Venice 2008 - Review
The competition film, “The Wrestler,” which stars Mickey Rourke, Marisa Tomei and Evan Rachel Wood, packed three Venice screenings Friday and prompted speculation among festival participants that Mickey Rourke could be a candidate for Venice’s best actor prize, which will be announced with the other major awards Saturday.
Mickey Rourke has given what critics are calling the performance of his life in Darren Aronofsky’s “The Wrestler” in which he plays a lonely, washed out wrestler whose story poignantly mirrors the Hollywood outsider’s own troubled past.
“Wrestler,” which centers on an aging former professional wrestler, is the fest’s final premiere at the Sala Grande.
Rourke, who received a rare standing ovation at a press conference, is generating early Oscar chatter. He told in an interview that “The Wrestler” was “the best … movie I’ve ever made.”
The film, the last of 21 movies in the main competition to premiere, is a contender both for the top actor award and the coveted Golden Lion for best picture, critics say. The festival wraps Saturday with its prize ceremony.
Anne Hathaway also impressed in her unusually dark role in “Rachel Getting Married,” Jonathan Demme’s touching wedding drama that has been lauded in Venice.
A third late entry, Thursday’s premiere, “The Hurt Locker” by U.S. director Kathryn Bigelow, leads an informal poll of Italian critics who were impressed by its portrayal of the perils faced by a bomb disposal unit in Iraq led by a reckless sergeant.
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Venice 2008 - Natalie Portman’s “Eve”
Natalie Portman presented her debut as a director at the Venice Film Festival on Tuesday with a short movie “Eve” about a young woman who is dragged along to her grandmother’s romantic date.
A young woman, Kate, goes to visit her grandma Lola for a private dinner. She is surprised to find she is instead the third wheel at her grandma’s date with Joe.
“Eve” (17 minutes), screening out of competition in the Venice short film section, star Lauren Bacall, Ben Gazzara and Olivia Thirbly.
Portman, 27, said she had always had a fascination with the older generation, and drew inspiration for Bacall’s character from her own grandmother.
Getting Bacall on board was like fulfilling her “wildest dream”, Portman said.
“It’s so exciting to see someone with that much experience and that much wisdom on screen. It’s rare. The film was definitely inspired by personal experience and also all my friends, female friends, starting to define themselves in relation, and in reaction to, their mothers and their grandmothers”
Having started her acting career as a child, she said that she had long wanted to be on the other side of the camera and will present a second short work at the Toronto film festival which starts later this week.
“I have been working now in films for 16 years…it was exciting to know what a director goes through and also to create something completely on your own. When you are an actor of course you are creating something but you are serving someone else’s vision and ultimately it’s someone else’s creation. To have authorship is … and feels like a more adult job.”
Early reviews have been positive.
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“New York, I Love You” Promo Trailer
Take a look at the promo trailer for “New York, I Love You” from the producer of “Paris, je t’aime” that opened the 2006 ‘Un Certain Regard’ section of the Cannes Film Festival.
“New York, I Love You” is a collection of 12 short films that will be a cinematic love letter to the Big Apple.
Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson are making their directorial debuts and helming their own segments. Portman also plays a Jewish bride.
Shia LeBeouf with Julie Christie and John Hurt is in a segment scripted by the late Anthony Minghella, which he was also set to direct until his death. He is replaced by Shekhar Kapur.
Hayden Christensen, Rachel Bilson, Chris Cooper, Anton Yelchin, Ethan Hawke and Kevin Bacon will take acting roles, whilst X-Men 3 helmer Brett Ratner will direct a segment. Read the rest of this entry
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Natalie Portman pulls out of ‘Wuthering Heights’
Natalie Portman has reportedly angered studio bosses by quitting a big screen version of Wuthering Heights.
The actress actively lobbied for the role of heroine Catherine Earnshaw in the adaptation of Emily Bronte’s 1847 novel after director John Maybury originally said he wanted to cast an English star.
He and producers Ecosse Films and HanWay gave Portman the part and agreed to her request for casting approval for central character Heathcliff, currently tipped for Michael Fassbender.
The film is scheduled to begin shooting in autumn.
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Natalie Portman Set For ‘Wuthering Heights’
Natalie Portman is attached as the lead in a new film version of “Wuthering Heights.”U.K. production company Ecosse Films, whose projects include “Mrs. Brown,” “Becoming Jane” and the upcoming “Brideshead Revisited,” is backing the pic. HanWay Films is handling worldwide sales.
Olivia Hetreed (”Girl With a Pearl Earring“) wrote the script.
Up next for Portman is a turn opposite Jake Gyllenhaal and Tobey Maguire in Jim Sheridan’s “Brothers.”
The most recent bigscreen adaptation of Emily Bronte’s classic matched Ralph Fiennes with Juliette Binoche, but the Goldwyn release grossed just $624,643 in 1989.
The definitive film take remains William Wyler’s 1939 version starring Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon, which earned eight Oscar noms.
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Shia LaBeouf and Julie Christie Join ‘Love’
Shia LaBeouf, Julie Christie and John Hurt are starring in the late Anthony Minghella-scripted segment of “New York, I Love You,” an anthology of 12 short films set in each of the city’s five boroughs.
“Love” is being helmed by a coterie of directors, including Natalie Portman, who is making her writing and directing debut.
Those cast in the anthology film include Hayden Christensen, Rachel Bilson, Chris Cooper, Anton Yelchin, Drea de Matteo, Ethan Hawke and Kevin Bacon.
Among those directing are such notables as Allen Hughes, Brett Ratner and Scarlett Johansson. Johansson’s entry follows the journey of a lonely man and his vision of the city.
The movie follows on the heels of the similarly formatted “Paris, je t’aime,” which dealt with love encounters in the City of Lights.
The next city to get the anthology treatment, under what is being called the “Cities of Love” franchise, is Shanghai, followed by a location in South America and then Africa.
LaBeouf and Christie’s segment, written by the late Minghella and directed by Shekhar Kapur, who stepped in after the director died, centers on a woman who checks into a hotel that is in between worlds. There, she meets a young man and the two discover not only a mysterious connection but develop an understanding as to their situation. The short is described as being similar to Minghella’s breakout film, “Truly Madly Deeply.” Production is under way on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Read the rest of this entry
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Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson’s Best Films
The Boleyn Girls marks the first time two of Hollywood’s bigger names among young actresses, Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johansson, have worked together.But apart, they’ve worked plenty. What’s their best work?
Let’s take them one at a time.
Natalie Portman:
Star Wars: Episode I, II, etc. etc. (1999, 2002, 2005): Oh, wait, sorry. We said good, didn’t we? Bit of a misstep. Still, these films, in which Portman plays the wife of the future Mr. Darth Vadar, introduced Portman to a huge geek-happy fan-boy audience and kept her there for years. Probably not work she’s especially proud of - George Lucas tends to make actors behave like Pinocchio in the wanting-to-be-a-real-boy stage - but important enough that it’ll be on her tombstone.
Heat (1995): Frankly, we do not remember her in this movie, in which she played a character named Lauren Gustafson. But we liked the film so much we’re including it in the list. The same will hold true if we ever do one of these lists for Dennis Haysbert or William Fichtner. Read the rest of this entry
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