2018 VENICE FILM FESTIVAL

The 75th Annual Venice International Film Festival, which has traditionally kicked off as the first chance to see many of the upcoming fall movies and potential award contenders, is set to begin on August 29th and conclude on September 9th.

Damien Chazelle returns to open the festival, following the writer/director's acclaimed 2016 romantic musical ode to Los Angeles, "La La Land", with his latest, "First Man". This biographical drama focuses on Neil Armstrong (played by Ryan Gosling) and the years leading up to the Apollo 11 space mission in 1969 with him becoming the first man to walk on the moon.  Claire Foy, Corey Stoll, Kyle Chandler and Jason Clarke also star. "First Man" will make it's world premiere at Venice and has also been chosen as one of the films to compete for prizes.



There are twenty other films selected for the main international competition and it will feature the latest works from some of the world's most distinguished filmmakers. This list includes Paul Greengrass ("22 July"), Julian Schnabel ("At Eternity's Gate"), Jennifer Kent ("The Nightingale"), Mike Leigh ("Peterloo"), Yorgos Lanthimos ("The Favourite"), Alfonso Cuarón ("Roma"), Olivier Assayas ("Non-Fiction"), Luca Guadagnino ("Suspiria") Jacques Audiard ("The Sisters Brothers") and the Coen Brothers ("The Ballad of Buster Scruggs").







Guillermo del Toro, last year’s Golden Lion winner for "The Shape of Water" which then went on to take the Best Picture Oscar, will be this year's president of the main jury. Also on board as part of the International selection committee for prizes will be Australian actress, Naomi Watts; New Zealand filmmaker, Taika Waititi; Taiwanese actress, Sylvia Chang; Danish actress, Trine Dyrholm; French actress/director Nicole Garcia; Italian director/screenwriter Paolo Genovese; Polish filmmaker Malgorzata Szumowska and Austrian actor and two-time Oscar-winner, Christoph Waltz.

The classic romantic musical drama, "A Star Is Born" has been remade for the fourth time and this new version will make it's world premiere at the fest out of competition. Bradley Cooper directs and stars as a hard-drinking country musician who discovers and falls in love with a struggling young singer, played by pop-star, Lady Gaga.



Orson Welles will be the highlight of two special event screenings. "The Other Side of the Wind", a highly unconventional feature film that Welles had been working on for ten years in the 1970's but was unable to complete in his lifetime due to financial hardships, legal difficulties and his outrageous behavior, will finally make it in to a theater. And a new documentary by Morgan Neville (who is behind the current box-office smash Fred Rogers doc, "Won't You Be My Neighbor?") called "They'll Love Me When I'm Dead", which examines the disastrous and complicated making of "The Other Side of The Wind", will also make it's world premiere.



Vanessa Redgrave and David Cronenberg are this year’s recipients of the Golden Lion Award for Lifetime Achievement. The eight-one year old Oscar-wining, British actress is part of a respected acting family dynasty and is still quite active in film and on stage. Mr Cronenberg, the seventy-five year old Canadian filmmaker, has been involved in creating daring and original works of cinema since the 1970’s with a particular taste for horror and sci-fi.

And the Closing Night Film will be "Driven", Nick Hamm's dark comedic look at the relationship between John DeLorean (Lee Pace), the man behind the iconic motor company and Jim Hoffman (Jason Sudeikis), an ex-con turned FBI informant. Inspired by true events, the film also stars Judy Greer and Corey Stoll.

NICO, 1988 (2018)

Written & Directed by Susanna Nicchiarelli


Where & When: Nuart Theater, West Los Angeles, CA. August 8, 2018 7:20 PM


She was born Christa Päffgen in Cologne, Germany but would be later known to the world as Nico. Taking the name from her former filmmaker boyfriend, she first found success as a model before abandoning that occupation to try her hand at acting. Nico also achieved some minor success in films until she gravitated towards singing where she truly made a name for herself. After meeting Andy Warhol, he teamed her with a band he was managing at the time, the Velvet Underground and together recorded a self-titled debut album in 1967. The record was essentially ignored at the time of it's release but would go on to become a highly influential rock album.

With “Nico, 1988”, writer/director, Susanna Nicchiarelli examines the chaotic, final three years of the life of this iconic entertainer. Trine Dyrholm, an award-winning Danish actress who began her professional life as a singer while a teenager, delivers an explosive performance of the now weary and troubled, middle-aged vocalist and impresses further by vividly performing the songs we hear in the film. This winner of the Orrizonti Award for Best Film at the 2017 Venice Film Festival creates a fascinating intimate portrait of a performer trying to reclaim her voice as an artist and the narrative of her career on her terms.

