This Had Oscar Buzz - 342 – Strictly Ballroom (Festival Fever!)

Episode Date: May 19, 2025

This week, Festival Fever gives us our first Baz! Strictly Ballroom gave then-stage director Baz Luhrman his debut film, one of a number of Australian comedies that would achieve cult followings in the US. But this tale of young ballroom dancers who take artistic license and fall in love on the way also became a … Continue reading "342 – Strictly Ballroom (Festival Fever!)"

Oh, oh, wrong house. No, the right house. I didn't get that! We want to talk to Maryland Hack, Maryland Hack and friends. Dick Poop Guess what? I got a fever And the only prescription

The festival, the festival The film festival What's wrong with me? What is so wrong with the way I dance? I want to dance with you The rum is the dance of love I want to dance with you your way look at me like you in love

That's it Now everything's theirs for the taking But you won't win if you don't have a partner I'm dancing with Fran Friend, Fran All they have to do You're a beginner friend What the hell did you think you were doing

Is make the right move What the bloody hell is going on Hello and welcome to the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast The only podcast that definitely knows Which one of us is which Every week on This Had Oscar Buzz We'll be talking about a different movie that once upon a time had lofty Academy Award aspirations,

but for some reason or another, it all went wrong. The Oscar hopes died, and we are here to perform the autopsy. I'm your host, Joe Reed. I'm here, as always, with my co-host with the flashy crowd-pleasing steps. Chris File. Hello, Chris. Hello, Joseph. I'm over the moon.

Are you ready to dive headfirst into the awesiness of this film? I just want to say. I haven't watched this movie since high school. Oh, this is my first time. Oh, yeah. And I love this movie. I love this movie. I will say this, though.

My first reaction to watching this movie, which I did love. All do love and respect to our friends and garries from the proud nation-slash-continent of Australia. I, every movie I've ever seen. set in your Fair Nation has been absolutely bonkers crazy and it makes it seem like everybody in that country

is bonkers crazy to the point where there's normal people in Muriel's wedding kind of kind of kind of sort of everything in this movie really reminded me of Muriel's wedding which was kind of funny but also we'll get into it we'll get into the formula

we'll get into the trope's world is the most normie depictions of Australia in the TV show lost. I think maybe. I think maybe. Like, not even the final season of the leftovers. Because, like, there's a sex boat trip there. They're not Australian?

Yeah, they're in Australia in the final season. Oh, you can't finish that season. Interesting. Yeah. I mean, it's definitely there's a heightenedness to Australian cinema, Australian comedy. Like that, like, a lot of the movies that have been imported here. And, like, we know that Baz is, like, the most. Yes.

And that's why we love Baz. Yes. You know. But, like, even stuff like, um, holy smoke, right? Which is, like, Jane Campion, obviously from New Zealand, but, like, that movie set in Australia. And, like, that's, like, Jane's. kind of coo-iest movie, right? In some ways, in some ways.

I feel. What's coochier on the Jane? There's a lot going on and in the cut. I wouldn't call it cookey, though. I mean, cookie's not the right word, but there's a lot. Yeah. Like I said, love and light and respect to all our Ozzy Garees, but like, y'all are on one out there.

I don't know. I mean, I think this, especially this era where there's a lot of these Australian imports coming over to the States and doing well in the States and they're comedies, you know? To me, the triptych is this, Priscilla, and Muriel's Wedding. Those are the three that I hold very, like, as like this kind of loose trilogy all made by their. A trilogy only because of the country they come from

and they're similar genre. They have similar story arcs. They're similar, similar stylists. Like, there's similar tones and vibes in them. Like, I think there's heightened comedy in this that I definitely feel like is matched in Muriel's wedding. I think the way that they talk to Fran in this movie is very like, I'm with Muriel, like, that kind of a thing. It's just like, I feel like at some point I'm waiting for somebody to stick up for Fran. Fran is like a troll to these people.

Fran might as well have, I don't know, boils on her face or something. Truly. And it really just comes down to... And the way that Liz treats her, where she's, like, walking past her and, like, punches her in the gut or whatever, is very murial-coded. Right, like, she's human waste of some place. Yes. She, uh, the only thing going on with Fran's situation is she has glasses. Yes.

She's a human beast. The classic glasses. Yes. Has astigmatism. Like, you know, it's, uh, it's interesting. Oh. I love Fran so much. Did you notice that the actress who plays Liz, the spurned dance partner?

Gia Karidis. Who is, of course. She is from the Port-A-Colos family. Cousin Nikki from My Big Fat Creek Wedding. She sure is. Yep. Yep. The queen, love her.

Yes. I guess I hadn't put two into, I hadn't seen this movie in so long. The second she showed up, I lost my mind. And, yes. And it's also just like that die job that they put on her Had to have set her scalp back a decade. She's still recovering from it. Yes.

Yes. Oh, my God. Tara Morris, though, as Fran, who I believe has more of a dancing background or a theater background. That would make sense. He's so lovely in this movie. and you know it is that movie trope thing and like of course you see this in muriel's wedding too where it's just like this girl is so ugly it makes people mad yes yes like truly just like she could just brush her hair once and take off her glasses and then she's a stunner um yeah but a lovely performance you know it's um it's not quite her movie i think one of the interesting things. It eventually becomes a two-hander. It is more so Scott's story than it is Franz, I think, at the beginning. Oh, sure. It's his family. Like, his family has the big sort of,

like, secrets. He's the one who has to, like, he has, he's the one who has to make the choice, right? He's the one who has to make the big sort of life decision in this movie. Yes. So, but, like, Fran, I think, and I think France may be the more compelling character throughout. too, which is why I, and like... Likable. Terah Morris's performance, I think, is... Yeah. More compelling maybe than Paul Mercurio's, though he's a haughty.

I mean, we'll talk about it, because, yeah. What's interesting is that, like, this type of movie and this type of story, the Fran character is usually just, like, the full protagonist. She's usually, like, that type of character, it's their story. Yes. Yeah, totally. And that's kind of interesting that that trope is not fully true in this movie. Can I tell you, with almost all of these cast members, I literally went and looked up to see if they were also in Mad Max Fury Road, because all the male cast members.

Well, Bill Hunter's in Priscilla. Yes, he is. But a lot, like the guy who plays less and the guy who plays Barry Fife, I went and looked up because, like, plausibly, they were. some sort of, you know, administrator from Immorton Joe's whole, you know. Some bureaucrat in the Emorton Joe administration. Yep, they all had that look at. Bill Hunter was like the Secretary of Education. Barry Fife, what a name.

I wrote it down as soon as somebody said it in this. I was like, oh, Barry Fife. You can't do that. It's in front of Barry Fife. Again, nothing in this. This movie dissuaded me from everything that I learned about Australia being from that Simpsons episode to the point of Paul Mercurio now being like a legislator in Australia or whatever, or at least like was for a time where he was elected to the legislative assembly

on the Labor Party. Good. Good news. Good Paul. Good for you, Paul. I mean, we don't know Australian politics. Are we sure that the Labor Party there is the same thing as like a Labor Party would be here? I would hope that like Labor is Labor, wherever you support it. But we'll see, maybe they mean the labor. Or labor, et cetera, et cetera. Maybe they mean the labor of the wicked and vile. I mean, usually when we look up somebody in a this had Oscar Buzz movie and it's like, oh, they moved into politics.

And then you're like, it's hardly ever good. It's hardly ever good But this one is maybe good So we'll see Really good What this movie made me think of The entire 92 or whatever minutes I immediately wanted to do

A Marathon of Kath and Kim Oh, I've never seen Kath and Kim Listener Joe and I are about to embark On our first ever friendcation In a week and a half time We're going to watch some Kath and Kim I remember that was the one. I didn't watch the remake either,

but they remade that for the states with like Molly Shannon, right? Yeah. And it's like, I get what she think you're doing by doing Molly Shannon in Kath and Kim, but... Yeah.

No. So who from... Is it the mom? It's different. It's unusual. It's, um, it's, it's, it's, it's the, it is the shot from Strickley Ballroom.

What, what, do they give her. You know, in the like Christopher Guest opening of this movie, that it basically like drops that whole like mock memory style. They do drop it. They really do. Yeah.

Oh, it's like all caps. Shirley Hastings, subhead, cosmetics consult. Yes. The shot of that, that is basically Kath and Kim for, what, 50 episodes or something. Okay. Nice. Kath and Kim is magical. Listener, if you haven't seen Kath and Kim, please go watch it. It is not that many episodes you can see.

certainly do it in a day, and you will be so happy. This is fun. I like to see you activated like this. This is very good. We're going to watch some Catholic, Jim. What else was I going to bring up, though, before we really got into it? Yes, very glad to finally see this movie. I am now a BAS completest. I got them all. I'm glad you got there eventually. He's an easy one to be a completest of, but yes, I've got them all. Do you understand why I was maybe disappointed by Elvis after seeing this movie? Elvis made me miss, and I guess Great Gatsby. Yeah.

Make me miss this baza. Make me miss the Moulin Rouge baza. And I get that, like, Normie's. Well, I think there's a gulf between the Strictly Ballroom Baz and the Moulon Rouge Baz even. Oh, sure, sure, sure, sure. Moulin Rouge is a masterpiece. This I don't think is a masterpiece, but, like, I think this is a great movie, a great example of the trope. that this movie is doing.

You see the through line from this movie to Mulan Rouge for sure. We're doing this movie as our TIF movie, our Tiff People's Choice Award winner. And it's like, you finish that movie and it's like, yeah, of course, this is a People's Choice Award winner, especially in the 90s. Like, this is, it like slams every beat to just like make the audience happy. And it did better in the greater awards race than I remember it. Obviously, Bafta was kind of a different thing then. but, like, we'll talk about how well it did with BAFTA. But I don't remember it being a Golden Globe nominee.

So, like, that's very interesting, too. This Golden Globes lineup. We'll talk about the Golden Globes lineup. But, like, it makes... It makes all the sense in the world, though, that he was... He got the sort of the Romeo and Juliet gig, you know, after this. Because it did. It was, you know, such a breakout.

And it also... you think you can dance fan that I am sort of awakened some of that in me because, like, you never watched any of that, right? Or did you? I didn't. Okay. So, obviously, that is a show.

There was sort of that, you know, that and Dancing with the Stars kind of emerged around the same time. Now, dancing with the Stars was entirely ballroom for most of it, for a very long time. And then they sort of started letting in other styles. But within ballroom, there's so many different disciplines, right? There's waltz, there's tango, there's salsa, there's samba, there's, you know, all the sort of Latin American dances. There's your drive dance and all this sort of stuff.

And those are incredibly sort of regimented and gate kept, I think, from the sort of like Old Guard. You get a real sense of, like obviously, like Len Goodman was the judge on Dancing with the Stars for a very long time. And you watch, and they are very kind of compulsory when it comes to this is how you do the steps. This is how you do the closed hold. This is like what's expected of you. And, of course, you get these choreographers who are like, yeah, but I'm on TV. So I want to like, and of course, ABC is like, why don't you have like a theme? Why don't you make it like, you know, they're top gun pilots or something.

You know what I mean? Just like everything's like. And so you think you can dance was kind of even more so with that because so you think you can dance not only had ballroom styles, but they also had things like contemporary interpretive and like, you know, hip hop and all this sort of stuff. And eventually, as so you think you can dance got more popular, all those styles began to sort of like merge and meld with each other. So like all the ballroom choreographers really started to like incorporate more like contemporary moves into their stuff. and like contemporary sort of like started to meld with hip hop or whatever. And so the ballroom judge early on and so you think he could dance was Mary Murphy, who if you ever watched like The Soup, you saw clips of Mary Murphy because her whole thing was she was so animated that she would start talking like this and she'd get so excited.

