VENICE AND TORONTO festivals Sept. 2025

VENICE

Director Kathryn Bigelow @red carpet for the film 'A House of Dynamite' Venice Tues, Sept. 2, 2025. (Photo by Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP)

More premieres and reviews from Venice - and Toronto - are coming.

Kathryn Bigelow's A HOUSE OF DYNAMITE, about a future US-Russian nuclear clash, has been shown at Venice and the review are great, Metacritic 88. Posing at the red carpet Venice she still looks sexy at 73.

BUGONIA: SCREEN DAILY "‘Bugonia’ review: Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons are dynamite in explosive Yorgos Lanthimos thriller". It is "is a gloriously gonzo, sharply satirical chamber piece" wrote Nike Baughan Metacritic 88. (Why did the NYFF not include BUGONIA?)

Peetro Marcello's DUSE (a pic about the Italian diva Eleanora Duse starring Valeria Bruni Tedeschi) has dropped and Letterboxed reactions aren't very good. Here's one long one there:
Review by Giacomo Togni ★★½
SOURCE
Valeria Bruni Tedeschi plays Duse in constant overacting, with a perpetually raised voice and a wild fervour for the theatre that comes across as unpleasantly parodic. Noémie Merlant stands out in the role of her daughter, lighting up every scene she appears in, but unfortunately there is not enough space for her in the script. The script introduces us to the figure of Elenora Duse and her desire to return to the stage before we have even seen her perform. Marcello's adulation of Duse is inexplicable and at times irritating because in the few scenes in which she does not appear, the director makes sure that she is talked about.

This could have been handled better by giving more prominence to Noémie Merlant's character and, above all, by limiting Valeria Bruni Tedeschi's role.
9translated from Italian via DeepL)