The Venice Film Festival has just unveiled its line-up, and while there are some inevitable omissions – I'd like to have seen Never Let Me Go, Neds, The Social Network and, of course, Tree Of Life – it's a very strong line-up, surprisingly heavy on Asian action fare (perhaps to appease Jury president Quentin Tarantino). Rather than go through the whole list, I've picked out 22 films that jumped out at me on first glance...
IN COMPETITION
1) Black Swan (Darren Aronofsky, US)
Aronofsky has seen both sides of the Venice experience, having gone through hell on The Fountain and walked away with the Golden Lion for The Wrestler. So it's very bold of him to compete again, and I'll be interested to see which way he's gone with this psychological drama about two rival ballerinas (Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis). I've purposely not read too much about this, even though there's a welter of stuff on the web about it, but I'm intrigued by the casting of Winona Ryder, and I wonder too if, as he did with Rourke, Aronofsky will be able to rehabilitate her.
2) Somewhere (Sofia Coppola, US)
This was a no-brainer for Venice; Lost In Translation launched at the festival at a time when it was in danger of losing its way, and it helped to re-establish its place as a launchpad for awards season movies. I'm a little nervous that Somewhere (pictured) could turn out to be Lost In Translation 2, since it's another odd-duck buddy movie in which a Hollywood star (Stephen Dorff, cast against type, ba-dum!) reconnects with his daughter (Elle Fanning). But Coppola has a distinctive voice, excellent taste in music, and, for me at least, it's one of the must-sees of the line-up.
3) Promises Written In Water (Vincent Gallo, US)
The return of Vincent Gallo is always a time for rejoicing, and his first film as director since 2003's The Brown Bunny – a much, much better film than its critics insist – is nothing if not intriguing, charting the friendship between a dying woman and a mortician. “I don’t care if it ever gets released, I don’t care if anyone ever likes it,” Gallo has said, which may be just as well. His electrifying presence on the Lido means we'll definitely have plenty to write about.
4) Road To Nowhere (Monte Hellman, US)
Monte Hellman hasn't released a movie in my lifetime as a journalist, so I'm very excited to see this. Hellman's Two-Lane Blacktop (1971), an unashamedly existential road movie, is one of my all-time favourite films, but this seems to be a more self-reflexive story in which a filmmaker gets caught up in a crime. Advance word suggests The Last Movie meets Mulholland Drive, which is exciting.
5) Sad Trumpet Ballad (Alex de La Iglesia, Spain/France)
I haven't been following De Iglesia's career much since his 90s heyday with Accion Mutante, Day Of The Beast and Perdita Durango, but, if I get a chance, I'll check out this circus-set drama, which the director himself describes as “a grotesque tragedy of comedic horror” and, like Black Swan, features a brace of rival performers (in this case, two clowns).
6) Barney's Version (Richard J Lewis, Canada)
Dustin Hoffman stars in this intriguing adaptation of Mordecai Richler's 1997 novel, in which a politically incorrect TV producer reflects on his life, his past wives and a murder trial (if it's faithful to the book, that is). An intriguing supporting cast includes Paul Giamatti and Rosamund Pike.
7) 13 Assassins (Takashi Miike, Japan)
Miike is pretty hit-and-miss these days, but, if there's time, I'll give this a go. The setting is feudal Japan, which is bound to lead to some pretty inventive blood-letting as the assassins of the title, all 13 of them, gang up for a suicide mission to kill off an oppressive overlord. Judging by the trailer, it's a handsomely mounted period epic, and could even be Miike's most respectable film to date.
8) Meek's Cutoff (Kelly Reichardt, USA)
I missed Reichardt's last two movies, Wendy And Lucy and Old Joy, so if I like what I see here, I'll go back and check up on them. The former film's star, Michelle Williams, plays the lead in this 19-century wagon-train drama alongside a diverse cast that includes Paul Dano, Shirley Henderson and Bruce Greenwood. Williams is fast establishing herself as one of American cinema's best young actors, and this, after the upcoming Blue Valentine, might well be the film that finally makes her.
9) Miral (Julian Schnabel, USA/France/Italy/Israel)
Schnabel's follow-up to The Diving Bell And The Butterfly has been the subject of a lot of buzz since its non-appearance in Cannes. From the synopsis – the film concerns the founding of an orphanage in post-WW2 Jerusalem and the life of one of its protégées – it's pretty clear that Schnabel's film is potential Oscar bait, and advance word is that Slumdog Millionaire breakout star Freida Pinto steals the show as the title character.
10) Norwegian Wood (Tran Anh Hung, Japan)
Haruki Murakami's novel, about a man haunted by a friend's suicide, as adapted by the French-Vietnamese Tran, promises to be one of the festival's most commercial dramas. The trailer, scored with The Beatles' track, suggesting the rare-as-hen's-teeth blessing of the Apple Corps, promises something light and romantic with a melancholy twist, along the lines of Brokeback Mountain.
