Ask And Ye Shall Receive

Wooohoooo!! A day after I was wishing for some U.S. distribution of "We Need To Talk About Kevin" - this article comes out:

http://www.nbcchicago.com/blogs/popcornbiz/We-Need-To-Talk-About-Kevin-Clips-Are-Tough-to-Watch-121524139.html

Get excited / Brace yourself, America. 'Kevin' is coming...

Tilda Swinton

After hearing Jonathan Caouette speak to us at a hotel up by the Cannes Train Station we speed-walked down to the beach to get in our seats at the UK Pavilion to hear Tilda Swinton generously speak one-on-one with our group.

Here, the students are awaiting the arrival of Tilda. I know the background behind them is fairly white washed, but if I had adjusted the lighting on my camera correctly you would see the bright blue water of the Mediterranean underneath the bright white glow of huge yachts. Not a bad view.

Tilda was wonderful. Having just spoken to a crowd at Ebertfest in April with Roger and Nate (our professor/program director) we were able to somehow occupy a bit of her heavily sought-after time during the chaos of Cannes. She was open, lovely, honest, and insightful. Such an honor and a joy to have her speak to our group of budding film and journalism students.

She cited her two children serving as constant inspirations throughout her talk with us - especially when it comes to film. Not just acting in film, but appreciating film. Tilda described her home absent of television and video games, so when her children are exposed to movies, be it in a local Scottish theatre or simply watching Hitchcock classics in their home, she absolutely admires and is inspired by the way the children let the films wash over them and are absorbed into their young, honest psyches.

Tilda sipped on tea at first because her voice was wearing out from all of the interviews and panels she had participated in prior to speaking to us. Despite tirelessly fulfilling her duties as a lead actress in one of the most talked about films in competition, Tilda's mood and intention with us was nothing but uplifting and informative. She is a true professional. And her humility was surprising. When describing how she became involved in "We Need To Talk About Kevin" she recalled how she was dumbfounded that Lynne Ramsay and John C. Reilly even knew who she was. She seems to forget she's an Oscar-winning actress who is arguably one of the best of our time. I guess leading a secluded, normal life on the coast of Scotland could do that to a person. In her town she says she's "just her kids' mom" and at the vet she's "just her dogs' mom."

Shockingly, too, was her humor. At one point a nearby helicopter loudly started up and she childishly/mockingly stuck her pointer fingers in her ears and made a face. Smiling, she angrily demanded (in a pretending manner, of course), "Who is that [in the helicopter]?!" It made me daydream and imagine her marching over to the helicopter, knocking on its door, and telling its mystery passengers to quiet down so she could continue speaking to our group of university students in peace. She has the perfect combination of celebrity prowess and innate down-to-earth nature to be able to pull something like that off effectively.

I love this last shot shown below. This is Tilda's immediate reaction to our student, Donté Slocum's, question: "How have you grown as a person since you first started acting?" She pensively processed how to respond as the question really took her aback.

All in all, the concise, yet full thirty minutes we spent with Tilda on the patio of the UK Pavilion were so appreciated and sincere. She really took her time with our group. My perceptions of her before this talk and after could not be more different. She is such a normal, amazingly talented woman.

The day after she spoke to us Nate received an email from her apologizing for "rushing out of there." This completely unnecessary apology couldn't describe her character more. Genuine, kind, and classy. What an experience!

I guess the question is...

Why WOULDN'T they repaint all the white lines on the road at 1:30am right outside our residence with a crazy loud machine?

Silly me.

Restless for "Restless"

Gus Van Sant’s new film, “Restless,” premiered in the Un Certain Regard competition on the second day of the Festival. A majority of students along with myself and Jennifer Smith (the program’s Telecomm professor) got in line about an hour and a half before the doors opened for the screening. The early bird catches the worm in this town - that is for sure.

The students patiently waited in the "Market Badge" line and killed time by chatting, eating paninis and nutella from the food trucks 'round the corner, and scouring over their Market Guides to plan their next move after this movie lets out. I personally sat on the ground in line to give my poor footsies a rest. It's amazing what you notice from the ground angle. Check out our student, Ashley Derrington's, amazing leopard paint job on her toe nails. Too cool!

What happens next is a series of unfortunate events. The gate to enter the red carpet stairs finally opened and students began to boom up them into the Debussy Theatre (where all films in the Un Certain Regard category of competition are screened). However, the line quickly stopped in short bursts as several of our students were stopped for having on - gasp! - flip flops. I know, I know - American students in Cannes wearing comfortable shoes while waiting in line to see an afternoon movie - the horror! Well, thank goodness this wasn't our first rodeo and the students were prepared with bags of extra clothes/shoes ready to throw on. It is Cannes, after all, and I teach the students early on that you never know when you'll nab a last-minute red carpet ticket or be whisked away on a yacht and proposed to by a hot, young celeb - so it is better to arm yourself with tux/cocktail dress and fancy shoes at every moment of the day...because you just never know.

