Writing for Variety, Leslie Felperin:

By returning to his roots, professional gadfly Michael Moore turns in one of his best films with “Capitalism: A Love Story.” Pic‚Äôs target is less capitalism qua capitalism than the banking industry, which Moore skewers ruthlessly, explaining last year‚Äôs economic meltdown in terms a sixth-grader could understand. That said, there‚Äôs still plenty here to annoy right-wingers, as well as those who, however much they agree with Moore‚Äôs politics, just can‚Äôt stomach his oversimplification, on-the-nose sentimentality and goofball japery. Whether “Capitalism” matches “Fahrenheit 9/11″ or underperforms like Sicko” will depend on how much workers of the world are ready to unite behind the message.

This film will open at a time when Americans are most sharply divided. Might I say with full disclosure as a liberal that I have never seen such a radical right emerge in such a public forum as I’ve seen lately on CNN with the crazies coming out of the woodwork to attack Obama and anything he tries to do, but especially on the subject of health care, of course. To that degree, Moore’s film could prove pivotal both as fodder for right-wingers frothing at the mouth about “the evils of socialism” and for people who are kind of sick of the way the corporations have a choke hold on our nation.¬†

Guardian after the cut.

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Indiewire’s Anne Thompson:

Writer-director Jason Reitman (and obsessive airline mile collector) played the crowd like a pro, hoping that the movie would live up to their expectations. He didn’t need to worry. The director, who debuted Juno here two years ago at the same theater, delivers a winner.

And our friend in Telluride emailed to say that it’s a perfect role for Clooney. It should be mentioned, though, that one hopes the hype does not kill the movie. From what I’m reading, it is not Slumdog Millionaire – and it won’t be an across-the-board crowdpleaser. It sounds, despite some of the bloggasms, like a more thoughtful, agitated look on the world – more akin to Thank You for Smoking than Juno. I say this not to downplay the positive reaction, but to temper it with “this isn’t going to be Juno,” which, in the end, helps keep the hype in check.¬† Also, a bummer for me, and any movie in the Oscar run, is when the hype soars too high for the film to ever match it. That wasn’t the case for me with District 9, and eventually Inglourious Basterds. So perhaps it won’t be the case for this. It is always a problem, though, when early reactions to a film that hasn’t been released are done and done on the web — if we’re already at the top there is nowhere to go but down. Even when I’ve loved a film at a screening and come here to tell you all about it, I always prepare myself for the inevitable “it wasn’t that” reaction. We can’t put the genie back in the bottle, however, and it will be what it will be.

Friends,

Well, this is it!

Tonight, at the Venice Film Festival, I will premiere my new movie, “Capitalism: A Love Story.” After 16 months of production, I am proud to present this work of mine to you. It is unlike anything you’ll see on the silver screen this year.

Twenty years ago this week I premiered my first film, “Roger & Me.” Tonight, my new film will premiere at the oldest film festival in the world, the Venice Film Festival in Venice, Italy. It is an incredible honor they’ve bestowed on us, and we feel very privileged to be able to present “Capitalism: A Love Story” tonight in Venice.

Michael Moore’s letter on his website.

Early review from the AFP:

Asserting that Americans have been brainwashed to believe that capitalism is “compatible with God’s law,” Moore runs black and white footage of hypnotists using twirling spirals to mesmerise their patients.

“I must have missed that part of the Bible when Jesus embraced capitalism,” says the filmmaker, followed by a sequence using scenes from Franco Zeffirelli’s “Jesus of Nazareth” in which the Son of God’s lines are dubbed with him giving investment advice.

Getting semi-serious, Moore recalls that before Reaganomics, the wealthiest Americans were taxed at 90 percent, people had four weeks’ vacation and their pensions were untouchable.

(click for full size)

When he’s not risking his life as a cable car critic, Alex Billington at First Showing featured this exclusive first look at The Fantastic Mr. Fox. It hit the web the same day as The Road and Where the Wild Things Are, but I held off posting because we were already saturated with coolness.

Wow. It looks amazing (thanks to Sister for sending):

Telluride – Up in the Air Reactions Part 1 from /Film on Vimeo.

Here are three blogger dudes – Quint from AICN, Peter Sciretta from Slash Film and Alex from First Showing. Watch part two here.

