Côte d’Azur’s premier film marathon has officially kickstarted in the Croisette today. The sun is in its full blazing glory as Cannes Film Festival rolls its pristine red carpets for undeserving buggers like me to strut my dirty shoes on them. My choice of foot accoutrement for the day are desert boots – it’s the French Riviera, what the hell what I was thinking. I’ll wear moccasins tomorrow, I promise you.
Anyhoo – there have been obstacles galore on my way to Cannes, and it’s been a bumpy ride (including the Easyjet flight – which was worse than your average rollercoaster in Thorpe Park). Include to that some shuttle delays and a thudding headache, my arrival in Cannes has been far from rosy. First-world problems, I hear you groan. I say, whatever the fuck happens, I’ll be here for the next 10 days to report all the action in the Boulevard de la Croisette, even if that means crawling all the way from my residence (which is situated along a fucking hill) to join the daily queuing assembly line, a super-fun activity joined by all Cannes attendees.
Speaking of queuing, I’ve plonked myself into the increasingly elongating line roughly an hour before Olivier Dahan’s princess party Grace of Monaco waltzes into the Palais des Festivals. Year Two in Cannes and The Moviejerk has been awarded a yellow badge. Not much progress, then. It’s basically Cannes’ way of saying there’s some room for improvement. Pardon me for being briefly exclusive there – for those unaware about the stiff hierarchical system of Cannes-kind, yellow means the bottomest level of the pecking order. In Cannesland, yellow means excrement. Yellow means “you’re shit, go to the butt-end of the queue”.
And that’s exactly what I’m doing. No matter how far in the butt end of the queue I am, I’ll queue the shit out of every film I can get into. For a humble little site like The Moviejerk to reach the shores of Cannes and has been given press access for the second year running is something that makes me grin like a lunatic. This year is a reinforcement of The Moviejerk’s international coverage, and after Berlin Film Festival this February gone, I’m back again in the Riviera, so please open a bottle of champagne for me while I go back queuing up to see Nicole Kidman, yeah? Thanks!