Fall Film Festivals Begin! What are we seeing at Venice, Telluride, NYFF & more

0:05Anne Thompson:Welcome to Screen Talk and New Irish Weekly Podcast, bringing you up to speed on what's happening in Hollywood. I'm Anne Thompson in Los Angeles.

0:13Ryan Lattanzio:And I'm Ryan Lattanzio in Venice. I literally just got here a couple of hours ago, and that means that the fall festival season is beginning. So Venice, of course, is launching everything today with Inc., which actually is a movie we'll be able to talk about, Telluride following over Labor Day, starting September 4th, then rolling in Toronto, then the New York Film Festival, and then there's all the other regional ones like the Hamptons, Middleburg, Savannah, Virginia, Mill Valley, that all play a role in the overall specialty film and awards ecosystem, and we'll be at some of those as well.

0:46Anne Thompson:Yes, we will. Ryan, why are people calling this a quiet quote-unquote Venice? And even though that's true, tell me what excites you there.

0:56Ryan Lattanzio:Well, the festival did get off to a little bit of noise today. While I was on a, I made the decision to book a shared water taxi rather than take this really long Ali Laguna boat that takes an hour and a half to get you from the airport to the Lido. And it ended up being just as long. And it gave me a tour of the Grand Canal, which I didn't realize I was going to be getting today. So while I was touring the city of Venice by accident, George Clooney was talking about all of the things that are on everyone's mind. The WarnerMount merger, how he doesn't believe that he doesn't see a world where financially it's going to coalesce.

1:35Ryan Lattanzio:Also talking about AI and how he feels it's really going to hurt us. He's obviously not one of those filmmakers like James Gray who's arguing, oh, the bubble on AI is going to burst some point soon. George Clooney says we're in a lot of trouble. He also stood in defense of Mark Ruffalo's comments, which we talked about last week. We will talk about the Venice lineup itself, but I actually did want to take a second here and apologize for some things I said last week that have upset people, in which I basically implied that Mark Ruffalo was trying to insert himself into the issue by making these comments.

2:11Ryan Lattanzio:I totally defend and support his right to free speech. as we've always said, he's been very consistent and very true to himself. And that's very admirable. And I was taking a cynical outlook on what he was trying to do, which was the right thing.

2:26Anne Thompson:And a lot of people have risen up to support him and sign a poll. You know, they're trying to give him some support here in Hollywood. So as I suspected, I think that in the end, Ruffalo has a lot of support here. So back to Venice, Tell me what excites you there.

2:47Ryan Lattanzio:Well, in terms of the films, actually in about an hour, I'll be seeing Bucking Faster by Werner Herzog, which I'm actually pretty excited about. Kate Morrow was on my plane. This is a narrative fiction movie from Herzog. And those can be kind of weird. But we really like Bad Lieutenant. And even Rescue Dawn is kind of interesting. And then, of course, he had all those 70s ones. A movie we can't talk about yet that I'm also seeing tonight is Chai Vasarhali and Jimmy Chin's Everest, which I know. So, well, I'm assuming it's going to be at Telluride.

3:16Anne Thompson:That's playing in Telluride. Yeah, that's playing in Telluride. We're allowed to talk about it now. All right. Telluride lineup is announced.

3:22Ryan Lattanzio:Yes, because this podcast will be on Friday. I have some perverse curiosity about the new Paul Schrader and Casey Affleck movies that these two guys have directed. Just wondering about what crazy headlines are going to come or what people might ask in these press conferences, because there is going to be one for both of them. And they obviously carry a lot of controversy with them to the Lido.

3:44Anne Thompson:So didn't Inc. already screen the Danny Boyle?

3:47Ryan Lattanzio:Inc. is screening. As we record this, Inc. is going to screen in about an hour after George Clooney receives an award. So we can talk about Inc. So we can talk about Inc. because that's going to be a Telluride as well. Ann, why don't you kick us off?

3:58Anne Thompson:So Inc. is the latest Danny Boyle. And as you know, Danny Boyle doesn't write his screenplay. So James Graham is adapting his own play. And this is a great, fun, very fleeting in a way, because it moves like the wind, a portrayal of Fleet Street at the time that Rupert Murdoch came in, hired this editor who's played by Jack O 'Connell. And he's really it's a revelatory performance by Jack O 'Connell. Actually, I've always liked him. But this one, he really goes wild here. And it is so much fun. And then, you know, he goes for the nudity and the tabloid stuff and everything is lurid and horrible.

4:39Anne Thompson:And so it's a lot of fun. How is it going to do in the Oscar Derby? It's a very competitive year for actors. That's all I'll say.

4:48Ryan Lattanzio:The actors would be the play here. And like you're saying, there may not be room for them. And it's very well acted even by a guy Pierce who initially was almost unrecognizable to me. And I can't really explain that. I just we've seen him in things like the brutalist playing these other kind of characters in this one He's almost a bit of a pushover by the end for reasons that I won't want to spoil especially as the sleaze factor of what is quickly becoming a tabloid against Rupert Murdoch's wishes is coming into view Claire Foy is really fun in this as a feminist journalist who Kind of lets her scruples fall to the wayside until finally she has a come-to-Jesus moment.

5:30Ryan Lattanzio:But basically all of these horrible things happen in and around this newspaper, and it's a very fun, almost swinging London-adjacent kind of movie.

5:37Anne Thompson:Yeah, 60s, 70s, 80s.

5:39Ryan Lattanzio:There's pills, there's booze, but there's not too much of that stuff on screen. I think stylistically it's a little overcooked. He uses a lot of the same devices, like the step printing, the shuttering step printing that he used in 28 years later. I mean, this is the mode that he's working in now, but it could have used a sort of softer touch. And especially at the end, there is a way that it invokes Trump and Elon Musk in a way that I found a little groan inducing. The timeliness can be tiresome.

