It’s all about Lars von Trier, who made few friends with the premiere of his latest outrage at Cannes. “Antichrist=Fartbomb,” writes Jeffrey Wells at Hollywood Elsewhere, and that’s one of the kindest things he says. “There's no way Antichrist isn't a major career embarrassment for costars Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg, and a possible career stopper for Von Trier. It's an out-and-out disaster -- one of the most absurdly on-the-nose, heavy-handed and unintentionally comedic calamities I've ever seen in my life.” Writes Lisa Schwarzbaum in Entertainment Weekly: “Blood spurts, bones are broken, genitals are mutilated...hellooo? Are you still with me?” Todd McCarthy in Variety: “"Lars von Trier cuts a big fat art-film fart with Antichrist.” Again with the fart talk? Anthony Kaufman of Indiewire offers a dissenting view: “While there’s no doubt that the place he goes is off a precipitous edge, one can’t deny the film’s continuing primal power.”

Taking Woodstock didn’t provoke quite so much outrage, but Ang Lee’s latest didn’t win many friends either. Schwarzbaum calls it “undergroovy and overplotted.” Eric Kohn of Indiewire says “Even with the ever-versatile Ang Lee behind the camera, this messy historical fiction plays like a two hour 'Saturday Night Live' sketch, and not a very good one, either.”

Roger Ebert is blogging his every move. “This is how Cannes works. At home, you read about the films and directors, but the moment you arrive in town the buzz takes over. I have been here scant hours and already am tapped directly into central intelligence.”