Venice starts Oscar season with horror, poison clouds and cannibals

Today they will 79th Venice International Film Festival opened. On the one hand, this is an excuse to eat the so-called cicchetti, delicious Venetian appetizers, and on the other hand, it is an excuse to watch films from morning to night. The oldest of all film festivals also marks the start of the Oscar season this year with a strong presence of the Netflix streaming service.

Moviepilot will again be reporting daily from the highlights on the Lido (and not just munching away), but here we present some of the most anticipated films in Venice’s programme.

The opening film comes from Netflix: Noah Baumbach’s White Noise

After Marriage Story, director Noah Baumbach returns to Netflix, bringing Adam Driver back with him. The Star Wars actor plays one this time Professor of Hitler Studies (a subject he invented himself), who is exposed to a cloud of poison with his blended family (including Greta Gerwig). Based on Don DeLillo’s classic post-modern novel, White Noise could be one of the big players in Oscar season. But the film also comes close to the meme factory Marriage Story?

Netflix Second: Blonde, the FSK-18 film about Marilyn Monroe with Ana de Armas

Bond star Ana de Armas and her Marilyn Monroe film Blond have been whispered about for years, and now the time has finally come. Equipped with an NC-17 rating, equal to our FSK-18, the adaptation of a novel by Joyce Carol Oates comes to Venice. Andrew Dominik (The Assassination of Jesse James), who has his own film labeled as disturbing and otherwise fuels the hype, is directing a feature film again after ten years.

Netflix for the third: After The Revenant, Alejandro González Iñárritu returns with Bardo

Bardo doesn’t just mean Bardo, of course, but Bardo (or False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths). Something else would have disappointed the director Alejandro González Iñárritu (Birdman etc.). In his comedy about a journalist and documentary filmmaker, the Mexican does without Hollywood stars and (presumably) bear attacks. Are on board with cameraman Darius Khondji (seven). great pictures guaranteed. Bardo will be released on Netflix later this year.

Cute cannibals: Timothée Chalamet is back in action with the Call Me By Your Name maker

The cannibal romance Bones & All reunites Timothée Chalamet with his Call Me by Your Name director Luca Guadagnino. Instead of peaches, however, human flesh should play on the menu this time. Chalamet, who was in Venice with Dune last year, and Lost in Space actress Taylor Russell are recording cannibalistic couple on a road trip through the USA. The ensemble also includes Chloë Sevigny, Mark Rylance and André Holland. The score lets stop, the composed namely Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.

Brendan Fraser’s Comeback: The Whale by Darren Aronofsky

5 years after mother! Darren Aronofsky returns to the director’s chair for The Whale. The film adaptation of a play by Samuel D. Hunter about a 700-pound man who killed the relationship with his teenage daughter kitten sounds like classic body cinema à la Aronofsky. Venice will show whether the mummy star Brendan Fraser can really hope for an Oscar on the way to his comeback. In any case, Joaquin Phoenix did it in 2019 with Joker.

Western entertainment with 2 characters: Christoph Waltz and Willem Dafoe in Dead for a Dollar

Christoph Waltz sat on the Venice Jury in 2018, this time starring out of competition in Hollywood veteran Walter Hill’s new film Dead for a Dollar (48 Hours Only). In it he plays one again after Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained bounty hunter, but this time his paths cross with Willem Dafoe, whom he once put in jail. Rachel Brosnahan from The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is also involved.

Suburban thriller idyll: Don’t Worry, Darling with Florence Pugh and Harry Styles

The gossip about a possible quarrel between director Olivia Wilde (Booksmart) and leading actress Florence Pugh (Midsommar) as well as their secret messages on Instagram in the past few weeks almost made us forget that we are looking at a brand new film with a promising cast. Starring alongside Pugh is Dunkirk supporting actor Harry Styles, but of course I’m talking about the likes of Chris Pine, Gemma Chan, Nick Kroll and KiKi Layne cavorting in the ensemble cast of the story of a housewife who Doubts about her perfect suburban life and most importantly her husband’s real job.

Unique cinema return: Cate Blanchett lures Todd Field to the director’s chair after 16 years

The teaser trailer for Tár, seen above, says everything and nothing about the fictional music biopic, but promises one thing: an idiosyncratic work about an idiosyncratic artist. Cate Blanchett plays Lydia Tár, one of the great composers and conductors of her time, who was the first woman to conduct a German symphony orchestra. Also present are Nina Hoss (Phoenix) and Noémie Merlant (Portrait of a Young Woman on Fire).

Ti West horror prequel: Mia Goth returns as Pearl

Ti West makes us happy twice this year. First came the Texas Chainsaw Massacre homage X, now he is presenting its prequel film Pearl in Venice. In it, Mia Goth reprises the role of the same name, only this time with less old-age makeup. Set near the end of World War I in 1918, Pearl recounts the origins of the murderous boarding house featured in the first film. This time, West cited melodrama maestro Douglas Sirk and giallo legend Mario Bava as inspiration.

See and Die From Bruges Directed by Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson in The Banshees of Inisherin

Martin McDonagh’s second film saw Bruges… and die? made one of the more original gangster movies of the new millennium. For The Banshees of Inisherin he brings back Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson, who play two longtime friends, in front of the camera. When Farrell’s character ends their friendship, it has unforeseen consequences. McDonagh has already had good experiences in Venice. In 2017 he introduced Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri at the Lido.

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