Day: April 16, 2025

Venice ’25 Will Be Extra

by

However you slice or strategize it, the 2025 Venice Film Festival (8.27 through 9.6) will likely constitute a much richer assortment of films than the Cannes Film Festival, which unfurls three and half weeks hence. Here’s a list of 2025 films that are somewhere between fairly and somewhat likely choices for the Venice gathering.

HE’s dream roster includes the Guadagnino, the Bigelow, the Cooper, the Nemes, the Aronofsky, the Berger, the Cianfrance, the Corbijn, the Greengrass, the Baumbach, the Assayas, the Schnabel and the Gibney…13 in all.

Not the Safdie, not the Lanthimos, not the Zhao, not the Fastvold, not the Winocour.

1. AFTER THE HUNT / d: Luca Guadagnino

2. ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER / d: Paul Thomas Anderson

3. UNTITLED WHITE HOUSE INCOMING MISSILE THRILLER / d: Kathryn Bigelow

4. JAY KELLY / d: Noah Baumbach

5. CAUGHT STEALING / d: Darren Aronofsky

6. BUGONIA / d: Yorgos Lanthimos

7. THE SMASHING MACHINE / d: Benny Safdie

8. THE LOST BUS / d: Paul Greengrass

9. HAMNET / d: Chloe Zhao

10. THE BALLAD OF A SMALL PLAYER / d: Edward Berger

11. FRANKENSTEIN / d: Guillermo del Toro

12. ROOFMAN / d: Derek Cianfrance

13. DELIVER ME FROM NOWHERE / d: Scott Cooper

14. SWITZERLAND / d: Anton Corbijn

15. MUSK / d: Alex Gibney (d0c)

16. SACRIFICE / d: Romain Gavras

17, IN THE HAND OF DANTE / d: Julian Schnabel

18. ANN LEE / d: Mona Fastvold

19. NO OTHER CHOICE / d: Park Chan-wook

20. THE CRY OF THE GUARDS / d: Claire Denis

21. WIZARD OF KREMLIN / d: Olivier Assayas (a film adaptation of Giuliano da Empoli‘s 2022 book, directed by Olivier Assayas and starring Paul Dano, Alicia Vikander, Jude Law, Zach Galifianakis and Tom Sturridge with Dano playing Vadim Baranov.)

22. COUTURE / d: Alice Winocour

23. ORPHAN / d: Laszlo Nemes

24. CHOCOBAR / d: Lucrecia Martel (doc)

Way Behind “Pitt” Curve

by

4.17, 6:45 am update: Caught the first two episodes last night. The urgent pacing and well-chiselled, fat-free narrative quickly affected me, especially as I got to know the crew (and even some of the patients). Even with the scampering rats I was hooked. Expectations exceeded.

Very few speedbumps and yet uncomfortable moments are part of the scheme…I get that. That said, I could’ve done without (a) that one, thankfully brief bit with the fat male patient using a bedpan (TMI) and (b) that woke moment when the young, good-looking doctor says a young couple whose son has accidentally ingested cannabis gummmies won’t face legal consequences because “they’re white”. Otherwise episode #2 just flew right by while pretty much flooding my system. The humanity fills your cup to the brim.

Noah Wylie is great, but then they all are. My “Shitsburgh” concern meant nothing as the show could be set in Portland or New Orleans or anywhere. I cried out when the damaged crimson fingernail of the dweeb med student was lanced with a needle…Jesus Christ! I know that more discomfort awaits, but I’m in. As long as the show doesn’t subject me to any close-ups of fat, swollen feet with fungus-y toenails, I’ll be okay. And the absence of soap opera stuff is wonderful.

Wednesday pm: I don’t like coming into a limited series three months late, but I’ve now decided I’ll suck it up and watch all 15 episodes of The Pitt. I don’t like this kind of long-haul commitment, but I guess I can get through it.

Why didn’t I jump in last January? Because (a) it looked like just another E.R. drama starring Noah Wylie, and (b) I’ve never liked Pittsburgh.

I haven’t been to the area since ’82 when I visited the set of George Romero‘s Creepshow (actually a suburb near Monroeville), and I remember muttering to myself that not having been born there was probably a blessing. Plus I didn’t like Rowdy Herrington and Bruce Willis‘s Striking Distance. And let’s not forget when Sienna Miller called it “Shitsburgh” back in ’08 or thereabouts.

How to explain the good-but-not-great Metacritic score; ditto the 7.8 user rating? If it’s as good as all that wouldn’t the critic rating be in the mid to high ’80s, or even the 90s?