You know who else works their more slim bums off at Cannes? The publicists. God bless 'em. The press like to whine like babies with an empty bottle, but it's a hard job, wrangling directors, actors, and journalists -- when you have them all in the same space for only 54 minutes, and everybody is running late, and everyone has special needs.

Filmmaker Michael Moore (Francois Mori/AP)

I finished interviewing Michael Moore and another reporter from Chicago was ready to do his one-on-one. But first.

Moore: "Okay, great, I just have to go to the bathroom."
Publicist: "Just do this interview first?"
Moore: "What?"
Publicist: "Can it wait?"
Moore: "Can you believe what you just said?"
Publicist realizes she just asked the Oscar-winning director to... hold it.
Moore: "I mean I don't care. It's just me. But can you believe you just said that in front of other people? A man needs to go to the toilet and it's "wait"? What if I were a woman?"
Chicago Reporter: "Seriously, I can wait. No problem. I just need ten minutes. Go. Really. Please."

But Moore holds it. He's a pro. And the publicist? She's a pro, too. I make a joke that Moore should be outfitted in those special NASA diapers and I think it is an idea that may catch on.

Let's hear it for the international entertainment press corps, the hardest working professionals at Cannes (seriously), all that writing and blogging and videotaping and interviewing and crashing the buffet line. I mean, you have wine with lunch and try to work. Harder than it looks. Seriously, the Washington press corps has something to learn from my Cannes colleagues. Fashion tip? Some of the reporters here wear short shorts and heels. Their questions get answered. Also, today I saw a guy with a press credential around his neck, and his shirt completely unbuttoned, like Fabio. And Henri Behar, the French journalist and film critic who emcees the official press conferences? He favors two earrings, scarves and the occasional head band. And you know what? He rules. Funny, informed, and as fast on his feet as a cobra if a cobra had feet.

And wouldn't it be nice if at press conferences, reporters in Washington could begin by first telling Hillary or Rudy or Mitt (its customary to address talent by their first names) how much you love their work?

Hacks back home: Try it! Here's an example. "Barack, loved the books. Just loved them. That scene where you go back to Kenya..." Here reporter clutches chest and sighs. "Now, we're seeing your health care proposals. They're amazing. Simply amazing." Here all the reporters in the room nod their heads and mouth the word amazing. "So what I'm wondering is, how did you do it?"

Don't believe me? Here's an actual question from the press conference with director Julian Schnabel for his film "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly." Question: "Julian, the film is stunning. So good. I just congratulate you. The images are so amazing, so riveting..."

Once you get used to it, it does get easier.

As news of the Wolfowitz departure from the World Bank swept through the press center at the Cannes Film Festival... Just kidding. Martians could could abduct Hillary and we wouldn't hear about it unless Michael Moore was helming. We get our news from Variety and the Hollywood Reporter and Cannes Market News, and I was shocked to read that there was a party I missed for Abel Ferrera's film "Go Go Tales" that featured a pool filled with pink suds and wild bikinis, in which tuxedoed guests were invited to "fish for bimbos." Honest to God.

Anna Nicole Smith in her last film 'Illegal Aliens.' (REUTERS/Courtesy EdgewoodStudios/Handout )

I did make it last night to an afterparty allegedly for the cast of "Oceans Thirteen." It was the usual millhouse of pretty people clawing at canapes. Of course, there was no Clooney, Pitt, or Barkin that I saw. We should have smelt a rat when the publicists called us with an invitation that included two tickets. For a hot party, you got to beg them.

Saw a large poster on the Croisette for "Illegal Aliens," and would be the movie, not the legislation. It stars Anna Nicole Smith, who is there just as big as life under the teaser "They're here to save the world?" Nobody finds this appalling. They'll sell the movie.

Marjane Satrapi plops down at a table and reaches for a slice of bread. "I'm starving!" She's the author of the graphic novels, beginning with "Persepolis," which have sold more than a million copies around the world. The cartoon illustrations -- in stark black and white -- tell the story of her life as a young girl living with progressive parents during the 1979 Iranian revolution and Iraq-Iran war of the 1980s, as her country swings from early days of freedom from the Shah's regime to the ideological rigidity and fear inspired by the religious ayatollahs who draped the country in a black veil. The books are personal, political, funny, sometimes terrifying, and they feel very real, a kind of decoder ring for what life has really been, not cartoony Western-version in "the axis of evil." Like how young Marjane coveted bootleg tapes of ABBA and The BeeGees.

Satrapi is at Cannes because she has transformed the books into an animated film,, which has impressed audiences here, with some critics comparing it to Art Spiegelman's "Maus." Satrapi has spent most of her adult life living as an exile in Paris, and the movie is in French, with the voice of her mother done by Catherine Deneuve. The material is intelligent, geared for teens and adults, but a kid could get it -- though in this cartoon, the characters smoke like fiends. (An English version, with new actors doing voices, is planned for release in the United States by December).

