Nicole Kidman

Baz Luhrmann has a few points to make in "Australia," his World War II-era romantic epic starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman: points about the mixing of genres, untold stories of the country's involvement in the war and that even in the most brutal parts of his homeland, there is soul-moving beauty. "When I arrived there, I thought, 'This is going to be horrendous, shooting under these conditions,' " said Kidman of filming in Australia's rugged Northern Territory.

Although the rain of the first few days is gone, another kind of darkness has overtaken the Cannes Film Festival. Many of the most talked-about, the most surprising, even the most enjoyable films in the event turn out to have a glistening blackness at their core. The most adroitly hyped of these pictures (hats off to Miramax, as always), "Kids," ended up something of a fizzle.

New Line Cinema doesn't mind taking risks, and the studio has prospered through its wagers on everything from "The Lord of the Rings" to "About Schmidt." But rarely does New Line take the kind of flier its new film "Birth" represents. The reincarnation drama, about a woman, played by Nicole Kidman, who comes to believe that her late husband has been reincarnated as a 10-year-old boy, was hardly expensive, but its artistic ambitions were unusually difficult to fulfill.

When Nicole Kidman was pursuing the role of Suzanne Stone, the TV-obsessed would-be anchorwoman in "To Die For," which opened in theaters Wednesday, she got director Gus Van Sant's number and called him at home. This, according to Van Sant, doesn't happen very often. And neither does what happened next: Van Sant cast her immediately, without screen-testing, over the phone. "She said she felt destined to play this part," the director explains. "And that kind of set me aback.

What would happen if a psychopath fell for a sociopath? The short answer in "Stoker" is people die. The longer answer in the new thriller from South Korean director Park Chan-Wook is a bizarrely perverse, beautifully rendered mystery that you may or may not care to solve. It has fine performances from Mia Wasikowska, Matthew Goode and Nicole Kidman - we'll leave you guessing who's the more twisted of that trio. And an out-of-nowhere script from rising British-born, Brooklyn-raised actor Wentworth Miller, best known for starring in the edgy TV drama series "Prison Break.

When I wrote about "Australia's" critical and commercial prospects on my blog the other day, I said, somewhat flippantly, that the movie "once again proves that Nicole Kidman is many things, but not a movie star." Twentieth Century Fox, in fact, has been selling the film largely as a Baz Luhrmann extravaganza, not as a Kidman-Hugh Jackman picture.

The defendants in separate legal actions by divorcing Hollywood power couple Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman have surfaced in cyberspace with their denials. At BeautifulButDangerous.com, Matthew E. Hooker, an aspiring actor, acknowledges that he received Kidman's temporary restraining order but denies stalking her. He is ordered to keep at least 250 feet away from Kidman and her two children.

What is your favorite performance so far this year? 'I haven't seen a lot recently because I've got a baby . . . . I saw Kristin Scott Thomas in 'I've Loved You So Long.' It's a beautiful performance.' -- Nicole Kidman