The opening night film is tough, warned a programmer at the beloved Hamptons International Film Festival, in person once again after the pandemic shutdown last year. “The First Wave” is directed by Matthew Heinemann, the documentary filmmaker who was embedded with Mexico’s cartels in his edgy doc, “Cartel Land,” so  of course it is tough. If you can insinuate yourself with murderous drug traffickers, might the hospital wards overwhelmed by COVID be a good subject? But here’s the unexpected: “The First Wave” covers a tough subject with enormous heart.

Ahmed, a police officer overweight and diabetic oozes pus on a hospital bed. A nurse, Kelly, knows he’s a family guy with young kids; she’s determined to help him make it through. He does not look so good, going in and out of ventilators. Not a good sign. We check in on him as he strains to have face time calls with his wife, Alexis, and their children.

Other families come into view: one is a woman who just gave birth now fighting for her life. You know these stories and hundreds like them. Here’s what makes you cheer: Karl, a hospital physical therapist who jokes Ahmed into his routines. Hospital workers clapping as survivors make their way out into the world and the arms of loved ones. The woman reunited with her new born.

Mix in, the convergence with Black Lives Matter after the murder of George Floyd, not a casual coincidence. We all know that the worst hit are Blacks. As New York  emerges as the most deadly locale, Andrew Cuomo surfaces as a hero, pulling everyone through, at least in this film’s insider view of the first four months. (Cuomo’s next acts will turn out to be quite different.)

Onstage for a post-screening Q&A, Ahmed gets a bear hug from Alec Baldwin who states he should be in every movie.

At SiSi, a re-creation of East Hampton Point, owned by the great Jerry Della Femina, was the site of a big after-bash. Della Femina and his wife, Judy Licht, were on hand greeting festival guests and filmmakers. Heinemann told me the  hardest part of making this film was knowing he and his crew were putting themselves at risk, possibly bringing COVID home to their families. Kelly tells me she’s expecting her third daughter, back at work, of course. And with a huge grin of pride, Ahmed tells me he’s back on his South Brooklyn beat.

There’s been a lot of festival talk about Kristen Stewart playing Princess Diana in “Spencer.” The push is on for an Oscar nomination, which she’ll probably get thanks to a small field and aggressive campaigning. But it’s a performance lost in a horror, and horrible film.

Pablo Lorrain also made “Jackie” with Natalie Portman’s pill box hat recreation of the Kennedy widow. These are similar movies, fables that have little to do with any reality and minimize the protagonist’s actual life into some perverse version of itself.

“Spencer,” which played at the Hamptons Film Festival last night, is as unenjoyable a movie as you can imagine. If you want something hewing closer to historically accurate and brightly made, stick to “The Crown.” “Spencer” is a horror film, something along the lines of “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?” It runs the gamut from insane to inane.

The only redeeming feature is Stewart herself. It’s a very astute performance that shows her range. She is absorbed into Princess Diana fully, the accent, the posture, little movements, something flickering behind the eyes. Stewart’s Diana is looking around desperately for a movie she can part of.

But this “fable” or whatever it’s supposed to be is highly ludicrous. It’s Diana at Christmas trapped at Sandringham with the Windsors. The children are her only friends aside from a dresser, played by Sally Hawkins, who declares herself to be in love with the princess. There’s also a major who runs the house played by Timothy Spall as if he’s been embalmed and placed back in service.

Otherwise this could be Diana in “Get Out.” She has no relationships and is depicted as going mad. having hallucinations of Anne Boleyn, the beheaded wife of Henry the Eighth. (His portrait looms over the household.) Camilla Parker Bowles, of course, is hanging around. Diana is obsessed with a string of pearls the size of malted milk balls that Charles has given each to his wife and mistress. She’s also bent over a toilet, regurgitating, and cutting herself with wire clippers causing a bloody gash in her arm.

But this is all just a sadistic caricature of the real Diana, currently being tortured on Netflix, as well, in the looming Broadway disaster. If all these content creators were actually sympathetic to Diana we might have gotten different results. But this movie and the Broadway show only to serve to make her seem crazy and stupid, two things I don’t think she was. They get nothing of her wily instinct to survive and thrive outside the royals.

“Spencer” really has the earmarks of a festival film that’s taken critics hostage in isolated environments. When it hits the open air of a real audience, as it did last night, it will die more violently than poor Diana. Kristen Stewart may have her Oscar nomination, but that’s as far as she’ll get I think.

