Nathaniel in Venice: "Atlantide" and "The Lost Daughter"

Nathaniel reporting from Venice. Day 2

"Atlantide" is a stunner. And better yet, Venice specific!

My second day of the fest was a day of high highs and low lows. The high (other than the movies) was that it was a full social day. That doesn't always happen at festivals but it is like a shot of energy for extroverts like myself. The fun began meeting two Spanish journalists on the ferry to the Lido who introduced themselves since they read The Film Experience. We had a great conversation about the new Almodóvar and they totally sold me on the idea of the San Sebastian Film Festival -- new goal! Then between films a quick drink with longtime friend Boyd van Hoeij (who you've heard on the podcast a couple of times) and then a late night very Italian dinner with our own Elisa Giudici. She's been our Italian correspondent at TFE for a year now (kicking it off with last year's Venice summary) but this was our first time actually meeting in person. She's such a delight in person, as personable and fun as her writing. I'm really quite chuffed to be sharing this Venice experience with her.

The low was very low realizing that this full day of screenings wasn't going to be the norm...

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Complete the sentence(s)...

I'm off to see Eyes of Tammy Faye and apologize that the Smackdown is running late (it'll be up tomorrow... the registrations and site difficulties of the past few days have eaten up all our time) so in the meantime, complete these sentences in the comments for fun.

1. The movie I'm most excited about this fall/winter is ________ because __________ . 
2. I don't care about ________ but I hope it means good things for ___________'s career. 
3. ______________ is winning ___________ at the Oscars and you can't convince me otherwise ... yet!

"Spencer" Teaser. Kristen Stewart for the gold?

by Nathaniel R

It never fails. Every time something exciting happens, like a Power of the Dog teaser, there's something immediately on its heels giving you barely any time to process. Spread the wealth studios, meter out that cinephilia bait, we beg you. Here's the Spencer teaser starring Kristen Stewart...

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Posterized: Jennifer Hudson

by Nathaniel R

With Respect, the Aretha Franklin biopic, hitting theaters today let's talk Jennifer Hudson's movie career. Well, her TV and Broadway career, too, since she's primarily a singer even when moonlighting as an actress. She's made more movies than you probably think.

How many of her performances have you seen? The posters are after the jump...

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Oscar Predictions: Will Best Actress be dominated by biopics yet again?

by Nathaniel R

Jennifer Hudson as Aretha Franklin in "Respect"

We'd love not to be a broken record but until the Academy isn't, we must sing the same choppy tune: The Academy has a biopic problem. They just can't give them up and nearly always view mimicry (of various degrees) as more of an achievement than character creation from scratch. We'll never understand it exactly but it keeps reasserting its truth. So that's always where you have to begin with predictions. This year's Best Actress category has the potential to be entirely performances based on real people.

Not that it will be. There are (that we know of thus far) seven real life characters as female leading roles this season...

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