July 2009

 

The senses delighted this year at Cannes

 

 

Frank Cotolo

 

I just got back from the Cannes film festival. I was in Cannes for a dozen days, watching movie after movie, talking with celebrity after celebrity and stalking at least five French women who winked at me during a cocktail party.

 

The competition was fierce again this year and each screening had audiences that booed, cheered, jeered and sometimes tossed stale croissants at each other. All of this for the cherished Palme d'Or, the award that John Wayne once called "sissy".

 

When I arrived on an Air France jet that was co-piloted by Quentin Tarantino, I expected to hear a lot of the buzz for a few films. Some of the highbrow French movie critics met me at the airport; most of them were just interested in the multitude of luggage I brought that was filled with packs of Lucky Strikes, Pall Mall and Chesterfield cigarettes.

 

At my hotel they assigned me a room next to one occupied by Mel Gibson and his new girlfriend. Mel stopped me in the hall one night to ask me where he could find the ice machine. I politely said, "Are you and Natasha having some drinks?" Mel kicked me in the shins, said her name was not Natasha and that I should be ashamed calling all Russian girls by that name. Then he ran back and forth from the ice machine to his room, each time delivering one cube.

 

At a screening for a film by Alain Resnais, I noticed that everyone except me was wearing a shirt that read: Alain Resnais. Some of the writing on the shirts was not italic.

 

There was an Italian entry, a film called Vincere. It was about Mussolini's secret marriage but some critics panned it because they had hoped for a scene where Mussolini ate spaghetti out of a wheelbarrow.

 

Another critical disappointment to some critics was Ken Loach's film that starred soccer celebrity Eric Cantona. One critic told me that Cantona could not act his way out of a wheelbarrow filled with spaghetti. This motif was popular through the dozen days of the festival.

 

Also panned were two films that took place in Tokyo. These films, by Gaspar Noe and Isabel Coixet, respectively, made at least five French critics so mad that they swore never to eat sushi again. It turned out that these critics were perturbed because Godzilla was not a character in either film taking place in Tokyo.

 

Filmmaker and co-pilot Quentin Tarantino had a film about World War Two that was given mixed reviews. Brad Pitt is in that movie but that did not stop critics from calling the movie "boring and uninspired," "uninspired, boring and pretentious," "pretentious and boringly uninspired" and "dull". Pitt said he didn't care because he was going to bed with Angelina Jolie that night, which also pissed off all critics.

 

I think I gained 50 pounds by the closing ceremonies. There are things they cook so well in France that I don't ask what is on my plate; I just eat. I always have someone order for me. Sean Young likes to order for me, especially since her career tanked. Joe Pesci and Danny DeVito argue over which one of them will order for me. And daredevil Robby Knieval lets me eat from his plate when he is done (he never finishes his meal).

 

But the best thing about the whole trip was not the films, the celebrities or the food. It was volunteering to help construct a huge statue of Jerry Lewis, which, with luck and further financial support, will be unveiled in the summer of 2012, if not later.