This Had Oscar Buzz - 2026 TIFF Recap!!

Episode Date: September 21, 2026

We’re back home from our latest trip to the Toronto International Film Festival! And as always, we’re offering you a buffet of our reactions from a week’s worth of movies that will be coming soon to a theatre near you! We talk about the newest People’s Choice Award winner La Bola Negra, along with the International People’s Choice Award winner (and Best Actor contender for Andrew Scott) Elsinore. Topics also include Julianne Moore earning huge crowd reaction in The Debut, Martin McDonagh’s Wild Horse Nine underwhelming us both, our collective favorite of the fest Mike Leigh’s Tender Loving Care, the TIFF preroll ads, injuries, festival flops, and more!!

What's up, Gary's. Just a quick announcement up top of the episode here that Vultures Movies Fantasy League is back again for its sixth season, and we are once again having a mini league for listeners and fans of this head Oscar buzz. If you haven't played before, you can head over to vulture.com slash movies dash league to get the full details, including a look at the rad prizes you could win, including a 65-inch Roku TV, PlayStation 5, merch from A24, neon, and criterion, and much more. The gist of the game, if you haven't played before, it's like fantasy football, but for movies. You draft an eight-film roster from the movies of 2006, and then once we get to October 2nd, your selections can start accruing points from their box office earnings, from their awards performance, critical performance, etc. We even have a new category this season for letterboxed star rankings. Your team score will compete against everybody else who signs up for the game, but you can also

choose to either create or join a mini-league. That way, if you have a group of friends who want to have a game within the game, you can have at it. Just make sure you all enter the same league name in the field, marked for mini-leagues when you sign up. And as we have done the last few years, you can also join your fellow This Had Oscar Buzz fans, the Garys, in our dedicated mini-league, which this year we are calling, perhaps inevitably Chris, Project Hell Garys.

It was right there for us. We could not deny it. My brilliant colleagues at Vulture have even created a custom URL for GARES to use. When you sign up, that will have the mini league name right there, auto-populated, right there in the form. So just go to www.vulture.com slash garries, G-A-R-Y-S, and it'll take you right to it. And otherwise, just put Project Hale-Garries, no capital letters, but spaces, project Hale-Garries, into the mini-league. and you'll be all set. Remember that scoring kicks off on October 2nd, and any sign-ups after that date will be restricted to movies that have yet to open or earn points. So keep an eye on that calendar. That's right. Again, for full details, you can hit up vulture.com slash movies dash league, or just go right to Vulture.

We tend to have a link right there on the homepage. We look forward to watching the Project Hale Gary's League flourish every year. The Viss had Oscar Buzz dedicated league is the, the most robust and I'm just going to say it best of all the mini leagues. So you make us so proud and we look forward to competing for another year. No, the right house. We want to talk to Maryland. I'm from Canada, water.

Dick Poop. Hello and welcome to the This Head Oscar Buzz podcast, the only podcast with a former sponsorship by Grulsch. Every week on this head Oscar buzz, we normally talk about a different movie that once Upon a Time Headlofty Academy Award aspirations, but for some reason or another at all went wrong, the Oscar hopes died and we're here to perform the autopsy, but this week, it's our annual post-tiff recap. I'm your host, Chris Fyle, and I'm here, as always,

with my co-host, presented by Rogers, Joe Reed. Presented by Rogers with hopefully a better fanfare, advertising campaign, whatever. Actually, the Rogers' pre-roll ad was probably my favorite. of all of them this year. By default. The pre-roll ads this year were so anonymous as to just be annoying because it felt like there were more.

They were not very good. I know listeners have already heard us talking our hopes for a good volunteer ad. This year we had two different volunteer ads and they both sucked. They were both the worst I have ever seen. I forgot to look up who, normally it's just like either real volunteers or more like, like local Canadian actors who are not recognizable so they can pass for like real real tip volunteers. This year it was Veronica Slovakowska, who was the first year SNL performer this year. I thought she was pretty good on SNL. And then the guy is Kyle Chase.

His name is Kyle Chase. I think he and Veronica Slovakowska do like comedy together. I am not a comedy person. Anyway, the ads, it was the worst volunteer ad we've ever had. I looked, I made sure They do comedy together, Joe said, with scare quotes, because it was not present in this ad, all respect to the makers of the ad. The other thing about this ad, the volunteer ad is the volunteer ad is there to show thanks and appreciation for the volunteers. And at the very end of the ad, everybody in the audience claps for the volunteers because they are, by and large, wildly helpful and professional and all good things. but because of their particular, like, that one ad with all the quotes, there's tag end to it that, like, the last quote comes during the, like, the part where the audience would normally applaud.

And because you're sort of waiting to get the, you know, stinger at the end of the joke, it, like, fucks up the part where everybody's supposed to applaud. So, like, it doesn't even do the job that it's supposed to be doing, which is giving the audience an opportunity to, like, show their appreciation for the volunteers. It's, it, everybody we talked to was like, know that ad. And, like, there are a lot of people who just, like, hate on all of the pre-roll ads and sort of, like, complain about all of them.

If you have listened to us at all, you know, we are connoisseurs of the TIF pre-roll ads. We love that. It's hard to be connoisseurs this year. And, like, I understood the complaints this year because it just went on so long that it's, like, start the movie. Please, for the love of God, I have 10 minutes to get to my next screen. There were, there's also like, obviously there's a bunch of like sponsorship stuff, what have you. The one.

Canada Media Fund. Canada Media Fund, the only good one. And because of that one actor. Oh, uh, thank you for, thank you for our tax, to our tax dollars for this. For this sexy show. Thank you to our taxes for this sexy show. A phenomenal use of vocal fry, that lady. Also, I, we noticed we talked about this, Chris, the TikTok sponsorship.

TikTok is a sponsor. And there is an ad that is very obviously a TikTok ad because it's all like vertical facing videos and whatnot. And then at the very end, they show the like TikTok logo and the little like sponsorship. And it's over in like half a second. Because as I said to Chris. Because they don't want people laughing. They don't want people in the theaters laughing at the fact that TikTok is a sponsor of this film festival. Because yes, it is laughable.

It is to laugh. You know, I wasn't going to be, I wasn't going to be a jerk. But this did seem like a very influential. influencer heavy iteration of the festival on a scale that I hadn't really seen in terms of people filming walking into various auditorics

and it's like you know there's various different ways that we can get the words out for movies so I don't want to dog on things too much but it did feel extremely come with me to try the viral Toronto International Film Festival Honestly I was super nervous I'd never been to a movie before

but the plot was so happening and the performances were so performing. We went today to the Princess of Wales Theater. It's got to be very quiet. Were you privy at all to the discourse around the U.S. Open this year about influencers at the U.S. Open tennis tournament this year? It was a big deal at the U.S. Open that it was like the influencers were really pissing people off. And there was a whole, obviously there was a whole thing with like, you know, ticket prices went up. up. They, like, revamped the stadium seating at the main stadium so that, like, there are more high-priced tickets in the medium section of the thing. But, like, you had people, like,

taking full-like videos in the middle of points rather than, like, watching the matches. There was a whole thing where, like, people would not shut up. They had to keep telling people to quiet down. Certain players made comments about it. And it was just, like, it was a huge problem. And it was for anybody who, like, loves the U.S. Open and loves going to the U.S. Open as a tennis fan, it was, like, incredibly annoying. And it's hard to talk about that because tennis, much like theatrical film, is a thing that, like, does not want to be in the business of turning away viewership or fans or attention or anything like that. So it's the people in charge of things are really trying to strike that delicate balance. But if they're ruining the experience for the people who love to go to this thing, it's a problem. I do want to be clear that this is, I did not experience anything on that level.

I did not. People were not like filming the screen during movies. They were not, you know, being rude to volunteers. It was not like. It was not on that level, for sure. It just felt very stark in terms of, oh, we're here now. This is, this is a reason for people to attend the festival so they can mine it. for like video posting.

You know the word I'm not trying to say. Chris hates the C word, yes. Well, because it's just like, I don't know. It's the only C word Chris refuses to say. Chris will say all the other C words, but not that one. No, before, if you used to, if you wanted to like cover the festival and make it part of your brand, you would do that through your like blog posts rather than taking videos. Yes, it was a different thing.

This is where we are. We're here now. No one was being rude or a pest. I agree. It was just, you know. Yes. It's just that we're here now. Yeah.

I only brought up the U.S. Open thing as like, it's funny that like both things were happening. Those are the two, those two things and the Emmys. Also, okay, this is how everything converges in my life in September is the U.S. Open, which I love dearly and also just like sometimes try to attend. TIF, the Emmy Awards, which I cover extensively for my job, and the Bills opening of the bill's season, and the opening of the bill season, all happens while I'm at TIF. And it's just like, it's just a hurricane. And this year, fun new wrinkle, I broke a bone in my arm. So it was, and another one in my wrist and maybe another one in my knee. So one to three bones broken is my tally for this year's Tarasho International Fifth Festival.

Toronto, I love you to death. I love everything about the festival grounds. Fix your fucking sidewalks and I will love you even more. Fix your potholes in your crosswalks and I will love you even more. That's all I have to say. This year for me was very much I walked into it not falling down unlike one of them. You didn't stumble into it like some of us did. My story is also that I fell down while exiting the screening for the

Everest movie. So, as I mentioned to several people, because the irony was not lost on me, that this movie about, like, the pinnacle of, like, human endeavor and achievement of, like, the very handful of people who have ever climbed Everest on this particular peak and watched that for two hours and then walked out of that theater and wiped out on my face. A non-fiction film about one of the many ways the human body can successfully use their legs. And I was like, watch this, though. And bam, down right on the ground. Yep.

I was trying to go into this year personally with like as little complaints as possible. I'm just very happy to be there. I'm so like just there to enjoy the time with people I love. And I really appreciate it. And trying to just, you know, enjoy, you know, the experience of being there after having. the past few years of just not having a good time. And my one thing is I maybe got a collective four hours sleep over the whole festival, and I learned that I cannot maybe leave the house without my CPAP anymore.

The bear flag is not flying at half mass. It is at full mass moving forward. My CPAP is now an appendix. It's a part of you. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, we learned a lot of things about ourselves, Chris. Some of us need a CPAT machine in order to live.

Some of us can't walk without falling down. So lots of things, lots of things to learn. It's because you wore shoes. You can't wear shoes. They make you fall down. Joe, let's talk about the movies. We have a new People's Choice Award. Yes.

And I'm sure there's going to be some hand-wringing over, this is the second year of TIF doing an international People's Choice Award winner. And this is the first year since they've done that, but also the first year since 2011. that there has been a non-English language people's choice winner in Labola Nigra. And an English language, international people's choice winner. So we are... But international does not speak to the language spoken in the film.

It's not. Elsinor, as the winner, is legit. It's fully legit, yes. This is another, I think, soft confirmation after last year when Hamnet won people's choice while also being international eligible, that they do give precedence to just the, regular people's choice award winner. If you can win both, they're not going to put you as a winner or runner up in international. Yes.

Which makes you wonder, was Elsinor just like fourth place in overall voting? Because they didn't put it in the people's choice lineup. So is it like if we can give you the win for international, we won't even make you a runner up? Or was it truly like a fourth place? I have so many questions about what the rule. are when you're eligible to vote. But my assumption would be if Elsinor finished, let's say, second in people's choice voting, that it, but that they would have made it international people's choice and just

moved everything up a slot. Now, whether that was the case or not, who knows who's to say. I should also mention in my misadventures where I had to miss, I had to miss a few screenings for my fall down, fall down, go boom. But the fact that I only saw that I didn't see any of the three people's choice, win, place, or show movies, or that I only saw one of the three international. I'm only chalking that up partially to my injury because runner-up, I play Rocky, and second runner-up being human were movies that I had decided before the festival

were not going to fit into my schedule. And I missed La Bolanagra. I'm going to chalk that up to injury-related sleep deprivation. I really slept right through that morning screening. Between these six movies, I only missed two. I didn't sleep through the screening. I didn't sit through the screening. And snore, as somebody did during, oh, what was the movie where somebody was sawing logs?

Oh, it was Everest. So it was literally Everest where the filmmakers were sitting right in front of me. and then two rows behind me from minute three, there was somebody who was like full on just like snoring during that whole movie. It was awkward. Anyway, sorry, I interrupted you. In IMAX visuals and sound. Wow.

I know. I don't need a ticket. Give that ticket to somebody who will enjoy the movie. That's what I always said. Very true. I did not see The Assassins. I did not see I play Rocky. The concept of seeing I play Rocky at this movie.

at this festival was kind of like someone being like, take this potion and we promise you won't be ill. You know, if the concept of it sounded like being poisoned in public to me.

But I have love and respect for all the people who enjoyed I play Rocky. Immediately after, we heard. I wanted nothing more. I wanted him to love that movie more than I wanted myself to love any movie. Chris Rosen Loving, I Play Rocky is good and right, and the world is as it should be.

The world is a beautiful place. We also heard immediately, just like that screening went over like gangbusters. I was actually expecting it to win people's choice because like it really was like kind of the breakout story of the festival. That was like, that was, we kept hearing from people who were like, it had broken containment. People were hearing from like family and friends back home being like I heard about this I Play Rocky movie, the fantasy football podcast that I listened to, and watch on Netflix was talking about it because their producer is Matt Bellany's producer for The Town, so he was there at Tiff. But that was the one movie he came out talking about was I Play Rocky. So, like, this movie is definitely like the success story. And it's partially why

I do think now it's probably in the best picture conversation, just because I, I, I could, it's just, it's one of those narratives that I can very easily see establishing itself. Well, we'll see how much money it makes. We've underestimated Peter Farrelly before. We sure have. Had he won people's choice, he would have been only the second director to win that prize twice after Chloe Jow did it last year. This was a, this was a stat that I had inquired about once I realized that I play Rocky might win,

and I was like, wait a second, Farrelly could win it twice. And immediately, the great. group chat right there on the ball. Chloe Zhao last year became the first ever two-time winner. I will see the movie. It was just like seeing it at the festival. It was not, you know. But you did see being human. It was not a recipe for me to be a nice person. You did see being human, which was the second runner-up. And you were more impressed by that movie than I expected you would be. And you are somebody who loved the documentary about the woman who this movie is based on. Well, the documentary

Crip Camp, which like I've been like talking about as people have talked about this movie. It's not just explicitly about Judy Human and it's not just explicitly about the sit-ins that are depicted in Right, but that's a featured part of that movie. That's a huge part of it. She's a massive personality

in that documentary. So it's like I had an inkling that there was a chance I could like this movie because she is a figure I think is very fascinating and very engrossing. I just really did not like Coda. So that was my thing. Then I was like, I don't know if I'm going to like this movie.

