The bulk of the chatter has been about what Angelina Jolie is keeping in her guts and the festival’s biggest two movies – Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull and Vicky Cristina Barcelona – are only gaining interest because people either like a) watching iconic action stars try to recapture past glories or b) watching Scarlett Johansson get off with Penelope Cruz.

And since Sean Penn is the festival’s jury president this year, everything else is probably going to be a barrage of humourless hand-wringing about starving Albanians. And if the thought of that has put you off, we’ve found a way to enjoy the Cannes Film Festival from home.

Actually, we’ve found two ways of enjoying the Cannes Film Festival from home. The first one is to watch the GMTV Cannes coverage while one of your friends whines in a French accent and resentfully jabs you in the kidneys with a lit cigarette every couple of minutes, and the second one involves Skype.

Because not everyone in the movie industry wants to go to a festival that mostly seems to be about Jack Black dicking around with some pandas, Skype is being used in Cannes’ American Pavilion to facilitate video calls with various absentee entertainment notables during important interviews and panel discussions. According to Julie Sisk, founder and director of the The American Pavilion:

“The film community is increasingly global, and Skype helps make certain that the Festival is as inclusive as possible of that entire community.”

So who’s scheduled to appear in these special Skype video conferences? James Cameron’s rumoured to be making an appearance, and so is Vince Pace, executive producer of that recent Miley Cyrus movie that did so well. Thank you Skype – now it’s possible to irritate grown men by asking them a barrage of questions exclusively about a 15-year-old girl’s naked body no matter where they are in the world.

Supposedly there to promote Kung Fu Panda, Angelina Jolie has actually ended up having to sit in a room with her co-stars and listen to them carping on about all the secrets of her pregnancy. First Jack Black accidentally confirmed that Angelina Jolie was pregnant with twins, and now Dustin Hoffman has apparently revealed that her babies are due to be born on August 19.

But that’s nothing, because Angelina’s other Kung Fu Panda co-star Jackie Chan refuses to be outdone – and you’ll discover why just as soon as he’s finished bronzing his 30ft papier mache representation of what the inside of Angelina Jolie’s dilating cervix looks like.

Privacy has always been of the utmost importance to Angelina Jolie. It’s this need for privacy that made her continually deny that she was having it off with Brad Pitt when everyone knew she was, and it’s also the reason why she’ll get the secret service on your ass if you ever tinker with her photos.

But it’s Angelina Jolie’s children who are the most fiercely protected. Angelina Jolie wants their upbringing to be as normal as possible, which is why she gives them regular-joe names like Zahara and Pax Thien and keeps them shielded from view at all times except for when she needs them for multimillion dollar magazine cover photos.

So imagine how rubbish Angelina Jolie must have felt earlier this week when Jack Black accidentally revealed that Angelina Jolie was having twins to the four sensory-deprived Eskimos who didn’t already know that Angelina was pregnant with twins, forcing an awkward confirmation out of Angelina.

And if that’s not bad enough, Angelina Jolie’s other Kung Fu Panda co-star Dustin Hoffman has apparently tried to trump Jack Black by revealing the exact day that her twins will wriggle out of her bum, or however childbirth works. People reports:

Apparently one of the most-discussed topics at this year’s Cannes Film Festival is Angelina Jolie’s pregnancy… Fellow costar Dustin Hoffman revealed her due date as Aug. 19 – and the Today show passed along the news Thursday morning – but it’s more likely that Jolie will give birth prior… “I’m very happy,” said Jolie, 33, according to Today. “Unlike most women, I love being pregnant.”

Yeah, screw you most women! Not only is Angelina Jolie prettier and richer than you with a better-looking boyfriend and a cavalcade of noble humanitarian pursuits, but she also loves being pregnant. You? You just sit around watching Jeremy Kyle and complaining that you’ve got tit-ache. Shame on you all!

Anyway, as People said, we shouldn’t take Dustin Hoffman’s proclamation of Angelina Jolie’s due date as gospel. Chances are he was just lightly satirising the media’s prolific hunger for information about celebrities’ private lives. And it’s this razor-sharp wit and lightness of touch that made Hoffman’s Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium such a golden box office smash. Ahem.

Read more:

Angelina Jolie’s Summer Baby Plans – People

And this year the Cannes Film Festival is going to be extra special because the head of the Cannes jury has been announced as Sean Penn. As one of the most respected actors and directors working in Hollywood today, Sean Penn's appointment will mean that the movie he awards his prize to will get an even bigger publicity boost than usual. It also means that anyone who's recently made a movie that's funny, uplifting, deft or about anything other than how terrible the Iraq war is should probably stay at home this year because they ain't winning jack.

2008 is going to be Sean Penn's special year for awards. That's not saying a lot because Sean Penn wins awards every year – in 2003 he won an Oscar for Mystic River, in 2006 he won the prestigious World's Most Gloomily Humourless Bastard award and he's the current California State champion for that Nintendo Wii game where you ride a cow around knocking over scarecrows.

But this year – this year is certainly different. Although nobody went to see it, the Sean Penn-directed Into The Wild has emerged as quite the Oscar front-runner, picking up Screen Actors Guild nominations and Critics Choice nominations for its visceral portrayal of an annoying boy dying in the snow really slowly.

And now Sean Penn gets to award awards to other films too, because he's just been named as the head of this year's Cannes jury. And, as expected, Sean Penn accepted his appointment with a statement so needlessly wordy it looks like he must have destroyed a thesaurus just writing it:

"It seems there has been a rejuvenation of cinema building worldwide; increasingly thoughtful, provocative, moving, and imaginative films by talented filmmakers: that a new generation of filmmaking may have begun. The Cannes Film Festival has long been the epicentre in the discovery of those new waves of filmmakers from all over the world. I very much look forward to participating in this year's festival as president of the jury."

So what can we expect from Sean Penn's tenure as president of the jury at this year's Cannes Festival? Hard to say at the moment, but knowing that Penn likes brooding, intense, heavy-handed dramas with serious messages, we wouldn't be surprised if he opts for Police Academy 5: Assignment Miami Beach. That came out this year, right?

Read more: 

Sean Penn to head Cannes Film Festival jury – Reuters