This Had Oscar Buzz - BONUS – Sundance ’25

Episode Date: February 6, 2025

We’re breaking a little bonus episode recounting our thoughts from this year’s Sundance Film Festival! We’ve closed out another year of virtual screenings, and what perhaps might be the last year to do so after piracy of festival films such as Twinless and Selena y Los Dinos. Topics include our mutual dislike for the US Dramatic Grand … Continue reading "BONUS – Sundance ’25"

Oh, oh, wrong house. No, the right house. I didn't get that! We want to talk to Melan Hack, Millen Hacks and French. I'm from Canada water. Dick Pooh. Hello and welcome to the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast, the only podcast that's definitely maybe relocating to Cincinnati or Boulder for Salt Lake City. Let's go.

Every week on This Had Oscar Buzz we'll be talking about a different movie that once upon a time at Lofty Academy Award aspirations, but for some reason or an another, they all went wrong. The Oscar hopes died and we're here to perform the autopsy, except we are checking in with you listeners after experiencing this year's Sundance Film Festival. We're here with a nice little bonus episode to let you know what we've been watching. The final Sundance Film Festival. Yes. Is this the final Sundance? The final virtual Sundance. How hard do you, how much, on a percentage scale, just give me a number, your answer in the form of a number, how much? of a percentage of the action behind the scenes in terms of getting Sundance to stay in Salt Lake

has to do with Lisa. Stay in Park City. No, like, even just like stay in Utah in general. Oh, right, right, right. As opposed to the other places. How much of this is Lisa Barlow working behind the scenes trying to, like, make sure that, like, it stays in her backyard? I would say, like, a non-zero percentage.

And probably I would be surprised at, you know, even up to 30%. I think she's, I think she's probably working very hard. I want to watch Lisa Barlow watching atropia. Yes. Black news terms and conditions. No, I want to watch her watching Omaha and see just what she's doing to, like, pass the time during a movie like that. Just 100%.

Listener, I'm your host, Chris Fyle. I'm here, as always, with my film removed from the Sundance platform. due to piracy, Joe Reed. Too many people were giffed me doing it. So, that's what happens. Doing it with your director, too, which was not at all. Oh, is that who that guy's the director? Yeah, he also directed.

I can get it. Yeah. I know you saw that movie and I didn't. We're encountering the fact that Chris and I live in two different Americas. Chris lives in the America that was responsible and applied for a press pass. and got the very limited press access, but got it. And then I am the, am I the Brasshopper or the aunt in this situation? Whichever one of those characters lets the press deadline pass him by

because it's Thanksgiving or whatever. And like who, you know, who cares? And then Sundance comes along and literally the day before it starts, I'm like, fuck. And I have to go and like buy access. You apply the day that it opens for application. Again, we live in, we live different lives. You live the apply the day that it opens life.

And I live the like freewheeling, like everything will be fine. By that he means, listener, he lives in the world where he can be freewheeling, but will also never crack under the pressure of being on top of literally everything. And one day I will snap. Anyway, anyway, anyway. Not yet, so. Listener, not everything is available to press on the virtual platform, much like... But more things are available on the virtual platform to press than they were to regular shmows.

A few things. A few very key things. Like a few pretty buzzy movies ended up being the difference. You won't hear us talking about together the body horror movie that Neon bought. You won't hear us talking about A-24. if I had legs, I'd kick you. You know, some of the buzziest movies out of the festival. But we're here to talk about a few other movies.

We did not have access to Kiss of the Spider Woman. No one has bought that movie. No. Kiss of the Spider Woman. No wedding banquet. No, well, regardless. So I think the two movies that you saw that I couldn't, one of which was not available to me at all, which was Train Dreams, which turned out to be the movie that people were really.

Really, really enthusiastic. And I watched it on the right night because right after Netflix wrapped up the deal for that movie, they took it away from press. Yeah. And then I could have gotten access to TwinList, but by the time I got there to buy tickets, and I'm using Scare Quotes for tickets, TwinLis was sold out. And I'm also using Scare Quotes for Sold Out because how does a virtual screening sell out? Because they can't, I mean, look at how, what happened with? the amount of people they did give it to. It's a lot of good than restricting it did them.

