The Night Your Favorite Guest Blogger Became a Cannes Whore

Saturday, May 19th 2012. This is the night that I became a Cannes whore.

Let me recount the way in which we acquire these coveted invitations to red carpet premiere screenings:

We beg for them. Literally. We write "Si'l vous plais invitation to XXX" for example, and hope that someone will bless us with a coveted ticket to paparazzi-ville. Usually, those with spares place one in our hands and keep walking. The balcony is open seating so it's unlikely you'll be sitting near the person that dolled it out to you, and even in the orchestra it's done by rows (your ticket could say rows A-F, for example) and no specific seat is ever assigned. So we rack 'em up from anyone and everyone we can find until the last second, and walk down the carpet together oozing Penn fabulosity.

We were a bit nervous though to get tickets for LAWLESS Saturday night, as it's the biggest Hollywood blockbuster with the most A list names at this point in the festival: Shia LeBeouf, Tom Hardy, Jessica Chastain, Guy Pearce, Gary Oldman, and Mia Wasikowska to name a few. We knew these golden tickets would be hard to come across, so we all tried our best to bring our A game. My strategy was holding the sign, but workin' my charm and making intense eye contact with people. I thought I'd have more person-by-person, varied individual interactions to to seal the deal. 

I wore my black slinky dress and red lipstick, silver pumps, and trekked the block with my sign. And this is where everything took a turn. This is where I became a Cannes whore. 

Let me back track once again. Every experience I've ever had with mentorship has been nothing but positive, inspiring, and of the best intentions. I have had amazing experiences with Penn alums and industry big-wigs that have really helped mold me and get me to where I am today. But outside of the Penn bubble, it is a seriously sketchier world.

I wasn't doing much up front filtering with who I asked because you never know just who will give you the goods. I asked both sexes, all ages, literally anyone that crossed my path. So one man I asked, an older gent of about 65, for a ticket, gave me a lead that he just might have one. So we started talking and within minutes, this baby was mine. Now instead of the usual procedure I just described, Michael not-so-implicitly made it known that he wanted me to be "his date" for the evening, and asked me to stay with him so we could strut down the red carpet as a pair and sit together, despite the open seating. Come again?

Now, homegirl wanted to get some facetime with Jessica Chastain. What was I to do? So I summoned my courage and my wits and walked down the carpet with Michael, as he creepily placed his hand on my lower back and waved to the cameras. Now the funny part about this is that we made such an outrageous, unlikely pair that all the paps took our picture! 19 year old pasty girl and sugar daddy Indian Brit take Lawlesss. (Shameless plug, look for me in the mags).

Michael wasn't done there. He asked me to have dinner and drinks with him after in his hotel...a TEN MINUTE DRIVE away. He started referring to me as "his darling," despite the glaring wedding ring on his finger. I was obviously texting Kath (mom) once I got into the theater and my friend Rawson in the orchestra whenever I could get away.

Funny texts from mom include: "As soon as it's over, run like the wind!" "If he puts a hand on you get out. I don't think he will. K ENJOY!" 

Lucky for me, Michael had to make some business calls to India and decked out of the film after about only 20 minutes. When he whispered in my ear that he had to go I could feel every hair on my body stand up (much more so than I did a few hour's later at the premiere of Argento's Dracula 3D- see Adam's blog for a review). 

When possible, I'm asking women for tickets from now on. The Lawless premiere kind of put me in check and made me realize that when you hit the streets begging for something, most usually want something else in return. And no more red lipstick — from hereon in, I'm sticking to Burt's Beeswax.

P.S.

Check out Adam's blog for tons of film reviews (he's a god) and a recap of our adventures from a different perspective! 


Adam Writes a Picture: http://adamwritesapicture.blogspot.com/ 


P.S. Maybe Adam will write a guest blog too soon! Please Adam?

