Another colleague -- a different one from he of my first dispatch -- had greeted me at the Nice airport earlier in the week with a smile and a word of warning: "Everything in Cannes is hard." I suppose that a reality check might be better appreciated by a first-timer than delusions of convenience, but as the days went on, each new hurdle only seemed to further validate that notion.

The rainy weather continued as I made my way down to the Palais for a press screening of François Ozon's "Jeune et Julie (Young & Beautiful)," due to take place in the Grand Lumiere, perhaps the most iconically featured of the festival's venues. (The steps of the nearby Debussy are similarly clad in red carpet, but each is devoted to different arenas of programming.) The film was fine, a slight yet enjoyable coming-of-age tale concerning 17-year-old Isabelle (a very good Marine Vacth), whose loss of virginity results in a voluntary year-long stint as a supposedly 20-year-old prostitute in a discreet effort to earn some extra money and satisfy her burgeoning sexuality.

The Lumiere's mandate that all bags and umbrellas must be checked before entering the auditorium resulted in a lengthy post-movie wait at the coat check counter, forcing one to hastily relocate to the umbrella-friendly Debussy, proceed through identical security procedures and scamper for a seat in time for Sofia Coppola's "The Bling Ring" (my review) to begin. I joked after the film that it was tempting to follow the gang's lead and rob the celebrity yachts of Cannes as their owners walked the red carpet at pre-listed call times, but then someone went and beat me to it.

In 2008 and 2009, a group of L.A. teens used their Internet savvy to determine where celebrities lived, when they'd be out of town (as well-documented by tabloid sites and the like) and how best to help themselves to more than $3 million worth of designer clothes, goods and cash, with their victims either unaware of the burglaries or unwilling to report the break-ins. What's more, their eventual capture would only result in the type of arbitrary celebrity status that their own glamorous role models enjoyed.

It's a fascinating story that encapsulates today's entitled youth culture, online transparency and do-anything desire for attention, one which namely resulted in a 2010 feature in Vanity Fair (brilliantly titled "The Suspects Wore Louboutins") and, now, a film in the form of Sofia Coppola's "The Bling Ring," which doesn't explore the who's and why's of the scenario so much as the how's and why-not's.

Fans of the number one paid app of all time are finally getting what they want, which bizarrely seems to mean making said app into a movie that doesn't involve any kind of gameplay, can't be held in your hand, and will cost even more to enjoy. That's right, "Angry Birds" is going to be a movie!

Bing: More on 'Angry Birds'

Sony Pictures Entertainment announced this week via press release that they've picked up the worldwide distribution rights to the "eagerly anticipated" film from Rovio Entertainment, which will unsurprisingly be an animated 3D feature (want to get us interested in an "Angry Birds" movie? make it live action). The film does not yet have a writer, director, or voice cast in place, but while we'll make fun of such a film until the pigs come home, Sony has certainly had great luck with their other animated properties, including "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs," "Arthur Christmas," and "The Pirates! Band of Misfits," so they will likely trot out some big name talent to puff up their new prize property. 

Bing: More on Rovio Entertainment

There's also no word on the finer plot details of the film, but we can only assume that it will center on some pissed off birds, desperate to exact revenge on the green pigs who have stolen their eggs. Perhaps the film will be an origin story of sorts, one that explains why the pigs are green and why they would steal oodles of eggs from some birds with anger issues. There's so many questions to answer!

The "Angry Birds" movie will open on July 1, 2016.

Let's all take a moment to remember the first "Hangover" film, a relatively simple story about three idiots, a tiger, a naked man, a baby, a stripper, Las Vegas, and a quest to find a dear friend. Remember how things seemed so innocent back in 2009, when the worst thing that could happen was that dear friend Doug (Justin Bartha) wouldn't be found in time to make it to his own wedding? Remember how shocking things like Mike Tyson and an abandoned baby and a visit to a strip club were back then? Remember the singing? Oh, the good old days.

