Day 8 – Wednesday, May 23

I got my tuxedo on again for a gala premiere, this time for “On the Road.” I wasn’t particularly excited for the movie or the stars, but I figured I might as well go because I didn’t have any particularly big plans for the evening. The screening was to begin at 7:00 P.M., so I got into the line beginning around 4:15 P.M.

There was that long, unglamorous stretch of time where nothing happened again. Then around 6:00 P.M., things did start to pick up again with the red carpet arrivals. They start to play some halfway decent music and you crane your neck to see if that random woman is Berenice Bejo or just some random woman.

Around 6:30, I heard a high-pitched squeal and quickly looked to my right to see Robert Pattinson himself. He looked unshaven and carefree in his Dr. Strangelove-esque sunglasses. I did manage to snap a picture of him from afar, but it’s going to be a Where’s Waldo puzzle for you all.

And then the whole cast showed up; the main three actors rolled up in vintage wheels. Kristen Stewart looked like she had spent a grand total of two minutes on getting ready. Kirsten Dunst, on the other hand, looked like a million bucks. And unfortunately, Amy Adams was a no-show. I got this picture of the cast lined up on the steps; Stewart is in the black and white dress and Dunst is in pink.

And while the rush line had worked for me the day before, I was not so fortunate this time. They did not admit a soul from the rush line and even had to turn away people with tickets! I walked away disappointed, tired, and with aching feet.

Day 7 – Tuesday, May 22

I was able to get an hour to see a panel comprised of the filmmakers who made “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” the Sundance winner that has taken Cannes by storm as well. Co-writer and director Benh Zeitlin was in attendance, as was co-writer Lucy Alibar, cinematographer Ben Richardson, and producers Dan Janvey and Josh Penn. The whole conversation about the film’s origins, which are hardly discernable from the highly eccentric and distinct project, fascinated me; Zeitlin described the movie as one about “people losing the thing that made them” at their core.

He also shared how he and Alibar worked to wrap the script around the performers, not try to fit them into a pre-packaged good. “Beasts” used all non-professional actors, a fact which only serves to underscore the wow factor of watching the film. They also stated that they auditioned an astonishing four thousand children for the leading role of Hushpuppy, a young girl who has to carry this weighty movie almost entirely on her own back.

Then, after that, it was a quick change into my tuxedo for the red carpet premiere of “Killing them Softly,” the new Brad Pitt film. I was hoping to catch a glimpse of the new happily engaged couple, although someone quickly informed me that the former World’s Sexiest Man would be flying solo. But that was hardly going to deter me from standing in line.

I got in the rush line (the line for people without official tickets) beginning at 4:45 P.M. The film started at 7:30 P.M. So that was nearly three hours on my feet waiting. It got pretty brutal at the beginning when there was nothing particularly exciting to look at, but that all changed when the red carpet opened around 6:30 P.M. At 7:00 P.M., the big names began to arrive: Chris Tucker, P. Diddy, Alec Baldwin … and Brad Pitt.

Let me just say, it’s not that I hated or didn’t admire Brad Pitt before the premiere. However, I emerged with a whole lot more respect for him. As soon as he got out of his police escorted car, the first thing he did was greet his adoring fans that had lined up along the Croisette. Pitt easily spent ten minutes signing autographs and shaking hands of the average laypeople before he got anywhere near the red carpet, and that was pretty darned cool. I got a picture of him from afar, but I also did manage to see him from a fairly close proximity. His hair moved as one unit.

I ultimately also managed to get to see the movie, but I did not get to see it in the massive Lumiere with Brad Pitt and the rest of the cast; I had to see a simultaneous screening in the Bazin, a 300-seater across the hall in the Palais. But hey, I saw the star and I saw the film – both were stylish and fun to say I saw in France!

Day 6 – Monday, May 21

I left my apartment for Cannes today at 12:15 P.M., which felt SO NICE. I got about nine or ten hours of sleep last night, and it turns out that was just what the doctor ordered. I hit my wall on Sunday, so I was glad to be really alive and experiencing Cannes again.

However, Mother Nature did not reward me with a bright, sunny day with my new found eagerness. Instead, it drizzled sporadically and the sky was gray. That is, on the other hand, the perfect environment to watch a movie and not feel guilty about sitting indoors for two hours.

And today, I watched my first movie of the festival in which I did not fall asleep or drift off even for a moment. That could be due to the fact that the film, Thomas Vinterberg’s “The Hunt,” was truly remarkable and easily the best moie have seen over the course of Cannes. It doesn’t have US distribution yet, but it really should. This movie needs to be seen.