She's finally just like would scream. And she started off being very, again, very particular. She knew her shit. She was like a ballroom expert. But she was like, you guys were really. fun out there, but you needed to step, you know, this way in her, and you needed to have more closed hold in this. And she would sort of like lecture the choreographer sometimes, just like, this wasn't really a waltz. You know what I mean? Like that kind of thing. And as the show

went on, she just sort of like became more and more of a sort of just like enthusiast and less of a stickler on the ballroom stuff. And so eventually she just sort of like became incredibly just sort of like just a human firecracker. But that's what this reminded me of, obviously, with like, you know, you can't do, you can't go outside of the approved steps or whatever, or else, you know, horrible things will happen. But also, the Paso-Dobre. You'll be a social pariah to the entire nation of Australia. But also the Paso-Doblo, when they introduced the Paso-Doblob. So I don't know one thing about the Paso-Doblob from watching all of those seasons of dance, which is in the Paso-Dobloblet, the man is the bulls.

fighter and the woman is the cape. Those are the only two things that I know about the Paso d'Oble. And so like... And there's no bull? No. There's no bull. The bull is like, whatever is invisible. No, the man is the bullfighter.

And then the woman sort of like slinks up on him and he sort of spins her around and the sort of thing. And it's weird, it's incredibly... Society is the bull. It's incredibly an old-fashioned notion, which is the idea of like, the man gets to be the man. And the woman gets to be the piece of fabric that he, like, carries around with him. It's almost as if Europe is as patriarchal as America. But there's been some incredible Pasadobles. There's one on So You Thinking Dance that I'll send you a link to where they did the Pasoble

to the music, the soundtrack from The Matrix, and it was very deeply cool. I'm listening. Well, that's what was great about Sonya Thinking and Dance. It's like they would do some, like, really, really cool, like music choices. in there. I'll send that to you. It was very fun. Anyway, that's my spiel about dance competitions. Yes. I mean, kind of, yes. But anyway, so that's why I'm like extra, extra animated and excited to be able to do this. We're allowed for a loud movie. I think that's allowed. Allowed. Okay. We know what else is allowed is you explaining to our listeners and Gary's and fans and

perhaps newcomers, what is going on with this May mini-series that we are more than halfway through at this point, guys? Listen, we're doing some traveling this episode. We're going to Australia and Toronto. And we caught a fever. It's not some in-flight COVID strand. Oh, no, God forbid. Festival fever.

Festival fever. Festival fever. That's what we're doing here in May. It is our seventh May miniseries Cannot believe. We're still trucking. Crazy. Crazy.

We've been this long. Here we are. When we do a miniseries every May, we've done things like, I mean, of course, you know, our 100 years, 100 snubs May miniseries we did. We've done the filmography

of Naomi Watts. We've done a whole year. Naomi Watts, you say. Where's she from? You know. Heard a rumor. She's from Australia. We did the film year 2003.

We did a whole mini-series on the Oscar decade of the 1970s. And here we are. We're talking film festivals. We're going through the calendar year, both here and on our Patreon of all of the major film festivals that basically affect the Oscar race. We started with the Sundance Film Festival and the Grand Jury Prize winner American Splendor over as our exception episode on the Patreon. Here on the main feed, we did Cannes and the Palm Door with Titan.

Last week, we did Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead and the Venice Film Festival and the top prize the Golden Lion. Now, just last Friday, for our excursion over on the Patreon. That's right. We went a little wild, talking in the past tense, even though we haven't recorded this yet. We're talking the 2015 Telluride Film Festival, and they don't have jury prizes or any special distinctions like that. So what did we do? We made a fake but totally real jury and doled out the prizes to the films from their lineup.

Can I tell you, regional film festival runners, the nation over and perhaps international, The zeal with which Christopher Fyle went into creating this juried setup and coming up with us essentially prizifying the Telluride Film Festival. Let him loose upon your festivals because you will not regret it. It's been a sight to see. Listen, I love making a spreadsheet when I have too many things to do. A Google form. My goodness. I mean, when I have too much going on in my life and not enough time,

if I just make an orderly spreadsheet, it makes me feel like I have both of my feet on the ground. There we go. Here we are this week talking about the Toronto Film Festival and the People's Choice Award with Strictly Ballroom. And then we're closing things out next week with the New York Film Festival and their opening night selection. and we've selected White Noise. White Noise. One of the things that I like about how we're sort of as we move through this miniseries is things are kind of blending in that like this week we're doing Strictly Ballroom

as a Toronto People's Choice winner, but Strictly Ballroom, of course, was a can. And then White Noise was a New York Film Festival opening night selection, but premiered in Venice or tell your eye. As their opening selection. Yes. And also, Titan, Palm Door winner, also the Midnight Madness People's Choice winner at Toronto. So it's all a swirling miasma of prestige. And none for Rosencranston, Kildenstir in our dead.

Anyway, four weeks, five films, six festivals, all for the seventh annual this had Oscar Buzz May miniseries. That's right. Here we are. Here we are. I feel like you've given our listeners plenty of reason already to sign up for our Patreon, Turbulent, Brilliant. but maybe just a couple more words of call to action for people. Listen, you want the full May miniseries experience. I know you do, and you can get it for only $5 a month over at our Patreon.

But what else are you going to get? You're going to get about going on two years, two years. Wow, God, we've been doing this so long. Two years worth of episodes just waiting for you for that $5 a month. What are those episodes going to be? Well, on the first Friday of every month, you get what we call exceptions. These are movies that fit that this had Oscar buzz rubric, but managed to score some nominations or two. Like I mentioned, this month, we talked about American Splendor, which is filled with Sundance stories, grand jury prize stories, yada, yada, yada.

But what other exceptions have we done that are not part of this May miniseries series? Well, we've done things like Mulholland Drive, Inside Lewin Davis, House of Gucci. had guest episodes even, like Knives Out with our friend Jorge Molina, Australia, more Baz, with our friend Katie Rich, Phantom of the Opera, with Natalie Walker, lots of movies like that, movies like nine, The Mirror Has Two Faces, Madonna's W.E. But then you're also going to get a second episode, and that's going to come on the third Friday of every month, and that is an excursion. These are deep dives into Oscar ephemera we love to obsess about on the show, things like EW Fall Movie Previews.

We've recapped old award shows from the 90s and earlys 2000s. We talked about Hollywood Reporter roundtables. We recently talked about the Oscars Greatest Moments, VHS with Carl Maldon. So go sign up for This Had Oscar Buzz, Turbulent Brilliance over at patreon.com slash this had Oscar buzz. That's right. So we are going to be talking this week about Strictly Ballroom and the Toronto International Film Festival. Chris, would you like to start doing Strictly Ballroom or start with the festival? We've done it both ways previously.

So I feel like this is the rubber match. What's natural? I feel like we've hit a fork in the road. It's been so natural the last time. I know. I know. I feel like I'm probably throwing some artificiality into this. I mean, we haven't really said anything about the People's Choice Award so far,

but I feel like maybe we're taking it a little bit for granted because the People's Choice Award at Toronto... Has the most lore to it of the... In terms of, like, the Oscar implications of it. Obviously, the Palm Door has the most lore to it. Oh, yeah. And credentials beyond mere American... awards, you know, like that's a status thing, whereas almost from the beginning, the People's Choice Award is an awards bell weather.

Yeah. Well, so let's start talking about the festival, because the Toronto Film Festival has perhaps evolved the most of all of the festivals we're going to be talking about. This began back in 1976. The idea, I think you mentioned this a little bit in our last episode, the original idea was the Toronto Festival, a festival, a festival. And it was essentially just like, we're going to import all of the festival movies that played over in Europe. We're going to pick movies that played Cannes and Venice and Berlin. And we're going to, you know, bring them here to Toronto where the, you know, the cinnophiles of our fair city and whoever wants to travel can celebrate sort of great cinema. And we will give people a reason to, you know, come. visit and patronize our fair establishments and all this sort of stuff.

Eventually, they kind of drop the festival of festivals moniker. The year we're talking about, though, is a festival of festivals year. Well, so I want to build up to that a little bit. So 1976, the first year, some of the big movies that they kind of brought to the festival, Cousin Cuisine, Bernice Bobbs Her Hair, which is a Joan Micklin Silver movie that I spotlet just for you. Kings of the Road, the Vim Vendors movie,

Werner Herzog's Heart of Glass. They, yeah, they rebranded it as, they had the sort of cumbersome title of like,

the Toronto International Film Festival, the Festival of Festivals for a while. So it was, it was a lot of name. No colon, no semi-colon.

And they eventually they eventually sort of like just shortened it to the Toronto International Film Festival in 1994. all of this coincides with, you know, finding a home in the Toronto, you know, entertainment district. They eventually, you know, set up the TIF lightbox theater right

there on King Street, which is where a lot of the screenings happen now. But they kind of built up slowly towards this idea that Toronto would be a premier destination, where you would want to sort of launch your movie. I sort of, I jotted down a few of them across the 80s and Justice for All in 1979, the Norman Jewison movie. The Big Chill in 1983 was a big one. That was a People's Choice Award winner. TIF premiere, People's Choice Award winner, Best Picture nominee, Places in the Heart in 1984, the Sally Field Oscar winner. Best Picture nominee as well, that was a TIF premiere. Plenty, the Merrill Streep movie from 1985. All of the Fred Skepsy movies were TIF movies. They loved them some Fred

Skepsy. The Princess Bride, which I found very kind of delightful, the Princess Bride in 1987 was a Tiff premiere. Drugstore Cowboy, Gus Van Sance, which you would have thought would have been a Sundance type premiere. So I think that's kind of fun in that like Tiff is sort of branching out the kinds of movies, you know, they're premiering. The Cook the Thief, his wife, and her lover, another sort of like real indie, you know, sort of, you know, important indie movie, Peter Greenaway's movie, reversal of fortune, Barbara Schroeder, and the Grifters in 1990, both big Oscar contenders, Jody Foster's Little Man Tate in 1991, Woody Allen's husband and...

Okay, so here we get into 1992. So, 1992 is the strictly ballroom year, and this marks a big level-up year in terms of world premieres, right? They world premiere, Woody Allen's husband and wives. They world premiere Billy Crystal's Mr. Saturday Night. Robert Redford's A River Runs Through It, John Sales' Passion Fish, all movies that had Oscar Buzz in some way or another. They also premiere Kenneth Branus Peters' friends. We love.

And Robert Rodriguez is El Mariachi, which is, and then Strictly Ballroom plays there. It does now premiere there because it was a can premiere, as we said. But that is, to me, I feel like a turning point. for Tiff. So we're talking about a very big turning point year. They also screen movies, like, we'll talk about the lineup a little bit later, but like Bad Lieutenant and Reservoir Dogs, which were big movies and other festivals that year. But I think... Candy Man is in the Midnight Madness lineup. What a great movie to see Midnight Madness.

But like, husbands and wives, Mr. Saturday Night, Passion Fish, River runs through it, all get Oscar nominations. And I feel like this had to have been a big, big year for the organizer. to sort of get this many major movies that chose to premiere right there in Toronto and, you know, kick off their Oscar campaigns there, such as they were. And you're also getting into this era of Sundance, because obviously this is the Reservoir Dogs year, so this was a big year for Sundance as well. So an era where Sundance is now popularizing the notion of. a film festival as a place to launch, you know, things domestically.

In the case of Sundance, it was a place to sort of sell your movie. And obviously, Toronto's also been a place where indie movies get sold. You talk about, you know, these days, you see a lot of movies that come to Toronto without distribution. And there's a lot of sort of chatter of, you know, who's going to buy what. And a lot of times these things will happen while you're there. The most recent People's Choice Award winner, Life of Chuck went without any distribution, and it's about to come out in a few weeks from Neon. Yep, yep, yep, exactly. So, yeah, thoughts on, you know, this kind of gradual glow-up of TIF

through the years to becoming a place where studios want to premiere their movies. Well, I made the joke in one of our earlier episodes that, you know, some of the other festivals that we're talking about are this very contained thing, even when they have sidebars, et cetera, and TIF is the ocean barge of a festival. There was a point where they were playing over 300 movies. Right. Because you have a week and a half of a public film festival that goes across multiple venues and, you know, movies are basically shown from morning to midnight. And there are pros and cons to that approach, right? Where, like, obviously, it's less of a, there's less gatekeeping involved there, although not none.

