One Fassy, Several Cups.

Jose here.

Earlier today the 68th Venice Film Festival came to an end. Awards were given out to what seem to be some strange choices (gotta love when quriky jury members choose the most obscure people, no?)
with the Golden Lion (Best Picture) going to Alexander Sokurov's Faust. 

Just yesterday, our awesome correspondent from Venice mentioned how people expected this one to win and yet it doesn't even show up in the critical consensus. That must've been a dark horse if there ever was one. Apologies to the actual Dark Horse which came out empty handed.

The complete list of winners:

Golden Lion - Faust (Alexander Sokurov, Russia)
Silver Lion for Best Director - Shangjun Cai for Ren shan ren hai/People Mountain People Sea (China)
Special jury Prize - Terraferma (Emanuele Crialese, Italy)
Volpi Cup for Best Actor - Michael Fassbender for Shame (Steve McQueen, UK)
Volpi Cup for Best Actress - Deannie Yip for Tae jie (A simple life) (Ann Hui, China, Hong Kong)
Osella Award for Best Screenplay - Yorgos Lanthimos and Efthimis Filippou for Alps (Greece)
Osella Award for Best Technical Contribution - Robbie Ryan's Cinematogrpahy from Wuthering Heights (Andrea Arnold, UK)
Marcello Mastroianni Award for Best Acting Newcomer -  Shôta Sometani in Himizu (Sion Sono, Japan)

Perhaps the most significant thing about this festival, besides having given Fassy his first big acting award (he's just been around in the maninstream for a couple of years but it feels like decades, no?) might be that it probably won't line up in any way with Oscar. After all, when's the last time the little golden guy paid any attention to a two and a half hour long reimagining of Faust with Russian subtitles? In the festival's long history only two Golden Lion winners got into the Oscars' Best Picture lineup - Brokeback Mountain and Atlantic City - both of them lost.  The most "influential" awards here might be the Volpi Cups; in the past decade we've seen the likes of Julianne Moore (Far From Heaven), Helen Mirren (The Queen), Imelda Staunton (Vera Drake) and Colin Firth (A Single Man) repeat their nominations during the long awards season.

Dear readers across the ocean, should we be on the lookout for any of these movies when they are released here? How did you like our Venice coverage this year? How many acting awards did you think Fassy had won by now?

Some Day A Real Rain Will Come...

JA from MNPP here, taking a quick glance at the forward momentum Darren Aronofsky’s next project seems to be gathering – the Black Swan director’s wanted to make a movie about the Biblical story of Noah and his animal-clogged ark since the start of his career and he’s finally got a whole half of the 130 million dollars he seeks.

The other half is expected to sweep in if/when he can get a star attached, and word is that he’s looking for recently Oscar-crowned Christian Bale to fill out Noah’s flowing robes.  The part’s obviously a good fit for Bale, who could play this sort of crazed role in his sleep (and probably does). And it’s probably the Aronofsky connection but I can’t help but picture Rachel Weisz as Noah’s wife Naamah; there’s also the matter of their three sons and those son’s wives to be cast. Plus a two-by-two animal chorus of thousands!

Aronofsky’s on the record as saying he sees the story in terms of its environmental aspects:

“It’s the end of the world and it’s the second most famous ship after the Titanic. So I’m not sure why any studio won’t want to make it. I think it’s really timely because it’s about environmental apocalypse which is the biggest theme, for me, right now for what’s going on on this planet. So I think it’s got these big, big themes that connect with us.”

Ha ha smart boy, summoning up the ghost of Cameron's iceberg billions. It is curious to wonder what angle he'll take on the religious aspects of the story - while he's certainly dealt with spirituality before it seems difficult to imagine him making something that would kowtow to fundamentalist Christians that take the Bible literally. There even seems to be an active component of people, where religion and politics meet, that abhor an environmental reading of the Ark story altogether and I cna imagine that they're already sharpening their knives at the thought of it.

Indeed Aronofsky’s such a modern filmmaker in my mind, so focused on the rhythms of the here and the now, that I’m having a hard time wrapping my brain around what it’ll be like to have him plunked down in the leather sandals of ancient allegory. It brings to mind the conquistidor section of The Fountain of course, another passion project for Aronofsky that he got made through much adversity. His will is strong and he’s wanted to make this for so long I have no doubt we’ll see it in some form from the filmmaker.

4 Things We Didn't Get Around To Saying This Week...

Which we really meant to. It was a sorry week in time management. So... Let's cover them right quick now.

1. The cast of Moulin Rouge! will be reunited on May 3rd on MTV for the 10th anniversary. The movie's exact anniversary is kind of confusing, so I'm choosing to celebrate the 10th anniversary on June 1st which is the date it went wide. May 30th through June 3rd is MOULIN ROUGE WEEK!

2. Congratulations to Darren Aronofsky for his Venice Film Festival Jury gig. I've always said that artists aren't necessarily the best judges of art so you can't really tell if a brilliant person at any one particular thing will have any brilliance at recognizing the brilliance in others within that same thing (hi sentence. You are too long). Nevertheless, it's always interesting to see which film luminaries the prestige festivals choose and who their jury ends up being.

3. I would pay good money for a way to watch old sitcoms with the laugh tracks removed. Why is this not an option? I literally can't watch anything with a laugh track -- with one or two exceptions -- it just takes me right out of what I'm watching.

4. It was 18 years ago this week that the death of Brandon Lee on the set of The Crow was proclaimed "negligence" That was such a sad creepy movie story back in the early to mid nineties but me and my friend Kevan, who I went to every movie at the time were really obsessed with the movie.