I think being human is good. Yeah. It lands a lot of jokes that maybe I thought some other movies than I saw this festival didn't really land all of their jokes. Name and shame. We'll get into it. A movie neither of us really love. Got it.

It's also, you know, it's named after Judy Human. I believe it's also the name of her memoir that a lot of this movie sources from. It is a pun that has proved irresistible in many media, in film, in literature, in everything. Nobody can resist this pun. And I think somewhat through the title of the movie and just, you know, being already promoted as more of a biopic, The surprising element for the movie is that it really is this kind of large ensemble where you have just a ton of disabled actors all playing very distinct characters who the movie is very good at showcasing everyone's contributions to this protest effort

and like we get attached to a large number of characters throughout the movie and all of those actors are great. Yeah. So, like, that's a huge part of the impact. Like, so that, I think, is one of the surprises of the movie for me is that it's not just focused on Judy Human. And Ruth Maudley, who plays her, is really good. Yeah. And it's just, it's a very entertaining movie.

And I was moved by it. Like, all of the comedy beats land. Mark Ruffalo is, like, the central villain of the movie. Oh, I didn't realize that. Okay. It's a big performance from him, but I think he's pretty good. Yeah, and it'll be on Apple in November. And I think it's getting a one-week theatrical release.

My kind of concern for the movie that I was talking to people about during the festival is that I think especially with Netflix's kind of abrupt change in strategy for some of their movies, particularly movies like LeBola Negra and other movies they have in the Oscar races, they are committing to long theatrical runs like LeBola Naga. Negro is going to have the longest theatrical run they've ever had before something's hit the platform. Yeah. So it's really going to distinguish those movies as not just being streaming movies. And I would hope that this movie wouldn't have that attached to it.

Though it's like, it's, Apple's going to have to work really hard for people to see it as like a real movie movie and not just a streaming movie, I think. Apple's in a really fascinating place because they are as high on the mountain as they've ever been as far as television goes in terms of like prestige and awards. They've just won for the second year in a row the Best Comedy Series award at the Emmys for Widows Bay following up. Last year the studio set the record for the most Emmys won in a single year by a comedy. This year, Widows Bay beat it, beat that record. Also going back to Ted Lassau winning for Best Comedy, they are the first network or platform to have won outstanding comedy. comedy three out of five years with three different shows since the heyday of must see TV on NBC.

So like it's it's really something. And they and it's funny that like they got beat to that punch. They like they're they they won the Oscar before they ever won, you know, these, this streak of Emmys. So it's interesting now that like they've done so well in the TV awards. space. And now they are, despite F1 getting, you know, the best picture nomination last year, F1 was- Joe, I'm sorry, I have to correct you. It's pronounced F1. I'm sorry. Despite F1 getting the best picture nomination last year, that was very much seen as a, I don't know, maybe I shouldn't downplay it because just because it was seen as a, like, a theatrical triumph, I guess that's good on Apple for that, you know,

what I mean. I think what you're saying, though, and where I agree with you is that, like, a smaller scale movie, like, being human is going to maybe struggle to seem like a movie movie when it's on Apple, as opposed

to something like F1, which like F1, sorry, Chris, because it was so decidedly a, like, big screen, big movie, Fast Cars Go Zoom, kind of a movie. So I hope that they mount a campaign similar to what was done with Coda because Coda didn't really have that problem and of course it had the Sundance you know factor Helping into that movie because Apple bought that movie out of Sundance but they really got out on the circuit

That's why Cota won they had this really strong campaign of just making everybody fall in love with Everyone around that movie and this I do see the potential for this movie as well I mean I think this movie made the strongest case for like a sag ensemble nomination and a casting Oscar of anything I saw this festival. Sure. Yeah. Um, do you think we've talked before briefly, both here and definitely offline, about how the best

actress category is really wide open in terms of nominees? We'll talk about why we don't think it's wide open at all about in terms of winner anymore. But, um, that door seems to have slammed shut and we'll talk about it. Um, but in terms of like, who's going to fill up that category, do you think that Ruth made should be seen as a contender for that nomination. Yeah, I think she would make as much sense as, you know, a number of performances that I've seen. And, like, she's good.

She's very funny. I think, you know, if you want to get into the minutia of it, you don't get the, like, big emotional, dramatic scene from her that you might expect in a Best Actress Contender, but she, like, it is a really good performance. When I say the movie lands the comedy element, she's incredibly funny. There's no scene where she's standing in front of a panel of judges and hollering at them to... Really, if, like, the big emotional stuff, that's when the, like, ensemble comes in.

Cool. That's cool. Yeah. But, yeah, I mean, like, I think for, in terms of four other nominations, I think she has as much of a shot as anybody else, but the hindrots is just going to be making sure that people don't just think of it as a streaming movie. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, let's talk about Labola Negra, though, because it's the one that actually won. So, I know you didn't get to see it, but I thought. I'm really bummed. I watched the trailer again

yesterday as I was writing about my, I wrote a column for Vulture sort of handicapping the, the People's Choice Award and trying to see who, you know, was best positioned. I made the call that I thought it was going to be I play Rocky. So came close. But La Bolanegra was one of the five movies that I definitely, you know, said was, were, um, it. in best contention, I figured it would win. And when we saw how the movie was scheduled, we were like, oh, here's how it goes. Because it's just like, we're not going to say that these are, you know, cherry-picked. But there is a history of winning this prize and you're some of the most scheduled movies in the biggest venues. It's a math. It's a math game more than anything.

If you are seen by more people, that's more people who can vote for you. So, yeah. Right. And there was no act on the, in terms of scheduling and like what was playing large. venues and how often it was playing large venues, there was no competition for Lobola Negra. In fact, of the six people's choice and international people's choice, you know, winners and runner up, Possible Love is the only one that didn't play a large venue more than once. That's interesting. And of course, I Play Rocky was one of two movies that I remember adding

additional public screenings. There was a bunch of movies that got additional press screenings added. But I play Rocky and Club Kid were two that had additional public screenings at it. And I was sort of surprised that Club Kid didn't end up as one of the runners up because of that, because I figured the additional

screening would be additional people who could vote for it. And, you know, very well may have finished in the top five. But yeah, Labola Negra, watching that trailer again, I was like, oh, I'm really mad that I missed it at the festival. And I'm going to really try and hope Hopefully it plays during its theatrical run, it plays theatrically in Buffalo, or that I'm in New York before it opens and I can see it there.

I think they have the full, like, city schedule. I think it's a commitment of like 1,500 theaters or something like that for this movie. You will be able to see it in a theater. I hope so, because it looks like something that I will really love. And I know you were a little bit less effusive than I thought you would be. You know, I think it's good. I don't want to sound like I think it's bad. Sure.

I don't want to sound like a hater. I think I was surprised to be kept at an emotional distance for most of the movie. I just kind of could not get emotionally invested in it. And maybe some of that is just the, and there's, it's set across three different, you know, time periods. Like all the best movies, it's set across three different time periods. where there's like perhaps meta-fictional elements as well because there's

there's, it's set during Spanish Civil War, there's this play about queerness and you know, the title of the movie itself is, you know, essentially an allegory for queer rejection, not rejection between queer people, but specifically you are outcast because you are outcasts from straight society

because you are a gay person. The titular Bolanegra, the black ball, is a, like, it's a social club, somebody's being rejected from admission into some sort of social club. This playwright, yes. And there is, in another timeline, there is a character who is essentially forced into the fascist regime

and falls in love with a captive, you know, soldier in a recovery hospital. So there's this real like power dynamic that that just for me personally, and this is not like I'm going to write a term paper about it. It was just emotionally I could not connect to that love story personally. I do feel like I'm going to end up. Sorry.

Go ahead. There's a, and then there's a timeline set in 2017, the more contemporary storyline where another character is trying to discover the history and the truth about this play but it also helps bring forward the themes of you know, standing in your own gay truth basically and gay

authenticity. As the movie moved towards that and like kind of announcing what it was, that's when I could get invested. I struggled to get invested on like a character level but when like the real like theme of the movie came into play, that's when I, you know,

this is a movie I think that part of the reason why it's getting the response it's getting is because it really ends strongly and there's obviously like a lot of scale to it that people might not be expecting It's also a long movie, right?

It's like 240? Two and a half hours. And it's a war movie. I would categorize it as that first. So it's like, yes, there's all of the things that we've heard about this movie and why it's going to be a player, I absolutely like see what people have been on about,

even if I'm not going to be this movie's biggest fan. Yeah. I will also say, being previously told that Penelope Cruz is just a cameo, I was like, well, then no, she's not going to get nominated for this movie. It's basically from her two musical performances and then a backstage scene in between them that kind of plays like an extended monologue, and it was my favorite scene in the movie. Two musical performances are really great.

Pretty great to me. I do think she's legit, has a chance to be the first person since the rules have changed to be double nominated in a single category. You heard it here first, folks. I think there's a potential. I think, you know, there's always canceling out of a, who knows, now that the rules have changed, we don't know how to go. You're the first person who's mentioned that.

So I want you to get credit. I think there's potential there. It does feel like this movie is going to have me keeping an open tab on the Wikipedia. PDF page for the Spanish Civil War, which I love that for me. I love any movie that has me going down wiki rabbit holes. So I'm very excited to eventually see Love All right. I would count out Glenn Close being nominated for this because her role is the one that is basically a cameo.

It is also mostly in Spanish, which I did not realize about her performance, including one of my favorite moments of the movie when she says homosexuals. Alidad, which sent me to gay heaven. I'm going to start using the term homosexuality, just in general. Much more fun for me. Once again, Chris Fyle on the anti-Glenclose Brigade. I'm not, I just said it sent me to gay heaven. What is wrong with you?

I'm only joking. I'm only teasing you. Let's talk about the International People's Choice winner. We both saw Elsinor. This is the film you have probably heard advanced word on the performance by Andrew Scott in the lead role, being heavily, heavily touted for Best Actor Consideration at the Oscars. I saw this movie from the very first row in the biggest Scotia Bank.

As you did for Hamlet. Well, Hamlet, I think I was in the third row. But, like, yes, I was in the front section. I was craning my... You were in the section of the Oppenheimer front row of IMAS memes, wherever. everyone's face looks like Thanos. And it takes you a second to sort of like acclimate your field of vision to what you were watching. And I am looking forward to seeing this again from like normal dimensions and normal perspectives.

But even at that like less than ideal vantage point, I was in tears through many, many parts of this movie. It is, and this is reaction that I'm, you know, hearing from a lot of people. It is the story of the actor Ian Charlson, who had been in movies like Chariots of Fire and Gandhi. Chariots of Fire being the sort of like the movie he's best known for and sort of is plagued by that notion through a lot of this movie. The movie follows the period in which he is starring. He takes over for Daniel Day Lewis in a National Theater production of Hamlet. while he is in the throes of AIDS. He has progressed from HIV to AIDS as the movie is beginning.

And this is in the mid-1980s, right? Early to mid-1980s. Late. What's that? I thought it was the late. That would make more sense because it's farther away from Chariot's a fire. It's the Hamlet production that Daniel Day Lewis walked off stage from. Yes, which you see a little bit of...

Can I save? not to derail us too much from the movie, can I say the thing that I immediately was like, oh, well, this has to happen. What? In, if and when Andrew Scott is Oscar nominated for this movie, and we do the, like, full, like,

five previously winning performances that present. Yes. It has to be Daniel Day Lewis that presents it. Absolutely it does. God, put that in the universe right now, 100%. Um, Scott's phenomenal. He's really,

really fantastic. And I think that appears. has been shared by pretty much everybody. I think Elsinore itself has been much more divisive. I think you're seeing as many people who have liked the movie are, you know, they're sort of counterbalanced by people who are saying Andrew Scott is great. The movie is middling too bad. I've definitely seen people who have said like the movie is like outright bad.

I very much do not agree. I think calling it outright bad is doing too much. Yeah. I think you and I appreciate it to differ. levels, but, like, I definitely feel like, and part, you know, is this maybe me giving credit for a movie to a movie that, you know, moved me as much as it did,

and, you know, perhaps. That's not nothing, though. I just, I do feel like, you know, you're seeing people talk about it as a, you know, it's a lifetime movie. It's sort of just like, it's, it's a movie of the week. It's, you know, the kind of sort of like early 1990s, you know, a TV movie kind of level.

I do not agree with that. I think the whole thing is supercharged by Scott's performance. Absolutely. It is enhanced by it. He is the one who's driving the engine there. But I think within those parameters and within that context, I think the film itself is directed by Simon Stone, who is a theater director who is sort of,

from the people I've talked to, like his reputation is a little bit sort of hit or miss with people. to, in terms of the things that he's directed. I think the film does a good job of, through the context of Ian Charleston specifically, gets into the ways in which this entire community of people, of creative people, of people who are so full of, you know, life and energy and queerness and whatnot, were cut down. I think you see that. You see the ways in which the thing that I wrote down between this and also I watch the

Iris Sacks movie, The Man I Love, which is also about a person, a performer who has AIDS. Perhaps difficult performer. Right. And I said the ways in which that disease turned friends and lovers into caretakers and nursemaids and the way that it turned creative people into you know, dedications and epitaphs and whatnot was, but the movie really addresses that. The movie addresses the way in which the medical community had to, you know, the parts of the medical community that did, you know, address the AIDS crisis that really had to, you know,

press and force, you know, their way into making a space to provide care for these people. And I just think it's a really solid movie that is elevated by a truly incredible performance. And I've been a fan of Andrew Scott for a long while. Weirdly enough, the things that, like, made him kind of a sensation for people being Sherlock and Fleabag are kind of two of the things I am less, you know, not a fan of. I just sort of like existed outside of the realm of Sherlock. and I thought everybody was being a little bit kind of corny about the hot priest thing with Fleabag.

