nice cannes

only the cannes film festival can incite a journalist, or a blogger for that matter, to write a piece on what purportedly will be screening at a festival. the hollywood reporter busted out its crystal ball this week and tossed a few titles into the fray. no matter what screens, i can guarantee that they'll be a crowd of students lining the croisette, giving hell to villepin and co—my friend annie, who teaches english in le mans, wrote that the protests are crazy.
as for possible films, there's a lot to look forward to. for starters, sophia's marie antoinette (which FFT wrote about last month) likely will be a sure-thing selection. other sure things: aronofsky's the fountain, linklater's fast food nation, john cameron mitchell's shortbus, lynch's inland empire, iñárritu's babel and almodovar's volver. wong kar wai is the jury president this year, so it's the film that has the most filters, wandering storylines or random voice-over narration probably will win the palme d'or.
da vinci code is the opening night film. yawn. also, there's paris je t'aime, a feature of 18 films by different directors, one for each arrondissement in paris. gimmicky (they should call it paris: je m'en fous).
it's impossible to say which arrondissement in paris is my favourite. for food; 10, 12 and 15 are great. if i had to move there, i'd look for a place around the six and 15 border. however, there's a lot of cultural diversity and good ethnic grub east of republique and in the north of the city (this is ridiculous).
i've only seen one film in paris, dogville, and i saw it at les trois luxembourg theater. it was funny cos that was the last day i was in paris and i didn't want to do anything except chill in a dark theatre all day, even though it was a beatifully sunny 80-degree october day. i was beat and had to present my thesis in grenoble the next day and was feeling sick from some god-awful chow mein—say yes to vietnamienne, no to chinois in france—i ate for lunch and actually fell asleep during the first part of the film. my then-girlfriend was real pissed that we were going to see a three hour von trier film instead of chilling; she was french, so i think she was more pissed about von trier than missing out on so-called sight-seeing (are french chicks area always pissed off, esp. if you're an american guy?). the area near parque luxembourg is a nice area.

lars von trier, stellan skarsgård and nicole kidman leave on the red carpet at cannes for the premiere of dogville.


i went again to see dogville in los angeles at the egyptian (arguably the best place to see a film in california) and caro and jzz were none too happy about that. in fact, i remember jzz saying that as soon as dogville started and he realized that there was no set and no props, he wanted to walk out. i consider it revenge for him making me sit through cremaster 3 at the castro in sf; asshole. franchement, caro was a good filmgoing sig-other and rarely complained unless i wanted to see unabashed garbage, like harold and kumar go to white castle. however, von trier or kubrick films constantly are the impetus for relationship disaster here at FFT. take note, you lovers out there.