I’m at my Heathrow departure gate — terminal 4, gate 10. A full hour before the departure of HE’s Nice flight at 8:55 am.

Yesterday’s London roam-around (see photos posted last night) was fairly glorious, especially ending as it did at Namaste Holborn, a Bloomsbury veggie Indian restaurant with outdoor seating. Perfection in all departments.

Today will be the only low-stress, comme ci comme ca day of the ‘24 Cannes Film Festival. Moving in, shopping, meditating, breathing in the seaside air, getting some dinner and avoiding all the shithead journalists with whom I was once on good, friendly terms with but have since morphed into William S. Burroughs-styled insects.

Hollywood Elsewhere is seated in row 46, right aisle, on a Virgin Atlantic flight to Heathrow…a flight that should have left at midnight but is only just getting underway at 12:41 am.

I have roughly the same amount of wiggle-breathing room that astronaut Alan B. Shepard had in his Mercury space capsule on 5.5.61. Plus I’m seated next to a person of considerable (dare I say oppressive?) size.

Coach flying is an agony-endurance test. You just have to somehow get through it.

4:38 am update: For purely sadistic reasons our Virgin Atlantic flight attendants insisted on serving drinks and snacks for just under two hours…1:30 am to 3:25 am…up and down the aisle, pushing carts, bumping into outstretched legs and feet. Thanks, guys.

A vote for RFK, Jr. is for all practical purposes a vote for…?

…before the start of the exciting, high-stress, sleep-deprived ordeal of the Cannes Film Festival, which is always a kick when you first arrive…here we all are! Great to be back! La Pizza! That briney air and those early-morning cries of seagulls.

But before long that 18-hour-per-day grind feeling takes hold, and before you know it you’re Trevor Howard’s soot-coveted, tired-blood coal miner in Jack Cardiff’s 1960 adaptation of D.H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers. A coal miner with a pink badge, I mean. Don’t get me wrong — Cannes is never less than a “fun”, flush time, to be sure, but it’s never a day at the beach.

Unless, of course, you happen to see a film that’s so good you feel rejuvenated, and then life is beautiful again.

My first Cannes Film Festival was in May ‘92 so don’t tell me.

The online reservation process for press began early Friday morning (5.10), or more precisely an hour past midnight in Manhattan or 7 am Cannes time. Four days in advance, one reservation day at a time. I reserved tickets for a Tuesday afternoon showing of the first half (I think) of Abel Gance’s Napoleon (‘27) and an evening screening of Quentin Dupieux’s The Second Act.

Early this morning I missed my 1 am wake-up (I arose at 3 am…unforgivable!) so I missed out on a couple of Wednesday films. (Don’t ask.) You have to pounce immediately at 7 am or you might be left out in the cold. It’s a semi-dicey, fraught process — many veterans yearn for the good old days of just lining up and come what may. Yes, you can still get into screenings on a last-ditch rush basis but…

Tonight’s 1 am reservation opportunity (Thursday’s screenings include Francis Coppola’s Megalopolis and Andrea Arnold’s Bird) happens one hour into my London flight, which departs at 11:59 pm. Let’s hope the Virgin Atlantic wifi will be in good working order.

Right now it’s 2 pm on Saturday, 5.11. For the last 22 hours I’ve been hanging in West Orange (and to some extent Montclair) with Jett, Cait and Sutton…TV time, soccer practice, book store, fresh market.

HE’s initial, gut-hunch Cannes picks, posted this morning in HE comment thread:

What tells you that Kevin Costner’s Horizon is “pap”? Because it concerns white settlers in covered wagons? Did you presume Kelly Reichart’s Meek’s Cutoff wouid be pap?

Emanuel Parvu’s Three Kilometers to the End of the World.

Limonov, a sprawling fact-based saga that Pawel Pawlikowski wanted to make for years but then bailed on, is Kirill Serebrennikov’s English-language debut feature.

Andrea Arnold’s Bird seems promising, although Barry Keoghan’s bee-stung nose is a proverbial problem…when he’s on-screen all I can do is stare at that awful thing…worst schnozz in cinema history .

Pretty much everyone has been persuaded that Francis Coppola’s Megalopolis will be a tough watch. It’s not just me.

Oliver Stone’s Lula doc, if I can fit it in.

Schrader, Lanthimos, Baker, Audiard, Cronenberg, Sorrentino.

Ali Abbasi’s The Apprentice (i.e., young Trump) certainly has my interest.

Mohammad Rasoulof’s The Seed of the Sacred Fig, the Iranian politically flammable cause celebre, is obviously essential.

I’m hoping for the usual odd pop-throughs from Director’s Fortnight, Un Certain Regard — forget Critics Week and Acid.

I’d really like to see Abel Gance’s Napoleon on a big screen again. Possibly Laurent Bouzereau’s Faye Dunaway doc. The Elizabeth Taylor lost tapes doc or whatever that’s about.

We all have a pretty good idea what Furiosa will most likely be.

Rithy Panh’s Pol Pot documentary.

There’s room for roughly another six or seven screenings. What should I include?

Jordan Ruimy sez: “Not sure if it’s up your alley, but there’s an actual body horror American movie in competition this year — The Substance. Possibly this year’s Titane. Margaret Qualley, Dennis Quaid and Demi Moore. Thierry Fremaux’s decision to include this for Palme d’Or contention is at the very least intriguing.”

I’ve watched it twice, and I personally think it’s one of the most repellent ads I’ve ever seen in my life.

To promote the just-published “The World Is Yours: The Story of Scarface,” author Glenn Kenny hosted a Wednesday evening (5.8) IFC Center screening of Brian DePalma’s 1983 gangster classic.

After the show GK discussed aspects of the production saga, took questions and signed a few books with a felt-tip pen.

HE has read the first 40 or 50 pages and heartily approves. A very tasty and nourishing Hollywood story with dozens of first-hand sources. The prose is smooth and confident…swaggering even.

Al Pacino didn’t speak to Kenny because his own personal Scarface saga account will appear in the autobiographical “Sonny Boy,” which will publish in October.

I was devastated to learn that Kenny wasn’t able to locate the whereabouts of that legendary 10–foot–tall oil painting of Tony and Elvira.