Venice, Day 5: Shame, Alps, Wilde Salome & Sal

[Editor's Note: Manolis, TFE's Greek correspondent at the Venice Film Festival chimes in briefly on a very busy screening day. Notes on four films, the last of them a probable prize winner. -Nathaniel]

Alps
The Greek entry of the festival divided the critics assembled here, just as Dogtooth did two years ago. The Italian critics that are featured at the Daily Variety issue of the festival here have given it from 1 to 5 stars. So it’s difficult to say what it’s chances are with the jury. In Dogtooth the protagonist was trying to escape from a fake world, but in Alps the protagonist is trying to enter one; she feels she must belong to another reality, not her actual one. Aggeliki Papoulia gives an excellent performance and Yorgos Lanthimos’ fans will not be disappointed. But that said, he won’t win any new fans with Alps.

Wilde Salome
This isn't quite a film or a documentary but something inbetween as Al Pacino chronicles his attempts to make a film out of Oscar Wilde’s Salome shortly after the play was staged in Los Angeles. In Wilde Salome we watch the plays’ rehearsals and see Pacino’s attempts to solve the various production problems that are created by his insistence to film the play simultanously with the live performances. We also watch him researching Oscar Wilde and we get information on the famous playwright through interviews featuring Tony Kushner, Gore Vidal, Tom Stoppard and… Bono. Jessica Chastain is magnetic as Salome and the film will surely be interesting to theater fans. Unfortunately, though Pacino may have had a vision, but he doesn't quite know how to share it through storytelling.

Franco and his star Val Lauren in VeniceSal

James Franco presents and emotional biography of Sal Mineo, or rather a small detail. Sal takes place on the last day of the star's life. Franco relies heavily on close-ups in this very low budget attempt to capture Mineo's spirit, to sketch an emotional impression of he was.  

I did this film for artistic reasons. Making a film is not just for entertainment or to make money."
-James Franco at the press conference

Though the film is slow and overly long, it captures the atmosphere of the time well and it's easy to forgive it its flaws; it's obviously a labor of love. 

Shame

Today I also saw the winner of the festival. I don’t know whether it will win the Golden Lion, Director or Actor prizes, but there is no way Steve McQueen’s Shame will leave Mostra empty-handed.

Shame is the story of Brandon (Michael Fassbender), a man who has lost his moral compass and wanders New York looking for one night stands, while what he needs is intimacy. Fassbender gives an astonishing performance and manages to combine Brandon's fragile nature with his sexual confidence. The actor presents his journey of despair brilliantly. Carey Mulligan is also remarkable as his sister, a nightclub singer. Her vulnerable blues rendition of “New York, New York” is more than enough to put her in the Oscar race of Best Supporting Actress. The explicit nature of the film and the many nude scenes (including full frontal nudity from both stars) may hurt the film's reception with some audiences and possibly Oscar voters, but McQueen and especially Fassbender won't end the year without popping up at various critics awards. 

The response at today’s premiere was enthusiastic. That five minute standing ovation was an obvious vote of approval for McQueen and Fassbender's post-Hunger reunion.

Links

Rain Perry interesting and fun article comparing Crazy, Stupid, Love. with... Biutiful. (via AD)
Tom Shone on the elitism of magic and power in modern entertainment. It's a curious question really.
THR Nobody can quite let go of Sex and the City Movie 3. It still might happen.
Corduroy (via JJ) talks to Josh Hartnett about his career (post acting hiatus). I thought I'd share this since we were just talking in that Taylor Lautner post -- I realize they're not exactly interchangeable ;)  -- about the limited shelf life of young male actors who get hired for a lot of big roles and big projects before they've truly proven themselves. Isn't that essentially what happened to Hartnett?  

Hartnett photographed by Peter Ash Lee for Corduroy

When you first start really young and you have some success, they want to take away your edges and make you into this proto-typical movie star... people don’t like to be boxed in and actors are no different.”

He also says:

I started when I was 17 and when you’re that age, you’re a bag full of nerves. I was a little bit freaked out by the whole industry. But now I’m actively looking for things that scare me; things that push me outside my comfort zone. As an actor, that’s the only way you grow and the only way you create something truly interesting for yourself and the audience as well.”

...which is code for rebuilding his once bright career through the indie film circuit, isn't it?

"Would you like one of my flowers" (Illustration by Scott C)The Great Showdowns simple concept movie illustration tumblr that yields very cute results. I love that the references are from several decades, not just the overplayed 80s ...though there's quite a lot of that as there always is online. Check it out.
ioncinema talks about the next project from I Am Love's brilliant director Luca Guadagnino which looks like it may star the ubiquitous duo of Mia Wasikowska and Jeremy Renner who plan to be in every movie of the next 5 years (along with Fassbender & Mulligan)

The Awl asks "what makes a great critic?" 
IndieWire Michael Fassbender offered the lead role in Prisoners. But his docket is so full now, who knows. 

