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Cannes Diary

Entry Three: Wednesday, May 15, 2002  --  Page Three

After the movie, everyone not going to the premiere tonight headed off to find another movie to see. Since I needed time to get changed and ready, I decided instead to wander around the Marketplace for a little while and check my email at the web café. Back at my room, I changed into the requisite tuxedo and headed off towards the Palais, where Pandemonium was ensuing. While the last few days have been quiet and serene around the Croisette, in just a matter of hours, the area around the Palais became filled with endless amounts of people. It was an electrifying feeling walking around in a tuxedo, knowing you’re heading to the red carpet where all of those thousands of eyes are fixed (it also helps when a couple of elderly women sitting at the bus station yell out "Wooo! Looking good!" at Dan and I when we go walking by--hey, I’ll take what I can get). The red carpet is laid out and the paparazzi are swarming around the sides--people are everywhere you look. Dan and I meet everyone else by the theatre and get into the big line feeding into the carpet. It’s an amazing rush to walk up the carpet and, with all of our frantic picture taking, we make it last a long time. As soon as we enter, we stop right by the entrance and start maneuvering to get whatever view we can of the carpet. We just wanted any glimpse we could get of some glitter and glamour (living in Illinois doesn’t give you much of a chance to run into celebrities in your day-to-day activities, to say the least). I tried for some pictures out of the windows, but they all blurred into nothingness. Among the celebs arriving are Rosanna Arquette, Milla Jovovich, Laetitia Casta, a wide variety of foreign actors and actresses that I don’t recognize (but everyone else seemingly does), and, finally, the main cast and crew of Hollywood Ending (the stars and director of the movie premiering are always the last to arrive--here, this means Woody Allen, Debra Messing, Tiffany Amber Thiessen, and Treat Williams). When Woody arrived, Shreevar and I dashed downstairs (where we shouldn’t have been allowed to go, but no one was watching) and I was about an arm’s length from Allen, which gave me a chance to throw up my camera and snap my one celebrity picture until much later in the Festival. Since the movie was going to start in about two minutes at this point, I rushed back to the Balcony and grabbed a seat. Virginie Ledoyan was the spokeswoman of the Festival this year and, after a long monologue in French which meant not a damn thing to me, she introduced the Jury and the first part of a short film about the Festival. At last, the movie was about to begin...

Hollywood Ending
USA, Directed by Woody Allen
Lumiere: 05/15/02: 07:15pm
(**) of four
Time slept during: approximately 20 minutes (I think)

A major disappointment of the Festival, Allen does nothing to restore himself to his old, comic genius self with his new film. The plot could have led to a scathing look at how modern big-budget, over-produced studio films are made nowadays, but it instead leads to a barrage of consistently not-funny blind jokes that feel far too stale to be funny (are we still laughing at watching a blind person look in the wrong direction at someone who is talking to them?) Despite a wink-wink ending for the French (which would only be enjoyable to watch in France, lucky me), the movie takes exceedingly long to get there (two hours that really should have only been 88 quick minutes). It’s also getting a little creepy to constantly see Allen get the young co-stars who are 30 years his junior. Go rent Annie Hall again instead.


After the movie, Woody and the other celebs rushed out of the theatre ahead of the crowds and everyone else began milling out towards the exits. Exhausted from the long, long day that just finished, I grabbed some McDonalds and headed back to my room to get some much needed sleep. The Festival is finally upon us...

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Dan and I head to Opening Night

Opening Night

Woody Allen enters the Lumiere

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