Day: August 31, 2025

Obviously Chloe Zhao‘s Hamnet has been getting gangbuster reviews after debuting at the Telluride Film Festival. Critics are doing cartwheels and backflips, but can they be trusted? What about those research screening tipsters who had problems with it? Either way Hamnet is an apparent lock for a Best Picture and Best Director nom. I noted a few days ago that Jessie Buckley is overwhelmingly assured of a Best Actress nomination.

Earlier today I arose at 6 am to catch an 8:30 am screening of Olivier Assayas‘s eloquently written, intriguingly acted The Wizard of the Kremlin, a sprawling historical film which I was wholly taken with despite its 156-minute length. Paul Dano stars as influential Kremlin counsel and Vladimir Putin spin doctor Vadim Baranov, a semi-fictional character who’s largely based upon the still living Vladislav Surkov.

I was especially impressed by Jude Law‘s supporting performance as Putin. A critic friend sneered that it’s basically a TV movie — a view I sharply disagree with. My review will run this evening or early tomorrow…whichever.

Tonight I’ll be catching Mona Fastvold‘s The Testament of Ann Lee, a historical musical about the founding leader of the Shakers religious sect with songbird Amanda Seyfried in the lead role. It screens at at 7:15 pm. I might as well be honest and admit I’m scared to death of submitting to this 130-minute film, mainly because HE nemesis Brady Corbet co-wrote the script with Fastvold, his wife.

The final film of the day will be Alexandre O. Philipe‘s Kim Novak’s Vertigo, which press-screens at 10 pm.

Incidentally: A restored version of Joseph L. Mankiewicz‘s House of Strangers will screen at the Venice Film Festival on 9.2 and 9.3 (Tuesday and Wednesday). Until reading about this on the festival site, I’d honestly never even heard of this 1949 release. All due respect for the great Joseph L., but I’m presuming it’s a stiff.

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How many Frankenstein features have been released over the last 90-plus years? Several dozen. And how long have I been on a “no more Frankenstein flicks” diet? At least three decades, or since the release of Kenneth Branagh‘s Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein in 1994. I’ve never seen it, and I never will.

No offense to the great Guillermo del Toro, but there was never the slightest chance in hell of my not ducking his version, which screened yesterday (Saturday, 8.30) at the Venice Film Festival.

The diet was inspired by the 1973 double whammy of Paul Morrisey‘s Flesh for Frankenstein and Frankenstein:The True Story, a British made-for-TV flick with poor Michael Sarrazin (5.22.40 – 4.17.11) as the creature. Actually the Morrisey, a black comedy, isn’t that difficult to watch.