Venice 2009: A preamble

I'm flying to Venice this afternoon and will be on the Lido until next Wednesday reporting on the 66th Venice Film Film Festival for this site and a couple of others, including Premiere.com.

Unfortunately the press office will be closed by the time I arrive today, meaning I'll miss out on Friday's early morning screening of Todd Solondz’s Life During Wartime, but you can't see everything, and my first film should be John Hillcoat's much anticipated adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's The Road starring Viggo Mortensen.

The festival officially kicked off last night with a gala screening of Giuseppe Tornatore’s Baaria which has received lukewarm reviews at best, Variety calling it "Overblown in every sense, [the film] boasts large sets and extras by the thousands, but the vet helmer seems to have forgotten how to develop a scene, let alone a character. Awash in phony nostalgia, cheap sentimentalism and puffed-up orchestrations, the pic could lure in locals with an advertising blitz, but offshore prospects don’t look good."

Looking at the press schedule, it seems I've already missed both screenings of [REC]2 but the next few days' screenings should include Testuo The Bullet Man, Werner Herzog's Bad Lieutenant Port of Call New Orleans, Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story and a fair few others.

Ciao for now.