"I'm thinking of going with 'Panda-monium' as a headline..."
As has become a mini-tradition on the Croissette, Dreamworks used the pier across from the Ritz-Carlton to stage a promo stunt; last year, Jerry Seinfeld plummeted from the Carlton's roof—twice!—in support of Bee Movie; yesterday morning, Charlie Haden's son-in-law, Jack Black, posed, accompanied by 40 pandas and various international personages who give voice to the lead character in the animated film Kung Fu Panda.
After the event, the pandas were herded off to a black-curtained "backstage" area...
...where they were slaughtered, and their highly-prized-on-the-black-market carcasses were stuffed into body bags...
...and because this town is in thrall to Mammon, nobody cared. Except this guy...
P.S.: The hed for this post comes from something I actually heard a salaried journalist say to Jack Black at the event.
Ahhhh, promo work. The portal to hell.
Posted by:Dan | May 15, 2008 at 05:59 PM
...GK...so great to be reading these dispatches. Even ones about dumb stunts in support of...
Posted by:Koppelman | May 15, 2008 at 10:16 PM
Press release by DreamWorks on May 14: "DreamWorks Animation kicked off the 61st annual Cannes Film Festival today with an outbreak of 'Pandamonium'" But your pictures are great!
Posted by:Thomas H. | May 16, 2008 at 01:26 AM
I suppose it is lucky that this was all staged for journalists as any poor child that might have accidentally stumbled into the 'slaughter' area might have been scarred for life!
Posted by:colinr | May 16, 2008 at 11:26 AM
This post is just great!
This is one of the most hilarious postings about a movie that I ever read (and you don't even discussed the movie in anyway)...
P.S. Came to your blog via a reference from Ty Burr of the Boston Globe...
Posted by:Julio Cesar | May 20, 2008 at 08:06 PM