Like, there is still, and even in a movie with a festival with 300 movies, there is quite a bit of decision making to be done by the festival programmers. But there is, there are, you know, benefits. There's a charm to the idea of Toronto. I've always said that one of my favorite things about Toronto is that no two people's TIF is the same. You know what I mean? That, like, you know, you sort of gather and you kind of, it's like trading cards. Well, what have you been seeing? What did you see?

What did you see the other night? Oh, instead of this, I saw this. And, you know, what did you think of see that? I'm going to see that later on. And, or maybe not. Maybe I won't see this movie now that was on my schedule. Maybe I'll switch it to this because, you know, people are saying good things about this movie. And it feels like a lot more of a, if you have, you know, if you are a media member,

certainly, you have the. to sort of like pick a juice, but if you are somebody who has the means to attend this as a spectator, and again, not cheap, although you can do things like standby lines, which a lot of people do, you can also volunteer for the festival, which, you know, allows you to get into certain screenings. We love to applaud the volunteers. We love our volunteers. But, you know, you are able to kind of mix and match your festival.

You can also, like, I'm going to go to the gala's. I'm going to make my TIF, you know, a lot of the big boys. You can say, okay, I am going to go and try and seek out small stuff, really, like, you know, a global cinema. I'm going to look for Canadian filmmakers. I'm going to look for Midnight Madness stuff. I'm going to go for discoveries or whatever. And you can make, in many ways, your TIF what you want it to be. And over the years, I've sort of, you know, had a lot of different kind of TIF experiences.

And that's been really fun. It often sound like I'm on the Board of Commerce for the Nation of Canada and City of Toronto when I talk about this. You're both Thelonian. You're an honorary Canadian. I do love it, though. It's one of the, you know, it's every year I go and I sort of make the joke that I'm going to movie camp. But it really does feel that way. And I could probably be a little bit more cynical about it and sort of talk about, you know, the, because it's not, as with everything, you know, it has capitalist concerns and it has ways in. which it could be, you know, more discerning and less, you know, whatever. But it's movie camp. And it ultimately is the thing I always dreamed about doing when I was a kid.

And I desperately wish I'd started going sooner. You know what I mean? I desperately wish that, like, the year I graduated college, one of the first things I should have done was bought a pass to, you know, to Tiff and gone up and seen a few movies, you know. Yeah, absolutely. But, well, I mean, I think, you know, the history of. Toronto is, I mean, recent history compared to some of the other festivals we're talking about. But, you know, it starts as this, you know, small programmer-led thing where it becomes very bespoke, very selective and intended for their audience.

And as Tiff has expanded and grown, I still don't think that, I mean, it's hard. It's hard to use the word bespoke for any festival programming 300 movies, but it does still have that level of care and love for the movies that is accessible and not highfalutin and, you know, breeds an atmosphere of discovery. But I think also has a real self-awareness about their audience and what their audience. wants that make it a very special festival. I think this festival certainly knows what its audience wants better than, I mean, maybe Sundance better than maybe. Yeah. And I think this is a very audience-first festival.

Yeah. And that's what they, that is their mission statement. That is the thing that they talk about wanting to be. So I'm glad that, you know, they seem to be living up to. about something like can like can is not really for like you don't go to can and just get tickets as a film fan it's largely industry based you know like it's a it's an industry event um whereas toronto is very public i know that that has ruffled some people's feathers especially as like tickets have gone to ticket master that you know access feels like it's more difficult but i do think the spirit

of the event is still incredibly about the audience. Yeah. If there's anything you want to keep holding their feet to the fire about is to make sure that it remains as accessible as possible to the public. Because that is also the charm of it, you know, for as much as it does lead to crowds and lines and, you know, yadida, yada, yada. The fun of sort of, you know, striking up conversations with, you know, people in line or whatever. whatever, and, you know, hearing, overhearing what other people are saying about movies and kind of, you know, the local hubbub. You've got the sort of like the Toronto locals, if, you know, we've met many a Gary at Toronto. We love, we love talking to the local Gary's, yeah, when we've already been sitting down next to each other for 15 minutes in a screen. You're very approachable, I will say. I tend to. I am. More than me, I feel like I always sort of like I'll walk to the venue with headphones in or, you know what I mean?

I've gotten better. I mean, I was also saying I've been approached by Gary's while I have like tears streaming to my face. So I guess maybe I am approachable. Something about me says, help him. Please approach me. Yeah. Please approach me. I've just seen an Almodovar movie that hits too close to home.

No, we've been, we've, we've, we've had people come up to us and say hello and introduce themselves when we are both, you know, seeing movies together, which I think is kind of fun, because I imagine it's sort of like, you know, hearing the both of our voices together, they don't have to, you know, decide which one of us is which and they can, um, I mean, they can still interchange the two of us. It's fine. It's fine. Seeing us in person, it's a lot easier to differentiate. So, um, vocally, we can sound very similar, but obviously. obviously. But I have always said, this is why I don't want podcasts to become a visual medium, but this is why I will sometimes watch people's podcasts when they post on YouTube, because sometimes it is nice to put a face to a voice. I don't, I mean, sometimes it is. No, no, no, no. I remember the first time I ever went to a get-together at Katie Rich's house, and I only knew Katie, but I had been listening to fighting in the war room for a while. And behind me, I heard the familiar voices of Dave Gonzalez and Matt Patches.

And I was like, and I got to turn around. And I was, and I think I knew, I already knew what Patches looked like. I had no idea what Dave Gonzalez looked like. So I was like, oh, my God, like, is this pre- Twitter or something? Oh, well, no, but not everybody had like their picture on Twitter. It was definitely pre-instagram for me. I mean, my Avi has been a

piece of commissioned art that was gifted to me for a few years now. No, I don't, not everybody had their picture. I'll change it to a real picture when my jaw looks like that again. I will say, well, this is, it's a whatever,

it's a diversion. So we got an email at work the one day that was like, just a reminder that like, it's helpful if everybody's Zoom or everybody's Slack photo is themselves rather than like something else and like I had had like my Slack

photo forever had just been the CD-ROM cover of Cinemania 1994 and so I was like okay and so I went and like put my little illo from my vulture author page, my illustration

I was like well this is good this is fine I like the illustration I think it turned out really nicely blah blah I'm the only person I know who made the switch. I think everybody else was just like, okay, we can blow this off, because they've been around long enough to know that they probably can't.

I mean, you're honorary Midwestern. You're afraid of people thinking that you're rude. Well, or just like, I'm a rule follower. You know what I mean? Like dollars to donuts, I'm a rule follower. So, but I was just like, literally now I'm like weeks later.

And I'm like, am I the only one who made this change? Well, yeah, because you and I, you and I, this is one way that we're really similar is like, we're like, oh so a suggestion this was a suggestion right meaning if I don't do this I will be fired so I better do that that's how we're alike uh yeah kind of or at the very I was just like okay I got I got you know and I was like make sense people want to know what I look like

blah blah um switched it and I'm just like god damn it um I liked this makes me think of the tiff badge thing because we go to tiff with badges oh I've had the same photo for for every year. And they tell, see, okay, maybe I'm more this person because they tell you, they're like, please have it be a photo from the past six months and blah, blah, blah, so that it actually looks like you. I do ignore that.

And I'm like, oh, shit, what if they don't give it to me if I don't upload a photo from the past six months? So I do it. I took a nice photo of myself. My first year at TIF, I took a nice photo of myself in my hotel room that had good lighting on my way to go see the while we're young premiere. Because I took a photo of myself.

Oh, this is the photo that lives to this day. Yes. And so I was like, I look good in this one. I'm not chancing it. Like, I'm sticking. I'm sticking with this one. I'm sticking with you like glue. So that's my general, like, badge photo.

I tend to stand in line not with my badge photo and information outward because it's nice when a Gary comes up to you. But what I hate is when people are like in line. And rather than like, looking you in the eye, the person. Turn your badge over? My name is blah, blah, blah. Who are you, other person? Nice to meet you. They'll look at your badge and they're like, who are you?

And I'm like, that's rude. That is rude to me. That makes me feel fishbowld. I will say, as somebody who. And they'll have one themselves too is like the thing that drives me crazy. As somebody who. I can't just say, I'm Chris. I'm just going to look at your badge.

Like, as somebody who needs about three good times being introduced to somebody before the name, sticks sometimes, I make liberal use of checking out somebody's badge at a film festival to at least... Normally, what happens is I'll be pretty sure. But the bone-deep fear of getting somebody's name wrong when you address them is so deep that I will go quite a while without addressing somebody by name for fear of getting it wrong. So I will try and

like slyly peep the the badge. That's very different than like just shoving your face in someone's badge rather than saying, what's your name? It's like walking up to somebody with a magnifying glass and being like, who are you? You. The Latoya Jack's mean. People who have never gone to TIF just know that industry members and the like student industry folks also have a badge.

We're not being the people who are like, you know, gross bragging. No, there's way more people with badges than you realize. This is not us posting, like, photos of all of our screeners, which always drives me crazy. You know what? I'm just going to make my piece with the fact that we can only experience our lives the way we experience them, and we can only be honest about it. And if, you know, that rubs people a certain way, I can. get it. I understand it. But

I can only describe my life. And my life, frankly, is as a cloistered velvet rope, uh, ivory tower sinophile. And I'm sorry. Not sorry. I hate that phrase.

The Toronto International Film Festival. The festival of festivals. Strictly ballroom. Um, so strictly ballroom waltz is a way, pun intended, into the 1992 Toronto Film Festival, is a

gala premiere. At this juncture, it's not the 300 film festival that it would become. At this point, you have your gala premieres, you have your Canadian section, which is pretty robust, which continues to be to this day. This year, there were

films by the likes of Guy Madden, and Don McKellar, and Denny Arcans, and you know, Canadian filmmakers. And then you had your Midnight Madness section, which included Peter Jackson's movie Brain Dead. You mentioned Bernard Rose's Candyman. Romp or Stomper. You could have gotten in early on the ground floor with the Russell Crow thing by seeing Rompers Stomper. A lot of good Asian cinema in the Midnight Madness. You had a handful of documentaries.

Now, this is going by the Wikipedia page. So, like, this may not be fully comprehensive. I'm not sure they only showed three documentaries in the entirety of TIF. They showed a lot of short films. A lot of their prizes are for short films. They had a grand total of five short film prizes, which is a lot of prizes for short films in a film festival, I'm going to say. But the gala's were sort of, you know, your movie, you know, the main event there. And this year had some really good ones, including stuff.

like The Crying Game, which was, I believe, a Cannes premiere. A lot of Cannes premieres in this, of course. Reservoir Dogs, we mentioned Bad Lieutenant, Able Ferreira's Bad Lieutenant, which I believe was a Cannes premiere, Sundance Premiere, something like that. I think Cannes. One of the Cannes sidebars. One of the cans. Gary Senezes of Mice and Men was there.

What else? Which was Cannes. Which was canned. Reservoir Dogs, as we mentioned. And then those six world premieres that we mentioned, the Woody Allen and the Robert Redford. Have you ever seen a river runs through it? It's a movie about fly fishing, man.

Not since I was a kid. Fly fishing in Montana. My aunt had that on VHS. And the cover is just a river. It's very, except it's Montana. But yes, it is very, like, calm and serene. It sounds like the boringest movie ever. But of course, it stars peak vintage Brad Pitt, like 1992 Brad Pitt.

Did you know that Joseph Gordon Levitt plays the other guy's younger version, Craig Sheffers, little Craig Sheffer in that movie? I mean, that seems right. Yeah, yeah. Did you know who plays their mom? No, I don't remember. Is it like an Amy Madigan type? It's a Brenda Bluffin type. Ah.

So there. E.D. McClurg's in that movie? Maybe I should watch this movie again. Man. Anyway, beautiful movie. Philippe Bruselo, Cinematography. Nominated. Nominated but didn't win.

