I love how bitchy A.O Scott is. (one of the main movie critics for the bible and by that I mean the NYtimes). His Cannes Journal is one of the most hysterical things I have read online this week. I so want to meet him now. And for some reason I trust his movie reviews so much more.
There are exceptions (the Pedro Almodóvar bash last year, with a fireworks display over the water, comes to mind), but last night's event for Gus Van Sant's "Last Days" was closer to the rule. A dour bouncer closely inspects your invitation and, with an expression exquisitely poised between resignation and disgust, decides to allow you in even though you clearly have no business being there. That is if you arrive within 15 minutes of the party's beginning. Otherwise your invitation is no guarantee of entry, even if (as I witnessed a few years ago outside the "24 Hour Party People" party) you are the head of the company that made the movie and paid for the party.
Once inside, you slowly shoulder your way toward the bar, where you linger amid a crush of tuxedos, gowns and silly Riviera hipster outfits until someone condescends to pour you a dribble of bad liquor over a single wilting ice cube. Then you try to mingle, which means being pushed and shoved though a hot, loud room until you arrive at the threshold of the equally hot, loud and crowded V.I.P. area, where the first bouncer's uglier cousin graciously informs you that you are beneath contempt even for thinking about wanting to enter that privileged sanctum.
(Rest of comments removed but then he says:) I'm leery of writing more because I don't think the film has distribution and I don't feel comfortable bringing the weight of this paper into the mix at this point.
Maybe I'll change my mind later.
Meanwhile, I went to my first screening at the Directors Fortnight, one of the two unofficial programs here. Despite the near-lack of air conditioning, the ringing cell phones and the two biddies in front of me who pawed through their plastic bags throughout the screening (I kicked one of their chairs a couple of times, but apparently not hard enough)
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