Cannes in a Tizzy Over Nicole Kidman's Southern-Fried Tramp, Pete Doherty's Gallic Roué

Never quite the bastion of intellectual severity that the Berlin and Rotterdam festivals are, Cannes invariably serves up a little squalor and turpitude for the press to rake over and relish. Lee Daniels’s “The Paperboy,” playing in the main competition this year, and Sylvie Verheyde’s “Confession of a Child of the Century,” playing in Un Certain Regard, appear to have fulfilled the brief of getting critics to salivate while waxing lyrical about each movie’s demerits. Read the full post on our new culture blog, Spotlight.