I wonder, no, did win the Oscar for cinematography. I thought so. Oh, there you go. There you go. So a good Toronto, I think. What are the ones you sort of, Bob Roberts, Tim Robbins is Bob Roberts as this year? Well, the one that I'm like, I should go back and watch that again is Passion Fish. I fucking love Passion Fish.

Oh, Passion Fish fucking rules, man. I mean, listener, if you haven't seen Passion Fish, go watch that movie. Not only will I think you love it, but you'll be like, yeah, no shit. Chris likes this movie. It's literally about actresses and women and... Yeah. I also watch John Sales' limbo this year. She's a soap opera actress.

She's a soap opera star who then gets paralyzed in an Indianapolis. injury and becomes, or in a car accident, and becomes embittered, living on her Louisiana, you know, whatever, lakeside home. And Alfrie Woodard is her nurse, and it fucking rules. It's a great movie. Safe to say, if we had been at this tiff, we would have had a great tiff. Oh, yeah. It's a really good tiff. Lake Water for Chocolate that year, Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross, John Wu's Hard Boil.

Like the public eye Remember the public eye I've ever seen that movie The one where Joe Pesci The epic movie that exists only as a VHS The crime scene photographer Where he's just like on the cover with a camera Serafina the Whoopi Goldberg

Musical Also only exists as a VHS Yeah kind of Yeah kind of But is a good one for Cinematrix The Punctuation in the title Because there's an explanation point

So Yeah it's a good line of It's a really, really strong TIF lineup. It holds up to history, I think, kind of remarkably well, which makes it all the more, you know, fascinating and impressive, I think, that Strictly Ballroom is the one that gets the people's choice. But, again, it's classic people's choice. You know what I mean? I mean, at this point in the 90s, too, it makes total sense. It makes total sense.

Maybe it wouldn't win. See, this is the thing about a movie like Strictly Ballroom. It does feel like it is a... And not antiquated, but it is a, and dated's not the right word either. But it is, there is an era of this type of comedy that follows this type of narrative arc with these type of characters. And it may be said in the world of ballroom dancing. It may star drag queens. It may be nuns on the run.

It may be things like that that inevitably ends with them putting on a show to save the barn and also maybe two people fall in love. Maybe two people fall in love while two people fall back in love. Sure. Maybe, you know, you have a whole supporting cast of characters that get to have their own second act number, blah, blah, blah. These all these tropes, this story arc all fits very neatly in. to musical theater structure even when they are not explicitly

musicals. I'm thinking the two wang-fus. I'm thinking the strictly ballrooms. I'm thinking the, my best friend's wedding, to be honest. Oh, yeah. It's a specifically like 90s thing that it's just like,

people understand this formula at that time and they know how it works and it hits every same. single time and these movies don't age in how well they just hit yes but it's like nobody really wants to make these type of movies now and when they do they're not that good like i had to this past if for an assignment see the rebel wilson movie the deb about the debutante ball which was a literal musical. Yeah.

But because it's a Rebel Wilson movie and it does not have a good comic sense, but it's still very proud of its comic sense. It's not good. It doesn't know how to do this type of movie. Did you ever see the Sundance movie with Melissa Rouch and Sebastian Stan about the Olympian? No. The bronze. The bronze.

I did not see that. That movie kind of fits. that template a little bit. And I think it does it okay. I don't think it's great, but I remember thinking like, oh, this is okay. We're again, this sort of idea of nobody believes in me because I failed. And now I've got to like pick myself back up. And I'm also like a weird person. So, you know, people don't really want to have anything to do with me. But there's a couple people who believe in me like that kind of a thing um you have to be earnest to do this type of movie and i think we've moved away from earnestness we've long since moved away from earnestness and it's like

napoleon dynamite is kind of this type of movie but it's smug and ironic and that makes the formula not work um like the deb that i mentioned that movie is too self-aware to make this type of thing work to be fully earnest. Yeah. Striculate Ballroom is a completely earnest movie, though, in a way that's so satisfying. And I think you have to be that earnest to, like, if you, it, the, the comedic sensibility in this movie is like a staring contest. If you break it, if you break that, like, laser focus at any time.

If you drop the ball, if you let the air out of the balloon. it all falls apart. That's true. I think the moment the movie really sells me is the first time you see the dad alone sort of start to dance, dancing on his own, you know, kind of a thing. That point, I'm just like, oh, okay, so this movie, with all of its manic, antic, you know, Liz punching Fran as she's walking out of the room. room, Fran with her glasses, hiding her true self, that it's like, oh, no, this is really, this is very hard on its sleeve. This is very, you know, earnest, as you say. And then everything else does sort of click into place. Then all of a sudden, the sort of grotesquery of his mother

or, you know, Barry Fife or, you know, the dance. in competition or anything like that. The guy who, the rival dancer with the Siegfried and Roy sort of vibe to him, just a ridiculous person, just a ridiculous, ridiculous, ridiculous person. The fill in, the famously good dancer who they want Paul Mercutia to partner with, who looks very much like Gene Hagen and singing in the rain. Tina Sparkle at that. Just a lot.

From the Elizabeth Sparkle home of products. But yes, there is a, there's a charm to it, obviously, that pulls you through when I think you might otherwise be kind of repulsed by, again, it's a lot of energy they're throwing at you in this movie, right? Same with Muriel. This is, again, this is why I keep bringing up Muriel's wedding. It's the same kind of thing. Like, they're throwing a lot of energy at you. But there's something they're. they're undergirding it.

And then you get stuff like the Coca-Cola sign. You know what I mean? The Coca-Cola sign scene on the rooftop. It's so good. And that's when the movie captures me is the time-after-time sequence, which seems to go on for like 15 minutes. Yes, it does. It's like the epic version of time after time.

It's like a 15-minute number. But then you meet her parents and her dad and mom teach him how to do the, The Pasoble, and it's, you know, there's lovely this too. And then there's all this business with very sort of like, again, like the Duke in Moulin Rouge, this business with like Barry Fife and how he manipulated, you know, his family out through all the years and going all the way back to when his mom was a prospective dancer and his dad got cheated out of and all this sort of stuff. Are you going to want me to do a 60-second plot description?

This is like Tatan. Well, it's because we wait so long into the episode to do Teuton. Yeah. I mean, we're hitting the hour mark, basically. We are. All right. All right. All right.

All right. All right. We're talking about here a little film called Strictly Ballroom, directed by Bazelerman, written by Bazlerman, Craig Pierce, Andrew Bevel, based on the stage play by who? Bazelerman. Starring Paul Mercutio, Tara Morris, Bill Hunter, Pat Thompson, Giacurides, Peter Whitford, Barry Otto, distributed in Australia by Ronan Films, was acquired by Miramax for United States distribution.

I was, I sort of could not ascertain what, at what point Miramax acquired this movie, whether it was at can, after can, at some point or whatever. Miramax ends up releasing it in the United States in February of 1993. So it ends up being one of those movies. that premieres overseas in 1992 and then in the States in 1993. As a result, it is eligible for BAFTA in 1992 and then the Golden Globes in 1993. We'll get into all that. Does not have American box office to speak of, at least.

I couldn't really, I don't think I could find it, but regardless, it was a, you know, your classic sort of like Miramax Charmer, right? that kind of had this slow burn throughout the year. Chris, I'm going to pull out my phone, and since you demanded it, I'm going to let you give a 60-second plot description for Strictly Ballroom. Are you ready? Sure. All right.

And begin. All right. Scott Hastings is a young ballroom dancer, and he has his own creative ideas. He wants to break the form, but he's kind of under the thumb of the Australian Dancing Federation owner, co-head, whatever, Barry Fife, who says, no, everything must be strictly ballroom. Ultimately, this is a huge embarrassment to his family, including his mother, Shirley. She is a ballroom dance teacher, his father kind of like lives in the basement. It's in a strange marriage, but, you know, Shirley is all in, like, the dancing world.

Scott can't help himself, and he breaks from doing strictly ballroom, pisses off his partner, Liz, who then goes to this. very, very blonde men who is a different, like, prize-winning ballroom dancer. And meanwhile, Scott has no one to dance with. So who does he end up dancing with? But the ugly fraud with glasses, Fran, they end up, you know, becoming this great team together, even though there's like the chance that he might go with Tina Spackle. And eventually, you know, this breeds problems within France family, but they get over that pretty quickly, and they teach him how to do

Joe said the dance style, the Pasadobo. And eventually there is a whole competition where, you know, as we might expect with a film like this, Scott breaks from the form, and he and Fran basically do what they want to do. Bill Fife tries to shut this down, and it's basically a revolt from all of the spectators and dancers alike, including Scott's parents, who, it turns out they were actually ballroom dancers

and his father didn't want to do strictly ballroom, but they get reunited on the dance floor and everyone is happy, the end. Minute 52, which, considering you've mentioned the word Fran at 55 seconds, is pretty good. I want to talk about the dad. Dad played by Barry Otto, BAFTA nominee. Um, well-deserved

Daftan nominee. Frequently, what a fun performance. Is styled so sort of straggly? He reminded me of who's the, it's like a real Tim Blake Nelson performance. Or like, who's the memoir of a snail director? Oh, um.

Like a real life version of one of that guys. characters. In a stop motion, you know, Marion Max's memoir of a snail. I mean, memoir of a snail, Australian. Right, right. Gave me that kind of a vibe. Sort of, you know, haunts the edges of the movie for a while is obviously, you know, dismissed by everyone. The mom is driving this train. She's so upset when her son, you know, refuses to do the steps. Does the very sort of like, you know, classic hearkening back to, you know, homophobic parents or whatever, the idea of like, what did I do to make my son so different? Like, that kind of a thing.

There is no greater sin than artistic individuality. That's right. That's right. This is like conformity within the world of ballroom dancing. So, like, gay doesn't enter the equation. Well, and also, if you know anything, and I do not purport to know a lot, I know my little corner of stuff that I saw on TV, but, like, ballroom dancing, gender roles are, of course, very regimented. Now, this is not a movie that really addresses gender roles, but there are obviously illusions to be made here. And the, you know, this idea that, like, there is a male role and a female role in partner dance.

dancing, right? And the male leads and the woman follows and the male is supposed to do these moves and the woman is supposed to do these moves. And like this is the, so, you know, when you get things like two men want to do a ballroom routine, it does kind of like break people's brains. And so what you would get with like, again, and this might be the last time I mentioned so you think you can dance, but I cannot guarantee it. You get like seasons upon seasons of so you think you can dance of like, just the most wonderful, beautifully expressive gay boys, like dancing with their female partners because, you know, that is how you do it. And they're great. And it's just like this long tradition of like, you know, gay boys from Salt Lake City with their sister as their, you know, ballroom partner. And like, it's not weird because the whole thing has such a like air of artificiality around it anyway. Well, that's one of the things that I think in this. formula of movie makes strictly ballroom kind of special is the I guess what would be the way the like incongruity of normy perception versus what the world this movie exists in is right because like subculture yeah person who knows nothing about ballroom dancer dancing what are they going to think ballroom dancing is gay yeah of course but then you put you get into the actual world of ballroom dancing and it's incredibly regimented structured and with a certain rulebook

you are expected to follow and therefore this movie becomes about nonconformity in an unexpected way for the for most of the audience because you know this movie is not just going to appeal to ballroom dancers right and therefore like it makes it very emotionally accessible the audience member can imprint whatever of their own personal experience they want on this movie. That is quite very likely not their lived experience. Well, and also, and here's where I'm going to bring up another one of my little obsessions, which is tennis, because this is where ballroom dancing and tennis are very similar, which is that you have these sort of cloistered subcultures that are kind of niche, have a niche appeal to them, certainly. Tennis has become more

mainstream. But obviously for years it was very niche. And within the sort of American sports culture, it was marginalized and also seen as a little fancy, a little effeminate. You know what I mean? The male players played in their white pants and sweaters, and they played on grass lawns in front of, you know, the swells of London or whatever. And so there was a concerted effort over the years to sort of emphasize the, you know, the masculine aspects of it, the tough, you know, very sporty, very, you know, very athletic. And either, you either pushed the very vanilla sort of like machine athletes, your Pete Sampras's, your, um, your, I don't know, whatever. Or you pushed like these very kind of like American tennis.

especially, really loved a brash American John McEnroe, Jimmy Conner's, Andre Agassie, attitude and fight and, you know, boorish a little bit and that kind of a thing, because they wanted to essentially attract, you know, boys. And this graphs onto ballroom dancing in that, like, yes, obviously a ton of the men in ballroom dancing are gay. They, you know, Barry Fife calls less at some point in this movie like a little fruit or whatever, right? I wrote it down. Oh, thank you.

