It's not exactly pretty to watch, either technically or in terms of the seriously wacked human behavior it shows, but the scalding honesty of it, in its peculiar torn-and-frayed way, delivers a harsh poetic beauty.

If I were the smart-ass type, I would call TARNATION a looking-back, I've-suffered-but-I'm-still-standing movie...but that 's wrong because it somehow coagulates into a piece that machine-guns and lifts you up at the same time.

Just as Truman Capote once said of Jack Kerouac's "On The Road," "That's not writing, it's typing," one could say about TARNATION that it's not filmmaking but editing. But that would be missing the spiritual point.

It's the heart of this thing -- the way it seems to scrape not just Caouette's emotional insides but that of his friends and family, while delivering a powerful metaphor about struggle and survival -- that makes it extra special.

It's basically Caouette's life as captured by home movies, old and new video, audio tape, stills and whatever else he could get his hands on, all of it slapped together on Macintosh I-Movie software for $218 dollars and change.

The film leaves you with admiration for Caouette for his not succumbing to a self-destructive, leave-me-alone lifestyle (his assaultive, rough-and-tumble youth left him with plenty of excuses to go this route, trust me), and instead toughing it out and lighting a candle by making art out of chaos and pain.

TARNATION will open on the art theatre circuit next October, and will be making the film-festival rounds before this, up to and including possible slots at...whoops, I'm not supposed to say. A couple of prominent early-fall festivals....howzat?

I hung out with the TARNATION crew -- Caouette's manager Bobbi Thompson, Howard Gertler of the marketing/media firm Process, Wellspring Distribution marketing director Dan Goldberg, and the film's publicist Mickey Cottrell -- on Monday evening.

I had asked Cottrell if I could do a brief interview with Caouette that evening rather than the following afternoon, when I had some conflicts, and the relentlessly accommodating Mickey said sure. But Caouette was unavailable (resting, fried) when we arrived at the TARNATION apartment, so we all went out for pizza and salad at Le Petit Majestic, the outdoor café behind the Grand Hotel.

I spoke to Caouette for about ten or fifteen minutes when we returned. We talked about what he'd been doing at Cannes (endless interviews), and what other festival visits might be in store. He said his next film will hopefully be another montage piece that will focus on a particular Hollywood actress from the 1930s and '40s, the idea being to cut her work together to it expresses a particular emotional or experiential flavor.

Right up until last fall Caouette was supporting himself as a parking attendant at a Fifth Avenue jewelry store. He finally quit in October '03 ot thereabouts in order to hunker down and finish a final cut of TARNATION in preparation for last January's Sundance Film Festival.

A couple of times during the evening Cottrell read aloud a rave review from the French newspaper LIBERATION. Of course, I was too lazy to take notes. But here's a similarly charged reaction from Sundance programmer Shari Frilot:

She called TARNATION "a dazzling display of energy and visual splendor...a raw and sensual masterpiece of self-destruction and rebirth that announces the arrival of a new filmmaking talent....and establishes Caouette as a cinematic visionary to reckon with."

Detour

Some kind of last-minute screw-up has happened with Wong Kar Wai's eagerly awaited 2046 (allegedly due to lab complications or a shipping snafu in Paris - take your pick), and the result is that Thursday morning's Grand Palais press screening of his film, as well as Wong Kar Wai's scheduled 11 am press conference that would have followed, has been cancelled.

2046 will not be seen until Thursday evening's gala screening, apparently, and there may be some kind of midnight press showing scheduled also, for those striving to meet extra- terrifying deadlines. There may be a newly-scheduled Friday morning (5.21.04) press screening followed by Wong Kar Wai's press conference.

I asked a few Cannes veterans during Tuesday night's Independent Film Channel 10th Anniversary party if an in-competition Cannes entry by a major auteur-level director has ever suffered a cock-up of this magnitude, and nobody could think of one...although late-arriving films (i.e., those showing in the market, or showing in other categories) are par for the course.

Sweet Spots

Sometimes what you hear in Cannes about a supposedly good or worthwhile market film turns out to be true, but not that often.

When you boil it down, market buzz is sometimes about this or that person having been touched in their "sweet spot," which doesn't necessarily mean the movie that's done the job is exceptional or even passable. It just means people are susceptible.

