Fresh Fork

  enice International Film Festival has always been one of the most prestigious cinematic events of the year, but it has become the very first stop for the pre-awards season. Ever since 2017, when Del Toro's  The Shape of Water  won the Golden Lion for Best Film that the festival's top prize winner has been a major Oscar player: 2018's   Roma , 2019's   Joker   and 2020's   Nomadland   ended-up getting a Best Picture nom (with the last one winning); 2021's  The Happening  didn't get major award love in the US (mostly because it didn't get a major distributor able to handle an awards campaign); and 2022's   All the Beauty and the Bloodshed   ended-up nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. So... the Jury for the main competition named  Yorgos Lanthimos '  Poor Things  the Best Film of the festival, while Hamaguchi's  Evil Does Not Exist  (the director of  Drive My Car ) took ho...

  ALK TO ME I followed a tip: don’t watch the trailer and just go watch the movie. I did it. And I liked it a lot. While it doesn’t offer the same level of satire as Jordan Peele’s  Get Out ,  Talk to Me  is a commentary about Gen Z’s TikTok and social media culture and how things derailed because of the need of being cool, the need of being seen and universally accepted. Sophie Wilde delivers an outstanding breakthrough performance here with an unsympathetic character she approaches with sensibility – even for those who never felt any warm towards Mia, there’s no way to deny her ability to carry the whole movie – and the young Joe Bird excels in some of the most terrifying scenes. As an horror piece,  Talk to Me  is never too scary, but it is chilling and it features some very graphic visual horror elements that can make you look away for some bits. It is never surprising, but it can cause nail bites. The makeup team’s work should be highlighted and so doe...