Pull it out. He says the words, listen here, you pathetic little fat. Yes, yes. Okay. Because, I mean, just a hearing. I mean, it's coming from the villain in the movie, but. But what? Maybe the mother says that.

No, it's definitely Barry Fife who says that. But there are, of course, the straight people, within ballroom feel like they have to really adhere to, again, things like the gender roles in it, because, God forbid, Ballroom, Ballroom's already seen as pretty gay, and they want to sort of fight against that as much as possible because you are Nigel Lithgow and you, you know, grew up as a dancer, but you were, you know, you were not gay and people thought you were gay. So now because you've got a complex about gender roles. Well, and Baz is so smart to set this within a family dynamic, too, because then that's its all own can of worms, where it really does feel like beyond even just gender, beyond masculinity, et cetera, it becomes like a, you are expected to fall within a certain social order, and you are expected to play a certain role in a family.

and, yeah, you know. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's very smart in that way, in that, like, it sort of calls upon these aspects. I feel like, I imagine it feels probably not accurate literally to the ballroom scene, but perhaps emotionally, in certain ways, you know what I mean? Maybe people who are in ballroom see a little bit

of the characters in their realm. in their realm sort of reflected in that way. I'm so obsessed with dancers. I really am. It is, it's the thing that you, that you most can't do. It's like when I watch people on drag race try to learn choreography, and I literally, I, like, I hate choreography episodes. The idea of having to pick up choreography, first of all,

if I was given six months, I wouldn't be able to pick up choreography, much less the idea of like a couple of days. But just the idea of professional dancers who have that much sort of control and discipline and over their bodies to then use their body as a vessel to be artistic just within themselves is fucking amazing to me. You know what I mean? Like it's absolutely incredible. It's absolutely incredible. It's the most, it's the discipline that I find most. impressive, like in the arts, genuinely.

But this is a movie set within artistic expression that the people are saying, you can't express artistic vision. Now, I bet you, if you talk to ballroom dancers, though, they would tell you that within those strictures that they are able to, you know, that in that pursuit of excellence, they are able to express themselves. But yes, of course, you're totally right. If somebody wants to sort of step outside those, that regimentedness, then, you know, whatever, the kingdom's going to fall. But yeah, and I believe both of the leads had, like, dance experience going into this, I imagine.

They're both sort of like dancers, you know, by trade. Oh, Mercurio is such a presence. I mean, I don't really know if I have much interesting to say about the performance, but as a. screen presence. Yeah. Having to do so much dancing. He's almost never not dancing in this movie. I've only ever seen him in two things.

He's in this, and of course, he's in Exit to Eden. As essentially just like the, like, you know, Dana Delaney's sex slave, more or less, right? Where that's sort of the arc of that, like she kind of dominates him in that movie. And you see his butt a few times and he's very cute. But those are the only two things. Very HBO after dark. And then he was in this TNT mini-series about the biblical Joseph that I never saw, but I remember seeing ads for it quite a bit with him and Ben Kingsley. And as the Virgin Mary?

Yes. No, not that Joseph. The Old Testament Joseph, the Code of Many Colors, Joseph. I believe at least. Let me see. The Dali Parton, Joseph. Joseph. Yeah, yes, because there's a, yeah, because Ben Kingsley plays the Pharaoh, maybe. Anyway, yeah. Catholic ass correcting me on Bible.

Sorry, man. This is, this is my, this is my lot in life. Okay. Listen, we had black smoke from the Pope today. The Catholic, the Catholicism jumped out of Joe. Sorry. Tara Morris, though. Sorry Pizza Bala. You will not be in our new Pope yet. a spicy pizza baller. I want to talk about Tara Morris because I think she's sensational in this movie. Yes. I mean, like, maybe I want to take it back a little bit to Baz too

because like I thought the revelation in this movie is how good she is and then also Bazz is an underrated capturer of faces. Like I certainly don't want to reduce acting to facial expressions, but he captures her in a way in this movie that you see carried through in the rest of his filmography. You see it with the way he captures Nicole Kidman. You see it the way he captures Claire Danes. It's he is very keyed in to women who are not necessarily saying all that

is on their mind, who are trying to put a lid on some of their emotions. And I think that's a lot of what she does so well in this movie. Yeah. Even when she's hiding behind the glasses. Like, and she's in like a literal cat t-shirt. Yeah. Remember when cat t-shirts used to signify sad lady and not hipster? It all comes around.

It always comes around. Yep. Yeah. Always comes around. Did you know that Tara Morris was in an Australian television series? is in 2017 called Dance Academy. I want to watch it. Teen drama about a dance academy where she was, I imagine, the dance teacher or perhaps a headmistress.

I love a headmistress. Oh, yeah. Yeah. No recognizable names. No, no. The cute boy in Love Simon, who ends up being, spoiler alert, the boy who's sending him the messages is in that. Sure. Very cute.

France also, like, super horny. in this movie. Yes. This is a movie where a woman is allowed to, like, appear to be horrid. She has the, like, she's, you know, she's hideous because of glasses, the plot thing. But she does not, like, she does not play the nerd, or at least not for, like, maybe the first couple of scenes. She's sort of, like, you know, what's going on? Like, she's a little just like, you know, a face in the crowd.

But once, you know, they start dancing. She starts dancing with, what's his name in this? What's Paul Mercurio's name? Scott. Scott. Scott. Well, and we also see her prior to that dancing alone in the big, you know, where everybody's doing the turns in themselves like a circle.

She's dancing alone. So it's like, it's also, you know. Yes. In a way that, like, you can see in her eyes this like, we'll say passion instead of dropping H word. That, you know, this is like a true artistic connection, too. And that, like, you know, and it's artistry through the body. So naturally, they're going to be a little, like, turned on.

And I don't know. It's the sexy movie on top of being very silly. Can I butt in here? Because we already talked about the dad for a second, but I just want to circle back. Barry Otto, Bafton nominee for this movie. Miranda Otto's dad Also awesome Did not know that

Very cool Once again Australia is giving Australia delivery Can we also share some love for Pat Thompson Who plays Sure we can

Shelly She passed away Before this movie Got to prepare Yes she did What a fucking funny performance Very funny Very sort of

Yes The like sharp Transition Towards the end of the movie Where she has to be this same heightened histrionic woman but also go from

someone who maybe makes us laugh to having something more emotional while still being consistently the same character I think it's hard to do at the level that she does in this movie. Yeah. Oh God, she died of an aneurism. That's so terrifying. It's so sad. Yeah, she's wonderful.

The whole cast, actually. It did, having Gia Carridis in this cast did also sort of like make me compare it to Big Fat Greek Wedding, of course. There's a little bit of that energy to it, of course. But obviously, like, you know, Aussie Fide or whatever. Bill Hunter is awesome. Baz loves a sweaty villain.

Sure does. Man, oh, man. Villains got a sweat. It's a denotation of their, you know, dastardliness. Right, of course. What makes them evil. It's in the sweat. Well, as C&C Music Factory told us, they're going to make the sweat.

And so they were talking to the best of the best. Baslerman. Actually, that song was probably charting around this time. No, maybe a little bit earlier for C&C Music Factory. Maybe that's more of a, you know what? I haven't competed right in front of me. I don't know why I'm farting around pretending like I can't figure it out. C&C Music Factory. Singles. Going to make you sweat, everybody dance now. 1990. Reached number one. in the United States. And only number... It is still a top song for, like, white people weddings at this time. As it should be,

first of all, I'll credit to... Should still be. We should bring... Actually, you know, I mean, like, Magami... It was on Drag Race, like, a year and a half ago. It kind of brought it back. That hand puppet was one of the

funnier things I've seen on Drag Race. It's really good. It's really... I mean, one of my, like, earlier favorite songs, like, you know, early gay indicator. I love to CNC Music Factory. Gonna make you sweat. Um,

Also, underrated C&C Music Factory hit, things that make you go, hmm, which, oh, a karaoke favorite, a underrated karaoke favorite, things that make you go, hmm. I love a story song for karaoke. People don't, people want to, like, play the, like, want to be like a pop diva when they do karaoke. Underrated, just pick a story song where you tell people a story. Goodbye, Earl, a classic for a reason, a classic of the genre. B-52. 100%. Everyone's happy at B-52's karaoke. 100%.

100%. All right. Close out karaoke with time after time. Oh. One thing strictly ballroom's going to do is play time after time again. You know what? It works. It's a great light motif. It is a beautiful song.

My favorite of the Cindy Loppers. Was it written? Was Cindy Lopper the first person to chart with that song? Or was that one of those songs that, like, secretly, you know, know how, like, if you asked me to, was a hit for Celine Dion, and then, of course, was A lot of Salines were someone else's song. But, like, was that the case with time after time? I'm not sure.

Hmm. I don't know. Cindy Lopper, an original artist on a Celine Dion song. I drove all night. Learn on that one. All right. That wasn't originally Roy Orbison? I drove all night?

Might have been. That was Roy Orbison song. Was it? Never. Unless he did it after Cindy Lopper, which I guess. I guess I would believe that. Well, he might have. Hold on.

I drove all night. Let's see. Written by Billy Steinberg and Tom Kelly originally intended for Roy Orbison. Recorded the song in 1987, the year before his death, but his version was not released until 1991. Before that, in 1989, Cindy Lopper released her version. So, technically, we were both right. We were both right. That's, that's fun.

This is a first for us. That's nice. You, me, the handshake emoji, being right about it. And the handshake being I drove all night. Exactly. All right. Creaky song. Actually, I want to go back to, it is a creepy song.

So have I ever told you that karaoke story? It's a very brief one. I sang I drove all night at karaoke because I love it. it. And it's just our little, we have our little karaoke group, which is just the four of us, my four friends. And I'm halfway through it. And it's not like, you can tell sometimes like the room's really into it. And the room was like kind of like, eventually my friend Mindy just goes, kind of hits different when a man's singing it. Which is deeply true. Deeply true. It is very, very much a better, hits better when a woman sings it. So can I say, Yeah. Sometimes I will peruse the letterbox logs on a film. Yeah. And I think people are too harsh on this movie. Oh, were people harsh? I didn't even look at the letterbox. People are kind of harsh. I'm seeing a lot of threes. I, you know what? I can kind of see it. It's, it's shaggy. It's shaggy. It's messy. It's not messy. Sort of like. Lean 90 minutes. I think you can be this big and broad if you're, you get out, you get in, you get out. you get it done like I can see where though if you're not like locked in on it I could see where you're like oh okay like this is like early I was locked the fuck no kidding um but like I'm but I can see looking at this so happy as being sort of like oh this is like Baz figuring it out

and yeah then all of a sudden you get into Romeo plus Juliet and Milan Rouge and it's like oh Baz figured it out okay oh like Baz is one of the ones yeah yeah did you see who won two BAFTAs for this movie BAS? Well, no. Catherine Martin. Oh, well, yes. I mean, if a BAS movie is going to do anything,

it's going to add to the trophy mantle for Catherine Martin. Costumes and production design, Catherine Martin don't miss. So, uh, uh, God bless it's Elvis. Unless it's Elvis. I know.

I know. Elvis, still my least favorite Baz. Sorry about it. Is that true? Interesting. Yeah. Wow. Well, I mean, maybe it's, maybe it's great.

