Category Archives: movies

Contdown for Biennale’s Award

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Countdown to coveted award at Venice film festival
A handful of movies Saturday led the pack of 25 vying for the coveted Golden Lion at the Venice film festival including late-screener “A Single Man” by Tom Ford.
The fashion designer’s first feature film, about a gay man mourning his longtime partner, joined the A-list with “Lebanon” by Israeli Samuel Maoz, Todd Solondz’s dark comedy “Life During Wartime” and miracle story “Lourdes” by Austrian filmmaker Jessica Hausner.
Of those, Maoz’s “Lebanon” may have the edge, according to leading Italian daily Corriere Della Sera and the local paper, Il Gazzetino, as well as Variety magazine.
In the film shot entirely from inside a tank assigned to search a town that had been bombed by Israeli warplanes, four young soldiers play out a tense interpersonal drama as the action unfolds outside, seen through the gunner’s sight.
The intensely personal project tells the story of the first Lebanon war, reliving the director’s own experience as a young Israeli soldier in 1982.
In “A Single Man,” Ford, 48, offers a moving snapshot of life as a homosexual more than four decades ago, at the time of the Cuban missile crisis.
The adaptation of Christopher Isherwood’s landmark 1964 novel on Friday won the unofficial Queer Golden Lion for movies with gay themes or content.
Solondz’s “Life During Wartime” reprises the main characters of his 1998 film “Happiness,” exploring tortured consciences and self-destructive lives in a heavily Jewish southern Florida locale where people are peripherally aware that the nation is at war.
In addition to the Golden Lion for best film, the jury headed by Taiwan’s Ang Lee — the Oscar-winning director of “Brokeback Mountain”, about the forbidden love of two gay cowboys — will recognise a best actor and best actress from among the 25 contenders.
Favourites for acting nods include Isabelle Huppert in Claire Denis’ “White Material,” Sylvie Testud in “Lourdes” and Margherita Buy in Francesca Comencini’s “The White Space.”
Dane Viggo Mortensen turned in an impressive performance in John Hillcoat’s “The Road,” as did Michael Shannon in “My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done” by Werner Herzog.
But they could be sidelined by Colin Firth, who played mourning professor George Falconer in “A Single Man.”
Firth’s performance was so warmly received at Friday’s screening that the reviewer in the daily La Repubblica feared “massive protest marches” if he does not win the Volpi Cup for best actor, noting that he speaks Italian well, being married to Italian documentarist Livia Giuggioli.
The awards ceremony was set to begin at 7:00 pm (1700 GMT) at the Lido’s Palazzo del Cinema.
Also Saturday, director, screenwriter and actor Sylvester Stallone was set to be the first American to be awarded the Jaeger-LeCoultre Glory to the Filmmaker Award for artists who have left their mark on contemporary cinema.
by: AFP

Countdown to coveted award at Venice film festival

golden_lionA handful of movies Saturday led the pack of 25 vying for the coveted Golden Lion at the Venice film festival including late-screener “A Single Man” by Tom Ford.

The fashion designer’s first feature film, about a gay man mourning his longtime partner, joined the A-list with “Lebanon” by Israeli Samuel Maoz, Todd Solondz’s dark comedy “Life During Wartime” and miracle story “Lourdes” by Austrian filmmaker Jessica Hausner.

Of those, Maoz’s “Lebanon” may have the edge, according to leading Italian daily Corriere Della Sera and the local paper, Il Gazzetino, as well as Variety magazine.

In the film shot entirely from inside a tank assigned to search a town that had been bombed by Israeli warplanes, four young soldiers play out a tense interpersonal drama as the action unfolds outside, seen through the gunner’s sight.

The intensely personal project tells the story of the first Lebanon war, reliving the director’s own experience as a young Israeli soldier in 1982.

In “A Single Man,” Ford, 48, offers a moving snapshot of life as a homosexual more than four decades ago, at the time of the Cuban missile crisis.

The adaptation of Christopher Isherwood’s landmark 1964 novel on Friday won the unofficial Queer Golden Lion for movies with gay themes or content.

Solondz’s “Life During Wartime” reprises the main characters of his 1998 film “Happiness,” exploring tortured consciences and self-destructive lives in a heavily Jewish southern Florida locale where people are peripherally aware that the nation is at war.

In addition to the Golden Lion for best film, the jury headed by Taiwan’s Ang Lee — the Oscar-winning director of “Brokeback Mountain”, about the forbidden love of two gay cowboys — will recognise a best actor and best actress from among the 25 contenders.

