And So It Begins

Truthfully, so much to report! The festival kicked off and I was there at Cannes with a group of comrades by 9am. There are so many f-ing movies to see. Like, hundreds. And we only have so much time. But I have planned ahead and scheduled out the first few days, so I was ready to hit the ground running.

My first screening was at 10am, "Freakonomics." It was exactly like the book: A statistical and structured explanation of common sense. Basically, as the film makers were saying at the end of the film, they are not trying to promote and one message or create a new movement in the world. All they are up to doing is getting people to think about how they think about the world. Don't take it all at face value. The film was also directed in chapters, with each section being done by a different director. That added a whole other layer and dimension to the work, giving a variety of voices to this common theme of awareness. This was a great way to get things started.

After that I went to see "Distant Thunder," a 3D documentary about a family of elephants. Think "March of the Penguins," but warm and popping from the screen. I thought it was very engaging, except that it was only 10 minutes long. Apparently, the director has only captured 2 weeks of footage, and they are working on finishing it all up. What I saw was great: trunks and tusks reaching for me out of the screen, huge frogs gulping down turtles, weird lizards being startled by bright green tree snakes. The film really pieced together all the characters in nature, and tied it up with a British narrator. Only trouble was that it was 10 minutes. I need to see more!

After that, I weaseled my way into the American Pavilion where I picked up my badge, then lounged beachside for about 30 minutes with two fellow trippers. I was ready to shed the group and go out on my own, though, so I ditched them and went exploring. Aka, got lost trying to find a certain theater. When I did find it, I was much more comfortable with the idea of being solo in the city. I got this down, man.

The theater I found was Arcade theater, which housed the screening of the French film, "Imogene McCarthery." This was the story of a plunky, feisty Scot woman with awesome red hair and killer clothes, set back in the 60s-ish, I think. She is a touch cookie who loves rugby and her heritage to the fighting core. WHen her boss sends her on a government secret mission, she is revealed to quite the goof, botching up take after take, and being rescued by her childhood sweetheart turned cop turned secret security guard. This film was in the vein of "Pink Panther," but way less funny and way more stupid. I had high hopes, thinking this would be a fun, airy "Miss Congeniality" type flick. It wasn't. It was neither campy nor dramatic. Or entertaining, for that matter. It was just dull. I admit, I may have nodded off a time or two. And, can we talk about the fact that she was Scottish, in Scotland most of the time, but the film was in French? Whatever.

The last film of the day was "Mother's Little Helper," a kinda raunchy, but very entertaining, flick about a smart ass/kind hearted kid who starts a male escort students made up of his prep school pals, catering to Cougars in the suburbs. It was, to say the least, graphic, trashy and a fun run. Think Holden Caufield meets "The Real Housewives", as shown on MTV. If nothing else, the acting was good and the writing was clever and witty.

I tried to get a ticket to the big premier night and red carpet, being all dressed up with my homemade sign for begging. I didn't get a ticket, tough, but did make it onto the French 24 news channel and had my picture taken by many of the new photographers. Somehow, I ended up corralled near the front of the celeb drop-off line, and did manage to see a ton of celebrities. Included: Russell Crowe, Kate Beckinsale, Kate Hudson, Eva Longoria, Salma Hayak, Tim Burton, Quinton Terrintino, Helen Mirren, Benicio Del Toro, Jean Claud Van Dam, Steven Soderburg and Cate Blankchet. (And ps- I know most of those are spelled wrong. Bite me. I'm tired and don;t feel like looking up the correct spelling.) All that together is good enough for me.

About half the kids got tickets of the premier, the other half of us then heading to Cafe Roma for some great and well-deserved pizza. All this walking about makes a girl hungry. And to be honest, all this movie going wears a girl out. It can be disorienting, going in and out of al these films and then in and out of even more. I was glad I packed food, because food in Cannes is far from cheap.

Tomorrow, I'm gonna try to get tickets to the premier of "On Tour," and have a full day planned before all that. But you can read about all that tomorrow.