The world’s oldest film festival, Venice is set to wrap up on Saturday. As usual, a number of important films made their premieres there, and we’ll summarize the reaction for a few of the most highly anticipated.
George Romero’s latest political diatribe, disguised as a zombie flick, won praise from critics and audiences alike. Extremely gory, it focuses on two feuding Irish families, who have differing ideas on whether to kill or imprison zombies. Survival of the Dead hasn’t yet received its stateside release date.
With The Informant!, Steven Soderbergh returns to the true-story formula which won him a ton of awards with Erin Brokovich. Matt Damon, who gained 30 pounds for the roll of whistleblower Mark Whitacre, had audiences at Venice laughing, though critics’ reviews were mixed — some for, some against.
We love Werner Herzog, but when this project — a re-imagining of Abel Ferrara’s cult 1992 hit — was announced, we were skeptical. Xzibit and Nicholas Cage aren’t necessarily at the top of our “favorite actors” list. And then it turns out Herzog has never even seen the original (something which rightly irritated Ferrara). Audiences were turned off by Cage’s hysterical overacting, and most reviews have been pretty poor.
Romero > Soderbergh > Herzog? Life is full of surprises.
Herzog is God. This, though, highly dissapoints me. How could he not see the original? Has he gone senile? motherfuckin xzibit?
Comeon Herzog. You know better than that.
I’m pretty skeptical about BAD LIEUTENANT but I have read some positive reviews, even a report that it recieved a standing ovation at a Venice screening.
Even if SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD is good, Romero needs to move on from his zombie bullshit.
Herzog’s Bad Lieutenant is not that bad.