But you know how much I love the movie Pride, which that movie was written by the same guy who wrote the script for Elsinor, and I'm going to get that person's name in a second. And I think that's kind of been one of my, like, snagging points on this movie because it's felt like such an immediate comparison. You know, we who are the super fans for that movie,

go back to our previous episode on that movie. We love the movie Pride. You know, Pride is also a movie that feels so populated with, you know, specificity of queer life for an era that doesn't exist anymore. And this does, too. I don't want to hinge too much on the montage thing for this movie because their movies somewhat, you know, relies on montage to some degree. and some of it can feel a little repetitive. But in marinating on this movie, I do think one of my things that was my holdout,

but like it's still there, is that I feel a lot of that whole like queer life is present in those montages. And I just kind of wanted the movie to slow down, not move so expediently through those things so that you could just kind of marinate in it more. Yeah, that makes sense. Because it's like I love that in a movie.

And it's like, it's still in the movie. It's still like pretty omnipresent in the movie. It's just maybe not the main thrust of the movie. Yeah. Stephen Barrisford, by the way, is the writer. He wrote the script for Pride. He also wrote the script for the Tolkien movie that I had not seen, but I had not heard great things about the one where Nicholas Holt plays J.R.

Yeah, that's a terrible movie. And... That is a bad movie. Okay. Does make me kind of... Is there... Is his queerness addressed in that movie at all? No. Okay, then I'm not going to see it. Then I refuse. But yeah, we'll be talking about Elsinore, I think, throughout award season. And I think this particular debate over whether it is a good movie with a good movie with a great performance or a mediocre movie that is being elevated by a great performance is going to be a topic of conversation. Do we want to get into, do you have any? Okay. So,

Sorry, before we get into the stuff that we both saw, the international people's choice runners-up were Li Chang-Dong's possible love, which I was very much looking forward to seeing, and then ultimately didn't for logistical reasons. And then the film The Assassins with the... We did not see The Assassins. I did see Possible Love. I was very excited for this movie. Anyone who looks at that running time and feels skittish, I will say this movie, you

moved at a clip that even 90-minute movies that I saw, even 70-minute movies that I saw this festival did not move at. This movie moves at such a brisk pace with so much, like, constantly growing detail for both the characters and their circumstances. It's about two married couples, one of which is a, you know, more working-class couple, uh, living in South Korea, the husband of which has been laid off from his factory job, and there were ensuing protests

over the amount of layoffs. I don't want to get into too many specifics, because the movie reveals itself in a way that I find really, really powerful, and I was very moved by. But they basically, through a chance encounter, meet a documentary filmmaker and

her husband, and they kind of become the subject of her on-camera interviews. And on top of things like workers' rights and, you know, how you sustain a marriage, the movie also has this kind of meta-quality that's about, to a certain extent when you are a filmmaker, telling stories that are not your own, even with the best intentions, there is an element of exploitation there. and there's a larger question in the movie about what it means to be liberated or free or unencumbered by your circumstance.

And, you know, the movie opens because this is one of those movies that was part of the project that ultimately got dumped, that it's like, you're going to remake the Decalog in a bunch of different movies. And this movie takes the Thou Shall Not Covet stance. So it's also about, you know, seeing your circumstance through the eyes of other people's circumstance. That's how the coveting gets you. And what does he do, Clarice? He covets. This is the long-awaited follow-up film for Lee Chengdong after 2018's Burning, which I also saw at the Toronto Film Festival.

And it was pretty incredible, was kind of bummed that that movie never made it into the Oscar conversation. This is an interesting hypothetical. Does a movie like Burning fair better in the post-COVID can is a more determining factor for the Oscar's best picture list era? Or is burning still a little maybe too particular or sort of peculiar for Oscar. I mean, Burning... Stephen Yun was an interesting factor in that movie, and I do think that it went towards him

ultimately getting nominated for Minari. I believe with you there. Yep. I mean, Burning is a film noir, which is like Oscar's least favorite genre. Yeah, yeah, fair. You know? So that's some of it, too.

I think, you know, that's very... That's a movie that's very, very allegorical towards class. If burning is a little too grim and its sexual politics are a little too muddy for you, I would not expect the same reaction to possible love. Possible Love is like a very talky movie. Obviously long, but, you know, I don't think it plays out like some arduous, slow movie. It is going to be a Netflix release though, which I worry that long movies on Netflix are a recipe for people's attentions, drifting especially a foreign language film movie that is long

on Netflix. This is a movie that I'm going to really, really take pains to try and see in a theater because, like, I am not a better person than other people. I am as, you know, I have become as addicted to my phone as anybody. So, like, it is more challenging to watch a long movie with subtitles from the comfort of your home without falling prey to checking your phone or getting distracted or whatever. So like, I get it. And that is the danger of a Netflix distribution. Yeah. I'm not, I can't say how this is going to actually do on the platform, but like it's already getting these incredible reviews. I'll be very curious to see what happens with it on like the Critics Prize front this season. Yeah.

But, like, even in international feature, which this is the South Korean submission. Has South Korea ever been nominated for besides Parasite? They've only been nominated for Parasite. And Li Changdong has been the submission before. I do think that this is more accessible than something like Burning or, I believe, Secret Sunshine was also submitted. But, you know, it's easy to see this is. not going to be Netflix's priority. But one of their priorities.

Yes. Okay, as is the custom here with our TIF episode, we have spent a very long time talking about, like, three movies. So, let's move it into the films that we both saw. Can we start with...

We both saw... We were at the same screening for this movie, although we were not sitting together. My favorite movie of the festival. The only movie we saw together. Like, together. together physically in seats together was Barbara Cople's Union Town. I don't think we saw anything else.

I don't think we did either. Part of that is that I find my little corner of, although actually because anything we would see in public screening tickets at Princess of Wales, we get assigned seats far away from each other anyway. Well, and I think just the domino effect of like one priority means all of the movies that we're seeing together we're seeing at different. times, you know. Yes. But anyway, Jesse Eisenberg's The Debuttive, I levitated out of my seat watching that

movie. I loved, loved, loved it. And judging by, obviously, the advanced word on Julian Moore's performance coming out of Telluride was pretty great already. She gets a mid-movie applause break in this. It was like a applause break on applause break on applause break. I thought that they were going to burn the fucking building down. It went so crazy. The last time I saw a mid-movie

applause break in that theater for a Tiff movie was Judd Hirsch in the Fabelmans and I immediately wrote down Judd Hirsch is getting an Oscar nomination for this and it happened and this ovation was like 10 times that. And comes at the end of a

barn burner of a, it's not strictly a monologue because like Paul Giamatti does take part, but like it's... This is also the movie that I kind of want to protect a little bit because it's going to be a long run until it gets into theaters in December. I don't want to give away too much.

We'll just say it's a private rehearsal scene. Yes. But she's incredible in it. She's incredible in the whole movie. Tonally, I'm trying to find ways to like describe the tone of this movie. because for one thing, it's very peculiar, but also the tones shift throughout the movie in a way that I think is very impressive on Jesse Eisenberg's part in terms of like, nothing in his previous two films. What was the title of the one with Finn Wilford?

When you're finished saving the world. And then, of course, a real pain, which won the Oscar for Karen Culkin. Um, none of those two movies can really prepare you for the tonal shifts in the debut. There are portions of this movie, which come across like kind of light John Waters a little bit, uh, towards the beginning. And there's, um, it's a strange. It's safe to say this is a strange movie. I think it's one of the most exciting things about it is you get out of this movie and you're like, holy shit, Jesse Eisenberg has just made three incredibly different movies. and each of them has gotten significantly better. There's a portion of this movie that made me write down Boas Afraid. I was like, oh, this is like Boas Afraid.

And again, without giving away too much of anything. It is a movie that is about a small town community theater production. And the particulars of that, I think, are very funny, but are also very very very. very idiosyncratic. You know, you get really interesting. That cast is populated by the likes of Hallie Bailey and Bonnie Milligan, recent Tony winner and Colton Ryan, who has been in Broadway stuff and was recently in the Dear Evan Hanson movie. And it's quite, just quite, quite funny. It's a movie that I think when

you know when you're watching it and you're having a great time with it and you're allowing it to surprise you I constantly felt myself being like this is when the movie's going to normal out. This is when it's going to become like a cozy, nice, sweet movie

and this is a movie that at every turn kind of doubles down and that is one of the more exciting things about it. I I, you know, it's definitely not going to be a movie for everyone, but it was very much so a movie for me. Yeah. Yeah, it's very much a movie for me, too.

But here's the... And the performances are just so incredible. I mean, I... There was a time where... And I'm very enmeshed in Julian Moore filmography right now, but there was a time where, you know, one of the, like, more snobbier opinions on her was, yeah, but she can't do comedy.

And that has not been true. Is that just because someone's in a movie like evolution? Which no one is ever going to be funny in that piece of shit movie. What's the one with her? She has been funny before. What's the one with her in Pierce Brosnan? Were there lawyers? Laws of attraction.

Laws of attraction. Right. It's like that's not her fault. You know what I mean? But like if you saw her in the Big Lobowski, you know she can do, you know, comedy. Like this is like the people who say that her Boston accent in 30 Rock is so bad and therefore she's not funny. And it's like, no, that's, that's, you're watching, first of all, you're watching fucking 30 Rock. Also, she knows what she's doing. That is not a bug, it's a feature. Like,

she's doing. She's great. Um, the, coming out of Telluride, people were already being like, best actresses sewn up. And like, after seeing the movie, because normally you know who I am, like, I am a person who very much resists those narratives this early in the year, because I'm like, stop making it less fun for me. Stop, you know, closing off. I don't like things. I don't like things. I don't like categories that are wrapped up this earlier, whatever. And then I watched that movie, and I'm like, well, yeah, like, yeah. But the performance is also that fun, so it doesn't feel like you're being, like, shorted any fun. And it's Julianne Moore, who is just so, on top of being such a phenomenal actress, is just so baseline, likable and lovable. And speaking of

the Finn Wolfhardt movie, Finn Wolfhardt was in the audience for one of the TIF screenings. And, And literally, like, it took, like, Jesse Eisenberg being like, I heard Finn Wolfhard was here. And he was just like, he was just in the regular, you know, audience, whatever, which I thought speaks really well of, you know, Julian Moore as a co-star. You know what I mean? And well, she's already spoken so much about Jesse Eisenberg and the love she has for him. And it feels so genuine that it's just like, how can you not love Jesse Eisenberg after this movie? I also want to shout out Paul Giamatti, who I think is wonderful in this movie in a way that, like, is a little more than meets the eye. You know what I mean?

Yes. And he's not getting talked about enough already. He should be getting talked about. And I will be very, very sad if he gets left out of the supporting actor conversation. Because I think he's really fantastic in this movie. And in a role that, like, I don't know if I could see another actor doing it quite that way. You really need to, like, that role is so well tailored to him, I think. Right.

So anyway, and I should also say, by saying that, like, the debut is going to be more for certain people than others, I don't want to give people, like, permission to close themselves off to this movie. Like, be open to this movie, even if it seems a little bit, like, even if you're one of those people who are like, I hate musicals, I hate, like, theater people, they piss me off, whatever. It's like, there's going to be stuff in here for you. like be open to this movie's, you know, tonal, the nimbleness, I would say. Yeah. I also just kind of feel like the people who are going to be like rolling their eyes at this movie are exhausted by it. I'm going to just have a trigger response of, well, you just don't know how to have a good time. You know, like, you need to take things.

You need to lighten up, man. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And again, like, I'm trying to really dodge talking about specific things that I really loved and really responded to because this is not a movie that I want completely unpacked for people. I agree with you. Before they have an opportunity to see it. I mean, like, this movie isn't released for another three months.

So I hope there's a decent amount that people are allowed to discover. And I don't just mean like in a spoiler sense, but in a tonal sense, in a punchline sense. We need to keep it all contained to our very vibrant group text, which has been alive with pleasure with the debut talk and mentions and references since we saw it. So this is also a movie that I think they know what they have on their hands. 824 knows what they have on their hands. They were handing out fake playbills in the lobby on the way into the movie. Never experienced something like that at TIF in my life. and it was so smart.

Fake playbills for the play within the show. I think just in general, there is an exuberance around the way that they are pushing this movie and marketing this movie that I think speaks well for its chances. Can't wait for the merch. Can't wait for the merch. I cannot wait for the merch. I've had a couple of interactions with A24 over the last couple weeks, and I do want to make sure that somebody out there knows that I do still love them

and would very much appreciate whatever swag box they're sending out for the debut, I want in on it. I don't care if that's being shameless, I don't care if it's being obnoxious, I fucking want in on that sweat. Because you know it's going to be good. You know it's going to be like just full to the brim of wonderful little I do think that it is the number one with a bullet, the movie that is going to be the most joyful thing to experience all seasons. It was just like constant. It was a, yeah. It was the festival for me. I should say as we move

on to some of the other things that we both experienced, can we talk about another movie that I found to be a very joyful experience while also a movie that made me cry? And that is Tresh Mountain. Oh, okay. Well,

you know, this is going to be a little bit different of a conversation because this is a movie that made Chris and I, we saw it at different screenings. It made the both of us cry at different parts. And I love a movie that can bring two friends together like that. This is...

I will just be up front and say that there is no planet that I can be objective about this movie. No one is asking you to also. It hits far too close to home, though I did not face a hoarding situation. But a lot of these... A lot of this is just like... I mean, a character says something verbatim that I said to my... therapist. I can't be objective about it, but that being said, I loved this movie.

This is the movie starring and co-written by comedian Caleb Heeran. He and Ruby Carter wrote it. Chris Ray directed it. He stars as a, it's close to, if you've seen his stand-up special and you saw him speak about the death of his father and how his father was a hoarder, that's sort of the premise of this movie is he plays a Chicago comedian who has to come home to his Missouri small town, small hometown in Missouri to deal with the aftermath of his father dying. Zoe Dichannel plays his half-sister. Jackie Weaver plays his grandmother, his sort of religious and very demonstratively grieving grandmother, Jackie Weaver. This movie is Sibling Cinema, which you know I love. Caleb and Zoe Dishanel. are incredible together. Caleb Heeran is also a gay man of size, which always sounds a little condescending, but it's something that I find to be very comforting

in that there is somebody in pop culture who is as popular and funny and also as sort of artistically in tune with himself as Caleb Heeran is. I think he's really, really wonderful writing and also performing in this story. It is, in many ways, like, the Sundancey person goes home to their hometown movie. It is not really, in those formal terms, breaking any new ground. That said, I think within those parameters, first of all, that is a genre that when done right, I really love.

