Venice Film Festival | Venice 2010 Special

Hello movie lovers, and welcome to IndieMoviesOnline's Venice Film Festival mico-site. The team will be reporting from the Venice Film Festival (1-11 September, 2010), with reviews of the films being screened, plus all the festival's news. Quentin Tarantino is heading up the jury this year, to judge entries from stellar directors including Darren Aronofsky, Sofia Coppola, Takashi Miike and Tom Tykwer.

Friday, 21st January 2011

Black Swan

Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan, a psychological thriller set in the world of ballet, has made the nominations lists for all of the big awards announced so far, and its lead, Natalie Portman won the best actress Golden Globe. We expect the film to appear on the list of Oscar nominees next month too, says Emma Rowley.

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Monday, 20th September 2010

Berlusconi's man threatens to pick Venice judges next year

According to an interview in the Italian magazine Panorama, Silvio Berlusconi’s government is threatening to step in and choose next year’s jury at the Venice Film Festival.

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Thursday, 16th September 2010

Happy Few, directed by Antony Cordier, and screened as part of the Venice Film Festival 2010.

Interview with Happy Few director Antony Cordier

Certainly the most sexually explicit of the Golden Lion contenders that I saw at Venice 2010, Antony Cordier's relationship comedy-drama, Happy Few, attracted more critical brickbats than pats on the back. I perhaps dug it more than many, flaws and all, and so was therefore pleased as punch to be given opportunity to sit down with the director during the festival to discuss his movie.

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Wednesday, 15th September 2010

Attenberg

Venice (In Competition) – Sex and death are generally agreed to be the two towering topics for artists to try and address in their output. And, as Paul Martin finds out, both are present in this idiosyncratic Greek drama, with a young woman displaying revulsion at the former and her father proving remarkably composed about the rapidly-approaching latter.

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Tuesday, 14th September 2010

The Tempest

Venice (Out of Competition) – Shakespearean wizard Prospero undergoes gender reassignment, and emerges in the magnificent shape of Helen Mirren for Julie Taymor's interpretation of one of the towering works of English literature. Appropriately enough for the closing film of Venice 2012, Paul Martin and Emma Rowley set sail.

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Film critics are often troglodytes of deeply questionable hygiene and highly dubious sartorial taste.

Critical Mess

A last blog post in honour of Venice 2010 and I'm going to use it to tackle a topic that niggles close to my heart, like a partially-clogged pulmonary vein. It is not something specific to the Venice Film Festival by any means, but a couple of incidents at this year's event saw it brusquely stamp its way to the forefront of my thoughts, appropriately enough, given that a basic rudeness is key to this subject.

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Sunday, 12th September 2010

13 Assassins

Venice (In Competition) – Lights... camera... action! And then some, as director Takashi Miike puts his unique spin on a 1963 samurai saga. With the blood flowing a mountain river, Paul Martin is on hand with tissues and band-aids.

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Day 11: Saturday, 11th September 2010

Venice Film Festival prizes awarded

The 67th annual Venice Film Festival has concluded – well, except for the parties, The festival's top prize, the Golden Lion, went to Sofia Coppola's Somewhere.

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Notize degli scavi, directed by Emidio Greco and screening out of competition at the Venice Film Festival 2010.

Venice Double: Notizie degli scavi and Martha

Venice (Out of Competition & International Critics' Week) – Two films featuring central characters who exist on the margins of society; one the absent-minded inhabitant of a Rome brothel, the other a Mexican sexagenarian tossed on the employment scrapheap. Paul Martin is left traumatised by a brace of movies which belong less on the cinema screens of Venice and more at the bottom of its canals.

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Day 10: Friday, 10th September 2010

Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame

Venice (In Competition) – Detective Dee and The Mystery of the Phantom Flame is Tsui Hark's entry into the main competition, a whodunnit featuring Chinese historical characters, wire work and fantasy elements. But, asks Emma Rowley, does it live up to its epic premise?

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Barney's Version

Venice (In Competition) – The trailer might have pitched it as a zany rom-com but this Paul Giamatti-starring take on the 1997 novel by Mordecai Richler proves more of an eclectic affair, encompassing comedy, tragedy, a murder mystery and, as Paul Martin discovers, lashings of soap opera melodramatics.

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The Solitude of Prime Numbers

Venice (In Competition) – The Solitude of Prime Numbers is a story of boy meets girl. Boy then rejects girl. Boy and girl become friends. Boy and girl drift apart. Boy and girl become friends again. Emma Rowley wonders what was lost in the translation from best-selling novel to disappointing film.

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Robinson in Ruins, directed by Patrick Keiller, and screening as part of the Venice Film Festival 2010.

Venice plays host to the return of Robinson

For any movie character to be granted a third feature is pretty good going. But when that character has never been seen nor heard by any audience, the achievement seems really rather extraordinary. There is plenty though that is extraordinary about Patrick Keiller's series of Robinson films, the latest of which, Robinson in Ruins, has just debuted in Venice.

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Day 9: Thursday, 9th September 2010

The Kubrick Kollection

Ah, a morning off! Much as I delight in the opportunity to watch the excellent movies at this year's Venice Film Festival (oh, and The Town), it is still a novelty to spend a few hours outside the darkened theatres of the Lido. But while you can take the film nerd out of the cinema, you cannot take the cinema out of the film nerd. Hence my decision to spend my nugget of free time taking in a Stanley Kubrick exhibition.

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Day 8: Wednesday, 8th September 2010

The Town, Black Swan, Somewhere, Machete and more reviewed, plus Noomi Rapace

The Town, Black Swan, Somewhere, Machete: what haven't we seen? We're into our second week here at Venice, so here's a round-up of our reviews so far. Plus, check out the madness that occurred when Noomi Rapace, star of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, showed up for the critics' screening of Pernilla August's Beyond, in which she plays the lead.

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