Rain, Rain, Go Away Come to Cannes Another Day

   Rain= no fun. Rain in Cannes= way worse than no fun, it flat out sucks. It's been so cold and windy out today and a huge rainstorm started this afternoon. Since we have to wait outside on lines for the majority of the movies, it definitely puts a damper on things. However, we did not let it stop us from having a great day anyway! We got up early around 9:30 to make it to the Lumiere for a competition film from Denmark, called The Hunt. Jaycee, Adam, Hayley, and I picked up chocolate croissants and coffees and made the trek into the center of town. We got tickets no problem and I ran into my friends from Penn not on the program, Charlotte and Rachel. Sadly, they're heading home tomorrow, but I was glad to get the chance to see them for a few minutes since I haven't all week! The Hunt was definitely a well made film, but the theme of it didn't sit well with me (it was a film about a man who is accused of sexually abusing young children in the kindergarten class he teaches after one of the little girls lied about it) so I came out frustrated with it.... According to my smart cinema studies friends, that was the whole point, but still, not my favorite so far.
   We waited on line after that for another film in the Un Certain Regard competition called Confessions of a Child of the Century, but unfortunately, the theater was packed before we could get in. As luck would have it though, a market screening (screenings intended for buyers of films, but also open to festival badge holders if there are extra seats) of a film called Struck by Lightning was being shown an hour later. I had been wanting to see this film for a while, since one of the girls in my Art and Business of Film class at Penn this semester worked as a producer for it after taking a year off school, so she told us a lot about it and even streamed the trailer for us one day in class! Jaycee and I got another round of coffees to tide us over (they are SO SMALL IN FRANCE) and waited outside the theater. We were the first ones in the festival line and made it into the movie! It was written by and stars Chris Colfer from Glee and also had a lot of other fun stars in the cast including Dulmont Mulroney, Christina Hendricks, Allison Janey, Sarah Hyland (from Modern Family!), and Rebel Wilson (from Bridesmaids). It was such a cute movie and definitely cheered us up on this rainy day! We walked outside and it was pouring and all we had eaten were our croissants, so we went to get lunch/dinner/whatever this meal could be called. The restaurant wasn't stellar, but it did the trick.... Hayley, Rawson, and I did not want to withstand the rain and cold temperatures for any longer so we decided to head back and skip out on a movie for tonight. Jaycee and Adam stayed to see another one but quickly followed us back after the tent the movie was supposed to screen in blew over due to strong winds (LOL). Tonight I'll be staying in and probably watching another movie on my laptop (because what else can you do as a break when you are taking a break from watching movies all day? Like actually?) and hanging out with everyone else here- most people are back so there is tons of company! Finally I'm all caught up on daily blogging, so check back tomorrow for what adventures Cannes has in store for me then!