11) Detective Dee And The Mystery Of Phantom Flame (Tsui Hark, China)
Tang Dynasty. Tsui Hark. Bit of wuxia. What's not to like?
12) Drei (Tom Tykwer, Germany)
After flopping slightly with the English-language dramas Perfume and The International, Run Lola Run director Tykwer – who I think provided the German translation of Inglorious Basterds for Jury president Quentin Tarantino – may feasibly be trying to recharge his batteries here by making a film in his native tongue. The premise is simple – a young heterosexual couple both fall in love with the same man – but what's selling it to me is that one of the stars is Devid Striesow, who you may have seen in The Counterfeiters. Keep an eye on him; this guy is SO a Bond villain in waiting...
OUT OF COMPETITION
1) The Town (Ben Affleck, US)
It might seem a bit grand to say so but I thought Affleck's last film, Gone Baby Gone, was so close to greatness it was scary. So I have high hopes for The Town, another Boston-set thriller (this one based on Chuck Hogan's crime novel Prince Of Thieves), which stars Affleck as a bank robber who romances the unwitting bank teller (Rebecca Hall) he recently held hostage during a raid.
2) I'm Still Here (Casey Affleck, US)
Casey Affleck's doc – or is it a mock-doc? – about Joaquin Phoenix's meltdown a couple of years ago looks like being one of the festival's key talking points. With Affleck now in the news, facing sexual harassment claims from one of the film's producers, it seems dead-set to court controversy, especially from those who allege the film is a monumentally staged set-up. I literally can't wait.
3) The Last Movie (Dennis Hopper, US)
Presumably screening as a tribute to the late star, The Last Movie really should be seen to be believed. Rarely screened in the UK, it's a cult movie that befits its reputation. Shot at the height of Hopper's druggy madness in 1971, it's a paranoid, autobiographical and extremely experimental study of a film shoot going horribly wrong in Peru. It should be interesting to compare it with Monte Hellman's film (above), and it'll be a treat to see it on the big screen.
4) Machete (Robert Rodriguez, US)
Rodriguez usually delivers the goods, and the director assured me a few weeks ago that he had worked backwards from the Grindhouse fake trailer to make sure the feature-length version delivered all the same beats. Danny Trejo plays, as the tagline has it, A Pissed Off Mexican Out To Settle a Score, while Robert De Niro, Lindsay Lohan and Don Johnson add jaw-dropping support.
5) A Letter To Elia (Martin Scorsese and Kent Jones, US)
A new Scorsese doc is always an eye-opener, mostly because they say as much about the filmmaker as their subject, but I'm especially keen to see what Scorsese has to say about his old friend Elia Kazan in this hour-long film. Will it address the director's shameless snitching to HUAC back in 1952, or is it just a tribute to an old friend? I think I know, but I'm hoping to be surprised.
6=) The Child's Eye 3D (Danny and Oxide Pang, China/Hong Kong)
6=) The Shock Labyrinth 3D (Takashi Shimizu, Japan)
I'm a sucker for shlocky 3D, and even though I'm not expecting much from either of these films – Shock Labyrinth died a death in Japan, while the Pangs' entry is the fourth in the Eye franchise, so how good can it be? – it will be interesting to see how their use of the medium compares. Look, I stayed to the end of My Bloody Valentine, all right, just to see what was at the end of the mine...
8) Legend Of The Fist: The Return Of Chen Zen (Andrew Lau, China/Hong Kong)
The occasion of Bruce Lee's 70th birthday is the spurious logic for the screening of this film, the third in a series begun with Lee in 1972 with Fist Of Fury. It looks to be a fun, Green Hornet-type affair, and the trailer is full of kung fu and explosions, which, let's face it, you don't often get in Cannes.
9) The Tempest (Julie Taymor, US)
I'll be curious to see what Taymor has done with The Tempest, since Peter Greenaway's version – Prospero's Books – was great: both faithful and visually stunning. I couldn't watch Taymor's last film, the deeply ghastly Across The Universe, and I'm not yet convinced by the stunt-casting wisdom of having Helen Mirren play Prospero, but I'm nothing if not open-minded...
10) Reign Of Assassins (John Woo and Chao Bin-Su, China/Taiwan/Hong Kong)
Venice is pretty awash with chop-socky this year, and Reign Of Assassins is another martial-arts period piece, suggesting a mixture of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and, bizarrely, A History Of Violence, since it stars Michelle Yeoh as a trained assassin who puts her former life behind her and tries to set up a peaceful new life as a civilian. Woo only takes a co-director credit on this, so it'll be fun to see how many of his usual hallmarks (slow-mo, doves, two-handed weaponplay) creep in.
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