Catch Me If You Cannes

We left Cannes on Wednesday evening, having missed Lars von Trier's inappropriately headline-grabbing press conference. On Tuesday and Wednesday, we just hung out, sunbathed and did a little shopping without getting too tangled up in the folle foule de la Festival. 

The crowd outside the Jean-Paul Belmondo tribute

Brangelina and Bogie

Well, I managed to get some photos of Brad Pitt this evening at the première for The Tree of Life this evening — I didn't get any of his co-star Sean Penn, who was also there, but ever the romantic, having mounted the steps outside the Palais des Festivals, Brad went back to get Angelina and the two of them posed for photos together, smiling and holding hands.

Brad & Angelina

Although we arrived about an hour before the start of the film (and 50 minutes before the arrival of Brad et al), the crowds were much bigger than last night. We eventually managed to get to a reasonable spot, albeit with a fence blocking some of my view, and saw Jude Law, Faye Dunaway, Gwen Stefani, Rob Lowe and Isabelle Huppert, among others, on the red carpet. Partly because I was still getting to grips with the zoom and angles and partly because these guys didn't pause for photos on the steps, I failed to take any decent photos. Next time, I'll wear higher heels and maybe bring a phonebook on which to stand.

With aching arms and legs, we went for dinner at a little Italian nearby where the food was nice and the service was great until it was time to get the bill, which took 30 minutes. We had a date with Humphrey Bogart, you see: The Caine Mutiny was the film du jour at the Cinéma de la Plage. Even with the fleece blanket, it was pretty chilly on the beach but I enjoyed the film. Then, we hurried back home along the Croisette alongside numerous black-tie-clad peeps, for whom the night was clearly just beginning...

Getting with the Programme

On my fourth day in Cannes, I finally started to get the hang of things, even if it was mainly coincidental. After a day spent mostly on the beach, we went for dinner at Vesuvio, on the Croisette. The restaurant was packed with lots of festival types and although we were fairly sure there were at least some famous people there (directors, in particular), not anyone we recognised.

Rearranging Deckchairs on Das Boot

After another 24 hours in Cannes, I still haven't managed to spot any celebrities — not that I recognised, anyway. At the launch party for a new lifestyle shop near our flat, there was some old dude who kept smiling at me and putting his VIP pass in a prominent place but I ignored him. Outside the Martinez, meanwhile, I saw a rapper arriving (EDIT: I think it was Kanye West!) That, sadly, is about it.

The Cinéma de la Plage, however, was very successful. Hundreds of deck chairs were arranged on the beach and Stella Artois-branded fleece blankets were handed out to the film-goers. It was pretty surreal watching Das Boot in German with French subtitles on a beach in Cannes with various loud parties taking place in the background. We only stayed an hour or so but it was good fun.

Pirates of the Caribbean 4 is debuting today so we'll be on the lookout for Penelope and Johnny. I just wish I could go to see one of the films in the festival.

Stars on the Croisette

Since my parents bought their flat in Cannes, almost exactly five years ago, I've never made there during the Cannes Film Festival. This year, though, I arrived the day after the festival kicked off. I was expecting the town to be absolutely thronging but it is quieter than a normal day in the middle of summer -- in the daytime, anyway.

A Good Wife Doesn't Make a Good Husband

The Good Wife, in case I haven't mentioned it often enough lately, is one of my favourite TV shows (OK, one of my favourites out of the four or so that I watch). Some weeks I even prefer it to Mad Men and like Mad Men, TGW is a real slow-burner. In fact, it feels even slower because its seasons are twice as long and still the main, overarching plots taken forever to develop (or, just as often, not develop).

"Do You Like Scary Movies?"

I like scary movies and so too do Kim Newman and Mark Kermode, so it was great fun to hear them discussing the genre last night at the BFI, as part of the promotion for the release of the new edition of Newman's book, Nightmare Movies. The original edition of the book ran up to Apocalypse Now whereas the new version ends with There Will Be the Blood, partly, it seems, because the final line in that film is, "I'm done."

Kim Newman and Mark Kermode at the BFI

Newman started off by claiming that he preferred Exorcist II to the original, which almost caused Dr K to walk out. Defining the horror genre isn't always easy with so many subgenres (scary Japanese girls, vampires, torture porn, and so on) and, as Newman said, a horror film doesn't necessarily have to be scary. He, of course, is fairly immune to the tricks of horror directors by now, although jumped five times during the screening of Insidious (he and Kermode both agreed that the film was generally poor).

And while he isn't a big fan the endless sequels in the Saw and Hostel franchises (he prefers the "running through the woods" sub-sub-genre of torture porn to the "sitting in a chair" category; the former are inherently less boring), he doesn't think they're necessarily worse films than a lot of the films he loved in the 1970s and 1980s. The difference is that enough time has passed now for him to feel nostalgia for the latter. 

That said, in a show of hands from the audience, very few people were prepared to admit liking Sucker Punch (I think it was Sucker Punch; if not, it was another recent and much derided movie), which may have been the most frequently dissed film of the night. Do horror movies sometimes go too far? They're supposed to go too far, says Newman, who likes the fact that they aren't always mainstream, and for him, they only go too far when they become boring.

After the discussion, they showed a rarely screened film called Let's Scare Jessica to Death. "I could have chosen a film I love like Night of the Living Dead or Halloween," said Newman, "but most of you have probably seen them and if not, they are easy to get hold of." Let's Scare Jessica, meanwhile, hasn't been shown in the UK for over 25 years. 

In the film, the eponymous Jessica has just been released from a mental hospital and she and her husband move to a farm in the countryside with their friend Woody. In the house, they find a hippie drifter type called Emily, and then mysterious things start happening but are they real or is she still a bit crazy?

Newman likes the film because whenever someone tells him that "X is the scariest film ever," he can ask whether they've seen Let's Scare Jessica ( usually they haven't) and because it contains many of the classic horror film elements: drowned ghost brides, vampires, zombies, isolated houses in the countryside. 

The print we saw had a strange pinkish tone to it and judging by the high-pitched, feedback-like sounds that are played throughout the film, you might wonder whether Let's Give Jessica Tinnitus might be a more appropriate title. It was pretty scary, although I was bracing myself for more scares than there actually were. Not the most conventional of ways to spend the evening of the royal wedding but there were at least several bride dresses...