Up at 6 am, out the Calle de la Vida door at 6:30, caught Line 20 (San Zacarria pier B) at 6:45, arrived at Lido Casino pier around 7…okay, maybe 7:05 am.
Month: August 2025
Wake Me When It’s Over
I’ve greatly respected the Venice Film Festival from afar for so long, but now I have a semblance of an idea of it…what all the devotion and exuberance have been about all along, even if I’ve barely experienced it thus far.
I’ve been coming to Venice as a low-key, X-factor traveller for a quarter-century, but being greeted and assured and credentialed by festival staffers yesterday was like being welcomed into a private, super-flush, extra-exclusive club for movie coolios…cultured hepcats only…a grand, pine-tree-shaded island for mature, well-considered cinema pleasure.
When we left headquarters last night around 8:45 pm, having worked in the royal, pre-war, high-ceilinged, uncrowded sanctum of the press lounge for three-plus hours, the vibe was so comforting and genteel…”consider yourself at home…consider yourself one of the family” and all that. I felt so honored and sheltered, so fully massaged and at peace.
We stepped onto the Line 20 (or was it MC?) vaporetto from that smallish embarcation pier on the L-shaped canal that feeds into the lagoon, and then the engine rumbled and a minute later I was standing under the night sky and inhaling that wonderful air as I stared at the golden, glowing horizon of one of the earth’s greatest cities, and then we were back at the San Zacarria dock so quickly, it seemed.
And here I am, dead awake at 3:45 am, having awakened at 3am after crashing at 10:30 pm.
I’ve been saying this for years, but there’s no city in the world that is as pin-drop quiet as Venice.
Maybe I can lull myself into an extra hour of sleep before rising at 6 am.
If I Can’t See “After The Hunt” Here, I’ll Survive
My failure to book a press ticket for Luca Guadagnino’s latest film (Amazon, 10.10) is on me, of course…my tardiness and clumsiness. Plus it’s a tough ticket on its own terms. (The first viewings happen on Thursday, 8.28.)
Maybe I can slip into a screening on a wait-list, down-on-my-knees, last-ditch basis. I don’t know the rules but maybe.
I’ve reserved tickets for pretty much everything else of value between now and 9.4. Reservations for Friday, 9.5 and Saturday, 9.6 haven’t been made available yet.
The bottom line is that being here has made me feel so turned on and electrified and plugged into the here-and-now. Venice is soooo much better than Cannes. I feel blessed and honored to be here.
It Takes A Village To Laugh, And A Vaporetto To Cry
I’ve been reading Venice Film Festival coverage for decades, and not once have I seen snaps or video of the physical layout of the Venice Lido Grand Casino area, or of the magnificent press lounge. It’s a sprawling, beautiful, bucks-up, well-tended village unto itself, flanking the Adriatic and shaded by hundreds of mature pine trees. Newbies instantly feel very well taken care of. I do, I mean.
But it was hellish getting here early this afternoon. Every vaporetto gate attendant told us something different, and they all passed along dicey or erroneous info. Total confusion.
I realize, of course, that it’s simply in the character or nature of “laughing Mediterranean” fellows (a Harold Pinter line from Betrayal) to adopt a casual attitude that isn’t too detail-oriented or overly hung up on the clock. Public transportation is so well-ordered and easy to follow in Oslo, Copenhagen, Berlin, Paris, Barcelona. But not here.
We took what we thought was a Line 20 vaporetto and quickly realized it wasn’t heading for the Lido. We got off at Redentore, and then took another to Zattere and got off. Then we got on a vaporetto that had a Mostra Cinema (MC) sign on it, and it took us back to San Zaccaria (briefly) and then it dropped us at the ‘wrong’ Lido stop — a 15- or 20-minute walk from the casino. We tried to take a bus south but couldn’t figure the bus system, so we finally hailed an Uber but there were no drivers. We finally got a regular cab to take us to festival headquarters, which was seven blocks away.
Oh, and the cab fee was 13 euros, or roughly half of what the Uber guy would’ve charged us.
Festival veteran: “All very strange. All the Line 20 boats are going to the Lido Casino today. Maybe you just got off too early? It makes two other stops at small islands before it goes to the Lido Casino…”
HE to Festival Veteran: “No ACTV employee seems to know what a Line 20 is. They ‘say’ they know, and then they give you a bum steer. It’s NOT strange — it’s totally par for the course.”
Festival Veteran: “Line 20 is pretty common during the festival. Dock B. It ALWAYS departs and arrives at Dock B, San Zaccaria. You have to look for it there in the inside left corner of that dock.”
HE to Festival Veteran: “Did you read the part that says ‘at Zattere we got on a vaporetto that had a Mostra Cinema (MC) sign on it, and it took us back to San Zaccaria (briefly) and then it dropped us at the wrong Lido stop — a 15 or 20-minute walk from the casino’? It’s the truth — it’s what happened.”
Festival Veteran: “I think you got on the wrong boat this time because there are ads for the MC line everywhere for the festival on every single boat now. But these are just ads. You really need to check the boat numbers. It will have a little sign on the boat say ’20’ or ‘MC’ in a colored circle.”
