One Day, Two Premieres

   Yesterday was perhaps one of the coolest days of my entire time in France. I accomplished so much in what seemed like so little time. Hayley and I slept in until noon after being exhausted from the night before (see Hayley's highly anticipated guest blog soon for the reasons for exhaustion- to all her loyal fans on this blog, it will come soon, I promise!)
   We picked up coffees at the cafe near the dorms and walked over to meet Adam and Jaycee on line (in the rain- womp) at (what turned out to be the main premiere) for a British filmed called Broken. The film chronicles the lives of three families living on the same coul-de-sac, and depicts how one lie can lead to a multitude of hardships and destruction. It stars the leader of the Cannes Un Regard Jury, Tim Roth. As we stood online, all of a sudden the entrance was swarmed with paparazzi and we heard that Shia LaBeouf was entering the theater for the screening. Naturally, being me, I got way too excited than was necessary, and we found out that he was premiering the screening of his directoral debut short film, Howardcantour.com. We made our way into the theater and Shia introduced his film and spoke to the audience. He grew out his hair so he looked a little dissheveled and well, uglier than usual, but it was still so exciting to be like 10 feet away from him. His film was cute, with a few laughs here and there and a tad pretentious, but I didn't come away hating it. Broken, on the other hand, was a fabulously made film, and at that point in time, the best one we've seen so far. The entire main cast (including the director and Tim Roth) were also there to introduce their film and spoke after Shia. So so cool. We actually waited on line for Broken the day before and didn't get in because the theater was already full, which proves  my theory that everything happens for a reason... The story was gripping and the actors were great, but I came away from it feeling angry and because of that, couldn't get myself emotionally invested with the characters. Thereofe, I didn't love it the way my friends did, but that's why there are thousands of films screening in this city for the next week!!
   Now on to the best part of the day and the reason behind the blog's title: I hit up not one, but TWO movie premieres yesterday. After recharging with a quick coffee break (espresso with nutella in it= heavenly), Jaycee and I went out to beg for tickets to the highly coveted premiere of Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted. There are so many reasons I NEEDED to get into this premiere: 1. SO MANY CELEBS WERE IN IT, 2. So many celebs would be at the premiee, 3. It's a DreamWorks 3-D animated film. Yeah, that pretty much covers it all....I dressed in a day/night dress and packed my heels with me so I didn't even need to go back to the dorms and change once we scored two tickets to the premiere. It literally felt like we had just won the lottery. We stood for over an hour begging for tickets at the main pedestrian entrance to the red carpet line, and got EXTREMELY lucky!!! I swiped on my red lipstick as I found my place in line waiting to enter the red carpet (obviously- had to look super fab for this one). Jaycee and I had tickets in different sections so I was going solo on this one, which oddly was very cool. The streets were SWARMED with fans and so I cannot even put into words how exhilerating it felt to feel like a VIP and bypass all of them to make my way onto the red carpet. I literally felt like the luckiest person on earth. All of the press photographers and paparazzi were wearing neon colored afro-wigs in honor of the movie, which had to do with the characters of Madagascar joining a traveling circus, so it was bright and colorful and so much fun. Since it was such a packed premiere, everyone with balcony tickets only got to walk the carpet from the base of the stairs rather than the whole thing. STILL THE BEST THING EVER. I lingered on the carpet until the guards literally told me it was time to go in (of course...) and so I saw Jane Fonda and Naomi Watts make their big red carpet debuts. Celebs also in attendance: Eva Longoria, Jennifer Connolly, Salma Hayak, and of course the entire cast including David Schwimmer (FRIENDS!!!!), Ben Stiller, Jada Pinkett Smith, Jessica Chastain, and Chris Rock.
   I took my seat in the Grand Lumiere and saw more of the red carpet on the big screen (they air the footage for people already inside, which is something that was very very cool that I didn't know about). First thing I did was Viber call my BFF Nicole whose 20TH BIRTHDAY was yesterday, and there was no better place to call from to wish her the best day ever. Shoutout: HAPPY BDAY NIKKI!
   A few minutes later, the entire cast entered the theater to a standing ovation. It was such an insane feeling to watch a film in the presence of its creators, and I was so glad my first big premiere I got to attend was this one. It was not in the Palm d'Or competition, but highly anticipated, so the energy level in the room was very high. In short, the movie was SO GREAT. I laughed and loved every second of it. The animation and 3-D was perfect and the characters are so cute and hilarious. The film takes place in Europe as the characters join a traveling circus to try to make their way back home to New York, so it was so fitting to see it in Cannes. The first city they were in was Monte Carlo, and the animators made an exact replica of it to the point where I could recognize the casino table I was gambling at there and the restaurant where we ate dinner. It was so so so cool!!!!!
   I was so sad to see it end, but even more exciting things were still in store for me that night. As we exited the theater, Jaycee and I met up and on our walk, ran into the young star of Moonrise Kingdom, Kara Hayward. We chatted with her and her mom and got to take a picture with her- she was so sweet! The begging began again... This time for the premiere of the Italian in competition film called Reality. We managed to score a second set of tickets (seriously, did I mention we're some of the luckiest people alive?) and walked the red carpet again. This time, since it was a less popular premiere, we walked every inch of it. It was also nice being with all of my friends, and we snapped pictures and had such a great time, so close to brushing arms with the entire main cast of the film. I won't even waste time talking about the film though because I actually hated it. It wasn't even the langauge barrier that did it, I just thought it was so bad that in the moment, I thought I would never have the desire to see another movie again. It was about a man who trys out to be on the TV show Big Brother and becomes obsessed that the show is watching over his entire life even when he doesn't make the show. Technology destroying man= overused theme and NOT employed well here. Enough said. Also, due to the timing of the back-to-back premieres (will never get old ;)) I missed dinner. And the movie had a ton of Italian food scenes in it. So naturally, zero dinner plus food shown in movies equals pizza and fries at 1 AM at a pizza restaurant on the walk back to the dorms in our fancy attire. Truly a home run of a night!!!!!