That is a genre when done wrong is very ripe for mockery, whether it's Garden State, whether it's Elizabethtown, whether it's, you know, whatever. But when done right, when done with humor and honesty, I find it to be really, really a comforting genre. And I find this movie to be really lovely. There is a romantic subplot with Caleb and a character played by Djibuki Young White that I think is really, really wonderful that there's a moment between those two characters that was the first instance that I started to tear up in this movie it ends.

I saw people saying that that was like a shoehorned romance element that, you know, is just like because there has to be a love interest in this movie. And I really have to disagree with that. I disagree with that. Because it the people go home and hop on hometown grinder. That is a thing. Sure. Sure.

but also it that relationship allows the movie to also have some really specific point of views that like those movies you're talking about that don't do the for lack of a better term sun dancey thing well don't have those movies when they don't do it well it's because they lack specificity it's because they don't earn the laughs and it's because they don't really make you feel anything and this movie does all three of those things and the beats that that storyline goes through don't really hue to you know, the beats of, like, yes, there is a moment where these two have an impasse that they have to address. But it comes out of very sort of, I think, honest and realistic, you know, things that two characters like that would end up clashing over. And I think there are some really, you know, honest and insightful things that come out of that particular storyline. It's a movie that also ends perfectly. There is a really, really lovely scene at the end of the movie with Caleb and Zoe that, like, made me immediately text my sisters when I left the theater.

So really, really good. This is a movie that I, does it have distribution? Not yet. Not yet, but it's going to get picked up. I would really like this movie to not just be like a Netflix, you know, lost in the, you know, lost in the miasma thing. If this ends up being like a, even like a Hulu movie, I do think it's better than that. I don't think this is going to be like tearing up the box office anywhere. But like it's like a perfect, I mean, they don't release movies outside of award season anymore, but it would be like the perfect movie for Searchlight to release in March.

Yeah. Yes. Yes. I would love that. I would really, really love that. Or Focus. If Focus picked this up and released it in the spring, I would be over the moon about that. You know what I mean?

So I don't know. I'm not in charge of anybody, but, you know. Anyway. I love this movie. You can tell me that I'm not objective about it anyway, because it's not just... You're not required to be objective about it. It's not just sibling stuff. It's not just gay guy in the...

Midwest stuff. There's a lot of reasons that this movie just like really, really pushed a lot of my personal buttons. But it's really special. Okay, let's talk about a movie that neither one of us liked very much. Not, not, I shouldn't say, that makes it sound worse. A movie that both of us were underwhelmed by that a lot of other people have really loved. And that is Martin McDonough's Wild Horse Nine, which is currently a big, big time Oscar contender. And I don't think that our lack of enthusiasm is going to slow that train down any. Though I will say the people I talk to who are most enthusiastic about this movie saw it before the festival.

Yes. Yes. This did not. Well, okay. That said, though, I was sitting there in the press screening for Club Kid, and that movie had a lot of people who were an influx of a bunch of people who were coming right from the Wild Horse Nine screening. Yeah.

out of one room and into the other. And there was a lot of chatter about people who would really, really loved Wild Horse Night. So I do think, like, there is, I think there is genuine enthusiasm and appreciation for that movie. Also, John Malkovich is currently getting a ton of Oscar buzz for his best actor consideration. He's great. He won the Volpe Cup for Best Actor at Venice. He's great in the movie. I also think, like, that is a perfectly calibrated it's time, it's his time kind of, you know, Oscar campaign to run. I was decidedly

underwhelmed by the film as a whole, and I am not a Martin McDonough hater. I was actually probably among the like top tier, not maybe top tier, but like in the sort of like top 25% of appreciators for three billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri, I loved. And even you had reservations about that movie, so that's maybe not saying a time. Sure. But I loved the Banshees of Ineshaeran. I also loved in Bruges, a movie that I think compares

more favorably to, or that when you stack up Wild Horse Nine too in Bruges, I think Wild Horse Nine suffers. I didn't find it funny enough. I didn't find it particularly insightful enough. I thought it kind of lagged at parts during the story. I think there are certain story sort of detours that I didn't that didn't really capture my interest.

It kind of also early on announces the endpoint that it's trying to get to so it just feels so sluggish isn't even the right word but you're just like, okay, well we know where we're going can we just get there? And again, Malcovic is really really good, but I think

you know, even just outside of his film work, if you've like read any Martin McDonough plays or seen them performed, I really don't think that this movie stacks up well because it just really feels like he's done all this before.

I wish like there was a sharper perspective on like because we should say what it's about. Malkovich and Sam Rockwell are two U.S. agents in Chile preparing for the

overthrow of Allende including like telling Chilean citizens who are in the form of these two female characters who are really really underwritten that the overthrow is going to happen and the US will be responsible

by the way here's all of the other things that the US is responsible for which like sometimes is played for humor sometimes is played as like you know, the audience needs to know this information. Yeah. Yeah.

You're asked to believe not just that like the CIA carried out all of these things, which is not difficult to believe, but you're asked to believe that this one guy was involved in all of those things, which was kind of a huge leap for me. I wish that the movie was more

sharply defined as a type of character narrative of here is a type of person who over the course of a government doing a lot of bad things not becomes radicalized but sees things for what they are someone whose political perspective changes over the course of their life and that would make it a little bit more of an interesting movie but like i don't know it just really felt like martin mcdona had done all of it before and better yes um i should also say say the to the end of the that this one character has been a major player in all of the major

um you know global misadventures of the the CIA and deposing the democratically elected regimes and putting in friendly dictatorships um as somebody who loves the donald sutherland and jfk scene more than basically anything that's essentially his setup to that scene is like I was there for the overthrow in Guatemala and Iran and in the Philippines and in Tibet. And by the way, I shot JFK. Well, that's the extra bit of spice to this one. And they get a lot of mileage out of, you know, Malkovich being the secret grassy knoll assassin for JFK.

There was one, my biggest laugh in that movie is a reference back to that. I guess I can't hate too much. I don't hate this movie as the other thing. But I do, looking down the barrel of an Oscar, a Best Picture nomination for this, I just don't think I'm going to be on board. I said to Chris for as much as I love John Malkovich, after seeing Elsinore,

I'm like, if Malkovich beats Andrew Scott for that award, I'm going to be so fucking pissed. So, you know, I don't want to, how can I put this in a way that's not rude, but talking about the, it's his time, you know, honoring a career.

I'm not saying that Malcovich isn't worthy of that type of consideration, but is he the kind of actor that the industry will think of in that way? I have a question about it. He's very, he's sort of famously Steppenwolf-coded, right? He's one of the,

that handful of Chicago. actors who is very tied to the Steppenwolf Theater. And I always wonder about that, because you talk about movies and actors who play very well to the New York crowd or to the L.A. crowd. And I often wonder, like, do the Chicago folks split the difference, or do they, you know,

are they neutral ground in the New York versus L.A. Wars? Or do they get claimed by no one? And obviously somebody like Lori Metcalfe. I saw how that went for L. Well, but Lori Metcalf has been somebody who has won eight bagillion Emmy Awards, you know what I mean? So like... And Tonys. And Tonys.

So like, but maybe the Oscars are different. Maybe the movie industry is different. Can we talk about a movie that I want to make sure we give time to that I feel like is already overlooked? And I didn't talk to many people at the festival who saw it, but we both really liked it. Yes. And that is Clarissa. Clarissa, yes. What a great piece of adaptation.

A really clever, smart. This is... Or the Assyri brothers, Ari and Chukho. Ari and Chuko is Siri. Yes. It resets Mrs. Dalloway into Lagos in Nigeria. Yes. With a present-day storyline, obviously being Mrs. Dalloway.

As Mrs. Dalloway does. It's very fluid, not just in timeline, but also character perspective, you know, whose point of view are we seeing things from? So we see a flash... The flashbacks are to, I believe it's the 90s in Lagos, in a very... I really loved these flashback scenes that star... I wrote about how much... And she's obviously not the main character in this, but I thought Iowa Debray was really,

really good as the Sally character, as the sort of the woman who briefed kind of, you know, in trance is young Clarissa. Clarissa, Young Clarissa Dalloway is played by India Amartifo, who was in the Netflix spin-off of Bridgeton, Queen Charlotte, played Queen Charlotte, I believe, on that show. She's really tremendous as young Clarissa. I think she's really phenomenal. The other young actors, Tohib Jimo, who was on industry, and who was the guy who

played the young Ugo. Cahinde Cardoso plays young Ugo, who is so charismatic and so fun. Really, really loved those scenes. There is a sort of merchant ivory quality to some of their scenes that I really, really loved. I wrote in my piece on Iowa Debris, I said I would kill for the Assyria brothers to remake a Room With a View after this. I would absolutely love something like that.

Because outside of, you know, changing the setting away from World War I, UK, aside from that, it is a very, very faithful adaptation, not just in terms of plot, but also just like the tone of it, the type of things that we're led to think about and think about these characters. There's a character who's dealing with PTSD from, in this case, it is the sort of military conflict. happening within Nigeria. I believe there's Boko Haram implications to some of this. Do not quote me. I am not, I'm a dumb dumb when it comes to African history, unfortunately. But there is a lot of, especially, again, in those flashbacks, it's, you know, young people who are politically astute to a point, which I think is very, very,

very fascinating to watch these people sort of like, that's how you are in your 20s. You know, you think you know it all and you're very engaged, but you're blinkered and, you know, these characters, especially young Clarissa comes from privilege and they're in this sort of like, you know, kind of

lovely country home in Nigeria while, you know, in the midst of one of the characters at one point, I think it's the Peter character who was just like, it's interesting that we talk about, that we celebrate you know,

Independence Day in the midst of a military, you know, occupation. And it's just a really fascinating movie.

And Sophia Okanato, who plays, you know, the present day, Clarissa, I think is also really good.

I no longer think, after seeing the movie, I no longer really see it as an awards play for

her, in part because of the nature of, of how much screen time she is in the movie. It's very sort of like rides the line between lead and supporting. I was definitely expecting an adaptation that leans more. I mean, she's the titular character, but like it is a shared effort.

And I kind of expected with her presence in the movie that it would maybe lean on more on her and the Peter character played by David a yellow else. There is a scene of, in the present day storyline, where Sophia Conado tried. to manage the hanging of a piece of artwork that is really, really funny. And one of my favorite things in the movie. And it's also, you know, Clarissa's such an introspective character, especially the older version of the character, that, you know, Sophie Okinae is really great at that, but is that, you know, what gets responded to? I don't know.

I think it does this movie, few favors, putting it into the awards, race because it's this really delicate thing. And like one of the things it does so well in capturing, you know, Virginia Woolf's original text is that like by the end it's like, blow me over with a feather because it's just like building to something that's really, really nuanced and observational but really powerful. And the movie does that so well, but it's just like, you know, when you're up against louder things.

Yeah, it is not a particularly loud movie. And I think, to its credit... I hope people seek it out, because it's... I loved it. Yes. I think that'll be definitely one of those movies that by year-end, it'll be like, make sure you don't overlook these movies, and I think Clarissa should be on there. Also, a good chance.

The next movie on our list to talk about will be on there, and that is Lagradiva, which... Directed by... Marine Atlan. Marine Atlans, Lagra Diva. Remember her name. Cinematographer Marine Atlans. debut feature. Cinematographer turned filmmaker. This is a movie about a class full of French

teens, French sort of high school seniors, who take a class trip to Pompeii to study the artwork and the ruins in there. They're sort of in the shadow of, you know, Vesuvius. And being a group of modern-day teens, there are sort of romantic entanglements, although I don't know if I would necessarily call them romantic. There's a lot of energy. As romantic as it can be when you are a... It's a movie that starts off with, you know, two of the characters sort of like elicitly hooking up on the train to Pompeii.

Yeah. But it's not necessarily like... It's not like a sex farce or anything like that. It is... But there's a... You know, it's just this unruly sort of group of... high school students and this, you know, these couple of teachers, one in particular, who has to sort of, you know, wrangle them into actually learning some things about and applying, you know, themselves to the setting that they're in, the one character, Tony, who is, who's gay and who also has this notion that he, or not this notion, but like, that he, that his family lineage sort of comes from Pompeii, that he has the story that was, you know,

told to him by his mother about how, you know, his, you know, grandmother in, in Pompeii and wants to go look up the, you know, see if he has family here and sort of look up the house that he was, that his grandmother and his grandfather sort of, you know, got together in, essentially. Really, really well done. very sort of like mousey student who, you know, doesn't really say much and is kind of picked on by the other students. And she's really fantastic. That actress, the actor who plays Tony, is Colas Keengarde. And Suzanne, the young woman, is played by Suzanne Garan. And both of

those performers, I think I would single out as being best in show here. I think it is a very engaging movie that is also the beneficiary of some gorgeous shooting like location cinematography really really lovely to watch and to experience if you vibe with Mia Hanson love I think you are on the wavelength of this movie she's a filmmaker I thought a lot about in this movie and I who am probably

not do not gravitate towards like earnest portrayals of teenagers particularly teenagers who don't always speak or behave as kindly to one another as you would hope

you know I've there's an element to this movie where it's like I'm just not the audience for it but I it really talk about Blow You Over with a feather this movie is so delicate and precise and more than just like a teen drama.

You know, obviously, you know, it's in this setting where you're thinking a lot about the ancient world and such, and these like incredibly modern teenagers, right? Yes. So there's this element to this movie and like family lineage. And, you know, it's all set right before these kids are finding out where they're going to go to college. So there's this like collision between the people.

past and the present and you know you think about the dynamics of who all of these teenagers are in their class where it's just like you have the fuck up you have the fuck boy you have the loser and it's just like they're at the

final moment where all of those things are going to define them or define how they see themselves that they already even do like the Suzanne character is so interesting A because she's like she's the outcast who's also kind of Hosts everyone on a certain level.

And with good reason. She's one of those characters who, like, she's very smart. She's very, you know, introspective. But also... But she's not the outcast because she's hostile. Right. You know, she's the outcast because everybody is shallow. She's the outcast.

