Robert Redford is 76; the Cannes Film Festival, 66. Over the course of these two cinematic lifetimes, the manner in which information flows out of a major film festival has dramatically changed. The once gentle print and TV ripple has been replaced by a social media and Web tidal wave.

Just hours after the debut on the French Riviera of Redford’s stranded-at-sea wordless drama All is Lost, Sundance hometown critic Sean P. Means is already suggesting that the film’s October 25 Roadside Attractions/Lionsgate release date is “one of the most anticipated moments of the Oscar season.” Echoing these sentiments are Roger Friedman and Sasha Stone. From Stone’s TheWrap review:

Redford is so good in this movie that if he didn’t already have such a long history of films behind him, this would launch his career late in life. Despite his 50-year history as an actor, he has been nominated for Best Actor just once, in 1974 for The Sting. Here’s hoping he sees a second, in 2014, at the age of 77.

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Media reactions to this morning’s Variety-PMC deal confirmation are coming in faster and more furiously than a Vin Diesel-Paul Walker car chase.

But forget for a moment about Jay Penske, Nikki Finke and Bonnie Fuller. As NYC-based columnist Roger Friedman astutely points out, one of the central figures in this new Hollywood trade horizon could be an individual most media watchers are unfamiliar with:

Sitting pretty on the Penske board is my old friend, Gerry Byrne (pictured), who commands a daily table at Michael’s. Years ago, it was Gerry who engineered Variety’s stunning comeback from the dead with Peter Bart as editor-in-chief. In the early 90s they revamped the Variety design and made the paper matter again. Eventually Gerry left Variety and sometime later became publisher of The Hollywood Reporter when it was owned by Nielsen. When the Guggenheim people came in, Byrne was sidelined. He left when his contract was up, and joined up with Penske.

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As we reported earlier this week, Paul Haggis’ comments about the shocking Vanity Fair October cover story involving Tom Cruise, the Church of Scientology and an alleged 2004 audition process was met with an almost equally disturbing response from the church. The CoS pointed to Googled proof of a prior Haggis “relationship” with the woman at the center of Maureen Orth’s article, Nazanin Boniadi (pictured).

Today, there is more of what will be much more as the Vanity Fair October issue begins to circulate. Over at Tony Ortega’s Village Voice CoS blog, Haggis has chimed in with a few more thoughts. He clarifies that although his emails to Showbiz 411 columnist Roger Friedman were taken as confirmation of the VF report, “Like everyone else, I have not even read their story.”

But Haggis stands firm on the central point of his reaching out. Vouching for Boniadi’s character:

“I am simply coming to the defense of a woman who has been publicly called a liar… Perhaps it’s just me, but I have never found Scientology’s blanket denials equally credible… It is my understanding that Naz is the subject of this article, not the source of it. Scientology has a long and well-documented history of attempting to bully its critics into silence. Here they are bullying a woman who has yet to even speak. I guess I just don’t like bullies.”

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Labor Day weekend is turning into another massive PR nightmare for Hollywood’s top-earning actor. One that not even his once formidable protector Pat Kingsley could have likely circumvented.

First came the Saturday online tease for Vanity Fair’s Maureen Orth October issue cover story “What Katie Didn’t Know.” The article details how Iranian-born actress Nazanin Boniadi was unwittingly auditioned in late 2004 by the Church of Scientology to be Tom Cruise’s girlfriend and slotted into that role for what turned out to be a tumultuous few months. CoS watcher Tony Ortega commented Sunday that Orth deserves extra credit for figuring out a way to expose this latest bit of sordid CoS history (officially denied by the church):

Boniadi has wanted to tell her story for years, we’d heard, but she’s bound by multiple non-disclosure agreements from doing so. We hear that Orth managed to do a classic “write-around,” putting together Boniadi’s story without help from Boniadi herself.

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It was 31 days ago that Fox executive Gavin Smith drove away in his 2000 Mercedes 420E from the Oak Park neighborhood of Simi Hills, not to be heard from or seen since. While NBC Southern California’s Robert Kovacik reported last week that Smith might have been sighted at a Morro Bay restaurant on May 7, the information has yet to be corroborated by law enforcement authorities.

