Father Geek here... rapidly becoming the lone AICN crew member NOT traveling to some distant uber cool spot on the otherside of the globe. True Austin's a plenty cool town, buuuuuut its August, and the tempature by the front door of the Geek Headquarters Screening Room today was 104 degrees when I went out there with Sister Satan, Lobo, and KublaKhan this afternoon, annnnnd that is decidedly UNCOOL! Anyway here's Rav and his Venice (as in Italy, not California) pre-fest report...
Rav here, tomorrow I am embarking off for from Austin for the Venice Festival all the way in "pasta-land." This is my first pre-festival report/pre-aicn adventure report so go easy on me, honestly I did not even mean to write one until Harry asked. This will be my first time going to Italy and am really quite excited, even though I have no knowledge of the country's language or geography, so it's quite possible I might just accidentally walk to bosnia and find a good movie to watch over there or maybe just accidentally spark some weird underground silent opposition by mangling the Italian language for a few minutes.
Now that all that personal crap is out of the way, I am really fucking looking forward to the films of the 59th Biennale. The Opening Night brings the world premiere of Julie Taymor's Frida. It's going to be quite interesting to see what Taymor can do visually around the words of Edward Norton instead William Shakespeare. Titus was quite easily the visual master-piece of that year, and had in my opinion the most interesting Hopkin's performance ever. Some of the big high-lights of the fest personally are Stephen Frears's "Dirty Pretty Things" which I am told has Audrey Taotau speaking English in it, which was enough to get me in the room 8 months ago. I cant wait to see what the frears/taotau collaboration has slapped together. There is this film by an American newcomer named Dylan Kidd that previously played the Tribeca film festival named "Roger Dodger" about an advertising executive played by Campbell Scott, I cant wait to get my hands around that film when it screens. I am highly anticipating Todd Hayne's "Far From Heaven," honestly I just saw Velvet Goldmine and ever since viewing it I have sort of became enamored with this new filmmaker, so the prospect of seeing another Haynes film this week has me eagerly bouncing up and down on my toes ready. "Clown in Kabul" has caught me quite off guard, apparently it is a documentary about Patch Adams traveling to Afghanistan and clowning around helping children, I can't believe the real patch Adams is even more bonkers than Robin Williams! Takashi Kitano's Dolls....premiere of Beat's new film............coolest thing ever!
Next up is the Malkovich Malkovich double-feature, the European premiere of The Dancer Upstairs and the world premiere of the long awaited Ripley's Game (sorry I am seeing it fresh, as it was a bitch to find a copy of Wim Wender's version before the festival), I honestly don't know what to expect out of Ripley's Game, well it does have an Ennio Morricone score WOOHOO!. There are also a pair of short film collections that might prove quite interesting, Ten Minutes Older: The Cello has 8 world-renowned filmmakers turning in shorts including Mike Figgis, Claire Denis, Jean Luc-Godard!, and Bernardo Bertoluccu, but I must say the event I look forward to the most will be the screening of 11-09-01 before the North American premiere at Toronto on Sept. 11, this film has eleven world class filmmakers turning in shorts about the tragedy that all clock in at eleven minutes, nine seconds, and one frame.
There's a German film titled "Nackt" thats intriguing if only for the fact that Benno Furmann Bodo from The Princess and The Warrior is in it. I don't really know what to expect out of Larry Clark's new film Ken Park, wait no I expect one thing out of his film.....lots of teen nudity. I have no idea what might come out of The Tracker maybe a reader who was seen it might be able to send some word about it?, Agnieszkia Holland's New Film "Julie Walking Home" its got William Fichtner in it (IM SO THERE!). Edward Ponti is debuting his new work there, it must be at the very least quite interesting as he has both Mira Sorvino and Sophia Lauren in his film. Tonie Marshall's new film and The Magdalene Sisters round out the festival, looks like I might have many a many great cinema discoveries over the next eleven days.
The festival also has some pretty high-profile star-gazing European premieres of recent American films. Most notably Road to Perdition is scheduled to premiere there along with most of the cast (I can't fricken wait PAUL FUCKING NEWMAN! Oh and Tom Hanks and Jude Law are supposed to be there too!). It also doesn't help that I LOVED the movie and have seen it three times here in Austin. K-19 the Widow-maker will be quite the event as Han Solo and Qui-Gon-Jin walking the red carpet, quite an interesting day this will be. Clint Eastwood's new film Blood Work premieres there, it'll be interesting to see how the festival takes this film as it has been quite under-appreciated over here in the states. Full Frontal's European premiere would be quite interesting if I had not been to the most perfect screening of the film already in Austin, in which Hitler himself attended and impersonated Tarantino (it doesn't get much better than that!).
I intend to be busy trying to nail interviews with just about everyone in Venice, and their mother's too! Over the next week. Although I have one specific request I'd like to make on-line. Prior to leaving for the fest I was completely sure that both Red Dragon and Gangs of New York were premiering there. I remember hearing Ratner once mention he was playing RD at Venice and Garth at Dark Horizons fooled me into thinking Gangs was premiering in Venice here http://www.Darkhorizons.Com/news/020328.Htm BASTARDO! Well I did my requisite Scorsese and Ratner viewing well before the fest so I intend to carry out an interview with one of them during the fest. So if you by any chance are a filmmaker, actor, producer, publicist, or just a person there that wants to be either Brett Ratner or Martin Scorsese for an hour contact me and we will do this!
Throughout the fest I am staying at the Villa Casanova, I don't have their contact info on me at the moment but I'm under the impression they have a web page if some sort. So I guess just call them and ask for like Rav, Jarrette Moats, or Macgyver's room I'm not quite sure who's room they will direct you two as its not in my name muhaha. So only contact me this way if you absolutely cant any other way. I prefer to be contacted by email (Ravkill@msn.com, I am under the impression Venice has a very stocked press room filled with computers and even helpful beautiful press desk women. I don't know, but there might even be a press box of some sort to be leaving press kits, photographs, notes, slides, and even assorted personal pornography for me down there as well. Although you would need to talk to the biennale people about that, I think Porno-box is the official name for them. Okay well I guess that's it for now I can't wait to get to over to Venice now. Any Italian or festival going AICN'ers feel free to drop me an email and say "Hi," I promise I don't bite too hard! If all this is true expect daily reports from me on the happenings of Venice.
Until later.
