Venice Film Festival

Big Hollywood studios will take a back seat at this year's Venice Film Festival, with the competition lineup highlighting independent U.S. cinema, Italian productions and Japanese animation movies. Last year, U.S. and British movies dominated the lineup, with nearly half of the films in the main competition. This year, only five English-language movies will vie for the top prize at the world's oldest film festival. It opens Aug. 27. Among them is Jonathan Demme's "Rachel Getting Married," starring Anne Hathaway and Debra Winger in the story of an ex-model returning home for her sister's wedding after spending 10 years in and out of rehabilitation centers.

At one point in Steven Soderbergh's pandemic thriller "Contagion," Dr. Ally Hextall (Jennifer Ehle) gave herself an injection in such a rush that she doesn't even roll up her pants. Dr. Ian Lipkin, one of the film's science advisors, took one look at the scene and started, well, needling the filmmakers. "They tried to persuade me that it was OK — that she's in a real hurry," said Lipkin, the director of Columbia University's Center for Infection and Immunity. "And I said, 'No, no, she's not in that much of a hurry.'" At Lipkin's urging, Soderbergh reshot the sequence.

What would a film festival be without some juicy controversy? According to this dispatch from the Hollywood Reporter, the Italian press has been in an uproar after it learned that some of the Venice Film Festival's biggest prizes went to filmmakers with longstanding ties to jury president Quentin Tarantino. Sofia Coppola, who is close with Tarantino (the Reporter piece describes her as his former girlfriend), won the Golden Lion, the festival's top prize, for her new film, "Somewhere. " The Silver Lion for best director went to Alex de la Iglesia, another close Tarantino pal, whose new film, "Balada Triste de Trompeta," debuted at the festival.

Throughout the new film "I'm Still Here," Joaquin Phoenix insists he's done with movies — acting, the Oscar-nominated "Gladiator" and "Walk the Line" star says, is "fraudulent" and "misery to me" — as he tries to rock the mike in his new calling as a hip-hop performer. Now it looks as if Phoenix is backing away from his "I'm retired" pronouncement. Several producers have said in recent days that they have been approached by Phoenix's talent agents about their client's return to movie roles.

Hollywood high-fliers Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg launched Wednesday what is being hailed as Venice's most ambitious film festival in years, but their romantic comedy "The Terminal" failed to take it to new heights. More than 70 feature films, many of them world premieres, will screen at the 61st edition of the world's oldest cinema competition, which runs until Sept. 11 -- coincidentally a date that is central to many of its more controversial films.

In its second edition, the Other Venice Film Festival, which runs Friday through Sunday at the Electric Lodge and Switch Studios, has an explosive winner in Detdrich McClure's wrenching and vital "Easy Rider" update "Road Kings." In the film (previously titled "Road Dogs"), two young South L.A. friends, Panther (Glenn Plummer) and Ray (Chris Spencer), flee their lethal gangster existence and head out on their motorcycles for a new life in Washington, D.C.

From Shirley Temple and Jackie Cooper to Patty Duke and Anna Paquin, the movies have given audiences many memorable performances by child actors. But still the news out of the recently concluded Venice Film Festival was enough to raise some eyebrows: a 4-year-old girl won the best actress award.

Film fest: Organizers for the Venice Film Festival said Friday that they have named Italian Marco Muller to replace Moritz de Hadeln of Switzerland as head of the festival. Muller, 50, is an Italian movie producer and former head of smaller festivals in Italy and elsewhere.

Off to Venice: Dennis Hopper and Michael Ritchie have been called in to replace fellow American director Peter Bogdanovich on the jury for the Venice Film Festival, which opened Tuesday. Gillo Pontecorvo, the festival's curator, said Bogdanovich suddenly withdrew, citing conflicts with his work schedule.

