Notes From Venice: "The Ides of March"

Editor's Note: Please welcome Ferdi from Italy (pictured below) who has been a Film Experience reader for many years. He's also a critic for LoudVision so please visit them if you speak Italian. We're very happy to have him sending us bite-sized notes from Venice this year for The Film Experience. - Nathaniel R.

Ferdi reporting from the opening day of the 68th Venice Film Festival. 

TFE Correspondent Ferdinando Schiavone shot by Fabrizio Spinetta

The Ides Of March is exactly what we've come to expect from Clooney: a solid, classically made, political contemporary drama. It's got a subtle shakespearian twist, a sharp screenplay and a strong cast. (OK, Evan Rachel Wood is always Evans Rachel Wood but, dammit! she's always good). Ryan Gosling is undoubtedly best in show with a perfectly nuanced character arc. He sparkles most in a couple of tasty scenes with Wood. But poor Marisa Tomei is soooo underused (again!) and Clooney plays a character working up to a big speech in front of a live audience (again!). Nothing new or revolutionary here, but quite everything in the right place.

Hollywood glamour aside, it's quite a shy opening film for a festival this big. (Last year things were very different with the incendiary opener Black Swan.)

Photo via Zimbio

Everyone has been saying that The Ides of March is a good movie (perhaps because it's talking about the right things in a serious way) but where are the emotions? Press reaction at the very first screening ranged from good to tepid, but it took the arrival of the stars at the press conference (all present but for Gosling) before you could feel warmth of unconditional love. How will the public react tonight when it opens the festival?

Editor's Note: Now check out these starry photos that Ferdi sent along from his photographer Fabrizio Spinetta from tonight's big event. 

George Clooney in Venice © Fabrizio Spinetta

Two more fun photos after the jump! 

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Toronto & Venice Lineups: Full of Contenders & Sleepers

Robert here (of Distant Relatives) with some thoughts on the lineups for the Toronto and Venice International Film Festivals which were announced Wednesday morning. And Oh Canada (and Viva Italia!) are they impressive.

Let's begin with Venice since it's up first.

VENICE
First up, the many films that will be vying for awards and spots on prestigious top 10 lists at the end of the year. I mention them first because while there's much to anticipate about them all, there's not too much left to say. They've staked their claim and now we must wait for word to start rolling in. So we can see if Roman Polanski's late career semi-resurgence can continue with the impressive cast of Carnage, or whether Steven Soderberg's Contagion can live up to that buzzy trailer. Meanwhile David Cronenberg's A Dangerous Method sets out to prove that just because he doesn't make movies with gynelogical tools that look like alien lifeforms anymore, he's still a master of psychosexual pathos. George Clooney's The Ides of March will try to be more than Primary Colors redux and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (from Let the Right One In's Tomas Alfredson) may finally get Gary Oldman some recognition in the form of little statues. And of course Madonna reinvents herself yet again, this time as feature film director with W.E.

Meanwhile I feel like the lineup has reminded me of how many films have fallen under the radar so far this year. Did you know Jonathan Demme has made a post-Katrina documentary entitled I'm Carolyn Parker? Underachiever James Franco has found time to direct a film about Sal Mineo called Sal. Todd Solondz is back at it with the romance Dark Horse, which I'm sure will be more fun for the whole family. Further representing the ladies are Marry Harron who jumps into the vampire fray with The Moth Diaries, Andrea Arnold who gives us a new version of Wuthering Heights, and Marjane Satrapi of Persepolis fame who, with co-director Vincent Paronnaud presents her sophomore effort Chicken With Plums.

If that weren't enough there's Shame, Steve McQueen's follow up to 2008's Hunger which pairs Michael Fassbender with Cary Mulligan. If you liked 2007's sweetly sad The Band's Visit, director Eran Kolirin presents The Exchange. And if you liked last years not-so-sweetly sad Dogtooth, Giorgios Lanthimos is back with Alps. Plus new films from Philippe Garrel, Abel Ferrera, William Friedkin and more. Exhausting. The full list is available for your perusal at The Guardian.

TORONTO
Now on to TIFF, the official unofficial start of award season. Along with some films from Venice that will be here too (The Ides of March, The Dangerous Method, W.E.), we'll get our first look at "Sad Clooney" in Alexander Payne's The Descendants, "Angry Woody" in Oren Moverman's Rampart, and "Mathy Brad" in Bennett Miller's Moneyball. Rodrigo Garcia's Albert Nobbs rings the bell on the Glenn Close/Meryl Streep steel cage Oscar match we're all looking forward to and/or feeling conflicted about. Meanwhile Francis Ford Coppola continues the "we hope this one will be his big comeback" era of his career with Twixt.

Of course, Toronto could be comeback central. Fernando Meirelles is premeiring 360 in an attempt to put Blindness out of sight. Lasse Hallstrom is back (actually I can't remember if he went anywhere or if we all stopped paying attention). Anyway if he has his way the title Salmon Fishing in the Yemen will be on all of our lips. Also did you know that Roland Emmerich has apparently grown tired of destroying the world and made a film about Shakespeare called Anonymous... seriously. And his subtler and more stylish French counterpart Luc Besson has maybe put thrillers on hold for The Lady.

