In Venice, George Clooney And Brad Pitt Debut Their Buddy Show ...

VENICE, ITALY - SEPTEMBER 01: Amal Clooney and George Clooney attend the "Wolfs" red carpet during ... [+] the 81st Venice International Film Festival on September 01, 2024 in Venice, Italy. (Photo by Stephane Cardinale - Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images)

Man, it’s been a while since George Clooney and Brad Pitt got up to any of their trademark cranky mischief out in front of the camera, when was that, Ocean’s Thirty-seven or something? Two presidents back, or just the one? Anybody? Good Jeopardy question, that.

VENICE, ITALY - SEPTEMBER 01: Brad Pitt (L) and George Clooney attend the Venice International Film ... [+] Festival World Premiere for Apple Original Films’ “Wolfs” at Palazzo del Cinema on September 01, 2024 in Venice, Italy. “Wolfs” streams globally on Apple TV+ on September 27, 2024. (Photo by Eric Charbonneau/Apple TV+ via Getty Images)

Never mind, it’s a boon and a fine reminder that these two gentlemen of the screen show up four days into Venice 2024 with the goods. For its part, the Apple TV+ vehicle does play the crime caper with understatement. Although the critics in London — among those with the most shark-like bite on this good earth — are kinda “meh” about the show, and they are correct in their view that the script did need help it did not receive from writer/director Jon Watts, we’ll suggest that this may not have been the relatively new greenlighter Tim Cook’s point.

That the script was as weak as it apparently was is interesting. Both these gentleman thespians are, in fact, themselves at peak career ripeness for a producer/director chair. Why not correct the boat’s tack during principal photography to get a little bit bigger push out of the wind? It’s streaming tv, but it remains regrettable that makers missed a decent shot at sticking a better sort of landing. The point is that, on camera, these two do joust about with each other well, right up there with the 48 Hrs.-era Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy. Wolfs was but a wind sprint for them, but it bodes well for a longer, deeper, more aggressive take , no matter what form it takes. That noted, premise-wise, (spoiler alert here) there is some strength: Driving around with a dude who may or may not at any given point be dead is a fun sort of clean-up for this pair to be assigned to do.

Bottom line? Nice evening at the festival. Onward!

VENICE, ITALY - AUGUST 30: (L-R) David Hinojosa, Sophie Wilde, Antonio Banderas, Nicole Kidman, ... [+] Harris Dickinson and Halina Reijn attend a red carpet for "Babygirl" during the 81st Venice International Film Festival at on August 30, 2024 in Venice, Italy. (Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images)

Australian actress Nicole Kidman looked like she had just been magically whisked from Gustav Klimt’s studio after sitting as the model for one of the artist’s gilt, smouldering fin-de-siecle portraits to get to the Venice Film Festival’s red carpet on August 30. She boldly struck open the erotic Babygirl alongside her beaming director, Halina Reijn and her co-stars Antonio Banderas, Harris Dickinson, Sophie Wilde and David Hinojosa, and the film promptly began its rocketlike trajectory in critical acclaim of cinematic tales told from the woman’s perspective. Woman director, woman star, kudos. We don’t get enough of that.

But there was more to this Venetian version. Kidman was every inch that tale-telling woman, exuding authority, honesty and not a little trepidation at the rather tremendous cinematic effloresence at whose center she stands. In her main statement to the press she said: “I think this film is obviously, yes, about sex, but it's about desire, it's about your inner thoughts, it's about secrets, it's about marriage, it's about truth, power, consent.”

Some actors make you wonder how they can do what they do; not Kidman. Just walking around, or in this instance, publicizing a film, she wears her talent close by. It is her clarity of thought as put into word and action that does that. Her kit didn’t hurt the opening evening’s project: sheer gold, emphasis on the sheer, as if the dust of the cosmos itself had just drifted down after a comet’s passing and alighted atop Kidman’s rock-steady, dead-black, pencil-line sheath. It’s art, was her point, and an apt one, given Babygirl’s subject matter.