Consider the examples of Michael Winterbottom's NINE SONGS and Mennan Yapo's SOUNDLESS, which was produced by XFilme's Tom Tykwer.

I was intrigued by an article I'd read about NINE SONGS, and particularly by a description of graphic sex scenes. So I went to the Wild Bunch offices (just opposite the Grand Palais press room) on Tuesday morning and got myself an invite to a market screening set for later that day at the Star cinema on rue d'Antibes.

The inciting paragraph was in a story by the GUARDIAN's Charlotte Higgins, and read as follows: "The most sexually explicit film in the history of mainstream British cinema, containing unsimulated sex scenes including fellatio, ejaculation and cunnilingus, many in close-up, yesterday had its first screening at Cannes."

A big crowd showed, and it was touch and go about whether I'd make it inside...but I managed. VARIETY's Todd McCarthy and Derek Elley pushed their way in, as did London DAILY MAIL columnist Baz Bamigboye and New York DAILY NEWS critic Jamie Bernard.

And for all that effort, NINE SONGS blew chunks. Pour moi, anyway. It felt common, sloppy, dreary and unfocused. Not to mention tediously acted, indifferently shot and inelegantly edited, and damn near amateurish.

But just before heading off to the Star I was told by Film Finder's Peter Belsito to catch SOUNDLESS, which he said was "the best thing I've seen here...it's commercial and not 'arty,' but it's amazingly good."

SOUNDLESS sounds a bit like Luc Besson's THE PROFESSIONAL, which frankly gives me pause, as I'm sniffing the whiff of cliché. It's about a hit-man named Viktor (Joachim Krol) who falls in love with a young girl named Nina, whose life he's saved.

The vulnerability of love weakens his routine and Viktor's "well-ordered life starts to fall apart," according to a description I found online, "[leading to] a police profiler soon hot on his trail. Viktor doesn't know if he can trust Nina with his true identity. But he's ready to risk everything for his love - although the noose around his neck is tightening by the minute."

Well, who knows...? There are no more market screenings, unfortunately. If anyone has a DVD they'd be willing to pass along, great.

In NINE SONGS, we're introduced to the youngish Matt (Kieran O'Brien) and a much younger woman named Lisa. They are first shown, I think, meeting at a club. They are soon back at his place, in any case...fucking. They keep it up throughout the film. They have a bit of a row at one point, but it doesn't go anywhere. Lisa blows Matt at one point late in the film and brings him to orgasm. Watching this didn't change my life.

Some have called this footage pornographic; I call it boring. All fucking is tedious unless you're doing it.

Winterbottom has Matt narrate the film from an after-the-fact point, when he's flying over Antarctica on some kind of scientific mission. Winterbottom also intercuts the sex with nine songs performed by a series of performing rock bands, including Super Furry Animals, the Dandy Warhols, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and Franz Ferdinand. The footage of this is drab and plodding.

Winterbottom has his two actors improvise much of their dialogue, but something is clearly wrong with this approach when Lisa is blindfolded by Matt as part of a sexual game they're playing and one of her improvs is, "I can't see!"

The GUARDIAN story said that "the woman playing Lisa has asked that her name not be used in coverage of the movie, although it does appear in the credits. Winterbottom told Higgins that 'she's not an actress. She really likes the film but she is going back to [a] university and I think she wants to keep a low profile." Smart girl.

More Moore

Whatever FAHRENHEIT 9/11's Michael Moore is like to deal with on a business or creative-collaboration level (the legend is that he's no day the beach), he's one very likable dude -- regular-guy humble, focused, self-deprecatingly honest -- when he's presenting himself to the press.

This was my impression after taking part in a round-table discussion with the famously rotund filmmaker at the Majestic Hotel on Tuesday afternoon, along with several other American journos.

Moore said there would be no distribution deal announced that day or on Wednesday. He declared that the key issue as far as he and Miramax chief Harvey Weinstein were concerned was "control" - i.e., getting it released on the July 4th weekend, and seeing to a properly-timed DVD release in October.

I asked Moore about the Movie City News claim that Focus Features had sewn up distribution rights to FAHRENHEIT 9/11. All Moore said was that Focus is in the game and would be a great fit, as would Newmarket ("Bob Berney? A genius!") and/or Lions Gate ("I know [John] Feltheimer...good relationship there").

