CANNES -- Matrix co-creators Larry and Andy Wachowski are still playing hard-to-get. When the guest list for today's Cannes press conference for The Matrix Reloaded was announced yesterday, the elusive Chicago brothers were notably absent. It would have been a story if they had planned to show up -- even just to say hi -- but The Brothers do not like having their pictures snapped, much less having to talk out loud and in public. It is still possible they will be there tonight for the late-hour, out-of-competition special Reloaded screening.

Set to promote the film on their behalf are most of the Reloaded stars: Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, Jada Pinkett Smith, Laurence Fishburne, Hugo Weaving, Monica Bellucci and twins Adrien and Neil Rayment. Also on hand will be producer Joel Silver and several tech guys, including special-effects wizard John Gaeta, who won an Oscar for The Matrix (1999) and could get another for Reloaded.

Bellucci told The Toronto Sun recently that the film should be a hit in Cannes, even if it is not in the running for prizes.

"I think in Europe everybody is waiting for this movie." she says. "As in America, everybody is waiting for it because it is a generational thing, this movie, like Blade Runner many years ago. Blade Runner was the same thing: It was a beautiful film full of special effects and the meaning was incredible. It was (about) a man who meets his God."

Bellucci also expects that Europeans, and the French in particular, will get a kick out of the deliciously funny bit that Lambert Wilson, who plays her arrogant husband, does in honour of the French language in Reloaded. After spewing out a string of expletives in French, Wilson says with a droll twist: "You see? Like wiping your ass with silk. I love it."


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