Cannes, Day 5: The Woodman Cometh

Because the Globe's video upload server software is insanely slow, I'm having trouble posting some footage I've taken of the "Vicky Cristina Barcelona" press conference this afternoon. Here's a photo of Rebecca Hall, Woody Allen, and Penelope Cruz as they face the throng of international press in the small, overheated conference room. Allen and Cruz both dodged questions (him about being "a genius," her about whether she liked her lesbian scenes in the movie), and I wish they'd asked Hall more questions, as she seems eminently articulate (okay, I have a bit of a movie crush going here, I admit it).

Funniest moment? When someone asked Woody if the menage a trois that figures in the new movie arose out of his personal fantasy and he replied "Look, it's enough trouble getting one person." I also liked the Uzbekistan reporter who invited him to make a movie there and he responded with an anecdote about why traveling in Russia has always scared the bejesus out of him. I'll post both videos when the technology lets me.

Right now it's raining lightly, I'm getting ready to go see a Philippine movie about a family that runs a softcore movie palace -- there are more dysfunctional family movies at this Cannes than in a pile of Sundances -- and the streets outside are jammed with the beautiful people of the French Riviera and all the people who want to look at the beautiful people. This place is like Miami on absinthe, but with better looking men and women. Bet you they'd run screaming if they got a gander at "Cloud 9."