Struggling to find something else to write about this day …. um, let’s see, I had a banana and Nutella panini? I bought a donut from a kiosk? I saw no celebrities? Hopefully there will be something more than a beautiful landscape in my next post.

“Lawless,” John Hillcoat’s drama set in Prohibition-era Virginia countryside, fills such a groove. It does not quite have the overall package to compete for Oscar gold, but it’s hardly a bad movie by any stretch of the imagination. It has flaws, particularly in the insipid first act weighted down by exposition; however, when the film kicks into high gear, it provides a riveting ride.

While I haven’t been a big fan of Shia LaBeouf since “Even Stevens,” which I can now continue to argue is his most accomplished work to date, “Lawless” gets bolstered by a number of supporting performances that should garner the actors some much overdue recognition. Surprisingly, one of these tour de forces is not given by Jessica Chastain, cinema’s new “it girl.”  She’s fine, don’t get me wrong, but Chastain and Mia Wasikowska seem only relevant to the film for marketing purposes, token females to help reach another quadrant.

No, the superb acting comes from Tom Hardy as the immortal Forrest Bondurant, a braggadocios moonshiner who seems to have spawned the myth about himself. Hardy so perfectly endows his character with a sheen of self-righteousness without ever seeming haughty or unsympathetic. When he knocks out foes with brass knuckles, you can hear an audible “yes!” muttered under everyone’s breath. His part may command less screen time than LaBeouf as his brother Danny, but Hardy feels like the protagonist and the leading man all the way through.

It also helps that the Bondurants have a strong adversary in Charlie Rakes, a well-groomed city cop with a cringe-worthy butt part and no eyebrows played masterfully by Guy Pearce. It’s not often I root so vehemently against a villain, but thanks to Pearce, we see the blackness of his heart and the coldness of his soul lain bare across the screen.  As he attempts to foil the bootlegging of the Bondurants in what was then known as “the wettest county in the world,” screenwriter Nick Cave and Pearce just keep hitting every note perfectly on pitch with Rakes.  It may be too soon to scream Academy Award, but at the very least, this should remind people that Guy Pearce should be moving out of Gary Oldman-esque character actor purgatory.

Aside from Hardy and Pearce, “Lawless” is fun and entertaining but little more. Hillcoat does little innovative with the camera or creative with the genre, and Cave’s script is conventional but rarely tedious. Nonetheless, there’s nothing wrong that running what you know works from the playbook, but it does put an upper limit on a film’s capability to have an enduring place in any cinematic canon.  B / 

Day 5 – Sunday, May 20

I got up early for a screening of Michael Haneke’s “Amour” at 8:30 A.M.  However, even though I was ready on time, my bus passed me by because it was already full … yanking my comfortable cushion and leaving me wondering whether or not I would even get to see this movie at all.  The next bus came in ten minutes or so, and when it arrived at the stop, I ran off and sprinted to the Lumiere.  Surprisingly, even that early in the morning, it was one of the most attentive I had been in a screening … and it was subtitled too!

After that, I had a little bit of down time to write before attending three all-star panels at the American Pavilion.  The first was with independent film directors Rodney Ascher of “Room 237″ (a documentary on “The Shining” that I’m planning to see tomorrow evening), Adam Leon of “Gimme the Loot,” and Ben Wheatley of “Sightseers.”  The blogger in me enjoyed it, although the conversation was pretty much directed towards aspiring filmmakers, something which I am not.

Then, there was a panel about film marketing and advertising, a field that really fascinates me, and the conversation largely centered around the art of the trailer and satisfying your core audience even if you believe you can hit one of the other “four quadrants” (male, female, old, young).  The panel included Doug Wick, the producer of “Gladiator” as well as Cannes competition film “Lawless;” I got to shake his hand and congratulate him on the movie’s success.  (That is, I’m assuming it will play well with audiences – snooty critics looking to crown the Palme D’Or will surely not like it much.)  Oh, and David Poland of Movie City News was also there to provide a different perspective.  I gladly thanked him for what he does for long-form journalism.  If you are a real movie fan, then you NEED to be watching his DP/30 interviews on YouTube.

Finally, there was the State of the Industry, a packed panel and a packed crowd.  Speakers included Nancy Utley, President of Fox Searchlight, and Tom Bernard, President of Sony Pictures Classics.  Mrs. Utley spoked about how Fox Searchlight chooses their slate of releases, which range from widely appealing commercial vehicles like “The Descendants” all the way down to smaller niche films like “Martha Marcy May Marlene.”  She said that if one person on their team is a passion advocate for a film and can find a way to convince the rest of the team that it has an audience and a path to success, then they will be willing to take a chance on it.  Glad to see what incredible artistic integrity they can maintain while building brand identity.  (And further blogger geekdom: got to meet Anne Thompson of IndieWire, who moderated the panel, and thank her for being one of my main sources for forming opinions on Oscar season.)

