Month: August 2025

I firmly decided last night to duck this morning’s 8:30 am screenng of Park Chan–Wook‘s No Other Choice, and I don’t care about the hosannas that the whore contingent is sharing now.

Every time I see a Park Chan-Wook film, I have the same damn reaction — full respect for the visual chops (he’s quite the purveyor of cinematic swoon…a major stylistic maestro) with plot and character internals that feel thin and infuriating.

I’m not saying I won’t see it down the road, or that PCW isn’t a respected filmmaker. But after stumbling into the apartment last night at 1 am after an 18-hour day, soaked and whipped, I definitely didn’t feel that No Other Choice was worth the pain of rising at 6 am.

Dogged rush-line persistence got me into last night’s 7:30 pm press screening of Luca Guadagnino‘s After The Hunt…eureka! (HE’s approving review posts this evening, roughly 12 hours from now.) And then I went straight into Cover-Up, the life-of-Seymour Hersh documentary by Laura Poitras and Mark Obenhaus….also posting this evening, but it was pure journalistic pleasure.

Three films on today’s agenda, although this could get whittled down to two — Giulio Bertelli‘s The Pornographer (an LBGTQ entry), Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard‘s Broken English, some kind of doc hybrid (“a genre-defying act of resilience and rebellion”) about the late Marianne Faithfull(7:45 pm), and Kent Jones‘ Late Fame (9:30 pm).

It was raining fairly heavily when the MC vaporetto dropped me at the San Zacarria-San Marco stop around 12:30 am. No umbrella — I just trudged on through, arriving at the Calle de la Vida apartment pretty much soaked to the bone.

24 hours previously, or around midnight on Wednesday, 8.27 and near the same San Zaccaria location, I came upon a team of EMTs (emergency medical technicians) working on a seriously overweight woman who had collapsed and was lying on her back. She was breathing, at least, but clearly in trouble — they were using what looked to me like an electric jolt device, presumably to get her heart going.

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Noah Baumbach‘s Jay Kelly (Netflix, 11.14) — a reflection-and-meditation piece about a 60ish movie star’s life (in some respects literally George Clooney’s, one gathers or infers, and doubly so during a tribute at the very end which presents a montage of Clooney’s films) — is actually pretty good, and it ends in a very affecting and bittersweet way.

It’s a summary of a rich guy and his famous life and what it’s all meant or seems to mean, and the final emotional residue in terms of friends, family, selfishness, distractions, blessings, highs and lows…really the whole magillah.

It’s generally fast and fleeting and briskly assembled, and is actually reminiscent, in some respects and as curious as this may sound, of Charles Dickens‘ “A Christmas Carol” (in particular the 1951 film version that Brian Desmond Hurst directed and which Alistair Sim brought to life), especially as the film is largely about Clooney’s Kelly absorbing a series of some uncomfortable and sometimes painful realizations about how his business associates, old friends and especially his two daughters really feel about him.

It’s not a masterwork — it doesn’t feel heavy or deep enough, and seems a bit facile at times — and it’s certainly not on the corrupted-adult level of Tony Gilroy‘s Michael Clayton, in which Clooney gave his finest performance.

But Clooney plays it openly and with vulnerability — he knows this line of country like the back of his hand — and the film itself conveys, persuades, penetrates. It sells its own movie-star, “this is the life he’s chosen” narrative.

At times Jay Kelly feels a bit old-fashioned — very “scripted”, very “acted” and a little schmaltzy here and there, and the visual flashback transitions are almost on the level of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (’62).

But it finally feels whole and melancholy and solemnly considered, especially at the very end. It’s expansive and exploratory and fully felt, and is very well acted by not just Clooney but by Adam Sandler (as Jay’s manager), Laura Dern (publicist), Billy Crudup (former acting buddy), Riley Keough (daughter #1), Grace Edwards (daughter #2) and Stacy Keach (roguishly “charming” dad on the downswing).

Jay Kelly is a show and a “movie” but it works according to its own delivery terms, and is certainly better than I thought it would be, and the final line absolutely kills — it even brought a tear to my eye.