When director Todd Phillips hit the jackpot with the first film, there was no question that the film would spawn a sequel, if not an entire franchise, but the film's immediate follow-up proved that perhaps comedic lightning really only does strike once. After all, "The Hangover Part II" was so clearly a complete rip-off of the first film (just set in Thailand, and made all the more wacky and over-the-top and totally impossible to believe) and that's what most audiences didn't like about it, so what could possibly happen in a third film that would endear the franchise to people again?

Apparently, nostalgia, plenty of f-bombs, and stakes a whole hell of a lot higher than "oops, I may not make it to a major life event!" - at least, that's what at play in a new red band trailer for the film. The first half of the red band trailer mixes up plenty of scenes from both the first film and its sequel (have fun trying to pick which scene is from which film!) in order to ramp up audience emotion for the final film (aw, the Wolfpack!), and it's followed by a bigger look at the final film (including tons of Ken Jeong and enough swearing to really earn that red band designation). If this trailer won't get you pumped for "The Hangover Part III," nothing will, and that's probably what Warner Bros. is betting on. Are you sold?

New Releases:

"Cloud Atlas" (Warner), the sprawling, dazzling, ambitious collaboration between "Matrix" makers Lana and Andy Wachowski and Germany's Tom Tykwer weaves together the six distinctive stories in six different eras with a cast that reappears throughout the timelines. At once literal and evasive, this is a film that wears its heart on its beautifully stitched sleeve and its meaning in its design and yet finds so many facets in which to mirror its ideas throughout its incarnations. It failed to connect with audiences on its initial release, but gets a second chance on home video, where its 170-minute length may not be such an issue. Blu-ray, DVD, and On Demand. Videodrone's review is here.

 

Check out MSN's exclusive "Cloud Atlas" infographic and enter to win a Blu-ray combo pack from MSN and Warner Home Video.

 

"A Glimpse Inside the Mind Of Charles Swan III" (Lionsgate), the first feature from Roman Coppola since "CQ" more than a decade ago, stars Charlie Sheen as a hedonistic, ego-fueled graphic artist facing an early-life crisis. Blu-ray and DVD, also at Redbox.

 

"Frankie Go Boom" (Universal), a comedy about sibling rivalry and practical joking gone awry starring Charlie Hunnam and Chris O'Dowd "possesses a surprisingly sweet heart," recommends MSN film critic Kat Murphy. Blu-ray and DVD

 

Plus: the latest reboot of the landmark horror film titled simply "Texas Chainsaw" (Lionsgate, Blu-ray, Blu-ray 3D, DVD, On Demand and at Redbox) and the historical epic "Back to 1942" (Well Go, Blu-ray, DVD, and On Demand) from China.

 

Most releases are also available as digital download and VOD via iTunes, Amazon, and other web retailers and video services.

 

Browse the complete New Release Rack here

  

TV on Disc:

The central conflict of "Dexter: The Seventh Season" (Paramount), Showtime's blackly-comic series about TV's favorite serial-killer hero, isn't with another killer. This season Dexter's (Michael C. Hall) adoptive sister Debra (Jennifer Carpenter), who happens to be a police detective, discovers his secret and has to come to terms with the fact that her brother is the killer she's been hunting all these seasons. Family secrets can be so divisive. Blu-ray and DVD. Videodrone's review is here.

 

"The Bletchley Circle" (PBS) is a self-contained British mystery mini-series set in 1950s London, but it could easily launch a continuing series based on the strength of its characters, a quartet of women who were code breakers during World War II, and its setting. Blu-ray and DVD. Reviewed on Videodrone here.

What's the plot? Michael Douglas is getting married, and invites his old cohorts/partners in metaphorical crime DeNiro, Freeman, and Kline to meet him in Las Vegas for his bachelor party. Debauchery and, presumably, hilarity ensue. Also lots of old people jokes, plus Morgan Freeman gets drunk on Red Bull and vodka and then starts dancing by himself. So if you've ever wanted to see that—who hasn't?—there it is.

