Un homme, une femme, ont forgé la trame du hasard

Comme nos voix ba da ba da da da da da da
Chantent tout bas ba da ba da da da da da da
Nos cœurs y voient ba da ba da da da da da da
Comme une chance comme un espoir
Comme nos voix ba da ba da da da da da da
Nos cœurs y croient ba da ba da da da da da da
Encore une fois ba da ba da da da da da da
Tout recommence, la vie repart

Combien de joies
Bien des drames
Et voilà !
C'est une longue histoire
Un homme
Une femme
Ont forgé la trame du hasard.

Comme nos voix
Nos cœurs y voient
Encore une fois
Comme une chance
Comme un espoir.

Comme nos voix
Nos cœurs en joie
On fait le choix
D'une romance
Qui passait là.

Chance qui passait là
Chance pour toi et moi ba da ba da da da da da da
Toi et moi ba da ba da da da da da da
Toi et Toi et moi.

Venice Film Festival 2011 opens today

Brokeback Mountain (2005), Atonement (2007), The Hurt Locker (2008) and A Single Man (2009) are some of the latest years biggest Oscar contenders, which besides that share the fact they all premiered in Venice, Italy. In the very same pot are George Clooney's Good Night and Good Luck (2005) and Michael Clayton (2007), eventually making the bed for this year's opening film The Ides of March (written, directed, starred by him), and Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler (2008) and Black Swan (2010), the man who now steps for President of the Jury (succeeding Quentin Tarantino).

Like Cannes or Berlin, the other apexes of the European film festivals holly trinity, Venice promises the most anticipated movies of the year. However, there is this particular tone, this boiling anxiety, a specific timing that seems to set up the official start for betting on 2012 Academy's nominations. From the following highlights, let's expect some will conquer the world (in no particular order).


The Ides of March, written and directed by George Clooney, with himself, Ryan Goslin, Paul Giamatti, Philip Seymor Hoffman and Evan Rachel Wood.

Carnage, written and directed by Roman Polanski (based on a Yazmina Reza's play), with Christoph Waltz, Jodie Foster, John C. Reilley and Kate Winslet.

A Dangerous Method, written by Christopher Hamtpon, directed by David Cronenberg, with Keira Knightley, Vigo Mortensen and Michael Fassbender.

Alps, written by Giorgos Lanthimos and Efthymis Filippou, and directed by Giorgos Lanthimos.

Contagion, written by Scott Z. Burns, directed by Steven Soderbergh, with Matt Damon, Kate Winslet and Jude Law.

Shame, written by Abi Morgan and Steve McQueen, directed by Steve McQueen, with Carey Mulligan and Michael Fassbender.

Dark Horse, written and directed by Todd Solondz, with Justin Bartha, Selma Blair and Zachary Booth.

Tinker, Taylor, Soldier, Spy, written by Peter Straughan (based on a John le Carré's novel), directed by Tomas Alfredson, with Gary Oldman, Colin Firth and Tom Hardy.

Crazy Horse, documentary by Frederick Wiseman.

Chicken With Plums, written and directed by Vincent Paronnaud and Marjane Satrapi, with Isabella Rossellini, Golshifteh Farahani and Maria de Medeiros.

Sal, documentary by James Franco.

Wilde Salome, written and directed by Al Pacino (based on a Oscar Wilde play), starring himself and Jessica Chastain.

I'm Carolyn Parker, documentary by Jonathan Demme.

Wuthering Heights, written by Olivia Hetreed (based on a Emile Brontë novel) and directed by Andrea Arnold, with Kaya Scodelario, Nichola Burley and James Howson.

Faust, written and directed by Aleksandr Sokurov.

Damsels in Distress, written and directed by Whilt Stillman, with Greta Gerwig, Adam Brody and Analeigh Tipton.

Ryan Gosling edging into Hollywood's main event?

I've been an admirer since The Notebook (2004) and a fan since Blue Valentine (2010). Also in 2010 he made Carzy Stupid Love with Steve Carrel and Julianne Moore and All Good Things with Kirsten Dunst. I had thought, chiefly because of the low budget sad romantic film where he teamed up with Michelle Williams, which also earned him the "Most Unfair Academy's Non-Nomination", it was a matter of time before this guy would come up as one of Hollywood's most valuable treasures.


In 2011, Ryan Gosling has been gathering huge hype has he stars in two of the most awaited films of the year: Drive, one of the pieces that shook Cannes, nominated for the Golden Palm and winner of Best Director (Nicholas Winding Refn), warming up the band for upcoming commercial release; and The Ides of March, to open tomorrow the Venice Film Festival, written, directed and co-starred by George Clooney, known adept of political dramas.

How promising would you dare to bet Ryan's endeavors are going to turn out, from here on?

PS: The Ides of March running for movie poster of the year.

Um grande cineasta, um grande filme, um grande plano

Um muito obrigado ao João Palhares, do Cine Resort, pelo convite que me fez a participar na sua já longa iniciativa de escolher um plano e falar sobre ele. Aqui.

