Venice Film Festival: Celebs Rumors

fired back at an unnamed reporter at the Venice Film Festival on Friday over a question regarding cast diversity in their new film, “The Promised Land.”The movie is set in 1750’s Denmark. Mikkelsen, 57, stars as an army captain struggling to raise his social status and maintain his values in an increasingly hostile climate.

It’s interesting how the Venice Film Festival has gone from one of the festivals of the fall festival season to arguably the best film festival in the world now, even overshadowing Cannes in recent years thanks to the fact that Netflix now avoids the Croisette for the most part because of France’s theatrical laws and save their Oscar contenders for the Lido. Venice has had an amazing run, arguably since 2017 when Guillermo del Toro’s “The Shape Of Water” won the top prize and then went on to win the Oscar for Best Picture, which has happened one more time since with “Nomadland” and several key Oscar contenders since).

It’s hard to encapsulate the cinema of a particular filmmaker in just one word, but if one were to try their hand at it with Mexican maverick Michel Franco, a word that’d come to mind is violence. The filmmaker’s work is built upon the looming expectation of violent transgression, society standing flimsy atop the fragile idea of cordiality.

Todd Haynes’ biopic “I’m Not There” famously featured several actors in the role of Bob Dylan, each embodying the artist in one era of his varied musical career. The idea, of course, was to acknowledge Dylan’s shapeshifting nature as well as the fact that his work can mean different things to different people — some may find one actor’s interpretation more convincing and accurate than that of another.

When Pulitzer Prize-winning author Isabel Wilkerson (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor) first conceived of the multifaceted premise that would eventually become the lauded non-fiction book “Caste: The Origin of Our Discontents,” her editors were concerned about whether she would manage to cohesively merge her personal experiences with all the moving parts of her research across cultures and continents to prove that it all interconnects.   Venice Film Festival 2023: The 17 Most Anticipated Movies To Watch That’s in turn the same task that writer-director Ava DuVernay faced to convey the big-picture ideas and Wilkerson’s revelatory odyssey to put them on the page in an enticingly cinematic manner.

The Huston dynasty has produced so many raw, undeniable talents that its younger members are undoubtedly among the very few “nepo babies” who can still come out of that exhausting discourse unscathed. We may even feel pity for them, sometimes, living as they do in the shadows of so many brilliant relatives.

That Glen Powell is a gem of an actor is nothing new, but twenty years into his career, and after stealing the show in a bunch of films and series, we can all finally stop praying for him to get a leading role worthy of his talents. In “Hit Man,” Powell reunites with his “Everybody Wants Some!!” director Richard Linklater for a part that allows him to be by turns nerdy, sexy, and funny, but at all times almost unbearably charming.

after being dogged by decades-old sex abuse allegations from his adopted daughter, Dylan Farrow.The 87-year-old filmmaker made the statement Sunday in an interview with Variety at the Venice Film Festival, where he is promoting his new movie, “Coup de Chance.”“I feel if you’re going to be canceled, this is the culture to be canceled by. I just find that all so silly,” Allen told the outlet, after the interviewer asked if he felt like he had been “canceled.” “I don’t think about it,” he added.

1985 memoir “Elvis and Me.”In video obtained by TMZ, Presley admits that her parents had a hard time understanding why Elvis would be interested in her. But she said she was a “listener,” and the megastar would “pour his heart out” to her. “I was the person who really sat there to listen and to comfort him,” she explains.

I remember reading years ago that whenever the time comes for Woody Allen to make a new film, he opens a drawer in his desk and picks at random from the piles of scripts he has written over the years.

You don’t need to know much about the criminal justice system to understand its broken, biased, and grim nightmare— unfair, unjust, unforgiving, a bureaucratic Kafka-esque hellscape you never want to be trapped within. Turkish filmmaker Selman Nacar (“Between Two Dawns”) understands this all too well—he was a law student for several years before switching to filmmaking and saw all the flaws in the legal justice system firsthand.

The most powerful aspect of Sofia Coppola’s “Priscilla,” premiering in Competition at this year’s Venice Film Festival, is in the title: to focus on Priscilla Presley, née Wagner, formerly Beaulieu, is to show a side of a marriage and of the King himself less familiar than and in some ways different from the romantic popular legend. But Coppola’s film does much more than simply show us the facts of how a fourteen-year-old girl gets to become the girlfriend and then wife of one of the biggest artists of all time.

