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Consider prestige season officially on. The Venice Film Festival is currently in its first full day of screenings after last night's glitzy opening and Telluride just announced its lineup (which they always keep secret until after everyone has booked their passes). You can safely expect that many of the Oscar players will emerge in the next two weeks though with Spielberg's film not ready for the festivals and with Dunkirk already in theaters this could be the first year in ages where the eventual Best Picture winner does NOT emerge at the fall festivals...
• Coming SoonGlow, Netflix's addictive series about the gorgeous ladies of wrestling has been renewed for a second season - yay! • Metrograph NYC's coolest repertory movie theater has a series on Fire Island set films this weekend including Barbara Hershey in Last Summer and seminal queer indie Parting Glances • Show-Score I did a piece for their new series on 'first times' with my experience sitting in the back row at a musical
• Variety here's a new possibility for the animated category at the Oscars this year -- Big Bad Fox and Other Tales from the director of Ernest & Celestine • Coming Soon filming has begun on Avengers 4 which doesn't have a title yet but will end Marvel's Phase 3 in May of 2019 • Variety looks back at Fast Times at Ridgemont High as it turns 35 • Gold Derby Meryl Streep is an Emmy nominee this year. Whaaaa? • LA Times New AMPAS president John Bailey "not as boring as you think" (FYI the media has become obsessed with Laura Dern running for this position but she actually declined the nomination) • EW First look at Jessica Chastain in Molly's Game • Awards Daily Sasha looks at the Best Actress race, wonders if it's finally Annette Bening's year. • MNPP Norma Shearer can't scream • Variety you may have heard that Disney is leaving Netflix when the current contract ends. But Netflix is still trying to get rights to some of their biggies post 2019 • /Film details on Wonder Woman's blu-ray releasese • Boy Culture meet Carrie Dragshaw, a queen recreating SJP's iconic looks on Sex & the City
Earlier this month, we learned that Annette Bening, hot off her best performance in 20th Century Women, would be presiding over the Venice Film Festival jury. The last female president was 11 years ago so good on Venice for fixing that. Now we know who'll be debating the selections with her as well as the complete jury lineups for all sections.
We just got the news that Annette Bening will be presiding over the Venice Film festival jury. Now we get two new photos of her as Gloria Grahame in the anticipated biopic Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool. And that's not all. The film has a UK release date of November 17. A US distribution and release date news must be imminent. Unfortunately Bening presiding over the Venice jury not only rules the film out of that festival, but also out of Telluride which takes place at the same time, and the first and more important week of buzz building at TIFF. Unless they unspool the film without its star which seems unlikely. And we'd like her to get that festival buzz that is important for awards later on.
Till then enjoy the Bening and Jamie Bell as Grahame and Peter Turner, an actor she befriended late in her life while appearing in a production of The Glass Menagerie in London. The film is based on Turner’s memoir about the time Grahame spent recuperating at his family home in Liverpool when diagnosed with cancer. Directed by Paul McGuigan (Victor Frankenstein), it also stars Julie Walters and Kenneth Cranham as Turner’s parents.
Will Bening follow Blanchett and win an Oscar for playing an Oscar winner?
Chris here. It may not make up for missing out on an Oscar nomination for some of her best work in 20th Century Women, but Annette Bening is getting a global cinema honor of a different sort. The legendary actress will be president of this year's Venice Film Festival competition slate.
Bening will be the first woman to serve over the Venice jury in over a decade, the last being Catherine Deneuve's jury awarded Jia Zhangke's Still Life in 2006. What's heartening is that it was a conscious choice from festival director Alberto Barbera to represent female voices in film, one that rival festivals have struggled to achieve. He states:
It was time to break with a long list of male presidents and invite a brilliant talented and inspiring woman to chair our International competition jury. I am extremely happy that Annette Bening has accepted this role, which she will carry out by virtue of her stature, her intellect and the talents she has manifested over the course of her career, in Hollywood, Europe and on the stage. Hers is a career marked by always interesting, often daring choices. A sophisticated and instinctive actress, able to portray complex shadings of character, Annette Bening brings to her roles an understating, a warmth and a natural elegance that makes watching her films a wonderful and ever enriching experience. I welcome her to Venice.
Here here on Annette's gifts, but we'll see if that pro-diversity sentiment carries over into their selected films, however. Which means we can start speculating on what film's Venice will be serving Annette (and which she'll give a "yes and no"). This certainly puts her upcoming adaptations of The Seagull and Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool out of the running, but we will hopefully hear word of an opener in short time.
Thursday, August 31, 2017 at 12:21PM 
