Meanwhile in Venice...

While I struggle to keep up at TIFF (good lord what a learning curve) the Venice Film Festival wrapped up and announced its awards. We didn't share them in a timely fashion. My apologies. The winners were...

Stray Dogs

Golden Lion: Sacro GRA (Gianfranco Rosi)
This surprise winner is a documentary about a famous highway in Rome. Sometimes non-sexy subject matter translates into great films.
Grand Jury Prize: Stray Dogs (Tsai Ming-liang)
From the sounds of twitter this was the sensation of the festival though it doesn't screen at TIFF until after I leave town. *snifffle*
Silver Lion (Best Director): Alexandros Avranas, Miss Violence
Best Actor: Themis Panou, Miss Violence
I have a terrible habit of skipping films which then become winners at festivals. This is also playing Toronto but descriptions make it sound like a Greek version of The Virgin Suicides and I didn't bite. In hindsight and with awards under its belt a Greek version of The Virgin Suicides sounds tempting.
Best Actress: Elena Cotta, A Street in Palermo
Luckiest Gown: "Versayce" on Scarlett Johansson
okay that's not a real award but it should be. because dayum...

Marcello Mastroianni Award (Best Young Actor): Tye Sheridan, in Joe
Between this and his wonderful work in Mud, quite an arrival, huh
Best Screenplay: Philomena (Steve Coogan and Jeff Pope)
Dench was rumored to be the frontrunner for Best Actress but the jury thought otherwise... which might be telling since they obviously liked the film.
Special Jury Prize: The Police Officer's Wife (Phillip Groning)
Luigi de Laurentiis Award (Best Debut Feature): White Shadow (Noaz Deshe)
This one is a Tanzanian film (!) about an albino on the run from witch doctors.  

Theres another set of awards called "Horizon" and they chose...

Eastern Boys

Best Film: Eastern Boys (Robin Campillo)
A film about Eastern European young male immigrant hustlers in Paris's Gare du Nord station. 
Best Director: Still Life (Uberto Pasolini)
Special Jury Prize: Ruin (Michael Cody)
Award for Innovative Content: Fish and Cat (Shahram Mokri)
Best Short Film: Kush

Have you ever been to Venice or Toronto? Are they way up on your dream festival list or are you all about Cannes?

Yes, No, Maybe So: "Her"

Before we begin let us celebrate the coming of another Spike Jonze movie and one that has the prestigious closing night gala spot at the NYFF this year. Jonze has yet to make anything less than very memorable (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Where the Wild Things Are not to menion numerous iconic music videos).

Let us also bask in the saturated colorogy of Her's poster

Mmmmm never have I loved reds bleeding into pinks before... perhaps it's the hypnotic turquoise of Joaquin's eyes? They're like pools of inviting water thatinduce hypothermia once you've dove in. They're so hypnotic I didn't even notice the mustache and I hate face carpet unless it's evenly spaced about the room. (in other words: beards are fine) 

But we are here for the trailer and our Yes No Maybe So verdicts (after the jump)

Click to read more ...

"It won't cost much... just your voice!"

I realize it's only* voicework but I'm bit sad that Samantha Morton's voice has been removed from the upcoming Spike Jonze picture Her. She was to voice the operating system that Joaquin Phoenix falls in love with in lieu of, one supposes, flesh and blood options. I thought Samantha was brilliant in insert anything from her filmography here, and even though it was only* voicework, I was anxious to "see" her again.

Morton has the most terrible ratio of talent-to-role opportunities. I don't quite get what's happened to her career as she's one of the best screen actors alive. Still, since the world has a very short memory I didn't notice much mourning online about her replacement when the news broke. Or maybe that's just because Scarlett Johansson, her replacement, is early Aughts popular again. Scarlett weathered the storm of a lame but lucrative patch in her career in which she seemed more model/spokesperson/celebrity than talent. She seems interested in actually ACTING again (see multiple trips to the stage and a wonderful spin on Black Widow the second time around) so I am free to root for her again, too.

Scarlett's voice is a wonder, it's true. But also quite an expected choice for this type of role since her timbre is so effortlessly sexy. I guess I didn't quite expect the obvious from Spike Jonze which is why I'm still processing this news.

Anyway, do you miss Samantha Morton? If you're asking "who?"... please state your age! She couldn't have faded from collective memory that quickly, could she?

When it comes to singing actresses, I'm as greedy as Ursula! In other Beautiful Voice News, Anna Kendrick has been cast as Cinderella in Rob Marshall's adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's fairytale mashup classic Into the Woods (2014)... a movie we're tracking closely but very worried about.

