/September 1st, 2009 10:06 pm/
Michael Moore's Wall Street Satire to Open at Venice Festival
By Farah Nayeri
Sept. 2 (Bloomberg
<http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601088&sid=aYhVhmk0ohu0>) --
Michael Moore, the American filmmaker and satirist, is making Venice the
launchpad for his Wall Street diatribe, "Capitalism: A Love Story."
Moore's "Capitalism" will compete for the top prize at the 10-day Venice
Film Festival, which opens today. The two-hour movie, which screens next
weekend, is a comical documentary on the past year's global financial
meltdown, starting with the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.
and the bailout of American International Group Inc.
"It's a crime story, but it's also a war story about class warfare,"
writes Moore in a posting on his YouTube channel. "And a vampire movie,
with the upper 1 percent feeding off the rest of us."
Venice, the world's oldest film festival, has two dozen movies vying for
the Golden Lion award given out on Sept. 12. The lineup of U.S. films is
lengthy this year -- both in and out of the official contest -- after a
slim 2008 showing on the back of the Hollywood screenwriters' strike.
Also competing is fashion designer Tom Ford's directorial debut "A
Single Man," with Colin Firth and Julianne Moore, about an English
professor who strives to get on with life after his partner dies. It
will be up against, among others, John Hillcoat's "The Road," a Cormac
McCarthy novel adaptation with Charlize Theron and Viggo Mortensen.
Screening outside of the official competition is Steven Soderbergh's
"The Informant!" starring Matt Damon, who plays a whistleblower in an
agricultural commodities company; and Grant Heslov's "The Men Who Stare
at Goats," with George Clooney, about an Iraq reporter who is fed an
intriguing story by a special-forces agent.
Water Taxis
Director Oliver Stone will showcase his documentary "South of the
Border" about Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
Photographers will angle for snaps of film stars as they step off water
taxis and onto the red carpet. Actors invited to Venice this year
include Nicolas Cage, Eva Mendes, Monica Bellucci, Isabelle Huppert, Val
Kilmer, Omar Sharif, Robert Duvall, Ewan McGregor, Jeff Bridges and
Kevin Spacey.
Charlotte Gainsbourg features in "Persecution" by Patrice Chereau, also
in the official competition. Her mother Jane Birkin stars in Jacques
Rivette's "Around a Small Mountain," another of France's four Venice
contestants.
The festival's opening movie is "Baaria" (with Bellucci) by Giuseppe
Tornatore, an autobiographical take on his Sicilian birthplace.
Tornatore made a name internationally with his 1988 melodrama "Cinema
Paradiso," about a Sicilian film director's memories of the movie
theater in his hometown.