A quote by William Friedkin himself opens “The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial,” describing the film, as well as all the filmmaker’s other works, as being about “the thin line between good and evil.” This line is all the thinner here, in the American director’s final feature, for it is entirely a matter of opinion. We are not given to see the facts of this story as they unfolded; we cannot watch and make up our own minds as to whether the people involved were right or wrong to act the way they did.

The question of whether or not technology has killed the classic crime thriller has popped in and out of the discourse as the years saw pocket watches morph into sci-fi-looking gadgets capable of getting one both dinner and a first-class ticket to Dubai in the space of a couple of minutes.

You didn’t expect French filmmaker Bertrand Bonello to make a conventional sci-fi, did you? Good, because “The Beast” is far from it. It all starts in 2044 with beautiful actress Gabrielle (Léa Seydoux) in desperate need of a job.

One viewing of “High & Low – John Galliano, “a documentary chronicling the impressive rise of British fashion designer John Galliano and his equally jarring fall from grace, should be more than sufficient to convince even the most uneducated of the influence he’s held throughout the industry; bolstered by a plentiful amount of talking head interviews from celebrity associates Charlize Theron and Penelope Cruz and an abundance of footage showcasing model after model walking the runway in the apparel he brought to life, it’s clear how the man commanded a wealth of respect and love from those who adorned his garments and knew him as both a designer of inspired attire and a dear friend to those who considered themselves as such. Venice Film Festival 2023: The 17 Most Anticipated Movies To Watch The film utilizes a structured signature of so many similar efforts, seemingly going through the motions as it shows him working his way up the ladder throughout the 1990s, initially as his own brand and through his eventual work with the likes of Dior as his own personality is shown growing alongside his body of work; it’s interesting to see the vast number of shots showing a confident Galliano strutting the catwalk as self-assured as any of the models in his employ.

Ten years after “Spring Breakers,” the neon pinks and greens of Harmony Korine’s mainstream breakthrough return in an Internet-inflected and even more abstract ode to the thug life, with seriously mixed results. To call “Aggro Dr1ft” stupid or silly isn’t wrong, but it is missing the point.

A scene early in Ibrahim Nash’at’s chilling new documentary “Hollywoodgate” makes clear the stakes of Nash’at’s undertaking. Invited by the Taliban to film a top leader, the new air force commander Malawi Mansour, and a lower-ranking Taliban Mukhtar, after the departure of American Troops from Afghanistan in 2021, Mansour makes clear his feelings about the documentary and Nash’at.

Before “Maestro” plunges into the sharp monochrome of its first chapter, Bradley Cooper’s Leonard Bernstein relays to a camera crew how he can still feel the presence of his wife within the walls and gardens of their beautiful countryside manor. “I miss her so much,” he says, the passage of time denounced by the sprawling maze of wrinkles that frames his youthful blue eyes.

Time is a relative construct stretched to the limits of elasticity by Saverio Constanzo with the period drama “Finally Dawn.” The bloated 140-minute runtime begins at a cinema in Rome in 1953 as three women watch the final scene of a saccharine war drama, the light of the big screen coming to reveal a mother and two daughters, one donning the beauty of a Hollywood starlet and the other the beauty of a traditional Italian woman, with big blue eyes framed by thick curly hair. Venice Film Festival 2023: The 17 Most Anticipated Movies To Watch The curly-haired girl is Mimosa (Rebecca Antonaci), a shy 21-year-old used to inhabiting the uncomfortable but familiar shadow of her daintier sister, Iris (Sofia Panizzi).

Mads Mikkelsen has proved time and again a master at playing quiet, rational, and seemingly harmless men who, when pushed, swiftly reveal themselves also to be skilled executioners; their pent-up rage does not bubble up so much as shoot out of them in sudden bursts of ultraviolence. Mikkelsen proves it once more in “The Promised Land,” the new period drama that reunites him with his “A Royal Affair” Danish director Nikolaj Arcel, and premieres in competition at the 80th Venice Film Festival this week.

A parent’s desire to trap their offspring in perpetual childhood is not a foreign concept to Greek filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos, whose 2009 psychological drama “Dogtooth” chronicled the dysfunctional routine of a wealthy businessman, his meek wife, and their severely infantilized adult children.

British author Roald Dahl has long been referred to as one of the best storytellers for children of the 20th century, a seemingly flattering but objectively flawed observation. Dahl is, after all, not just one of the best storytellers for children of the 20th century.

