Venice 2006

[Maltin]

So the Fountain is finally finished? I bet it's shite. Been waiting ages to see it....Grrrrr </pessimist>

Yes. And Variety think it's a load of rubbish.

Backburnered four years ago after original star Brad Pitt pulled out, then long in the making, "The Fountain," third feature by one-time wunderkind Darren Aronofsky, made more of a splatter than a splash on Venice's Lido with its world premier. Greeted by booing at its first press show, pic's hippy trippy space odyssey-meets-contempo weepy-meets-conquistador-caper starring Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz suffers badly from a trite, turgid script and bears all the signs of edit-suite triage to produce a still-incoherent 95 minutes.

Screen Daily weren't impressed either:

Something of a feature-length New Age doodle, The Fountain will alienate many of those who were turned on to indie director Darren Aronfosky by his quirky debut Pi and its follow-up, the drug-fuelled cinematic opera Requiem For A Dream. Threading its epic love story through three time zones – the years 1500, 2000 and 2500 – his latest work is a visual and aural trip that lets its symbolic ambitions choke and finally suffocate its dramatic impact.

As such it’s one of those works guaranteed to split audiences down the middle: anyone with an aversion to woolly pop-Buddhist philosophising or who has a well-honed sense of the ridiculous is likely to pass the point of no return and lose patience with the whole exercise well before the end.

The Fountain - screendaily review

 

[Leica]

third feature by one-time wunderkind Darren Aronofsky

I didn't like Pi or Requiem for a Dream... respect towards Variety is increasing.

 

[Reno]

I didn't like Pi or Requiem for a Dream...

Same here. Pi send me to sleep and I found Requiem... often unintentionally funny (that scene with the fridge ) Internet geeks seem outraged by the reception of The Fountain in Venice, but it looks like New Age twaddle to me.

Having said that, I just saw Sophia Coppola's Marie Antoinette, which got booed at Cannes and absolutely loved it.

 

[Leica]

I just saw Sophia Coppola's Marie Antoinette, which got booed at Cannes and absolutely loved it.

Ah that's good news

 

[Maltin]

Not a critic I am aware of, but David Poland at Movie City News thinks this is the best American film of 2006 to date:

Little Children

Screen Daily weren't soo enthuastic but seem to like it.

Five years after his delicate debut film In The Bedroom was steamrollered into the mainstream by distributor Miramax Films, Todd Field settles into a determinedly off-kilter groove in his follow-up Little Children. An unsettling and richly-drawn portrait of dysfunction in affluent suburbia, it sits somewhere between American Beauty, Douglas Sirk’s 1950s period and Todd Solondz’s Happiness in tone, style and content but it is unique in its characterisation of the purposeless ennui rampant in contemporary America.

Little Children - screendaily review

Variety's review is also online:

Displaying many of the same qualities that distinguished Todd Field's debut feature, "In the Bedroom," "Little Children" is a deftly made, emotionally acute and at times a tad fastidious examination of cracks in middle-class American family life. Adroitly adapted from Tom Perrotta's fine and popular 2004 novel with every literary reference neatly in place, this New Line release about an affair between a married man and woman in a community troubled by the return of an unwelcome neighbor will tie many viewers, particularly women, up in knots, and should follow in the critically and commercially successful footsteps of its director's previous picture.

 

[Maltin]

Venus

Venus (Roger Michell)

Starring Peter O'Toole as an ageing actor.

This premiered at Telluride and may earn Peter O'Toole his eighth Best Actor Oscar Nomination.

Screen Daily reviewer says:

The team behind The Mother – director Roger Michell, writer Hanif Kureishi and producer Kevin Loader – reunites for Venus, another portrait of an old character being revitalised by love for a younger. In this case, the relationship – between a septuagenarian and a teenager – is even more extreme than in The Mother, but Michell, who is fast emerging as one of British cinema’s most distinctive directors, never makes the romance feel awkward or uncomfortable. The film emerges triumphant as a profoundly moving meditation on what the young can learn from the old and vice versa.

Venus - screendaily review

 

[Maltin]

Bobby (Emilio Estevez)

Depiction of the night Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated.

It seemeed as if it would just be a work in progress, but it seems as if it is almost finished.

