The Daily Dish: May 13

-- Cannes kicks off with Up The story of a grumpy widower who sets off for South America by attaching hundreds of helium balloons to his house officially kicked off Cannes 62nd annual festivities. Disney/Pixar's Up is decidedly lighter fair than last year's opening film, Blindness, which followed an epidemic of sightlessness that resulted in chaos and showed the ugly side of human nature. But selecting an animated 3D film - the only such movie to open the famous festival - set a different tone from the get-go and suggests organizers have something different in mind this year. Bringing in some of the world's most respected directors, Variety described the competition as the "biggest heavyweight auteur smackdown in recent years.” Quentin Tarantino, Pedro Almodovar, Ang Lee and Jane Campion, all past Palme d'Or winners, are bringing their new films to France but it's fair to say that Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds, starring one Brad Pitt, is largely the most anticipated premiere. Even Harvey Weinstein, whose Weinstein Co. is releasing the film, revealed the singular feeling of coming to Cannes with the Pulp Fiction helmer: "There's something about going with a Quentin Tarantino movie. It doesn't even feel like going with a movie. It's like you're with the band, a rock band. Like you're a bunch of outlaws." The Cannes Film Festival runs until May 24.

-- One woman's film script is another woman’s garbage? A beauty salon owner from St. Louis found the movie script to New Moon , one of the year's most hotly anticipated sequels, along with another script entitled Memoirs, in a garbage bin outside a hotel. Casey Ray was waiting for her fiance outside the St. Louis hotel where actors from the new George Clooney flick, Up in the Air, were staying and noticed the top-secret pages. After briefly considering selling them to a tabloid, Ray arranged to have them returned to Summit Entertainment, the studio behind the Twilight series. It’s still unclear how exactly the Melissa Rosenberg-penned script ended up in a trash can. Actress Anna Kendrick appears in the Clooney flick as well as the Twilight series, though her rep was quick to state that her client wouldn't have left a script lying around. Ray' s honesty, however, did not go unnoticed - Summit has invited her to both of the film's premieres.

-- Kidman drops out of Woody Allen flick The Aussie star, who's worked with visionary directors like Stanley Kubrick, Baz Lurhmann and Stephen Daldry was set to star in another auteur's as-yet-untitled work but has inexplicably dropped out. Nicole Kidman has left Woody's Allen 2010 project, set in London and starring a rather stellar group of actors including Anthony Hopkins, Antonio Banderas, Josh Brolin, Kidman BFF Naomi Watts and Freida Pinto. Given Woody's artistic appeal and recent commercial career resurgence, there's no doubt another leading lady will soon swoop in and take Kidman's place, but we're still wondering what made the Oscar winner walk away. Expect a statement in the next few days.