The film begins in 1986 with Nico (Dyrholm), who lived a nomadic life which has taken her to Paris, London and New York, currently settled in Manchester, England. She has been trying to put some distance between her short-lived past with the Velvet Underground and have people focus on her current solo work yet not many are interested. With her glory days behind her, the singer travels around Europe in a run-down van with her scrappy band to play small venues set up her manager, Richard (John Gordon Sinclair). No longer the golden blonde siren, Nico has gone back to her natural mousey-brown hair coloring and her appearance has become hardened and sallow, largely due to her continuing heroin addiction.

It's not much of a surprise that Nico's conduct has become erratic and she's easily agitated which makes the outcome of her shows highly unpredictable. She is further distracted by wanting to see her son, Ari (Sandor Funtek) now complicated as he's been institutionalized because of his recent suicide attempt. Far from naturally maternal as Ari was given to be raised by his grandparents (the rumored father was French actor, Alain Delon who always publicly denied paternity) yet Nico still wanted to try to comfort her son, sensing the destructive nature he has inherited from her.

As she tours in a drug-fueled haze, it's not until they reach the Soviet Union-occupied Prague for a vaguely legal gathering of a concert that the singer has an awakening. Unable to bring her drugs across the border, a strung-out Nico becomes lucid enough to be able to deliver an electrifying performance. As she and Richard both become aware of this revelation, he offers to get her on a methadone treatment and Nico finally agrees.

While this would hardly appear to be the best period in the singer's story, Ms Nicchiarelli wanted to capture how performers, particularly female artists, are swiftly admired and adored yet can be discarded and forgotten just as fast. Nico's life and career may have spiraled out of control (largely by her own doing) but her talent is, while buried, still very much alive. The film also touches on Nico's traumatic childhood haunted by the devastating war in Germany. There is a clear connection with these difficult memories and the music the singer would later write, somber songs filled with despair and her vocals are wails of rage and pain.

Like many artists, Nico lived a life filled with creativity and recklessness. She could be brilliant and engaging yet also moody and downright unpleasant. With exceptional direction by Ms Nicchiarelli and a first-rate performance by Ms Dyrholm, "Nico, 1988" manages to take a seemingly questionable premise and effectively makes a fascinating study of a redemption of creative energy.

THE OSCARS HAVE MADE A FEW CHANGES

It was announced earlier this week that The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences were making two major changes to The Oscars, their annual event that honors excellence in cinema. Both of these revisions I see are problematic but one is definitely worse than the other.

First, apparently due to the continuing ratings decline of the Oscars telecast, it has been officially decided that the show will run no longer than three hours. So that means that all twenty-four categories will not actually be seen presented live during the show and the winners will be announced later in the program in abbreviated clips, much like they do on The Tonys and The Grammys. Now I personally don't mind the length, which can usually push to almost four hours, but the concern has been for awhile that for many the show runs too long and turns off the short attention-span of younger viewers.

The question now becomes which categories are going to get the short-end of the Oscars stick. I guess all the Short Film, Visual Effects and Sound Editing winners better be prepared that mom and dad won't get to hear you thanking them on live tv. It doesn't seen fair that most of the below-the-line categories will surely not be presented but I hope that The Academy will at least alternate which nominations get the live treatment each year.

But the most mind-boggling change is the addition of a twenty-fifth category and it will be called, "Outstanding Achievement in Popular Film" or more simply, Best Popular Film. Although this seems like something the MTV Movie Awards have been handing out for years, the question is raised on what exactly does this prize even mean? Obviously, there were no details revealed on how these nominees will be determined although it has been said that these films will eligible for this prize and Best Picture. Will it be based solely on how much money the film made (what a discouraging thought) or simply a popularity contest with average movie-goers voting on their favorites (which seems to miss the whole point of The Oscars)?

There have been many, many voices (inside and outside of the movie industry) who have expressed their dismay and displeasure over this new category and some board-members of the Academy were not even made aware that this award was even being discussed. I also find this addition quite surprising as The Academy has declined for years to add any new categories like Best Casting or Best Stunt-Work which seem far more deserving to me than a popular movie award.

I hope The Academy will come to their senses and realize that this award is not only unnecessary but diminishes the Best Picture category. The point of the Oscars is to honor excellence in film and to award a prize based almost entirely on how much money it has made certainly does not represent the best that cinema has to offer. Besides, as far as I’m concerned, all of these multi-million dollar grossing movies have always gotten all the Oscar nominations they deserve.

UPDATE: It appears that The Academy did come to their senses and this new category of Best Popular Picture has been dropped from the upcoming ceremony. Although the Academy's president, John Bailey insists that this plan will be revisited, I have a strong feeling that this idea is not likely to build a lot of momentum.