It's just a lot of home-movie footage taken by the late comedian and genius actor in the '50s, '60s and 70s, but somehow directors Anthony Wall and Peter Lydon make it amount to more than this. It's extremely well-edited and scored and sometimes uses interview tapes of Sellers talking about himself as narration. I found it curiously touching in a bygone, bittersweet sort of way.

It also reminded me what a mistake it is to cast Geoffrey Rush as Sellers in that HBO biopic that's shooting later this year. It'll be like Ian McKellen playing John F. Kennedy -- a great talent giving a completely behind-the-eight-ball portrayal of a famous person, for the simple fact that the physical resemblance is marginal at best.

The rest of the day was spent going back to the hotel to write some more, dropping by festival headquarters at the Kabuki cinemas to say hello to the staff, and then attending a black-tie tribute fundraiser at the Ritz Carlton in honor of Robert Altman and Dustin Hoffman.

The evening began with a cocktail reception held under a white tent on the hotel's outdoor rear patio. It was all fat cats and rich celebrities, except for the journalists, photographers, publicists and volunteers. Elegant duds, famous faces -- Hoffman, Altman, Lily Tomlin, Robin Williams, Oakland mayor Jerry Brown, Saul Zaentz, Tom Waits, Peter Coyote -- and lots of busty trophy wives in their 30s and early 40s.

I spoke briefly with former Warner Bros. honcho Terry Semel, who said he'd just spoken a few hours earlier with the Wachowski Brothers about THE MATRIX RELOADED. I raised my glass in tribute to his seminal role in launching the MATRIX franchise. If you know the story, it was Semel's rapt admiration of their 1996 thriller BOUND that resulted in the greenlighting of the original MATRIX, which had previously been seen by some in WB production circles as a cool but confusingly written thing.

I ran into Sony Classics' Tom Bernard and Michael Barker, who have two or three films here and were getting me very excited about an Errol Morris documentary about former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara called THE FOG OF WAR. Sony Classics produced this allegedly riveting work, which Barker or Bernard (I forget who) said unfolds with the same narrative-drama impact as Morris's THE THIN BLUE LINE. They'll be premiering it next month at the Cannes Film Festival.

I spoke with the festival's executive director, Roxanne Messina Captor, about her decision to keep Oliver Stone's COMANDANTE -- a friendly documentary about Cuba's Fidel Castro -- in the festival's schedule, even though the upcoming Tribeca Film Festival, apparently following the lead of HBO and a suggestion by the film's Spanish producer, had yanked it from their own schedule. Captor said she felt that film festival audiences, being a bit hipper and more socially attuned than the mainstream, should be given a chance to see the Stone doc, despite it's having suddenly become dated by Castro's recent tyrannical decision to execute three dissidents.

At 7:40 pm or so everyone went downstairs to the hotel ballroom for the awards ceremony, which was pleasant enough and even stirring at times.

Robin Williams delivered a five-minute stand-up routine and, as usual, killed. Waits was summoned to the stage three times to sing "Waltzing Matilda" and two other standards, one of which Altman said had once brought him to tears, even though he never cries. Hoffman, who always goes on at length but is always insightful and intriguing when expounding on the lives of actors, sounded earnest and caring. Altman was in buoyant spirits, declaring at one point that his age (he's nudging 80) has no bearing on his attitude or energy, and that he feels like he has "a 38 year-old heart."

I walked out to the rear lobby at one point to stretch my legs and ran into a Lucasfilm publicist. She was spirited and resilient and, I decided, nothing but class. This was because she listened to me explain in detail how and why George Lucas has destroyed and betrayed the STAR WARS franchise with his flaccid writing and direction of Episodes #1 and #2, and how he's basically become this isolated, bloated poobah. She smiled and nodded all through my ragging of her boss and never once got riled, and yet she had some good points to make in opposition.

I went over to Tosca with some of the festival staffers after the tribute ended, and that's where my champagne troubles began. They were partly aggravated by my having met a local filmmaker named Erika Shershun (having made a film called NIGHTFALL). She was drinking bubbly at the bar and urging me to do the same. She was blonde and pretty, and she found me fascinating. Resistance was futile.

