The Venice International Film Festival announces that Wim Wenders —?fresh off a critical pasting at Cannes for his reportedly pretentious and incoherent new film The Palermo Shooting — will chair their main jury. Directors with designs on competition slots are reportedly re-editing their films for maximum pretension and incoherence.
¦ The Toronto International Film Festival reveals a list of 27 films culled from prestigious international festivals that will get their local premiere as part of September’s lineup. Key titles include Laurent Cantet’s Cannes champion Entre le Murs (The Class), Jia Zhang-ke’s 24 City and the Dardenne brothers’ La Silence de Lorna. Conspicuous by its absence: Wim Wenders’ The Palermo Shooting.
¦?Representatives for the Barcelona International Erotic Film Festival blame this year’s sagging attendance on the success of Spain’s national soccer team, which they claim drew potential theatregoers away from the annual smorgasbord of pornographic movies and live sex shows. In a related story, the festival’s organizers are considering moving the event to Toronto in late April, where there’s no danger that anyone in the city will be distracted by a Maple Leafs playoff run.
¦ Robert Rodriguez will apparently helm a remake of Red Sonja, with Grindhouse star Rose McGowan replacing Brigitte Nielsen in the title role. No word on who will replace Arnold Schwarzenegger as the powerful, bronzed Lord Kalidor, though Philip Seymour Hoffman seems to have the inside track.
¦?G- and R-rated films top last weekend’s box office over, with Wall-E ($62.5 million dollars) outpacing Wanted ($51.1 million). At a press conference, Pixar and Universal announce plans for a $200 million co-production co-starring Angelina Jolie and an adorable CGI robot. Plot details are sketchy, but word has it that the pair will play gifted assassins in a post-apocalyptic wasteland who are assigned to locate Earth’s last remaining bit of plant life and then shoot it up real good. The as-yet-untitled film is slated for a summer 2010 opening.