Elisa's Venice Diary #1: Almodovar, Campion. Here are lions.

by Elisa Giudici

What a start! There's a way of saying in Italian: il buon giorno si vede dal mattino. It means you can tell if something is remarkable from the very beginning, as you can judge how a day will be by the way it begins. Well, the first day of my fifth year as a press pass holder in Venice was so amazing I am not going to tell you if I liked what I saw, but how much I enjoyed every single title.

PARALLEL MOTHERS by Pedro Almodóvar
I was unsure about the opening movie of Venezia 78 due to Pain and Glory: how to follow up such an intimate, powerful, memorable movie (the kind of film a director puts his entire life in it, and that he or she can only make once or twice in a career). How can the follow up be anything but a disappointment? Happy to report Pedro Almodóvar is far from having finished the meaningful things he wants to say while endlessly rearranging his favorite themes and actresses...

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Almost There: Shirley MacLaine in "Madame Sousatzka"

by Cláudio Alves

The Venice Film Festival is upon us and, this year, The Film Experience has two writers attending – Nathaniel and Elisa. For those at home, though, it might help satiate some of the FOMO to look back at the festival's long history. Indeed, these next two Almost There write-ups will focus on actors who won the Volpi Cup, managed to capture some Oscar buzz, but still failed to catch the Academy's attention. Today's example is exciting, for it comes from a rare tie. In 1988, the jury presided by Sergio Leone decided to award two performers with the Best Actress prize, an ex-aequo honor. They were Isabelle Huppert for her breathtaking tour de force in Chabrol's Story of Women and, our present subject of analysis, Shirley MacLaine in John Schlesinger's Madame Sousatzka…

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Streaming Review: "Worth"

By Ben Miller

With the 20th anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks approaching, Sara Colangelo’s Worth paints a compassionate picture of the victims and their families while attempting to get into the heads of the lawyers in charge of assigning a dollar amount to the victims. While the lead trio are each superb, the host of character actors and actress recounting their lost loved ones tug at the heartstrings.  Poignantly acted and directed, the film lacks the flash and grandstanding of the usual Hollywood fare, but still delivers a heartfelt message on the value of life.

Following the 9/11 attacks, to stave off the potential of economically disastrous lawsuits against the airlines, the United States Attorney General assigns respected lawyer Kenneth Feinberg (Michael Keaton) as the Special Master of the fund allocated to compensate victims and their families of the attacks...

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How Had I Never Seen . . . . "Lust, Caution"?

by Nick Taylor

Happy Venice Film Festival, y’all!! While Nathaniel and Elisa are off in Italy enjoying some of the season’s hottest potential offerings, I figured it’d be fun to play along at home and finally watch some noteworthy Venice prizewinners I somehow hadn’t seen yet, or have been prioritizing for years but never gotten around to viewing.

And among the most urgent films for this tour was 2007’s Golden Lion winner Lust, Caution, Ang Lee’s story of espionage in Japanese-occupied Hong Kong across several years of World War II, dramatizing on-the-ground political stakes with an eye towards contemporaneous cinematic flourishes and the defining grit and elegance of ‘40s noir. The 1979 novella by Ellen Chang was infamous for supposedly extrapolating story elements from the life of Chinese spy Zheng Pingru. Lee’s film reignited those controversies while drawing some of its own, facing confusion about its country of production and earning an NC-17 rating that put it in hot water with numerous censorship laws.

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Doc Corner: 'On Broadway'

By Glenn Dunks

They say the neon lights are bright,
on Broadway.
They say there’s always magic in the air…

Let's be thankful that On Broadway doesn’t open with those famous lyrics from the song of the same name. Bob Fosse already did that, using George Benson’s funk-inspired 1978 rendition to launch All That Jazz over images of a throng of auditioning theatre wannabes. It’s showtime, folks, and that song is a hell of an introduction, but it's been done.

The release of Oren Jacoby’s doc feels perfectly timed, having been completed and screened at the Hamptons International Film Festival back in 2019 but delayed for general release until now as the city is on the verge of re-opening to crowds...

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