Venice is up first, kicking things off August 31 (WTF FRIDAY!!!). It features an extraordinary handful of world premieres, most notably Terrence Malick's "To the Wonder" and P.T. Anderson's "The Master," both of which will also screen in Toronto the following week (and both of which are discussed at length below).
 |
| Wheat field = Obviously Malick |
This is DePalma's third film in a row to debut in Venice, so he's clearly a favorite of the Italians. I'm not always a fan, but "Passion" looks particularly intoxicating - it has to be said - and I can't wait to see it. The images released so far are mesmerizing, especially the nod to "Eyes Wide Shut" in the form of this crazy fucking mask. Hopefully a distributor picks it up lickety-split, because I don't want to wait for a lesbian erotic thriller any longer than the next guy.
Toronto, as usual, packs a primetime punch this year, with a strong string of Oscar bait waiting in the wings to be unveiled to critics and festival-goers just a couple of short weeks from now. Here's a quick roundup of the titles I'm most looking forward to on Toronto's roster, most of which are already set for theatrical release in the back-to-school months ahead. I'm going to run these down in roughly descending order, my top 20 or so most anticipated films on tap for the September festival circuit. I'll cover the NYFF lineup next month as that fest draws nearer.
Can't wait to hear how this one plays, and I'll be paying particular attention to Winona's reviews (OBV) seeing as I remain obsessed with her from the Winona heyday of the 90s, and am fully believing in her inevitable comeback from criminal notoriety to the A-List.
Mike Newell ("Four Weddings and a Funeral," "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire") takes on the quintessential Charles Dickens romance "Great Expectations," with Ralph Fiennes, Helena Bonham Carter, Jeremy Irvine (the pretty lead in "War Horse") and Holliday Grainger stepping into the beloved novel's iconic central roles. Newell appears to be aiming for a rather traditional approach to the material, though until anybody has seen it, we don't know for sure how the adaptation has been handled. "Great Expectations" is one of my favorite books of all time, Newell is a trustworthy old pro (his handful of misfires - "Love in the Time of Cholera," anyone? - notwithstanding), and the cast is certainly up to snuff (Sally Hawkins, Jason Flemyng and Hagrid himself Robbie Coltrane round it out), so I'll manage my expectations but remain optimistic.
"Quartet" is Dustin Hoffman's first film as director. The Weinstein Company has already picked up the film for a likely year-end rollout/Oscar push, and it's no wonder given the splendid cast of old pros: Maggie Smith, Michael Gambon, Pauline Collins and Billy Connolly star as four retired, temperamental opera singers -- divas, all -- whose old grudges, passions and pride are tested when they reunite. Maggie Smith as a retired opera diva?!?! OMG. This thing reeks of awards season and PBS, and I mean that in the best way possible.
Noah Baumbach reunites with his "Greenberg" ingenue Greta Gerwig in the black-and-white "Frances Ha," yet another indie about a recent college grad trying to make it in New York City. The absence of color is an apparent nod to Woody Allen's "Manhattan," which seems about as derivative as the rest of the film's set-up. It should come as no surprise that "Girls" co-star Adam Driver (who plays Lena Dunham's ridiculously eccentric sex-fiend boyfriend on the fantastic HBO series) features prominently here, considering the credentials of the whole shebang here. My instinct is to roll my eyes; Baumbach should not be underestimated, however, given that "The Squid and the Whale," "Margot at the Wedding" and "Greenberg" are the precedents here. The film is also booked for October's NYFF, so it's evidently caught fire with more than one festival selection board and is one to watch for, certainly.
Juan Antonio Bayona follows up his 2007 festival favorite "The Orphanage" with a different kind of terrifying tale, this time taking on "The Impossible" by dramatizing the 2004 Southeast Asia tsunami and one family's harrowing (and true) survival story against the deadliest of odds. Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor play the parents of three boys whose vacation is interrupted by a wall of water, separating the family after the wave hits. The trailer is quite stirring and very emotional, with intensely realistic special effects and powerhouse acting not only from the veteran leads but also young Tom Holland, who plays the oldest son. This one could be a sleeper when Summit releases it December 21.
"Hyde Park on Hudson" has Oscar bait written all over it, with Bill Murray playing Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Directed by "Notting Hill" helmer Roger Michell, the film focuses on a visit from a young Queen Elizabeth II and the comedy of manners that ensued. With Laura Linney, Olivia Williams and Olivia Colman co-starring, Focus Features looks to have some acting nominations locked up at the very least, and don't be surprised if "Hyde Park" takes the path of "The King's Speech" by hitting it big at the box office in cahoots with a fat sack of Oscar nods.