Favourites for acting nods include Isabelle Huppert in Claire Denis’ “White Material,” Sylvie Testud in “Lourdes” and Margherita Buy in Francesca Comencini’s “The White Space.”

Dane Viggo Mortensen turned in an impressive performance in John Hillcoat’s “The Road,” as did Michael Shannon in “My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done” by Werner Herzog.

But they could be sidelined by Colin Firth, who played mourning professor George Falconer in “A Single Man.”

Firth’s performance was so warmly received at Friday’s screening that the reviewer in the daily La Repubblica feared “massive protest marches” if he does not win the Volpi Cup for best actor, noting that he speaks Italian well, being married to Italian documentarist Livia Giuggioli.

The awards ceremony was set to begin at 7:00 pm (1700 GMT) at the Lido’s Palazzo del Cinema.

Also Saturday, director, screenwriter and actor Sylvester Stallone was set to be the first American to be awarded the Jaeger-LeCoultre Glory to the Filmmaker Award for artists who have left their mark on contemporary cinema.

by: AFP

Akin’s film in Venice Film Fest

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Akin brings comedy to Venice with `Soul Kitchen’
Prize-winning German-Turkish director Fatih Akin is turning to comedy in his latest film “Soul Kitchen,” which showed at the Venice Film Festival on Thursday.
The film, which is in competition for the top Golden Lion prize, represents a departure from the more serious tones set in Akin’s 2004 Berlin Golden Bear winner “Head On” and 2007′s “The Edge of Heaven,” which won the screenplay award at the Cannes film festival.
“Soul Kitchen” is a comedy set in a locals-only joint in Hamburg. While the food isn’t great, the customers are loyal to the German-Greek chef Zinos (Adam Bousdoukos). When he hires a more talented chef to upgrade his repertoire, the locals’ revolt is just one of many troubles to come Zinos’ way.
Akin said the shift to comedy was intentional.
“As a director I want to make experiments, and I get bored with directors that make one style. I want to change and go on testing my style,” he said.
With “Soul Kitchen,” Akin is participating for the first time in the Venice Film Festival, which wraps up Saturday.
by: AP

Akin brings comedy to Venice with `Soul Kitchen’

akinPrize-winning German-Turkish director Fatih Akin is turning to comedy in his latest film “Soul Kitchen,” which showed at the Venice Film Festival on Thursday.

The film, which is in competition for the top Golden Lion prize, represents a departure from the more serious tones set in Akin’s 2004 Berlin Golden Bear winner “Head On” and 2007′s “The Edge of Heaven,” which won the screenplay award at the Cannes film festival.

“Soul Kitchen” is a comedy set in a locals-only joint in Hamburg. While the food isn’t great, the customers are loyal to the German-Greek chef Zinos (Adam Bousdoukos). When he hires a more talented chef to upgrade his repertoire, the locals’ revolt is just one of many troubles to come Zinos’ way.

Akin said the shift to comedy was intentional.

“As a director I want to make experiments, and I get bored with directors that make one style. I want to change and go on testing my style,” he said.

With “Soul Kitchen,” Akin is participating for the first time in the Venice Film Festival, which wraps up Saturday.

by: AP

Omar Sharif in Venice

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Omar Sharif returns to big screen at Venice
Omar Sharif, whose devilishly handsome looks delighted female fans decades ago, has returned to the big screen at the Venice Film Festival Thursday in a film about an elderly man’s encounter with a woman he loved in his youth.
“The Traveler,” an Egyptian film by first-time feature director Ahmed Maher, is vying for the festival’s Golden Lion award.
Maher told reporters he came up with the project nine years ago.
“It’s a dream to have Omar Sharif in the cast,” Maher said.
The film goes over three days in the life of 80-year-old Hassan, played by the 77-year-old Sharif. After a chance meeting with Noura, a woman from his past played by Cyrine Abdel Nour, he meets her daughter, Nadia. Seeking a source of identity, he tries to become one of the family.
Shifting with ease between Italian and French at a news conference, Sharif — who began his film career in Egypt and went on to become an international sex symbol in “Lawrence of Arabia,” his first English-language film, and “Doctor Zhivago” — glanced back at his life.
“I am the only actor in the world that doesn’t have a center to my life. I’ve lived in hotels all my life and I eat in restaurants — always,” he laughed. “I’ve had a happy life, no reason to cry.”
He said he’d had “some adventures with women” but only one “great love” — in his marriage, which ended in 1974.
Sharif said it took years to gain freedom in his career, describing himself as the only Egyptian and Muslim in the Hollywood system when he started out.
by: AP

Omar Sharif returns to big screen at Venice

sharifOmar Sharif, whose devilishly handsome looks delighted female fans decades ago, has returned to the big screen at the Venice Film Festival Thursday in a film about an elderly man’s encounter with a woman he loved in his youth.

