John Malkovich<\/a> and Sam Rockwell and director Martin McDonagh, whose dark comedy \u201cWild Horse Nine\u201d was embraced with a rousing 13-minute standing ovation inside the Lido\u2019s famed Palazzo del Cinema. But that didn\u2019t turn out to be the festival\u2019s biggest reception \u2014 later in the week, Pen\u00e9lope Cruz and Javier Bardem received 15.5 minutes of applause for their marriage-in-crisis drama \u201cBunker, and on Thursday, Gaza documentary \u201cNAZA\u201d was greeted with a massive 24.5 minutes, the longest of any recorded ovation at a major film festival. <\/p>\n\n\tAnd for all the complaints that Hollywood has basically abandoned film festivals, there was no shortage of celebrities to elicit big reactions from crowds. Robert Pattinson (\u201cPrimetime\u201d), Pen\u00e9lope Cruz and Javier Bardem (\u201cBunker\u201d) and Oasis\u2019 Liam and Noel Gallagher (\u201cDon\u2019t Look Back in Anger\u201d) were among the boldface names hoping to turn festival kudos into awards chatter or box office plaudits.<\/p>\n
\n\tAs Venice wraps up and festivalgoers take their last bites of pasta and sips of spritzes, here are takeaways from the floating city.<\/p>\n
\t\tGeorge\u00a0Clooney\u00a0Steals\u00a0the\u00a0Show\u00a0\t<\/p>\n
\n\tOnly Clooney could become the talk of the fest\u00a0without even having a movie to promote.\u00a0The A-lister traveled to Venice\u00a0not for a new project but to receive the prestigious Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement. (If that\u00a0has a\u00a0familiar\u00a0ring, Clooney\u00a0played a movie star who accepts a career honor in Italy in last year\u2019s \u201cJay Kelly.\u201d)\u00a0Indeed,\u00a0Clooney was\u00a0everywhere\u00a0this year, making\u00a0appearances at\u00a0a press conference, the opening-night ceremony and a master class. He had a lot to say about the power of art in times of turmoil, the importance of free\u00a0speech\u00a0and the fraying state of democracy. And he\u00a0found\u00a0time to teach festivalgoers a new term: \u201cThere\u2019s\u00a0a great word, kakistocracy, which is\u00a0a country run by the least qualified people.\u00a0I think maybe we\u00a0have a kakistocracy right now, but\u00a0we\u2019ll\u00a0get through it.\u201d We believe you, George!<\/p>\n
\t\tMalkovich\u00a0Storms\u00a0Into\u00a0the Oscar\u00a0Race\u00a0\t<\/p>\n
\n\tGet ready to see\u00a0a lot\u00a0of Malkovich. The beloved character actor is\u00a0drumming up\u00a0awards\u00a0buzz for \u201cWild Horse Nine,\u201d in which he plays an eccentric CIA agent reflecting on his life.\u00a0McDonagh has\u00a0a pretty good\u00a0track record\u00a0of getting his\u00a0actors from\u00a0the\u00a0Lido to the Academy Awards. Rockwell and Frances McDormand won Oscars for 2017\u2019s \u201cThree Billboards Outside Ebbing,\u00a0Missouri,\u201d while Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson were nominated for 2022\u2019s \u201cThe Banshees of\u00a0Inisherin,\u201d both of which bowed in Venice. Recognition feels long overdue for Malkovich, whose last nomination was\u00a0more than\u00a0three decades ago, for 1993\u2019s \u201cIn the Line of Fire.\u201d Matt Damon and Tom Cruise, you\u00a0might have some competition\u2026\u00a0<\/p>\n
\t\tPolitics,\u00a0Politics,\u00a0Politics\u00a0\t<\/p>\n
\n\tVenice artistic director Alberto Barbera\u00a0wasn\u2019t\u00a0exaggerating when he\u00a0called this year\u2019s lineup \u201cthe most political ever.\u201d\u00a0The 83rd edition was packed with films about hot-button\u00a0issues like\u00a0right-wing media barons\u00a0(\u201cInk\u201d), right-wing trolls (\u201cMusk\u201d), conflict in the Middle East (\u201cNAZA\u201d) and ICE (\u201cThey\u2019re Here\u201d).\u00a0Offscreen,\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0become de rigueur to probe actors and directors\u00a0at film festivals\u00a0about the state of the world\u00a0\u2014\u00a0a conversation that escalated at Berlin after jury president Wim Wenders said filmmakers should \u201cstay out of politics.\u201d Maggie Gyllenhaal, who is presiding over the Venice jury,\u00a0disagrees.\u00a0At the jury press\u00a0conference,\u00a0she\u00a0called movies \u201cfundamentally, unavoidably political\u201d and challenged people to \u201chear stories about the most corrupt, most perverse people.\u201d Her reasoning? \u201cIt opens up the opportunity to find empathy.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\t\tA Record-Breaking Embrace\t<\/p>\n