You know what I mean? Like, it still happened. A movie that still has not been bought. So, like, the piracy situation with this movie could screw up its future. Well, most of the things. Yeah, one of the sort of through lines of this Sundance was like nothing was getting bought. I imagine most of these things will eventually find their way to. distribution some way or another. But certainly it raised questions of, as sometimes often happens,

you know, what is Sundance? What is Sundance for nowadays in the current film climate? What sort of function does it serve? We are, I think, past the point of Sundance being a kind of cultural, cohesively cultural thing, a cohesively cultural moment. It doesn't really, there is no Sundance culture anymore, I don't think. There is no kind of Sundance effect or, you know, these days, what are we even, when you say something's a Sundance movie, you're really talking about the kind of movie that existed 15 years ago than, you know, anything that actually exists today. So I think especially when you have Kiss of the Spider Woman, no shade to that movie. But that movie premiering at Sundance, looking for a buyer, and that movie has a significant budget, you know?

Right, right, exactly. And so then if these things aren't selling, then, like, really, what is it for? And you get this in the midst of, as we referred to at the beginning, they're sort of looking for a new home, whether they're going to, you know, stay in the, you know, Salt Lake City-ish area, whether they're going to go to Boulder, whether they're going to go to Cincinnati. Addie above Chris Files's strident objections. Oh, I live in this state. Buffalo was on the short list for a while, and then they dropped off in the last round of cuts. Also, don't think Buffalo would be a great idea for that time of year,

but I would have embraced it because obviously a film festival like that coming to my backyard would have been amazing. So, yeah, I don't, like, I know everything sounds like a bummer now. And, like, I literally, I posted this about 20 minutes ago before we signed on. I saw that awful-looking AI-generated Fantastic Four poster. Apparently, Marvel made a statement that it's not AI, which is like, well, that's either a lie, otherwise, what the fuck are you doing? Right, exactly. It just looks so awful.

And I'm just, like, literally, everything else is bad. Does this have to be bad to? Do we also have to, like, be going through? Does every version of everything that's going on Have to be like the most depressing and sad version of everything that's going on? Well, no, we like some stuff and we're going to talk about it today Well, that we didn't like some stuff, but we liked some stuff I will say of the years that I've been doing virtual Sundance, this is probably

The Least Inspired I've been by the crop of movies that I've seen, but even saying that There were at least a couple movies that I really liked. So that's fun. You and I got a really good fun conversation about at least one of them and I, you know, if I can get a good conversation about a movie going. There you go. It's all you need. A movie that I don't think you could get a good conversation

going about much respect to the filmmakers. Right off the top, the U.S. Dramatic Grand Jury Prize went to atropia, which we both saw. And much like people on the ground and watching virtually, we did not like the movie. Aetropia comes from filmmaker Haley Gates, who is a, as described on Wikipedia, model, actress, director, and journalist. She's definitely, she seems familiar to me just from, like, you know, looking at her.

I've clearly seen her in things. I'm realizing now that she was the bride in Ricky in the Flash. Sure was. That's exactly what I remember her from. Okay. But she was also on Twin Peaks the Return, and she was in Uncut Gems, and worked for the Paris Review. So great. It's a, it's a, describe the movie, though.

Describe the movie. Oh, great. So a tropea is, and I did not actually go so far as to look up whether this is a real thing that happens, but like seemingly this is based on. like a true, true, if not true events, than like a true concept, which is soldiers about to go to the Middle East were trained or maybe still are trained in these sort of pop-up Iraqi or Afghan towns that are essentially just like, you know, towns that are essentially just like, you know, wild bills, wild west review, or whatever, but for the Middle East and its actors are paid to, you know, pretend to be locals and they're training exercises. They're these very elaborate training exercises, but it sort of is, you know, a fully immersive, it's immersive theater, right? You're there, you're living there, you're, you know, you're sticking around your,

and so Alia Shah Kat plays an actress who is an Iraqi American actress. who is trying to get her big break and is finding herself sort of stuck in this particular situation. She also ends up kind of romantically drawn to this one soldier, played by Callum Turner. Calam Turner, who is sort of back from a tour in Iraq and is like the best at, you know, whatever particular thing they're training for. They're training to, like, find people building bombs in cities and whatnot. The tone of it is very kind of archly comedic. This is a Luca Guadena produced it, which probably says a lot about why it took a place of promise. I guess, but like the tone of it

sort of veers between this very arch comedy. There are these interludes with Chloe Seveny and Tim Heideker playing essentially like the people in charge of this simulation who are very, you know, they're running the war like a, you know, like a business

and they're very sort of detached from reality. And Jane Levy plays this war reporter who is kind of... Box News on Box News. If you want to the level that these chokes land. Channing Tatum has a really sort of like ill-advised cameo playing a movie star,

and it's just, it's not his fault that it's so cringy watching it, but like it's a very sort of bluntly drawn, dumb actor, a character even feels wrong to say it. So anyway, it's like a hundred minutes of constant swing and a miss, constant swing in a miss. It also feels really dated.

