The 61st annual Cannes Film Festival gets under way tonight (Wednesday) with a screening of Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles apocalyptic thriller Blindness, about a plague of blindness that sweeps the world. The opening-night film is also competing for the festival's top prize, the Palme d'Or. In recent years, the Cannes jury -- this year's is headed by Sean Penn -- has made selections for the prize that have stunned many film journalists and critics in attendance -- but few have complained about the choices. Writing in today's International Herald Tribune, Joan Dupont commented that the festival "has a way of pumping up the action and planting a surprise" during its final days. Nevertheless, the film receiving the most publicity at the festival is George Lucas and Steven Spielberg's Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which is being screened on May 18, four days before its worldwide theatrical bow. In an interview with the Associated Press, producer Frank Marshall said that Cannes provides "the perfect launching pad, because we can bring the whole world there." Meanwhile, today's (Wednesday) Los Angeles Times warns that along with the movie world's glitterati the festival sees a swarm of criminals arrive in town each year, although the town actively attempts to play down the annual crime spike. Some victims told the newspaper that they were encouraged by their hotels not to speak publicly about their losses. Emilie George, managing director of France's Memento films, charged that there is an effort afoot "to stifle all sense of any criminal doings during the festival in order to protect its image." But Nikki Parker, who is in the business of protecting images as head of international publicity for PR firm Rogers & Cowan, told the Times that she has been robbed -- twice -- at the festival by cat burglars. Even A.O. Scott, the New York Times film critic, said that he was robbed while he slept in his hotel room by burglars who took his wallet and his principal tool of the trade, his laptop computer.

Michael Moore is at work on a sequel to Fahrenheit 9/11, his hit documentary about the Iraq war, with plans to release it next spring when a new administration is installed in the White House. The film is being jointly financed and distributed by Overture Films, a subsidiary of John Malone's Liberty Media, and the Paramount speciality subsidiary Paramount Vantage. The studios said Tuesday that Moore had agreed to a delay in the release so that it would not appear to be taking sides with any candidate. The original film was the most successful documentary ever made -- grossing nearly $220 million worldwide.

Sony's results in its first quarter were something of a mixed bag -- and were not likely to affect the price of the company's shares, which remain in the doldrums, according to analysts. Bloomberg News observed that Sony shares are the worst performers this year among Japan's five largest consumer electronics makers. Sales in its film and home-entertainment division were down 11 percent from a year ago. Its best seller was the DVD version of Spider-Man 3. Profits rose substantially to $277 million, but a lot of those earnings came from such things as sales of real estate and the fact that this year it was not being forced to pay millions of dollars to replace faulty batteries in its laptop computers. Operating income, which measures how a company performs in its core units, remained in the red. A loss of 45 billion was reported.

Even though it drew its lowest ratings in five years, last Tuesday night's American Idol still was the second-most watched show of the week last week, beaten only by the Wednesday-night edition of Idol, which drew its lowest numbers in three years. For a May sweeps week, it might as well have been June. Except for the two Idol shows, none had enough appeal to draw more than 20 million viewers. (There was a time when all of the top-ten shows during a sweeps week routinely attracted 20 million viewers or more.) CBS remained the nation's most-watched network again last week, averaging a 6.7 rating and an 11 share (or about 10.6 million viewers). ABC placed second with a 6.2/11. Fox followed with a 5.5/9 (although it continued to top the list among adults 18-49); NBC remained last among the major networks with a 4.0/7.

The top ten shows of the week according to Nielsen Research: 1. American Idol (Wednesday), Fox, 13.9/21; 2. American Idol (Tuesday), Fox, 12.6/20; 3. Dancing With the Stars (Tuesday), ABC, 12.0/18; 4. Dancing With the Stars (Monday), ABC, 11.7/19; 5. CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, CBS, 11.4/17; 6. Grey's Anatomy, ABC, 10.5/16; 7. Without a Trace, CBS, 9.8/16; 8. Desperate Housewives, ABC, 9.7/15; 9. CSI: Miami, CBS, 9.5/16; 10. NCIS, CBS, 8.9/14.

Business channel CNBC may not only have Fox Business Network to contend with but a reinvigorated Bloomberg News Channel as well. Bloomberg has appointed Norman Pearlstine, former editor-in-chief at Time Inc. and a top editor at The Wall Street Journal to the newly created position of chief content officer. He will reportedly be working hand in glove with Bloomberg editor-in-chief Matthew Winkler on finding ways to build Bloomberg's audience. Pearlstine told the New York Times that he plans on focusing on developing Bloomberg's key businesses, not on adding new ones. Thus far, the appeal of Bloomberg TV has seemed limited, but Winkler told the Times: "You cannot be in the news business today without being in television."

Suddenly and surprisingly media moguls Barry Diller and John Malone have patched things up. Malone will not pull Liberty Media out of Diller's InterActiveCorp, as was widely presumed following a Delaware court decision favoring Diller. In a joint statement, Liberty agreed to drop its appeal of that decision in return for Liberty receiving representation on the boards of each of the IAC companies that Diller plans to spin off including Ticketmaster, HSN (Home Shopping Network), Ticketmaster, and Lending Tree. Diller issued a statement saying, "Now it's really over and that's great for both of us."

A day after Oprah's Big Give gave out -- it will not return next season -- reports emerged that Fox is planning its own philanthropic reality show, Secret Millionaire. The format is yet another import from Britain, where it has been a hit for two years: a millionaire agrees to live in an area of poverty for ten days, experiencing what it's like to live on a meager income. At the end of the ten days, he reveals who he actually is and hands over a $100,000 check drawn on his own bank account to at least one deserving member of the community. Meanwhile ABC's Stephen McPherson said that the network was prepared to bring Oprah's Big Give back for a second season, but "it wasn't something Oprah wanted to do."

Saying that he was not aware that the producers of Grey's Anatomy used a photo of him during an episode until it actually aired last week, Isaiah Washington has asked the Screen Actors Guild to look into the matter. In the scene, a photo of Washington, in the guise of Dr. Preston Burke, was seen above a newspaper article reporting that Burke had received a prestigious medical award. Washington claims that the photo was used without his consent. The actor was forced off the show last year after he allegedly taunted fellow cast member T.R. Knight with homophobic slurs and other cast members complained that he was difficult to work with.

Kelsey Grammer has accused Fox executives of misleading him and the other producers and cast of Back to You. "We were told all this time we were in good shape and we were coming back" next season, Grammer told the Associated Press. Instead, he says, he returned home Friday after taping an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel's late-night show to promote the series, to receive a phone call notifying him that the show would not be renewed. "I'm not really sure what the real reasoning is," Grammer said. "I think they ended up with a show that was going to be a great show. It was a great show." He said he has already contacted CBS chief Les Moonves about picking up the show "and he was not completely discouraging."