Friday 30 August 2013

VENICE REVIEWS ROLL IN FOR GREEN, REICHARDT AND SONO'S NEW FILMS


A couple of very good reports coming in from Venice on Kelly Reichardt's Night Moves. Having built up a strong critical fanbase with recent films like Old Joy and Meek's Cutoff, her In Competition drama / thriller has proven popular among those who've caught it. Oliver Lyttleton's The Playlist review may close with an A- grade, but he has little other than praise for the film. And David Jenkins even goes as far as to suggest that Reichardt be awarded the Golden Lion in Little White Lies.

Sono Shion's Why Don't You Play in Hell? was never going to unite critics, and even those who have responded well to its alternative charms seem to have their reservations with his latest. On one hand, The Telegraph's Robbie Collin, The Playlist's Oliver Lyttleton, and The Hollywood Reporter's Deborah Young sound like they had a blast, but the same certainly cannot be said for Variety's Justin Chang, who describes Why Don't You Play in Hell? as 'a self-deflating bore.'

Not had enough david Gordon Green this year? After Prince Avalanche, along comes Joe, starring Nicolas Cage and Tye Sheridan, Hollywood's luckiest actor (he's also quite talented, actually.) Oliver Lyttleton at The Playlist and Justin Chang at Variety both single out Cage's performance, but Chang does describe Sheridan as 'a bit bland.' One of the most positive responses comes from David Rooney, whose The Hollywood Reporter write-up is another to laud Cage. But somewhat unimpressed is HitFix's Guy Lodge, rating the film a C- and joining a long line of people who have used the word 'grim' in their review of the film.

A couple more reviews courtesy of The Hollywood Reporter from the festival. Emma Dante's A Street in Palermo was not especially enjoyed by Deborah Young, whereas Alessandro Nak's animation The Art of Happiness definitely was.

Earlier, I posted a link to Variety's review of Jonathan Glazer's Under the Skin, starring Scarlett Johansson and showing at Telluride. Scott Foundas' take on the film wasn't very good, so here's a second, a resolutely different opinion, from HitFix's Gregory Ellwood.

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