Walk That Plank

There's something dicey about the idea of a Johnny Depp movie called PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: THE CURSE OF THE BLACK PEARL (July 9). And I say this knowing zip about this Touchstone/Disney release except that (a) Gore Verbinski directed, (b) the costars are Geoffrey Rush, Orlando Bloom and Jonathan Pryce, and (c) the plot sounds the usual pirate gruel. I totally turned around on Verbinski after seeing THE RING, but the odds still don't favor his being able to out-finagle the Curse of Blackbeard.

Pirate movies have a rep, which is that they always blow chunks and never make any money. They haven't really worked as a genre since the early '50s, when Burt Lancaster was bounding around in THE CRIMSON PIRATE. Renny Harlin's CUTTHROAT ISLAND ('95) cost $92 million, earned $11 million domestic, and probably contributed to the demise of his marriage to the film's star, Geena Davis. Roman Polanski's PIRATES ('86) was one of his lesser efforts and also died at the box-office. 1983 saw the release of three pirate-movie calamities -- YELLOWBEARD, NATE AND HAYES and THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE.

None of this really means anything as PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN could always surprise everyone and become the pirate movie that bucks the tide, but let's at least acknowledge there is (or has been) a tide. I asked an industry friend last week why he believes the Verbinski film won't fly, and he said, "I just don't think people want to see a movie with characters wearing all those stupid costumes." Is this a fair thing to say? Yes. People in pirate movies do wear funny costumes. And Verbinski and producers Jerry Bruckheimer and Mike Stenson knew this going in.

What Backlash?

I was feeling badly last week for poor Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins taking all this heat for being outspoken, anti-Bush, anti-war-in-Iraq lefties.

There was that BULL DURHAM, baseball-hall-of-fame flap a while back, and then Sarandon's CBS telefilm ICE BOUND did horribly in the ratings. And then Dennis Miller said something last weekend on Bill Maher's HBO show that got my attention. I don't have the exact quote, but he said in effect that average-Joe Americans probably are pissed at Sarandon and Robbins and other lefty-showbiz types (Jeanane Garafalo, Sean Penn, et. al.), and that they may take some career hits from that.

So I was all set to write one of those what-kind-of-country-have-we become? articles that says dissent is what our Constitution is all about, and why are so many proud-to-be-an-American types talking about socking it to the lefties with economic payback? Why can't they respect Garafalo & Co. for having the views they have as well as the balls to articulate them, and just be cool about it?

Then I read Paul Farhi's 4.22.piece about this in the WASHINGTON POST, and realized I was wrong. Being a leftie dissenter isn't a career killer - it's a booster. It gets you into the news, raises your profile, and maybe even ups your income.

"I knew when I started speaking out that it was going to be unpleasant," Jeanane Garafalo told Farhi, "and I've taken my punches. But the positives have far outweighed the negatives."

These include "all the unsolicited offers Garofalo has received -- speaking engagements, stand-up gigs, stage roles -- in the weeks since she proffered her antiwar opinions on news programs," the article says. "Such as the bundles of attagirl letters and the hearty congratulations of strangers in the street. Such as the sitcom pilot she's making for ABC. The other day, after a decade and a half of doing comedy, she made America Online's 'Comedians to Watch' list.

"'Before this I was a moderately well-known character actress,' Garafalo said. 'Now I'm almost famous.'"

A marketing friend said the same thing to me about Sarandon and Robbins. "I don't believe this stuff about there being an econmic price to be paid for being outspoken, " he said. "[Sarandon and Robbins] aren't stars any more. She's been mostly on television for the last couple of years, and he's a character actor and a third-place guy who tends to play heavies. But the showbiz establishment is liberal and they'll always get work."

"Not to be too cynical about it," writes Farhi. "But dissent, it seems, can be a pretty good career move.

