Emily Browning endures erotic indignities – Lars Von Trier's fear of flying – volleyball for the college of cardinals
• The prize for the female actor who has had to endure the most indignity goes to the Australian Emily Browning who, in Julia Leigh's erotic fairytale Sleeping Beauty, is stripped, drugged into a deep slumber, placed in a "sleep chamber" and pawed, licked and prodded by a variety of elderly men, also naked. "I could tell from the script," she said, "that Julia wasn't going to do anything gratuitous and it would all be very tasteful."
The film Leigh suggested she watch in preparation was Lars von Trier's Antichrist, in which Charlotte Gainsbourg hacks at her own genitalia with a pair of rusty shears. After that, I expect anything must have seemed doable.
• Speaking of Von Trier, he and Martin Scorsese are teaming up to remake one of Scorsese's works – Taxi Driver, it is believed – not once, but five times. The idea follows on from Von Trier's project The Five Obstructions, in which he asked a fellow Dane, Jørgen Leth, to remake his short The Perfect Human five times, on each occasion with a different set of "obstructions" – challenges applied to make the task more difficult – such as "shooting in the worst location on earth".
Von Trier will be in Cannes next week with his latest offering, Melancholia, a story combining family discord with the end of the world. He is known for driving his campervan down to the Côte d'Azur as he's not a fan of flying.
• There was some disappointment at Nanni Moretti's Habemus Papam; rather than delivering the hoped-for satire on the papacy, it did for the senior clerics of the Roman Catholic church what The King's Speech did for the royal family – soft-soaped them.
A Kind of Roman Holiday, in which a newly elected pope goes awol from the Vatican, it is nonetheless enjoyable, especially for a marvellous set-piece in which a psychoanalyst brought in to treat the anxious pontiff, played by Moretti, above, organises a volleyball league for the splendidly doddery – and unexpectedly competitive – college of cardinals.
• If you think about it, it had to happen. Sex and 3D, I mean. The unambiguously titled 3D Sex and Zen: Extreme 3D Ecstasy, is touting for trade (if you'll excuse the expression) at Cannes, with all and sundry invited to a party promising "Actresses' Appearance!!!" [sic].
Publicity for the film boasts it has broken Avatar's record for the highest-grossing opening weekend at the Hong Kong box office. Excuse me while I retire to my couch for a good long cry.