English
Venice opens with Pitt and Clooney in madcap comedy
George Clooney (R) and Brad Pitt pose during a photocall in Venice August 27, 2008. |
Brad Pitt and George Clooney star in a madcap comedy by the Coen brothers in which two Washington gym employees get caught up in the cloak-and-dagger world of international espionage, with results both daft and deadly.
“Burn After Reading” — spy movie meets slapstick farce — ensures an upbeat opening to this year’s Venice film festival where the picture has its red carpet premiere on Wednesday.
It brings A-list star power and crowds of screaming fans to the 11-day event in the canal city, where Asian and European art house cinema is up against Hollywood heavyweights in the race for prizes at the closing ceremony on September 6.
The film re-unites Joel and Ethan Coen with actress Frances McDormand, who is married to Joel and who won an Oscar for her role in their 1996 film “Fargo”, as well as with Clooney, who appeared in “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”
Clooney, by his own admission, regularly plays the fool for the brothers, fresh from their triumph at this year’s Oscars when their “No Country For Old Men” picked up four awards, including best picture and best directing.
“I’ve done three films with them and they call it my trilogy of idiots,” the actor told reporters after a press screening.
The 47-year-old plays a nervous, twitchy federal marshal whose extra-marital affairs bring him into contact with a gym instructor, played by Pitt, desperately seeking to extort money from a sacked CIA analyst whose memoirs go missing.
“After reading the part, which they said was hand-written for myself, I was not sure if I should be flattered or insulted,” said Pitt, whose character the directors describe as a “knucklehead”.
Joel Coen said he and his brother had “a long history of writing parts for idiotic characters.
“By the way, I’m starting to detect something in the crowd here, a feeling that you all feel there’s something wrong with being an idiot. I just want to caution you about that, because that’s a sensitive subject and a big demographic.”
A-LIST AND ARTHOUSE
Although there are five U.S. films in the main competition lineup of 21, they represent “independent” cinema as opposed to the big studios, which are not in Venice this time around.
Festival director Marco Mueller brushed aside concerns that Venice, which faces competition from the Toronto film festival starting next month, was struggling to secure top titles.
He said the lighter Hollywood studio presence was partly down to the writers’ strike that ended in February, and added: “American cinema is very much at the centre of the program.”
“Burn After Reading” is not in competition, but U.S. films in the main lineup include “Rachel Getting Married”, directed by Oscar-winner Jonathan Demme and starring Anne Hathaway and Debra Winger, who has been nominated three times for an Academy Award.
Kathryn Bigelow directs Iraqi drama “The Hurt Locker”, a year after Brian De Palma’s “Redacted” stunned audiences in Venice with its brutal reconstruction of events from the war.
Mickey Rourke stars in Darren Aronofsky’s “The Wrestler” while acclaimed Mexican screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga makes his directorial debut with “The Burning Plain” starring Oscar winners Charlize Theron and Kim Basinger.
Japan has three main competition entries, led by revered animation director Hayao Miyazaki whose “Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea” is already storming the box office at home. Subscribe=>
Source: Reuters More Top News
Hollywood heavyweights Robert De Niro and Al Pacino reunited on the red carpet in New York Wednesday night for the premiere of their new crime thriller “Righteous Kill” — their first film together since making 1995’s “Heat.”
The movie also stars
The Pakistani Army has been given orders to retaliate against any unilateral strike by the Afghanistan-based US troops inside the country.
Army Spokesman Maj Gen Athar Abbas confirmed the orders in a brief interview with Geo News on late Thursday night.
The
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev says he will not accept military action or new sanctions against Iran over its nuclear activities.
“We should not take any unilateral steps. It is not acceptable to opt for a military scenario. It would be dangerous,”
As the world marks the seventh anniversary of 9/11, some European experts say security improvements in the US have been undercut by fairly basic mistakes. Among the remedies is more trust in America’s laws and allies.
Seven years after the attacks
David Miliband has allegedly come in for a rather undiplomatic tongue-lashing from his Russian counterpart.
The Foreign Secretary was apparently given a furious dressing down by Sergei Lavrov over the telephone.
Mr Miliband’s criticism of Russia’s recent incursion into Georgia is believed
PIETERMARITZBURG, South Africa - A South African judge ruled Friday that prosecutors were wrong to charge ANC President Jacob Zuma with corruption, effectively clearing way for the 66-year-old former freedom fighter to become the country’s next president.
Judge Chris Nicholson’s ruling
Thailand’s political turmoil deepened Friday when the ruling coalition failed to turn up to parliament to reelect leader Samak Sundaravej as prime minister.
Lawmakers from the six-party coalition did not attend an emergency session of parliament called to choose a prime minister, three days after a court stripped Samak of power for accepting payments for hosting