Like, it's, yes. Yeah. But it's just like, she's going to go to art school and she's going to be so fucking cool. And everybody's going to want to know who she is. And it's going to be this 180 for this girl. And it's like, that's all so vividly done. And by the end of the movie, there are certain things that happened in the movie, and that character kind of, I don't know if I would necessarily say

blossoms, but she sort of shows herself to be capable and sort of, you know, able to take charge of a situation in a way that makes you proud of her. But there's also, speaking of Clarissa, there's also a scene where they're all sort of having, you know, dinner around a table, and they're engaging in these very sort of current political conversations. And it's, God, it's so, recognizable the conversations that you have as a teenager about politics and yeah because there's like the analog that's

the young Republican and I'm like man I have had arguments with that character like fuck that guy but also is you know later on in the movie he's not painted as this like on like he's painted very realistically you know what I mean and ultimately

you know these are still just sort of like teens but it is yeah he has a very clear outlook on the world that's ultimately founded in nothing because he's experienced nothing yeah yeah um really really loved this movie really um not sure what was this selected as it is it will not be in the international feature race but one two special is releasing it this December okay looking forward to that check that out if you can um we both saw a movie that i don't think is coming out this year i think it will probably come out next

year, but Andrew Hayes' latest movie A Long Winter that stars my biological son, Fred Heckinger, and also Eben Moss Backrack, and also from Belfast, Katrina Boll. And I liked it, and you, I think, loved it, which

I loved it. I love this dynamic between us. Because the buzz on this movie was pretty bad heading into Tiff. I had heard from multiple people who had seen it who did not care for it. And I think people who I had screened it that I knew had screened it before Tiff were also like pretty down on it.

Andrew Hay is a filmmaker I love. I don't know if I would put a long winter ahead of other movies of his like 45 years or all of us strangers. But there is, I think Fred Hackinger is really incredible. He plays a young

closeted, closeted young man living with his family very isolatedly up in the mountains in Colorado, I want to say, right? Somewhere in the Rocky Mountains, though, I'm pretty sure. Isolated there sort of by his father's choice. That is where his father, who used to live in New York City, had kind of moved west, and you get the sense that, like, not really fleeing New York because of, like, you know, legal reasons or whatever, but, like, had left New York and been like, I'm not.

never going back. Like I was very dissatisfied with the East Coast. And married. And we hear a lot about there was a mining dispute about shutting down the mine. And he was basically the outsider of that situation and kind of distance himself from the rest of the people, even in the town. So it's not just a like physical isolation where they live in this cabin in the woods. He's pissed off their neighbors enough that they don't want anything to do with them. And his wife, who he met, comes from, the neighboring mountain town sort of across the pass, across the holler, essentially. And she has become, her marriage to him has made her more isolated in a way that she finds very stifling. And she, at some point in the movie, and this is part of the premise of the movie, so I don't think it is a spoiler to say, she goes away at one point.

And a lot, most of the bulk of the movie is spent with, Fred Heckenger and Eben Moss-Baccarac trying to find her and trying to figure out what happened, where she went, what's going on. And there's a discovery for the protagonist, too, that his mother was an addict. Yes, was an alcoholic and was also just like very, very, he never knew how dissatisfied she was. He never knew how, and he also has a brother played by Kit Connors, who at the beginning of the movie goes off to, serve in the military. This is during the Korean War times. And you get the sense that the brother, even if he survives the war, will probably not return home. That his brother also does not want to be stuck there. And so Fred Heckenger, who, again, closeted gay. So, like, there are,

there is a, you know, a part of him that yearns for other things, even if it's not necessarily, like, leaving, although you would think he would also want to do that, but, like, he fantasizes about the local cop. And he, you know, he has a very, I would say, you know, quietly, erotically charged relationship with DeFaro Wunitai from reservation dogs who plays this guy who comes to live with them and, you know, work as a, you know, domestic help essentially doing the cooking and cleaning and whatnot for this family. And it's very dour, I think, and it is very down. beat and it is, um, there's not, I would say there's not a ton of like juice to it. But I think within those parameters, I think it, I thought it was really well done. And I think Hakenger and Evan Moss Bacharach are both really, really good in it. Yeah, I mean, Fred Hacchinger is like perfectly cast for what you need this character to do because

he is a somewhat introspective character, someone who'd be really easy to reduce as like naive. but he's also incredibly capable and like maybe self-aware is the right word but like self-convicted Yes, a great scene with Martin Freeman who plays his uncle too I think in that movie that I almost missed because of a bathroom break but I came back for the bulk of it and I think it's really really good

I mean I kind of push back against the people who called this movie Chili which seems too easy to do for the amount of screen time that snow has in this movie. It's also kind of, I think, a little coded for gay characters who don't have sex is that they'll just call that movie reserved or chilly, you know what I mean, or that kind of a thing. But, like, queer lust is so... Helpable. Obviously, like, on the surface of this movie.

So, like, that I also think is an erroneous complaint. The... I think... The thing is, Andrew Haig is just... And, like, as the, you know... Programmer intro reminded me, because I feel like we've been corrected on this before,

and it just doesn't stay... Is it? Hay? It is pronounced hay. Okay, then I'm... Yes. Fuck me, then. Um, yes. Andrew... I mean, me too, because I've been saying hey as... Hey. Well, he's gay.

So you wanted to say, you know, Andrew, hey. Sure. The... It's a lame joke, and I'm sorry I made it. On some way, on a perception level, it's like weekend has ruined him for so many people. Because he's just a filmmaker who people are constantly like mad at for not. Where's the fucking? Matt is maybe a strong word.

But mad that. Why there ain't no fucking. For not giving them what they, the exact thing they want him to give them them. because like you even had this with all of us strangers you even had this with looking and like I think all of the things he's made he's made have been intentionally and remarkably different and I think yeah I was really impressed by that here because the confidence that he has in like kind of slipping in and out of genres which I think you know all of us strangers is the first time he really tried it and it was one of the things that I wasn't so sure worked amazingly for me because there's there's a good portion of this movie that's just like a thriller yeah and people I think didn't know what to do with that out of like telluride and I think it's especially after all of us strangers which is this very like slippery like fog of a movie I think

this is a remarkably direct movie, especially in the way that it ends in some of the visual allegory of what's happening, which I found really powerful and so smart. I don't know. I just thought this was a very laser-focused, satisfying movie that also kind of works against some of our preconceived notions about who, when we see characters like that. like this, who those people are going to be. Specifically, the Hetchiger character, which is, like, everybody, they're in this remote, like, presumably non-queer friendly environment, and everybody wants to leave. And he's the queer person saying, I love my life, and I love what I have here.

Yeah, yeah. But he also resents the way that his father has driven away his mother and his brother and, you know, you know, that kind of stuff too. No, you know, I mean, I have, you know, loved that guy since the White Lotus. So I've been a big, big Fred fan. And this is probably his best showcase in a film. Although you know how much I thought I would have nominated him

for supporting actor for Thelma. I thought he was so good in that movie. But this is his best showcase, his best acting showcase in a film, I think, for sure. Yeah. I'm not best. by the decidedly lukewarm response to this movie because I do think, like I said, Hague is somebody who is just like not giving people the exact thing that they want from him

and they resent him for it or like it's just like this cloud that hangs over every new movie that he has and because he's making different movies than that, you know, people don't know what to do with him. But I think that this is a pretty straightforward movie that like really achieves what it sets out to do. Yeah. And then some. So yeah, I loved

I loved this movie. It was the last thing I saw the festival, and usually the festival does not end strong for me, and this is probably the best last movie I've ever seen. It's hard not to feel difficult to please by how

exhausted you are at the end of a festival. And it's always nice when it can... This was like one year when the last thing I saw was the death of Stalin. And I was like, this is great. I love, you know, leaving a festival on a high. Oh, no, wait. My first Tiff, the last movie I saw was Lady Bird.

Oh, well, there you go. Caviot. Caviot. I'm going to play Waiter here and say, if you enjoyed that movie that is probably not going to release this year by a queer filmmaker, can I also interest you in Ira Saxes, the man I love? Wow. Great movie. This was a movie that I also, I hadn't heard bad things like I had heard about a long winter, but I had heard sort of like middling.

It's, you know, it's a bit of a minor work for Irisax and what have you. I think the word out of can is, it seemed like it was positive reception, but it also didn't win any prizes. Which again, we can- The log line for the movie, I think, is it sets an expectation. for a tone that this movie is not trying to achieve? You get the sense that it's going to be this very harrowing, intensely, like, sort of difficult to watch movie about a lover watching his, a man watching his lover die of AIDS. And something that's more flowery than thorny, and it's a pretty thorny movie.

It is. And so this is, this is, this is, uh, this is, uh, this is, uh, The Man I Love stars Rami Mollock as a actor slash sort of cabaret performer, sort of like New York Alt theater performer in New York City, who's like very celebrated and at a time that, you know, locally it feels like that had more like cultural cachet than it does now. He feels very like, this type of thing doesn't exist. Yeah, he's a local sort of like within a community, he's well known.

who was working on a stage production of a, I would say it is the equivalent of like a viral video now. This sort of like this, is it a thing that actually exists? Like it is, it is a piece of an old movie? I couldn't tell you what the actual source is, but he's recreating. It looks like a clip from like the queen or something like that. Yes. Yes. Yeah. It looks like a little bit of like that, like outtakes from the queen,

outtakes from, you know... Or outtakes from a Fosbeinder movie because this is a movie where Ira Sacks reminds you, he is the world's biggest Fosbeender fan alive. And as he's, you know, he's working on this, he's, you know, dealing with his illness. Tom Sturridge plays his lover.

They live together in this... Essentially a brownstone building above Maisie Stella. And then her roommate. her gay roommate who was played by an actor who I had sworn I'd seen before but had never seen before actually. I had heard his name sort of bandied about

because I think maybe because of this movie but it is Luther Ford. Luther Ford, thank you. Who is the fuck boy of the festival as far as I'm concerned. This is a character who like every time he's on screen

I said I wanted to both throttle him and to make out with him at the same time. Like it is to that degree. Yeah, Irisax maybe got me to understand fuck boys. Because, like, I've never, I've never seen the appeal, but I did see the appeal here. But he's sort of instantly attracted to Rami Mollick, both sort of physically, but also, like, just from, you know, his energy or whatever. I will say this is a movie that does a really good job of harnessing. God, I keep biting my tongue.

I'm going to say that again because I sounded Lispy. This is a movie that does a very good job of harnessing Rami Mollick's. alien qualities, you know, a little bit in that he is this very sort of aloof is the wrong word because he does gather this kind of community of artists and sort of well-wishers around him. But he's very intensely focused on his work. This performance that he's trying to make is this act of like mimicry where they're trying to like, word for word, transpose this cabaret act that was on, that exists on video

into a live, you know, format. And he's also, there is, there's a very, there's a, the queerness that exists in this relationship that he has with Sturridge, where they are incredibly loving and incredibly close. This is not a portrait of a, like, deteriorating. relationship, but it is also very compartmentalized. Compartmentalized. Yes. We're like, Sturridge serves, you know, a function in Rami Mollock's life. And there are just other, you know, this is, there is a understanding between the two of them that Mollick is, you know, too vast of an emotional terrain to be encompassed by one relationship.

or whatever, or by one, you know, sort of person, there are some incredible scenes between Tom Sturridge and the fuckboy where that tension plays out. Tom Sturge is incredible. I've always liked that actor. More Tom Sturge movies today, now. Cast him in everything. And as queer characters, because I think he brings a really, really interesting queer energy to his performance.

I mean, it's a movie so much about performance because Malik's character is not just a performer, but is, like, performing the role of, like, what people expect of him. And, like, it feels like we do have glimpses of him as a person that, like, are so fleeting. He's constantly, he's someone who's constantly on and, like, knows what people's expectation is of him. And then it's also the mimicry of his performance that adds a whole. other layer for Rami Mollock's star of Bohemian Rhapsody of very controversial and lauded performance. But like this movie feels like it totally knows what it's doing in casting him. And it feels like Mollick knows what he's doing and taking this role.

That is not conventional, intellectual, and you can understand why there's a bit of a baffled response to this movie. I would both understand people who love that performance, who are perplexed by that performance, and I would probably even understand people who hate that performance, even though I do not hate that performance. Agreed. There is also, this movie is going to eventually come out next year at some point. It'll come out in the wake of Elsinor, and I think it'll be a very interesting thing to see how it is compared to that movie after the fact. Because it is a, you know, it's both movies about, you know, a queer, actors who are, you know, who have AIDS who are, you know, sick and struggling. And I say this not as a detriment to Elsinore, which is just like, it's a different movie, it's trying for different

things. But the thing that I loved about The Man I Love is how much Ira Sacks and how intuitively Ira Sacks is able to make that a movie about, for as much as it is about the Rami Mollock character, it is also about the community of people around him and the ways in which he as a performer, like the ways in which other performers have impacted him and have impressed upon him and the way that his work and his life has, you know, then tendriled out into the other people.

The way that this movie ends, and I'm not going to talk about spoilers or anything like that, but like the way this movie ends is a really sort of lovely, you get this sense from Iris Sacks that he, that this is, the story does not end. The story of, you know, the people who have been taken from us by AIDS, their stories didn't end with their deaths.

Like their legacies, you know, move on. And they're the ways in which, you know, the queer community, the queer community's resilience and the queer communities dedication to and appreciation of things like art and aesthetics and dance and community like all that sort of stuff. Well, yeah, because Sacks is so fascinated by, you know, studying a New York life, and specifically a queer New York life that doesn't exist anymore. But in this movie, it feels like he's talking about, you know, antecedents, you know, life that continued and evolved as, like, certain, you know, life and cultural life died. It's not specifically a political movie, but it is a movie that has very much a political awareness and conscience. And there are moments in the movie that really make you, you know, feel, you know, linger on.

the state of things as they were at that period in, you know, in our history. It's really good. I really loved it. One of my favorite things that I saw at the festival. Ditto. All right. You mentioned, let's briefly just give our sense of Barbara Coppals Union Town. The only documentary, well, besides Everest, the only documentary that I saw at the festival. We saw it together. We pumped our fists and said, and in solidarity with the union workers. We both, I think, walked out knowing that that CEO of UPS is a demon on this earth. I fucking hate her so much.

