TONIGHT Reunion hosts shorts night at ArtxNYC in Chelsea and another one Saturday night at MCM Creative.
Sunday AM: Twisters announces $81 million box office opening.
Sunday PM: Biden drops out.
Monday PM: Kamala announces a record breaking $81 million fundraise in 24 hours.
W
T
F
I don’t know what this means. But it makes me want to sing
let me in now
and it can be nice
make me go now
and i’ll have to come back
not once
not twice
but as many times as I liiiiiiiiiiiiikkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkeeeeeeeeeeee
Also Longlegs is Brat w $50mm box office. Neon’s #1. Gonna blow Parasite away.
This week we got announcements for NYFF open + close, followed by full lineups for TIFF and Venice. I cannot remember a more imbalanced comparison between Toronto and Venice—Venice got everything. Usually they’re neck and neck, Venice generally a notch above, but pick em. TIFF always has a few movies that Venice would have loved both in celebrity headliners and just really strong selections. I can’t name one that Venice is missing. I’ll go over the Toronto headliners first.
Venice previously made a ridiculous pandemic fueled choice to cosign David Gordon Green’s soul crushing foray into the worst kind of IP horror by showing one of his Halloween movies at the longest standing tied for most prestigious film festival in the world THE Venice Film Festival. I was there. It was that one where the people in the movie chant something, like death to or whatever, I forget what, but the corporation tried to make it like a meme or a marketing moment kinda thing. Ugh. It was embarrassing for all. So Venice surely had the opportunity to play DGG’s return to real movies, what became TIFF’s opener, but passed. I hope it’s great, but this tempers my already bottomless expectations. Would love a return to seriousness and form for DGG.
TIFF’s biggest one is Conclave, a Ralph Fiennes movie about the pope from the guy who did the Netflix war movie I never watched despite some people telling me ‘it’s actually pretty good.’ I love Ralph Fiennes but thankfully he works so much that I have ample opportunity to see him in more interesting sounding movies like wtf he’s playing Odysseus???
This felt like a Venice movie if there was one this year, but again, given this is a story about Italian religious folk in the Vatican, I imagine it was offered to Venice, it sucks, they passed, TIFF took it. Alberto Barbera made a classy move in an interview, saying it was a scheduling conflict.
TIFF closes with Rebel Wilson’s movie? That flipped the script 180° real quick. We went from reading about how much of a disaster it was, lawsuits between music executives somehow involved in the thing preventing it from playing TIFF, taking away final cut from…just rewriting this sentence…taking away final cut from…Rebel Wilson…yeah…we went from that absurd round of press…to…to it being announced as the closing film of…of…of THE Toronto Film Festival.
Christ almighty. What a trifecta of headliners. This is horrible news all around though, and worse given the cause is well known. TIFF lost its title sponsor last year—Bell. The government put a ton of money in to try to make it up I think, but doesn’t look like it has. That’s why you get these announcements laced with specifics for each category like Dyson is specifically sponsoring one set of screenings. I know from my own conversations that they aimed for celebrity driven on the programming side, but I imagine budget cuts for presenting the films is how Venice was able to capture literally everything worth showing. SXSW is more prestigious than this now. Jay Penske, I imagine, is licking his chops and plotting.
A sec on festival construction. Beyond scheduling even, it costs tons of money to premiere a movie at a festival. Stars need to be housed at hotels that cost thousands per night. Giant teams want to come, and somebody’s got to pay, either production or festival. There’s a whole complex behind these things from the stylists, HMU, assistants, security, etc. over to the publicists and photogs, peaking with the premiere parties that are actually really important in managing both egos and intra-industry signals on how high on the movie the producers or distributors are. If you don’t throw a big party, it gets read as diminishing the prestige of the movie, can have a direct impact on awards prestige in festival, and thereby a ripple effect that actually impacts your chances at an Oscar. So the negotiations between producers and festivals is often like: TIFF will only pay for Ben Stiller’s suite, but offers an opening slot, vs Venice offering to pay for nothing and play the movie out-of-competition. Easy call for DGG, this is literally likely what happened. OR Venice would run Conclave In Competition but it will be outshined by so many other films, and TIFF offers it Centerpiece and it’ll be the highest profile film there. I bet TIFF pays to throw Conclave a party. I know of one really famous director that wanted to be there, but TIFF says they couldn’t schedule him in the theater he wanted, so he’s not coming. I call shenanigans on that, and think it was really that they didn’t want to pay to bring him out there and put him up. Because that director showing that movie would have been the most exciting thing at the festival to me.
NYFF announced Ramell Ross will open the fest and Steve McQueen close. Unlike TIFF, jury is still out for NYFF. These could be cool picks. Ramell Ross movie may be a major leap. Steve McQueen I’m less excited about because I’m told Venice passed, but McQueen is an NYFF mainstay so this is like a necessary pick. His lifesaving pandemic era opener Lovers Rock gives him a lifetime pass.
Now for the good stuff. Venice lineup is another we are so back moment. Post-pandemic, post-strike. Everyone. Cuaron. Larrain. Corbet. Kurzel. Guadanigno. Salles!!! Bing. Avati. Diaz. du Welz. Kitano! Kurosawa! Korine! Lelouch! Costa!!! Kapadia. Sora. Perry. Vinterberg!!! Wright. Morris. Macdonald. Gitai. Almodovar. Then on top of that you get the mainstream stuff that brings the gigantic movie stars like Gaga, Phoenix, Kidman, Pitt, Clooney. And a ton of international filmmakers not quite on that name level but probably great. It’s a crazy lineup. Mike Leigh is the only one TIFF has premiering that’s really prestigious.
Venice lineup is insane. Insane insane insane. They’ll keep adding too. The full watch TV series screenings are going to make the trip very difficult for anyone trying to actually watch all of that. But it’s cool they’re doing it. It’s always been weird how you watch a pilot or a few episodes, then have to wait months to watch the rest when it streams. I love that major stuff happens second half. I always stay for whole thing, thinking I’m gonna chill and enjoy the beach and roam around the city when it quiets down…and then I still just watch movies nonstop because they’re amazing. The repertory programming always ends up delivering me some lifetime moments (Death in Venice in Venice…Marienbad with the whole Chanel crowd seated with Tilda…Irreversible forwards seated a row in front of all of them…Liliana Cavani presenting Night Porter…just some recent ones). Venice is my favorite festival all around. Cannes is Cannes and of course nothing competes with it to launch careers, but from a festival watching and experience standpoint, Venice Film Festival is my favorite thing on earth.
Second would be:
Found this too.
— Sean Glass @sdotglass
EVENTS
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July 27: Reunion Jewish Films [RSVP]
RESOURCES
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