After months of inertia, we’re finally getting real Oscar movies. My full reviews are coming, but for the moment:

Penelope Cruz closed the New York Film Festival last night with Pedro Almodovar’s “Parallel Mothers.” This is my favorite of Almodovar’s films since “Volver.” Best Picture, Director, Screenplay and Actress should be in its future. What is set up as story of babies switched at birth becomes something far deeper and more profound.

Pedro has never been nominated for Best Director, which is a crime. Cruz, winner of Best Supporting Actress for “Vicki Cristina Barcelona” could actually win Best Actress this year. (She won Venice.) This is a performance of magnitude. Forget that Almodovar has filmed her again like Sophia Loren. Her beauty is stunning. But her acting matches it. The audience in Alice Tully Hall gave two real standing ovations.

Hamptons Film Festival this morning: Kenneth Branagh’s “Belfast” wasn’t at NYFF but it’s here, and it’s an enormous Best Picture player. Jamie Dornan, Catriona Balfe, and Dame Judi Dench are doing their best work. But it’s Branagh, known for Shakespeare and Agatha Christie, who finally has his breakthrough moment. Political and romantic at the same time, “Belfast” dances between the serious and the sublime. More to come, but I told you last year about “Nomadland” as a front runner, and this year it’s “Belfast.”

Clifton Collins, Jr., who made his name in “Capote” several years ago, is back with Clint Bentley’s “Jockey” playing Hamptons tonight. I saw “Jockey” last winter via Sundance and like many others, cited Collins’ extraordinary performance. Gold Derby and all the other prognosticators will do everyone a disservice if they don’t get on board with with Collins in this gem of a film.

The Hamptons Film Festival has blasted off, managing to screen very big films for great audiences who want to see films. All protocols are being observed. The Creative Coalition threw a lobster brunch at a private residence in East Hampton, and the Festival itself gave the annual luncheon at Nick and Toni’s where the owner, Toni Ross, also a terrific artist, signed her original festival poster — and got rave reviews.

And there’s more: stay tuned….

After taking in $6.3 mil in previews, Daniel Craig’s final  James Bond movie had a huge Friday night.

No Time to Die earned $17 million last night bringing the total to $23million.  The weekend total will be a decent if not spectacular $60 million.

Stay tuned…

“Venom; Let There Be Carnage” just went over the $106 million mark at the domestic box office.  There’s a reason for that; audiences are clamoring for a fun, bizarre and messy time at the movies and “Carnage” indeed delivers.

Director Andy Serkis has directed this Marvel sequel with brisk (it runs 90 minutes) campy flair, Kelly Marcel (“Cruella” “Fifty Shades of Grey”) wrote the script from a story by Tom Hardy.  Disgraced journalist Eddie Brock is played super appealing by Hardy, whose career is on the upswing thanks to his superpower symbiote comic book monster buddy Venom sharing his body and mind.  Eddie is constantly bickering with Venom’s inner monologue and trying to tame his uncouth ways, like his love of snacking on human brains.

Even though they both are mending each other in way weird ways, their ‘relationship’ quickly turns rocky.  The upside is that Venom helps Eddie solve an old unsolved murder case involving Cletus Kasady, in the person of a menacing Woody Harrelson.  Cletus grants Eddie his final interview before he is set to be put to death, and well, stuff happens.  Cut to Venom and Eddie are still bickering as Cletus escapes death row after he is transformed into Carnage.

First on Cletus’s list is to oust his longtime lost love, Shriek (Oscar nominee Naomie Harris) from her  padded psych ward cell.  Next on the monstrous menu for the pair is revenge of all kinds.  Eddie’s understanding ex fiancée Anne, played by Michelle Williams, comes back into his life to help bail him out once again, although now Anne is set to wed Dr. Dan Lewis, a funny Reid Scott, late of “Veep,” that makes Eddie more nuts than he already is.

The CGI hijinks begin and wow, what a ride. With that said, devotees who are expecting epic battles won’t be fully satisfied. “Carnage”  does lack the hugeness of the explosions and battles and violence  we’ve seen in other Marvel flicks.  But the actors are so appealing, quirky and mean and fun, that in itself worth watching.  So, if you are hankering from some wacky, silly, weird goings on, “Venom: Let There Be Carnage” as the audience has shown, does the trick.