Jesus Christ. Fucking ghoul. It is a movie that Uniontown in this case is referring to New York City. It is a story about three different labor actions or labor movements within present. day New York City, one of which involving the UPS workers who were involved in a very high profile, as all UPS strikes or UPS threatened strikes are, because it really would grind this country down to a halt. Then labor action involving Amazon. Those two actions both instrumentally involved the Teamsters Union, but also sort of dovetail very well with

one another thematically. And then one about a unionizing of gig workers, specifically DoorDash Delivery folks, which I think you and I both agreed would have maybe been better left to a separate movie entirely, perhaps like a sort of tandem, you know, maybe due to documentaries in tandem, because I do feel like that part of it was maybe underserved. by existing as kind of the less dynamic third wheel, you know, third, you know, arm of this thing that as a two-hander would have been better. It's, you know, it's a really galvanizing documentary.

I hope that, you know, its subject matter doesn't hinder its release in any way, similar to how Union experienced a few years back, the Sundance Documentary Union. because I do hope people see this movie and think about what it's asking you to think about. But yeah, I think there is, and it's hard because like Barbara Cople, who, you know, in documentaries about labor rights. And, you know, she's a legend. American Dream, you know, is kind of, you know, one of the foremost voices we think about with this type of filmmaking. But I do agree that in spreading the focus, it kind of, for good chunks of the movie, lacks that, you know, coppel immediacy. And some of the best stuff in the movie is when she just gets, she observes how, you know, the internal dispute happens within labor movements.

And, you know, the more established Teamster, you know, leadership. versus the younger activists who are, you know, perhaps more passionate but haven't been through as many of these, you know, labor actions as everybody else. So there is, there are points made on both sides. But even like the way valid outsider opinions get squelched by the group think that, you know, it breaks down, you know, collective effort in a way. And yeah, it's all incredibly important. We should be thinking about all of this and we should be fighting for workers' rights.

I do kind of feel like if she'd made three different movies about each of those three, you know, subjects, it would probably result in three stronger movies. But that being said, I thought that this was good. Yeah, yeah. Also, as I mentioned multiple times throughout the festival talking to other people, a brief but very welcome needle drop for, sorry, a diagetic needle drop for Princess Purple Rain, which one of my favorite songs of all time. The last movie that we both saw and have not talked about yet, I can't believe we're going to be encroaching upon the two-hour mark

before we talked about this movie. Unshockingly, my favorite movie of the festival, and I believe your favorite movie of the festival, Mike Lee's Tender Loving Care. Mike Lee's Tender Loving Care. This and the debut were my two favorite movies of the festival, for sure. First, this was a tender-loving care I saw first. I always love it when, and this has happened often,

where the first movie I see of the festival remains my favorite movie. This happened with Call Me By Your Name. This happened with Parasite. I believe the first movie I saw last year was the Roseburn movie. If I had legs, I'd kick you. So, good track record. with first movies. I, of the two of us,

I love Mike Lee so, so, so much, and I am dwarfed by you in terms of loving Mike Lee. So that is the dynamic we're going into. We both saw this separately. Please move back to our Patreon episode, which I guess we didn't like the Patreon on this episode. We just got straight to it. Go to our Patreon episode from last month on Happy Go Look.

Happy Go! Okay. This was a movie that... And again, part of me was like, well, happy go lucky was the last Mike Lee movie that I saw. And another year is my favorite Mike Lee movie. So I may be being a little influenced in that those were the two movies I thought of while watching Tender Loving Care. But I think those two movies and also Hard Truths are probably the Mike Lee movies that feel most similar in varying aspects to Tender Loving Care, which is a... And Mike has talked about this movie and Hard Truths being in a kind of dialogue.

for this being the inverse of hard trees. That's fascinating because I do feel like this is a movie that is in dialogue with happy go lucky. And maybe that is partly because Cato Flynn is in both of them. But Cato Flynn, who just won an Emmy for her fantastic work on Widows Bay, and Alice Bailey Johnson play best friends who are rooming together again because Cato Flynn has just broken up with her no good Nick boyfriend who we never see, but we only hear what a shit he was.

But they both work as social workers, not necessarily in tandem. They don't work together together, but they are both working in social work. We see many scenes of the two of them in... I think you could classify them as Alice Bailey Johnson works in like elder social work and Cato Flynn works in like family social work.

That's a good point. That I didn't really clock that specifically, but yes. So we see them in various settings trying to talk to people, trying to get people to accept their help who are maybe reticent to accept their help. I think so much of the movie is about the ways in which offering people help and having them be in a place to accept that kind of help are often two very different things. and the sort of heartbreaking strife that comes from that conflict. But interwoven into that, then, is Kate O'Flynn's parents, who are played by Marian Bailey and Paul Jessin,

who are so lovely and so wonderful. And their relationship with Kate O'Flynn is very close and very loving, but she keeps them at bay about certain things. She doesn't want to tell them that she's broken up with her boyfriend for various reasons. They clearly never liked this guy, but they also are in a place where she comes to them and she's like, good news. And like good news can either be that she's pregnant and about or that she's, you know, going to marry this guy or going to have a baby with this guy or that she broke up with this guy. Either one of those, it could be received. as good news because for as much as they don't seem to like this guy, they also know that they

want to see her happy, they want to see her settled, they would love a grandchild. Their version of happy. Yes. Their version of happy. And then Alice Bailey Johnson loves Cato Flynn's parents and they love her and she'll come over when... And she's distanced from her own family. We find out later she's distanced from her own family. So as a, you know, any good Mike Lee movie does, it's sort of, you know, each character's storyline kind of comments on the others. There are some really lovely scenes of family interactions in this movie. If you've seen people whose like main reaction to this movie is, oh my God, call your parents, you will understand once you know, see this

movie. But it's also just, you know, you know, expectedly, um, full. Full. of just these really lovely observations. I think the part where I was comparing it to happy go lucky is that is a movie where a character sort of adopts this very determined

stance of frivolity and cheerfulness as a way of reacting to a world that can be hostile either to them or to people in general. And there is some of that in that like these two two social workers deal with having to sort of butt their head up against a wall in their daily

job often. And then come home and it's like pop a bottle of wine and we're going to just sort of like be not necessarily unsurious, but sort of a certain degree of like unsurious with each other. And we're going to, it's not to the degree of like Sally Hawkins character and happy go lucky where she's like so much like I'm going to take a dancing class and I'm going to, you know, But there's a real, like, intention of... I'm going to have fun tonight. Expressing positivity in order to get through your day. Yes.

Yeah, I mean, that relationship is so... So beautiful. There's a moment laid in the movie that happens in a flash that I'm like, that is the moment of the year for me. That I wouldn't want to go into too much depth with. This movie is coming out this year, so definitely... December. December.

Get ready for it because it's wonderful. I also think, you know, in typical Mike Lee fashion, there is a lot of intentionality to the movie that is neither shoehorned nor preachy that reminds the audience to not just consider this story within the confines of its main characters, but that what he is talking about. applies to the larger world and our interaction with it. I think, much like a lot of his filmography, this is a deeply political movie

that you could very easily mistake for having no political bent whatsoever. Yeah, I was deeply moved by this movie. I made sure that I saw it while Mike was in attendance. Also gave me one of the moments of the festival, because in typical bad Q&A fashion, I saw equally bad questions asked of Lee Chang-dong. Oh, I didn't realize that.

You didn't mention that. That's so funny. I mean, effectively, the same question. But hopefully listeners get a kick out of this. Mike was asked in the Q&A by the dude sitting in front of me to explain the very final shot of the movie. And as he's asking this question, you can hear like a low-grown go over the audience because it's like,

we know how this is going to go. And Mike takes the microphone and says, so I think most of the people in this audience will tell you that I don't do that question. And I think most of the people in this audience will also tell you that they understood the final shot in this movie. In fact, if we could get a show of hands of people who did not understand, the final shot of the movie. And of course, by then, everybody is laughing and clapping. And the guy took it in stride.

He gave Mike a thumbs up. So it's not like Mike was being awful to this man. Counterpoint. Counterpoint. I did walk out of that movie, and I turned to Katie Rich and Shirley Lee, my two lovely friends are two lovely friends. And I said, so what was up with that final scene in that movie? Not that I didn't.

I mostly understood it, but there was aspects of it. But it's different having a conversation with people who just experience the thing than asking the filmmaker themselves. Because the reason, it's not just that he doesn't want to be a prescriptive filmmaker or tell you what you should interpret anything with. It's also just that, you know, you're meant to sit and think about it and discover it rather than have someone just feed it to you on a platter. And the way you do that is through conversation, you know, with people who just experience it. Exactly. You experience. It's, I mean, it's, I've been kind of describing it because he has said he expects it to be his last movie. And I think the movie is made with a level of mindfulness towards that, but he's also never the filmmaker that's like, I'm going to make my last final stage. If that is the last shot of his last movie, it's perfect.

I mean, but. But there's so much running through the movie that I do think is a restatement of a thesis that his whole career has been about. And that's why it's like, you just made the comparison between another year and happy go lucky. Everybody I've talked to about this movie that talks about, or draws comparison to other movies, are mentioning different movies. And that's because, and it's not the time. type of thing that it's just like, well, he's repeating himself or reheating his nachos. It's that there's a lot of different ways to talk about the things that very clearly as an artist get him out of bed in the morning.

I think people are too quick with the reheating of nachos charge in general with most things because artists are allowed to have preoccupations. It's probably good that artists have preoccupations. It allows us to, you know, it allows us to engage with their work, I think. think more productively and more, you know, more entertainingly for us when there are preoccupations that exist in multiple works for artists. And, I mean, he's been making movies for decades and the, you know, nuances of political realities have changed over the course of that time. So it's always, I always feel like

he is making movies so very engaged with the present in which he is making them. I mean, like hard truths is like the best movie about post-COVID life. I think anyone is likely to make. And I know that he is specifically said, no, this movie's not about COVID. But that could also just be a very Mike answer. Sure, sure. Also, don't think I'm annoying because I call him Mike. He even corrected the Q&A to say, call me Mike.

I have never once thought you were annoying for that. He does not like, he, yes. he likes to be called Mike. Mike? Mike! Try Mr. Wallace. I call all of my favorite directors by their first name. I call Martin Scorsese Marty, and you know what?

I'm going to keep doing that, so... I really hope people continue to engage with it. I think more so than any other movie when I was talking to people asking them what their favorite thing they saw was, they were saying this movie. And I was really heartened because it didn't really seem like... It didn't seem this movie didn't go over well until you ride, but it didn't make... as much noise as I would have hoped there, and I think that was not the case at this festival. I think most people I talked to had such a strong reaction to this movie.

I'm going to say, I'm going to propose that we, in talking about the movies that only one of us saw versus the other, make a bit more of an overview because we are two hours into this, and that is for as much as we can without short-changing anything. Should we briefly talk about movies that did not seem to go over very well at this festival because I don't think we really saw them? Neither of us saw Fjord. We know that there was a whole fervor online of people who did or did not see this movie. It was a fervor, Chris. It was not just a fervor. Sure.

I still have yet to talk to somebody who loved that movie. That is since can. So I'm still waiting on the first full Fian of Fjord. and I don't think that necessarily like, I still don't think its awards chances have been killed. I definitely still would probably put it in contention for things like Best Picture and a Best Actress nomination for Renata Rinesva.

I've been saying, and I'm going to keep saying it, I think it's getting the same Oscar nominations that Triangle a Sadness guy. It's very possible. It's very possible. I'm looking forward to seeing it, if only to sort of get to engage in the discussion about it and this idea that it is this sort of

anti-wok, anti-Scanadian woke movie. We have both made the joke that it is a movie, that it is... Listen, listen, listen, it is imperative. It is a matter of grave consequence. We simply must let Sebastian Stan beat his kids. We just must. We have to. We have to.

He must do it. That is what that Palm Door was saying was, was endorsing that particular action. I think in terms of movies that premiered at TIF, that there was some expectation for it, I think the one TIF premiere that had some anticipation that really fizzled was Pramafachi, was the Cynthia Arrivo Prima Fachi,

which based on the stage play that Jodi Coney Cohner won a Tony Award for that was a one-woman show on Broadway and has been adapted to, and I'm saying this second-hand because I haven't seen it, was adapted to a

multi-performer film as a movie, and from everybody I talked to who saw Prima Fachi, they were a uniform in being like, it does not work as a one-woman show.

And this was a movie that was looking to get sold at the festival. I don't believe it has gotten sold, at least not that I have. I did not see any kind of news about that. And I'm sure it eventually will. It stars Cynthia Revo. Somebody's going to buy it at some point. But certainly any notions that it was going to catch fire at Toronto get bought up and immediately throw Cynthia Revo into the best actress conversation.

I think those hopes are well and dead. Yeah. So that was kind of the bigger one. Other ones had sort of bad or underwhelming buzz coming in from, well, first off. Or premiered elsewhere. Like Bunker and Alpha Gang did not go over well. Bunker went over worse than Alpha Gang. I just didn't hear anybody talk about it.

That was one of the screenings that I had to skip because of my injury. And I ultimately didn't really regret it because nobody. Nobody was talking about Alpha Gang for good or for bad. Bunker, I had heard people talk about it negatively. But that had really bad buzz coming in from Venice. Was it Venice that it played or Tell you, right? Venice. Yeah.

Like the reviews were all pretty bad. So you had, you know, Javier and Penelope and Penelope. Penelope Cruz has so much going on this award season. So I think Bunker failing is not going to put too much of a dent in that. But there you have it. Pedro Moldivar's Bitter Christmas had played Cannes, and nobody seemed to really be that enthused about it. I've heard... I really like that movie, but it is definitely the type of Almodovar movie that I always feel like I'm on an island as the only fan of that movie.

again, because I think people have a narrow expectation of what they want Elmodovar to give them. And then if he's not doing that or doing something different, they just don't like it. Yeah. There was also the Midnight Madness movie, The Face of Horror, Anna Biller's movie, follow-up to The Love Witch. What year was The Love Witch? That was... I think it was like a decade ago. It was.

2016, my goodness. This movie was set in the 14th century. This was another movie I was going to try and fit in and ultimately was not able to do so. But there was, I think, some expectation that this might be one of the movies that really catches fire and maybe wins a prize for the Midnight Madness section.

