by Nathaniel R
This lovely photo was taken by longtime Film Experience reader Ferdi in Italy where the Venice Film Festival is ongoing. Isn't she a vision in gauzy red? One more photo of Julianne and more about several Oscar hopeful festival premieres after the jump...
Ferdi was so close to her. Having been there myself twice I can tell you that her skin is porcelain and translucent and she hardly seems real.
But let's talk festival responses.
SUBURBICON (George Clooney. Opens October 27th)
Reviews: (pro) BBC Culture, Financial Time, Variety, Evening Standard (con) Time Magazine
People who like it respond to George Clooney's stylish direction and the Coen brother's trademark pitch-black humor. But it's divisive and nobody seems to think one of the subplots (meant to politicize it further) totally works. But here's something we didn't know from the trailer: Julianne Moore plays twins! I don't think she's done that since her Emmy win for As the World Turns in 1988!
OUR SOULS AT NIGHT (Ritesh Batra. Streams on Netflix at the end of this month)
Deadline says the reunion of once frequent co-stars Robert Redford and Jane Fonda was "worth the wait" and The Guardian also seems to really like it. Good news! You may recall we asked Ritesh Batra about this one in our interview earlier this year.
VICTORIA & ABDUL (Stephen Frears)
BBC Culture calls it "commercial and unchallenging" but didn't we know that before laying eyes on a single frame? Comfort food cinema can be taste great on its own merits. But the real question is whether this mango is ripe or gone bad? Variety's review also harps on its audience-pleasing rather dismissively but has high marks for Judi Dench's inevitable Best Actress bid. I love this 'graph:
If Queen Victoria, from minute one, seems not only familiar to us but, indeed, like an old friend, that may be because Dench, 20 years ago, in her first lead movie role, played her in “Mrs. Brown” (1997), another drama about the queen’s “inappropriate” relationship with the most unlikely of underlings. Then too, in the couple of decades since, Dench has played nearly every role as if it were a species of misbehaving royalty: the cutting wit and puckish superiority, the way she has of laughing — or crying — invisibly beneath that dour scolding visage. Dench is 82 now, but she remains the world’s most formidable pixie, and in “Victoria & Abdul” she’s in her element and in her snappish, showbiz-melancholy prime. The film surrounds Dench with a coterie of stuffy arrogant British fools for her to not suffer gladly, each one adding to her (and the audience’s) satisfaction.
Frances McDormand and Sam Rockwell are both getting terrific reviews for "Three Billboards"
THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI (Martin McDonagh. Opens November 10th)
I chose not to even skim reviews of this one since McDonagh's screenplays are generally full of surprises in dialogue and characterizations and plot and I'd like to go in fresh. But though McDormand apparently delivers as much as expected, people are really excited about Sam Rockwell's villainous supporting turn.
WOODSHOCK (Kate & Laura Mulleavy)
Not content to let Tom Ford get all the fashion designer turned director accolades, the sisters of Rodarte and Black Swan ballet costumes fame, have moved into directing with this film about a marijuana dealer (Kirsten Dunst) coming undone after the death of her mother. Variety likes the visuals which are "as extravagantly embellished as one of their most gawp-worthy gowns" but thinks the film is slow and narratively wanting... which seems to be the consensus. Still Dunst and amazing visuals is more than enough for me. Can't wait.
For what it's worth Kirsten Dunst's Instagram has been beautiful with the Venice trip.
P.S. and no we didn't forget her. Michelle Pfeiffer gets her own post for her Mother! premiere.