I have a soft spot for the movie (it's set in my hometown on a holiday I always had to explain to people "Devil's Night" once I left Detroit) though it's not exactly a great movie. And I love Brandon Lee in it. So I've been sad to hear about the rethink these past couple of weeks (to star Bradley Cooper?). Although technically a revival of this franchise isn't at all sacrilegious because it's a resurrection myth and there's no reason why the Crow can't keep raising the dead, you know?

Reader of the Day: Kyle

March is winding down. Only three more Readers of the Day. Please let us know if you'd like to see future Reader Spotlights, albeit less frequently, in some capacity. Today we're talking to Kyle by way of Ohio and now South Carolina.

Nathaniel: When did you start reading the Film Experience?
KYLE: I started reading in 2004. I appreciated your love for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The Oscar coverage, witty writing, and overall admiration for cinema kept me coming back. I've visited the site at least once, every day, for the past six (almost seven) years.

I love to hear that. Okay, what was your first movie / movie obsession?
KYLE: The first movie I definitely remember seeing in a theater was Jurassic Park and I totally fell asleep! I remember my eyes slowly closing right after the T-Rex attacked the kids in the car.

I had several movie obsessions when I was younger, but two really stick out.  I would watch The Witches EVERY day when I was about four. I would put it in, demand to be left alone, and wouldn't budge until the end credits. My dad learned this the hard way, when after coming to pick me up (divorced parents), I refused to go with him until it was over. Don't come between me and my Anjelica Huston! My next major obsession was with Scream. Random I know, but I could recite the dialogue scene by scene when I was like ten or eleven.

 

Your three favorite classics and three favorite contemporary films. Spill.

Umm...toughest question ever? Okay first thoughts, or I'd stall all day. Classics: Halloween, Rear Window, Suspiria (I realize those are all suspense/horror, and I'm cool with that.) Contemporary: American Beauty, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Interview with the Vampire.

These are a few of Kyle's Favorite Things...

Take away and Oscar and give it to someone else: Who, when, why?
Recently: Sandra Bullock. I'd love to just snatch it out of her hands (gently so not to harm him), and hand it to Abbie Cornish (I will always defend Bright Star, and how excellent every aspect of it was.)  I really do like Sandra, but her winning was so...wrong. Abbie wasn't even nominated but she completely moved me in that film.

 

The biopic of your life. What's it like?
It'd be called Who Am I Trying to Impress?, which is a saying I often use when I'm about to do or say something I know I shouldn't. It would obviously star me, and be directed by Darren Aronofsky.  I'm sure he'd make my nights of sitting on my bed, eating peanut butter, and watching American Idol seem way more interesting.  I just hope he'll make some creative changes and give me orange hair and add my very own lesbian sex scene.

 

Reader of the Day: Murtada

Since yesterday's Reader o' the Day was someone I'd met, let's make it a double feature. But afterwards we go back to people I haven't met which is 99.99% of you. Today we're talking to Murtada who lives here in NYC. I've only been recognized in public (at least to my knowledge) like 6 times so I've never gotten used to it. It is... strange. Murtada was one of those (unlucky) sharp eyed people. We were at a gay bingo event of all things.

Nathaniel: I'm still so embarrassed about our meeting. My friends were so mad at me... they were all "Why were you so rude to that nice guy?" I was just shocked/disoriented. I have no idea what I even said. Can you ever forgive me?
MURTADA: Of course I forgive you……as long as you promise to come back to gay bingo. I haven’t been back since that day, have you?

Haven't been back, no. LOL. Do you remember your first moviegoing experience?
I grew up in Sudan and there were not a lot of movie theatres there. I consumed movies on VHS. But there was an outdoor summer theatre that played mostly Bollywood movies. I remember seeing a Jaws revival on a very hot summer night sometime in the 80s and hiding under the seat for most of the movie because I was so scared.

Your 3 favorite actresses. Go!
The two C/Kates, Blanchett and Winslet. I can’t get enough of either. Blanchett was love at first sight when I saw her in Elizabeth but I love her most in The Talented Mr. Ripley, so casually snobbish.. delicious. And her big grand gestures in The Good German are even better than her Hepburn. Winslet was more of a love built over time and accumulated because  she just kept getting better and making better movies. My fave of hers is probably Revolutionary Road, she was combusting with emotion in that. And recently Michelle Williams took my breath away in Blue Valentine.

I know you're an Oscar obsessive. Take away one person's Oscar and give it to someone else.
I could play this game all day: Angelina Jolie’s (Girl, Interrupted) to Toni Colette (The Sixth Sense); Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s (Capote) to Heath Ledger (Brokeback Mountain); Rachel Weiz (Constant Gardener) to Maria Bello (A History of Violence); And don't even get me started on Hooper/Fincher, the wound is still raw.

But if I was given one chance I will have to take Kevin Costner best director Oscar (Dances With Wolves) and give it to Martin Scorsese. I know, obvious. But that doesn't make it wrong. In fact it will right maybe one of the biggest wrongs in Oscar history. GoodFellas is a fantastic movie that has endured and is now a big part of movie and pop culture history. In my opinion it's Scorcese's peak as a storyteller.

Who are you really rooting for over the next few years of cinema?
I am so glad that Darren Aronofsky is not doing Wolverine and whatever his next movie becomes I hope it's an original story of his. He is the most exciting American filmmaker out there.