wired

Sitting now at the American Pavillion, which suddenly — graciously! — has installed six plug-ins for those who don’t care to drain their computer batteries. Finding work places with plug-ins is a big problem this year. The Orange wifi cafe inside the Palais has been jammed every day with journos doing their usual-usual and photographers uploading photos, and the balcony area adjacent to the front- of-the-Palais press room doesn’t have seating or plug-ins like it did last year.

5.16.09, 9:19 am

I just counted 27 or 28 yachts out in the bay, including one of those gargantuan, tourist-carrying Love Boat deals. Most of them are destroyer-sized, built for businessmen’s egos. One ship out there looks like something out of a Joseph Conrad novel — oldish and slopey with wood-trimmed portholes, like it was built in the 1920s. Only one looks like a classic sailing vessel with a bowsprit and masts and jibs and all that good stuff. I’ve been dreaming about cruising around the Mediterranean on one of these vessels since I was ten years old.

It’s 9:15 am as we speak, and curiously gray and cool — almost chilly. Today’s Cannes schedule includes going to the American Pavillion between 9 and 10:30, possibly going to Soi Cowboy or The Chaser at 11, definitely attending the Three Monkeys press conference at 1 pm, possibly chatting with Tyson director Jim Toback in the afternoon, and seeing Woody Allen‘s Vicky Cristina Barcelona at 7:30. Oh, and my luggage may finally arrive today. I was told yesterday by a very helpful Air France rep that it was driven down from Paris to Nice late Wednesday night.

The L.A. Times yesterday launched Hollywood Backlot, which features some fairly decent “exclusive, on-set photography” taken by veteran Hollywood snapper David Strick.

Twilight costar Robert Pattinson, snapped by Strick on 4.7.08.

I’m not sure that Speed Racer was unfairly panned, per se — a lot of writers felt genuinely pained and pummeled by it — but it seemed that people didn’t give it enough respect for what the Wachowskis were at least trying to do, which was create a new kind of film language. This Darth Mojo piece is flat-out angry about the fierce critical put-downs, protesting the film’s “assassination.”

√ɬ¢√¢‚Äö¬¨√Ö‚ÄúWe come to bury Speed Racer, not to praise him√ɬ¢√¢‚Äö¬¨√Ǭù might as well have been imprinted on the foreheads of critics as they marched into their screenings of the new Wachowski flick,” it begins. “Sure enough, page after page of critical vitriol has been spewed all over this film, creating the widespread perception that Speed Racer is the must-avoid movie of the summer.
“So, it was with little-to-no enthusiasm that the Super Summer Movie Fun Club — Go! took their seats last weekend, prepared to endure the headache-inducing groan-fest that we√ɬ¢√¢‚Äö¬¨√¢‚Äû¬¢ve all been warned about. When the lights came up [over] two hours later, we all blankly stared at each other for a moment and, almost in unison, began singing ‘I liked it!’
“We all liked it. Every one of us. In fact, as we walked out of the theater, we all scratched our heads and wondered where√ɬ¢√¢‚Äö¬¨√¢‚Äû¬¢s this terrible movie all the critics have been bitching about?√ɬ¢√¢‚Äö¬¨√Ǭù

A press release sent out earlier today claimed that U.S. theatrical distributors “appear to be boycotting” Uwe Boll‘s controversial Postal. The film was scheduled to be released theatrically nationwide, but will now open on only four screens in four cities on Friday, 5.23.
“Theatrical distributors are boycotting Postal because of its political content,” said Boll. √ɬ¢√¢‚Äö¬¨√Ö‚ÄúWe were prepared to open on 1500 screens all across America on May 23rd. Any multiplex in the U.S. should have space for us, but they’re afraid.”
American exhibitors are a fearful conservative-minded bunch, to be sure, but the only thing that moves them one way or the other is money. If they’re saying they don’t want to book Postal (which I still haven’t seen, by the way), it’s because they’re afraid it won’t sell enough tickets.
Postal currently has a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 29%.

I woke up at 4:30 again this morning and did my usual, which is to go to the Carlton lobby and use the free wifi there to do some work. On the way over — it was about 4:55 by this time — I walked by a small, dimly-lit club packed with the usual vampires. You could hear the cheap music blaring two, three blocks away. And right next to the Carlton yet! Are they keeping Sean Penn up? If I were Penn and the music was keeping me up, I would walk down to the club and spit in the doorman’s face.
Hardcore criminals and sociopaths excepted, is there any lower life-form than clubbers? Drinking and jabbering and hitting on people you want to go to bed with for six or seven hours straight. Indiscreet, loud, coarse. A couple of assholes were walking down a dark street near my place — guys who’d obviously been at it all night — and they were talking so loudly you’d have to call it shouting. No respect for the time of night or people sleeping nearby or for God’s general rule, which is that only the aimless and the Godless prowl around in the wee hours.
Walking west on the Croisette a couple of minutes later I heard an American guy say to a couple of friends, “I can’t fucking believe you…300 for a lap-dance?” (That would be 450 US if was talking euros.) I ran into an unattractive prostitute with big feet a minute later. She offered the usual enticements. “What I really need is a bottle of water or a can of Coke,” I replied. “You know where I can get that?” I was feeling thirsty, dehydrated. A door man at the vampire club wouldn’t let me in to buy a Coke or a glass of Perrier. “You won’t let me in for two minutes in so I can buy some water because I’m thirsty?” I said to him. What an arrogant waste of skin. I finally managed to talk the night clerk at the Noga Hilton into selling me a large bottle of Evian. It cost 10 euros or $15 U.S. This town is dangerous.

My suitcase is still in the hands of Air France baggage retrieval. A French-speaking gentleman — probably, I’m guessing, the delivery guy hired by Air France to deliver retrieved luggage — called this morning, but our attempts at communication were a complete failure. (His English was non-existent; my French is pathetic.) I’ve been wearing the same clothing since Monday morning. I have to figure this out, so I may be out of the loop until later today.
I’m nursing a vague interest in attending a 3 pm Kung Fu Panda press conference. I’m definitely seeing Nuri Bilge Ceylan‘s Three Monkeys at 4:30. pm (Salle Debussy) and Steve McQueen‘s Hunger at 7:30 pm (Ditto.). A couple of parties are happening later this evening.

Variety‘s Justin Chang has joined the growing throng of Blindness panners. “The personal and mass chaos that would result if the human race lost its sense of vision is conveyed with diminished impact and an excess of stylish tics in Blindness, an intermittently harrowing but diluted take on Jose Saramago‘s shattering novel.
“Despite a characteristically strong performance by Julianne Moore as a lone figure who retains her eyesight, bearing sad but heroic witness to the horrors around her, Fernando Meirelles‘ slickly crafted drama rarely achieves the visceral force, tragic scope and human resonance of Saramago’s prose. Despite marquee names, mixed reviews might yield fewer eyes than desired for this international co-production.”

The timing of John Edwards‘ endorsement of Barack Obama, which I heard about 90 minutes ago, is, I admit, a stroke of good timing. It blows Obama’s West Virginia loss (downmarket racist rubes realizing it’s now or never to try and stop the black fella) off the proverbial front page. Clinton will hang tough until early June, but never have her true colors flown more brightly.