Screendaily say:

Actor-director Emilio Estevez makes a convincing return to feature direction with Bobby, an all-star choral drama set in Los Angeles’ Hotel Ambassador on the day Democratic candidate Robert Kennedy was assassinated there. True, it is not one of those auteurist multi- strand films like Magnolia that provokes and challenges its audience; rather it’s better thought of as a hipper, more politicised take on the Grand Hotel genre. But the film’s potentially slight stories, which follow 22 fictional guests and staff staying or working in the Ambassador on June 4, 1968, are neatly glued together and given depth, by the impending tragedy.

The Hollywood Reporter state:

Set among the guests and staff at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles on the day in 1968 when presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy was murdered, "Bobby" is a sentimental love letter from writer-director Emilio Estevez to his hometown and the slain politician. A well-crafted piece with a large ensemble cast featuring some big names, the film's success will depend on whether audiences respond to its rose-tinted view of Los Angeles in the late 1960s and its clear belief that RFK was a saint.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr/reviews/review_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003087492

And Variety state:

Viewing the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy through the eyes of guests and staff in the hotel where the senator was shot on June 5, 1968, Emilio Estevez's "Bobby" is a passionate outcry for peace and justice in America that becomes deeply involving by the final climactic scene, overlaid with one of RFK's most stirring speeches. A warm reception at Venice, followed by a Gala bow in Toronto are well timed to put the picture in the spotlight during the serious-minded fall (and election) season, taking the same route George Clooney's "Good Night, and Good Luck" took to galvanize a following.

 

[Maltin]

+going to do my best no to hear anything about this before I see it

With this in mind regarding Lynch's latest, I won't reveal anything but Variety state:

Nobody loves a mystery more than David Lynch, but the king of the unexpected is awfully predictable in what he doesn't do: He doesn't give answers, he doesn't solve anything and he doesn't try to make sense. "Inland Empire" may mesmerize those for whom the helmer can do no wrong, but the unconvinced and the occasional admirer will find it dull as dishwater and equally murky. Almost held together by Laura Dern's intense performance, the three hours pass slowly by on unattractive digital.

Lee Marshall of Screen International is less kind:

Around 10 minutes into INLAND EMPIRE, David Lynch’s baffling new cinematic mindgame, a guy with the head of a rabbit drones: “I do not think it will be much longer now”. Wrong, bunny: it will be another two hours and 50 minutes of improvised plotting, rumbling sound effects and blurry digital camerawork before the final credits roll.

 

[Leica]

the three hours pass slowly by on unattractive digital

blurry digital camerawork

I don't get why nearly everyone seems to be going on about the digital thing, as if they are so baffled by everything else.

 

[Maltin]

Venice 2006 winners

A bit slow with an update but Still Life directed by Jia Zhangke won the Golden Lion.

Variety's view of it was:

The surprise film at this year's Venice fest offered no surprises: Aptly titled "Still Life" is another slow, contemplative look at spiritual/emotional malaise in modern China by thirtysomething auteur Jia Zhangke ("Unknown Pleasures"). Virtually docu-like look at a town about to be submerged by the Yangtze River Three Gorges dam project has almost zero plot but molto mood. It will appeal to the most faithful of the director's camp-followers and no one else.

The Silver Lion went to Private Fears in Public Places directed by Alain Resnais.

A new prize, the Silver Lion Revelation was created to honour the Italian-French production Golden Door directed by Emanuele Crialese.

Again, Variety's view of this film was:

An imaginative, intelligent and attractive Italo pic precisely when the country needs it most, Emanuele Crialese's "Golden Door" reps a solid piece of cinema that neither panders nor preaches. Moving from rural Sicily to third-class steerage to Ellis Island, this tripartite tale of a family's journey from the Old World to the New propels them from a superstitious past into a colder-eyed modernity. Meticulously researched, pic slips only when it uncharacteristically departs from the focused story and too obviously attempts a lesson.

Special Jury prize went to Dry Season directed by Mahamat-Saleh Haroun.

Ben Affleck won an acting prize for Hollywoodland as did Helen Mirren for The Queen.

Peter Morgan also won a prize for his screenplay of The Queen.

Emmanuel Lubezki won a prize for Technical Contribution (Photography) for Children of Men.

 

[Leica]

Quelques Jours en Septembre

Just seen this... not too bad, good photography, some great ideas e.g. the assassin who phones his analyst when he does something bad, the frame going out of focus every time she takes off her glasses. John Turturro is very good, and the little turtle is lovely.

 

[Maltin]

When The Levees Broke, a four-hour documentary by Spike Lee on Hurricane Catrina.

Just to let you all know that this is on BBC 4 tomorrow at 9pm with the second half on Tuesday.