The 2009 Venice Film Festival is scheduled to be unveiled in about a week and as usual the trades have received wind about what’s probably/possibly going to be there. Our first few reactions: 1.) Wow 2.) Can someone buy us a ticket to Venice asap? 3.) Whoa, TIFF you’ve been put on blast [ed. though whatever TIFF wants TIFF usually gets, so this just might mean the Toronto Film Festival is going to be kick-ass as well).
If Variety is right, the 66th annual Venice Film festival –which runs September 2nd to 12th 2009 — is going to rule.
Here’s our predictions and speculati0ns and you’ll see that we’re on the mark about Soderbergh, Wes Anderson, Hillcoat and Herzog, but then again, that’s only if they all come to pass. Here’s the things we’re most excited about, generally it’s films we haven’t heard that much from. The coveted three are:
– Werner Herzog’s “Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call New Orleans,” the “re-imagining” of Abel Ferrara’s “Bad Lieutenant,” but this time starring Nicolas Cage in the Harvey Keitel role. *This will get better see below. Here’s the “wtf?” trailer.
– John Hillcoat’s post-apocalyptic “The Road,” starring Viggo Mortensen in Cormac McCarthy’s bleak, but beloved apocalyptic novel about a father and son traveling a decrepit and dangerous wasteland to survive. BTW, one of our friends has already seen this and said it was “great,” which excited us to no end. Here’s our in-depth script review.
– Todd Solondz’s “Life During Wartime” which was said to be called, “Forgiveness,” but Variety keeps referring to its former title. Is this an error or has the film switched titles again? It’s supposed to be a quasi sequel to his 1998 film “Happiness,” with many of the same characters, only this time played by different actors, like Charlotte Rampling and Ciaran Hinds in an ensemble cast.
Other films we’re looking forward too and aren’t completely surprised to hear might appear:
– Steven Soderbergh’s black comedy “The Informant!,” with Matt Damon which is also appearing at TIFF
– Coen Brothers’ black comedy “A Serious Man”
– Michael Moore’s recession-themed documentary, “Capitalism: A Love Story“
– Wes Anderson’s claymation adaptation of Roald Dahl’s “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” Which was already rumored to happen, though by the sounds of this Variety report, whether the film gets accepted to Venice remains to be seen which would kind of bode poorly if it wasn’t admitted. Here’s proof that Variety is fallible though: the trade says the voices include George Clooney, Cate Blanchett and Meryl Streep and we’ve already heard confirmation from FOX that Streep replaced Blanchett. Trades assume things too and hey, lookie, a blog got something right that a “real” publication didn’t. How about that?
Other notable films possibly featuring at the Italian festival include:
– Mike Judge’s latest workplace comedy, “Extract,” starring Jason Bateman, Mila Kunis and Ben Affleck
– John Dante’s 3D thriller “The Hole”
– George Romero’s “Survival Of The Dead”
– Tom Ford’s “A Single Man”
– Abel Ferrara’s “Napoli, Napoli, Napoli.” – best show down of all time?
Plus a plethora of foreign features:
– Clare Denis’ “White Material,” which we’re greatly looking forward to, but if we don’t see it at TIFF, none of us will until 2010, we’re sure
– Jaume Balaguero & Paco Plaza’s ‘REC 2″
– Shirin Neshat’s “Women Without Men”
– Giuseppe Tornatore’s “Baaria” which is kicking off the festival on the opening night (remember, Ennio Morricone dropped out of scoring “Inglourious Basterds” for this one, so you might want to throw rocks at it if it sucks and you’re a Tarantino devotee)
And more: Luca Guadagnino’s “Io Sono L’amore”; Michele Placido’s “Il Grande Sogno”; Francesca Comencini’s “Lo Spazio Bianco”; Jacques Rivette’s “36 Vuer Du Pic Saint Loup”; Patrice Chereau’s “Persecution”; Jessica Hausner’s “Lourdes”; Pipilotti Rist’s “Pepperminta”; and Tian Zhuangzhuang’s “The Warrior And The Wolf.”
All in all, a very impressive looking line up: Anderson, Soderbergh, Hillcoat, Judge, Moore and the Coen Brothers. Wow, but keep in mind, none of this is set in stone yet. Sure, most of it will happen? The trades seem to generally be about 75% right when they drop reports like these. If you go to Venice, we want to hear from you. That especially means our pals in France, who we KNOW are going.