What would a film festival be without some juicy controversy? According to this dispatch from the Hollywood Reporter, the Italian press has been in an uproar after it learned that some of the Venice Film Festival's biggest prizes went to filmmakers with longstanding ties to jury president Quentin Tarantino. Sofia Coppola, who is close with Tarantino (the Reporter piece describes her as his former girlfriend), won the Golden Lion, the festival's top prize, for her new film, "Somewhere. " The Silver Lion for best director went to Alex de la Iglesia, another close Tarantino pal, whose new film, "Balada Triste de Trompeta," debuted at the festival.

The Venice Film Festival on Friday honored Hong Kong director John Woo, one of the few Asian filmmakers to enjoy box office success in Hollywood as well as at home. Woo was awarded a lifetime achievement Golden Lion at the world's oldest film festival on the same day it showcased his latest movie, "Reign of Assassins," which he co-directed with Su Chao-Pin and also produced. Woo, 64, has directed more than 26 films in nearly 30 years, beginning his career in Hong Kong in the 1970s before moving to Hollywood in the 1990s.

Adolf Hitler wrote with dark clarity about propaganda. Its role, he stated in "Mein Kampf," is "not to weigh and ponder the rights of different people, but exclusively to emphasize the one right which it has set out to argue for." No film ever embodied his warped charge that Jews violated the rights of the German people more viciously than a 1940 melodrama called "Jew Suss," directed by Veit Harlan. Harlan employed his skills as one of Germany's leading filmmakers — and cast his movie-star wife, Kristina Soderbaum — when he made the anti-Semitic tale of an 18th century Jewish court-advisor who assumes despotic powers, kills an Aryan beauty and gets killed by supposedly pure Germans.

Even dressed down in a checked shirt and corduroys, Julianne Moore radiates that certain glow that separates movie stars from the rest of us. What's her secret? "I just finished bathing the dog," she says, pushing damp, loose strands of red hair off her face, "and I ended up having to get into the shower with her." The 49-year-old actress makes a considerably more glamorous appearance in designer Tom Ford's writing and directorial debut, the recently released "A Single Man." Based on Christopher Isherwood's novel and starring Colin Firth as George, a grief-stricken professor whose lover has been killed in a car accident, the movie -- which takes place in 1962 -- might be a claustrophobic dirge were it not for Moore's turn as Charley, the decades-long best friend and neighbor.

Tom Ford has ruminated about death ever since he was a small boy growing up in Texas. It was the flip side to his early, genetic fascination with beauty. "Everything in life is bittersweet for me, because when I see something beautiful, I also see it aging, old, dead, gone," he says. "I was very aware of mortality. I was very aware of my time on the planet." Still today, almost every morning he awakes and wonders, "If I die tomorrow, what am I going to miss?" Ford speaks quickly and hypnotically, words rolling out with a seductive, almost aromatic intensity.

Although British actor Colin Firth has yet to be nominated for an Academy Award, plenty of other organizations have taken note of his work, particularly in Europe. And his "A Single Man" has already earned kudos at film festivals. BAFTA Awards 2002: Nominated for supporting actor film award for "Bridget Jones's Diary." 1996: Nominated for lead actor TV award for "Pride and Prejudice." British Independent Film Awards 2007: Nominated for supporting actor for "And When Did You Last See Your Father?"

The origins of "The Damned United," an adaptation of David Peace's novel about English soccer manager Brian Clough -- whose prodigious skill at coaching the beautiful game and brash persona made him a media sensation throughout his tumultuous career in the 1960s, '70s and '80s -- stem from the 2006 Venice Film Festival premiere of "The Queen." Writer Peter Morgan was handed the book by director Stephen Frears, and soon Morgan, actor Michael Sheen and producer Andy Harries were all passing the copy around.

Tom Ford switched from the catwalk to the red carpet Friday, presenting his directorial debut -- an intimate movie about coping with loss and grief -- at the Venice Film Festival. "A Single Man" stars Colin Firth as a college professor coming to grips with solitude after his partner of 16 years dies. Also starring are Matthew Goode, playing the professor's partner, and Julianne Moore as a longtime friend who harbors an unfulfilled love for Firth's character. The movie was the last of 25 films to screen in competition for the Golden Lion, Venice's top prize.