"You know making a movie from a comic book that has worked is an extremely bad idea," she says. "But we were able to do it the way we wanted. We were like children with a new toy." (Thankfully a waiter hands her plate piled with food and she tucks in). She is asked about the reaction of the Iranian government to her film, and most unusually, instead of fanning the flames, she douses them.

"I'm very liberal, so it is very normal from the second I say something, they protest," she says. " But it's also good to put things into context, because after the protest by the Iranians, they (meaning the press) made it a big deal, like a war was going to happen. It's nothing like that. The Ministry of Culture sent a letter to the French Embassy in Iran and that was it. It's nothing bigger. But people, they love when it becomes sensational and they want to make it bigger and bigger, not understanding that by making it bigger, they create a real danger. There is nothing big, so let's put it down, just don't make it bigger because you will put me in danger, and I'm not in danger, so please slow down."

A few years ago, Satrapi gave a talk at the academy at West Point. "The question was asked. You go to West Point and you're giving our enemies some information which was not true, I was going there to say that President Bush was an idiot and there was no reason to make a war. That is what I said."

She says that the movie won't be shown in Iran -- in theaters. But everyone who wants to view the film will see the DVD. "I don't love everybody," Satrapi says. "There is no reason everybody would love me. So one day in my life if everybody loves me I will ask questions about myself because I will have lost my dignity and my integrity because it is not possible for everybody to love me. So this is life, right?"

The "Ocean's Thirteen" battleship USS International Publicity pulled into Cannes harbor this morning. After the morning press screening, the hallway critic's Insta-Buzz (copyright pending) seemed to be that the latest installment was better than the second one and not as fresh as the first. In "O13," George Clooney, Brad Pitt and their metrosexual gang of thieves are all back in Vegas for a revenge score against casino owner, five-star hotelier and boss-from-hell Willy Bank/Al Pacino, who plays his part with patented flamboyance, but not much humor. We kept waiting for him to push his face into a bowl of coke and break out the machine gun. Anyway, the movie is 9/10th setup and 1/10th payoff. The plot is to take down Willy/Al who ripped off team mentor Reuben Tishkoff/Elliot Gould (giving him a heart attack) and thus return the planet to a state of moral balance.

George Clooney and Brad Pitt in 'Oceans 13.' (The Weinstein Company)

So, the boys load the dice, hack the computers, rig the slots, shuffle the cards and create an earthquake. It's a Robin Hood heist. Screw with one, screw with them all. Understand, it's a sequel's sequel. There are plot and logic holes you could drive a stretch Hummer through. But the boys look great doing it. (Alas, there's no real love interest in this one, except Ellen Barkin, who plays a "cougar" (older hottie).

The press conference was as stuffed as a tick at a puppy mill, and true to the form, the cast kept the rat pack banter going (though they we're drinking Badoit water, not highballs). There's a recurring Oprah gag. "I had to sleep with Oprah to get on the show," says Andy Garcia. A few groans. "He didn't really," says Clooney. "She thought he was Terry Benedict," his character, says Matt Damon.

Will there be an "O14"? Says Clooney, "we think we sapped that tree." What was it like working with Pacino? "Naturally, he was nervous at first," says Pitt. "He took notes from all of us." Seriously, "he raised our respectability and we lowered his," Pitt says. A Hong Kong reporter asks about the ethnic stereotyping of Chinese people in the character of The Amazing Yen (real-life Chinese acrobat Shaobo Qin). The boys don't accept the premise. One of the running gags in the franchise is that when the TMY speaks Chinese, all the con artists in the crew understand what he's saying. Making fun of him? "More than my giant nose," asks Damon, who wears a prosthetic. Says director Steven Soderbergh, "I think it's an equal opportunity offender." In Chinese, Shaobo replies, "it's just entertainment."

In the closing minutes of the movie, as Clooney is about to board his plane, Pitt tells him see you around, but next time, don't put on any weight between gigs. Clooney tells Pitt, yeah, "and why don't you settle down and have some kids." Life. Art. Imitates.

Editor's note: For more from the Cannes Film Festival, see our photo gallery.

"Maloin lives a simple life," begins the film synopsis. "He comes face to face with issues of morality, sin, punishment, the line between innocence and complicity in a crime, and this state of scepsis leads him to the ontological question of the meaning and worth of existence."

Wait, this isn't the screening of Quentin Tarantino's recut "Death Proof"? No, we've ended up at "The Man from London," the new film from Hungarian director Béla Tarr which premieres today. "This film is about desire," the director's notes continue, about "man's indestructible longing for a life of freedom and happiness, about illusions never to be realized -- about things that give all of us energy to continue living, to go to sleep and get up day after day ...Maloin's story is ours - all of those who doubt and are able to question our humdrum existence."

We experience something new for us at Cannes. People actually walk out of Tarr's film. A trickle, then a stream. But after 132 minutes, we do understand. Maloin's story is ours!

Editor's note: For more from the Cannes Film Festival, read William Booth's latest Letter From Cannes: Angeline Jolie, Baring Her Soul on Behalf of a 'Mighty Heart.'