It’s therefore a solid A-minus or a B-plus, and Clooney and Sandler really touch bottom, bring the goods.

Quibble #1: Everyone in Kelly’s inner circle has pretty much written him off emotionally. They regard him as flaky, immature, undependable, self-absorbed. But that’s what many big-time actors are for the most part, no? Doesn’t everyone accept this? Many and probably most famous actors are in love with themselves first, and their family and friends second. Big deal. Roll with it.

Quibble #2: Billy Crudup plays a 50ish might-have-been actor who resents and is actually enraged at Kelly for having stolen a key part that Crudup had auditioned for and badly wanted at the time, but the annals of film acting are filled with stories about a friend who was just tagging along who wound up getting the role from an impromptu audition instead of the primary guy. Just because Crudup was extra-hungry for the role in question doesn’t mean he was entitled to it, or that he was right for it. Mature people understand that life can be an unfair.

Quibble #3: Nobody would ever refer to a big film tribute event taking place in “Tuscany”…they would say Siena or Florence or Volterra or Radda in Chianti. Just like no one would talk about a similar-type event in the States happening in the “Deep South” or the “Pacific Northwest.”

I saw Yorgos Lanthimos‘s Bugonia at 11 this morning, just after Jay Kelly. I guess you could call it an extreme hoot — a bloody, ultra-violent rant about nutters, aliens and environmental destruction, and is fittingly strange and crazy for the eccentric kidnapping saga that it is.

I completely agree with and support what the film says about the ecological ruination of the planet and how thoughtless humans pretty much deserve extermination.

Emma Stone is fine and fierce as a corporate snap-dragon, and Jesse Plemons, playing one of her two kidnappers, certainly commits to his character’s greasy grubbiness and his none-too-bright delusions and theories. Aidan Delbis‘s fat simpleton with the big curly Afro is irksome, of course. All such characters are.

Why, I wondered, did Plemons’ beekeeper, deranged though he was, decide upon this mentally handicapped fool for a close friendo?

Jerskin Fendrix‘s pounding musical score is certainly striking.

I didn’t much like Bugonia but I respected the aliveness. And ah-delia-delia-delia-delia that’s all she wrote.

Obviously an elegant lineup and here’s an affectionate hat-tip to festival chief Julie Huntsinger. But the hot exclusives (those not at Venice) basically boil down to Edward Berger‘s Ballad of a Small Player, Chloe Zhao‘s Hamnet and Scott Cooper‘s Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere. Right?

• A PRIVATE LIFE (d. Rebecca Zlotowski, France, 2025)

• ASK E. JEAN (d. Ivy Meeropol, U.S., 2025)

• BALLAD OF A SMALL PLAYER (d. Edward Berger, Hong Kong/Macau, 2025)

• BLUE MOON (d. Richard Linklater, U.S./Ireland, 2025)

• BUGONIA (d. Yorgos Lanthimos, U.K., 2025)

• COVER-UP (d. Laura Poitras, Mark Obenhaus, U.S., 2025)

• EVERYWHERE MAN: THE LIVES AND TIMES OF PETER ASHER (d. Dayna Goldfine, Dan Geller, U.S./U.K., 2025)

• GHOST ELEPHANTS (d. Werner Herzog, Angola/Namibia/U.S., 2025)

• H IS FOR HAWK (d. Philippa Lowthorpe, U.K./U.S., 2025)

• HAMLET (d. Aneil Karia, U.K., 2025)

• HAMNET (d. Chloé Zhao, U.K., 2025)

• HIGHWAY 99 A DOUBLE ALBUM (d. Ethan Hawke, U.S., 2025)

• IF I HAD LEGS I’D KICK YOU (d. Mary Bronstein, U.S., 2025)

• IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT (d. Jafar Panahi, Iran/France/Luxembourg, 2025)

• JAY KELLY (d. Noah Baumbach, Italy/U.K./U.S., 2025)

• KARL (d. Nick Hooker, U.K., 2025)

• LA GRAZIA (d. Paolo Sorrentino, Italy, 2025)