He said that one of the delays in announcing a distribution deal was that Miramax had only recently fully extricated itself from the tentacles of the Disney distribution deal.

I was told Tuesday night by a distribution veteran that Weinstein and Moore are offering not-very-generous terms, or somewhat less than the 10% that Bob Berney's Newmarket got for "servicing" THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST, to prospective distrib partners.

Complicating the deal is that fact that "you've got that demand for a release on July 4th, which has a slight competition element," the veteran said, "plus you've got Harvey and Michael -- very easygoing, non-demanding types, right? -- to answer to."

One of the journos at the table read aloud a portion of Todd McCarthy's negative VARIETY review. It claimed Moore has given up being a documentarian in favor of being a man who cares only about the truth as he sees it, or words to that effect. Moore responded to this by saying, "Did he see the film?"

He said a minute or two after this that he likes and respects McCarthy, adding that Todd has told him he disagrees with his political views.

Moore asked a bunch of us what the general reaction had been, and I passed along that it had so far been 90% positive or higher (the NEW YORK TIMES' A.O. Scott notably called it Moore's best film ever, as well as a patriotic one), and that many journos I'd spoken to, men and women alike, had, like me, gotten teary-eyed toward the end.

Not to mention that incredibly long standing ovation (20 minutes long, it was reported, although I find that a little hard to believe) after the Grand Palais showing early Monday evening.

I told him I admired the section of FAHRENHEIT 9/11 in which he portrays the horror of September 11th without showing any violent footage. Moore uses only sound and a black screen for a minute and half or so, and then cuts to faces of average onlookers watching or otherwise dealing with the shock of it.

Moore said his staff had collected lots of horrific video footage of jumpers and bodies and body parts lying all over the place, and said he realized some might have expected that he would push the heavy stuff for impact's sake, but he gradually realized that resorting to an opposite strategy was far more effective.

Moore said he had seen the similar Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu short that used the same black-screen, sound-only approach that was part of 11.9.01, the '02 film about the WTC tragedy, but he didn't say anything beyond that.

A couple of my table-mates were saying more critical things about the film than they were willing to let go with after Moore sat down, but that's entertainment journalism for you. It's hard to be Mike Wallace when you're part of a group effort....or candid even. I've wimped out a few times myself.

Byck, Not Bicke

I gradually got to the bottom of the Sam Bicke thing after posting Monday's piece about THE ASSASSINATION OF RICHARD NIXON, in which Sean Penn plays this real-life sad sack who tried to hijack a plane in '74 with an intention of crashing it into the White House.

I was a little confused why I couldn't find "Sam Bicke" on a Google search that I did last Sunday evening. Well, it was just a spelling error in the press notes. The actual would-be assassin's name was Samuel Byck. He rated being included in Stephen Sondheim's "Assassins" (right in there with Lee H. Oswald and John Wilkes Booth), and the Byck spelling brings up all kinds of stuff when you enter it on Google.

So I did some reading about the guy, and was struck by the fact that NIXON director Niels Mueller and his screenwriting partner Kevin Kennedy had decided not to use two stand-out incidents in Byck's life. One is that he put a bullet in his head after being shot by airport cops during his hijack attempt. The other is that he was arrested in front of the White House in '74 after staging a protest while wearing a Santa Claus suit.

Here is most of L.A. WEEKLY piece I found about Byck, written by Matthew C. Duersten:

"In the evolution of terrorism, the use of American commercial airliners as murder weapons was 'pioneered' by a plump, sweaty and quite insane out-of-work tire salesman named Samuel Joseph Byck.

"Just before 7:15 a.m. on February 22, 1974, the 44-year-old Philadelphian cut a sudden, vicious swath through Baltimore-Washington International Airport, pulling a .38-caliber revolver, shooting an airport security guard in the back, and, before stunned onlookers, leaping over the security check and boarding a DC-9 Delta Airlines Flight 523 to Atlanta. Byck then killed a pilot and wounded another after being informed they couldn't depart without removing the wheel blocks; in desperation, he grabbed a nearby passenger and shouted at her to 'fly the plane.'

"Seconds later, police bullets smashed through one of the cabin-door windows, wounding Byck. As authorities moved in, he put the revolver to his head and pulled the trigger. Under his body was found a briefcase gasoline bomb.