"Martin Sheen has been assailed by critics for his views. Sean Penn alleges in a lawsuit that he lost a role in a movie as a result of his antiwar stance and his prewar trip to Iraq. And, of course, a handful of radio stations launched well-publicized 'boycotts' of the Dixie Chicks (who are nude on this week's cover of ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY) after lead singer Natalie Maines said at a concert in mid-March that she was 'ashamed' that President Bush was from her native Texas (she later apologized).

"But it's hard to find much lasting damage. All told, widespread publicity about celebrities' war views has helped, not hurt, the careers of the famous.

"In the weeks after Maines's comments, for example, sales of the Chicks' latest album, 'Home,' fell out of the top spot on the country charts -- before bouncing right back into the No. 1 position last week.

"After his outburst at the Oscars last month ('Shame on you, Mr. Bush!'), author and filmmaker Michael Moore saw his book 'Stupid White Men' return to the top of the NEW YORK TIMES bestseller list. Two days after the Oscars, he reported on his website that his documentary BOWLING FOR COLUMBINE had received more video orders on Amazon.com than the Oscar winner for Best Picture, CHICAGO.

"Moore also reported that he's received funding for his next documentary and has been approached by an unnamed network to revive his old show, TV NATION.

"Even Robbins, who frets about 'a climate of fear' for lesser-known actors, can't really complain. 'I'm okay,' he says in an interview. 'I just finished two films,"' including one with Clint Eastwood. 'I don't believe there's fallout. If there was, I don't think anyone would say, 'We're not hiring you for political reasons.'

Part of the reason a backlash hasn't really happened "may be that baby boomers grew up with dissent and are used to it by now," writes Farhi. "And young people -- the primary audience for much of popular culture -- either aren't paying attention or aren't turned off by antiwar comments.

Despite Hollywood's reputation as a overwhelmingly liberal town, he adds, "famous entertainers who've espoused conservative views have flourished, too.

"Bob Hope became for many young people a symbol of hidebound establishment values in the late 1960s and early 1970s as a result of his outspoken support of the Vietnam War and the Nixon administration. But those views did little to tarnish Hope's legendary status; his TV specials continued to draw blockbuster ratings through the 1980s (a retrospective of his career aired on NBC on Sunday). His 100th birthday next month will likely be an occasion for national tributes.

"Similarly, Charlton Heston was an aging actor whose best days seemed behind him when he began speaking out in behalf of gun owners' rights and the National Rifle Association in the late 1980s. Until early symptoms of Alzheimer's disease slowed him last year, Heston, 78, had appeared in nearly three films a year for the past dozen years.

"And who could forget that B-list actor who turned his avocation for politics into a vocation? Ronald Reagan, an old contract player for Warner Bros., did just fine expressing his political opinions."

Cancun Horror

"These cheap shuck and jivers Murray and Bonnim have exploited their own ideas too many times and this seems to be the Big Kahuna. Where will it all end? I feel sorry for the poor bastards that actually spend money to watch this swill. I can understand the t & a factor but that's what internet porn is for. Murray and Bunim are the epitome of what's wrong with MTV in general, so this is just another reason to put them on my plane crash list." -- Chief Smartola

"Thanks so much for the piece on THE REAL CANCUN. It's been expressing all the excitement I've had about this flick, but for once I don't get people rolling their eyes at me. Bless you. I want GIRLS GONE WILD: THE MOVIE. I hope like hell I get it." -- Matt

Wells to Matt: I don't get it. You're excited about this flick? And you want to see GIRLS... oh, I get it now. You're being insincere.

"I thought you might enjoy my report on THE REAL CANCUN. (http://www.interbridge.com/jamessanford/2003/realcancun.html) I wish I could say I despised the film, but for better or for worse, it's a telling picture of the attitudes and behavior of twenty-somethings today. I have to say I laughed out loud many times during the film, often because I couldn't believe how idiotic some of the kids were. And it does succeed as pure voyeurism, too: Lots of breasts and butts, scores of skimpy swimsuits, wet T-shirts, whipped cream, etc. Enjoy!" -- James Sanford, THE KALAMAZOO GAZETTE.

Clarify This

"Can't we simply say PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN is gonna blow chunks because it's based on a fucking theme park ride?" -- Lewis Beale, journalist, New York City.