Cannes: Wankers, Wannabees and Not Much Else

Either Cannes is losing its ever ironic glitter and bemused self-absorption…or I am.

It was all pandas, fat boys and seniors. Elderly actors with anorexic child brides trying, for reasons unfathomable, to relive their salad days. Elderly directors attempting to salvage their plummeting reputations by scooping up one gorgeous actress and one pathetic media creation and having them snog. How very not hot and how very last decade.

This is all the gossip I could muster:

Sean Penn, trying to prove how very much more deeply French he is than Frenchpersons themselves, insisting on illegally smoking indoors whilst functioning in his role as president of the Cannes Film Festival Jury. How seeringly rebellious of him!

Harrison Ford, doing his best to appear 45 and manly, failing miserably, strutting about, stumbling even whilst strutting. His presence was disquieting enough, but how in god’s name did an Indiana Jones franchise show up here? La ironie, or merely filthy lucre changing surreptitious hands?

The very creepy Scarlett Johansson [she of the “pathetic media creation” above] failing to show up because her outrageously silly demands were not to be met. She was apparently not to be provided with her very own makeup artiste [to the tune of $5000/day], but expected, shudder, to share one with Penelope. Can one imagine the slight?

So Woody Allen hired Johansson, Cruz and Javier Bardem to have a threeway, set in Barcelona. I’m sure he assumed this was an absolutely foolproof way to get the Frenchpeople’s attention and reboot his sagging status, career and member. Sorry, but the creep factor simply overwhelms.

Penelope Cruz, though, is supposedly spectacular, playing the whacked-out ex-wife in the above noted pathetic pander. From some of the pics I’ve seen of her on Allen’s arm, though, I'm thinking she might wish she’d stuck with Almodovar. As do I.