Keeps Gettin' Better

   Somehow, the days keep getting better. Yesterday was the biggest killer of them all- we saw 4 movies, 3 of which were BACK TO BACK PREMIERES in the Grand Lumiere. Yep, that meant 3 red carpets in a row. How did we manage to pull that off? Read on.
   The day began when Hayley, Rawson, Arthur, and I got up to see a movie a bunch of others saw the day before called Beasts of the Southern Wild, a film in the Un Certain Regard competition by director Benh Zeitlin. The buzz was that it was amazing, but I had no idea just how amazing it was until I saw it. It was by far the most incredible film I have seen all trip, and it put me on a high for the rest of the day despite the dreary weather. The film chronicled the life of a young girl and her father who live in the "Bathtub" of Louisiana and refuse to leave when weather threatens to destroy their entire home. The film seemed to last for an extremely long time (in the best way possible) and was poignant and inspiring. I laughed, gasped, and cried-- it was truly an unforgettable emotional rollercoaster. The loyalty that one can have for their people and their home really left an impact on me, and it made me reflect on my life and be thankful for the things that I have. It was so real, raw, and brilliantly done, and as soon as it is released in America (Fox Searchlight just acquired the film for distribution at Cannes), I HIGHLY RECCOMEND you all go see it.
   After the movie was over, the four of us went to a cute little corner restaurant for lunch and unable to forget about the film, proceeded to talk about it for the next hour or so. We had to return back to the dorms after lunch to hear our first guest lecture by a Penn alum at Cannes, Gregory Quinn, who now runs a company called Caribbean Cinemas. He spoke for an hour and a half about the exhibition arm of the film industry, and it was cool to hear about the Caribbean cinema culture and larger exhibition trends in general.
   In comes the best part of our day. There were three back to back premieres on the schedule for the night: the highly anticipated American film by John Hillcoat, Lawless; Australian film The Sapphires, and the world premiere of Dario Argento's revamped version of Dracula in 3-D. Our goal was to get into all of them, a challenging feat that was by no means a guarantted success, and one that would never be able to be topped again (rarely are there ever 3 big premieres in one night- let alone 3 screenings in the Lumiere back to back at all). Well, as the spoiler above indicated earlier, WE DID IT.
   Lawless was the first major American in competition film to premiere (aside from Moonrise Kingdom, which was a unique case because it was opening night), so we knew going in it was going to be extremely difficult to score a ticket. We got outside to beg and quickly realized we were 3 out of like 30 people looking for tickets. First Hayley got one (read about her adventures on her next guest blog...) and then Adam. I started to loose hope very quickly because it was 6:20 and the movie started at 7, with the red carpet ending at like 6:45. However, as luck would have it, a man holding two tickets was swarmed by a bunch of people looking for tickets and he was asking to see their badges (tickets are color coated blue and orange- and you can only get in with the orange one if you have a certain level of badge- which, thankfully, we do- YAY PENN!). I swooped in with my badge and in my sweetest voice, pleaded with the man that all my friends had tickets besides me, and it did the trick because 5 seconds later, a coveted Lawless ticket was in my hand. Adam and I rushed on line to get in, absolutely THRILLED. We walked the red carpet together and got two seats side by side smack in the center of the balcony. It could not have worked out more perfectly. When we walked the red carpet, we saw the cast at the base of it, but were rushed inside so that they could take all of their photos, etc. But we got to see them enter on the big screen- and what an all-star line up it was. Shia LaBeouf (second time seeing him - NBD), Tom Hardy, Jessica Chastain, Guy Pearce, Dane DeHaan, and Mia Wasikowska all were there for the premiere, with director Hillcoat and writer-musician Nick Cave also in tow. The movie is based off a book by Matt Bondurant entitled The Wettest County in the World, about the true-life story of his ancestors, the bootlegging Bondurant brothers (played by LaBeouf, Hardy, and DeHaan) during the prohibition era in 1930s Virginia. I liked the film a lot, didn't love it- but definitely worth a trip to the theater after its August 29th release in the US.

Thanks chica in the red jacket for ruining our pic

   After the film, Hayley, Adam, and I met up with the rest of our crew and got back to begging. We managed to score tickets for all of us to both The Sapphires premiere AND the Dracula premiere within a matter of minutes outside of the Grand Palais (even with a few extra to spare- oh how good it feels to see the tables turned). WHAT A FEAT!!!! We felt like Harvey Weinstein. (Weinstein company is distributing both these films- and it was a major accomplishment for them to score back to back premireres on the first Saturday of the festival! Harvey was at both and SO WERE WE!) We celebrated with nutella-banana paninis from a sandwich stand right next to the theater and raced back to the red carpet. This time, it was less crowded since it was later and not an American movie premiering, so we took our time, snapped some photos, and soaked it all in. We got a little nook for ourselves in the corner of the balcony and settled in for the film. It was fabulous! Such a nice lighthearted movie to raise our spirits after a lot of the heavier films we have seen lately. It stars Chris O'Dowd (from Bridesmaids!) and a bunch of breakout Australian actresses with great voices! The film is similar to Dreamgirls, and is about the life of 4 sisters who form a singing group called, obviously, the Sapphires, who travel to Vietnam to perform for the soldiers there in the 1960s. Thanks to the Weinstein Company, this film will definitley be making its way to the States!!
   Like we were in our own movie, we walked out of the Grand Lumiere for the second time only to turn right back around and reenter the red carpet for the third one. (Note: Red Carpet count to date= 6) It was honestly surreal and we all could not believe we accomplished what we set out to. I never really had the burning desire to see Dracula, and after the first 10 minutes it looked like a complete waste of my time, so Hayley, Rawson, and I left and went home. Definitely did not look like my kind of movie.