“The Traveler,” an Egyptian film by first-time feature director Ahmed Maher, is vying for the festival’s Golden Lion award.

Maher told reporters he came up with the project nine years ago.

“It’s a dream to have Omar Sharif in the cast,” Maher said.

The film goes over three days in the life of 80-year-old Hassan, played by the 77-year-old Sharif. After a chance meeting with Noura, a woman from his past played by Cyrine Abdel Nour, he meets her daughter, Nadia. Seeking a source of identity, he tries to become one of the family.

Shifting with ease between Italian and French at a news conference, Sharif — who began his film career in Egypt and went on to become an international sex symbol in “Lawrence of Arabia,” his first English-language film, and “Doctor Zhivago” — glanced back at his life.

“I am the only actor in the world that doesn’t have a center to my life. I’ve lived in hotels all my life and I eat in restaurants — always,” he laughed. “I’ve had a happy life, no reason to cry.”

He said he’d had “some adventures with women” but only one “great love” — in his marriage, which ended in 1974.

Sharif said it took years to gain freedom in his career, describing himself as the only Egyptian and Muslim in the Hollywood system when he started out.

by: AP

Romero’s ‘Survival’ at Biennale

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To me this is some odd news coming from the Associated Press. George Romero’s latest social commentary infilled living dead film Survival of the Dead made history Wednesday in Venice, Italy at the Venice Film Festival. It is the first Horror film, and also the first zombie film too, to be screened at the festival since Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was screened back in 1932.
Seventy-seven years it has been since a horror film had kissed the lips of that Venice screen. Seventy-seven years! And after all those groundbreaking Italian born giallo film makers, like Dario Argento, Lucio Fulci and Mario Bava, didn’t once get their films viewed at the Venice Film Festival! That is quite a shock and dumbfounding.
On a small island off North America’s coast, the dead rise to menace the living. Yet…the islanders can’t bring themselves to exterminate their loved ones, despite the growing danger from those the once held dear. A rebel among them hunts down all the zombies he can find, only to be banished from the island for assassinating his neighbors and friends. On the mainland, bent on revenge, he encounters a small band of survivors in search of an oasis on which to build a new life. Barely surviving an attack from a mass of ravenous flesh-eaters. They commandeer a zombie-infested ferry and sail to the island. There, to their horror, they discover that the locals have chained the dead inside their homes, pretending to live ‘normal’ lives…with bloody consequences. What ensues is a desperate struggle for survival and the answer to a question never posed in Romero’s Dead films: Can the living ever live in peace with the dead?

Romero’s ‘Survival’ Makes History in Venice

romeroTo me this is some odd news coming from the Associated Press. George Romero’s latest social commentary infilled living dead film Survival of the Dead made history Wednesday in Venice, Italy at the Venice Film Festival. It is the first Horror film, and also the first zombie film too, to be screened at the festival since Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was screened back in 1932.

Seventy-seven years it has been since a horror film had kissed the lips of that Venice screen. Seventy-seven years! And after all those groundbreaking Italian born giallo film makers, like Dario Argento, Lucio Fulci and Mario Bava, didn’t once get their films viewed at the Venice Film Festival! That is quite a shock and dumbfounding.

On a small island off North America’s coast, the dead rise to menace the living. Yet…the islanders can’t bring themselves to exterminate their loved ones, despite the growing danger from those the once held dear. A rebel among them hunts down all the zombies he can find, only to be banished from the island for assassinating his neighbors and friends. On the mainland, bent on revenge, he encounters a small band of survivors in search of an oasis on which to build a new life. Barely surviving an attack from a mass of ravenous flesh-eaters. They commandeer a zombie-infested ferry and sail to the island. There, to their horror, they discover that the locals have chained the dead inside their homes, pretending to live ‘normal’ lives…with bloody consequences. What ensues is a desperate struggle for survival and the answer to a question never posed in Romero’s Dead films: Can the living ever live in peace with the dead?

by: www.horroryearbook.com