Gatsby, I just... I would probably watch Elvis again before I would watch Great Gatsby again. Yeah. This movie got eight. First of all, it won our beloved Cannes Prize of the Youth. At the Canc Festival. I was going to say, not only are we doing a Tiff

People's Choice Award winner, we're winning... It was the Can Youth Prize at that time, which makes it sound like a yogurt or some type of, you know, meal supplement. But the Can Prize of the Youth, this movie played an uncertain regard. And apparently for a midnight screening, I guess they did midnight for uncertain regard back then.

What a great midnight screening this would be. What a great festival movie if you're like kind of drag an ass a little bit? Like this movie will wake you up. That again very much plays into the idea of this winning people's choice. Stomped a hole through the Australian Film Awards. Like absolutely just wrecked it there. 13 nominations, eight wins. Best film, best director.

Barry Otto wins supporting actor. Pat Thompson wins. supporting actress posthumously. BAFTA, then it goes and gets eight nominations, wins three of them, the most winning film at the BAFTA's in 1992, a year that featured Howard's End, you know what I mean, a movie that like,

which did win best film, of course. Tara Morris was nominated for Best Actress, loses to Emma Thompson. Maybe Berriotto wasn't BAFTA nominated. Maybe I was thinking of the Australian Film Awards. You know what? Marriotto should have been Bafton nominated if he wasn't. It also wins, as I said, costume production design and then original music.

So, well done on that. And then, of course, it doesn't open in the States until February. So then it's like another year goes by and it's nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Picture, musical, or comedy, loses to, hello, Mrs. Doubtfire. Give the children this lineup, because this is quite a lineup. Again, to be 13 years old as I was at a time, at a time. like this. Mrs. Doubtfire wins Best Picture Musical or Comedy. Also nominated Dave, Ivan Reitman's Dave,

with Kevin Klein, Sigourney Weaver and Kevin Klein. Much ado about nothing, which we've talked about. We've done an episode on that on this podcast. Sleepless in Seattle. Nora Ephron's one of her masterpieces. And then Strictly Ballroom. So you have a category with Kenneth Branagh, Nora Ephron, Ivan Reitman,

Bazlerman, and whoever or direct Chris Columbus. Chris Columbus directed Mrs. Doubtfire, but you're sure. That's a lineup, man. That's a lineup. I stand by Mrs. Doubtfire winning. I'm glad a movie like that can win.

That's a good Golden Globe musical or comedy win. I'm just going to say. Yeah. Yeah. I think any of those movies could have won and been a good winner. I would highly encourage anyone who, because like, Sleepless in Seattle is one of those movies that it's like, yeah, but she's a stalker, right?

Go back and watch Sleepless in Seattle because, like, Nora Ephron made a romantic comedy about romantic comedies. Looking, watching Sleepless in Seattle and walking away with she's kind of a stalker is, makes me want to find that clip of Alaska from, I believe, at season five, where she just goes, girl, take it easy. Like, she's just like, girl, girl, take it easy. Take it easy. And like, that's all I can think of is just like, we can, we can, we can. you know, get worked up about other things. Come on.

Come on. You know what Meg Ryan was doing in Sleepless in Seattle? What's that? Singing I drove all night. She was, she did. She was. She was sneaking into that room. She was.

Waking Tom Hanks from his sleep to make love to him. Today was the day that I came up with like three different fan cam ideas. And now I just had another one, which is Natalie Portman in Luciam the sky set to I drove all night. That's what I want. That's not technically what a fan cam. I don't care, Chris. I don't care.

That's what I want. A fan cam would be like Natalie Portman and Lucy in the Sky set to like Nissan Ultima by, I guess that's also a car, so that's like a joke. That would be like set to a different Dochi song. Doesn't have to be a dochi song, Chris. It can also be other things. I don't know. But the nature of saying that I had to have all night to Lucy in the sky is making a joke about it.

But like the thing about a fan cam is like this thing is fucking badass. And I don't want to hear anything about it. That's what a fan cam. Listeners, if you enjoyed Chris... Fan cams are about women who say. If you enjoyed Chris Youngsplaining fan cams to me, definitely sound off in the comments. and let us know. Hey, take it easy.

Girl, take it easy. Take it easy. Back to, fuck you. Okay. Back to the people's choice, though, for like a second. Because obviously the people's choice, and this is the thing that we've talked a lot about, so we don't really have to, like, you know, linger on it too much.

It's probably the anybody who even tangentially follows. It's broken contain. It's broken containment. It's in sort of a little bit in the general population. This idea... People talk about this like, you know, American Beauty is the beginning of people's choice being big for Oscar, but it's really not the first people's choice award winner. No. That went on to Best Picture is Chariots of Fire.

Chariots of Fire in 1981. But I... Which did, like, come out of nowhere in the way that American Beauty did. That is true. But also, I do feel like... American Beauty is maybe... American Beauty didn't really come out of nowhere, but we talk about it like it did.

No, but I think the thing that's worth discussing there with regard to TIF is, I think that's maybe the first time that, like, a TIF premiere raises enough fuss, and then the studio, in this case, DreamWorks, harnesses it and sort of, like, uses it to power an Oscar campaign. That is essentially, have you heard about this movie? everybody's talking about it in Toronto, oh my God, and then all of a sudden it opens, and then all of a sudden it's just like boom, boom, boom. And some of that is because American Beauty opens in the weeks after that Toronto is kind

of a surprise hit that builds, and then the awards happen to. But so then they have the people's choice winners from that point, the one right after that is Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which obviously becomes a very big sort of like, I would love to know, like, what the expectation was on Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, like, a year ahead of time in terms of, like, at what point did they think that they could sell this movie that was, that had so many sort of, like, marks in the column of, like, maybe don't try and push it for best picture. Maybe, like, foreign language film is your sort of, like, you know, tippy top. Well, Crouching Tiger is such an interesting backstory, too, because they thought that they'd made a bomb. It plays out of competition at Cannes, and I think from there, basically, the ball is rolling with Western audiences for that movie. Because I think by the time it opens in American theaters, there had been this sort of like buzz for it that like, oh, we think actually like this is going to be really fun.

And then, though, you don't have a People's Choice winner that's a Best Picture nominee after that until Slumdog Millionaire. movies like Amelie and Whale Rider, which do end up, you know, going from their Hotel Rwanda, Eastern Promises, who like, you know, move into the Oscar sphere but are not best picture, winners or even nominees. And then you get into 2008 Slumdog Millionaire, which was a, where did that premiere? I also sort of like... Tell your head. Yes. So this is the other thing. ride's not the telluride then i mean that's when telluride like begins to pick up steam is around

this era like the 2007 2008 years almost always when a telluride movie um ends up making it big into the best picture race it almost always slingshots its way from tell you ride to toronto and i almost feel like sometimes from tell you ride to new york um and i almost feel like that's necessary. I feel like Telluride is too you know, cloistered to be a launching pad on its own. What you do is

you premiered at Telluride, teleroid. You get the really sort of rarefied buzz for something. People are talking about it. Telluride when you ride that gondola too fast. Shut the fuck up. Stupid. But you get the like the really sort of

rarefied telluride buzz and people are really very curious. And then all of a sudden you move it to Toronto and then more people see it and then it's sort of like and that's what you get with something like a slumdog millionaire or 12 Years of Slave was also a Telluride premiere, right? I believe they did. Telluride still does this but they do it less and less with these like big premieres. It was Argo

and 12 years of slave back to back. do like a sneak preview or whatever they called at Telluride or a big like that's where the buzz starts and they kind of steal the thunder of Toronto. Argo doesn't win the people's choice. That goes to Silver Lang's Playbook, but 12 Years a Slave does win that people's choice at Toronto. Yeah. And there's reports of all this like bad blood people at Tiff are pissed about basically the... you know, import of telluride gaining. Yeah, there was a battle for like several years between the festivals where they were really sort of jockeying for.

That's when you really got those very intense TIF emails, which would be like North American premiere, Western Hemisphere Premier, like, you know, Ontario Premier, like these kind of things where they would just fight for whatever little, you know, sliver of the world they got to premiere something in. But so Slumdog also begins this sort of the streak, which is broken, but like very few times where... Only one movie has broken it between presumably Life of Chuck and Slumdog Millionaire. Only Nadine Labakis, where do we go now? Right. Which I caught up to for this. What did you think? I've never seen it.

Not great. Okay. It's fine. You can see how there's a... There's elements to it that are very broad. You could see how this could play to the right festival audience and it could do well. It's still maybe a little surprising that it would win. And so the runners-up that year is a Ken Scott movie called Starbucks and then a separation, Oscar Farhadie's A Separation, which so you look at like, okay, well, then like, what was the field like that year? And so you look at the field and it's like, I mean, Moneyball was there.

So, like, you had Moneyball. You had Take the Sweltle. The Takes This Waltz was very divisive. So you had Madonna's Wee. You had Albert Knobbs. You had the aides of March. George Clooney's The Iads of March. And Mark Forster's a lot of downers that people don't like.

Not even, and like David Cronomberg is a dangerous method. So, like, not even just downers, but like a lot of divisive movies, a lot of movies that sort of felt disappointing in some way or another. And where do we. go now is definitely a movie that tells you what you're supposed to feel and in a festival environment probably played to the audience that's going to feel the things that it tells it to feel. Yeah. I'm kind of surprised that a movie like the Descendants didn't crack that top three because like for

as much as you and I. I know, but we, you are not a main, like you are not in the mainstream of that movie. Certainly wasn't that year. Like, people really liked that movie that year. That was a real sort of crowd pleaser that year. But, like, not surprised that, like, melancholia didn't do it. Shame didn't do it. You know what I mean?

The skin I live in. It's a lot of downer movie. Yeah. Yeah. It really kind of is. So we need to talk about Kevin. Wow. Tiff was going through it in 2011.

But yeah. So otherwise than that, slumdog millionaire in 08, precious in 09, King's Speech in 2010, Silver Linings Playbook. Silver Linings Playbook was one where it definitely felt like it came out of nowhere at Toronto, right? Well, it's the first. in this stretch that we're mentioning that was a world premiere. Yes. 12 years of slave in 2013, imitation game

in 2014, room in 2015. Room like, Brie Larson like thanks Tiff in her speech in her best actor speech because like that's how integral TIF was to really sort of, although that was not a TIF premiere, but that definitely like

you know, knocked it up. La La Land in 2016, three billboards in 2017. Green Book Three billboards was surprising being at that Toronto because that was not a universally positive reaction from the people I spoke to on the ground, Normies and people like us. I think it started off a lot more positive maybe than you even remember because you look at what was runner up was I Tanya, another movie that became divisive, but not right away. Like those movies, I think both hit pretty well. And I think also three billboards screened a lot in my memory. Yeah, it did.

It did. Green Book in 2018. This is when you start to see the machinations of the movies that are winning are also screening a bunch. Though Green Book did not screen it. Until very late. Green Book opened very, very late at that festival. Jojo Rabbit. Yeah, Green Book is what people kind of don't understand when they, like, look down their nose at this prize, is that like, oh, well, not just the prize, but like critics and such.

yeah this movie like had its premiere at a time in the festival where you know if you've been to this festival before you're like oh it must not be good it turned out to not be good yeah but that festival audience had a different reaction well this is why when they brought greatest beer run ever to the festival and it also had a late festival premiere i'm like can we count this thing out because like this thing happened the last time um this was also the be so So the three billboards, no, it was the La La Land three billboards green book Jojo Rabbit run of like 2016 to 2019 was the era where, first of all, unsurprisingly, this was the first term, the Trump first term, was those four movies. But this was also when we're really, I would say, over politicizing the idea of big movie prizes, right? And so not only were these movies, maybe not everybody's cup of tea, to quote, Spike Lee, but they were also sort of seen as bad, right? And by some people at some times, in some ways or another, they were seen as sort of politically on the wrong side of history or sort of the wrong side of culture at the time. and that made these years, I feel like, feel very... Lacking Integral nuance.

