At Venice, John Malkovich Gallops Toward an Oscar

The 2026 Venice Film Festival has been unfurling since last Tuesday under warm, occasionally baking, temperatures. But the strongest source of heat thus far has been Martin McDonagh’s “Wild Horse Nine,” a dark period comedic meditation about stored-up guilt and karmic fate. “Wild Horse Nine,” to be released in November, is indisputably funny and nervy, but also grounded by a resigned and melancholy undercurrent. It’s about decades of ethical regret gradually building into catharsis, and the chief regretter is played by John Malkovich in what many are calling the finest, certainly the most moving, performance of his career.The views of two or three crankheads aside, virtually every viewer (not just in Venice but those attending the concurrent Telluride Film Festival) has fallen for Mr. McDonagh’s film big-time, and especially for Mr. Malkovich’s Oscar-touted performance as a grizzled, bewhiskered, cancer-afflicted CIA guy named Chris. Mr. Malkovich’s performance rules, not just because his perverse, funny, and hostile, sometimes out-to-lunch, dialogue is a gas but because, atypically, he deftly reaches around and touches the heart. Mr. Malkovich, 72, has never been known for bringing big emotion — he’s more of a softly-spoken aloofer with a dry, ironic attitude. But he delivers the goods regardless, and the buzz is that he’s now the frontrunner to snag a Best Actor Oscar next March.Chris is an increasingly feeble-minded but playfully uninhibited fellow, but this wily CIA guy on the downslope gradually gathers more and more guilt-fueled heft and hang-it-all conviction. This is the glory of John Malkovich’s sly performance — the way it almost imperceptibly gains.Set on Easter Island — home of the famed “big heads” or Moai sculptures, which every grade-school kid has seen photos of — during the summer of 1973 and focusing on a vacation shared by Chris and his younger CIA colleague Lee (played hilariously and also touchingly by Sam Rockwell), “Horses”’ subliminal focus is on the imminent military coup against Chile’s elected Marxist president Salvador Allende. The Santiago-based Chris and Lee are fully aware of this coming calamity and Chris is feeling a bit forlorn about all the sundry maneuvers and covert assassinations that he’s been involved with over the decades.The other big Venice winner thus far is Danny Boyle’s “Ink,” a lively acidic period drama that is less soulfully arresting than “Wild Horse Nine” but a tough, punchy thing all the same. Set in the late 1960s and early ‘70s, “Ink” is about the birth of sensationalist British tabloid journalism by way of Rupert Murdoch’s The Sun, under the 40ish Murdoch (Guy Pearce) but especially, the paper’s hungry, scrappy editor Larry Lamb (Jack O’Connell).Guy Pearce as Rupert Murdoch and Jack O’Connell as Larry Lamb in ‘Ink.’ NetflixBy any fair standard, “Ink” is a successful slam-banger. On the one hand it’s an atmospherically romantic tale of old-school print journalism, and on the other the saga of two relatively shameless fellows who introduced a low-rent, opportunistic brand of journalism half a century ago.Mr. Boyle has shot and edited with a certain breathless tabloid energy. The vibe is energetic but there’s nowhere to go but down into the tawdry pit. “Ink’ is agreeably rude and lively but underneath you’re saying to yourself, “This is fun but it’s certainly not good for anyone’s soul — Rupert Murdoch and Larry Lamb’s in particular.”Dylan Douthern and Will Lovelace’s “Oasis: Don;t Look Back in Anger,” a decently assembled, fan-service documentary about Oasis, the hugely successful Britpop band that (apologies in advance) I’ve never really listened to. The film will be released next Wednesday on select IMAX screens and multiplexes before Disney-streaming later this year.It’s basically about the battling Gallagher brothers — loose-cannon vocalist Liam Gallagher, 54, and his 61-year-old lead guitarist brother (and the band’s chief songwriter) Noel. They’ve frequently fought and didn’t actually speak to each other between 2009 and the early 2020s, but they’re back together now with the band. The film uses a 2025 Oasis tour as the promotional focus.Thank God this 122-minute documentary, about a wildy popular hard-slamming Manchester band, was shown with English subtitles. Manchester working-class blokes have never spoken intelligibly, and Liam and Noel certainly don’t defy tradition here. This is mainly a documentary for the woo-woo fans and it is packed to the gills with footage of the joyously loyal, arm-waving throngs, weeping and damp-faced as they sing along to this or that Oasis anthem.I for one was appalled by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin‘s “Everest:The Other Side,” made by National Geographic and being released next month, as I found it deeply repulsive — arguably the most irresponsible mountain-climbing documentary ever made.It’s about the perils and pitfalls of being a do-or-die Mount Everest risk junkie, and about a blissfully lunatic rationale that seeks to enoble reckless mountain-climbing behavior of the most irrational kind. The invisible subtitle of “Everest: The Other Side” is “we have a rendezvous with death, and we’re going to get there sooner or later.”The doc’s basic sell is that attaining your mountain-climbing — or more precisely mountain-skiing — dream is such an ecstatic thing that common sense is something to be rigorously avoided at all costs. The documentary literally celebrates this attitude.On top of which the film struck me as evasive if not dishonest in terms of conveying the basic facts about two horrible tragedies that befell mountaineering athlete Jim Morrison — (a) the September 2022 avalanche-related death of Morrison’s wife Hilaree Nelson, and (b) the 2011 plane crash death of Morrison’s first wife, private pilot Katie Morrison, near Barstow — a tragedy that also killed Jim and Katie’s two small children, Wyatt and Hannah.The doc isn’t just about scaling the north face of Mount Everest in the face of horrific winds and sudden avalanches but compounding the risk by attempting to ski down the Everest slope. Yes, quite the achievement, but also the height of privileged, Telluride-dwelling rich-person arrogance, and not too far in my mind from Alan B. Shepard‘s hitting a couple of golf balls on the moon.I respect Mr. Morrison’s determination to push on despite nature and life itself repeatedly urging him to reconsider, but I despise his attempt to glorify this denial with optimistic, fairy-tale bromides about believing in your dreams.Tomorrow promises to raise the temperature still further with a press screening of Alex Gibney‘s “Musk,” which runs 3 hours, 55 minutes, and is sure to deal tough cards. Mr. Musk has already called it a “hit piece.” I’ve been bunking in the Castello waterfront district, which necessitates visiting the festival’s Lido base by vaporetto (water bus) and then back again near midnight. Each 20-minute commute has been heavenly, especially the early-morning ones if you happen to catch the shuttle that leaves at 6:45 am. The sight of the sun coming up over the Venice lagoon will never be forgotten.

At Venice, John Malkovich Gallops Toward an Oscar

At Venice, John Malkovich Gallops Toward an Oscar

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