Other than those four events, it was a gross, disgusting rainy day in Cannes.  Definitely didn’t come here for this weather.  Yet somehow, in spite of the grossness of the icky day, Cannes still looked remarkably beautiful.  Houston makes me depressed in the rain (except now, when I rejoice for rain in our drought-riddled state).  But Cannes, on the other hand … just wow.  It made me think of a certain scene in the rain, and then I remembered that sometimes magic can happen no matter what the weather.

Getting down to the core of our humanity (or the bone, if you will) is a difficult and unsavory task, but you may hardly notice just how rough it can be until Jacques Audiard has released you from his grasp when the credits of “Rust and Bone” roll.  His cinematic paean to the resilience of the human spirit takes two characters down to their most starkly naked vulnerability, putting them through an emotional and physical gauntlet that tries them as well as the audience.  The end of the tunnel may not be brightly lit or accompanied by tremendous fanfare, but it reinvigorates and revitalizes in a way that only a truly great movie can.

With two phenomenal actors, Matthias Schoenaerts, on the way up after last year’s Oscar-nominated “Bullhead,” and Marion Cotillard, who continues to prove movie after movie that “La Vie En Rose” was no fluke, “Rust and Bone” aims for painful areas of the psyche.  Failure, loss, disappointment, desperation, and adversity are all sores opened by the movie, and it continues to stick a finger in them when it would be far less painful to just think about them being there.  Yet it is precisely this wrenching of the soul that gives the film power and emphasis.  In a cinematic climate where misfortune has evolved from beyond a niche and is moving towards an entire genre in and of itself, it takes a lot for a movie to distinguish itself from the pack.

And believe me, from now on when I think of films about the mettle it takes to overcome immense tribulations, “Rust and Bone” will shoot to the front of my mind.  And that’s not just because Marion Cotillard is proudly sporting two limbs instead of four for the majority of the film.  Audiard, who also co-wrote the film, finds a natural way to intertwine two disparate tales of suffering into a satisfying and believable romance without hokey stunts or sensationalism.

Her Stephanie is a former whale trainer at the French equivalent of SeaWorld turned Cannes penthouse-dweller after a tragic accident in the water.  His Alain is a well-meaning but deadbeat dad as well as street fighter for cash on the side just to get by.  They meet at the beginning of the film when Alain kicks Stephanie out of the bar after she starts a fight; while it’s a strange connection, apparently it was enough for her to call him when she gets lonely in her insurance claim-purchased apartment.

Sure, the precipitating event may be a little bit of a stretch, but what ensues as they build an incredible rapport to shelter each other from pain makes up for the lack of believability of their inception.  Cotillard and Schoenaerts don’t sport a typical romantic chemistry, but they feel all the more real and human because of it.  Both meet the emotional demands of the script, exposing themselves both spiritually and physically to each other and to the audience.  (Translation from serious movie critic pose: they are naked a lot, sometimes maybe even a little gratuitously.)  Together with their bold helmer Audiard, they boldly go where few will go and bring us out in a hardly glorious but nevertheless moving affirmation of the ability of humans to be courageous and to change.  B+ /

By the way, how awesome is the Cannes festival poster?  I bought one of these to take home and hang somewhere.  Might as well start my art gallery poster collection early…

Day 4 – Saturday, May 19

I woke up early – 6:30, to be precise – in order to dash off quickly to get in the rush line for the day’s first screening of “Lawless,” John Hillcoat’s bootlegger drama starring Shia LaBeouf and Tom Hardy.  Because I didn’t have a ticket, I had to arrive especially early if I wanted to get a chance at a seat not filled by a member of the press or someone with an actual invitation.  I got to the front of the line at 7:00 A.M., a full 90 minutes before the screening was supposed to start.  I snapped this picture of the red carpet with no one there; hopefully it gives you a sense of just how small it really is.

I stood there for an hour and a half watching over two thousand people walk the steps up to the Lumiere theater, which really had me disheartened when the clock struck 8:30 and I had yet to enter.  But around 8:33, someone came to declare (in French, which I don’t speak or understand) that they were simultaneously showing the movie in the Salle du Soixantième, a rooftop theater in the back of the Palais.  Translation: in a few seconds, I quickly found myself at the BACK of the rush line of which I was originally at the front.

So naturally, I sprinted.  I probably pushed a few people.  It was my exercise for the day.  But in the end, I got to see “Lawless.”  It was totally worth the effort.  It was a very good, entertaining movie that probably won’t win the Palme D’Or or an Oscar, but it will hold up for many years on Sunday afternoon TNT viewings.

