The Venice Film Festival kicked off last night, with George Clooney's fourth film as director, The Ides of March, kicking things off in style.
The political thriller has a truly stunning cast, with Ryan Gosling the lead, Clooney in a supporting role, and Paul Giamatti playing a rival campaign manager - all are garnering strong early reviews. The film itself is stopping short of "raves" - looking at two main trade papers The Hollywood Reporter and Variety. Both mention how good the cast are, but criticize it for, it seems, not being political enough and turning into a more conventional Hollywood thriller. Clooney would've been heavily slated had he made it more political, as he's a marked man by the right wing conservatives in America for his political views. So he's really damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t. It opens here on October 24th and I really can't wait to see it.
Clooney also has Oscar contender The Descendants, from Sideways director Alexander Payne, due for release in the coming months. Gosling has the utterly brilliant crime flick Drive next month, as well as the romantic comedy drama, Crazy, Stupid, Love.
