Venice Tagged Articles at Cinematical

One of my dreams for when I'm a millionaire is to spend a year crisscrossing the globe, just traveling from one film festival after another. I've already got the major ones lined up: Sundance in January, South By Southwest in March, Tribeca in April, Cannes in May, Toronto in September; the rest of the slots are still to be determined. I bet if you had unlimited resources, you could literally spend every day of the year at some film festival somewhere.

Well, the helpful folks at Variety have got my back. In Monday's issue, they have an article called 50 Unmissable Film Festivals, and it reads like a wish list for avid film lovers. They list the "Big Five" -- Berlin, Cannes, Sundance, Toronto, and Venice -- right off, then list the rest alphabetically, from Adelaide to Warsaw.

Some of the ones you'd expect to see are on the list. South By Southwest, Telluride, AFI, CineVegas. And then there are others, mostly foreign fests, that I'd never heard of. And I am intrigued!

Camerimage, held in Lodz, Poland, is where "cinematographers are given the rock-star treatment"! What about Courmayeur Noir, at the foot of the Italian Alps, where the focus is mysteries, horror, and suspense films? I've never been to Iran, and can't imagine ever going -- so perhaps my future millionaire self, flanked by dozens of bodyguards, will visit some February for the Fajr Film Fest.

From Guadalajara to Eastern Europe to Seoul to Nantucket (I once knew a man from there!), there's a cool-looking film festival in just about every corner of the world. If you love movies and traveling, check out Variety's list and feel jealous about what you're missing.

With at least one film festival in every city these days, it should come as no surprise to learn that Rome (Italy, not Georgia) is planning a brand-new film festival starting in October this year. Watching films in Rome in the fall sounds pleasant enough...unless you're involved with the ailing Venice Film Festival - the world's oldest - which takes place in September. Rome's mayor claims that the two film festivals will not be competing for funds, films, or audience members but should be able to work hand-in-hand to grow together.  Personally, I can't imagine celebs and festival attendees traveling to one Italian city one month and a different one the next, unless they already lived in nearby parts of Europe.

However, the mayor has that covered too. He says the Rome festival will focus on more "popular" films, with a jury comprised of non-celebrity filmgoers, as opposed to Venice's more "high-brow" programming. In other words, there shouldn't be much overlap. Unfortunately, the Venice festival is so short on money that it may not be able to continue at all, and scheduling a second festival nearby, less than a month later, could further jeopardize its survival.

Which would you prefer: Venice in September or Rome in October? That's assuming you could afford to jet over to Italy at all in the autumn months. I notice that Rome's festival dates overlap with Austin Film Festival, which is practically in my backyard, so you know where I'll be. (Hint: not Venice, unless someone else is paying.)

Is the neighborhood of Venice planning to secede from Los Angeles ... via militant revolution?!? Writer/filmmaker Theresa Duncan wrote a blog entry this weekend to that end. I think the best thing I can do here is just quote from the source: "The Los Angeles Lunar Society advocates the secession of Venice from the city of Los Angeles, and does not preclude the use of revolution to achieve this end," Duncan writes. Apparently the issue of who would fight that revolution came up at the Lunar Society's August meeting; the problem with this notion (well, aside from no-pun intended lunacy) is that "many Lunar Society members are involved in work of one kind or another for the Hollywood dream factory"; therefore, "a Venice revolution might interrupt some production schedules." Yeah, I think a revolution might "interrupt" a lot of things. It was thus decided that "members in pre-production, production, post, or on worldwide publicity tours are recused from active military duty." A motion to that end was expected to be ratified and officially included into the society's bylaws at yesterday's September meeting.

Well, it's good to know that if civil war broke out in Los Angeles, production would remain unaffected. If anyone has any additional, credible information on this, please forward it along.

Just kidding. As Robert pointed out, trying to explain a Matthew Barney film is a thankless task - so imagine trying to review one of them. Consider this:  along with Bjork, the movie (Drawing Restraint 9) stars a massive vat of Vaseline. Since Vaseline hardens if it just sits around without a lid, the vat congeals as the film progresses. Called "The Field" (also the name, incidentally, of a deeply depressing, Vaseline-free movie starring Sean Bean), the vat "is moulded, poured, bisected and reformed on the ship over the course of the film." With me so far? Good. Keep in mind, now, that this flick is over two hours long, with almost no dialogue. Still think you wanna be a movie reviewer?

According to Hugh Davies of The Telegraph, even making it through the screening was a chore. While others fell asleep, he finally gave up about 120 minutes in and tragically missed the denouement in which Bjork and Matthew Barney (identified in the film as "The Guests") a) breathe out of blowholes in the back of their necks, b) slice away one another's legs and feet, and c) discover traces of whale tails in the flayed flesh. Whoa.

No one seems to have been aggressively bitter about having to see the film, however. Instead, most were simply confused, lost, and a bit tired. One Italian journalist, however, was rhapsodic, proclaiming that she'd like to watch the film "over and over again." This may come as a shock to you, dear readers, but I will never, ever be that sophisticated.

One of the films in competition at Venice this week is the newest effort from Japanese Renaissance man Takeshi Kitano. The film, called Takeshis, is about a famous TV personality who encounters his double, a grocery clerk. Over the course of the film - which Kitano insists is "not about me" - the two men (both, of course, played by Kitano himself) infiltrate one another's lives, even appearing in the dreams of the other.

Americans who know Kitano only as one of the hosts of Most Extreme Elimination Challenge (called Takeshi's Castle in Japan) cannot possibly imagine his status in Japan. Wildly popular as an actor, director, comedian, artist and TV personality, Kitano has in the past hosted or starred in as many as three weekly TV shows simultaneously. At the same time that he is a massive pop culture figure, though, Kitano makes incredible, delicate films that make virtually no money and are by turns shockingly violent, deeply touching, and vividly artistic. His subject matter ranges from the yakuza to childhood and everything in between, and the only thing it's safe to assume about his films is that they will be surprising. His last work in competition at Venice, Zatoichi, won him the best director award in 2003, and early word on Takeshis is promising as well.

I think I love Spike Lee. First he comes out as a soccer fan, and now he's taking Hollywood to task for making awful movies. At the Venice Film Festival supporting All the Invisible Children, which he co-directed, Lee was asked about the massive slump that has the American film industry in such a panic. Instead of talking about DVD releases, advertising costs, or fickle viewers, he put the blame squarely at the feet of filmmakers, accusing them of a total lack of originality. "I'm not naming any individual films but it's the worst it's ever been. It's full of sequels and remakes of TV shows." Remember when Spike was the enfant terrible, accused of inciting riots and creating race problems? Now he seems like the only major filmmaker with any brains.