I was then going to attempt to see the day-after screening of “Reality,” but the line was already absurdly long by the time I got out of “Lawless” around 11:00.  I tried to see “Antiviral,” the first film of David Cronenberg’s son, Brandon, at 2:00 but left the line when I realized I had no chance of getting in.  I tried again at 10:15 … still no luck.  And then I ran to try to make Michel Gondry’s “The We and The I” at 10:30 around the corner only to barely miss the cut.  I’m ready for another double feature day again!  But it looks like tomorrow will just be “Amour” at 8:30 in the Lumiere (I at least have a ticket this time) and several panels of industry experts.  Maybe I can make it to “Diamonds Are Forever” on the beach … but who knows, I may need to be up early on Monday for “Killing Them Softly.”  (UPDATE: “Killing Them Softly” opens in competition on Tuesday … I need some sleep.)  The American cavalcade begins next week!

Day 3 – Friday, May 18

I finally slept in past 7:00 A.M., but that probably wasn’t a good thing. I was hoping to catch a screening of Matteo Gorrone’s “Reality,” the odds-on favorite to win the Palme D’Or according to the oddsmakers, but that was at 8:30 A.M. and my body just wasn’t going to let that happen. I’ll have to catch it in the Marche or during the last weekend of the festival when they replay the entire competition slate.

I rolled out of bed around 9:30, grabbed some quick breakfast, and quickly caught a bus to stand in line for “Beasts of the Southern Wild” at 11:00 A.M. It was playing in Un Certain Regard, which, for those who don’t know, is a second competition slate that plays in the DeBussy, a smaller auditorium of only a thousand or so seats. I got there a little bit more than 30 minutes early, which thankfully proved to be just enough. I got a seat on one of the wings in the balcony – not the greatest seat, but the aspect ratio was great for me since it shrunk the screen horizontally.

I was privileged to be at the screening with the director Benh Zeitlin and stars Dwight Henry and Quvenzhané Wallis (a name I can’t type without copying and pasting from IMDb) in attendance. They received a huge and much deserved standing ovation at the end of the film, a very rousing experience for all involved. I’ll elaborate further in my review, but I have some pretty big superlatives coming for this one. It won Sundance, wowed Tribeca, and now looks to spellbind Cannes.

And after that, it was kind of an average day. Didn’t do much else, didn’t see any other movies, didn’t see anyone famous. Sean Penn was supposed to stop by where I work, but that didn’t pan out beecause of the rain. Of course I get the festival with all the clouds and showers, but hey, I’m here! I can’t complain!

Oh, and there was a false alarm of a Ryan Gosling sighting. This guy looked creepily similar to the “Drive” star, but it was ultimately no more than a lookalike.

To close on a more positive note, check out this nightime picture. It’s breathtaking; see it in person at some point in your life if you can.

Day 2 – Thursday, May 17

My afternoon began with a fantastic Lumiere screening of “Rust and Bone” at 3:00 P.M. I had to sit in the very back row in the balcony, but the image and the sound were still impeccable, so it was all fine by me. Hopefully my review will come down the pipes later.

Then, with only a quick window to grab something to eat before my next screening, I made the idiotic mistake of trying to order from a McDonald’s … and from one of their outside ordering kiosks, no less. The concept is basically a walk-up drive-through window; however, they did a really poor job of communicating it, so I was looking for my order with all the scrubs inside at the counter. Turns out, there was just a window near the ordering kiosk that would open when an order was ready. By that point, I was so frustrated that when my one bite of Royale Bacon tasted gross, I just threw out the entire tray. (I later got a panini from a streetside café. Stupid me for ever thinking of choosing McDonald’s.)

I was quickly whisked away to the Olympia Theater, a multiplex used for regular year-round film screenings in Cannes, for a “secret screening” held by the Weinstein Company. I don’t think I am allowed to say what I saw, but I am almost positive I wouldn’t be able to say what I thought. The rest of the screening attendees were buyers and international distributors – AKA no press (or bloggers). So perhaps one of these days, my virtual embargo will be lifted. But until then, my lips are sealed.

I can tell you one thing – er, person – I did see though: Harvey Weinstein himself. I almost didn’t recognize him since he was dressed so casually in an untucked white-button down, but as soon as he walked down the staircase where I was waiting, I knew exactly who he was. You could just hear the whispers going around the room: “Oh my god, that’s Harvey Weinstein!” Think the scene in “Elf” where Miles Finch walks down the hallway and everyone is saying his name. Harvey, much like Miles Finch, was totally unphased by taking the air out of the room.

