61st International Venice Film Festival

The lineup for the 61st Venice International Film Festival was announced today. Some pleasant surprises, such as Im Kwon-taek's latest, Haryu Insaeng, Mike Leigh's Vera Drake, Jonathan Glazer's somewhat experimental Birth, Claire Denis' L'Intrus, and of course Hou Hsaio-hsien's Café Lumière. Todd Solondz, Wim Wenders and Arnaud Desplechin are also in there with their latest efforts, and Filmbrain hopes that Wenders can pull himself out of the slump he's been in for years. Solondz seems to have returned to his Welcome to the Dollhouse roots -- his latest, Palindromes, is described as a film about an awkward thirteen year-old girl. (Hey, it worked once. . .)

John Boorman will head the jury, whose members include Wolfgang Becker (dir. Good-Bye Lenin), Spike Lee, Helen Mirren, Dusan Makavejev (there's a nice surprise!) and Scarlett "I had sex in an elevator with Benicio Del Toro" Johansson. The opening night film will be Steven Spielberg's The Terminal, giving the Italian audience the opportunity to hate it as much as Americans did. The festival runs from September 1-11, and the full lineup can be found here.

Comments

[megalodon]

I hope that by the end of its tour around the world, "The Terminal" will have collected as much hate as it deserves, as it is truly one of the crappiest movies I've seen in a long time. More to the point, it's one of the crappiest movies to which critics seem to be giving a free pass.

[drew]

I wish The Terminal was crappy, so at least I could get worked up about it. For me, the Terminal was guilty of the crime of mediocrity...

[phyrephox]

Except for the irritating amount of crazy US mainstream movies tacked onto the fest, this Venice is looking great. There is also the new Otomo film as well as the new Miyazaki. This should be better than Toronto.

[Shikaku]

I'd like to mention about Johnnie TO (Hong Kong). He send latest "THROWDOWN" for out of competition. This film is inspired by Akira KUROSAWA "SUGATA SANSHIRO". I read that he also gives homage Japanese 60's B-movies. It sounds interesting. By the way, to incredible, he send new 2 full-length features both of Cannes and Venice in the same year. His "BREAKING NEWS" was shown for out of competition this year's Cannes and QT enjoyed it very much. Moreover, perhaps Johnnie makes 3 or 4 films in this year in total. It can say that Johnnie TO's era has come.

[FIlmbrain]

Thanks for the info about Throwdown. I wasn't aware it was Kurosawa inspired -- that could be interesting.

I agree with you about To. The Mission and PTU were great. I recently picked up the DVD of Breaking News but as my pile of unwatched DVDs is now approaching 5 feet, it will probably be some time until I get to see it.

[Dave Cheung]

Don't forget the new animes from Miyazaki (Howl's Moving Castle) and Otomo (Steamboy). I think that they are getting international premiere there, with Howl showing way before the Japan release date. I'm envious at those who can go, especially the B movie retro. Lots of goodies there. :D

Just saw Breaking News this morning: very fun with nice action scenes (with a amazing opening 7 minute+ opening shot with gunfights and explosion) plus juicy critique at PR spin...all done under 90 minutes. Sadly I don't think it did as well at the box office or with the critics as the makers hope for if that guy at who posted on Mobius about this is correct. Definitely one of the (sadly) few best HK movies this year so far.