannes, including Ang Lee, Pedro Almodovar and Quentin Tarantino, the latter of whose Inglourious Basterds has Harvey waxing metaphoric: "Cannes is a world stage, and if you're going to do something big and full of risk, you might as well go on the trapeze without a net. And there's no better place than the world's biggest circus for movies." Now that is an image worth savoring.

· Besides that, though, why should Americans staying home even care about Cannes? The Tribune's Michael Phillips explains.

· The Cannes economy sucked two weeks ago, and it pretty much still sucks, according to Reuters. But never fear: You've got cheerier-than-usual films like Up and Taking Woodstock to make you feel better about sleeping on the sidewalk in your cocktail-party attire.

· Chinese auteur Lou Ye makes some of his country's racier movies, but he's really in trouble this time with Spring Fever, which defies both his five-year filmmaking ban and China's prohibition against films depicting homosexuality. Happy exile!

· This must be some punishable offense as well: There is a George Gallo film at the market actually employing the logline, "Business is a lot like sex. Getting in is easy ... pulling out is hard." Ew.