Holla Backlash

.Le Hollywood freak, c'est chic!

Oh my! You dropped something, here let Holla pick up this Laura Mulvey for you … Oh jeez, now you dropped Godard!

With all this film geek name-dropping going on, it must mean one thing: It's time for the most important month of the year for cinema: the Cannes Film Festival - the festival that keeps the dreams of film studies students alive with the hope that art film lives on. It's the film fest that's unafraid to boo "The Da Vinci Code" and make Michael Moore feel like a real filmmaker. Viva form over plot!

Since the 1940s, Cannes has brought together the world's wealthy and intellectually elite crowd for an international Gatsby-type P-A-R-T-Y where Orson Welles and Brigitte Bardot could pass out in Fellini's hotel room. Ooo la la. In more recent years, Hollywood stars and big-name directors and producers have flooded the fest, but it still maintains an air of sophistication. Ya know, only the actors who have starred in roles as a tortured bi-polar alcoholic artist, or in something about a war.

This year however, it seems like Cannes is letting in anyone with a yacht. The big drama of this fest is not Ron Howard's total waste of French talent, Audrey Tautou, but Kid Rock fleeing a restaurant when ex Pam Anderson showed up. Other gems in attendance include John Mayer, James Blunt, Mischa Barton and Bono. We're pretty sure, Bono, if you get Pam drunk enough she'll sport a Product Red bikini.

Shelby laughs in the face of modern art

In response to the selling of a Mark Rothko painting for $73 million, WCCO anchor Don Shelby totally stuck it to Rothko and pretty much disproved Clement Greenberg's theory that the abstract expression movement has any value. Shelby proved art historians wrong by revealing modern art is just a bunch of colored blobs of paint. (Oh God! Why did Holla drop six-figures on that kindergartener's "Finger Paint in Blue No. 23?)

The Don claimed when visitors at the Walker see an abstract painting in the vein of Rothko's, they remark "I could paint that;" whereas, when visitors look at art at the Uptown Art Fair, Shelby says, "Nobody walks by a Conquistador or Elvis painted on black velvet and says, 'I could do that.' " (Well actually Shelby, Holla says that, but we'll admit we did earn an MFA at the 'U' in velvet art.)

This just goes to show you, Rothko, you might be a big shot in the world art market, but at the Uptown Art Fair? You got nothing. Bow down to Grandma Bessie's portrait of her cat Nibbles.

But Shelby did not end his modern art dissin' there. Shelby ALWAYS goes the distance.

To really rub it in, Shelby painted his own modern art piece, and did it in five minutes! Shelby's piece sold (with the money going to charity) for more than $1,200. The painting appears to be a Dada-influenced landscape of geometric purple mountains and a sun inspired by the curvy lines of Edvard Munch. Clearly, Shelby's painting examines the moral crisis between humanity and nature and machines.

See, Rothko? Not only can Shelby paint a bunch of blobs faster than you, he can completely capture the subconscious fears and anxieties of modern society.

Will pay $2,000 for top bunk

Arnold Schwarzenegger's office has been buzzin' with Paris letters. Paris Hilton and her lawyers decided to appeal the heiress' jail time by sending a petition to the governor, which sparked a larger movement to send pro-jail petitions. Luckily, Arnold's office has nothing better to do than sift though a bunch of Paris petitions. Global warming can wait a month because right now we all need to concentrate on punishing the woman who takes away attention from the issues that matter. Seriously, it's just messed up how newspapers would rather report on Paris than something like Darfur, so instead of signing the petition to end genocide, let's all get behind sending Paris to jail.

It will be just like the time we sent Martha Stewart to jail in order to punish Enron. And when was the last time you heard about Enron? It must have worked.

Now Paris has given up on the whole petition thing and will go to jail by June 5 for a 45-day sentence. But Paris will certainly make the most out of her jail time. Already P-Hil is using the slammer as an excuse to avoid going to court for a lawsuit filed by fellow heiress Zeta Graff - who claims Hilton spread lies about her to the Post. Hilton got her psychiatrist to testify that she was too distraught preparing for 45 days of VH1 marathons to attend the trial.

Ah, Paris, you know how to use everything to your advantage.