The Venice Film festival (that's the Venice in Italy, if you didn't know) is the world's oldest film festival, and it got underway yesterday for the 65th time. Emceed by Russian actress Ksenia Rappoport, known in Italy for her turn in the film The Unknown, the opening day of the fest featured an afternoon screening of Vittorio De Sica's 1948 classic The Bicycle Thief. But no one really gives a damn about any of that crap, because George Clooney and Brad Pitt were there, omigod!

Tags: Brad Pitt, Burn After Reading, Coen Brothers, George Clooney, Venice Film Festival

Longtime Hollywood outsiders Joel and Ethan Coen are becoming as mainstream as Michael Bay these days. (I kid, of course, in comparing the intelligent, quirky writer-director team to the director-producer of Bad Boys, Armageddon, and Transformers.)

But they are gaining popularity outside of their loyal cult following. In February, they won three Oscars (and gave the most subdued speeches in awards show history); and it was announced today that they'll open the Venice Film Festival with Burn After Reading, starring some relatively unknown actors: you know, actors like George Clooney, Frances McDormand, John Malkovich, and Brad Pitt -- all of the actors who non-mainstream filmmakers are working with these days.

Tags: brad pitt, burn after reading, frances mcdormand, george clooney, Joel and Ethan Coen, john malkovich, venice film festival

Samuel L. Jackson's creeptastic performance was enough to put Lakeview Terrace on top at the box office for its opening weekend. It took in $15.6 million on 2,464 screens, and it was the only one of four new movies in wide release that managed to beat Burn After Reading, which held tight in the second spot with another $11.295 million in its second week.

Tags: Burn After Reading, Ghost Town, Igor, Lakeview Terrace, My Best Friend's Girl, Righteous Kill, Samuel L. Jackson, Tropic Thunder