"Avengers Assemble" at D23

God, I hope people didn't wait in line hours and hours for this. So short.  It's cute how Jeremy Renner bounces out at 1:05ish though. 

I guess they only really showed a teensy tiny clip between Samuel L Jackson's Nick Fury and Tom Hiddleston's Loki which i09 loved. I'd hoped to post a counter opinion from someone who was not at all impressed (it's important to maintain some balance in our fanboy ruled world) but have misplaced the link. Drat.

P.S. Totally eager to see how Tom Hiddleston's career develops. He was great to look at as F Scott Fitzgerald in Midnight in Paris and I suspect he did about as fine a job as anyone could have done making sense of his confusingly written character in Thor. Eager to see what's next for him?

Shame on Them.

Jose here. I have to apologize in advance but I have to confess that every time I read new stories about Steve McQueen's Shame, I can't help but start singing this song. Today after seeing the first official pics of the movie, I couldn't help it either.

Carey Mulligan in all her Marilyn Monroe-esque glory plays the "wayward" sister to a sex-addict played by Michael Fassbender and according to the movie's official synopsis, things get out of control after she moves in with him.

Shame is the sophomore effort of British artist Steve McQueen, whose previous film Hunger won a ton of awards and introduced most of us to the marvelous Fassbender. The film had already sparked some controversy after a not-so-shy shoot in NYC took some by surprise and is set to debut at this year's Toronto Film Festival.

Excited to see what McQueen does this time? Thrilled to see Fassy and CaMu together or is their current reign as "go-to-actors for everything" exhausting you already? 

more pictures after the jump

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Yes, No, Maybe So: Haywire

Jose here with a new edition of Yes, No, Maybe So. Just a few days ago we brought you the trailer for Steven Soderbergh's Contagion and now here's the trailer for Haywire, a movie he will release a mere four months later. Apparently the whole retirement thing just helped to crank the creative juices inside him...

YES. Once again, that cast!

How did he handle two casts with these people? Can you imagine working with Fassy, Ewan, Gwynnie, Kate, Marion and Channing in the same year? Maybe they are the ones who are more like "can you imagine working with Soderbergh?".

Keep on reading for more awesome Soderbergh-ness...

Click to read more ...

Linkbringer

GWB finds Raúl Esparza all villainous

big screen
Broadway.com Raul Esparza, one of our favorite song & dance men, channels his inner gangster for the new film GWB
Pajiba the fifth annual "most bangable celebrities" list. Fun writeups on everyone from Tom Hardy to Emma Stone to Fassy, who tops the list.
In Contention fans can finally choose between Magneto & Professor X for the X-Men First Class Blu-Ray. Nice covers but obviously I'd have to go with Michael Fassbender.
Scene Stealers chooses a top ten of movie super soldiers to celebrate Captain America's arrival. Hey, that's probably what I'm watching right as you're reading this. Wheeeee.
Little White Lies interviews director Mike Mills on his personal and beguiling film Beginners. I love this bit on whether he's nostalgic for old time Hollywood...

Well, I’m obsessed with history. We are the latest chapter in a long story and if we want to figure ourselves out of get out lf the prisons that we’re in then you need to figure out the past. So I’m always looking back. And I do love Louise Brooks and I do love old Hollywood through the teens, ’20s and ’30s, because it was being invented then, it was like this whole new entrepreneurial world that was just being discovered. ...I like these cultures that were born from punk, too. I was around and I watched these things make themselves a little bit and I related a lot to that. Actually Louise Brooks was a fucking punk, man. She was a really interesting, subversive person.

That she was.

Have you seen this new poster for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy?

It's nifty, yes?

I like that it feels secret messagey and that it isn't loud. But perhaps mileage will vary. I still don't know what to make of it in the Oscar predictions but it's an interesting wild card sight unseen.

small screen
My New Plaid Pants Black Book's wondrous Carice van Houten will play the sorceress Melisandre in Game of Thrones. I wish I loved Game of Thrones because between them giving Sibel Kekilli a plum role and now this (Melisandre is a totally sick character) it's like they're trying to fill their cast with my foreign film harem. Who's next: Franka and Ludivine?
Vulture Lisa Kudrow talks about Web Therapy which she's bringing to regular TV now. My greatest related dream is that she convinces Meryl Streep to reprise her sex-crazed reparative therapist Camilla Bowner because it's so topical now what with those crazy anti-gay Bachmanns flitting about on the news.
Towleroad Where in the world is Anderson Cooper?