Handsomely Shot, At The Very Least
Chloe Zhao‘s Hamnet (Searchlight, 11.27) may or may not be “misery porn”, as one research screening tipster has claimed, but at least (a) it’s been beautifully, hauntingly shot by dp Lukasz Zal (Ida, Cold War, The Zone of Interest), (b) it’s thrilling to see an original Globe theatre performance recreated so faithfully, and (c) you can tell straight away that Jessie Buckley‘s performance as the suffering Agnes Shakespeare (a.k.a., Anne Hathaway) will snag a Best Actress nomination — obviously, no question.
The word is that Paul Mescal‘s William Shakespeare is a supporting performance, and that the famed Elizabethan playwright is depicted as a shitty husband — weak, self-absorbed. But the story apparently shows Agnes embracing and possibly having an extra-marital affair with Joe Alwyn‘s Bartholomew, for whatever that may be worth.
No Hiding 20 Year Age Gap
A month ago I said that if — I say “if” — Bradley Cooper‘s Is This Thing On? is a docudrama origin story, 55 year-old Will Arnett is 20 years too old to play stand-up comic John Bishop, who broke into the biz in 2000 at age 34. I don’t see how this is even a little bit disputable
Serene Expression Conveys All
This woman’s alpha-vibe smile expresses so much about how Venice visitors feel about being here. I went up to this 40ish blonde on the vaporetto and confessed (her husband standing right there and listening in) that I had shot video of her and that I was moved by her look of serenity. She said “thanks” and offered no protest about being captured, so to speak. I’m presuming that the HE community will take offense all the same and attempt to browbeat me for another video violation, and maybe even slap the woman around for going along with it.
Unless They Jettison Woke Lunacy, Dems Are All But Finished
Will hardcore progressives smell the coffee? Are they even capable of doing so?
Unless they abandon all the wokey crap and stop playing racial-identity politics (i.e., never permitting another Lily Gladstone-styled Best Actress identity campaign) and renounce gender affirming care for minors and drag shows in elementary schools and generally embrace the sensibly moderate theology of Rahm Emanuel and, yes, even J.K. Rowling, they’re finished for the time being.
They won’t budge, of course. In their minds they’re doing God’s work by pushing for transformational social change, and are determined to die on this hill, even if it means taking a once proud and effective political brand down to Davy Jones’ locker.
But unless they ditch all this shit, they’re effing toast.
“I’m Nothing, But I’d Like To Be Something”
It seems odd, to say the least, that the 82nd Venice International Film Festival is screening The Delicate Delinquent, a decent but unexceptional Jerry Lewis dramedy that opened in June ’57.
All I can figure is that Delinquent has recently been restored due to having been shot in VistaVision (I adore the clarity of black-and-white films in this process, The Desperate Hours and Fear Strikes Out being two examples) and Venice is offering a showcase out of respect or allegiance.
The Delicate Deliquent was Lewis’s first feature after the breakup of Martin & Lewis, and I guess the idea was to show the industry that he had a serious side and could play a normal, ground-level guy without going “hey laaaaady!”
It’s a passable shoulder-shrugger about an odd, not-that-young janitor named Sidney L. Pythias…named after the ancient Greek figure of legend? The film, directed and cowritten by Don McGuire (directed Johnny Concho, co-wrote Bad Day at Black Rock and Tootsie), doesn’t present Sidney as a j.d. out of Rebel Without a Cause or West Side Story. He’s basically just an aimless adolescent (Lewis was 30 when it was filmed in ’56) who lives in a cellar apartment.
The story is about Sidney being guided into a law-enforcement career by Darren McGavin‘s Mike Damon, a fair-minded cop who takes an interest.
Odyssey of Vaporetto Line 20
…and its ghost-like, possibly non-existent cousin called the MC…yeah.
Since arriving at HE’s Venice pad early Monday evening, I’ve been trying to crack the elusive, almost DaVinci Code-ish, secret-society schedule of the vaporetto that travels from San Zaccaria to the Lido Casino, which is where the Venice Film Festival unfolds.
We’re basically talking about a mystery vaporetto or vaporettos, one called Line 20 (apparently the most reliable) and another called MC (Mostra Cinema) and, at the same time, Line 2. But their existence is mostly in the realm of rumor and hearsay.
Could I go so far as to call these vaporetto lines mythical? Is their legend based on the stuff that dreams are made of? You tell me.
Where to board Line 20 at the San Zaccaria stop, as there are THREE yellow-painted stations for embarking and disembarking at this location? Beats me. People “say” stuff but nobody knows nuthin’. You can ask and search and poke around and explore all you want, but it just gets away from you.
Firstshowing.net’s Alex Billington, a valuable ally and a good hombre, says “dock B” is the way to go. And maybe he’s right.
But last night there were NO signs at ANY of the San Zaccaria stops that said ANYTHING about Line 20 or Line MC.
Info is scant because the MC and 20 lines are temporary or seasonal, and it’s all smoke and haze and shadows. Nothing is clear.
Have demons (hooved beasts with pointy tails and horns on their heads) posted information about these two lines with a deliberate intention of sewing pique and confusion?
Why do I feel, vaporetto-wise, like I’ve been took, hoodwinked, led astray, taken to the cleaners, boondoggled, flim-flammed, hog-tied, sold a bill of goods, led down the garden path, and had a tin can tied to my tail?
