A Venezia74 preview.

​By Adam Ray Palmer
 
Cineroom will be attending the 74th Venice Film Festival for the third year in a row and I thought I would share with you a few movies we’ll be seeing.
 
The festival will get off to star-studded start with Alexander Payne’s Downsizing…

​Downsizing
A social satire in which a guy realizes he would have a better life if he were to shrink himself.
Director: Alexander Payne
Stars: Kristen Wiig, Matt Damon, Laura Dern

​First Reformed
An ex-military chaplain (Hawke), is wrecked by grief over the death of his son. Seyfried plays a member of his church whose husband, a radical environmentalist, commits suicide, setting the plot in motion.
Director: Paul Schrader
Stars: Amanda Seyfried, Ethan Hawke, Michael Gaston

​The Shape of Water
An other-worldly fairy tale, set against the backdrop of Cold War era America circa 1963. In the hidden high-security government laboratory where she works, lonely Elisa (Sally Hawkins) is trapped in a life of silence and isolation. Elisa's life is changed forever when she and co-worker Zelda (Octavia Spencer) discover a secret classified experiment.
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Stars: Michael Shannon, Doug Jones, Michael Stuhlbarg

West of Sunshine
A father has less than a day to pay back a debt to a violent loan shark, while looking after his young son.
Director: Jason Raftopoulos
Stars: Damian Hill, Ty Perham, Arthur Angel

​Lean on Pete
The film follows fifteen-year-old Charley Thompson. He wants a home, food on the table and a high school he can attend for more than part of the year. As the son of a single father working in warehouses across the Pacific Northwest, stability is hard to find. Hoping for a new start they move to Portland, Oregon where Charley takes a summer job, with a washed-up horse trainer, and befriends a failing racehorse named Lean on Pete.
Director: Andrew Haigh
Stars: Travis Fimmel, Chloë Sevigny, Steve Buscemi

Our Souls at Night
Fonda and Redford will star as Addie Moore and Louis Waters, a widow and widower who've lived next to each other for years. The pair have almost no relationship, but that all changes when Addie tries to make a connection with her neighbor.
Director: Ritesh Batra
Stars: Judy Greer, Robert Redford, Jane Fonda

Brawl in Cell Block 99
A former boxer-turned-drug runner lands in a prison battleground after a deal gets deadly.
Director: S. Craig Zahler
Stars: Jennifer Carpenter, Vince Vaughn, Tom Guiry