Earlier: A few blogger reviews have trickled in and so far there is much to celebrate. Alex Billington at First Showing says it’s everything he wanted it to be:

Not only is it Reitman’s most personal film to date, but it’s his most polished as well. I have so many things to mention about it that I just wanted to get down my thoughts before they fade away. It really hit with me on a personal level as well, which is why I loved it so much.

And as the readers have already pointed out, Kris Tapley was over-the-moon.

Reports are trickling in that Up in the Air will kind of be the surprise screening at Telluride – kind of, because it’s not really a surprise. If it is very good it will Slumdog it all the way through Toronto and onward to the Oscar race. This is one that several bloggers have glommed onto early – I worry for the over-hype so I’ve kept my trap shut on it, not that I know anything. Said bloggers have rumbled about this test screening, and that. So the “buzz” is supposed to be good – and it must be, otherwise it wouldn’t have a surprise launch in Telluride. We have a pal on the ground out there who should give us an impression of the film as occasion arises. Jason Reitman, though, is 2 for 2 — now he’s ready to hit the homer.

Pic above posted on Reitman’s Twitter.

So many posters wall-papering the main page in the same afternoon? When they’re all this good, I think it’s justified. (We’ll carpet the column with these beauties for a day or so before trimming them back to a size that doesn’t crowd out less breathtaking news.)
Thanks to Bill for the tip.

(click to enlarge)

As gracefully framed in their own way as the equally potent poster for The White Ribbon.

UPDATE: Now a matching set, with the flipside of the cataclysm coin. “Call it, friendo.”

The sequel to everybody’s favorite cult movie from college (almost as popular for repeated replays as The Big Lebowski — though there was a distinct division between which dorm audiences would be lighting their farts during which movie).

Thanks to Jon Pace (for the link, not the methane memories.)

Is it time to add Basterds to the Best Pic tracker, yay or nay?

Via Coming Soon, the poster for Werner Herzog’s remake of The Bad Lieutenant, featuring Nicholas Cage as Dr. Mabuse. Costarring Val Kilmer, Eva Mendes, and Brad Dourif, the film premieres at TIFF, so we’ll soon see if this update is genius or folly.

Subtitled ‘Port of Call New Orleans,’ let’s hope there aren’t plans to reassign the Bad Lieutenant to cities across the country like the CSI franchise. This photo does Nick Cage no favors by tinting his lips a sickly shade of dried slug, but then, it doesn’t like he’s doing himself any favors by managing to overact on the poster itself. He’s got the Harvey Keitel pickled bristle down pat. Though instead of threatening, that glare looks more like the peevish mope Keitel played in Sister Act. We ran the red band promo back in May, but watching it again I still wonder if everybody got the memo specifying whether this is supposed to be drama or comedy. Maybe that’s the fun of it? God knows the original was humorless enough.

The Time Online says, “the rumourmongers were wrong ‚Äî Hillcoat‚Äôs vision is forthright and brutal.”

Post-apocalyptic cinema — from Mad Max to Twelve Monkeys to Children of Men — has proved time and again that there is nothing that production designers relish more than a hellish dystopian future to fire their enthusiasm. But even by the striking standards of the genre, Chris Kennedy’s work as production designer is remarkable. Kennedy (who previously collaborated with Hillcoat on The Proposition) appears to have harvested all the ravaged, gnarled scrap metal in the Midwest and deposited it in twisted piles of automotive agony in every shot. The film is almost entirely composed of shades of suicidal grey. The monochrome is punctuated by flashbacks to a life before that are infused with the kind of saturated colours that now exist only in dreams.

ScreenDaily (via Craig Kennedy) praises the art direction, as well:

As heartbreaking on screen as it was on Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer-prize winning pages, The Road is an almost unbearably sad film, beautifully arranged and powerfully acted – a tribute to the array of talents involved. There is so much in this picture, from dread, horror, to suspense, bitterly moving love, extraordinary, Oscar-worthy art direction and a desperate lead performance from Viggo Mortensen which perfectly illustrates the wrenching desperation of parental love.

Artistically, however, this film is a success, and anyone who sees it is unlikely to ever forget John Hillcoat’s (The Proposition) interpretation of McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic planet where “each day is greyer than the one before”. Production designer Chris Kennedy, using mainly Pennsylvania but also post-Katrina locations in Louisiana, presents a world which is slowly dying РNick Cave’s sparse soundtrack punctuated by the crashes of trees falling to the ground, dead.

4 more clips of bleak beauty and grim resilience, after the cut.

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