Kristen Wiig returns for the first time since "Bridesmaids" (her screenplay for which was Oscar- and WGA-nominated) with "Imogene," starring as a moderately successful New York playwright who fakes her own suicide in order to win back her boyfriend. This ill-advised mistake backfires when Wiig is forced to move back in with mom Annette Bening, a gambling addict who is entrusted with caring for her supposedly suicidal adult daughter. Directors Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini sprang onto the scene in 2003 with the rapturously praised critics' darling "American Splendor," only to fall our of good graces entirely with the WTF stinker "The Nanny Diaries" four years later. Now, they've got Wiig and Bening in their court, plus Matt Dillon, Natasha Lyonne and "Glee" star Darren Criss, so here's hoping that "Imogene" was worth Wiig's reported post-"Bridesmaids" hold-out for the right indie project to come along. Supposedly, this is it. Fingers crossed, everyone.
Rian Johnson's buzz-magnet "Looper" is a big one to watch in Toronto, with critics likely to give the sci-fi flick a big boost if they're anywhere near as pleased with it as they were "Brick," a festival favorite back in 2005. This time, Johnson directs Joseph Gordon-Levitt as a time-traveling cop who jumps forward to the future to hunt down a fugitive that turns out to be...his future self (played by Bruce Willis).
Emily Blunt also stars, and the cast has talked up the film so much that I can't help wonder if their claims are true, that "Looper" is a genre masterpiece the likes of which we've never seen before on screen. The trailer impresses, and I've written it up in months past because the movie looks genuinely special; we'll see for ourselves when it opens September 28. Until then, Toronto will provide a litmus test for whether all this anticipation is warranted or the hype is as far as "Looper" takes us.
"Seven Psychopaths" is Martin McDonogh's follow-up to his pitch-black small wonder "In Bruges," a gem from 2008 that really stands the test of time and improves upon repeat viewings. That film's star, Colin Farrell, leads a great ensemble cast this time around, with McDonogh setting his dog-kidnapping caper in Los Angeles and using the city as much as a character in "Psychopaths" as the titular Belgian fairy tale town was in his last film. Sam Rockwell, Christopher Walken, Woody Harrelson, Abbie Cornish, Tom Waits and Olga Kurylenko round out the remaining psycho roster, with plenty of guns and foul language to keep the action propulsive. CBS Films has already set "Seven Psychopaths" for a wide release on October 12, so they're obviously confident that the film will connect with a relatively broad audience as well as festival-feind critics who are all but guaranteed to talk the movie up in the weeks leading up to its release.
"The Place Beyond the Pines" is writer/director Derek Cianfrance's follow-up to "Blue Valentine," the shockingly astute marital breakdown stunner that paired Ryan Gosling with Michelle Williams (the latter of whom was Oscar-nominated for Best Actress) in one of the finest films of the last decade. "Pines" reunites the director with Gosling, who's playing it strikingly close to "Drive" territory as a motorcycle stunt driver who considers criminal extremes in order to provide for his family only to become tangled in a personal battle with cop-turned-politician Bradley Cooper. The story's scale is much larger this time around, and I can't wait to see what Cianfrance does with the crime genre after experiencing his eviscerating portrait of decaying love in "Blue Valentine." Joining Gosling and Cooper in the ensemble are Rose Byrne (love her), Eva Mendes (used to hate her, then I saw "We Own the Night" and suddenly realized her sly talents), Ray Liotta, Ben Mendelsohn, Bruce Greenwood and next-big-thing Dane DeHaan ("Chronicle," "Lawless"), who is fast emerging as a young actor to watch and take seriously. (He next stars opposite Reese Witherspoon in Atom Egoyan's "Devil's Knot," which tells the story of the notorious Robin Hood Hills murders and the wrongly convicted teenage boys who took the fall, as recounted in the "Paradise Lost" documentaries.) Everything is in place for "Pines" to achieve greatness, and I expect nothing less.
David O. Russell is one of the best creative forces making movies today, and "The Silver Linings Playbook" promises to further cement that reputation. Bradley Cooper stars as a former football pro struggling with mental illness and the complications of medicating his disorders, and Jennifer Lawrence steps up from the kiddie table in her first real adult role as a widow with similar struggles who finds a kindred spirit in the eccentric Cooper.
Following "The Fighter" with a lighter family comedy-drama, Russell is one of the most versatile and original filmmakers around, adding "Playbook" to his string of exclusively excellent movies - "Flirting with Disaster," "Three Kings," and "I Heart Huckabees" - that balance his brilliant comic sensibilities with sharp, substantial storytelling, no matter the film's subject. Adding to the "Silver Linings" of his latest effort are Robert DeNiro and Jacki Weaver as Cooper's frustrated parents, with whom he has moved back in, the long-MIA Chris Tucker, Julia Stiles, and beloved character actor Shea Whigham ("Take Shelter"). The Weinstein Company has "Playbook" set for Thanksgiving release.
