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...
Somewhere premiere: Sofia Coppola, Stephen Dorff, Laura Chiatta, Elle FanningItalian 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.
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.
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.
<--- Meanwhile, in my weekly column for Towleroad I've issued a cinema-altering challenge to James Cameron involving Elizabeth Taylor, bitched about the MPAA and their fear of peen, and shared a performance moment from the dueling trans stars of Portugal's Oscar submission. Why is it that no matter where you go in the world, the drag playlists remain exactly the same?
