Some people may consider the New York Film Festival a simple "Best Of" sort of event, but the fact that it compiles selections from earlier film fests and merely showcases them in a competition-free program is what I love about it. For those of us New Yorkers who can't always make it to the highlands of Utah and Colorado or the exotic seaside locales of Italy and Southern France, it's nice to know that major festival highlights will likely make their way to Lincoln Center in late September, early October.

This year, the lineup for the 46th NYFF is being noted for its inclusion of films that previously screened at Cannes back in May. Even Steven Soderbergh's four-hour Che (aka The Argentine and Guerilla), which played to mixed reactions in France, even while picking up a best actor prize for star Benicio Del Toro, has been given a spot. Also featured are Cannes leftovers Waltz With Bashir, Wendy and Lucy, Grand Prix-winner Gomorrah and Clint Eastwood's Changeling, which stars Angelina Jolie and has the honor of being NYFF's centerpiece film. Opening the festival is the Palm d'Or winner The Class, while the closing film is Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler, which premieres a few weeks prior at the Venice Film Festival.

Other exciting big name films include Mike Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky, Wong Kar-Wai's Ashes of Time: Redux, Lucretia Martel's The Headless Woman and Olivier Assayas' Summer Hours. Surprisingly, Charlie Kaufman's Synechdoche, New York, which screened at Cannes, is New York appropriate and is scheduled to open in October, is missing from the lineup.

The complete list of NYFF selections, courtesy of The Hollywood Reporter, can be found after the jump:

UPDATE: Here's the trailer in Quicktime quality.

Of all the films I'm looking forward to this fall, Blindness ranks fairly high up there. Canadian distributor Alliance has just made available a full trailer that proves to be fairly intriguing, as an optometrist (Mark Ruffalo) and his seemingly immune wife (Julianne Moore) cope with an inexplicable epidemic of sight loss.

I'm a sucker for most anything vaguely apocalyptic, and while this very well could turn out to be akin to watching the first act of Children of Men through a milk-filled mask (which I've done, mind you), the prestige behind the project* says otherwise. We have acclaimed screenwriter Don McKellar adapting Nobel-Laureate José Saramago's novel, with Academy Award nominee Fernando Meirelles directing a cast that also includes Danny Glover, Gael Garcia Bernal, Alice Braga, and Sandra Oh.

I must say, going off that taste and last spring's teaser, I still like the look, sound, and feel of this one, especially Moore's little retort (you know the one), and that's not to mention that any trailer which employs John Murphy's underrated score from last year's Sunshine to set a rightfully ominous tone is always fine by me. We'll get to see (sorry) what trials and tribulations await the world on September 19th.

*Not to mention Rocchi's review of the film from its Cannes world premiere.

Sony Pictures Classics (SPC) has added an educational element to their Cannes booty. Previously they picked up Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne's drama Lorna's Silence, Norwegian director Bent Hamer's comedy/drama O'Horten, and animated Israeli doc Waltz with Bashir. (Eric Kohn explained why the latter deal was an especially good match of film with distributor.)

Variety reports that SPC's latest deal is their acquisition of US distribution rights for Laurent Cantet's The Class, which won the most coveted prize at Cannes, the Palme d'Or. The film was inspired by Francois Begaudeau's book based on his experiences teaching class in a rough section of Paris. The French-language title, Entre les Murs literally means "between the walls" or "inside the walls," which may give a further hint as to its concerns. (Thanks to commenter Céline for the linguistic assist.)

Cinematical just received this exclusive poster for What Just Happened? (click to enlarge), which comes to us from director Barry Levinson (Rain Man, Wag the Dog). Based on producer Art Linson's memoir What Just Happened? Bitter Hollywood Tales from the Front Line, the film stars Robert De Niro as a middle-aged Hollywood producer who tries to juggle an actual life with an outrageous series of crises in his day job.

As you can see from the poster, however, this puppy is packed with talent. You've got De Niro, Sean Penn, Bruce Willis, John Turturro, Stanley Tucci, Catherine Keener and the list goes on. When What Just Happened? premiered earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival, Cinematical's James Rocchi described it as "movie geek heaven," saying De Niro produces "his best 'sly' comedic work since (probably) Wag the Dog." And how can you not love that poster and its tagline? Hilarious. Really looking forward to seeing this one when it arrives in a few months. (Check out the full synopsis after the jump)

What Just Happened? is set to hit theaters on October 3.

Things weren't so peaceful in the movie buff land when word got out a few weeks ago that Werner Herzog plans to remake Bad Lieutenant with Nicolas Cage in the lead role. Even noted trash auteur Abel Ferrara publicly complained about having his work redone. Bad Lieutenant isn't anybody's idea of a good time: Harvey Keitel puts on a freakishly raunchy performance. Still, it definitely sounds like Herzog's pumped about the gig. Defamer cornered the director in New York today for a few questions about the project, and the responses are kind of amazing. Herzog tends to do a great job of explaining himself, no matter what crazy scheme he has cooked up, but the best part of this interview arrives when the guy claims utter cluelessness about Ferrara's work. Way to stick it to the source material.