6:11Anne Thompson:I didn't have a problem with the end. I did think it was fun and snazzy and bold, but I agree with you that it starts to wear out after a while. That's the only thing I'll say. But I love Danny Boyle. I think he's a great filmmaker, so I think that most people are going to enjoy this one. The Telluride lineup is, so Bucking Fasterd is going to come.

6:37Ryan Lattanzio:Bucking Fasterd is the only movie to play all four of the festivals, I want to say, New York, Telluride, Toronto, and Venice. I think Mike Lee. Mike Lee is in Venice.

6:48Anne Thompson:Ah, yeah. Okay. All right. So when is Primetime playing?

6:53Ryan Lattanzio:That's playing on September 5th here. And this is the only festival where Primetime is playing. This is the A24 To Catch a Predator movie directed by Lance Oppenheim.

7:02Anne Thompson:Okay. And there's a new Vim Vendors architecture documentary. I want to see that in 3D. I love it when Vendors does docs.

7:10Ryan Lattanzio:I'm planning to see this one. And they're showing it in 3D. So they're not giving you any links. but this is another 3D architecture movie. This is called From Inside Out, the architecture of Peter Zumthor. This is someone I'm not super familiar with, but he's a Swiss architect. And this is about his relationship between people and the places they are visiting. And he is bringing new cutting edge 3D cinematography to the film, which takes us through David Geffen galleries and other parts of Los Angeles.

7:38Anne Thompson:So basically, Inc. has opened And now we have Telluride revealing its lineup, which plays out over Labor Day weekend. And Herzog is among the regulars who come every year. There's Lisa Henson throwing a party, Frank Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy throwing a party. Marshall's going to show his doc, Pete Townsend, behind Blue Eyes. And then we've got some execs coming, like Apple TV's Eddie Q and Disney CEO Josh DeMaro. oh, he's never been in Telluride. And then Oprah is mounting a gathering to support the movie you were mentioning before, Everest, the other side, because she's pals with climber Jim Morrison.

8:22Anne Thompson:He used to live in Telluride. And so he tries to ascend Everest with chin, but he also wants to ski down its north face. So that's what that movie's about. And then there's another second Everest movie at Telluride, which is Jennifer Petum's fictional Tenzing with Willem Dafoe and Tom Hiddleston. So the other big movie that is playing both Venice and Telluride is the Martin McDonough spy comedy Wild Horse Nine, which Searchlight is releasing, which is an acting showcase for John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell as two very jaded, completely jaded, C.I. Spooks. and Malkovich gets one of the three Telluride tributes this year.

9:09Anne Thompson:He's 72, and he is amazing in this movie, I have to say. He's going to get nominated. The question you and I have been debating, actually, is whether he could win. He could beat Matt Damon.

9:22Ryan Lattanzio:It might not happen for Hermigan, which it could for Matt Damon.

9:26Anne Thompson:So Matt Damon, your argument, if I may tell you what it is, Ryan your argument your argument is that Malkovich is older and may not have more chances whereas Matt Damon is still in his 50s and may have more chances and Malkovich affects a crossed

9:47Ryan Lattanzio:eye in this movie and so I'm fascinated I don't know that he does it in every frame of the film but it is in there and I'm very curious how he achieved that but this is someone who he doesn't really do like physically mannered kind of performances he's very kind of loose his approach and effortless even and he's excellent in this movie and very funny and full of pathos and he's also a morphine addict so this leads to interesting well he's taking morphine because he's dying

10:15Anne Thompson:well it seems like it's you could look at it no he's abusing it don't you think he's in pain

10:21Ryan Lattanzio:the fact that it has to be wrested from his clutches by his friend sam rockwell suggests that there could be some abuse going on. Well, he's a morphine addict now.

10:29Anne Thompson:Now he is.

10:30Ryan Lattanzio:Yes, of course. And so he is spilling the beans on all of these things to beautiful women in the airport while they're heading to Easter Island about activities as a CIA agent back in the day. And there's some really interesting ways that this movie twists back into actual history that we know and actual conspiracy theories of the past. Again, in ways I don't want to spoil.

10:52Anne Thompson:Well, we definitely destabilized Chile. That one, yes.

10:56Ryan Lattanzio:Yes, but there's another thing in there that's very clever. This movie could have used a bit more Parker Posey, who is very funny as Sam Rockwell's wife, who looks like she's living in Palm Springs or something. They seem to be estranged. She's apparently an alcoholic. She's on the phone spiraling because she believes that Steve Buscemi has sent people from the CIA.

11:17Anne Thompson:Steve Buscemi's their boss.

11:18Ryan Lattanzio:That's right, that's right.

11:19Anne Thompson:It's sort of weird how the coastline of Easter Island and the landscape somehow mimics the Irish island that they were on last time, Banshees of Innesharon. Okay, so the other tributes in Telluride are, of course, Sandra Huller, and Rose and Fatherland will both show there. And then the other one is Andrew Haig, the British filmmaker of All of Us Strangers in 45 Years. He's showing A Long Winter, a Deepwood Survival Tale, starring Kit O 'Connor and Ebon Moss-Bacrack. I'm looking forward to seeing that. And then, of course, there's a bunch of Cannes titles that we all know would be showing up there.

12:01Anne Thompson:The new movies are Elsinore-focused, which hasn't shown anywhere else, and this one is a performance from Andrew Scott as a dying thespian that is already yielding raves. And I'm going to see it in Telluride.