Since we first fell in love with Kendrick as evil scheming Sondheim-singing Fritzi in Camp (2003) and haven't ever felt quite that proprietary/excited about her again (but loved hearing the voice again in Pitch Perfect), this is potentially very good news. With Into the Woods and The Last Five Years (just discussed) both arriving in (presumably) 2014, and so quickly after Kendrick's first real success as a headliner (Pitch Perfect) will she be the first modern actress to really embrace becoming a star of film musicals?

Can you already here her version of "At the Palace"? (♥ that song!)

He's a very smart Prince,

He's a Prince who prepares.

Knowing this time I'd run from him,

He spread pitch on the stairs.

I was caught unawares.

And I thought: well, he cares-

This is more than just malice.

Better stop and take stock

While you're standing here stuck

On the steps of the palace.

-Cinderella in "Into the Woods" 

Everyone else in Mainstream Hollywood seems to think of musicals as one-off larks, something to do to say that you've done it or to demonstrate how "game" you are to mix things up. (Though Anne Hathaway won an Oscar that way she's built her massive career on diversity of genre so I'd say she's unlikely to stick to the form or even return to it for some time. Sad face. CZJ was obviously born to do them but it took how many years between Chicago and Rock of Ages?) If Kendrick makes a success of both of her plum movie musical gigs next year, I shall build a shrine to her.  

* I realize "only voicework" might enrage some readers and some voice actors! I don't mean it derogatorialy but for whatever reason I've observed that many TFE readers really value voice-only work in movies more than I do. Is this generational and tied to the second golden age of animation? I wonder... I mean I don't want there to be a whole Oscar category (do you?) but I do agree that brilliance is possible within the limitations of acting with one's voice alone. 

Scarlett Stays Super

...superhuman that is.

It appears that after her third stint as The Black Widow for Captain America: Winter Soldier (it's not just a cameo), Scarlett Johansson isn't ready to part with the super-powered set just yet.  

She'll be starring in Lucy as a woman who gains superpowers after being a mule for an experimental serum. It's a new project for director Luc Besson (who seems to be aiming for a big comeback after a quiet decade starting with Malavita this fall). This latest deal suggests she's content to stay in franchise mode for awhile longer still despite surely being one of the richest young actresses in the world what with so many spokesperson deals and big budget thesping already behind her at only 29 years of age. The size that nest egg must be by now (!) but maybe that's purposeful and her interests lie outside of acting like, say, Angelina Jolie. And since Angelina seems to have vacated the A List Action Heroine niche, someone's gotta fill it. 

But for those of us who fell in love with dreamy Scarlett early on it's kind of shocking in retrospect that Action would prove to be her genre of choice. That languorous Ghost Worldly Girl With the Pearl Earring Got Lost in Translation somewhere; how does that girl have all this energy to run around kicking ass? Wouldn't she rather sleep and pout and stare forlornly off into the distance? Doesn't it make you even more curious about the upcoming sci-fi but not that kind of sci-fi drama Under the Skin. Scarjo doesn't seem to have sizeable artistic ambitions -- or she's storing them up secretly for her 30s (she's still only 28!) -- so why did she opt to work with the very artful Birth director Jonathan Glazer inbetween all the green screens?

Time will tell... and hopefully reveal that movie. Still no release date for Under the Skin and hasn't it been in post for ages? At this point it's been almost a decade since Glazer trained his hypnotic camera on Kidman in catatonic grief crisis mode at the opera.

#ticktockticktock

Winter Soldier + Black Widow ?

I keep tricking myself into believing that this is a superhero free year but that's only because Iron Man, Supes and Thor haven't hit yet. Captain America, on the other hand, won't be back until 2014. Production commenced today on Captain America: Winter Soldier and here's the first photo.

Chris Evans is feeling shy, I guess.

What I didn't know, presumably only because I don't follow these things closely, is that he's bringing the Black Widow with him. Scarlett Johansson is his co-star in the sequel which makes good business and universe sense since she's the only Avenger (thus far) that they're never going to give a solo movie, too. They might as well indulge in teamsploitation post the behemoth success of The Avengers.

I stopped reading comic books regularly in college so I still primarily associate The Black Widow with Daredevil (with whom she was sexually entwined) rather than The Avengers. But it turns out she also had a fling with the titular character here.

No, not the good Captain but The Winter Soldier (aka James "Bucky" Barnes aka New Captain... played by Sebastian Stan). So are they setting up Natasha as the woman who comes between the former best friends and now enemies? Marvel Superheroes are largely sexless on the big screen (if not in the comic books) but since Chris Evan's Captain America is still a virgin just out of 1940s deep-thaw can't Sebastian Stan Scarlett Johansson do something about that?