Cannes This Festival Get Any More Amazing? (Part Two)

On to Thursday:

I slept in and had to miss Jew Suss, Rise and Fall since we were out so late. I was disappointed in myself, but I knew it had to be done or else the whole rest of my day would have been shot. Natalie and I got a later start than we meant to when we missed the train twice in a row. It was sort of funny because Natalie and I have discovered we have a lot of things in common, like forgetting things and having a fascination of anything to do with the Holocaust. More on the Holocaust later.

Once we got to Cannes it was time to hightail it to the Gray D'Albion for our first film of the day. I went to see a Japanese film called Accidental Kidnapper. I am so so so so so glad I chose to see this movie. There was a bit of awkward slapstick humor in the beginning that could have and should have been avoided, but the rest of the movie was so quirky and touching that I soon forgot about those beginning moments. A ++, would watch again if there weren't so many movies here to be seen.

I met Blake at the American Pavilion and we traded talk about the movies we had seen/wanted to see. Before I could order a drink or anything I realized it was time to head back to the Gray in time to catch Locked In, which starred Eliza Dushku as one of the major characters. It dealt with locked-in syndrome and also our inability sometimes as people to make connections that tie us together emotionally instead of ones that leave us floating out to sea adrift in our own loneliness. You know, or something... I guess you could say it was deep. Eliza Dushku played a smoking hot seductress. Very. Sexy. One major failure of the film was the character crutch they employed. You know those movies that randomly insert a "magical black man" who enters the story specifically to eventually provide a solution to everyone's problem while being mystical and wise? Locked In had one. His name was Dr. Franklin Sampson. Yeah.

I finally got my Holocaust fix after Locked In was finished and I walked back to the Palais to see The Roundup. I read Sarah's Key over the summer and so I had already heard of the Velodrome d'Hiver and knew what was coming, but I can't imagine how hard it was for those in our group who hadn't heard that story and were not prepared for the heartbreak that occupied the next two hours of our night. Although it was terribly sad and caused tears to run down my cheeks for almost the entire duration of the movie, it was also terribly good. Probably the best movie I have seen so far. It was an E-motional Rollercoaster heartbreaker of a film, but so beautiful and wonderfully told I was sobbing by the end of it, along with a lot of other people in the theater. 

When we were finished drying our eyes, we took the train back to JLP and began the search for food. Natalie and I were tired of Master Burger so we walked back to the hotel and noticed the pizza place across the street was still open. When Natalie tried to order pizza or pasta to-go she was offered something with claws instead and had to resort to sign language to try and correct her order. While she was busy bridging the language barrier, I met my our new friend Victor, who wound up being a producer of his own production company. Turns out he lives in L.A. and had worked for Sony for seven years as the “green light” guy as well as Disney for a few years. We wound up eating with Victor for about two hours rather than going back to our room like we had planned. He told us all sorts of stories about his films and the celebrities he had worked with as well as a bunch of advice for making it in the business. So basically, Victor's awesome.

STAY TUNED FOR: Cannes This Festival Get Any More Amazing? (Part Three)