\n\tAudiences, for their part, seem just fine with politics at the forefront. \u201cNAZA,\u201d a devastating expos\u00e9 about the systems behind the Israeli military\u2019s remote killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, elicited the longest standing ovation in film festival history. (Or, at least since journalists began reporting on the trend.) The documentary was met with 24.5 minutes of applause, surpassing the ovation for last year\u2019s Gaza-set drama \u201cThe Voice of Hind Rajab\u201d and that of Guillermo Del Toro\u2019s \u201cPan\u2019s Labyrinth\u201d at Cannes in 2006, both of which clocked in at 22 minutes. Israeli directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor are two of the four filmmakers behind 2025\u2019s Oscar-winning doc \u201cNo Other Land.\u201d Given the warm reception for and timeliness of \u201cNAZA,\u201d will the duo find themselves back in the awards conversation?\u00a0<\/p>\n
\t\tWhere\u00a0Are\u00a0the\u00a0Women?\u00a0\t<\/p>\n
\n\tGyllenhaal may be jury president, but\u00a0she\u2019s\u00a0just as confused as everyone\u00a0else\u00a0about\u00a0the dearth of\u00a0women-directed films\u00a0in the main competition lineup. (She\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0select\u00a0the movies, after all.)\u00a0Only two titles up for\u00a0the\u00a0Golden Lion\u00a0\u2014\u00a0\u201cWoman Unknown,\u201d a drama by\u00a0May\u00a0el-Toukhy,\u00a0and \u201cNAZA,\u201d with Szor co-helming\u00a0\u2014\u00a0were directed by women. \u201cI guess it\u2019s finally become clear that men make better movies than women do,\u201d Gyllenhaal deadpanned at\u00a0her\u00a0press conference.\u00a0In all seriousness, though, she puts the blame on the powers that\u00a0be. \u201cThere\u2019s a systemic problem,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s harder for women to get films financed.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\tA Star Is Born\t<\/p>\n
\n\tLance Oppenheim, the 30-year-old director known for non-fiction work like \u201cSome Kind of Heaven\u201d and HBO\u2019s \u201cRen Faire,\u201d emerged as a major talent to watch. A24\u2019s \u201cPrimetime,\u201d his debut feature film, was one of the buzziest of the festival, scoring an enthusiastic seven minutes of applause as audiences embraced Pattinson\u2019s immersive performance as \u201cTo Catch a Predator\u201d host Chris Hansen. And that was just the fanfare on the Lido. The next day in Colorado, Oppenheim and Nathan Fielder unveiled their top-secret documentary about Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, titled \u201cYou Can See Everything,\u201d which became the talk of Telluride Film Festival. It\u2019s safe to say Oppenheim will be getting plenty of use out of his tuxedo over the next few months.<\/p>\n
\t\tFeeling Hot, Hot, Hot\t<\/p>\n
\n\tThis year\u2019s hottest accessory? Electronic and handheld fans. Temperatures on the Lido were sweltering, which left A-listers on the verge of overheating on the red carpet. At their respective premieres, Jack O\u2019Connell (\u201cInk\u201d) had to take off his thick Dunhill coat before blotting the moisture on his face and shirt; Parker Posey (\u201cWild Horse Nine\u201d) continuously waved herself with a decorative fan while mouthing about the brutal heat during the movie\u2019s long standing ovation; and Pattinson (\u201cPrimetime\u201d), wearing a suave all-white suit, dabbed the sweat off his forehead with napkins before posing for a cast photo. Stars, they\u2019re just like us!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Is Venice still vibrating from all the rounds of applause? It\u2019s become customary for audiences at the festival\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":612940,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[458,146,85,46,217807,2623],"class_list":["post-612939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-john-malkovich","tag-venice-film-festival"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=612939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612939\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/612940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=612939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=612939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=612939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}