It was totally surreal to see such a mythological figure of the film world in the flesh. And now that I have real experience to complement all the countless journalistic pieces and editorials, if I could describe him in a word, it would be: driven. He looked like a man on a mission walking through that theater lobby, and I think it would take a nuclear weapon to deter him. (No, I did not get a picture … did you think I was going to be the one to take a cell phone picture? Not subtle.)

And then, after grabbing some delectable tiramisu gelato, I was off to a beach screening of “Dr. No” to celebrate the 50th anniversary of James Bond. I had never seen the movie in its entirety, so it was probably nice education to finally sit down and watch it. (Plus, now the “Austin Powers” movies make even more sense and will probably be even funnier.) The setting was beautiful, I was happily curled up under a Stella Artois fleece blanket, and then … fireworks. It was truly one of the most amazing pyrotechnic displays I have ever seen, and it just seemed unceasing as well.

The perfect ending to an excellent day. Try watching James Bond with that going on. I dare you.

Anyways, here come some pictures and plenty of stories!

Day 1 – Wednesday, May 16

I spent my first afternoon in Cannes running around the Palais du Festival, the big building where most of the major festival events occur, trying to find an entry into the 3:00 P.M. press screening of “Moonrise Kingdom.”  To give you a sense of just how massive this place is, just take a look at the picture below and know that my iPhone hardly captures the scope of it.  Some people affectionately call it “the Death Star,” and I have to say, that’s a pretty apt description.  It’s room after room, hall after hall, theater after theater, making the Palais one heck of a cumbersome place to navigate.

I couldn’t find a non-blocked entrance, so I just gave up and went to a Market screening of “Something from Nothing: The Art of Rap.”  Another cool thing about the Cannes Film Festival that many, including myself until recently, might not know is that there is also a concurrent market for buying and selling films in all stages of production.  Some international rights are being sold to blockbusters like “Catching Fire,” which is still in pre-production … and then there are screenings of films like “Silent House” and “Casa de Mi Padre,” which opened in the US months ago but are still seeking international distributors.  The Marché du Film (Cannes Film Market) sees thousands upon thousands of transactions, and it provides an excellent opportunity for cinephiles like me to piggyback onto their business and see some movies that won’t come stateside for a while.

So my first Marché screening (and as of right now, also the only) was definitely interesting.  Like I said in the intro, I fell asleep intermittently throughout the first 45 minutes, which was miraculous given how booming the sound was coming from the screen showing Ice T’s documentary.  I’ll save my more detailed opinions for a full review coming later, but the short form review is this: I don’t doubt Ice T’s passion, but he clearly needed someone to help him edit and refine his fascination in a more appropriate cinematic way.

Then I got great news … I won a ticket to see the 11:00 P.M. showing of “Moonrise Kingdom” in the Lumiere theater, Cannes’ 2300-seat theater which will forever put every other moviegoing experience to shame.  Only this theater requires an “invitation,” as they call it, and proper attire must be worn or the Fashion Police (actual people, not Joan Rivers the morning after the Oscars) will wag a finger at you and turn you away.  Even if you do have this, your clothing is more important:

I had never seen a movie from a balcony before, so I was glad to receive an education in how they did this back in the good old days.  Not to mention because of the mammoth nature of the Lumiere, the filmmakers come into the theater in the wee hours of the morning to calibrate the picture and sound especially for the screening.  So in other words, the movies I get to see in the Lumiere are exactly as the director wants me to see them.  Crazy, right?!  Here’s my view of the screen from the balcony on Wednesday night:

And as if the experience weren’t already magical enough, each Cannes screening begins with this bumper, accompanied by the music from “Aquarium” by Camille Saint-Saens that I already associate with magic and enchantment.  (Start the video below at 0:35.)

Oh, and I forgot to mention that I WALKED THE RED CARPET.  The same red carpet that Wes Anderson had walked with Bruce Willis, Tilda Swinton, Edward Norton, and Bill Murray just a few hours earlier!  I saw their numerous photo opportunities from not too far away and even snapped a few pictures of my own.  The highlight of the whole thing was Edward Norton lingering for easily a minute after everyone else on the steps of the Palais to just be goofy.

And then I got to walk it myself, which was INCREDIBLE to say the least.  If only hundreds of other people weren’t rushing the steps for their own photo opportunity, I might have felt like a celebrity myself.  But regardless of that, it was still pretty freaking cool.  Oh, and don’t buy all the illusions you get from seeing these images of movie stars walking the red carpet – it’s actually not very long and there are very few steps.

Oh, and the movie was good too, I guess.