Yeah, well, and this is... And then, of course, like, La La Land was then the, you know, the bad guy to Moonlight's good guy. Three Billboards was the bad guy to Shape of Water, I guess, but also Lady Bird, but also Get Out. Any number of movies were the good guys to Three Billboards that year. Green Book was the bad guy to movies like Roma and A Star is Born and stuff like that. Black Panther, of course. Jojo Rabbit was, you know, a bad guy in that... But that movie didn't really take off.

I think the fact that Jojo Rabbit made the best picture lineup made people mad. It's because of TIF. And it made people mad. That was one of those things where, like, I can't remember what was the movie that got left off that year. But I remember people being, like, annoyed by that. And... But people didn't... I was surprised when Jojo Rabbit won, too.

at that world premiere, the energy kind of died throughout that screening in my purview. And I remember when those reviews dropped, I was like, oh, I'm not that surprised. Because those first festival reactions weren't amazing. Well, people voted, I guess. I was sort of surprised the parasite didn't win because I remember Parasite being, of course, very popular. And they kept adding screenings to it. Yeah. And then sort of COVID hits and everything, of course, changes. But I'm glad we've kind of, we have not, even with like Belfast winning and Fableman's winning, which are both movies that had like backlash, but like Life of Chuck wins this past year. And there was not a toxic discourse around it. And maybe that was because it didn't have a release date this year.

And that was because people didn't think it was, knew it wasn't a threat to the best picture race or whatever. But I would have expected maybe a little bit more of a toxic discourse around it because it's, you know, not seen as, you know, worthy in some way, that it's, you know, for whatever reason, the people who don't like Mike Flanagan, the people who don't like, you sort of Latter-day Stephen King, I liked The Life of Chuck. I didn't love it. I think there are, you know, there's a limitation to it, but I enjoyed it, and I really hope it finds an audience when it opens because that crowd that I saw it with, as I mentioned on the podcast last year, really loved it. And if it finds the right audience of people who, who see it in theaters, people are really going to love it. And I... Okay, so do you think the TIF People's Choice Award winner, Best Picture nominee streak is over with this? It's opening in the summer.

Yeah, I don't... Which means it would have to do well, but do you see a world where Life of Chalk is a Best Picture nominee? No, and I think the people who, I think even, you know, with neon, I think, you know, neon's going to have other fish to fry later in the year. So I don't think that's even... Kind of bracing for that movie. Life of Chalk?

I think that trailer put me on the wrong... I don't think you'll like it. I don't think you'll like it. I will say that. I think it's a me movie and not a you movie. From the mind of Stephen King, from the heart and soul of Mike Flagen. I want to...

Yes. That was the tagline in the trailer. I was like, no. Yeah. It's not for... Absolutely not. Absolutely not. It's not for you.

It really isn't. But it is for some people. And the people who it's for, I hope they find it. Oh, good. Good, good, good. I don't think it's an Oscar movie. And I think the fact that it, you know, didn't open last year and is going to open in the middle of this year is good for everybody. And it's good for TIF that they don't have maybe, you know, they can take a year off from

this idea that, like, they're the kingmakers or whatever, even though I'm glad that for a movie like American fiction, for example, that getting that award made people maybe look at that movie a little bit more seriously as an Oscar contender. That was a good thing that that movie was in the mix that year. This is the direction that I kind of wonder if TIF is going to be heading or is trying to head a little bit of, you know, it's never going to drop the type of awards chasing that it's doing. And it shouldn't entirely. But I do wonder if it's going to be looking for those bigger name independent productions that that's. they can launch big deals for like what like life of truck which got neon right but you know the

type of movies that it's like well why isn't a studio behind this movie yeah tiff is going to become the home for those movies i wonder i feel like and they're launching their own film market to yeah i feel like tiff getting the fablemans in 2022 their big spielberg get it was their sort of maybe highest profile filmmaker ever, you know, getting the premiere there. And I, of course, one of the great film screenings that I can ever remember is that in Glass Onion back-to-back. Incredible night. Yeah. Like, Stephen Spielberg can barely stop waiting for the audience to applaud to say, I'm so happy we brought this movie to tip. It was, I mean, the atmosphere was really electric. But ultimately, does that movie premiering?

at Tiff, do anything extra for Tiff or that movie after, you know, chasing, you know, a big fish like that for so long. It wins the people's choice. Fableman's ultimately gets nominated for Oscar, doesn't win, sort of falls victim to this sort of recent Oscar trend of we're going to nominate these old salty dog masters. Spielberg's not a salty dog, but, you know, these old masters of cinema, but they don't need the win, so we're not going to give it to him um it's also a weird moment of movies doing not as financially well as we might have expected pre-covid like the fableman comes out five years for previous and it probably makes five times as much at the box office if not more well the fableman's maybe comes out this year and makes

more money than it did back then too you know right because the fableman's made like 10 million It was very, I mean... Wild for the quality of what... We were still crawling. We were still crawling our way back. But I always do find it instructive to see, especially now that they announced the top three, the fact that last year it was Life of Chuck

and then Amelia Perez and then Anora. You get a little snapshot of where things are at the moment. Parasite was in the runner-ups. Beale Street was... Yep, yep. The runners-up can sometimes be more interesting than the actual winner. Sometimes. In terms of painting a picture of what TIF audiences respond to.

The year that La La Land won, the runner-up was Lion, Garth Davis is Lion, which ends up in the best picture category at the Oscars. And then Miranayor's Queen of Cotway, which was not nominated at all. So, you know, you never know with some of these things. things. But I think in general, I think it's good for Tiff to have this mystique. I think the streak was not sustainable and also started to get treated like the Madden cover curse. I know I'm going to reference another thing that is not in your wheelhouse. But do you have any idea what that refers to? So Madden football is a, is for certainly forever was the most popular. video game for football video game. And so every year, they would have a new addition of it,

and they would put, you know, whoever the hottest pro football player of the moment was on the cover of the video game. And for a while there, for a few years in a row, the person who was on the cover got injured that year. And so the idea of the Madden curse was, you want it because you want the prestige, you want the sort of like whatever, but you don't want it because oogoodie boogity, you're going to, you know, something bad's going to happen, you're going to get injured, your team's going to have a horrible season, you're going to have, you know, some sort of really, really bad setback. And eventually that sort of got, you know, disproved enough years in a row that people stopped talking about it. But it was a thing for quite a while. But it's

a superstition, right? And so that's sort of what this TIF thing, I think, for a while started to be, it was just like, you know, oh, get the, get the TIF people's choice and you're guaranteed. And it's like, well, there really is no actual logical reason why that would be true. But, you know. It's just, I mean, I think what this award signifies is that Toronto, given the size of their audience, the, you know, makeup of their audience, it's proof that you can get a large number of people to respond positively. which, like, at the end of the day, the Oscar race is about getting people to watch your movie. Yes.

And then like it. And this does, you know, goes a long way towards that. This is an indicator of that. Yeah, exactly. This is an industry where if the perception is that everybody's seeing this thing and everybody's talking about this thing, you then really, really get fucking rabid about wanting to go see this thing, right? So that's what the TIF people's choice is often, like,

Like, to me, I was just like, especially in the years before I was going, especially in those like American beauty years, whatever, where it's just like, did you hear what won people's choice of TIF? And just like, oh, my God, I got to see that now because all of a sudden it's just like, you know, Hansel's so hot right now. So, yeah. Yeah. So strictly ballroom, a good, a very good movie from a, I would say pivotal year for Tiff winning a prize that is. a fun thing to talk about in the context of Oscar, so long as you don't take it too seriously, so long as you take it easy.

Right? Three favorite people's choice award winners. Oh, boy. I mean, there are so many good ones. And do I pick, like, you know, personal, like real personal faves, you know what I mean? I feel like there's a lot of things that you feel obligated to, you know what I mean?

Whereas just like, I could also just be like, you know, the Princess Bride. I think my three are, can you tell I didn't prepare and that I'm now like scrolling through? I'll give you my three then. Yes, you give me your three. It's pretty simple. I would say Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, women on the verge of a nervous breakdown. And is it Princess Bride? Princess Bride, like I love stretches of it and then stretches of it.

I just think we really need to let the wealth. back up on that. You're not wrong. You're certainly not wrong there. I would say definitely Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is, you know, kind of my number one with a bullet. Of course, life is beautiful. J.K.J.K. I would be so upset if you were serious right now. Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. I'm going to say 12 years of slave. There's a sort of thing where like I'm sort of become abashed about like being like, oh, I love 12 years of slave because it does sound. like, you know, Bradley Whitford didn't get out coded or whatever. But, like, I really do think it's an incredible, you know, it's an incredible movie.

Well, we love Steve McQueen. And we love Steve McQueen. Of course we do. And then my third one, like, I don't know. Fuck my drag. It's the Fabelman's. I fucking love that movie. And I loved being there for that movie.

And this is a personal choice. So, yeah, yeah, I'll do that. Screw recency bias. I'll save my third favorite is strictly ball. There you go. Good. Good for you. would strictly ballroom have been your people's choice in 1992?

Oh, like I can only pick one movie? Yeah, if you had to cast a ballot from those gala premieres in 1992. Is this... Just the gala premieres. I can't vote for Candyman. No, you know what? Yes, you can. You can vote for anything.

Am I voting for Candyman? Let me... Hmm. I mean, I'm voting for Candyman or I'm voting for Passion Fish. Passion Fish is a real, it draws me to it, right? Passion Fish, I would assume, I think I would have assumed at the time that, like, Reservoir Dogs doesn't need my help. Reservoir Dogs is doing just fine, even though I love that movie. Passion Fish.

Reservoir Dogs did okay, though, once it was, like, in theaters. That was more of, like, a home video success. No, but I just mean in terms of, like, festival buzz because it was such a festival movie movie coming from Sundance. And I imagine, like, I imagine the, like, I imagine the buzz. on the streets in Toronto, the year that Reservoir Dogs played Toronto must have been significant. I just imagine that movie must have just hit like an atomic bomb for people, really. Like, not to like oversell it or wherever, but like it really was just doing stuff that a lot of people were doing. Yeah, I would have voted for Passion Fish.

Almost certainly I would have. Yeah, that would have been my vote. Okay, then if you're doing that, I'm going to spread the wealth and say I voted for Candy. Well, that's, you've said Candyman, certainly enough times for bad things to be happening to you tonight. What if I just like Into my zoom background? It's your unmarried woman poster.

Yeah. What if Francis McDormand from my background just like reached out and just like pulled me back? With a claw. All right. Another fine conversation had by all, Chris. I feel like we're really, we're doing the darn thing with these.

Can I give you because this isn't an Oscar nominee? I think the safest thing to nominate this for is Catherine Martin's costume design. Yeah. Is this like the only Baz movie that she wasn't nominated for costume design?

I think it... Yes? No, no, because it's art direction, not costumes for... For Romeo plus Juliet. Yeah. This is the costume design lineup that it would have been nominated against.

Okay. The Age of Innocence, Gabriella Piscucci. Absolutely justified. Orlando, Sandy Powell. The piano, Janet Patterson. The Remains of the Day, Jenny Bevin and John Bright, and Schindler's List, Anna B. Shepard. I mean, how much... You can see why that's hard to crack.

It is. But I would probably replace Remains of the Day. I love Remains of the Day. Yeah. Jenny Bevan has other Oscars. It's true. And it's like, at some point, I mean, the costumes in that movie are wonderful. But are you giving maybe more credit to just the idea.

of a period piece than, you know. Do you know what I mean? And it just feels like a down-balled type of movie. Even though that's not all the Academy votes. You know what I mean? It's just like, she looks like such a housekeeper. Like, well-done, you know.

Yeah, I could see that. I could see that being the one that you'd maybe lop off. Listener, go watch Kath and Kim. Yeah. I'll echo that even though I haven't seen it. Go watch the Aussie Cath and Kim, not the Molly. Stanley Shannon and Salma Blair?