The boys from "Entourage" arrived at Cannes to film scenes for an upcoming episode about Vince and the crew coming to Cannes. HBO rolled them out of bed for a photo call and a press conference at the Hotel Majestic. The emcee introduced us to Jeremy Piven, which he pronounced Pie-Van. Funny. Why Cannes? Why now? "We're working," Kevin Dillon /Johnny Drama says. "We're going to throw Turtle in the Cannes and see if he floats," says Piven. Or is it Ari speaking? "We just got in last night," Piven explains.

"Speak for yourself," says Adrian Grenier, who got here a few days ago. Smart boy. He pronounces it "Cons," and Kevin Connolly (or is it his manger Eric?) corrects him, "I think it's "Can."

What's Grenier been up to? He flashes the Vince smile. "Research," he says.

The actors say that it is weird, because fans think they are the characters in "Entourage." Seeing them together doing a press conference, you can see why. (Wait, is this being filmed?) Says Jerry Ferrara, who plays Turtle, "People always want to smoke joints and drink with Turtle, and I just want to go to bed, and they're like disgusted." Grenier says that while he was here in Cannes alone, he could be Adrian Grenier, "I was enjoying being Adrian under the radar," but now that the "Entourage" entourage is assembled, "I'm Vince."

Vince? Adrian? "Once the cameras start rolling,' he says, "I'm the biggest star in town."

Got a lot of emails from readers about the piece on Michael Moore's new documentary "Sicko."

A couple of favorites...

Bill Booth, you ignorant, slimy, redneck (expletive). How dare you doubt that Michael Moore is telling the truth about American health care being a sick joke. Why you are so ethnocentric, that you can't deem to have "France" in the same font as "America," and instead resort to using cheap, condescending italics for the former. I just hope the new Democratic Congress bans your French Fried noggin from its menu. I hope Mr. Moore's documentary makes a ton of dough and convinces Americans to enact national health insurance. Otherwise, Mr.. Booth, you will never have enough money to surgically remove your American Taliban head out from the Post's Foggy Bottom and where it rightfully belongs... up Murdoch's at Fox News. Quite Fondly but Disrespectfully Yours, Ray

And this one...

Mr Booth, your colors show, how long would an indigent wait for a hip replacement in the US?
I am a physician currently working in a mental health center, I don't use capital letters because the care is so abismal that they don't deserve it. Your bias comes loud and clear, I hope you and your family never run out of insurance...

And Kent sent the following message:

Your sophomoric humor attempts in the piece about Michael Moore's new film is a disgrace for the Washington Post. There was a time when we could expect something above the level of a blog wanker in its commentary and reviews. Sloppy writing and bad thinking.

Hopped on the press van for the tootle out to the Hotel du Cap for a mini-press conference with Angelina Jolie. After our audience with Madame Jolie, one of my colleagues, the sophisticated Paris-based European Arts & Entertainment Correspondent for Newsweek, Dana Thomas, whispered in my ear: "Are you crazy? Why go back and write? Why? Why? Why not come for a swim? Oh, look there's George Clooney!" So we blew off the return shuttle. I recall that the Hotel du Cap was the scene of my Vanity Fair piece the other day. It is the one of the ultimate luxury resorts on the planet. It is Barry Diller's playpen.

So, Dana rents a chaise poolside for 70 euros. Why? Silly peasants, you cannot swim with George Clooney for free. It is going to cost you. I go in search of a swimsuit. The helpful matron in the Eden Roc beach shop (get this) unlocks a case and presents me with a pair of pink shorts. I whip out the Visa. I sign. And as I am signing, I realize I have just purchased a pair of Vilebrequin trunks that cost (our shareholders?) 117 euros, which is like my monthly car payment. But I cannot resist. We go down to the grotto. The Mer Mediterranee is clean and blue and 68 degrees. It is foaming against the rocks. The harbor is filled with yachts. The paparazzi are perched on distant cliffs angling for photos. We dive into her arms. It is sublime. Someone, perhaps an employee of the hotel, has arranged for schools of sardines to swim below us, while the pampered princesses of the Riviera (or 90210?) frolic about us in bathing garments that cost far more than mine, yet, strangely contain far less actual material.

And did I mention the towels? You're supposed to keep the towels, right?

Editor's note: For more from the Cannes Film Festival, read William Booth's interview with filmmaker Michael Moore.

Going to interview Angelina Jolie and director Micheal Winterbottom tomorrow, but saw today their film "A Mighty Heart," about the kidnapping and death of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in Pakistan in 2002. The film is told from the perspective of Mariane Pearl, Danny's wife, and it is a love story and a thriller, from his capture to his end, and I'm going to mention that it was very moving for me. More on this later in the pages of the Washington Post after the interviews, but readers might want to know: Jolie is solid and strong and does not overwhelm the film or her portrayal of the widow. Meaning, she doesn't distract. And the beheading... If you can say such a thing, it is handled with restraint. They do not show it. Both Danny and Mariane come off as life-loving, adventuresome partners whose time together was too short. The film does not leave you with a lust for revenge. It ends making you feel like you should call your loved ones more often and do something to reach across the chasms of hate.