It feels like, why are we watching this movie in 2025 instead of in 2009? It tries to sort of a couple of times bring a little bit of gravitas into it where like Alia Shokat at one point is like, you know,

glad I could help you, you know, prepare to like destroy my homeland. So it's one of these things that I think keeps trying to have these kind of profound statements about what it all means. I think war satire is a very difficult thing to pull off and more people think that they can than they can't. And maybe

everybody just sort of watched MASH when they were growing up and the movie. I'd say even more so than the TV show. And it's tough, man. It's tough to pull it off in a way that that really works. And I think there are a couple of moments in this that worked. I thought, I mean, I'm a sucker for this kind of thing. But when they have the one, um, private who early on in the movie drops his iPod out of his pocket and so he becomes private iPod for the rest of the movie which means that every time anybody wants to I hated this I hated this it's very it's very uh quirky it's very self-consciously the needle drops are also like why are we doing well because of nostalgia is why we're doing some of these needle drops that we won't spoil but

there's the one his last one that he does I was like all right all right bitch you got me yeah enough I can see, while I disagree with the choice for this to win the grand prize, while I disagree qualitatively, I can see why this movie won. Tell me, explain it to me, because I'm at a bit of a loss. Well, the entire, every other, I only missed, there were only three movies that I didn't get, I wasn't able to score tickets for. I didn't see bubble and squeak, didn't see Boney and Lover, didn't see Love Brooklyn. Yeah. But by all reports, you know, atropia is this high concept comedy that I think pulls off its concept, if not really ever is funny, you know, next to all of these intimate dramas, you know, it just kind of stands out in that way. It feels like a bigger movie, even if it's not a better movie.

I think that's true. There is some scope to it, and maybe there's that. The other thing that I think, if you are more of a casual sort of observer of the Sundance discourse, rather than sort of digging into the competition, it's probably worth it to know that, like, U.S. dramatic competition, which is essentially narrative films from the United States, there's U.S. dramatic, there's U.S. documentary, there's world cinema dramatic, and then there's world cinema documentary. Those are essentially your four categories. And then you get into like your little, you know, microcategories like midnight and whatever.

But like U.S. There's the next category, too, which is a competition category, but it's fewer movies and they're more like they don't comfortably sit within any of those four competition categories. Right. But like U.S. Dramatic Competition was this year 10 movies. And it's often that small. I don't know if it's every year 10 exactly. I think pre-COVID it was the competition lineups were bigger. We're bigger. But like for the, for at least since I've been doing virtual Sundance, the dramatic competition lineup has been this small. So a lot of the movies that you're hearing about are not in competition, right? You know, Kiss of the Spider Woman wedding banquet. Even some of the sort of like the more, you know, movies that feel like a discovery that feel like they would be small enough to have to have been a competition title, things like.

Justin Lin's last days, or that movie Lurker that got really good notices, or Iris Axis Peter Hujar's Day, Hujar is how he's pronounced that, or train dreams. None of those movies were competition titles. Not eligible for prizes, so therefore not eligible to watch at home, except a few for press, like we mentioned. But I think even still, even within that, I think there are movies in the the dramatic competition this year that I thought really blew a tropea away

in terms of filmmaking, but also just like being a satisfying movie watching experience. I think one that we can agree on that we both saw that we liked was plain clothes. Carmen Emmys Plame Clothes. I really liked plain clothes.