What say you, Hitlisters? Does "Last Vegas" have a chance to become the highest grossing "old people doing inappropriate things" movie since "Waking Ned Devine?" Could they somehow combine this with the "RED" franchise, just to add a few explosions? Check out the clip, posted after the break, courtesy of Yahoo!, and let us know what you think in the comments...

Bing: 'Planes' | Dane Cook

Due to recent casting changes—Cook was only recently added to the film's extensive roster of voice talent, which includes Brad Garrett, Teri Hatcher, Cedric the Entertainer, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, John Cleese, Sinbad (!), the "Top Gun" duo of Anthony Edwards and Val Kilmer, plus sportscasters Colin Cowherd and Brent Musburger—the two plus minute long clip doesn't contain any spoken dialog. Not that it suffers for it. In fact, the whole effect is such that it makes us wonder why Disney couldn't release the film as is, as a silent film with only music. Although we're technically missing Dane Cook's dialog, we're not exactly missing him, if you know what we mean...

What do you think, Hitlisters? Check out the trailer, posted below, and let us know in the comments, or tell us on MSN Movies Facebook and Twitter.

Horror films take top honors in the Netflix new releases this week.

 

Newly-anointed Oscar winner Jennifer Lawrence takes a detour into horror in "House at the End of the Street" (2012), playing the new girl in a neighborhood where a grisly crime wiped out an entire family except for the enigmatic teenage son. Ill-advised curiosity ensues. In words of MSN film critic Glenn Kenny, "originality, or lack thereof, isn't really the movie's problem. Execution is."

 

"Dead Snow" (2009) – There's blood on the snow when Nazi zombies rise from the powder of the Norwegian Alps to feed on the flesh vacationing innocents in this dryly hilarious horror comedy. Writer/director Tommy Wirkola gives it a macabre sense of splatter humor a la "Evil Dead 2" (complete with zombie hunters armed with chainsaws and other deep woods implements of destruction) without self-conscious wisecracking of the genre, and accomplishes it all with a crisp professionalism.

 

"Kill List" (2011) is a British hit-man thriller that swerves into a jangly horror film. Directed by Ben Wheatley ("Down Terrace"), the film is "harrowing, inventive, disturbing and shudderingly brisk," in the words of MSN film critic Glenn Kenny. It's also pretty darn dark and very unsettling as it takes viewers down unexpected alleys.

 

For fans of extreme cinema, here are a couple that will shake up even the hardiest souls. Lars von Trier's "Antichrist" (2009) with Willen Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg is a harrowing portrait of marriage and mourning as a morass of anger, suspicion and power in a diseased world, a vision both beautiful and sour, serious and seriously screwed up. Gaspar Noe's violent "Irreversible" uses the cinema as an assault weapon to tell the story of a loving couple (Monica Bellucci and Vincent Cassel) destroyed by a random rape and the rage-fueled revenge, in reverse: a fever-induced nightmare reimagining of “Memento.”

 

On the lighter side is "Lagaan" (2001), a sweeping epic-length Bollywood musical that spins romantic triangles, solidarity through teamwork, and simple melodramatic clashes of good and evil into explosions of color, song, and happy endings and climaxes with a three day long cricket match (!) between arrogant British colonial rulers and a scruffy team of underdogs in 19th century India.

 

Dax Shepard writes, co-directs, and stars in "Hit & Run" (Universal), and action comedy with Kristen Bell, Kristen Chenoweth, and Tom Arnold. MSN film critic Glenn Kenny calls it "one of the summer's most enjoyable surprises, a consistently disarming romantic comedy…"

More recommended new arrivals at Videodrone

For more releases, see Hot Tips and Top Picks: DVDs, Blu-rays and streaming video for week of May 14