That was not the case. Midnight Madness, we should say, was one. The people's choice for Midnight Madness was the Matthew Rankin documentary, ladies and gentlemen, Brian Mulroney, about former Canadian Prime Minister, Brian Mulroney. Curious to see that movie eventually,

just because Matthew Rankin is such a artistically daring filmmaker, and the premise... We both love universal language. Both love universal language, and yet the premise of, ladies and gentlemen, Brian Mulroney, seems very decidedly prosaic, and I can't

imagine that that's the case. So, the only thing is that, I know about Brian Mulroney is he was the Canadian Prime Minister when I was young when I was growing up. And that was it was the only like only because I grew up in a city close to Canada, did I ever really even hear that man's name? He was utterly in my experience of history, uncontroversial. And seeing it won people's choice was a little bit like Canada. Like they do love to root root for the home team up there. And I love them for it. By the way, we should mention, we had a waiter at this one, the one pub that we frequented the most, the one that I

was endeavoring to get to as I took my tumble, was a very engaged and friendly waiter who talked to us about everything about American Canadian politics, you know, to types of how whiskey is made, all this sort of stuff. And when Katie and I were back in there before we saw Elsinore. He fully did the Rogers People's Choice commercial, which is all just like regular folk around Toronto, having like advanced film opinions. And he was talking to us about taking his son to see a revival screening of Akira. And it was just like, man, I love experiencing that firsthand. But anyway, um, uh, uh, the Anna Biller movie. Yes.

didn't hear very much from people who had seen it, and I had heard sort of grumblings about her being a little bit of a handful as a filmmaker. Oh, wow. Yeah. But that's, again, you know, gossip and rumors, so we shouldn't put too much stock into that. But, yes. Movies neither of us saw that did make some, you know, did garner some attention there. your mother, your mother, your mother.

Which I think we both skipped. Which I saw people fucking loved. I ended up skipping because I'm like, well, a week after the festival, it opens. So I'll be able to see it right away. I think both Allison and Roxanna at Vulture, my colleagues at Vulture, both really loved it. I expect to really, really enjoy it. It does not seem like the kind of movie that really appeals to me in terms of like, you know, he's an assassin. and it's very violent and, you know, whatever, whatever.

This is Mahershal Ali working with the filmmaker who was originally intended to direct the Blade movie that is now dead at Marvel. So this was sort of like the movie they made while they were waiting to see the fate of this Blade movie. But people seem to really love it. So good for all of those folks involved. Misty Green, which was the victim of my, I Need to Sleep in Today, Missing, I Would Have Otherwise Seen It.

There's going to be a full Kinsey scale on this movie between loving and hating it. Because there are people out there saying it's a masterpiece, but I talked to people who were mostly varying degrees of disliking it. I did talk to, you know, some folks who did enjoy it or, like, really enjoyed certain aspects of it. This movie seems to exist on a little bit of the same spectrum as Elsinor, but just a little bit lower on the, on the scale. And that, like, people seem to really, really like Rosalind Aliazar's performance. Rosalind Aliazar, who I know basically mostly from being on slow horses. but she seems to be decidedly in the conversation, I think, for a Best Actress nomination coming off of this. I'm less sold on the prospects of Chris Rock.

I was somewhat flabbergasted to read the official TIF right up of this movie. They have all the movies on their website, sort of, you know, and they write a fairly extensive plot description slash why you should see this movie. and compared the movie both to Robert Townsend's Hollywood Shuffle and Spike Lee's bamboozled, that is setting quite an expectation for a Chris Rock directed Hollywood satire. And from everything that I've heard from people, I do not get the sense that that is the kind of movie

that Chris Rock made. So every detail I was told about this movie, my eyes continually like shot further and further out of their stuff. so I'll be very curious to see how I feel about this movie. Neither one of us... Neither of us saw only living pickpocket in New York. That was a Sundance movie that... Screamed for the public very late.

But, you know... And I think it's also screening at New York Film Festival. That was a Sundance movie that neither one of us, I believe, had access to because it was one of the movies that they would not allow the online press to watch out of fear of a twinless situation where it would get immediately, maybe not for the reasons that twinless was immediately pirated, but regardless they were keeping it. Also, a lot of people who went to physical Sundance didn't see it

because it premiered very late at Sundance. What's up with that? That's, you know, programming the same movie late at multiple festivals feels rude. Okay, so run us through the movies you saw that I did not see. Okay, I think the biggest one on there is going to be Club Kid, which is the Jordan Firstman movie that he writes, directs, and stars in that was a big hit at Cannes, and also reportedly went over very well at Telluride, and went over very well at TIF, as I mentioned before, they added an extra public screening for this movie.

Everybody who I have talked to really, really loved it. There are people who were very over the moon. The fact that I merely liked it quite a bit places me comparatively low on the scale of people who have seen this movie. And it makes me feel a little bit like a hater even though I'm not. But I do find myself comparing other movies to it more favorably to it, like after seeing Trash Mountain, and not to like pit gay guys against each other. But there are themes that exist within Club Kid that I think are handled with more complexity and to me hit me more significantly in Trash Mountain than in Club Kid. If you've not heard the plot of this movie, Jordan Firstman plays a New York City club

promoter who has been fairly chewed up by living in nightlife for a... a decade plus. He's, you know, the drugs have gotten to him. He's just, he's a mess. And he finds out that one of the products of his club going past produced a child. And he's 10 years old and his mother has died. And he is now, he now has to take care of this kid. There is a very brief, very funny performance by Kirby Hall-Baptiste as the woman who sort of brings this kid from England to the United States to meet his father. And that to me I really loved. I also think that Jordan Firstman, who is, as a gay guy, I am as required, I have ambivalent feelings about Jordan Firstman as a sort of personality, but also I...

One of the experiences of the festival for me was straight people being like, really? When you say, I have misgivings about George's first. They don't know that we all do. That is a condition of being a gay guy. This is a sign that gay, you know, gay guys in queer culture is not as mainstream as it might seem to our insular community because everyone, all of the straight people are just like on a different plane. I've never heard of him. Yeah, no, it is true.

But I think also that is part of what is a club in this movie's arsenal that will do very well, which is, no pun intended, I guess. I was trying to make a golf metaphor for club kit. People feeling, people feeling like they're getting cool points. Well, and also, but also discovering a talent that they had never heard of before. And like, for any kind of ambivalence that you might have about Jordan Firstman, he is. an incredibly, there is a charisma to him that like, you know, does jump off the screen. I do think he delivers a very good performance in this movie. If I were to have some criticisms about this movie that maybe are the things that held me

back from fully giving myself over to it, I do feel like the emotional terrain that it covers is decently flat sounds too harsh, but like this is not. It sets a low bar for itself. This is not a movie that, like, surprises you once you know the trajectory that it's going. It sort of hits the beats the beats that you expected to hit. It hits them well, and it hits them in a way that feels honest. But it doesn't surprise you with insight in a way that, like, would really send me over the top. It does not, there aren't really relationships in this movie.

that you, you know, that you sort of have that kind of a scene where it's sort of like it hits you, you know, it hits you in the chest. It's, you know, it's a very sweet relationship he forges with his son. And the obstacles in the movie, the thing that I sort of walked away with, and at least one person on Letterbox told me that I was a shit for having this opinion. Girl, close the comments, close comments. Whatever. We'll have that conversation. I don't get enough comments on Letterbox to be exclusive about it. I really do not.

It just, this is not a deficiency of the movie, but watching this movie really reminded me of how much of gay life and gay, you know, the gay experience in New York involves being on drugs in a way that I really both. me out and has bummed me out before I saw this movie and is just sort of like, that is my thing. That is my hang up. Everybody around you is doing drugs and I wish they were not is all I'm thinking. But regardless, I think it's a good movie. I think other people are going to be more excited about this movie. And I don't want to be reductive and be like straight people are going to carry this movie because I do feel like a lot of queer people are going to really love this movie.

And they won't be wrong for doing so. But I think that this movie's, the degree to which this movie is going to be celebrated by straight critics and also straight people in the industry is what will end up getting this movie a best picture nomination if it does get a best picture nomination. And certainly that's what A24 is going for. Like A824 is really pushing hard for this movie. And good for that. Good that A24 is getting behind a queer filmmaker. and taking a movie that definitely, you know, placing it in, was it in certain regard or was it in critics format? Yes.

It was in certain regard. Placing it at the Cannes Film Festival, like, give this treatment to more queer filmmakers. Give this treatment to more first-time queer filmmakers, because, like, a lot of them will pay off the way this does. You know what I mean? Just like, if this is a good, if this is a movie that in the, um, a movie that in the, inspires studios to take chances on, you know, on queer filmmakers and movies that are, whose casts are full of, like, you know, because part of the movie, part of the thing that people are going to really, I think especially queer audiences are going to really respond

to in this movie, is that, like, Jordan's character exists in this sort of found family of very decidedly queer and trans and, and drag. and sort of gender nonconforming and just people across the spectrum in a way that doesn't feel tokeny in any way. It just feels very organic. Does it feel engineered as much as I feel like the rest of it is engineered? I would say no. Because I, the hater can log in. It's fine.

I look at this movie and I feel like it's a very cynical play. play. This is why I didn't see it at the festival, because I will be more likely to be generous towards the movie seeing it here than in the midst of seeing a bunch of others. My quick response to that is I don't find the movie to be cynical. And that is, I don't know if I, I think, I'm going to allow other people to have whatever opinion on this movie they want, because I do feel like this is a movie that's going to hit a lot of people in a lot of different ways. And I don't necessarily think somebody is wrong for having that

guard up with somebody like Jordan Firstman whose persona always seems very, you know, produced, right? There is, even when I think he's being natural, he comes across in that sort of winking, kind of a way a little bit. Winking feels a little playful. There's a, there's a, there's a, you know, I'm smarter than you to Jordan Firstman. There's an I'm, you know, aren't I, aren't I so alt, you know what I mean? Aren't I more authentically? The whole thing with him in heated rivalry that annoyed me was this idea that he had the inside track towards queer authenticity and that anybody who was appreciating a show like heated rivalry was accepting, you know, less, you know, than what they deserve. And I don't want to get into that and whatever.

So I'm curious to see what you end up making of this movie. The fact that it didn't end up in the top three. It's going to be the funniest fucking thing in the world when it's my favorite. I'm saying I do not discount that possibility. It really might be. It really might be. will say, before the festival, we saw other outlets floating the idea that Colleen Camp, who is in this movie, a veteran actress Colleen Camp, could have a supporting actress campaign

on her hands. I feel like, now having seen the movie, that that is more than a little ridiculous, given how little she has to do. Our friend Chris Rosen described it as a performance that is 80% exists in doorways. And that is, absolutely true. She has a couple of like very brief sort of like funny little rejoinders, but like she does not have a sentence that lasts longer than like seven words, I think. In, you know, she's just, she's so brief. And even in the brief times, it's not even like Isabella Rossellini brief where like she has a moment where like she has a thing to say. Everything is just rejoinders. Everything is just, you know, it's, it's, it's, we.

It's weird. It's weird to me that anybody would try to make that case unless it was just literally like A24 sock puppeting somebody and being like, we should try and get a supporting actress nomination for Colleen Camp. I don't understand it. I really don't. Okay. Okay. All right. What else did you see? I saw the Everest movie I mentioned. I sat in the row behind the one of the filmmakers. I sat in the row behind Jimmy Chin and Jim Morrison, who. who was the main mountain climber in the movie. And that was an interesting experience because, obviously, sort of famously, Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vosser Haley are the two filmmakers who directed Free Solo. They were married. They are currently either separated or divorced. They presented, they sort of introduced to the film together and then sat apart during the film.

There are moments in the movie where you can see a discord between them because he ultimately embarks upon this climb up, this particularly daunting north face of Everest. One of the things that they mentioned early in the movie is like 500-something people have now summited Everest in history, but only 13 have ever done it by climbing up the north face of Everest. And this guy, Jim Morrison, he and his then partner, Hillary Nelson, wanted to climb up the North Face of a Earth face of Everest and then ski down it. And the twists and turns that that story takes is both public knowledge, but also I don't want to get into it because not everybody even know it. But you get the sense right away from the beginning that, like, there's not enough glory anymore in just summity.

Everest. Now you have to do it the way that nobody else can do it, the much more dangerous way, and then you have to ski down it because you've got to do tricks, apparently now. And speaking of gay culture. Speaking of Insular gay culture. Everything's got to be a stunt. Yes. And so our friend Richard Lawson described this movie. He wrote about it on his newsletter, which you should absolutely subscribe to, but also really, really... Everyone goes subscribe to premier party. Really, really hated this movie and really thought it was somewhat reprehensible in showing people who place their lives so cavalierly in danger when they have children and families whose lives they are also going to devastate if and when they die, which is a solid point.

And I think it's something that the movie does grapple with. It becomes more complicated when one of the two directors is one of those people who is cavalierly taking his life, you know, in his hands. I think in Free Solo, because they had more of a remove from it, it was easier to sort of, you know, countenance that distance. I think this one there is more of a complication and sitting behind Jimmy Chin and Jim Morrison during the movie really made it somewhat of a dual experience, like a second screen feature for me, where I'm watching the movie and then I'm watching them watch the movie because I'm trying to get a sense and like obviously this is not a way to interpret a movie. This is not a fully, an officially sanctioned anything. But I'm literally keep going to look at them to see if I can get a sense on their faces of is this at all horrifying to them? Is this at all sort of something that they, you know, is there some sense in this that there is a regret to what they're.

they did or a, you know, a reappraisal of it or whatever. And obviously, you're not going to find that in having a really obtuse angle look at their faces in the dark of a theater. But it is hard to watch this movie without having those thoughts. And it does make the sort of thrill of the accomplishment of what they're trying to do feel very secondary. And as I say, I do feel like the film grapples. with it, I would also

really not disagree with anybody who says they don't grapple with it enough to make it worth it. And it'll be fascinating to see how this movie comes across. It's screened in the IMAX theater in Toronto. It's going to get an IMAX

release too. You know, and it was filmed to be released in IMAX. Obviously not all of the things are filmed in IMAX because a lot of it is just handheld cameras and just sort of like regular, you know, drones, the things you can, you couldn't haul, you know, an IMAX camera to the peak of Everest or whatever. But there are some truly breathtaking scenes, especially like above the cloud line over the mountains, that is just

like watching that in a big, large, you know, screen theater like that was really, really breathtaking. And again, does not mean that the whole. endeavor is worth it. But this will be a contender, I think, for the documentary Oscar. And because Free Solo, you know, won that a few years ago, it'll be fascinating to see how award season sort of, you know, appreciates this one, I will say. I'll just very briefly go through the other ones because we definitely, whatever. Didn't love Danny Boyle's ink, even though I was really excited. I really wanted to love a sort of meat and potatoes, bit of journalistic history. This is the story of Larry Lamb, who was the editor of The Sun newspaper in Britain, who was hired by Rupert Murdoch.