Ambitious doesn't even begin to describe "Cloud Atlas," a millennia-spanning epic from "Matrix" maestros The Wachowskis and "Run, Lola, Run" director Tom Tykwer. Based on David Mitchell's supposedly unadaptable novel, the film features a starry cast that boasts Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Hugh Grant, Jim Broadbent, Susan Sarandon, Hugo Weaving and Ben Whishaw, all playing multiple roles, races and sexes within the expansive linear narrative (which begins pre-civilization and extends through sci-fi futureworld).
The three directors also adapted the screenplay, which apparently eschews Mitchell's original sprawling mosaic structure in favor of a (relatively) straightforward one. Warner Bros. is releasing the film stateside, with most of the financing for the reportedly $100 extravaganza secured internationally, thus freeing the studio from too much of a monetary stake in this commercially risky prospect. The first trailer, clocking in at more than five minutes, is visually spectacular, totally arresting and charged with emotionally resonant appeal (plus, all those stars!!).
Still, "Cloud Atlas" is definitely this fall's biggest question mark, as a project as boldly ambitious as this one represents huge potential for greatness and failure in equal measure. The fact that WB is cruising "Cloud Atlas" through Toronto nearly two months before its October 26 release date signifies a promising level of confidence in the picture's quality on the studio's part, a great sign for those of us hoping this latest Wachowski endeavor hews closer to "The Matrix" than "Speed Racer."
"Anna Karenina," from prolific British director Joe Wright ("Pride and Prejudice," "Atonement," "Hanna"), reunites the filmmaker with muse Keira Knightley in the title role of the Tolstoy heroine torn between social expectation, the duties of marriage to her husband (Jude Law), and a burning, passionate affair with a strapping young soldier (Aaron Taylor-Johnson).
Wright has concocted something special here, that much is certain, setting most of the film's action on an elaborately appointed stage -- think "Dogville" with lavishly sweeping production design. The trailer is beyond ravishing, and at this point, I'll see any and everything Wright makes. Focus Features opens "Anna Karenina" on November 16, and hopes are high for Oscar traction.
It's been five long years since "There Will Be Blood," but Paul Thomas Anderson has finally returned with "The Master," an already rapturously received tale of a troubled man (Joaquin Phoenix) who falls into the culty trappings of a charismatic leader (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) who is not at all unlike Scientology maestro L. Ron Hubbard.
There have been a handful of hush-hush surprise screenings in the last month designed to whip up word-of-mouth frenzy from thrilled fanboys, and the stealth marketing tactic has worked like a charm. Weinstein Co. is wasting no time parlaying the presumptive festival accolades "The Master" is all but guaranteed to receive, releasing the film in New York and L.A. beginning September 14 and rolling out nationwide from there. Phoenix is said to be the real show-stopper here, though Hoffman and Amy Adams, who plays his devoted, quietly powerful wife, are getting their fair shares of Oscar buzz along with writer/director Anderson and the film itself. "The Master" is my most anticipated film still to open in 2012, and it's only a few weeks away. Fall, I love you.
Finally, we have the real Master himself, Terrence Malick. "To the Wonder" is the elusive auteur's sixth film in four decades, a shockingly quick turnaround just 15 months after "The Tree of Life" won the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 2011. Malick shot "To the Wonder" in 2009 and 2010, leaving two years to edit the damn thing. That would be unthinkably extravagant for any other director, but for Malick, it's a surprising blink of his post-production eye.
Continuing the autobiographical trend he laid out in "The Tree of Life," Malick's story this time is about a young intellectual who meets and marries the presumed love of his life while traveling in France, only to have the honeymoon phase wear off quickly once the couple moves back to the man's native Oklahoma. Ben Affleck and Olga Kurylenko play husband and wife; he becomes involved with an old flame (Rachel McAdams) while she strikes up a friendship with a local priest (Javier Bardem) who is questioning his purpose in life. The story is essentially ripped from Malick's diary, shamelessly so, but nobody can fault him for writing what he knows and executing it perfectly. If "To the Wonder" has half the splendor and emotional evocations of "The Tree of Life," it'll be a ravishing success. We'll know in mere days, as "Wonder" premieres in Venice this weekend before traveling to Toronto along with "The Master" and a few others. The question of whether "Wonder" gets snatched up by a distributor remains wide open, however, as Malick's increasingly elegiac, visually abstract narrative plodding has become synonymous with commercial kryptonite. I'd be very surprised to see the film picked up and plunked down for release before year's end, but stranger things have happened, and I love to be proved wrong.
Ahhh, fall. TGIF, indeed.
0 Yorumlar