Four days since I’ve arrived — today begins my fifth day without a change of fresh clothes — and Air France is still hanging onto my little black suitcase. It was driven from Paris to Nice on a truck late Wednesday night, I was told, but the driver hasn’t shown up and Air France is having trouble locating him. The bag sure as shit hasn’t been dropped off at the Majestic — I know that much.
Maybe the driver stopped for a couple of drinks and he needed time to sleep it off. Maybe he met a hot lady at a truck stop. Maybe he’s seriously distraught over a recent divorce or financial loss and decided to drive the truck off a cliff.
The upside is that Air France has an alleged policy about compensating passengers who’ve been without their luggage for over 48 hours. We’ll see how that one goes. I wonder if they’ll just say “okay,” or will I have to go into the whole song and dance about how they’ve screwed me financially, cost me time and extra money (I bought a pair of pants) and so on?

Postal director Uwe Boll, angry at journalists for not paying attention to the fact that his film Postal is opening on very few screens as well as Boll’s suggested reason for this (i.e., political censorship), has written the following:
“You are all not getting that I’m the guy who made it against the big Hollywood system and you are all busy trying to destroy me and finish me up, and [from this] you’ve won what? The attention of the studios, Michael Bay…?? If you damage me you feel closer to Hollywood? What is your game plan?
“If you want [to see] only movies like Jumper, Speed Racer, What Happens in Vegas, then keep going and your dreams will be fullfilled. Postal makes some very important points, but you don’t wanna see that. That Bush used 9.11 to start a war against a country what had nothing to do with Bin Laden, etc., but none of this matters because you’re all busy thinking that Indiana Jones or Narnia are important movies.
“In reality real they are empty shells of an industry what wants to make money and what wants to keep you looking “escape movies” with nothing in it. in between they are putting some controversial movies to show that they can do also important movies, but ones that are not really critica. They only supporting the system and not showing the “big picture,” which Postal does. It nails the absurd situation with all the stupid religions, races and nations we are living [among].
“Postal is not accepting bullshit politics. Postal has not the opinion that Bush made mistakes — it has the opinion that it is a scandal that Bush is not in jail. What’s happened in America over the last seven years is the biggest joke since Columbus stepped on that land.”

I was invited to last night’s party for James Toback‘s Tyson doc. This morning’s, I should say, as it wasn’t expected to begin until after midnight. “Everyone will be there by 12:30,” a publicist told me. The event was at the Palm Beach Casino, which is way out on the eastern side of the bay. I arrived a few minutes after midnight and stayed until just before 1 am. I saw no Tyson people, no friendly faces…nothing.

Les goons

All I did was talk fruitlessly to four or five door apes who didn’t give a damn about my printed invitation. They waved in their friends (lizardy Euro-clubber types) and gave me the old “if you want to get in, wait patiently and bow down to our gangster power and we might show benevolence” routine. Sure thing. The night air was cool and invigorating as I walked home. I had a nice warm Panini sandwich and a bottle of water, and got to bed just before 2 am.

The only parts of Woody Allen‘s Vicky Cristina Barcelona (Weinstein Co., 8.29) that feel truly alive and crackling are the Spanish-language scenes between Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz. These two, portraying a pair of tempestuous, self-obsessed painters whose marriage has fallen apart due to an overload of heat and impulse and Spanish vinegar, are dynamite together. They create spark showers when they rage and taunt and rekindle their mutual hunger and disharmony. Cruz, especially, is electricity itself. When she loses her temper, it’s sheer bliss.

Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruiz, Scarlett Johansson and Woody Allen during filming of Vicky Crhistina Barcelona.

Unfortunately, there are many more scenes of them speaking Allen’s English- language dialogue, and that’s a significant problem. Not only for Bardem and Cruz but for costars Scarlett Johansson, Rebecca Hall (the Christina and Vicky of the title) and secondary players Chris Messina, Patricia Clarkson and Kevin Dunn. I never thought I’d see the day when one of the great comedy writers of the 20th Century would write unintentional howlers, but this happens every so often in VCB, and I was not happy to witness this.
An even bigger problem is a persistent, obnoxious and thoroughly unwanted narration track that makes this story of overlapping, off-and-on love affairs in present-day Barcelona so on-the-nose and over-explained that I was feeling actively hostile less than 15 minutes in. Until Javier and Penelope went into their crazy-love routine, that is, and then everything was well again. In brief spurts.
There were boos in the Salle Debussy as the closing credits began to unspool. I don’t know who was doing the booing, but I know I heard at least five or six guys letting go.

I haven’t the time to write any kind of comprehensive review of this sometimes unintentionally comedic, frequently cliche-ridden parody of a Woody Allen film, but it dawned on me early on that it plays exactly like a Ben Stiller Show parody of a typical Allen effort. Allen has been accused of parodying himself for years, but now he’s really done it. And it pains me to say this. No one filmmaker has given me greater pleasure for a longer period of time than Allen. I worship the guy, but VCB is agony to sit through at times. Some of it is fine or passable. You could call it a light romp and let it go at that. But when it goes off the rails…my God!
If it turns out that Allen was in fact spoofing himself (and thereby having us off) by mocking the kind of anguished, sometimes very funny, sometimes darkly subversive relationship movie he’s been known for since the release of Manhattan nearly 30 years ago, then I will be hugely impressed.
But I seriously doubt if Vicky Cristina Barcelona is a jape. I think he made it with the same earnest spirit and intent that have fueled all his films. This is another story of artist- and intellectual-class characters falling in and out of affairs, sorting things out as they stroll through art galleries and other picturesque points of interest, betraying each other, acting badly (and sometimes hilariously), serving each other great meals and good wine and bringing out the hurt, lust and confusion.

Again, if only Allen had decided to make a Javier-and-Penelope movie in Spanish, and just gotten rid of the whole American-girls-visiting-Barcelona-and-learning- about-the-complexities-of-adult-love angle, he might have had something good and possibly great. A critic friend said on the way out that he believes Bardem and Cruz made up a lot of (if not all of) their inflamed Spanish-language dialogue. It’s a sensible theory. Their back-and-forth is much sharper, explosive and more flowing than the English-language dialogue, so go figure.
During their fighting scenes Bardem repeatedly tells Cruz to speak in English. He does so out of consideration for the English-speaking Johansson, who, having become Bardem’s live-in lover, is a constant witness. By my count he says this line to Cruz at least 9 or 10 times. Why it’s repeated so often is mystifying. Every time he said this, of course, I was saying to myself, “No, no…keep it in Spanish!”
Oh, and the much-touted make-out scene between Johansson and Cruz, shot in a red-tinted dark rooom, is, at best, diverting. It’s just a slow kiss or two and a slight embrace. It certainly doesn’t build into anything. Allen cuts away just as it gets going.
It also seems strange that Allen has imposed a no-naked-breast-shot rule upon Vicky Cristina Barcelona. He’s telling a story that’s swimming in mad erotic currents, and yet he’s clearly decided against boob exposure — not even a casual random glimpse. It’s obviously unnatural and very un-European. Presumably this was about avoiding an R rating, but the oddly prudish vibe works against the story and the general mood, so why even pick up the brush if you’re afraid to paint a nipple?

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