The Playlist

Rome Review: Paul Verhoeven’s Partially Crowdsourced ‘Tricked’ Is A Short, Wickedly Enjoyable Soap Opera

By Jessica Kiang
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November 10, 2012 4:32 PM
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5 Comments

Festivals

It’s actually just the tip of an iceberg that encompasses an online component, mobile apps and a TV show in his native Netherlands, but Paul Verhoeven’s 50-minute-long “Tricked” (“Steekspel") provided what the Rome Film Festival so far has rather lacked: sheer entertainment value.

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Rome Review: 'Mental' With Toni Collette Is A Watchable Farce That Could Do With Going A Bit More Nuts

By Jessica Kiang
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November 10, 2012 12:53 PM
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4 Comments

Festivals

Showing today Out of Competition at the Rome Film Festival, “Mental” marks director P.J. Hogan’s (“My Best Friend’s Wedding,” “Confessions of a Shopaholic”) reunion with his “Muriel’s Wedding” star Toni Collette. The intervening years may have made them both older, but not necessarily wiser, as “Mental” seems content to rework the “Muriel’s Wedding” formula but with greater resources, like a now-established star and a supporting cast of notable Aussie actors (many of whom we had kind of forgotten were Australian) at its disposal. Both films take small-town Australia as their settings, both feature female characters marked by unpopularity and social inadequacy, and both are inspired by, and constantly reference, particular kitschy elements of pop culture -- ‘Muriel’ had Abba, while ‘Mental’ has “The Sound of Music.”

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Rome Review: Amos Poe’s ‘A Walk In The Park’ A Confused, Discordant And Ultimately Empty Ordeal

By Jessica Kiang
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November 10, 2012 10:48 AM
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6 Comments

Festivals

By the end of “A Walk in the Park” ’s 96 minutes, you will know a lot about Brian Fass. You will know of his various ailments, his depression, his relationship with his mother, the medication he is on, the mountain he nearly climbed, his electroshock therapy and the titular walk in the park that marked some sort of turning point in his life. What you will not know, however, is why on God’s green earth you should care. “A Walk in the Park,” from New York indie director Amos Poe premiered today In Competition at the XXI sidebar of the Rome Film Festival, which is a section dedicated to films of all lengths that “reflect the continuous reinvention of cinema in the contemporary audiovisual landscape.” Sad to report, this film reinvents the documentary portrait tradition into a thoroughly confounding and tiresome experience.

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Rome Review: Overlong & Incoherent, Takashi Miike's 'Lesson Of The Evil' Is Sadly More Bore Than Gore

By Jessica Kiang
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November 9, 2012 11:58 AM
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0 Comments

Festivals

The slasher picture, which is what we suppose this film eventually morphs into, relies on a certain novelty in how our successive victims are offed for us to retain interest -- there should be jumps, scares, the unexpected, the gruesome. But for all its (literal) buckets of blood and fetishistic slo-mo messy deaths ‘Lesson,’ enjoying its World Premiere at the Rome Film Festival, spends its entire last third in an orgy of murder that feels, of all things, rote.

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First Look: Dakota Fanning, Emile Hirsch & Stephen Dorff In 'The Motel Life'

By Kevin Jagernauth
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November 7, 2012 12:47 PM
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3 Comments

News

Nope, the festival season isn't over yet. The Rome Film Festival gets underway this weekend, and our Jessica Kiang will be on the ground fueled on espressos and cinemas to bring us coverage. But before that, we've got a few sneaks at some of the movies coming up, and the first is from "The Motel Life."

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8 Minute 'Django Unchained' Preview Planned For Lucca Movie; Rome Premiere Now Rumored For After Festival

By Kevin Jagernauth
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October 30, 2012 1:41 PM
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0 Comments

News

Of all the movies to come out before the end of the year, it seems movie bloggers are particularly fixated on Quentin Tarantino's "Django Unchained." Few films coming in the next couple of months have inspired so many tweets and even articles deciphering clues as to just when the press days in New York and Los Angeles are being scheduled, and the slow drip on the movie continues with a brief update on when and where more new footage will appear.

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New Films By James Franco, Paul Verhoeven, Peter Greenaway & Mike Figgis Added To The Rome Film Festival

By Kevin Jagernauth
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October 23, 2012 11:54 AM
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0 Comments

News

Even though Rome Film Festival head Marco Mueller had been promising two surprise additions to his line-up -- strongly hinting toward Quentin Tarantino's "Django Unchained" being one of them -- we're not sure any of these latest additions qualify as left field shockers. But for cinema buffs, they do promise an interesting time as they gear up for a week long run or so of movies.

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2 More "Surprise Films" Headed To Rome Film Festival, Artistic Director Heavily Hints At 'Django Unchained'

By Edward Davis
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October 10, 2012 6:43 PM
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6 Comments

News

Eagerly anticipated for several months now, because former Venice Film Festival head Marco Mueller had been playing up his desire to turn the Rome Film Festival -- which he is now the artistic director of -- into a major fall film festival player, the line-up was announced this AM. And in typical online fashion, there was minor griping about the absensce of hotly rumored titles like Quentin Tarantino's upcoming slave drama "Django Unchained," Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln" (which surprise-screened at the New York FIlm Festival), Gus Van Sant's "Promised Land," and Tom Hooper's "Les Misérables," among others.

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Roman Coppola's 'Charles Swan III' Leads Rome Film Festival Lineup

By Kevin Jagernauth
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October 10, 2012 8:06 AM
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1 Comment

News

So....that's it? With early rumors pointing to Quentin Tarantino's "Django Unchained," Johnnie To's "Drug War," Gabriele Muccino's Gerard Butler-starring comedy "Playing For Keeps," Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln," Gus Van Sant's "Promised Land," and Tom Hooper's "Les Misérables," former Venice Film Festival head Marco Mueller has unveiled this year's slate for his inaugural Rome Film Festival, and those expecting big stars and big-name movies will be disappointed.

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Robert Pattinson & Kristen Stewart Won't Attend The 'Breaking Dawn - Part 2' Premiere At The Rome Film Festival

By Kevin Jagernauth
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October 8, 2012 1:56 PM
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15 Comments

News

It's a bit of good news/bad news for Italian Robsten fans. The good news: the epic conclusion to the vampire story of our time, "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn -- Part 2" will make its world premiere at the Rome Film Festival. The bad news? Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart won't be there. That red carpet just shed a single tear. But is this a sign the 'Breaking Dawn -- Part 2' press jaunt will have significantly less participation by its two leads as they work their relationship out? While the studio has insisted plans will go forth as planned, one wonders...

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