Venice Red Carpet: The Town, Potiche, Meek's Cutoff

Toronto kicked off last night but before we get to our coverage there -- we'll be hearing from the same folks who covered Toronto for The Film Experience last year -- Venice is starting to wrap up. Awards will be announced before you know it.

The most 'Hollywood' Venice premiere was probably The Town which brought out the happy familiar faces of Ben Affleck, Rebecca Hall, Jon Hamm and last year's Best Actor nominee Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker).


Is it just me or is it always a bit odd to see Jon Hamm smiling? He's smiling so much lately and with that career you'd be smiling too. But it's so UnDraper! These townies had prophetic reason to be happy. Reviews were kind. Here's a sampling:

• Cinema Blend "bigger by nearly every measure" [than Gone Baby Gone]
  
• Newsweek "Affleck’s heist movie is part of a career turnaround so amazing that he looks like the new Clint Eastwood"

One of the most exciting things for cinephiles about film festivals is that they tend to be more auteur-focused than any other movie event.

Tykwer, Miike, Ozon and Guadagino

Tom Tykwer was promoting his latest Drei, a film about a bisexual love triangle between a long time couple and the man they both fall for (unbeknownst to each other). Obsessed With Film called it "punchy and inventive" but wasn't completely bowled over. Tykwer has yet to recapture the type of international enthusiasm that greeted his breakthrough Run Lola Run (1998) but every few years or so we get another good looking movie like Perfume or The International.

Takashi Miike makes a new movie as often as I write a blog post. At least it seems that way. He's twice or thrice as prolific as Woody Allen. The man behind violent sensations like Audition and Ichi the Killer (and many others with less staying power) was premiering 13 Assassins.

François Ozon is one of the best directors of eye candy movies in the world with a gorgeous filmography that includes 8 Women, Water Drops on Burning Rocks and 5x2 among other gems. He's also sweet to look at offscreen. I'm just saying. The gay auteur was in Venice to premiere Potiche, his latest confection starring a starry buffet for hungry francophiles: Catherine Deneuve, Karin Viard, Sergi Lopez, Gerard Depardieu, Judith Godreche among others. Yum yum. Ultimate Addict was totally entertained citing its "snappy, hilarious dialogue" and calling Deneuve "a joy to watch" though you can cut and paste that description into every Deneuve review, n'est-ce pas?

Luca Guadagnino, Tilda's I Am Love director was also in town. He's on Tarantino's competition jury. I include him because I am nuts for I Am Love and his proposed Auntie Mame remake with Tilda in the lead is the greatest movie ever made that doesn't actually exist yet. Ohmygod I want to see that like three years ago. Please make it. If only I were a multi-millionaire and could fund the project myself. This is why I should have been born rich instead of poor. I could have supported so many worthwhile creative endeavors. (Sigh)

Michelle, Tilda, Paz and the immortal Deneuve

But we mustn't forget the actresses beautifying the red carpet.

Michelle Williams is sharing a closet with Carey Mulligan? They're like twin pixie fashionistas. Michelle was in town for her role as Kelly Reichardt's (Wendy & Lucy) main muse, this time in the western Meek's Cutoff.

• Time Out London "just as rich, nuanced, mysterious and low key as anything she's made."
• Guardian "far from action packed, but still gripping."
  

Tilda Swinton appears magically wherever there are A list festivals. It's a rule of the cinema nature ...a benevolent one, too.

Paz Vega. Remember her? Would Spanglish jog your memory or have you tried to forget it?
She's in town with the Italian drama Vallanzasca.

Anyway... we could do this all day. But the question is now who will take the prizes from Tarantino's jury? Guy Lodge has predictions. Will Natalie Portman's psycho ballerina win her the Best Actress prize? Will a non-English language picture rise to the top, forcing the media to note that not all movies are from Hollywood? Venice pulls the curtains closed tomorrow.

Randomness: Drew, Deneuve, Emmys

<---- A photo from the premiere of Going the Distance that I saw at I Need My Fix. Is this pose, caught foregrounded against a rainbow subtle "Box Office" halo, some sort of sign from god that this Justin Long / Drew Barrymore romcom is going to be huge? Hmmmm. Drew is so impossible not to love but I'm hoping that one day she gets and nails a movie role as good as her Grey Gardens outing. Her movie roles are always so samey-samey and GG sure let her stretch her wings beautifully. Won't one of our A list directors give her a real big screen opportunity? The Barrymore dynasty hasn't been in the Oscar mix since, what, 1944?

Slant Magazine sizes up the Emmy rosters with should and could wins. Great read, dependably bitchy. But I must say that I think Christina Hendricks deserves the Supporting Actress win over Elisabeth Moss for Mad Men. Moss has such rich material constantly and does a tremendous job. But Hendricks is just constantly elevating the shit out of what, in lesser hands, could be one of the show's most surface characters. P.S. I don't get the hate for 30 Rock... Sure it's increasingly uneven. But it's still goddamn funny in its best moments.
The Wrap Christina Hendrick still models for friends? So cool.
Towleroad The Switch, Fela, celebrity forgiveness chart and more.
MNPP The Fog or The Mist? It's a question of the utmost importance. Condensation forever!
Dark Eye Socket a follow up to that "what do you look for in a movie?" question we were just chatting about.

