May
15
Revving Up for Cannes
After I got through security at JFK, I did my weekly five-minute Sunday KNX radiocast from a quiet corner. ("What are you looking forward to?" "The Coens' No Country For Old Men, Julian Schnabel's The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Michael Winterbottom's A Mighty Heart, Tom Kalin's Savage Grace, and Michael Moore's Sicko.") Then I settled down in the Air France waiting room to blog Michael Moore, who I had just interviewed on the phone at a friend's apartment.
It was intense to file from a BlackBerry with my thumbs, tuning out all the extraneous noise and announcements and focusing on filing before I got on the plane. My stomach sank when the signal wasn't strong enough to send. Luckily, a walk down the terminal yielded a stronger feed and sitting on the plane, I got an email back that Don in our online department in L.A. had not only got it, but had already grabbed a photo, entered the links and put it up. I was relieved when the taxi driver in Nice waited for me to report that one of my bags never arrived from Paris (a messenger finally delivered it around midnight). The driver ferried me through the hills to Cannes, dropping me off at the Le Pavillion Riviera, a small residence behind the famed blue-gabled Carlton Hotel.
After settling into my apartment (Air conditioning! Spotless bathtub with La Douche! Laundry! Green tea!), I checked out the Variety offices behind the Grand Hotel (the site of my favorite late-night terrace bar ever since my days staying at my digs at the Residences Grand; Bingham Ray and I called the green-and-orange studio with orange shag rug the Pedro Almodovar Suite.) The Variety staff is lined up along seven long white tables at their portable computers and local phone lines, buzzing Blackberries on the side. John speaks elegant Spanish; Alison and Patrick speak French, while Ali speaks French and Arabic. Adam is the English-speaking U.K. bureau chief. Stateside editors Elizabeth and Dade are tracking North American sales, while Dana and I are blogging. Critics Todd and Justin marshall the various critics who tomorrow will start screening and reviewing three or four films a day for the duration. A skeleton staff puts out a daily newspaper here ten days in a row. Tuesday afternoon was the first of those ten deadlines. Nine more to go.
Before their long grueling haul, Monday night the Variety staff enjoyed a relaxing meal at le Pizza, a favorite American Cannes hangout overlooking the bobbing boats on the marina.
Dana (below right) and I walked back along the Croisette to the office; the fabled red carpet steps were naked and deserted, surrounded by stacked metal stanchions. We both love the 60th anniversary photos that are plastered everywhere of stars and auteurs who have attended Cannes over the years. One enormous black-and-white new group photo looms over the Palais.
Today Alison (left, with Katja and Dade) was chasing a story about the possible sale of the famed Hotel du Cap, which could really change the scene for the Hollywood high-rollers who like to hang out with each other sipping Bellinis by the choppy Mediterranean. Leonardo DiCaprio will be doing his press out there for his eco-alert 11th Hour, as many stars have before him. I always loved the story about Charlie Sheen spending a few hours using the rocks in the sea below as target practice for large numbers of hotel glass ash trays, for which he was duly charged at the end of his stay. The post-Pulp Fiction celebration at the Du Cap with Bruce Willis, Quentin Tarantino and Lawrence Bender is the stuff of legend.
Meanwhile Patrick was disturbed to hear that Bollywood star Ashwarya Rai might not make her planned appearance on the Croisette. "Elle est arrivee?" he said into the phone, relieved.
Tomorrow's opening night is Wong Kar Wai's much-anticipated My Blueberry Nights, one of three Weinstein Co. films at the fest. (Sicko and Tarantino's two-hour version of Death Proof are the others.) Will Harvey and Bob make a comeback here? That proof will be in the boxoffice pudding.
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