'The Ides of March' kicks off the 68th Venice Film Festival

George Clooney's political drama The Ides of March will officially open the 68th edition of the Venice Film Festival tonight, just after the opening ceremony which will take place at the Lido's Sala Grande at 7 pm.

The film is a screen adaptation, co-written by Clooney and Grant Heslov, of Beau Willimon's stage-play Farragut North, which was based on Willimon's experience as an aide during the unsuccessful 2004 presidential campaign of Democrat politician Howard Dean. It features an all-star cast which includes director Clooney, Ryan Gosling, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Paul Giamatti, Marisa Tomei and Evan Rachel Wood.

Although the film's official screening is part of the glamorous opening night, there has been a press screening of Clooney's fifth outing as director this morning, and critics don't seem to be ecstatic about it, which proves that star power is not all a film needs to make a good festival curtain-raiser.

Xan Brooks of The Guardian, one of the early birds to offer up his views on the film, says it "starts out with crusading zeal, but feels a little commercial for an opening night slot at the Venice film festival", while Guy Lodge of incontention.com has given it a comparatively low B-/C+ mark on his twitter account.

Tomorrow, glam will storm the Lido's sunny shores again with Roman Polanki's Carnage having its world premiere. In the out of competition strand, pop diva Madonna will present W.E., her umpteenth attempt to be taken seriously in film and, for me, one of the most mysterious and bizarre film offerings of the year.

Check out the trailer for The Ides of March and and the complete lineup of the fest after the jump.

Competition

• The Ides of March (George Clooney, USA) (opening night)
• 4:44 Last Day on Earth (Abel Ferrara, USA)
• Alps (Yorgos Lanthimos, Greece)
• A Burning Hot Summer (Philippe Garrel, France)
• Carnage (Roman Polanski, France/Germany/Spain/Poland)
• Chicken With Plums (Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud, France/Belgium/Germany)
• A Dangerous Method (David Cronenberg, Canada)
• Dark Horse (Todd Solondz, USA)
• The Exchange (Eran Kolirin, Israel/Germany)
• Faust (Alexander Sokurov, Russia)
• Himizu (Sion Sono, Japan)
• Killer Joe (William Friedkin, USA)
• Life without Principle (Johnnie To, HK)
• Quando la notte (Cristina Comencini, Italy)
• Seediq Bale (Wei Desheng, Taiwan)
• Shame (Steve McQueen, UK)
• Terraferma (Emanuele Crialese, Italy)
• Texas Killing Fields (Ami Canaan Mann, USA)
• Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (Tomas Alfredson, Italy)
• L'ultimo terrestre (Gipi, Italy)
• A Simple Life (Ann Hui, China/HK)
• Wuthering Heights (Andrea Arnold, UK)

Out of Competition

• Vivan las Antipodas! (Victor Kossakovsky, Germany/Argentina/Netherlands/Chile/Russia)
• La folie Almayer (Chantal Akerman, Belgium/France)
• The Moth Diaries (Mary Harron, Canada/Ireland)
• W.E. (Madonna, UK)
• Il villaggio di cartone (Ermanno Olmi, Italy)
• Wilde Salome (Al Pacino, USA)
• Contagion (Steven Soderbergh, USA)
• The Sorcerer and the White Snake (Tony Ching Siu-tung, China/HK)
• Giochi d'estate (Rolando Colla, Switzerland/Italy)
• La Desintegration (Philippe Faucon, Belgium)
• Alois Nebel (Thomas Lunak, Czech Republic/Germany)
• Eva (Kike Maillo, Spain/France)
• Scossa (Francesco Maselli, Carlo Lizzani, Ugo Gregoretti, & Nino Russo, Italy)
• La cle des chants (Claude Nuridsany & Marie Perennou, France)
• Tormented (Takashi Shimizu, Japan)
• Marco Bellocchio, Venezia 2011 (Pietro Marcello, Italy)
• La meditazione di Hayez (Mario Martone, Italy)
• Tahrir 2011 (Tamer Ezzat, Ahmad Abdalla, Ayten Amin & Amr Salama, Egypt)
• The End (Collective Abounabbara, Syria)
• Vanguard (Collective Abounabbara, Syria)
• Evolution (Megaplex 3D) (Marco Brambilla, USA)

• Damsels in Distress (Whit Stillman, USA) (closing night)

Orizzonti

• Cut (Amir Naderi, Japan)
• L'oiseau (Yves Caumon, France)
• Hail (Amiel Courtin-Wilson, Australia)
• Nocturnos (Edgardo Cozarinsky, Argentina)
• Amore carne (Pippo Delbono, Italy/Switzerland)
• I'm Carolyn Parker: The Good, the Mad and the Beautiful (Jonathan Demme, USA)
• Sal (James Franco, USA)
• Whores' Glory (Michael Glawogger, Austria/Germany)
• Die Herde des Herrn (Romuald Karmakar, Germany)
• Stateless Things (Kim Kyungmook, South Korea)
• Swirl (Helvécio Marins Jr. & Clarissa Campolina, Brazil/Spain/Germany)
• Photographic Memory (Ross McElwee, USA)
• L'envahisseur (Nicolas Provost, Belgium)
• Shock Head Soul (Simon Pummell, Netherlands/UK)
• Two Years at Sea (Ben Rivers, UK)
• Aims of the Blind Horse (Gurvinder Singh, India)
• The Orator (Tusi Tamasese, Somao)
• Lung Neaw Visits His Neighbors (Rirkrit Tiravanija, Thailand/Mexico)
• Verano (José Luis Torres Leiva, Chile)
• Kotoko (Shinya Tsukamoto, Japan)
• Le petit poucet (Marina de Van, France)
• Swan (Teresa Villaverde, Portugal)
• The Sword Identity (Xu Haofeng, China)
• Would You Have Sex with an Arab? (Yolande Zauberman, France)