To hear Herzog tell it, his version of Bad Lieutenant isn't a remake, although he wouldn't know, since it sounds like hasn't actually seen the original. However, he says that Cage's character's name and the plot are entirely new. Herzog apparently liked the "very, very dark story," written by William M. Finkelstein, and he can't wait to work with Cage (given Herzog's notorious appreciation of Anna Nicole Smith, this last bit actually makes sense). Hearing about Ferrara's discontent, Herzog just eggs him on: "Let him fight the windmills, like Don Quixote." It's a feud made in heaven, almost too good to be true. You might just call it ecstatic truth.

Top: Early poster art for the new 'Bad Lieutenant,' snapped at the Cannes Film Festival last month.

Among the handful of titles Sony Pictures Classics snatched up for American distribution at the conclusion of the Cannes Film Festival, the animated Israeli documentary Waltz with Bashir makes the most sense. While Tyson certainly has potential to alter the public perception of the country's infamous boxer, and Lorna's Silence has appeal for crime fans and art house aficionados alike, both movies could perform well regardless of which distributor picked them up (more or less). Bashir, on the other hand, has SPC written all over it: Relentlessly downbeat and frequently unsettling, Bashir is director Ari Folman's account of his 1982 experience in the Israeli military during the infamous massacre of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. The animated approach sometimes has a gimmicky feel to it, but that's probably the point; Folman's memories are so foggy that his reconstructions of them seem plausibly unrealistic.

Bashir isn't easy to get into, but you could say that about Thomas Pynchon, too. What we have here is an animated movie for grown-ups, which puts it squarely in SPC's line of expertise. The company has guided many mature animated films to audiences in a manner unparalleled by their colleagues. Last year, talented SPC co-presidents Michael Barker and Tom Bernard commandeered the releases of the outlandish anime Paprika and Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis, and the latter film very nearly won an Oscar. Remember The Triplets of Belleville? That was them, too. These people know their stuff. Listen up, guys: I hear Bill Plympton's new movie is quite good.

Earlier today, Laurent Cantent's The Class became the first French film in 20 years to win the Palme d'Or, the top prize at the 2008 Festival de Cannes. Coincidentally, we have James' review of The Class scheduled to run in just a little while; in it, he says of the film: "The Class may very well wind up taking home a nod or two from the jury here in Cannes; rest assured, if that happens, it'll represent more than just sympathy votes for a local favorite."

The grand prize went to Gomorra, which James called "a sweeping, stirring drama that has the shoot-and-loot tension of the best crime cinema but also has the scope and serious intent of great drama." Special Prize went to Catherine Deneuve (A Christmas Tale) and Clint Eastwood (Changeling); the latter of which was a favorite heading into the awards (as was Waltz with Bashir, which, surprisingly, did not take home one of the top awards). Jury Prize went to Il Divo, while Nuri Bilge Ceylan took Best Director for Three Monkeys. Additionally, Benicio del Toro won Best Actor for his performance in Soderbergh's Che, Sandra Corveloni took Best Actress for Linha de passe, and Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne won Best Screenplay for Lorna's Silence.

For reviews of most of these films, head on over to Cinematical's official Festival de Cannes hub. We'll be rounding out this year's coverage over the next few days.

Adoration, the newest film by critically acclaimed filmmaker Atom Egoyan, is a beautifully evocative film, though some may find its convoluted storyline distracting. In many respects, the film very much evokes one of my favorite films, The Sweet Hereafter, Egoyan's 1997 Palme d'Or and Oscar nominee*. Where The Sweet Hereafter dealt with the impact of guilt and grief in a small community following a tragic school bus accident, in Adoration Egoyan deals with grief and loss on a more personal level, while also blending in ideas about the subjective nature of reality and identity in a technological age. In a world where who we are can be invented, reinvented, and broadcast to the world via chat rooms and virtual reality avatars, can we ever really know another person -- or even ourselves?

Early this morning, Charlie Kaufman's newest film, Synecdoche, NY, screened for press, and man, is that film two hours of mental-mindf*ck. I'm not the only critic here wishing the fest had screened this film last week; everyone is way too fried at this point to really sink their teeth into a film requiring this level of intellectual attention, and most of the folks I talked to after the screening felt they really need to see it at least once more to really wrap their minds around it.

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IFC Films has acquired yet another hot Cannes title. British director Steve McQueen's Hunger has impressed a number of critics, including our own Kim Voynar, who called it "a brilliant portrayal of a tragic moment in human history." The short article on the acquisition by Anne Thompson in Variety does not reveal what distribution plans IFC may have in mind.

Michael Fassbender portrays Bobby Sands, an IRA volunteer who led a long hunger strike in 1981 while he was imprisoned on gun charges by British authorities. (More information is available at Wikipedia or the search engine of your choice.) The case stirred up a considerable amount of controversy; I remember visiting New York City at the time and being besieged by daily headlines in the Post and Daily News screaming about one side or the other.

