The more I think about it, the more I love The Burnt Orange Heresy. The third act is bad and almost ruins the film, but the rest of it is built upon such compelling mystery and intrigue. I feel like every single line in the film might be deceptive, or a lie, you have to read between the lines to really figure out what's going on.

And for those who love it as much as I do, the film has some serious Zima Blue references throughout the first half. It's a crafty commentary on art and the truth of art much like Zima Blue, complete with numerous mentions of the color blue and a pool. Made me giddy watching it…

Continuing the now well-known tradition of “films about art which happen to star the always fantastic Claes Bang”, with this year’s TIFF-selected Lyrebird included in this infamous series of films; The Burnt Orange Heresy may be Bang’s bleakest and most proactive film in a long while. Taking form as a traditional noir-heist flick, The Burnt Orange Heresy ends up becoming a much more sinister bi-product of it’s riveting commentary on all things business, distribution, and self-critique. After a decade from directing the critically acclaimed The Double Hour, Giuseppe Capotondi returns with his dry and sardonic direction, with a film that will provoke and likely aggravate the most sensitive of viewers.

The opening hour of The Burnt Orange Heresy is surprisingly…

Giuseppe Capotondi’s slick, smooth and  moody caper centers on the obsession with discovering the true “Meaning” and instilled value behind visual art. James Figueras (Claes Bang) a maligned art critic is tasked by an eccentric wealthy art enthusiast Joseph Cassidy (Mick Jagger) to retrieve by any means the latest and perhaps last masterpiece by infamously reclusive painter Jerome Debney (Donald Sutherland) who happens to live on Cassidy’s estate. Along for the ride is Berenice Hollis (Elizabeth Debicki) a school teacher from Minnesota who intrigued Figueras with her whit and knowledge enough that he thinks she can help in the scheme. Journeying to Italy with all of the cast’s banter and sizing up of one another are the highlights of the…

Very tall and very photogenic stars are the main driving force behind The Burnt Orange Heresy, an otherwise rather banal adaptation of a Charles Willeford novel. Though the source material comes from one of the absolute titans of pulp fiction, there’s a stilted quality to The Burnt Orange Heresy’s screenplay that keeps it firmly in the adequate zone.

Claes Bang stars as James Figueras, an up-and-coming art critic whose biggest money gig is giving lectures to tourists that are based around subterfuge and misleading statements. It’s during one of these lectures that he meets Berenice Hollis (Elisabeth Debicki), an American tourist with a mysterious past who becomes his lover. James invites Berenice along to a weekend in the country to…