"In the investigation that followed this pathetic incident, it was discovered that Samuel Byck had been making himself known to the Secret Service since 1972, after making threats against then-President Nixon's life. (He'd also been sending bizarre, rambling tapes to such public figures as Jonas Salk, Senator Abraham Ribicoff, and his idol, Leonard Bernstein.)

"Rejected for a government loan from the Small Business Administration, Byck had focused his resentment on Nixon as the figurehead of the U.S. capitalist system and obsessively began to plot his downfall in the most literal terms.

"In 1974, Byck hatched a plan he dubbed 'Operation Pandora's Box,' which he outlined on a tape he mailed a few hours before the hijack attempt to WASHINGTON POST columnist Jack Anderson: "I will try to get the plane aloft and fly it toward the target area, which will be Washington, D.C. I will shoot the pilot and then in the last few minutes try to steer the plane into the target, which is the White House."

"Nixon was actually in the Executive Mansion at the hour of Byck's would-be assassination, hunkered down in mid-Watergate."

Moore, Bush, Fahrenheit 9/11

"Thanks for your great FAHRENHEIT 9/11 review. I am really looking forward to seeing this documentary, although I feel that it may already be 'preaching to the converted, so to speak. Are you prepared for the wave of angry e-mails you are about to receive from patriotic Americans who are really pissed off that the first amendment also applies to overweight American documentary filmmakers?

"You should see the state of Aint It Cool's talk-backs whenever a FAHRENHEIT 9/11 story is posted. Actually, avoid it at all costs -- it's ridiculous. It dismays me that many of my fellow movie geeks are downright nasty right-wing nut-jobs.

"Call me naive, but I always assumed that if people liked the same music, movies and books as me that they must also share the same political ideals. Unfortunately, many of my fellow geeks seem to believe all of the bullshit many of our favorite movies espouse, which is America is always the good guy, and mortal conflict is always portrayed in overly simplistic black and white, good versus evil terms.

"Most sane and intelligent people realize that this is rarely the case and that the war in Iraq like all of the other wars is a story painted in many shades of grey.

"I hope that FAHRENHEIT 9/11 is released in the States before the election in November and that as many people as possible go and see it. If it'sis as emotive as you describe I am sure it will help make a difference at the voting booths. There is a very real threat that if Bush and his axis of evil (Rumsfield, Cheney, Wolfowitz) get back into the White House for another four years, the draft will be reintroduced. How many American mothers and fathers want to share the same fate as that of Lila Lipscomb and her son?" -- Jerome Mazandarani, www.Vibewire.net, London, UK.

Wells to Mazandarani: Moore has said the film will be in U.S. theatres in July. This is one of the terms he and Harvey Weinstein are insisting upon in their current negotiations with distributors.

"I appreciate the candor and obvious emotional impact that you shared with readers concerning your experience with FAHRENHEIT 911. I could sense in your words the true stirring you felt inside. But my desire to see this film is still as dead and dormant as it was before I read your piece.

"I just don't have the ability within me to give my time to Michael Moore's rhetoric just as much as I cannot abide piddling away an hour with Bill O'Reilly or Rush Limbaugh. These extreme viewpoints on both sides do nothing but equate our world with being black and white. You must either hate and rail against (Bush, Republicans, Kerry, Democrats) or you must love and adore them. There seems to be no middle ground for these people being human beings with countless flaws (like each of us) doing our best.

"I too grieve at the thought of young American boys losing their life's breath in a unstable, violent land miles away. But my heart also ached [from]watching a piece on HBO's Real Sports (Bryant Gumbel I believe) that painted a horrific picture of Iraqi Olympic athletes tortured, beaten, raped, and murdered by Uday Hussein for losing sporting events. I just don't believe it's as simple or easy as the equation of Bush equaling evil (as Moore has sometimes stated).

"You yourself have withdrawn from movies that paint such a black and white picture (and understandably so) such as the LORD OF THE RINGS flicks. I personally believe that both extremes of the spectrum (whether Moore or Limbaugh) are damning to the fabric of America and its people. But thank you for revealing your experience. It was honestly touching to read." -- Brad Jones.

Wells to Jones: Has Moore literally said Bush is evil? Maybe, but I'm not aware of this. I personally don't think Bush is forceful or assured enough to manifest evil all on his lonesome. I think he's a puppet figure for a very pernicious elite cabal, which makes him a kind of enabler.