One by one, students paired high heels with denim skirts and shiny tuxedo shoes with cargo shorts. Who cares if they look like slobs as long as their feet are styling, right? (This is an unspoken french credo of Cannes.)

Well fast forward to the last few of our students attempting to get in and, lo and behold, Daniel Harrison had not anticipated needing to wear tux shoes at any part of his easy-going day. Thinking on the quick and acting even quicker, I get the brilliant idea for Sam Parker (a student who already made it past the devilish doormen) to "pass back" his closed-toed shoes to the toe-baring Daniel. Before Sam can object to my impulsive idea, I take his shoes from his feet and run them down to Daniel. Standing there, proud of my resourcefulness, I think, "Whew, we are in the clear." Ohhhhh, how wrong I was. Immediately several large, khaki-clad men take Daniel AND Sam by the arms and escort them out of the line and red carpet. Shocked, I begin asking what the problem was. The most ornery of these men proclaims that 'they are done' because 'they cheated'.

Now, before I continue - let me give you a quick rundown on these khaki-wearing folks. Every year, the Cannes Film Festival employs hundreds of men and women workers who, I have to assume hate their lives, to man the doors, carpets, entrances, exits, bathrooms, sidewalks, crosswalks, and anywhere where a person might stand and live their life. They are given khaki suit uniforms, an atom-sized amount of authority, and an atomic-bomb-sized amount of ego and attitude. I've always said how I believe a job requirement for these Cannes workers must be clinically diagnosed bi-polar disorder and tiny penises/frigid nether regions (depending on the gender). It only makes sense.

This brings me back to my exchange with the Napoleon-esque man with an earpiece (that I think is connected to nothing) who has kicked out two of our students. I begin politely pleading with him in French about how the boys didn't know it was wrong and should be let in. "Ce n'est pas possible," he says - aka, 'It is not possible' - a favorite phrase of the khaki-wearing workers. Usually, 'it' IS possible and my intent is always to prove them otherwise.

I continue speaking nicely to the man in hopes of changing his mind, but underneath the surface my blood is boiling. My calm exterior isn't working, so I turn up the heat a little. Still speaking French, I plead with a female worker - saying how the boys had been first in line, waited for hours, and were never warned about the shoe situation even though Festival employees had hovered next to them just outside the line and could have easily given them a heads up. She seems sympathetic, but explains that it's ultimately the ornery man's decision to make. Great.

I hop on my French cell phone like a mad woman, calling a dozen of the students already inside the Debussy begging for anyone with extra shoes to help out. Sam and Daniel look on outside the gates with puppy dog eyes as I execute every crazy idea that comes to mind in an attempt to get them in.

Twenty minutes pass with failed attempts at trading out shoes, more arguing in foreign tongues, and a final attempt to beg to let the boys in and kick me out since it really was all my fault to begin with. None of it works. Finally I leave the theatre as well and join the boys outside the gates. I was too fed up to stick around in the vicinity any longer and there's no way I would have gone in to see the movie knowing that the boys were left outside. I was more frustrated with the fact that they were missing the movie because of something I did that could have been avoided.

I try to lift their spirits (and mine) and we head across the street to Caffe Roma (my second time in two days) to drown our sorrows in pizza. We share a wonderful meal, discussing where we're from and what we want to do with our lives next. I realize that I am living a parallel life to these students in the sense that, after this trip, we are all jobless and intimidated by the unknown next steps in the 'real world'. They are graduating and wanting to hold on to every last second in Athens - I am unemployed for the first time since graduating from college four years ago and hanging on to every last second here in France before my no-paycheck-reality slaps me in the face when I fly home.

After a couple hours, we pay the check and pack up our leftover pizza (read: slyly, yet shamelessly shovel it into one of the many ziploc freezer bags I always carry with me in my pack). Hey, a girl's gotta be prepared. Yacht parties? Leftovers? I'm ready.

Daniel, Sam, and I head back to The Debussy which is now unanimously referred to as 'Debitch' by our students (who can blame them?) to meet our cohorts exiting the theatre after "Restless."

The students begin to trickle out of the glass doors at the top of the red carpet as do, to our surprise, the film's stars. In the red dress is Van Sant's female lead, Mia Wasikowska, being escorted out of the premiere.

And, the Cody Sanders lookalike in the next photo is the the male lead in "Restless", Henry Hopper (son of Dennis Hopper).

A few minutes behind the cast's exit, we spot a couple of our female students lagging behind and dancing like maniacs exiting down the red carpet. This is a hyper bunch of kids, so I don't think much of it.

However, when they reach the bottom of the stairs where we are waiting they are talking a mile-a-minute about how they just met and got a picture with Rachel McAdams. See below for photographic evidence of this. Pretty awesome - especially considering that it was our student in the photo, Brittany Biddy's, birthday. What a memorable birthday present for her!

