Links: "The 39 True Basterds Are All Right Network"

Warning: Teaser poster for True Grit bound to shame eventual actual poster with its gorgeous directness and simplicity. [Editor's Note: I've been in a very bad place/mood when it comes to movie posters lately. More on this soon.]

big screen
Scanners wonderful piece on the editing in Inglourious Basterds and what kind of choices Sally Menke was making.

Guardian I hadn't realized that The Kids Are All Right hadn't made it to the UK yet. But now that it's getting there: new articles! Lisa Cholodenko offers up an interesting theory about why women directors are few: It's not systemic sexism but based on what audiences value.
Cinema Blend an easter egg (we used to call them "inside jokes") in The Social Network for Fight Club fans.
Nick's Flick Picks has a brief encounter w/ none other than Roger Ebert
Our Stage the pop stars in big films this year
Boing Boing Yoda as Princess Leia. teehee

small screen
Deadline Wonder Woman via David E Kelley for television? There's a lot of snark in the comments on this post (I didn't know that Deadline had such conservative readership but I don't pay much attention to other sites...  a problem when you have to run your own). My mind unwillingly flashed to Michelle Pfeiffer playing the Queen of the Amazons (previously played to camp perfection by Cloris Leachman in the 1970s tv show.)
Daily Beast 'Why I Loathe Glee'. A compelling argument about what's wrong with the series (and why it's going to get worse)
Movie | Line The 3 worst stereotypes on TV this week

offscreen (I'm trying to avoid eyestrain)

Interview Naomi Campbell reminisces (lots of celebrities and history). Weird factoid: very few things remind Nathaniel of the early 90s more than "The Trinity": Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista and Christy Turlington.
REEAD I have no idea why this slide show arrived in my inbox under the heading "Is Madonna a religion?" but it just goes to show you that having a beautiful body can get you lots of page views... even if your headlines are misleading.
TCG Readers who are interested in theater might enjoy seeing which current plays are slated for the most regional production this coming year. I've been meaning to write about the Hitchcock spoof The 39 Steps forever. I guess I should. So many productions coming up.

Venice Red Carpet: Somewhere, Norwegian Wood, Miral, Reign of Assassins

The Venice Film Festival progresses. Day 4 of 11 today. So let's pretend we're there for a moment and check in. You can't have a good glitzy A list international film festival without immortals like Catherine Deneuve showing up (pictured left). Why is she shielding her eyes for she is brighter than the sun. All in all things seem to be going well. Take the premiere of Black Swan for example. Opening films don't often make that much of a splash, divisive or otherwise.

Another big question mark film of the 2010 film season is Sofia Coppola's Somewhere (trailer discussion). It's her follow up to the poorly received but delicious Marie Antoinette (2006). She's back to the present day for this film about an actor (Stephen Dorff) visited by his daughter (Elle Fanning) at the Chateau Marmont.

The reviews have been mixed but more than most filmmakers I trust not any reviews about her work. Her girlish dreamy haze tends to cloud judgment. But here are a few...

• In Contention "thoroughly beguiling"
• Evening Standard "no big dramatic moments, just a series of sequences"
• Obsessed With Film "ever bit as poignant as Lost in Translation, if not as fresh."
• Thompson on Hollywood "should play well for the young smart-house set."
  

Somewhere premiere: Sofia Coppola, Stephen Dorff, Laura Chiatta, Elle Fanning

Italian actress Laura Chiatta (The Family Friend) is also in Somewhere's cast which is why I included her here. Mostly because her lipstick is transporting me back to the early Aughts. It's all I can see. Is she wearing anything else?

I don't expect that the film will win Oscar traction (low key efforts rarely do and a late December release for a contemplative film won't help. Coppola whispers and Oscar hears only Oscar-bait shouting in the holiday months) but I'm still so excited to see it. Coppola is three for three in my book. Will this make four for four?

On to other films...

International Divas: Yeoh, Abbas, Kikuchi, Campbell

Michelle Yeoh, in town for Reign of Assassins, is a goddess. You knew that already. Her latest star vehicle was bought earlier this summer by the Weinstein Co which probably means we'll never see it (you know how they do). But since we can't look at the film, let's look at those shoes. The shoes... Gah! They're probably worth more than most people make in a year and she can probably kill those multiple assassins tailing her with them. Incidentally, Yeoh is also an assassin in the movie. What is with the cinema's complete fixation on assassins as protagonists? It's easy to understand them as villains but so many of them are actually the heroes of their movies. I shutter to think what this means about the human condition.

• Hollywood Reporter "lush visual treat... with crossover potential."
• Film Biz Asia "a rich gallery of characters
  
• Screen Daily "absorbing and entertaining."
• MovieWeb (the trailer... note: you have to watch an ad first)
  

Hiam Abbas was in Venice for the premiere of Julian Schnabel's Miral but curiously Freida Pinto, "Miral" herself, was not. Maybe she saw some unflattering reviews coming.

• Obsessed with Film "cravenly seeking approval"
• Telegraph "It’s terribly earnest, and characters often speak dialogue that resembles a history lecture"
• Thompson on Hollywood "Pinto, while gorgeous is not an expressive actress."
  

I should note here that none of the negatives lobbed Miral's way in reviews tend to be awards season negatives with Oscar, given that earnest lectures and films which needily cry for approval are fixtures of every awards season. And nobody seemed to have a problem with Freida Pinto's inexpressiveness as an actress in Slumdog Millionaire -- don't try to tell me that's a new development.We just barely dodged that supporting actress nomination I think. And it would have been one of those semi-regular headscratchers for being "the girlfriend."

Norwegian Wood, another prestige adaptation of a novel, also premiered. Rinko Kikuchi, the most famous member of its ensemble cast (credit that Babel Oscar nomination), hit the red carpet. I don't understand this look at all. But it definitely reminds me of a expensive monochromatic version of that awful ruffled confusing short skirted thing Peach turned out on Project Runway two nights back. Oh, Peach... wwyt?

• Variety "lovely but listless"
• Indie Movies Online "the story is not quite as peerlessly handled by Tran as the aesthetic presentation"

Finally, I included Naomi Campbell in this roundup because I cannot for the life of me, imagine her actually sitting down to watch movies, only strutting through flashbulbs towards them. I know she's been in a few movies but has she actually ever seen one?

Action auteur John Woo (pictured left) received the Golden Lion for lifetime achievement and was also there as co-director of Reign of Assassins (with Chao-Bin Su, who also wrote the film).

Quentin Tarantino is the head of the Venice jury so we'll see what his jury does with their cups and statues next weekend. Stay tuned.