Excepting a piece on Forbes yesterday by Roger Friedman, one-month anniversary coverage has been scant. Which leaves the 70+ comments posted on findgavinsmith.com by a group of people that generally agrees with the theory that Smith drove off a canyon road. There’s info about grassroots searches that have been conducted, as well as this forceful declaration from search-and-rescue helicopter pilot and licensed P.I. Robert Tur:

The reason I have had such great success in finding missing aircraft and lost hikers missing in ‘somewhere’ in thousands of square miles of difficult terrain, is that I don’t waste time conducting Air Force style grid searches, but instead, spend the necessary time putting myself in the ‘shoes’ of the missing person… Assuming Mr. Smith left the Oak Park location sometime after 10 p.m., the night before his disappearance was noticed, where would he go? Home to pick up more personal belongings or did he take a ride to his Calabasas? If so, what routes would he normally use? Are any of those routes in secluded areas? Poorly lit? Have steep drop offs? These are the areas you should search first.

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Some celebrity interview requests take longer than others to come to fruition. Rarely though do they span the length of four U.S. presidential terms, as is the case with Roger Friedman and Doris Day.

Friedman spoke to to Day for Parade magazine, but it is on his Showbiz411.com blog that he provides the intriguing journalistic back story. He thought all was lost a few years ago when the actress’ publicist Linda Dozoretz passed away. However, that was before Day decided, at age 87, to release this month a new album. Per Friedman:

A very nice man, Bob Bashara, who works with Doris’s animal rights foundation contacted me and said at last, an interview would be possible. I think I was more shocked than Doris when a great publicist in LA, Charley Walters, put together our phone call. The interview happened to follow by two hours the announcement that Doris’s famous recording of “Que Sera Sera” had been put into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

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Three days after the New York Post caused a sensation with an article portaying Sly Stone as homeless and living in a van in LA’s Crenshaw district, Showbiz 411 columnist Roger Friedman is setting the record straight:

My source says that Sly’s attorney, Robert Alan, rented him a very nice home in Woodland Hills, California with four bedrooms, a pool, etc. (Alan declined to comment.) Sly just refuses to go there. Another friend tells me, “Sly always liked living in Winnebagos. He never liked being in a house.”

There’s an even more egregious aspect to the Post article. Per Friedman, Alan was willing to confirm that article author Willem Alkema (not the paper itself) paid Stone $5,000 for the interview.* According to Friedman, another $2,000 was doled out once the paper ran with the piece, though the columnist notes it’s unclear where the additional money came from.

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On the Hollywood Reporter masthead, there is already a person listed as managing editor, daily—Michael Barnes. But since May, a second managing editor slot vacated by Todd Cunningham has been sitting vacant.

That position has now been filled internally with the promotion of Erik Pedersen, formerly copy chief and news editor. Pedersen has been with the trade a long time–15 years–and previously worked at both the Orange County Register and Los Angeles Daily Journal.

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After originally hinting at a 2010 release for the feature documentary The Real Michael Jackson, David Gest dropped off the radar with his project. But just before Memorial Day, he resurfaced on the Universal Studio lot to host a May 26th sneak preview for family members and celebs like Smokey Robinson and Angie Dickinson.

Roger Friedman of Showbiz 411 has the details, along with the text of the email invite. That message contains a great endorsement for the film from Motown legend Lamont Dozier, which Friedman seconds to a certain extent via his own Deep Glove:

The source I spoke to says the documentary is pretty good mainly because it includes lots of rare footage of Michael and the Jacksons. How Gest got the rights to the footage, I don’t know. He does have plans to release the doc in the UK.

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Among the many east coast media folks in town this week for Tuesday’s Alliance of Women in Media Gracie Awards gala was Meredith Vieira, voted Outstanding Anchor-News.

Leah Sydney, the west coast stringer for Roger Friedman‘s Showbiz 411, caught up with Vieira to discuss The Today Show host’s maiden movie producing effort, Return. The drama was the only American entry in this year’s Cannes Director’s Fortnight and stars Linda Cardellini as a discharged U.S. soldier struggling to re-adapt to life in a Rust Belt community.

Vieira confessed that she loves LA and if up to her, she would happily relocate here to become an Ivy lunch regular. But life’s not that simple:

“I would [move] in a second. My husband is a real east coast person, though. He told me to go if I want and take the kids and the dog. I love it here, but I love my husband more.”

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