(photograph taken from Brittany's facebook)

McAdams had attended the screening with her "Midnight In Paris" costar, Adrien Brody, so it was quite a star-studded premiere. No wonder they wanted our ungodly toes covered.

This concluded the end of day two of the Festival. There were highs and lows, but all in all it was another eventful day.

It's a bird... It's a plane...

It’s a Blake Mitchell spotting in Cannes!!

Oh, wait. No. That’s just Jenn with her new haircut.

:)

Finally!

After two years I FINALLY have red TOMS shoes on the Cannes red carpet. Ta-da!

Granted, I was only allowed to wear them on the red carpet because I was attending a mid-day screening in the Grand Lumiere Theatre sans press and paparazzi. The nighttime premieres at 7:30pm & 10:30pm throughout the festival are more ritzy as those are the ones where cast, jury, etc. are in the theatre watching the screenings as well and there are hundreds of photographers yelling celebrities' names and snapping photos throughout the long walks down the red carpet. These are the screenings in which we commoners must dress to the nines to fit in with the glamourous event. In other words, my TOMS would be out of the question - unless I was famous, in which case I could wear these shoes and a potato sack and still land on the cover of fashion mags.

I digress.

My daytime presence up the red carpet on this day is to catch an early screening of the highly anticipated in-competition film, "We Need To Talk About Kevin." Walking the red carpet in my red shoes for this screening ended up being unexpectedly 'on theme' with the heavy movie as the color red is used symbolically throughout its 110 minutes. In it we follow a mother (Tilda Swinton) through her current life, the aftermath of a mass murder at a local high school carried out by her son, Kevin (Ezra Miller), amid flashbacks of her life leading up to this point. The storyline is intense enough, but coupled with the expert cinematography with smart uses of the color red - the annual tomato festival in Spain; the Andy Warhol-esque shot of Swinton in a grocery store against a backdrop of tomato soup cans; the paint splattered on Swinton's small white house as an act of vandalism; and, of course, the blood from Kevin's victims - is effective and evocative beyond belief.

Rarely has a film hit me as hard as 'Kevin' did. The first 40min of the movie, to me, can be compared with the first 20min of "Saving Private Ryan." The immediate intensity of the situation into which you are introduced is jarring. It takes hold and won't let go. The glimpses we see of Swinton's current life (post-massacre) is empty, depressed, and desolate. I literally felt hollow inside just watching her. Her performance is award-worthy.

John C. Reilly plays Kevin's father in the film and his role is exactly what you want it to be - lovable and light. He represents the half of the parental unit with which Kevin finds joy, be it genuine or not. Swinton, on the other hand, is blatantly and inexplicably hated by Kevin, seemingly since birth. The story portrays both a tug-of-war between mother and son as well as a tug-of-war between Swinton's internal and emotional struggle. We, the audience, are the knot in the middle of the tug-of-war rope as we are pulled back and forth right along with the plot, giving reason to the exhaustion I felt when the credits finally rolled. I was drained - so much so that I literally had to separate myself from the group and avoid seeing or speaking to anyone for thirty full minutes in order to process what I had just endured.

At the end of it all - I LOVED IT. I was so affected mentally and emotionally, so for me that means the film and its performances were a success. As difficult as the subject matter is to tackle, I do hope that 'Kevin' finds its footing for distribution somehow, somewhere in the U.S. as Tilda's and Ezra's performances deserve to be seen.

(some stills from "We Need To Talk About Kevin")

-------------------***Update***--------------------

Sun. 5/22 - The Closing Ceremonies of the 2011 Cannes Film Festival just aired and Kirsten Dunst (from Von Trier's controversy-laden, "Melancholia") scooped up (read: stole from Tilda) the "Best Actress" Palme. Was Dunst's performance good? Yes. Some are even saying this is the best role she's ever played. Great. Fine. But what is this being compared to? "10 Things I Hate About You"? "Marie Antoinette"? "Bring It On"? Give me a break. I am happy for Dunst and think this will serve as an incredible rebirth for her career, but was it better than Tilda's performance? No. Both women play depressed characters in their respective storylines, but Swinton's performance is the one that made me FEEL depressed too. I don't know - you be the judge.

'Kevin', among others like Almodovar's "The Skin I Live In," the subtly erotic "Sleeping Beauty," and the critically acclaimed (yet unbearably boring) "Le Havre," were shockingly shut out of the winners circle completely. This makes me want to campaign for 'Kevin' and Tilda even harder in the U.S. as I sincerely think her unbelievable performance warrants strong Oscar buzz.

Old Brooms

I have always had a profound respect for France's street cleaners (often referred to as 'Martians' b/c of their bright green uniforms). Their diligence in collecting trash, cleaning the streets, etc. is fantastic and noticeable. It always puzzles me, though, why their brooms are still made of twigs and sticks. They can have fancy, modern, neon green uniforms, yet the brooms on their clean-up carts are centuries old. Makes me laugh every time...