Live from Cannes: A Long Journey to an Exciting Fest

James Rocchi and I got into Cannes late this afternoon after a rather adventurous journey that included my flight being delayed, first by a medical emergency on the incoming plane I had to get on to get to Detroit, then by an unauthorized passenger being on my plane (how the hell does that happen in this day and age? I have no idea ...). Those delays very nearly caused me to miss my connection to Amsterdam, and then I realized when I got to the gate that I'd lost my boarding pass. Yes, I am officially the world's biggest travel dork. I did make the flight, though, and then James and I were treated to a screaming infant in front of us for the eight-hour flight to Amsterdam. Whew. Fortunately I brought my travel Scrabble to keep us busy.

We finally got to Cannes and found our flat. Thanks to James and his travel ingenuity, we have a lovely flat with a terrace that has a teensy view of the Mediterranean Sea and the all-important wifi connection. Once we dumped off our ten tons of luggage and freshened up, we were off to the Palais de Festival to collect our press badges. We managed to take a slew of pics of movie posters while enjoying the nice 20-minute walk from our flat, and spotted Juliette Lewis and Danny Glover strolling the Croisette.

Here's one shot of the view off our terrace -- that's the "California's Hotel" in front of us, with the pretty pool ...

And here's a closer view of our little view of the sea and palm trees...

We had a lovely dinner with a pack of other American film journalists at La Pizza, a fantastic (and, by Cannes standards, reasonably priced) little joint with Hollywood Elsewhere's Jeff Wells, film critic Glenn Kenny, Variety's Anne Thompson, and lots of other fest folks. I've been torturing the locals with my butchering of the French language, but they do seem appreciative that I'm making the effort -- although I'm sure to them my mangling of French grammar is atrocious, judging by their bemused smiles at my attempts.

James has been here four times before, but this is my first trip to this festival, and I have to say, Cannes is absolutely gorgeous, and the energetic vibe of a city pulsing with movie excitement is quite a thrill. Right now it's almost 1AM here in Cannes, and I'm writing this from the terrace, where I can hear a rather loud party with (I think) French pop music playing over the sound of some cats fighting on the street below.

The view is lovely, the air smells of the sea, and tomorrow we kick off 10 days of movie-watching madness. In between there, I'll get a gallery up with some nice scene shots around the Croisette that we took today. I'm beyond thrilled to be here at the Festival de Cannes; I go to a lot of fests for Cinematical, but there's nothing quite like this one. We'll be bringing you lots of reviews, photos, and regular updates from the fest. For now, I need to grab a couple hours sleep before Day One kicks off. More later from Cannes!