• LOST IN THE JUNGLE (d. Chai Vasarhelyi, Jimmy Chin, Juan Camilo Cruz, U.S./Colombia, 2025)

• LUMIÈRE, LE CINÉMA (d. Thierry Frémaux, France, 2024)

• MAN ON THE RUN (d. Morgan Neville, U.S., 2025)

• NOUVELLE VAGUE (d. Richard Linklater, France, 2025)

• PILLION (d. Harry Lighton, U.K., 2025)

• SENTIMENTAL VALUE (d. Joachim Trier, Norway/France/Denmark/Germany, 2025)

• SHIFTY (d. Adam Curtis, U.K., 2025)

• SPRINGSTEEN: DELIVER ME FROM NOWHERE (d. Scott Cooper, U.S., 2025)

• SUMMER TOUR (d. Mischa Richter, U.S., 2025)

• THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION (d. Ken Burns, Sarah Botstein, David Schmidt, U.S., 2025)

• THE BEND IN THE RIVER (d. Robb Moss, U.S., 2025)

• THE CYCLE OF LOVE (d. Orlando von Einsiedel, U.K./India/Sweden, 2025)

• THE HISTORY OF SOUND (d. Oliver Hermanus, U.S., 2025)

• THE MASTERMIND (d. Kelly Reichardt, U.S., 2025)

• THE NEW YORKER AT 100 (d. Marshall Curry, U.S., 2025)

• THE RESERVE (d. Pablo Pérez Lombardini, Mexico/Qatar, 2025)

• THE SECRET AGENT (d. Kleber Mendonça Filho, Brazil/France/Netherlands/Germany, 2025)

• THIS IS NOT A DRILL (d. Oren Jacoby, U.S., 2025)

• TUNER (d. Daniel Roher, U.S./Canada, 2025)

• URCHIN (d. Harris Dickinson, U.K., 2025)

It’s significant that in yesterday’s N.Y. Times report (8.27) about the background of Minnesota Catholic school shooter Robin Westman, reporters Talya Minsberg, Amy Harmon and Aric Toler didn’t mention “her” gender identity issues until pararaph #8, and therefore obscuring or even half-burying a noteworthy aspect of this horrific event.

They also didn’t use the term “trans” or “transgender.”

No one’s making any assumptions or pointing fingers or implying any linkage, of course, but the Times story seemingly sought to downplay the Robin/Robert thing as much as they could within the bounds of journalistic propriety.

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Joe: It’s on account of these shells. That’s my hobby.

Sugar Kowalczyk: You collect shells?

Joe: So did my father and grandfather. You might say we had a passion for shells. That’s why we named the oil company after it.

Sugar: Shell Oil?

Joe: Please, no names. Just call me Junior.

There are boilerplate audience-unfriendly films, and then there is Laszlo Nemes’Orphan, arguably the most audience-unfriendly film of all time or certainly of the 21st Century…a bitter, taste-of-ashes, morally appalling, end-of-decency film that will make your hair follicles stand at attention.

And yet — here’s the rub — Orphan is an Olympian achievement —- a paralyzing tale about hard-knocks survival —- a devastating, coming-of-age arthouse saga — an undeniably staggering drama of a very high order.

Nemes (Son of Saul) is a masterful, pulverizing filmmaker

Set in 1957 Budapest in the wake of the Hungarian revolt against Soviet domination, it’s an utterly first-rate, grimmer-than-grim tale about a young lad gripped by nihilistic rage and, goaded by an oppressively evil situation concerning his terrified, traumatized mother and an evil, grotesquely fat butcher, a growing inclination for self-destruction.

And yet it ends on a note of mixed (make that extremely mixed) note of roundabout hope, if you want to call it that.

HE reply to friendo who asked for my reaction five minutes after it ended, just after 9 pm: “Excellent but horrifying, but at least the boy didn’t self-destruct at the end. He grows up by deciding to survive. Ghastly story. Excruciating.”

Tapping this out at 12:30 am and looking at 6 am wake-up, I’m not going to spill any more beans.

