ITALY: Hollywood stars Brad Pitt and George Clooney open the Venice Film Festival with their madcap comedy 'Burn After Reading'

Record ID: 783646

  • Title: ITALY: Hollywood stars Brad Pitt and George Clooney open the Venice Film Festival with their madcap comedy 'Burn After Reading'
  • Date: 28th August 2008
  • Summary: VENICE LIDO, ITALY (AUGUST 27, 2008) (REUTERS) PITT WALKING OVER TO FANS/PITT SIGNING AUTOGRAPHS FANS/PIT SIGNING AUTOGRAPHS VARIOUS OF PIT SIGNING AUTOGRAPHS (SOUNDBITE) (English) ACTOR BRAD PITT SAYING: (REPORTER ASKING: ARE YOU ENJOYING LIVING IN EUROPE) "Yes, very much." VARIOUS OF PITT LEAVING IN BOAT (2 SHOTS)
  • Embargoed: 12th September 2008 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Italy
  • Country: Italy
  • Topics: Industry
  • Reuters ID: LVA7SQDEWVOIJXG6S4QW2DMQFJLN
  • Story Text: Hollywood stars Brad Pitt and George Clooney sail to the Venice Film Festival venue to to present the Coen brothers' madcap comedy 'Burn After Reading."
    Hollywood stars Brad Pitt and George Clooney sailed to the Venice Film Festival venue on Wednesday (August 27) to present the Coen brothers' madcap comedy they are starring in.

    "Burn After Reading" -- spy movie meets slapstick farce -- ensures an upbeat opening to this year's Venice film festival where the picture has its red carpet premiere later in the evening.
    The movie is about two Washington gym employees who get caught up in the cloak-and-dagger world of international espionage, with results both daft and deadly.
    It brings A-list star power and crowds of screaming fans to the 11-day event in the canal city, where Asian and European art house cinema is up against Hollywood heavyweights in the race for prizes at the closing ceremony on September 6.
    The film re-unites Joel and Ethan Coen with actress Frances McDormand, who is married to Joel and who won an Oscar for her role in their 1996 film "Fargo", as well as with Clooney, who appeared in "O Brother, Where Art Thou?"
    Clooney, by his own admission, regularly plays the fool for the brothers, fresh from their triumph at this year's Oscars when their "No Country For Old Men" picked up four awards, including best picture and best directing.

    "I've done three films with them and they call it my trilogy of idiots," the actor told reporters at a crammed news conference after a press screening.
    The 47-year-old plays a nervous, twitchy federal marshal whose extra-marital affairs bring him into contact with a gym instructor, played by Pitt, desperately seeking to extort money from a sacked CIA analyst whose memoirs go missing.

    "After reading the part, which they said was hand-written for myself, I was not sure if I should be flattered or insulted," said Pitt, whose character the directors describe as a "knucklehead".
    Joel Coen said he and his brother had "a long history of writing parts for idiotic characters.

    "By the way, I'm starting to detect something in the crowd here, a feeling that you all feel there's something wrong with being an idiot. I just want to caution you about that, because that's a sensitive subject and a big demographic."
    With two of Hollywood's biggest heart-throbs in the room, journalists also turned their attention to their personal life including Pitt's newly-born twins to if Clooney would settle down and start a family.

    "Burn After Reading" is not in competition, but U.S. films in the main line-up include "Rachel Getting Married", directed by Oscar-winner Jonathan Demme and starring Anne Hathaway and Debra Winger, who has been nominated three times for an Academy Award.
    Although there are five U.S. films in the main competition lineup of 21, they represent "independent" cinema as opposed to the big studios, which are not in Venice this time around.
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