   On the walk back, we passed the now-empty red carpet and I was smiling so big thinking about the night. The red carpet started to feel like home- literally- and with all the huge American premieres coming up this week (Hello Brad Pitt, Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart, Nicole Kidman, Reese Witherspoon, Zac Efron, Matthew McConaughey, and SO MANY MORE) we're gonna have to get un-used to it fast, because those tickets will be nearly impossible to score- but the lesson learned is to never stop trying and never give up hope, because as with the rest of this trip, luck has been on our side- if we could attend three premieres, and walk three red carpets in CANNES in one night, there is NOTHING we can't do!

Back by Popular Demand: Hayley Brooks

So Wednesday evening got off to the right foot when Sharon and I boarded a Mercedes taxi-cab, for six, to enter the lavish Rust & Bone (French Main Competition Film featuring the glamourous and Academy Award Winner Marion Cotillard) after party at the Club de Cinema, the beachside tent occupied by the elite Carlton Hotel. We walked down the promenade amidst gazers and fans of all nationalities dying to catch a glimpse of French high society- both involved and uninvolved in the film. ...So of course they were confused when the two American girls giggled all the way down the walk pointing at people and reminding themselves, "Ok, be cool. We're cool. It's cool. This is cool."

We walked in and mozied down to one of the many open bars and scored two glasses of the finest champagne. Just looking around at the clothes, shoes, hair, was the absolute highlight of the night for me. I have never seen such lavishness and luxury. We then found our way to the private room where the cast had their own mini party, blocked off by two HUGE bodyguards. Marion was an absolute vision, exquisite in a sequined box shoulder jacket and funky updo. Her leading man, Mathias Schoenaerts, was even more attractive in person than he was on screen. We stared at them, quite literally, in awe and snagged some pics on our iPhones. We took laps around the party, sort of just gaping at it all (and of course taking advantage of the champagne). We sat down to take it in some more and these two men (boys? guys?) sat down with us. I decided that we should make friends, but also decided Sharon should initiate- a task she willingly took on. We soon got acquainted with Sebastian and Lorenzo, from French New Guinea and Italy/Paris respectively, who gave us French High Society 101- pointing out important people left and right. 

It went something like this, 

Lorenzo: "So how did you like the movie? **Hushed** Wait don't answer yet if you didn't like it...I say this because the producer and director are right behind you..." 

It was great that we met them because that would all have been totally lost on us, and we didn't have to get up again for more champagne...

Lorenzo explained that the beach parties close at 2 on the dot, government enforced, but the hottest clubs in Paris then take the stage and host parties at Cannes to all hours of the night. So after making a few more rounds and even hitting up the dance floor (or should I say dance tent?) at the party, our collective arm candy escorted us to the after party at the Palais. It was monitored by, acc. to Lorenzo "the bouncer" of Paris, who of course he's friends with. So we get there and Lorenzo casually shakes the hand of this massive man in a tweed jacket, dark sunglasses and a slanty eye. Not exaggerating when I say he was the scariest man I have ever seen. We were whisked away to this side door entrance that opened us up to a world unlike anything I have ever seen before. It was fabulousness to the extreme, with elaborate head-pieces and androganists. We danced and frankly, killed it despite the fact that we so did not belong! Around 3:30 Sharon and I made eye-contact and had an ESP moment that read: "This is so fun, getting a little tired...we've been up for 21 hours straight...these guys are starting to get a little pushy...let's end on a high note...ok GREAT" and decided to make the dash.

