Venice Film Festival

OMG could George Clooney and Brad Pitt please stop being so charming/funny/arch whatever they are? At a Venice Film Festival press conference today promoting the new Coen brothers movie Burn After Reading, the irrepressible duo found themselves answering the same questions we swear they did last year, or at some other press thing.

Reporter to Brad Pitt: Will Clooney ever settle down?

Clooney to reporter: ''I am so surprised to hear that question. That is honestly the first time I have been asked that...I am getting married and having a child today.''

Pitt then told Clooney that he could share his own six-child brood, since he'd "have two more by next year.  read more »

The Venice Film Festival's program was announced this morning and will include a few American films including Darren Aronofsky’s The Wrestler (starring Mickey Rourke), Jonathan Demme’s Rachel Getting Married (about an ex-model returning home after ten years in rehab), Kathryn Bigelow’s Hurt Locker and Joel and Ethan Coen’s Burn After Reading. That's a relatively light line-up from Hollywood at the fest's 65th year, with more Italian and Japanese animation movies taking the spotlight. Reuters notes that last year, U.S. and British films dominated the lineup, with nearly half of the films in the main competition. This year, there are only five. The Burning Plain, a drama starring Charlize Theron and Kim Basinger and directed by Guillermo Arriaga, is also in the competition. So is Vegas: Based on a True Story from Amir Naderi. The Coen Brothers' movie is screening out of competition.

“One of the effects of the strike is that so many releases of movies that would have been right for Venice have been pushed by the studios to December, or even later,” Festival director Marco Mueller said at a packed presser in Rome’s Excelsior Hotel on the Via Veneto, according to Variety.

A full list of Venice films are listed below, courtesy of Variety.  read more »

The Coen brothers' follow-up to No Country for Old Men is headed to the City of Water this summer, according to the Associated Press. Their film, the spy comedy Burn After Reading starring George Clooney, John Malkovich and Brad Pitt, will open this year's Venice Film Festival on Aug. 27. Not ready to book your plane tickets yet? How about some more details about the script. Mr. Pitt is sporting a wacky flat-top hairdo for his role as a goofball personal trainer who finds a manuscript written by Mr. Malkovich's character, an alcoholic former CIA agent. The gym buffster plans to profit from the memoir and Mr. Clooney plays a supporting role as a Treasury agent who gets caught up in the whole affair.