'The Ides of March' Debuts in Venice with Middling to Favorable Reviews
My first batch of official Oscar predictions are coming soon
I am piecing together my Best Picture predictions for debut either tomorrow or this Friday, September 2, and one piece of news that will definitely play a role in the rankings is today's premiere of George Clooney's The Ides of March, which opened the 68th Venice Film Festival ahead of its October 7 release.
I will be seeing the film on September 8 at the Toronto International Film Festival so I did my best to merely skim the first reviews of the film and not take away too much and have included select snippets for inclusion here. You can click on the links if you're interested in getting more information, but from what I was able to garner from the opinions, it sounds like Ryan Gosling is again a star and that the film is quick stylish and slick, but perhaps a bit too full of itself. Phedon Papamichael's "intense" camerawork and Alexandre Desplat's "evocative" score seem to be getting high marks along with the performances, but the overall impression the film seems to be a "shrug" as Variety's Justin Chang puts it.
Here are the snippets…
Guy Lodge at In Contention writes:
Clooney still can't resist overcooking some circular ironies to the point where they aren't ironic anymore, and Alexandre Desplat's jittery, flute-heavy score and Phedon Papamichael's over-underlit cinematography (Clooney's evidently a more original stylist with a Robert Elswit by his side) crank the dramatics a little more eagerly than the script does.
Oliver Lyttelton at The Playlist writes:
[It] moves along at a fair old clip, thanks to Stephen Mirrione's typically taut editing, and another fine, surprising score from Alexandre Desplat. This U.K. based writer is admittedly something of a U.S. politics junkie (we pretty much know "The West Wing" off by heart. All of it. Test us), but we had a blast. Whether wider audiences enjoy it as much remains to be seen (although we're fairly sure that it’s early anointment as an Oscar front-runner will disappear quickly), but it at least happily confirms that Clooney the director is here to stay.
Deborah Young at The Hollywood Reporter opens her review with:
Had writer/director George Clooney and his co-scripters Grant Heslov and Beau Willimon injected The Ides of March with the intimate political conviction that made Good Night, and Good Luck a critical standout and a frontrunner for liberal patrons, the exit polls would be more positive on this political thriller juggling idealism and corruption with fairly predictable results. Not just its softer narrative and dingy Midwestern setting but its structural lack of heroics is likely to keep the popular vote down on Ides, which can in any case bank on tense pacing and a superb cast, lead by a ruthlessly idealistic Ryan Gosling, to win festival votes beginning with its Venice bow.
Justin Chang at Variety writes:
Ho-hum insights into the corruption of American politics are treated like staggering revelations in The Ides of March. [...] Working with Willimon and Good Night, and Good Luck writing-producing partner Grant Heslov, Clooney has seized every opportunity to pepper the material with political in-jokes and references designed to make presumably left-leaning viewers chuckle and groan in self-recognition; the right wing, for its part, is clearly not one of the targeted quadrants here. Yet as it sneers at the inherent venality of politics and despairs over the gulf between stump-speech promises and meaningful political change, The Ides of March wallows in its own superiority to the point where its cynical pose looks almost naive.
David Gritten for Thompson on Hollywood adds:
[This] political thriller fits Venice like a silk glove. It's smart, sophisticated and politically astute, written with a shrewd intelligence and featuring stars (Clooney himself, Ryan Gosling, Evan Rachel Wood and Marisa Tomei) who offer Hollywood glamour while engaging in work that's more than a cut above routine Hollywood product. The Ides of March also offers two terrific supporting performances from Grade-A character actors (Philip Seymour Hoffman, Paul Giammatti), doing the kind of work that makes European critics and audiences sit up and take notice.
Stay tuned as my first Oscar predictions will be arriving shortly, beginning with Best Picture and continuing with Actor, Actress, the Supporting categories and Director before I make my way to Toronto on September 7 for my stay from September 8-15. In the meantime, here is the trailer for The Ides of March once again and you can get more information on the film right here.
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Being a film about politics, ‘The Ides Of March’ will be a very important movie.
I don’t understand why actors like Tom Cruise or Johnny Depp don’t do movies like this.
Tom Cruise did, it was called Lions for Lambs
…and "Lions for Lambs" was AWFUL!
I think that George Clooney is taking himself too seriously these days. He is much more bearable when he's at least self-effacing in movies like Men Who Stare at Goats and every Coen brothers movie he has been in.
One thing's for certain now, with the seemingly cold reception for Ides of March, Deathly Hallows Part 2 will move further into the race.
It's not only 'The Ides of March', but also 'Carnage', another high-profile Oscar-bait film that didn't impress as much as expected. Its reception was definitely positive, but a bit underwhelming. Its only chances are nominations in the acting categories and for Screenplay.
Meanwhile, 'The Ides of March' was received with very lukewarm and average reviews. From what I've understood, it's an alright film, where no actor shines, they all play their parts well, the story is interesting, but that's it. Nothing BP-worthy. I think we can assume that it's no longer going to be a BP frontrunner and a nomination will be its only chance, along with a possible nomination for Screenplay. I don't see any acting or directing nods at all.
Which makes me wonder about The Tree of Life, Midnight in Paris, Deathly Hallows Part 2 and The Help's chances which seem to increase even more. I expect these 4 films to be the respective 'inception, The Kids Are All Right, Toy Story 3, Winter's Bone' of 2010, 4 films that were released in the first 8 months of that year and managed to gather nods in many categories. I definitely don't underestimate them. Midnight will score Screenplay and possibly Supporting Actress nods, The Tree of Life will score Picture, Cinematography, Visuals and Sound nods (or even Directing), Hallows will score Picture, Cinematography, Art Direction, Sound, Score, Makeup and Visuals, while The Help will score acting nods for Octavia Spencer and Viola Davis. These are my predictions as of now. Also, Brad Pitt and Alan Rickman definitely hold well in the Supporting category, above Christopher Plummer-whose film will most likely be completely forgotten-and slightly behind Christoph Waltz's turn in Carnage which seems to be a really great performance. The Ides of March gentlemen seem to have offered nothing special at all in the film.