But coping with the faint urge to commit suicide while watching the RINGS films (which I sat through...all three of 'em) does not equate in the slightest with people refusing to watch a well-made film out of fear it may upset them by challenging their entrenched opinions. Thanks for saying what you did, though. I really was feeling it when I wrote it.

"You've made no attempt to hide where you stand politically and I have no problem with that. But your unsurprisingly positive reaction to Michael Moore's FAHRENHEIT 9/11 is extremely flawed.

"A prediction from 20,000 miles away: George W. Bush will walk it in November. And probably thanks to a good push from the Hollywood left.

"As for Michel Moore and FAHRENHEIT 9/11, that urban myth about the bin Ladens getting a free ticket out of the U.S .has been shot down already on spinsanity. As for the moment Bush was told about the WTC disaster, I thought he was pretty calm and self-possessed. What did you expect him to do? Jump out of his chair and chew up the scenery like Sean Penn?" -- Brian Lee, Sydney, Australia.

Wells to Lee: Moore has done his homework and knows between spin and fact regarding the Saudi/bin Laden family fly-outs after 9.11. Craig Unger, author of "House of Bush, House of Saud," thoroughly researched this, got hold of solid quotes and printed confirming data, and reported this findings in his book. It's not spinsanity. That's what you're writing ....no?

Okay, George W. was calm and self-possessed in that classroom after they told him about the second jet. For seven minutes. While he did and said nothing. Nothing but read from a children's book and sit there like a guy waiting for a job interview while the greatest horror to affect this nation in its history was happening 1200 miles to the north. Maybe you're right. Why would a Chief of State be expected to do anything at all at such a moment? Chill, right?

Honestly, Craig... doesn't this tell you anything? What would you do, say, if you were sitting at your desk and an associate suddenly came up and told you your son or father had just had his head cut off by terrorists? Wait, I know the answer......you would sit there at your desk, quietly meditating and staring at the wall for seven minutes. Not a word, not a phone call to a friend, no attempts to find out anything more....nothing. Because if nothing else, you're one calm and self-possessed guy.

"There is no way a movie by Michael Moore will affect the outcome of a general election. None.

"First, think of the dynamics of the situation. Elections are won and lost in urban cities and metropolitan areas. Forty red states to ten blue states. But even in the Blue States, the large urban areas are surrounded by Red Counties. They are, by any sense of the term, middle-class. Their children fight and die. Are these the average Americans that you claim this film is meant to appeal to? These are people who will listen to a man who preached to them the evils of guns and stupidity of America? These are the people who Moore takes for idiots and dupes of America's piecemeal corporate structure.

"I think we are both realistic enough to know that they will never see this movie; but if they did would they really care or listen? If Bush is to lose, it will be at the behest of voters who didn't show four years ago,and not at the prodding of Michael Moore.

"I am a conservative, I will be voting for George W. Bush in November. A good friend of mine just returned from Iraq where he served as an artillery gunner on transports that ran in and out of Fujallah. He was shot at and saw people get shot. I have a friend stationed in Quait who sees very little action but has the daily potential to be moved into more hot areas. I have a friend stationed in Abu Garib prison and also fought against the insurgents in Fujallah.

"I pray for these men everyday and am sorry that they are in Iraq while I sit safely in the United States. I often worry about the way the conflict is being handled, but I put my faith in Bush to strongly defend our country and the best interests of the world community. You may find that laughable, but replace Bush with Kerry in that sentence and see how much sense it makes.

"I am also a realist. George W. Bush may very well lose this election. He may deserve to. But I would trade a Bush loss for a victory in Iraq anytime. Conversely, I fear the like of Michael Moore almost delights in finding footage of a tortured Iraqi,not because he empathizes with the Iraqi but because he hates Bush and it makes our President look worse.

"Would Moore take a peaceful exit from Iraq, the capture of Osama Bin-Landen and full-economic boom if it meant dealing with Bush another four years? I hate bartering in the world of the hypothetical; but I think you and I both know the answer to my question.

"Sure, I'll go see Moore's movie. I really will. I might not be pissed, but I'll be shocked if I can find any semblance of a reasonable thesis." -- Robert Seefeldt

Wells to Seefeldt: Fair enough. You're at least willing to see FAHRENHEIT 9/11. We all know the bottom line about these things, which is that most of us tend to see and hear what we want to see and hear, and disregard the rest. That's a Paul Simon line, I think.

