Top Ten: Sexiest Things in "A Bigger Splash"

In lieu of a full review for Luca Guadagnino's I Am Love follow up A Bigger Splash -- who can type with one hand -- a hot and bothered top ten list.

THE SEXIEST THINGS IN "A BIGGER SPLASH" 

10. Reflective Sunglasses.
The great cinematographer Yorick Le Saux (look up his filmography. Seriously) makes full use of the reflections in everyone's glasses. We're staring at them, but what are they staring at in this voyeuristic vacation?

09. Tilda Whispering to Matthias
As the movie begins world famous rockstar Marianne Lane (Tilda Swinton) is on vocal rest, doctor's orders. Her visiting friend/ex lover Harry (Ralph Fiennes) and a daughter he didn't know he had until recently (Dakota Johnson) arrive in town unexpectedly and they're told she can't speak. It's not strictly true. Marianne reserves her whispering, which she's allowed, for her younger filmmaker boyfriend Paul (Matthias Schoenaerts). Secretive conspiratorial intimacy is a panty-dropper.

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Luca Guadagnino's 'Splash'-y Return

After debuting at last fall's Venice Film Festival, Luca Guadagnino's A Bigger Splash finally arrived stateside. It's another entry in the growing mass of festival titles taking their time to make their way to the US, with last year's Cannes Palme d'Or winner Dheepan oh so quietly opening next week as well.

A few extra months' wait for Splash is an acceptable compromise consider the six years wait fans of Guadagnino's 2009 slice of divinity I Am Love have had to endure. This time, Guadagnino looks to trade in Love's breathless romanticism for a feverish chic, but upping the ante of the former film's sexual intrigue. It would be some kind of crime against the audience to have a cast like Tilda Swinton (Guadagnino's returning muse), Ralph Fiennes, Matthias Schoenaerts, and Dakota Johnson and not get a little randy.

But wouldn't you be willing to wait for summer to get a dancing (and birthday-suited) Ralph Fiennes by the pool?

Luckily, the wait won't be so long for the director's next lush piece of cinema: he announced this week that his long-gestating remake of Dario Argento's Suspiria will shoot this fall. The remake has had a long haul in its own right, with rumored directors like Darren Aronofsky and David Gordon Green. Luca Guadagnino is an exciting fit for the project, the visual opera he crafted with Love a perfect fit for the giallo nightmare of Argento's original. The director has already lined up his Splash cast to return, so we can expect something special without becoming impatient.

What are your thoughts on Luca Guadagnino's Suspiria?

We Can't Wait! #11: "A Bigger Splash"

Team Experience is counting down our 15 most anticipated for 2015. Here's Nathaniel... 

Who & What: No, kids. NOT the watery pop art David Hockney painting. Not even the highly naked 70s era fictionalized bio sprung from that painting, though we'd happily see that too should someone screen it. (Curators?) What it is is FINALLY the Luca Gaudagino follow up to I Am Love which topped our charts when it was released in 2010. That film's inimitable star Tilda Swinton and its gifted cinematographer Yorick Le Saux (Only Lovers Left Alive) and editor Walter Fasano are all returning. New collaborators are production designer Maria Djurkovic (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Imitation Game), Dakota Johnson untied, and two of the best male screen actors in the world in Ralph Fiennes and Matthias Schoenaerts.  

Here's the only photo that I'm aware of from the set:

Why We're Excited About It: Swinton and Fiennes hinted at fabulous chemistry in Grand Budapest Hotel in their ultra brief screentime together. They're playing ex-lovers this time -- with Tilda married to Schoenaerts so just those names all smooshed together in a daisy chain sound like a bodice ripper for art film fans. The characters all collide on vacation in Italy including Fiennes screen daughter (Dakota Johnson) and things get... well, no spoilers but there's obviously TROUBLE and that trouble is at least somewhat sexual. It's adapted from La Piscine (1969) a French film starring the beauteous coupling of Alain Delon & Romy Schneider. If you want spoilers, go there. 

What if It All Goes Wrong: Guadagnino has been doing shorts and documentaries for the past several years after I Am Love, just as he had before that international breakthrough. Following up a masterpiece is never easy. It's probably not safe to expect something that brilliant again though we wish him enormous success so he might finally get that proposed remake of Auntie Mame with Tilda in the leading role made after all. Another concern: Margot Robbie was originally cast in Dakota's part and, ,apologies to Dakota, but that feels like a downgrade on the evidence of what we've seen so far from both of them.

When: Fox Searchlight has distribution rights for America and filming has wrapped so we'd expect a TIFF or Telluride bow followed by a November or December release if people are wild for it. But you never know. I Am Love did Venice and TIFF in 2009 and then waited until summer of 2010 for release. 

previously in We Can't Wait, Kate Winslet in The Dressmaker

Linkages

The Film Stage Such exciting news. Looks like Luca Guadagnino (of I Am Love brilliance) finally has another feature lining up after many thwarted attempts. Not much is known about the thriller but he'll direct Tilda Swinton again but this time she's not the only major international draw: the cast also includes Ralph Fiennes, Margot Robbie and Matthias Schoenaerts.
Cartoon Brew the producer of Legends of Oz, that animated flop, is mad and blaming everything but the movie for the movie's failure
Pajiba gets righteously angry about how lightly the media is reacting to this "prankster" who is attacking celebrities on the red carpet. His latest victim was America Ferrera at Cannes . Naturally superhuman Cate Blanchett is the person that was quickest to console her.

The Powder Room wonders why none of the gay superheroes are hitting movie screens (and the comments sections raises a great point that X-Men Days of Future Past could have totally used Northstar in place of Quicksilver and been the first to do so) 
Playbill here's a fun list for those who love musicals: top ten signature showtunes for the original performer. Featuring Bernadette Peters, Babs, Sutton Foster and more 
HitFix listens to the Godzilla score via ubiqutous Alexandre Desplat 
Variety and Godzilla is crushing it at the box office but more on that and the review later today
The Guardian is reasonably fond of The Two Faces of January. I'm still so excited for that one despite the lack of excitement that greets it in general
Television Blend by now you've probably heard that the entire Twin Peaks series AND Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992) are coming to Blue-Ray with tons of new extras. It's been so long since I've seen the show that I'd love falling completely into that world again for awhile

Luca's Body

JA from MNPP here. You know it's an excellent bit of movie news when you can fill in the BLANK in the sentence "I'd been desperately waiting to hear what BLANK was going to do next" with at least five different names involved in said bit of movie news. So... this is an excellent piece of movie news. Variety is reporting that the director of the Tilda-fetish-object I Am Love Luca Guadagnino (first name) is turning Don Delillo's book (second name) The Body Artist into a movie that will star Isabelle Huppert (third name), Denis Lavant (fourth name) and... David Cronenberg (numero cinco). The book was adapted by Guadagnino, and the movie will be called Body Art.

A couple of weird cinephile overlaps to appreciate here - Cronenberg just adapted a Delillo book (and quite well if you ask me) last year with Cosmopolis, which was about a man riding around in a white limosuine and encountering lots of people over the course of a single day, which was also the plot of Holy Motors (though to much different effect), which of course starred... Denis Lavant. And Isabelle Huppert... is Isabelle Huppert. Nuff said. If this will top my favorite David Cronenberg performance (that would be as the doctor who gets impaled upon a giant steel rod in Jason X) we'll have to wait and see.