Festival de Cannes 2008 by Mandy_Rodgers

    After waiting for cell phone coverage to get fixed...apparently tomorrow at 9 a.m. is the magic moment for my phone to work...we'll see.
   
    Some new buzz around the city and movie town:
    --Michael Moore has officially signed on to make a sequel to Fahrenheit 9/11.
    --Mike Tyson's documentary is premiering here, and he's set to attend.
    --Madonna's documentary, I Am Because We Are, about Malawi is set to be here as well....perhaps another impromptu concert on the steps (like last year's U2 extravaganza)??

    Tonight's big event was the premiere of the first film in competition, Blindness, and the jury's big splash on the red carpet. People began staking out the carpet to watch the stars hours and hours ahead of time. When the gala began, the first major celebrity to hit the carpet was Cate Blanchett, starring in Indy 4, so she should be making another splash later in the week, even after recently giving birth to a new son!


   
    After her arrival, Eva Longoria joined the group with two model/actress gal pals, Dennis Hopper joined with his family and Faye Dunaway also looked glamorous. Hopper has a film in this year's Palm d'Or Competition (Palermo Shooting), and he looked so nice with his family, but I still can't get his menacing villain from Speed. Faye Dunaway also joined  - she was spotted the previous night buying a quick snack at a local convenience store by my group of friends.


    Then the members of the jury arrived, led by Sean Penn (with his recently reunited wife Robin Wright Penn) and Natalie Portman and Marjane Satrapi (Persepolis writer).


    Then the official Festival de Cannes music started and the cast of Blindness started up the carpet. Julianne Moore and Danny Glover came, but Mark Ruffalo was the first no show of the Festival. Moore was amazing in the starring role of Blindness, a film revolving around the event of an epidemic of people seeing white and nothing else, spreading throughout the community. This group of blind people is thrown into a sort of prison and barely taken care of, resulting in their resorting back to animalistic ways and behaviors. Unfortunately, the film quickly turned into a tortuous circumstance, and the critics' are mostly panning the movie as a whole.