Rupert Murdoch is played by Guy Pearce. Larry Lamb is played by Jack O'Connell, hired to sort of turn around the Sun. And what he does is essentially reinvent the British tabloid as lurid and trashy. and, you know, gossip obsessed and putting naked ladies in the paper and whatnot. And I don't know if Boyle necessarily has the best grasp of why he's telling the story. Clearly, the message of the story is this turn in British, you know, in the British newspapers, started the country down the path towards sort of moral degradation and the way, and essentially, like, leads to, there's a montage at the end that includes everything from

Andrew Tate to Donald Trump and, and the Kardashians. And, you know, it's sort of a muddled thing of, like, what exactly are we saying that this, that, you know, what the sun became? like draw that line a little bit more intentionally for me, Danny, because I kind of get the general sort of Misan Sen that you're getting here. But I don't think the movie is direct enough. And as a result, the sort of the bombasticness of the way in which it tells the story of Lerry Lamb just feels a little gimmicky.

And I think it strands what is a very, very good performance by Jack O'Connor. who is really on a hot streak of performances. So we'll be interested to see what you say of that, because I think people in Venice seem to really like that. Yeah, that's one that really kind of seemed to die at this festival. Some of it is that it premiered late, but then I don't think I talked to anybody who liked it at the festival. I saw Guy Nativ's latest, The Liberation,

starring Carrie Coon, as a wife and mother who gets seduced quite literally. by a cult. Lily James plays the cult leader. I think she's quite good. Carrie Coon is always going to be good. Bella Ramsey plays one of her two daughters and is the one who is very intently trying to liberate her mother

from this cult. Because of when it takes place, it takes place in the early 1980s. So, Carrie Coon's character is a Holocaust survivor, was a young, young child, and had, you know,

her mother and I think sisters had died in the camps. And so Nativ really tries to draw a line too directly, I think, between those two things. And it comes across as being a little too extra for me when he really tries to lean heavily on that angle. But I think in general, I think it's a really compelling sort of, of, you know, a little bit of a pop boiler kind of a thing, but in a good way. Also, in that kind of vein, although I think a little bit better, is Anton Corbin's A Talent for Murder, where Alden Aaron Reich plays a newspaper editor, or a book editor, sorry, who travels to Switzerland to convince

the reclusive Patricia Highsmith, played by Helen Mirren, to write another Ripley novel. And in their wrangling, they sort of talk through. a possible plot for a new Ripley novel, which is then depicted as a kind of shadow, you know, what if sort of plot where Aaron Reich plays the Ripley type character as a sort of alternate present for himself. Olivia Cook is also in it as the woman he seduces. A lot of fun, I thought, and Aaron Reich fucking rocks. He's really, really, really good. He's another one who's having a really good year coming off the Tony Award. And then I watched Laura Linney and Riesifons in the John Madden movie Onwards and Sideways, where they both

play people who meet on the day that they are diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. And it is a very sensitive and very well-performed movie by Ifans and especially Laura Linney that I wish had been a little bit more of, I said Roger Michel, you mentioned Richard Curtis, and I think either one of them would have probably given that movie a little bit more of a kick and a little bit more of a idiosyncrasy to it that I think would have benefited it from my end. Terrific. What about you? What were some of the things that you saw and really liked?

I think in the matter of time, I'm not going to go through everything. mentioned possible love, incredible movie, also saw A Gentle Monster, a movie that I don't think I've talked to a single person that likes that movie, respectively. Does Leisadu singing, would I lie to you, make more sense in context than it did in the trailer? Or not make more sense,

piss you off less in context than it pissed you off in the trailer. No. Leia Seidu plays a woman, who her husband is very suddenly, after they have moved to the countryside, investigated within a child porn ring, and there is a lingering question of whether or not her husband might have sexually assaulted their young son. It's obviously very grim material that I don't think is very elegantly done. think, you know, you're asked to sit with some pretty unpleasant stuff throughout the movie. She also plays a musician whose, like, whole thing is she's a classical musician, mostly based

in the piano, and she's, like, studying pop music done by men, and it becomes this kind of muddled thing that's also a little unintentionally silly as you see in the trailer she's doing would I lie to you not the not the arithmetic's version but the other one yes

can I say Tori Amos also did an album of covers of songs originally performed by men and I'm willing to say that that was more interesting and impactful than what's it going on in Gentle Monster particularly in this year I, you know, I love Leisadeo.

I also saw The Unknown at this festival, a movie that she has a real spotlight role. Not a spotlight. She's the lead of the movie. I would watch her in anything. I didn't see Alpha Gang, though. And, like, she's always great. She's always great. I don't think that she's bad in this movie by any stretch.

And thinking that, you know, Netflix was putting this movie out, I was like, oh, that's very safe for a nomination. She's someone who's going to be nominated eventually. even after seeing the movie, unfortunately, I have to say I have my doubts on that happening, especially given the response to the movie. My first movie of the festival was Ryasuki Hamaguchi's All of a Sudden and a very, very, like, a very, like, hairs breath away, second favorite movie I saw in the festival. Much like Drive My Car, it, you know, deals in themes of empathy,

and much like tender love and care, it is a movie very much about how we care for one another, not just interpersonally but structurally. Virginie Afira plays the director of a nursing home that is trying to implement a very, you know,

holistic and innovative care process and meets, you know, obstacles in the way of some of the existing staff, but also, budgetary obstacles as well. Meanwhile, she meets an actress from Japan, played by Tao Okamoto.

Both of them shared the Can Best Actress Prize. And a good chunk of the movie is basically this extended conversation between the two of them where they talk about all of these themes and the struggles of capitalism that create obstacles in how we can have institutional care.

and they developed this really powerful relationship and then from there the movie evolves into things that I would not even have the time to spoil for you but I do think has one of the most powerful sequences that I saw on film in years very incredible movie obviously with Hamaguchi you're dealing with a long running time this is a three hour plus movie

another movie I would say moves along it's such a clip that you really don't feel that running time those of us who are familiar with Frederick Wiseman obviously the Wiseman influence is really strong here there is quite literally a whiteboard sequence where someone diagrams process on a whiteboard. I have had this whiteboard scene so hyped up I'm so excited to see what it ends up being.

I mean one of my favorite things about the movie is I was like, holy shit, he's making a Wiseman movie that is about process but he's dramatizing it in a way that the vessel is like character and emotion. Really hope that people do make time for that movie and that movie can make its impact throughout the season. What did that win it can? Actress?

Actress, yeah. Shared acting prize. Probably be more, though this has received a very muted response and I can see why one of the more headline grass, movies that I saw was bucking faster by Werner Herzog starring the sisters Mara as not twins but sisters who speak largely in unison they move in tandem with one another these are sisters who it's hard to explain this movie briefly become obsessed with their neighbor played by

Orlando Bloom and through the process of having a restraining order placed against them find themselves relocating to the Irish countryside and become obsessed with digging holes in a cave.

This is a very as you can imagine with Hurtzog and just the very vague premise that I've given you. This is a really fabulistic movie that I was nevertheless very charmed and moved by.

There is something about, I think, their connection to nature and a quest for goodness, for lack of a better word, that I found really unique and special. And again, it's one of those movies that has a very abrupt ending that definitely pissed off people in the theater that I was in. but I think it's ultimately a movie that's asking a question of Can outsiders ever really truly find their bliss in a world that doesn't welcome them? This is another movie that's not supposed to be released until next year, right? It doesn't have distribution yet so we can assume that. I think it would not be smart to release this in an award season because that is not at all the you know,

lens to view this movie. Sure, sure. Though the Mara sisters are really good in this movie. I think they're pulling off wholeheartedly a challenge that, you know,

unlike any you've ever seen. And it's, I think it's really beautiful. On top of being obviously very eccentric and out on a limb. But I think the, the bizarre comedic

sensibility that this movie has worked for me. I thought it was very funny. Two movies I wanted to ask you about before we get away from this, neither of which I saw. I've heard really great things about this movie called Everytime. Yeah, I think every time the Uncertain Regard winner this year

from Sandra Volner is a movie about a family that once, like on the eve of them going on a cross-continental vacation there is how spoilery do I want to get with this? Catastrophe happens and then the movie becomes this

kind of musing on grief that results in the family actually going on this vacation. And once they go on the vacation, it takes a surreal turn that I also wouldn't want to spoil, let alone would we have time for me to spoil I really respect this movie and the kind of deliberateness of it

and also the interesting book-ended structure of surreality because the opening sequence of it is very sensory. It has such an interesting visual and soundscape to it. And then the middle portion, the like dealing with grief and the measuredness you have to take your days in order to get through those days while you're in a grief process is very kind of rigid. Is this one of the many movies I've heard compared to After Sun recently?

I feel like this... I get why people make that comparison, though I think that's probably not setting the movie up for success in that way. I think the kind of way that it's... that after sun is like six feet, six inches off the ground at all times, like temporarily is maybe adjacent to this movie here, but I, I wouldn't immediately jump to after sun with this movie. It's the German Oscar submission. I don't expect it to advance much, though I do really like this movie, and it is

impacting people, so maybe I could be wrong there. And one two special will be releasing it presumably sometime later this year or early next year. And then finally, as somebody who really, really loves it. I loved several, several years ago, the film for a good time call. I'm very curious about Lauren Miller Rogan's babies. I loved babies so much. I'm excited to see it. Seth Rogan and Anacendrick as a married but childless couple or a child-free couple.

I understand that there's trying to use the most inclusive language in that because I know that this is something that some people are upset by. I personally don't see any negation in childless. I am happily a childless. Everyone I talked to that didn't like this movie has kids and everybody I talked to that loved it doesn't have kids. So that's maybe an interesting thing. But the thing is, it's not caustic towards, like, I think it's accepting of the ways that there are sometimes myopias

and lacks of consideration for people who don't have kids. But it's all, I mean, it does it in a funny way, but it's also a movie about people who Love kids. Love your kids. Love you who have kids and want to support you in doing all of that. But also stop fucking asking us when we're going to have kids. And it's just like, I felt like it landed every joke. It's much more about Anna Kendrick's character.

And through that, we know less than we should about Rogan's character. Like, truly, what is his job that they can afford this? beautiful home. Well, Anna Kendrick is, like, you know, running ceramic classes in, like, art college. But, like, it's a great cast. It has, like, Issa Ray is one of the friends. Cape Burlant is one of the friends. Cape Relant moves in with them with her daughter when she's going through a divorce with

Dan Stevens, and that kind of instigates the movie. Cape Relant, who will be, if not definitely, on my supporting actress ballot for Maddie's Secret, but we'll be in strong consideration for it. So I'm excited for... Us, a bottle of wine, my strap. Maddie's Secret, great movie. Catch up to it if you haven't seen it. Truly. Well, that's excellent. I'm very excited to see that movie.

I do love... I saw a bunch of other movies, including canned stuff like The Dream Adventure, which I really liked, but not as much as that director's previous film. Velasca Grusabach is really interesting in terms of, like, like genre deconstructions. This one is like a crime deconstruction. I understand how it loses people, though I do think it's interesting and I maybe don't understand enough about Bosnian border politics to fully understand the movie. Well, God damn it, Chris. We expect certain things from you, like being an expert in Bosnian border policy. Fascinating movie and probably

to me more fascinating to talk about than to watch. I also sell coward. Didn't like it, but mostly my reservations on that movie is that the protagonist is not a very interesting character and it wasn't a very interesting performance. For you to say that about the biopic of Noel Coward is very shocking, Chris. I can't believe you would say such things. This also won a dual can acting prize for the two lead actors. If it was just for the other character, not the one I'm describing, the one who it's set in the World War and the Belgian War. specifically in an entertainment group

of performers and the protagonist injures himself so that he doesn't have to fight in the war and can just exclusively serve through these acting troops, but the acting troop is led effectively by another soldier who he falls in love with, who often performs in drag.

That actor I liked much, much more, I should say His name, that's Valentin Champon. If that acting prize just went to him rather than the two, I would endorse that. But, yeah, didn't love coward. Another one of those things that I was like, I don't know if I can get invested in this power dynamic in this romance. Not, again, not writing a grad term paper on it, just like I couldn't emotionally get there with it.

But it does have a pretty perfect ending. I mean, you love a movie that ends well. So there we have it. Speaking of ending well, this podcast. Let's get out of here. You knew we were going to do a three-hour podcast on TIF. It does tend to be our custom. Once again, Chris, a phenomenal time, even though this is my first TIF with actual broken bones,

I did definitely sprain an ankle at a previous TIF, which you were also very helpful to me for, but thank you for assisting my clumsy ass around that wonderful city. Happy to have it. Happy to be back in those environments. They did not have Putin a single time during that entire endeavor. And that is a correction that I need to make for next time. I've never had Putin in Canada. It's good.

Respect to the national cuisine. Don't get mad at me. The concept of gravy and cheese together. You'd be surprised. I'm not going there. Sorry, I can't do that. I also discovered a new flavor of Doritos. That is, I believe, exclusive to Canada, I've never seen it in the States.

Garlic Parmesan. Doritos. Folks, it'll change your life. So, yeah. Listeners, look forward to these movies. Very much look forward to catching them when they hopefully open at a theater near you. and we'll certainly be talking about a lot of them as we move through award season, I'll say that.

And that's our episode. If you want more of This Had Oscar Buzz, you can check out the Tumblr at thisheadoscarbuzz.com. You should also follow us on Instagram at ThisHad Oscar Buzz and on Patreon at patreon.com slash this had Oscar buzz for only $5 a month. Joe, where can the listeners find more of you? Letterboxed and Blue Sky at Joe Reed,

read spelled R-E-I-D and Vulture all of the time. Please sign up for the Movies Fantasy League. we're having a real good time over there. And you can find me on Letterbox and Blue Sky, Chris V-File, that's F-E-I-L. We would like to thank Kyle Cummings for his fantastic artwork, David and Zalls and Gavin Meavis for technical guidance when we need it, and Taylor Cole for a theme music.

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