VENICE, ITALY - AUGUST 29: (L-R) Zack Van Amburg, Apple's head of Worldwide Video, Tim Cook, CEO of ... [+] Apple, executive producer Cate Blanchett, writer/director/executive producer Alfonso Cuarón, Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Services, and Jamie Erlicht, Apple's head of Worldwide Video, attend the Venice International Film Festival cocktail reception of the Apple TV+ limited series “Disclaimer” at the Hotel Excelsior Pool Bar on August 29, 2024 in Venice, Italy. “Disclaimer” will premiere globally on Apple TV+ on October 11, 2024. (Photo by Eric Charbonneau/Apple TV+ via Getty Images)

It may seem obvious, but Apple TV+ cares much about its many series. The new smart-set series, Disclaimer, to premiere in October, is one of those, as evidenced above by the phalanx of division heads surrounding Apple CEO Tim Cook, executive producer Cate Blanchett and writer/director/executive producer Alfonso Cuarón. From left, they are: Zack Van Amberg, head of the company’s Worldwide Video; CEO Tim Cook; Australian actress and series executive producer Cate Blanchett; writer/director Alfonso Cuarón; Eddy Cue, Senior Vice-president of Services; Jamie Erlicht, co-head of Worldwide Video in partnership with Van Amberg. Put another way, that’s several long tons of executive muscle at the party in Venice. As to the clothes: The sea of black works to their credit as a unified team behind their product. It’s safe to say that the artists/exec-producers in the middle there got the memo.

VENICE, ITALY - AUGUST 31: (L-R) Tye Sheridan, Jurnee Smollett, Jude Law and Nicholas Hoult attend ... [+] the "The Order" photocall during the 81st Venice International Film Festival at Palazzo del Casino on August 31, 2024 in Venice, Italy. (Photo by Stephane Cardinale - Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images)

Speaking of memos, what with Venice’s deep fin-de-siecle roots and fashion-forward dressy-dress-to-the-nines liturgy, it’s nice to see a burst of casual stylishness quite so bullishly on parade as here with the cast of The Order. Tye Sheridan’s mock Ban-lon shortsleeve, left, would not be amiss on a lower-order Rat Pack member in 1965 — say Eddie Fisher or Peter Lawford, possibly Dino. Jude Law, third left, hews to the classic British summer tack in his classic blazer top, but doing just that slight bit of Southern Mediterannean manly-man distressing of the British silhouette with the crew-neck tee underneath. He’s on the Adriatic — the neckline and general tightness of that tee looks like there might be a yacht-afterparty invitation nestling in Law’s blazer pocket. For Law, it must be quite simple to pack: Walk into the closet and throw one tee after the next into the valise. The trick for him must be one step back from the packing, in the shopping: There has to be enough manly-man low-cut-ness to the tee’s neckline to suit Law’s view of his own chest.

We can see that working not quite as smoothly in Nicholas Hoult, far right, who limn’s Law with the tee-under-the-blazer move, but his general youth and inattention have led, first, to a sloppier iteration of the tee, and a more than slightly misfit khaki blazer. Front and center, the star of the show remains Jurnee Smollet, second left: Her white pencil-line topped with a tailored bikini-style top is the quintessence of confidence.

VENICE, ITALY - AUGUST 30: Leila George D'Onofrio is seen at the Hotel Excelsior pier during the ... [+] 81st Venice International Film Festival on August 30, 2024 in Venice, Italy. (Photo by Vittorio Zunino Celotto/Getty Images)

Born in Australia, raised in England by her mother Greta Scaachi, actress Leila George D’Onofrio made an elegant formal entrance on the Hotel Excelsior pier on August 30. That brief year-long marriage with Sean Penn well behind her, and with just four acting credits in film to date, one suspects, first, this is no idle appearance at Venice 81, and second, we should be hearing more from George-D’Onofrio, in front of or behind the camera, as she likes.

VENICE, ITALY - AUGUST 30: Yumi Arakawa and Kiyoshi Kurosawa attend a photocall for "Cloud" during ... [+] the 81st Venice International Film Festival at on August 30, 2024 in Venice, Italy. (Photo by Andreas Rentz/Getty Images)

Artistic genius is infamously difficult to define, but having Kiyoshi Kurosawa and Yumi Arakawa show up at your film festival with a new film, Cloud — directed by Kurosawa and produced as many of his films are by Arakawa — can fairly be described as a moment in which the 81st Venice Film Festival welcomed two geniuses of cinema. Their straight-up fearlessness, devoid of guile, is impeccable. May they produce, and direct, forever.