Scorsese, Monahan & DiCaprio; reunited for re-picking Dostoyevsky's story

After a considerable number of masterpieces, in 2007 Martin Scorsese ultimately earned the Academy's utter recognition, by winning the Oscar for Best Director with the successful thriller The Departed, also accolading Best Film, Best Editing and Best Adapted Screenplay for writer William Monahan in one of his first film writings. Among the very fine cast there was, as today it is all in all improbable not to be, Martin's fetish actor, Leonardo DiCaprio.


To the prospects of remaking this team I write with excitement, feeling to which I add a great expectation when acknowledged with the object of Paramount's contract with Scorsese and Monahan: regenerate Karel Reisz's The Gambler. The 1974 film is a bare adaptation of Fyodor Dostoyefsky's novel, telling the story of a literature professor who while inspiring his students to read the Russian's works, spirals into the gambling vice and drags his girlfriend.

DiCaprio is currently not under legal assignment but along the company's gawking, may we also check his recent prolific cooperation with the director: Gangs of New York (2002) The Aviator (2004), The Departed (2006), Shutter Island (2010), the abandoned The Wolf of Wall Street and the upcoming Sinatra (2013)

Great Dialogue: Mad Men 2.05

A little context. "Theme from A Summer Place", by Max Steiner, plays on the radio. It's night, a dark extra-marital trysted night, and the always groomed Don Draper drives dashing lascivious Bobbie Barret all the way down to her house in the beach, where she wants to have him in secret, while feeling the sand on her curved back. His family and her husband respectively wait for them, at home. The conversation has been going for a while now.

Also, this will probably make much more sense if you've watched Antonioni's La Notte.

Bobbie: I love bridges. I don't know if it is the drop or just because you get to see something disappearing behind you. Do you like bridges ?

Don: I do.

Bobbie: That's two things you like. What else ?

Don: Movies.

Bobbie: Yes ! Spartacus ? Have you seen the foreign ones ? Oh, so sexy.

Don: La Notte.

Bobbie: Yes ! Why is it so hard just to enjoy things ? God, I feel so good.

Don: I don't feel a thing.

Apple suing Samsung, Kubrick may solve it

After this month's launch of Samsung's new Galaxy tablet, the technological pomaceous fruit by Steve Jobs has already managed to temporarily block its sales in Australia and Europe, upon charges of "blatant copying" of Apple's iPad interface and design. However, when the two giants stepped into the US Court, the Koreans whisked the traditional loading of firearms and instead lit up a whole new fire: Apple did not invent the iPad; filmmaker Stanley Kubrick did.

This clip from 1968's 2001: Space Odyssey, was actually exhibited in the court of law, described as " (...) an overall rectangular shape with a dominant display screen, narrow borders, a predominately flat front surface, a flat back surface (which is evident because the tablets are lying flat on the table's surface), and a thin form factor". Mark Summerfield, intellectual property specialist lawyer, cautions that Samsung may have some ground here, arguing that "Generally science fiction is not legitimate prior art to a utility patent, because it does not provide an 'enabling disclosure (...)" but "For example, if I were to copy the Star Trek communicator as a novelty mobile phone, I would have no right to claim a monopoly in that design. I did not devise it myself (i.e. I am not the true designer/author).".

Submarine (2010), Don't avoid the expedition but don't forget the periscope

The ocean is six miles deep. The metaphor is that of the submarine, the downward lift of the underwaters, plunging through water pressure all the way down to the limits of the human organic tidiness, or shall I say, coherent and levelheaded arrangement of body parts. Bellow, immediate implosion. Richard Ayoade's directorial debut reflects on the journey of those vehicles, the voyages and its crews. However, the beauty of such relies not in the technical approach, for he allows that no more than a few seconds, but in the wit, the tenderness and the sincerity of his allegory in an unexpected vision of a teenager's coming of age dramas.

Oliver Tate, very nice performed by Craig Roberts, wonders how his class, his family and the US would react to his death, the first moment on what people think and how people worry about him. But then the film turns into what he thinks and how he worries about people: his parents in mid-life relationship crisis and his new girlfriend, Jordana Bevan. That is the way he crushes against his adolescence and those are the waters he swims in now, the dramas that shape the bridge to his eventual self-found identity.

From the book of Joe Dunthorne, Ayoade had the fine taste to pick the obvious teenage itches, the sexual doubts, explorations and try-outs, and tear them into the chaptered story, breeding a lovely sad-comical but totally natural path. He employs very interesting moving shots, extraordinary editing almost organically connected to Alex Turner and Andrew Hewitt's British love songs, self-aware funny nouvelle-vagued voice-over and wavers between a cheerful palette of colors and the coolness of the long-shot scenarios. Then the screenplay is so rich in original little moments, enjoyable quirky characters and a wonderful feeling of fluidness and truthfulness in their actions and relationships.

At some point of our lives, maybe we all go down there, diving in the pool, disappearing under the half-feet full bathtub, prompting an actual submarine. Down to that limit, this of an emotional disruption danger, eager to cross it, hopeful to overcome it. The inevitability of the insecure submersion against the unavoidable instinct of joyful emersion. Don't avoid the expedition but don't forget the periscope.