The list seemingly never ends, but I must. So I'll finish off with two films you might be anticipating if you enjoyed 2004's My Summer of Love and 2007's Away From Her. Pawel Pawlikoski is back with The Woman in the Fifth and Sarah Polley returns to the director's chair for Take This Waltz. As usual there's still plenty more and The Guardian has that list too.

Once your head has stopped spinning with the promise of a busy end of the year sound off. Which of these are you looking most forward to? Which are you having trouble getting worked up for?

4 Things We Didn't Get Around To Saying This Week...

Which we really meant to. It was a sorry week in time management. So... Let's cover them right quick now.

1. The cast of Moulin Rouge! will be reunited on May 3rd on MTV for the 10th anniversary. The movie's exact anniversary is kind of confusing, so I'm choosing to celebrate the 10th anniversary on June 1st which is the date it went wide. May 30th through June 3rd is MOULIN ROUGE WEEK!

2. Congratulations to Darren Aronofsky for his Venice Film Festival Jury gig. I've always said that artists aren't necessarily the best judges of art so you can't really tell if a brilliant person at any one particular thing will have any brilliance at recognizing the brilliance in others within that same thing (hi sentence. You are too long). Nevertheless, it's always interesting to see which film luminaries the prestige festivals choose and who their jury ends up being.

3. I would pay good money for a way to watch old sitcoms with the laugh tracks removed. Why is this not an option? I literally can't watch anything with a laugh track -- with one or two exceptions -- it just takes me right out of what I'm watching.

4. It was 18 years ago this week that the death of Brandon Lee on the set of The Crow was proclaimed "negligence" That was such a sad creepy movie story back in the early to mid nineties but me and my friend Kevan, who I went to every movie at the time were really obsessed with the movie.

I have a soft spot for the movie (it's set in my hometown on a holiday I always had to explain to people "Devil's Night" once I left Detroit) though it's not exactly a great movie. And I love Brandon Lee in it. So I've been sad to hear about the rethink these past couple of weeks (to star Bradley Cooper?). Although technically a revival of this franchise isn't at all sacrilegious because it's a resurrection myth and there's no reason why the Crow can't keep raising the dead, you know?

Y los nominados son...

Jose here. The nominations for the 25th Annual Goya Awards have been announced and leading the pack is none other than The Last Circus, Alex De La Iglesia's killer clown allegory which not only earned him a Best Director award at last year's Venice Film Festival but also picked up some of the worst reviews of any movie in any festival during 2010.

 

Best Film

• Buried (yes, the Ryan Reynolds coffin thriller)
  
• Even The Rain (Spain's Oscar Submission)
• The Last Circus
• Pa Negre

The bad reviews didn't seem to deter the Spanish Film Academy which showered the film with nods (a whopping 15! More than any other movie this year) including Breakthrough Actress for the appropriately named Carolin Bang and of course Best Picture and Best Director. Interestingly enough, de la Iglesia is also the Academy's president. But before we scream nepotism we have to take into consideration that Spain makes fewer movies than many countries with film awards and will, well, sometimes nominate anything.

Best Actor Nominees: Javi & Ryan

Speaking of which, Ryan Reynolds is nominated for Best Actor for his work in Buried (which was made by a Spaniard, Rodrigo Cortés, and is therefore eligible). It's not that Reynolds' work isn't good or maybe better than he had any right to be or better than anything anyone ever expected from him, but when you see he's nominated next to Javier Bardem (for Biutiful) things just seem odd, huh?

Best Actor

• Javier Bardem -Biutiful
• Ryan Reynolds -Buried
• Luis Tosar -Even the Rain
• Antonio de la Torre -The Last Circus

The lovely Elena Anaya (pictured left) is up for Best Actress for her work in Room in Rome (read my review here) we'll see her next in Pedro Almodóvar's new film! Rome also won nominations for Breakthrough Actress and Best Song (I wonder where its nomination for Best Use of Google Maps is...)

Best Actress

• Elena Anaya -Room in Rome
• Nora Navas -Pa Negre
  
• Belén Rueda -Julia's Eyes
• Emma Suárez -The Mosquito

The actress category looks unimpressive when you remember that last year the nominees were Lola Dueñas, Rachel Weisz, Maribel Verdú and Pe! 

Considering that most of the films selected for the Goyas rarely get release dates in our continent let's head over to see international categories.

Best Latin American Film

• Undertow - Perú (Oscar submission and TFE Honorable Mention)
• The Man Next Door - Argentina 
• Hell - Mexico 
• The Life of Fish - Chile (Oscar submission)

Best European Film

• The King's Speech - England
• The Ghost Writer - France (just discussed right here)
• The White Ribbon - Germany
• A Prophet - France (just discussed right here)

Don't you just hate when last year's releases compete with this year's releases for awards? Let's all dream of a day when EVERY movie will be released around the world at the same time. It would make for some exciting global unity sort of thing huh?

So, dear readers in Europe, you're probably more equated with these films: Anyone you're rooting for? Anything we should be looking forward to when it's released here?

[More categories at the Goya Awards Official Site]