Have I had, do I have that wrong? Maybe. Caffe and Kim. Help me out here. Hold on. Paul Mercutio, write in and let us know

what your politics are, just so we're sure. Mercurio. Did I say Mercutio? Listen. You sure did. You have Romeo plus Juliet on the brain. Do you think that's who Baz

named that character after in Romeo plus Juliet? Is he named him Mercutio because of Paul Mercurio? Yes. Because Baz Luhrmann wrote William Shakespeare's Romeo plus Julia. Listen, you said it, not me. It is Selma Blair.

Selema Blair. Indeed. There should be a whole... Mully Shannon. Molly Shannon is in some of these photos from the show. Making me kind of want to check this out, because she's in, like, aerobics gear with... All, like...

Yes, because Kat is very serious. Or about her, no, is it Kim? This is the other thing. They are also. Are they Rosencrantz and Gildenstern or Ted? I mean, for fans of the show, yes, but not on the show. Amazing. It's cat.

Molly Shannon should be in a Barb and Star go to, what's the, where do they go in the sequel? Barb and Star go to a gay bar. That's, whatever it is. But Molly Shannon should be in the next Barb and Star movie. I feel like she's a perfect fit for that. All right. Should we move on to the IMDB game? Yeah, why don't you tell our listeners what exactly the big freaking deal is with the IMDB game?

Every week we end our episodes with the IMDB game where we challenge each other with an actor or actress to try to guess the top four titles that IMDB says they are most known for. If any of those titles are television, voice only performances, or non-acting credits, we mention that up front. After two wrong guesses, we get the remaining titles release years as a clue. That's not enough. It just becomes a free-for-all of hints. That's the IMDB game. Fuck yeah. Chris, would you like to be the guesser or the giver? Can we also say, have you watched Australian traders? I haven't done Australia. You know my favorite thing about Australian traders is that the prize is not given in dollars, but it is in a chest of silver bars.

that is just on the table there the whole time. And the host, of course, being Australian, says every week. Silva Baz. Silva Baz. And so all you end up saying throughout the entirety of Australian traders in your head is Silva Baz. Silva Baz. You got to get the Silva Buzz.

It's wonderful. I love, I've only seen the first season. There are so many trader seasons that I have waiting for me to watch whenever I have the time to do so. We should watch a trader's season that we maybe haven't seen. We've got so many... Oh, you haven't watched the U.K. ones, right? I've seen U.K. I've seen the first U.K.

And I am in the middle of the third U.K. Right now. Anyway, are you guessing or giving first? I'll guess first. Okay. So, for you, I went the Baz Luhrman route, and I went to your least favorite Baz movie. And I found the recipient

of the most memeable line from that movie, which is Tom Hanks and he's white. And, of course, that line is spoken to the character played by Cody Smith McPhee. So, give me that Cody Smith McPhee known for. Power of the dog is definitely there. Nope, it's not, strike one. Oscar nomination among many other awards.

Okay, so the road. The road, correct. X-Men First Class. No. Incorrect. He's not in that one. Is it X-Men Days of Future Path? Nope.

And you're already getting your years anyway. So your years are 2010, 2015, 2016. It's one of them, X-Men Apocalypse? It is X-Men Apocalypse. Yes. There we go. He shows up in, I believe, Days of Future Past,

but the next one after, that is Apocalypse. So you've got the road and apocalypse. You need 2010 and 2015. Okay, so 2010 is close to the road. I believe the road is 2009. Is the road

2009? Oh, nine. Yeah. Okay. So he's still a child. Still a wee, baby. Isn't Godi's Mamikpe also Australian? Hold, please. Um,

Watch he be just like, I think he's no, born in Adelaide, South Australia, yes, so you're right. There you go. I was going to say, watch him just be American. Is it like City of Ember? No, but good on you for remembering that there was a movie called City of Ember. Dang. It's a children, it's got to be a kid's movie that he is a child in. Though maybe he's more like a teenager because didn't they film the road like years before it was released?

Like, that movie took forever to come out. I wonder if his bio has the year that he's... Some of these kid stars, they hide the birth year. 1996, so he's... In 2009, he's 13. So he would have been a new teen. Is it like... Oh, isn't there another movie called Alpha,

where there's, like, a wolf person and might be... Cote Smith McPhee in the 2015 movie where Liam Neeson puts broken beer bottles on his knuckles to fight wolves? Oh, no, there is a movie called Alpha that Cody Smith McPhee is in, but that is not one of his known for. But, God, Albert Hughes directed that movie, one of the Hughes brothers. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's not it. That's not. That was 2018.

Great. Yeah. I love that I'm remembering all of these movies that no one else remembers and they're not helping. Okay, do you want some hints? Yes. One of them's a remake of a foreign film. Okay. One of them is a movie that I believe...

I'm going to double-check this. But I believe it was a Sundance premiere. It was. Did not end up really going anywhere? It played, like, theaters. Like, I saw it in theater. But it didn't really, like... end up going anywhere, despite the fact that I think it's pretty good and I think it looks gorgeous.

Is that the 2015 movie? That is, the 2050. Is that A-Tham Body Saint? No, but it was at the same Sundance, I'm pretty sure, is A-Tham Body Saints. And I think of those two movies kind of like in tandem, and I'm not entirely sure why. It stars somebody who is a major movie star, but three. but who went through a period, a sort of Clive Owen-esque period of, like, every movie that he headlined, like, tanked. Oh, interesting.

Fastbender. Yes. Oh, Slow West. Slow West. Did you like Slow West? I remember Ben Mendelssohn's coat and nothing else. I remember that being a movie where I'm like, this is better than it's being received as. And I wish it weren't called Slow West because it's just going to dissuade people from seeing.

it because you don't want to put slow in your title of your, you know, indie movie. I thought the cinematography and the colors in that movie were really, really beautiful because it's not murky at all. It's very, very bright. Right. It's vibrant. Yes. All right. So your remake of a foreign language film, the guy who remade it, it's not, it might be, I don't think it's his first future film? No, but has, like, gone on to, like, good, big successful movies

career-wise. Can I get a nationality of origin of the original? Scandinavian. Hmm. This was... Oh, it's let me in. It is let the right one in. I like this movie.

This is Matt Reeves' post- Clover I think it's, yeah. Yeah, I think that's a pretty good, well, they don't like it to be called a remake because they went back to the book as a source, which I think actually reads. Pun intended. Let Me In his good movie. Okay. Get that movie a shot. All right.

Well done. I've never seen Let Me In. I've seen the original, of course, but not the remake. Cool. Very rude of you to draw from the well of my least favorite Baz movie when I pulled from your favorite Baz movie. Yay. From William Shakespeare's Romeo plus Juliet, I chose Harold Perino. Who played Mercurio?

No television. I loved Mercurio in that movie. You're going to drive me crazy. All right. No television? No television? No voices. Hilarious. That the guy who's most known for Lost and Oz is... Whoa!

All right. So Matrix Revolutions. Incorrect. Matrix Reloaded? Correct. Okay. All right, Harold. William Shakespeare's Romeo plus Juliet.

Correct. Um. All right, buddy boy. Do you know IMTB credits the movie as Romeo plus Julius? Yes. They got, they almost got there. It's halfway right. It drives me crazy as somebody who makes puzzles where the official title is the way one we have to go with.

Drives me bad. That's annoying. But good to know. Good to know. All right. Plus sign would account it for punctuation, though. Plus sign does count for punctuation, but it means it's not a four plus word title, which it really should be. Okay.

What other movies is he in? He's so TV-coded. It's crazy. I know. And he's not in, like, the new Matrix, the dumb one that everybody thought was good. The, you know, basically masterpiece. That's, you know, so great. Okay. Any other Ochoowski movie, though?

Did they, like, bring him into Jupiter ascending? make him a B person or something. I need some hints. I'm sorry. Oh, you guess another matrix. Jupiter ascending. Your years are 1997 and 2007. Okay. 97. So pre-lost, but right around the time that Oz begins, which is interesting. Um, 1997, is it like a, like a hard-boiled sort of?

Kind of. Yeah? Well, you're laughing. Hard-boiled in a very different setting than you would consider hard-boiled. Oh, that's interesting. It's objectively awesome that this movie is on here. Okay. So, 1997 movie that's kind of delightful that it's on here,

but could be described as hard-boiled in a setting that's not like a copy. and criminals kind of a setting. Yes. Two headlining actors, he is not one of them. The appeal of this movie kind of sells itself and the hard-boiledness of it. It is, however, written by someone you would not expect to write this type of movie, or at least the one credited screenwriter is not someone you would think. But it's not a comedy.

No. Is it like action-y? Yes. Okay. Is it sci-fi action-y? No. Okay. Is it like martial arts action-y?

No. All right. Is it like sportsy in any way? No. I love this like 20 questions version of this game that we're playing. The two leads, are they Oscar winners, either one of them? One of them is, the other is a one-time nominee. One of them is a two-time Oscar winner, in fact.

Oh, interesting. So, well, Christoph Waltz wasn't a thing then. Denzel Washington. No. Um, Tom Hanks? No. Two-time male Oscar winner, Jason Robards would be very funny if that was the case. A span of 30 years separates this person's Oscar wins.

Oh, fascinating. Um, 30 years. Okay. So. Pacino's only won the once. De Niro does not span that long. Oh, God. I feel like this is very obvious, and I'm, like, really missing it. Is it lead supporting, or is it two leads? It's co-leads.

No, but I mean, like, the Oscars. Is there one? Oh, this person won lead twice. Lead twice. Oh, it's Hopkins. It's Anthony Hopkins, and so in 1997, is it one of those movies like him and Cuba Gooding Jr. and their... Bad company? No, that's Chris Rock. That's bad company. It's a bad movie. Sorry, Joel Schumacher. No, it's Hopkins. Is it like fracture or something like that? No.

Oh, him and Gosling? No, that comes later. 1997, the edge. The edge, baby. He's the pilot, I think. In The Edge, you're totally right. Should not have taken me that long. The Edge is a hoot. I like the Edge quite a bit. I get your reaction to it now. All right, so 2000. The 2007 movie is a sequel in which Harold Parano did not star in the original. Okay. Is the person he takes, does he like take over the role of somebody or is he just like a new character? not is a new character. Okay. 2007 sequel, like a long-weighted sequel? Um, I would have thought that this movie happened after 2007, but really not that long. There's going to be another sequel, and the wait has been obviously much longer. Yeah. So there's going to be another sequel like this year, next year, or something like that. Uh-huh. Maybe both. 28 weeks later. 28 weeks later. You know, a movie that I did not like at the time, but I appreciate it more now. I don't remember him being in it.

I've only seen it in the theater, and I remember, I think, like it. It has a really good opening, and then to me it kind of, I thought it petered out, but I want to give it another shot in the lead up to the new one, the new ones, because there are two of them coming out. Awesome. Really, though, Lost and Oz should both be on Harold Peron. I was known for. Come on now, IMDB. Christ. Okay. Well done. Us. Chris, another fine episode. I really enjoyed this. Listeners, that is our episode. If you would like more, This Head Oscar Buzz, you can check out the Tumblr at thisheadoscarbuzz.com. You should also follow our Instagram at This Head Oscar Buzz. And also,

you can sign up for our Patreon at patreon.com slash This Head Oscar Buzz. Chris, where can the listeners find you? a letterboxed and blue sky at chris v file that's f e i l you can find me doing my own steps and pleasing the crowd on blue sky and letterboxed at joe read read spelled r eid you can also subscribe to my patreon exclusive podcast on the films of demi more called demi myself and i chris phil recently guested on the episode about the landmark HBO movie if these walls could talk a really fun discussion television we have at a really good time talking about that one. You can sign up for that one at patreon.com slash demipod. That is spelled D-E-M-I-P-O-D. We would like to thank Kyle Cummings for his fantastic artwork, Dave Gonzalez and Gavin Mubius for their technical guidance, and Taylor Cole for our theme music.

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