Michael Arrington at TechCrunch reports on a way you can make money while in Cannes. (Actually, there are a bunch of ways you can make money in Cannes, but this one is legal.) The arthouse download site The Auteurs is sponsoring a contest in which you arrive at the festival, pick up one of 250 Flip cameras, make a film while there, and compete for a $10,000 prize. More details at the link.

Previously we wrote about the Obama Campaign’s “Obama in 30 Seconds Competition” user-generated political ad competition. You can see the winner and the runners-up at the link.

Ted Hope forwards a Variety link that will either make the American producers in our readership totally envious of their U.K. counterparts or else completely depressed that such initiatives are not available here. From Ali Jaafar’s piece, “BBC ups producers’ stakes in pics””

….the BBC is creating a corridor for the producer from the equity it recoups. This will apply wherever the tax credit has not been treated as producer’s equity….

“We’re delighted that the BBC has shown the way forward with this initiative, which will make a real difference to British film producers,” said Andrea Calderwood, Pact’s vice chair of feature film and topper at Slate Films. “Independent producers put a lot of investment — of commitment as well as money — into their films to make them happen, and this will give them the chance to make a proper return on their investment.”

The trades and blogs were full this weekend of the now all-too-familiar box-office schadenfreude that occurs when a studio tentpole tanks. Over at her Spout blog, Karina Longworth offers a corrective: Five Reasons Why Speed Racer‘s Failure is Bad for Movies.

Finally, a few posts below, Jason Guerrasio noted the firing of critic Glenn Kenney from Premiere.com. I’m happy to now link to his new blog, Some Came Running, which already has several entries. Anthony Mann, Michel Piccoli and Thin Lizzy all make appearances in a blog that is now on my list of go-to bookmarks.