Orphan to Come and See: “Hold my beer.”

Wiki excerpts:

Teona Strugar Mitevska’s Mother, which I saw just after La Grazia, is an impressionistic, occasionally hallucinatory origin story about a 38-year-old Mother Teresa (Noomi Rapace) tending to Calcutta’s dirt-poor. She did so, the film says, not just with standard-issue compassion but also a strict and demanding edge.

Pic delivers intimations of a platonic lesbian vibe between Teresa and a hot Sister Agnieszka (Sylvia Hoeks). It also goes with a metal-rock score. Rapace has described the tone of the film as “punk rock”

I honestly don’t feel like reviewing it now, partly because it’s an “almost”. Plus I’ve been up since 3 am and need a break before catching a 7 pm screening of Laszlo Nemes‘ Orphan. I need to walk outside and smell the Adriatic.

But Mother is a respectable, better-than-decent portrayal of an iconic figure. It certainly doesn’t portray her in rapt devotional terms. This is basically young Mother Teresa as an unsettled personality and a tough taskmaster.

I somehow never picked up on the fact that Calcutta is now spelled Kolkata.

Variety copy: Pic follows Teresa, Mother Superior of the convent of the Sisters of Loreto, as she anxiously awaits permission to leave her monastery and create a new religious order. The drama, shot in English, focuses on seven pivotal days in the life of the future saint when she faced a dilemma that challenged both her ambitions and faith.

“Mitevska, who previously explored Mother Teresa’s life in her unreleased documentary Teresa and I, draws from extensive research including interviews with the last living sisters who witnessed the saint’s character.

“The director positions her protagonist not as a traditional saint, but as ‘almost a CEO of a multinational company, relentless and ambitious.'”

“The filmmaker acknowledges the controversial aspects of her subject, particularly Teresa’s stance on abortion, while choosing to examine the woman before she became a globally recognized saint.

“The screenplay, penned by Goce Smilevski, Mitevska, and Elma Tataragić, presents what the director calls ‘a female story’ that avoids traditional martyrdom narratives.”

The common perception is that that Paolo Sorrentino makes lulling eye-bath films that intrigue on a certain level but don’t quite add up to much more than that. But he’s a respected cinema stylist and this, take it or leave, is his signature…immaculate visual compositions, a strictly applied tone of dry irony, understated performances that nonetheless invite curiosity and, if you’re so inclined, a certain scrutiny.

La Grazia, which screened this morning at 8:30am inside the over-refrigerated Sala Darsena, is a stately, decidedly opaque portrait of an aging, white-haired Italian president named Mariano De Santis (longtime Sorrentino collaborator Toni Servillo), his daughter Dorotea (Anna Ferzetti), a crusty, combustible old friene (also white-haired) named Coco Valori (Milvia Marigliano) and…oh, God, I’m just dingle-dangling here. As with almost all of Sorrentino’e films I felt a mix of appreciation for hie 2.39:1 compositions as well as distanced and vaguely frustrated. Within ten minutes I knew it would be a tough haul and it was.

I could feel the press audience politely enduring it, sorta kinda working through it (is this a meditation on aging, death, white-haired wigs, obsession, cigarettes?) but waiting for something engaging to happen and getting little satisfaction, at least according to HE standards.

The only concise description I can settle on is “ironically bloodless”. As in mummified, underwhelming, lyrical, stillborn, subdued emotionalism, lemme outta here. But this is what tends to happen when Sorrentino and Servillo pool forces.

And the Sala Darsena climate was really too cold…you’d have to call it assaultive. I buttoned up my black Kooples shirt and hoped for the best, but I was freezing the whole time. The morning’s only genuine pleasure came when La Grazia (i.e., Grace) finally ended and I escaped from the ice-truck atmosphere by walking into the warm Italian sun….”thank you, God…aaaahhh!”

Veteran festival friendo who was at the same screening: “Ahaha yeah they love to crank up the AC in that cinema! Everyone I know brings a jacket to stay warm. It’s nice when you first enter if it’s really hot outside! But since it’s pretty normal warm now it was freezing inside there today.”