When George Clooney was at the Cannes Film Festival for the Coen brothers' “Oh Brother, Where Art Thou” premiere in 2000, he celebrated at an after-party held high in the hills above Cannes, a lavish home owned by an Arab businessman of some repute. There were huge B&W cardboard cows propped up on the lawn, and in the center of the pool and guests were given tins of old-fashioned hair pomade with a photo of Clooney (in "Oh, Brother" character) on it. Seriously. I still treasure mine. It's so never going on Ebay!

This year, things will be slightly different. And more charitable. Word is Clooney plans to make use of the international attention by holding a fundraiser screening of "Ocean's Thirteen" benefitting the people of Darfur on May 22nd, two days before the Steven Soderbergh thriller officially premieres at the Palais. Wow. Two "Ocean's" bashes in one week?

It's also expected that the entire cast, Brad Pitt (and Angelina?), Matt Damon, Don Cheadle, even Ellen Barkin, will be in town for most of the week and will hit Wednesday night's always star-studded amfAR dinner. This is sure to give the Darfur crisis major international press coverage and support. Did I mention Bono will be in Cannes too? Jane Fonda will most likely attend the AmfAR fete there too. She's attending a special tribute to her father on on May 26 at the Carlton Hotel.

So Pitt has another reason to be in Cannes, other than just to support his life partner, co-parent Angelina Jolie at the Cannes premiere of her new film “Mighty Heart,” about the death of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.

And there's more...