For a few beautiful years in the early 2000s, Michael Pitt’s spine-chilling blue eyes wreaked havoc in world cinema, from Bernardo Bertolucci’s “The Dreamers” to Michael Haneke’s “Funny Games.” Then, due to quite a few controversies, the actor stepped away from the limelight, taking on smaller projects here and there and leaving an abyssal gap in the industry: a blue-eyed menace whose presence in any given film immediately signaled some form of psychological torture. Many have tried their hand at filling this gap, from the sprawling Skarsgårds to Dane DeHaan, but no one has come as close to it as Caleb Landry Jones.

While he’s now 50 years old, former enfante terrible filmmaker Harmony Korine is still a little mischievous boy at heart. While he’s seemingly mellowed somewhat—and kinda stopped telling tall tales— unless his recent comments about potentially directing a Terrence Malick script is one of his fibs—he’s also not against doing wild experimental sh*t.

Happy belated birthday to filmmaker David Fincher (“Fight Club,” “Seven,”), who turned 61 yesterday, and today unveils the trailer for his most anticipated new movie, “The Killer.” An assassin thriller about a job gone wrong, the movie has been mostly shrouded in mystery for months, but we know it stars Michael Fassbender, an actor Fincher had been keen on working with for years.

The Venice Film Festival is upon us again, and we can’t believe it. While we are a little sad that it means that summer is winding down, the positive is that it implies that audiences everywhere are about to have a treasure trove of sure-to-be spectacular films to look forward to.

Can a relationship be art? “Maestro” offers a bold look at the complicated and compelling story of Leonard Bernstein and Felicia Montealegre Cohn Bernstein; the new film delves into the legendary conductor’s life, focusing on his unique connection to Montealegre Cohn Bernstein. Through it all, they found a way to support one another in a world judgemental of anything that didn’t fit the period’s societal norms.

Venice Film Festival artistic director Alberto Barbera is refusing to row back on his decision to invite controversial movie-biz bigwigs Roman Polanski, Woody Allen and Luc Besson to the late summer event, which will take place despite the potential disruption by the ongoing SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes. “Luc Besson has been recently fully cleared of any accusations. Woody Allen went under legal scrutiny twice at the end of the ’90s and was absolved,” Barbera said in a new interview with Variety.

Earlier today, the full lineup of films selected for this year’s Venice Film Festival was announced. Some of the highlights include new films from David Fincher, Ava DuVernay, Wes Anderson, and Bradley Cooper.

The red carpet may not have as many stars as in previous years, but the 2023 edition of the Venice Film Festival will feature a slew of highly anticipated films. And, likely, their directors taking center stage.

With Cannes and Tribeca in the rearview, it’s time to set our sights on the next major festival coming our way, which is Venice. And sure, we’re still a month or so away from the Venice folks announcing their lineup, but that doesn’t mean we can’t do what everyone loves to do—selection speculation! READ MORE: Summer 2023 Movie Preview: 52 Must-See Films To Watch And according to a new report from Variety, we have several films that seem to be locked up as debuting in competition at this year’s Venice Film Festival.

Premiering earlier this year at the 2022 Venice Film Festival was Emanuele Crialese‘s celebrated “L’Immensità,” a family drama starring Penélope Cruz. The film is about the story of love between Clara (Cruz) and her children, set in Rome in the ’70s.

his role in “The Whale.”After the screening of the film at the London Film Festival on Tuesday, the audience gave a five-minute standing ovation, according to the Daily Mail.The 53-year-old actor broke down in tears as he bowed to the audience’s cheers and applause. This isn’t the first time Fraser was moved to tears by a standing ovation. At the Venice Film Festival in early September, he got emotional during a six-minute standing ovation for his performance in the film. Audience members got déjà vu from the standing ovation.“Am I at Venice? 5 min standing ovation for Brendan Fraser’s masterpiece performance in #TheWhale.

“You Want It Darker” accompanies the skin-crawling movie trailer, which was released Thursday, and shows the pair slaying fellow humans and pulling away, covered in blood. “You don’t think I’m a bad person?” Chalamet tearfully asks Russell in the trailer.“All I think is that I love you,” she whispers.

Venice International Film Festival on Sept. 4, audience members were so moved that they gave Fraser a six-minute-long standing ovation and brought the actor to tears. It’s been reported that he tried to leave the theater but the applause was so relentless that it seemed to physically freeze him in place.