Hollywood.com is on the scene at the 55th Cannes Film Festival, seeing the films and sipping with the stars. Check in every day to get the latest!
Day 5: The roar of suitcase wheels continues to echo through the Cote D’Azur Airport, as overnight flights drop off more stars, more entourages, more film executives, more wild-haired indie directors looking for financing. At one point, fierce soldiers in camouflage carrying Rambo-like automatic machine guns cleared the terminal because some ditz walked away from her makeup bag. It wasn’t necessary to speak French to get the gist: “Get out now, while you can. Run for your lives!” Not to worry–it was a false alarm, but for some it made for a very dramatic entrée into the festival.
What’s for lunch today along La Croisette? Many high-minded critics are eating crow. They never took the wildly popular Adam Sandler seriously and now he’s joining world-class thespians in competition with his new romantic comedy, Punch-Drunk Love. “I forgive you,” he said on the way into the screening.
Emily Watson stars opposite Sandler in this tale of a man with seven sisters whose abuse has kept him alone and unable to fall in love. Watson roared onto the Cannes scene in 1996 with her starring role in Breaking the Waves, which won the Jury prize for director Lars von Trier. Not only will she be feted with a dinner in her honor, but she’ll also be awarded a special festival trophy.
Adam always has time for his core audience, 8-year-old boys. At one point, in the middle of the Palais, he stopped his entourage (many of whom he’s known since his days at NYU) to have his picture taken with one lucky local kid. Sandler’s next stop is the set! After tonight’s party, the jester jets off to LA, where he’s shooting his next movie, Anger Management. He’ll have to work around his co-star Jack Nicholson‘s schedule because he, too, is expected on La Croisette in a few days with his film, About Schmidt.
The Sand Man (as Adam is sometimes called by his friends) is so tan and relaxed he must be having a major effect on his other co-star who’s also here, Philip Seymour Hoffman. The brooding character actor, wearing his blond locks in a very mod haircut, is uncharacteristically bon vivant. He’s a natural pouter for the lens.
As is Chloe Sevigny, who likes to throw dark, come-hither/don’t-touch-me looks at the paparazzi as her baby-blue eyes pierce the crowd. Today is spectacularly sunny, so maybe she’s just squinting.
Chloe’s doubling her duties in the Palais. She co-stars with Gina Gershon in the sexy sci-fi thriller Demonlover, which alternates between what seems like reality and into a fantastic Japanese anime 3-D digital universe. Her other movie is Ten Minutes Older–the Trumpet, an inventive piece of cinema in which several master directors, including Spike Lee, Wim Wenders, and Jim Jarmusch, have 10 minutes of complete artistic freedom to bring their own interpretation of time to the silver screen.
Cannes is definitely one place where it would be fun toreally play with time and be three places at once. It is impossible to hit every party! One starlet made the very difficult choice to attend a bash onboard a yacht, knowing it meant she would be stuck at sea for the party’s duration, so she used the cell to call her land-locked friends at other parties at cabanas around town. Ah, technology!
