Best of the Fests: Telluride and Venice Reax

With the Telluride and Venice film festivals both in full swing over the weekend, fest watchers and award pundits the world over have been abuzz about what's good and what's not. It's a veritable information overload out there, so I'll try to sum it up here, separating the hits from the hype.

One film has emerged as a clear victor and early Best Picture contender: Atonement, directed by Pride & Prejudice's Joe Wright and starring his Pride star Keira Knightley (pictured), The Last King of Scotland's James McAvoy and Oscar perennial Vanessa Redgrave. The epic romantic drama has English Patient written all over it, with some critics decreeing it an "instant classic", a term that may come back to haunt the pic if it peaks too early in the game.

I'm Not There, Todd Haynes' unconventional biopic of Bob Dylan, seems to play best to fans of the folkie. Meanwhile, Jason Reitman's follow-up to Thank You for Smoking, the comedic look at teenaged pregnancy Juno, benefited from being one of the few light-hearted flicks amidst all the gloom and doom dramas and Klaus Barbie docs.

More mixed reactions were delivered to such eagerly-awaited entrants as Sean Penn's true-life adventure tale Into the Wild, Noah Baumbach's "put the fun-in-dysfunctional" dramedy Margot at the Wedding, Ocean's buddies George Clooney as Michael Clayton and Brad Pitt as Jesse James, the Salvadorian The Hunting Party (starring Richard Gere and Terrence Howard) and Paul Haggis' In the Valley of Elah (or, as 'Rollerboy' over at AwardsDaily.com calls it, In the Valley of Eh).

The biggest divide in critical opinion comes from an unlikely source: Brian De Palma. Yes, the director of the so-bad-it's-good Dressed to Kill and the just-plain-bad Black Dahlia has delivered the controversial "fictional documentary" Redacted, centering on what seems to be every real documentarian's favorite subject of late, the Iraq war. As could be expected with such a hot-button subject, the film has already stirred-up impassioned reactions from both sides of the political spectrum, yet such controversies rarely lead a film to the Oscar podium (except in the actual documentary category).

Bringing up the rear are a few high-profile projects that apparently will be sitting out this year's trophy races: Wes Anderson's The Darjeeling Limited has more to worry about then a troubled star (with all due respect and best wishes to Owen Wilson); Woody Allen's Cassandra's Dream was roasted despite the presence of hunkalicious duo Ewan McGregor and Colin Farrell; there was no love lost for Ang Lee's Lust, Caution; and it looks like Kenneth Branagh should have left well-enough alone with his Sleuth remake.

That pretty much wraps things up for these two fests, but there's more to come: the Toronto International Film Festival begins this weekend.

Links via TellurideFilmFestival.com, LaBiennale.org, GoldDerby.LATimes.com, ArtsIndependent.co.uk, Reuters.com, EW.com and TIFF07.ca.