And reader Patrick sent me this image of Catherine Deneuve from François Ozon's new film Potiche which will play at Venice (god, I wish I was going to the Venice Festival. This AND Black Swan?) with this amusing note "trying to to be the new Sue Sylvester..." ha.


I'd don a track suit to hang with Catherine Deneuve any day any time any where. But especially in Venice. Wouldn't you?

Have you any movie plans this weekend?
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Sir Links-a-Lot

Vanity Fair How the Fantastic Mr. Fox puppets were made. Cool slides
Boy Culture From Queer to Eternity
fourfour on Precious. I wish I'd read this days ago. Beautiful piece that will hopefully slap some people silly who have wanted to condemn this movie for existing.


Cinema Blend Romola Garai's Spider-Man surprise
Los Angeles Times good piece on Sir Ian McKellen (The Prisoner) on Gandalf, gay rights and Macbeth
The Auteurs looking back at Michael Mann's The Last of the Mohicans and seeing a conflict of movies within
In Contention Brenda Blethyn London River FYC
Awards Daily Christian McKay Me and Orson Welles FYC
Silly Hats Only remembers François Ozon's 8 Women

About this trailer to Leap Year, Amy Adams next romantic comedy...



I'm not one of those people who likes to trash romantic comedies, especially not before I've seen them. Like any genre it can contain brilliance as well as trash. But it really does seem like Hollywood isn't even trying anymore. People liked to bag on romantic comedies even when they were popular (like in the 90s) but even those films didn't take such lazy shortcuts of having the right guy be so obviously superior to any other guy who might be in the movie. [tangent: Hello, Matthew Goode too Good! Good as in Great. I just saw A Single Man and his perfect human specimen thing makes more sense from beyond the grave]. For instance, there was absolutely nothing wrong with Bill Pullman in Sleepless in Seattle. He was a sweet guy. If anything he's more attractive than Tom Hanks. You feel for him when he realizes he's not the right one for Meg Ryan and yet that doesn't interfere with your joy in watching the movie stars get together at the end. Trust the audience. They aren't dumb. They aren't as dumb as you think.

Oh and way to give away the ending, trailer. Couldn't you have flashed a spoiler warning?
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Goodbye Toronto: Fish Tank and Le Refuge

MattCanada reporting from the Toronto International Film Festival

The festival has ended and Lee Daniels' Precious has won the jury prize. Congratulations to it, and the scores of awards it is now assured to collect. Before I say goodbye, notes on the last two films I saw at TIFF: Le Refuge and the much talked about Fish Tank.

I was very excited for Le Refuge because François Ozon is one of those world cinema directors I always enjoy. However, despite great performances and beautiful cinematography, it left me cold. The story of a pregnant drug addict (Isabelle Carré) forming a relationship with the dead baby-daddy's gay brother (Louis-Ronan Choisy) seemed too oblique to me. Maybe it's just that I like a few more histrionics, but to be perfectly honest, by the time the film ended I felt very little. Le Refuge is technically accomplished but I just couldn't connect with the film, didn't like any of the characters and their journeys and tribulations seemed petty and misguided. The last part especially suprised me because I think overcoming someone's death and bringing new life into the world is monumental and should carry an intense emotional weight. Therefore, it really is a 'tribute' to screenwriters Ozon and Mathieu Hippeau for making them seem utterly unimportant.

The last film I saw at the festival was Andrea Arnold's gritty council estate drama Fish Tank, and at a 9am Saturday screening no less. The film has already received raves for Arnold's direction/writing and the acting of Katie Jarvis, Michael Fassbender, Kierston Wareing, and Harry Treadaway. I think it's the best British film since Anton Corbijn's Control (2007). What struck me most about the film was Arnold's updating of the British New Wave aesthetic, and the feminising of the Angry Young Men of that same era into the volatile Mia (Jarvis). The British New Wave established that it was 'grim up North', focusing almost exclusively on the North's (mainly Manchester and surrounding area) poor and using the constantly grim weather as reflective of the lives and opportunities of the people who live there. These films were based, most often, on plays or literature that formed the basis for the Angry Young Man of the 1950s. Arnold takes these precedents, which are integral parts of modern films as disparate as Trainspotting and Billy Elliot, and focuses on the the grim council flats of Somewhere (unspecified) in Essex.

Instead of an Angry Young Man who violently vocalises his discontent with Britain's social order, Jarvis's Mia says very little, yet reacts just as rashly and violently as Richard Harris and Richard Burton did 50 years ago. Arnold's Essex is bathed in sunlight for major sections of the film, but it does not make Mia's environment any more welcoming, hospitable or cheerful. Arnold's writing, direction, and casting are incredible and the changes she makes to the formula of lower-class kitchen sink drama make this a completely modern film that fits perfectly into the traditions of English realism. I think this is an instant classic, sure to be viewed in the future as another example of lyrical and angry responses to England's class divides like masterworks Room at the Top and Boys from the Blackstuff.

So now I say goodbye to TIFF. I am sad to see the attention shift from my amazing hometown back to LA and NYC, but happy that the lines in Yorkville will once again be manageable.