The most depressing thing you said in your letter follows in this vein. You said that "we are both realistic enough to know that [middle-class Red Staters] will never see this movie, but if they did would they really care or listen?" On some level you seem almost comforted by this. You're at least okay with it, and that I find very disturbing.

Think about this, Robert. What you've perceived as a likely refusal by a great mass of people to watch and consider the import of this film, which I swear is not leftist blather and attitude but made up of separate pieces of apparently well-researched and/or incontrovertible facts -- like I said on Monday, Moore hoists the Bushies on their own petards...what you see as a probable refusal to even see the film is okay in your book? Which is to say you approve, you understand, etc.?

You're obviously a smart guy, Robert, but that's totally unsupportable. Ignorance is a cancer that must be fought every day we live on this earth, and you shrug your shoulders at people who may be inclined to keep themselves clueless on purpose?

I'm also stymied by the way you link the fact of your friends' service in Iraq to a knee-jerk support of Bush, a guy who rich boy'ed and film-flammed his way out of military service, and I love your inclination to accept the notion that John Kerry, a purpe heart veteran, would, if elected President, not be as concerned about your friends' lives or integrity as Bush allegedly is now.

You just don't want to let that one in, do you? Kerry served honorably, Bush finagled his way out. How can you call yourself a conservative and say this doesn't matter?

Those Seven Minutes

"So Bush waited 7 minutes after hearing about the second plane hitting during the 9/11 attacks. Wow, that makes him the worst U.S. president ever, right?

"What would you have done in his shoes? What did you have done in your own? Would you have preferred a knee-jerk reaction? The country's many agencies did not need his approval to launch standard emergency response. I can say with confidence that no lives were lost in that seven minutes our president took to gather his emotions.

"I think the reason most liberals hate Bush so much is because he is a man of emotion. Long the liberals' forte (acting out of heart), Bush makes no attempt to look unflappable. He is human, in fact the kind of human that most Americans can relate to, as opposed to most New England democrats who have no concept about middle-America.

"So to say that this film will be damning is the definition of wishful thinking. Truth is, most people in his shoes would have done the same thing." -- Erik Yorke, Cincinnati, Ohio.

Wells to Yorke: If I had been Bush at that moment, I would have stood up, thanked the children and their teacher for inviting me to their classroom, urged them to always get good grades, and excused myself. I would then have myself driven back to the local airport as I gathered all the information I could about what was happening, why, who might be behind the attacks, etc.

"And I would then have flown straight back to Washington, D.C. The hell with security concerns. I would have flown straight into the smoke and the shock and the terror. I would have visited Pentagon disaster scene as quickly as possible. But that's me.

"Bush's seven minutes of indecision will not hurt him in Red States because, speaking as a Red Stater, we all reacted the exact same way. Our brains just cannot process that information quickly. It will only affirm the 40% of Red Americans' current beliefs. Nothing will change. This is a Red is from Mars, Blue is from Venus type thing.

"If you are at all curious about indecision by leaders in critical moments, it's actually a depressingly common occurence. Stalin at the outset of Barbarossa, MacArthur in Manila (the first time), Napoleon at Waterloo, etc. Some of these pauses were measured in hours, not minutes. And a general in a battle has a lot more to do than a President in a school!

"On the elections, please stop. All this horserace talk is complete nonsense. Here, I'll make it easy for you...

"90% of the electorate has already made up their minds. The US has been roughly 42%-42% Red/Blue since 1992. Despite the Republican (and Conservative) hopes, 9/11 did not shift the political landscape to the right. As always, winning key states will mostly come down to demographic shifts and get-out-the-vote drives. Localized, boring stuff. The only national factor to affect the race will be personality. And, if everyone is honest, they would admit John F Kerry has the exact same problems as Al Gore. He's not Bill Clinton." -- Bryan K. Smith

Praising Bean

"The best and practically only really good thing about TROY was the cocky swagger of Sean Bean's Odysseus. Every time he spouts overconfident rhetoric, you're tempted to pipe up, 'Just wait until the trip home.' He'd be perfect for the role if they made a movie of The Odyssey, though I don't think TROY has made that more likely." -- Sam Adams, Movies Editor, PHILADELPHIA CITY PAPER.