I told Lorenzo that we had to go because we get locked out of our dorm at 4, to which he responded:

"I have a room for you back in my flat..."

LOL No frenchman!!! Homegirl does not do things like that.

I laughed and said no no, and Sharon and I ran into a cab, giggling all the way home. We got back and Adam was still awake so we plopped down on his queen-sized bed (he pushed his two twins together...long story) and recounted our crazy night.  

Exclusive VIP After Party at Cannes? Check, check and check. As Sebastian said, "The entire world wishes they were at this party tonight. You have no idea quite how lucky you are."

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!!!!!

First Day= A+

            First full day of Cannes. And what a day it was….Here it goes. Best. Day. Ever. A++ (Clearly life here just gets better everyday… I don’t know how much better it can get from here)

We went to bed at 2:30 AM and woke up at 6:30 AM to get to the main theater to beg for tickets to the 8:30 AM first screening of Rust and Bone, a competition French film starring Marion Cotilliard. We walked along the water on the now-familiar walk to the center of the city and it was basically empty- such an incredible experience (made significantly better by the double cappuccino I had in one hand and the chocolate croissant in the other- gotta love the French). I don’t regret getting little to zero sleep for one second. Especially because as we were standing outside the theater looking for tickets, some VERY nice dude came up to me and handed me three tickets. It was so perfect and so lucky. Casually got to walk the red carpet AGAIN, in broad daylight, to get into the Lumiere. I could not have been happier. Sadly, no paps were there but I’ll survive.

I do not have better things to say about this film, it was raw, emotionally charged, and overall incredible. Normally, foreign language films aren’t really my thing, but Cotilliard’s performance was flawless and the subtitles were more than enough to capture and hold my attention. I was invested in every second of the film, which is about a whale trainer named Stephanie (Cotilliard) who loses her legs in a freak accident and finds love with Ali (French actor Matthias Schoenaerts), a tough boxer/thug who’s life is falling apart after moving in with his sister after taking his 5-year old son away from his drug lord mother (very brief description- but see it!!!!). After the movie, we all raved about it for a few minutes and then quickly moved on to the next. Our larger group split up and Hayley, Rawson, our other friend Arthur, and I, decided to grab a quick lunch at a cute outdoor café. By chance, we happened to be reading through the daily edition of Variety passed out everyday during the festival (for free, ugh, wish America was like this) and noticed a bunch of ads for great looking films with all star casts that weren’t on the Cannes roster, but had a suite number in one of the hotels written on the bottom. We ventured over the hotel and ended up talking to a bunch of film execs casually in their suite-turned-office for almost half an hour! It was so cool!

Already on a high, Hayley and I continued on our day’s amazing journey by venturing over to the theater where the Woody Allen documentary was playing. We tanned on the steps of the theater waiting to get inside (yet another reason to love France). We were one of the first to enter and took our seats dead center in the plush red velvety chairs that our bodies basically melted into. We were in for such a surprise: the director of the film, Robert Weide, was there to watch the film and spoke to the audience before the screening!!! He delivered such a great speech (in English thankfully) and Hayley and I felt SO lucky! The documentary was great!!! We stuck around after the show and got to speak to Weide as well. Definitely one of the highlights of the trip! We had dinner and gelato after that and tried to get into a third movie to no avail (some theaters are just too small L) so we came back to the dorms to shower and change for the night. Hayley and I managed to score two passes to the Rust and Bone after party tonight after its big premiere and are getting ready to go as I type this. Cannot wait!!!! Hopefully I will have some great celebrity schmoozing stories and red carpet adventure momentos to share tomorrow! Bonne soiree!