Kim notes that the film doesn't "address the circumstances that led to these men being incarcerated" but commented in response to a reader: "I don't believe we achieve greater humanity by sinking to crass brutality in our treatment of others, regardless of how they might have wronged us ... Nonetheless, I tried to keep the focus of my review on its artistic merits, and in that respect, it's a brilliant film." I hope IFC makes Hunger as widely available as possible -- it sounds like an incredibly timely subject.

Did you know that the beautiful city of San Diego has mean streets? City Lights Pictures announced in Cannes today that it has picked up North American rights to Damian Harris' Gardens of the Night, a drama about two young people struggling to exist hand to mouth on the streets of San Diego. City Lights plans a fall theatrical release, according to a statement released by the company.

Gillian Jacobs (pictured) stars as Leslie, a 17-year-old girl who is still dealing with the trauma she experienced when she and her childhood friend Donnie (Evan Ross) were abducted and held captive by two men nine years earlier. The abductors are played by Tom Arnold (!) and Kevin Zegers.

Clint Eastwood's Changeling (which may or may not be now known as The Exchange), is a riveting drama about a missing boy and the undying constancy of a mother's love. Angelina Jolie excels in a powerful performance as Christine Collins, whose nine-year-old son, Walter, disappeared in 1928. Five months later, police returned to her a boy they said was Walter; Christine alleged that the boy was not her son.

At the time, the Los Angeles police department was under considerable pressure due to the efforts of a Presbyterian minister, Reverend Gustav Briegleb (John Malcovich), to expose corruption within the police force. Captain Jones (Jeffrey Donovan), who heads up the investigation, doesn't particularly care whether the boy is or isn't Walter Collins; he has a publicity campaign to manage that's all about making himself look good, so he tries to convince Christine to accept the found boy as her son. When she fights back by going to the press, Jones has her committed to the psycho ward.

IFC Films has certainly been busy making deals at Cannes. As I posted a few days ago, they picked up Josh Safdie's indie comedy The Pleasure of Being Robbed and Arnaud Desplechin's drama A Christmas Tale (Un conte de Noël), which impressed our own Kim Voynar with its "humor, beauty and depth." Now they've added two more films to their arsenal, according to indieWIRE, both European dramas.

The latest from director Olivier Assayas (Demonlover, Clean, Boarding Gate) is entitled Summer Hours and stars Juliette Binoche, Charles Berling and Jérémie Renier as siblings dealing with the death of their mother. They must make hard decisions about what to do with her valuable estate and all its many possessions. The film opened in France in early March. IFC plans a US theatrical release next year. More information in French is available at the official, super-duper, Flash enabled, slow loading official site.

Russian dramatic fairy tale Mermaid (pictured) won Anna Melikyan the prize for best director when the film played in the World Cinema section at Sundance this year. The film follows a young girl with telekinetic powers into adulthood, where she encounters the mysteries of love. Mariya Shalayeva plays Alisa as an adult. Mermaid has been provoking good reaction on the festival circuit; IFC will not release it in theaters, but instead add it to the offerings on its "Festival Direct" video on demand service, already available on many US cable systems. More infromation is available on the Russian-language official site.

The press conference for Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona was a packed affair. Buzz on the film has been mostly positive, and most of those trying to get in were, unfortunately, shut out. The line of press trying to get shots of Allen and the cast walking in was an utter madhouse; picture something akin to a prison riot, with a mob of press stomping on feet, shoving with elbows, and generally doing their damnedest to jostle into position in the hopes of scoring one or two decent shots in the 15 or so seconds you have to point and click.

I had my foot crushed by a large Belgian woman who muscled her way to the front of the pack on my right, and got smacked quite hard in the head by a Chinese photojournalist's video camera. Working a film fest isn't always quite the glamorous event one might imagine.

The Weinstein Co. has added a British horror thriller to their upcoming slate of releases. According to indieWIRE, all North American rights to James Watkins' Eden Lake have been acquired by the Weinsteins at Cannes. Evidently, it's been months in the making: Fangoria noted in November 2007 that the Weinsteins were "reportedly finalizing" a deal.

Putting business aside, it sounds like writer/director Watkins, who also co-wrote My Little Eye, knows how to appeal to horror fans, telling Fangoria: "We show people's heads on fire, neck-stabbing with glass, stomach-slashing revealing intestines and kidneys and metal spikes through feet. Gritty realism in moments of ramped-up tension." (!!!!) The story follows a couple "on a romantic weekend getaway being terrorized by dysfunctional teenagers with no ethical boundaries."

Lest you think that this picture might appeal solely to horror fans, the actors who play the romantic couple have bona fide credentials. Michael Fassbender (300) has already received kudos this week for his performance as the hunger-striking IRA leader Bobby Sands in director Steve McQueen's Hunger, and is in advanced talks to play the coveted role of Heathcliff in a new version of Wuthering Heights, as Elisabeth Rappe told us earlier this week. Fassbender's better half in Eden Lake is played by Kelly Reilly (pictured), who has become even more gorgeous in the six years since she appeared in The Spanish Apartment. Explicit carnage, a hot heartthrob, and a lovely lady? Count me in.