Dangerous Trailer/Venice Confirms/The Master at 65/Missing Pieces

Fassbender and Knightley in David Cronenberg's "A Dangerous Method" (via movieweb.com)

An interesting peek at the latest Cronenberg/Mortensen collaboration leads us off today...

"A DANGEROUS METHOD" HAS A TRAILER

The Internet was rife with links yesterday to the trailer for David Cronenberg's "A Dangerous Method" starring Viggo Mortensen (as Sigmund Freud), Michael Fassbender ( as Carl Jung) and Keira Knightley (as neither Freud or Jung, but a patient of Jung's).  I think the conventional wisdom remains that this film plays at Venice and then Toronto, but as I pointed out last week, there is at least some sentiment that it could additionally play Telluride (or T-ride rather than Venice).  Nevertheless, it looks fantastic.  If you haven't sen it, here's the link to one of the trailer's YouTube incarnations: (thanks to VisoTrailers and Twitter)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=664eq7BXQcM&feature=youtube_gdata&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

VENICE: CITY OF BEAUTY AND THE OBVIOUS

Yesterday, the web was also lousy with the news that George Clooney's "The Ides of March," would open that festival.  Today, the Venice Film Festival made it official.  Their online announcement is here:

http://www.labiennale.org/en/cinema/news/clooney.html

Eric Lavellee at Ioncinema seems relatively certain that "Ides" will then go to Toronto and tacitly implies that it's likely that the other Clooney awards bait, Alexander Payne's "The Descendants" will go Telluride then Toronto pitting the Oscar winning actor against himself.  The Ioncinema story is here:
http://ioncinema.com/news/id/6445/clooneys-ides-of-march-opens-venice-followed-by-tiff

For what it's worth, at this point, my guess is that is exactly what happens.

And again, as I said yesterday, it doesn't absolutely take "Ides" off the Telluride list of possibles, but it probably reduces the chances that we see it there.  The previous 5 years the Venice openers were: "Baaria," "Burn After Reading," "Atonement," "Black Dahlia," and "Seven Swords."  So, as you can see...it doesn't happen often.

"THE MASTER" VIA KUBRICK?

I've already gotten obsessive about Paul Thomas Anderson's "The Master" starring Philip Seymour Hoffman and Joaquin Phoenix (it's on the Telluride film 2012 wish list).  It reportedly is shooting as I write in Central and Northern California.  News the last day or so that Anderson is shooting (perhaps exclusively) in 65 mm and that he's using the same camera for that that Stanley Kubrick used for 2001: A Space Odyssey in 1967-68.  If true, that would make "The Master" a potential feast of cinematic eye candy.  Think about Anderson's cinematographic sensibility from "There Will Be Blood" with the use of that kind of equipment.  Check the report from the PT Anderson fan site Cigarettes and Red Vines:

http://cigsandredvines.blogspot.com/2011/06/master-shooting-entirely-in-65mm.html

"MISSING PIECES"

I've only dabbled at film criticism in this space (and the obligatory "reviews" I put on Rotten Tomatoes at the end of each Telluride fest) but, through a series of e-communication, I've agreed to give it a whirl.  Director/writer Kenton Bartlett's "Missing Pieces" will get the full "review" treatment (whatever that turns out to be) in this space sometime in the next few days.
"How do you justify this in a blog that purports to be about the Telluride Film Festival?" you ask.  Turns out that Bartlett and company have submitted it to Telluride for consideration for inclusion at TFF#38.  So, who knows, maybe readers of this space will get a jump on a film that unspools in the San Juans this Labor Day.

Looking forward to it.  Hope you are as well...