Day: May 22, 2005

It’s 2 pm on Sunday afternoon in London, and it looks like it’s going to rain. Unusual! If any London readers are in the mood for a pint or two sometime this evening, write me this afternoon and we’ll figure something out. I’ll be checking mail off and on all day.

Flash! You’re reading it here dead last! The surprise Palme d’Or winner did turn out to be Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne’s L’enfant (The Child) after all…which I was told might happen just as I was unplugging at the American Pavillion on my final day in Cannes (i.e., Saturday). Hearty congrats to (a) Jim Jarmusch’s Broken Flowers for copping the Grand Prize, (b) Tommy Lee Jones for taking the Best Actor award and Guillermo Arriaga winning the Best Screenplay trophy for The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, (c) Hidden‘s Michael Haneke for winning the Best Director award, and (d) Free Zone‘s Hanna Laslo for being named Best Actress. Good calls all around.

I couldn’t file when I got to London last night due to my lodging situation being up-ended when I arrived at the hotel, and then having to scramble around town betwen 11pm and midnight for a place I could afford. The hotel I found (near Sussex Gardens) didn’t have Wi-Fi, of course. (Which is partly what makes places like this affordable.) And the nearby internet cafes start to shut down around midnight, so the hell with it. I walked around in the surprisingly chilly and windy night air and had a really delicious, super-greasy shawarma. I don’t take days off anymore — I take hours off. But it felt like peace.