One of the ensemble prize. I think that's a fitting prize for that movie, considering there's multiple very good performances in this movie, though I would say it should probably earn a bigger prize. I think it would be my choice to win

the grand jury prize of all of the U.S. Cromatic Commission movies I saw. It's one of the two movies that I saw that I really, really liked. Why don't you explain the plot of this one? So Playing Close takes place in Syracuse in the 90s. Tom

Blythe, who we love from Benediction, but a lot of people have probably also seen in the Hunger Games prequel. He plays a young undercover cop who is part of a sting operation in a local mall, trying to catch gay men in a public bathroom, having basically not entrapping these people, but like getting these people to initiate instant contact. Just short of entrapping these people. I think technically you have to be the police officer to be entrapped. I think that's the law. But he's also closeted

And one of the people that he targets He ends up in a romantic relationship with He played by Russell Tovey Tom Blythe's mother is played by our beloved Maria Dizia There's a lot interesting going on in this movie Though I didn't I didn't find it to be a perfect script I think you know

It's it's maybe the type of script you would see From Sundance and people might sneer their nose at it, but I do think it's a really good movie. I think it's really good. I think you're right. I think there are, there's some raggedness to it.

There are some flaws to it. It's a better directed movie than it is written, I would say. And it took me a second to kind of latch on to what it's trying to do with the directorial choices. I think it has some, it does some business with, you know, changing video, changing to video from film to video or whatever from I don't know, I'm a dumb dumb when it comes to this, but there's, you know, these It's like you're watching

something from a video camera versus very much of video camera aesthetic which definitely like plays into it specifically like you find out you find out through the movie why essentially they're doing it this way like the movie's not being very coy about that kind of thing

which I appreciate. It's a visual conceit that I think you know immediately for an audience member makes you think of not only just the 90s, but makes you the 90s and the 80s, but also makes you think of, like, memory, like family videos. And I think there's some of that kind of intertwined in the, like, psychology of the movie. I think that's a good observation. It also affords the movie something really interesting in terms of gay paranoia and the kind of closeted feeling that you're always being one.

And it enmeshes those two things in a way that I found really great and improved the movie. I think that's a really, I think that's the point because I think you're going to watch this movie eventually whenever this one did not get bought. Not yet, but I can really see someone like IFC picking up this movie. Sure. When you do see that there's going to be a temptation to sort of like look at it as retrograde because it is set in the 90s. It is about a, you know, straight presenting cisgender white guy coming out as a cop in his 20s. In his 20s, all of that's going to make you want to roll your eyes. But, like, yeah, trust me on this movie.

It's not, it's not what you're afraid of is. All of that stuff is going to make you want to roll your eyes. And it just stick with it and see what the movie is trying to connect to because I think it connects to something. bigger than that, something sort of more far reaching than that. I think there's some obvious stuff there that you're like, okay. But then there's also a lot more interesting

stuff under the surface, and I think it is ultimately a movie that trusts the audience quite a bit. And I mind the obvious stuff less, because I think ultimately this is maybe going to be seen by an audience who maybe needs a little bit more obvious and maybe

you know, needs a little bit of handholding, which is fine with me. I also just want to stress. This is like, there is romance in this movie in a way that, like, you don't get in a lot of movies. Even, you know, you get, even the movies where you get sex, you know what I mean? You don't necessarily get anything that feels like, like, this movie kind of got me in terms of like the longing that you get in this movie. I really, it really sort of worked with me. And I think a big part of that reason is I think Tom Blythe, beyond having like an infuriatingly beautiful face that you get to see in close up throughout this movie.

I think he's just really tremendous. Tom Blythe rules in this movie. I mean, Tom Blythe is a great actor. We've loved him since Benediction. Yeah. I also had a whole thread when we were talking about this movie before where I was like, Tom Blythe is just going to start, you know, eating the lunch of some of these highly in-demand British actors. And that he's maybe going to get the better roles out of this.

This is my prediction. While Paul Meskell is making Gladiator 2, you know, Tom Blythe gets the more interesting role. They'll meet in the middle. They'll meet in the middle at some point, those two. Another movie, I think, we both liked, though. We should mention, by the way, that the writer-director of playing close is Carmen Emmy. I mentioned to him earlier. Oh, did you?

Okay. I sure did. Another movie that got maybe the highest praise of the festival It won the Waldo Salt screenwriting prize That's Sari Baby Yeah I don't know if I've heard you talk about sorry baby yet So

Well I think We were discussing it with a friend And there was some measure of thoughts There's I think I'm I'm trying to protect this movie Because Ava Victor

Stars wrote the movie, directed, and I think they've done something really special with this movie. I think there's some notes to this movie that are a little too precious. It is basically about a young grad student who becomes a professor throughout the story, who experiences a sexual assault and comes to terms with it over a few years. And while that sounds incredibly bleak, it is a movie that is very funny. And I think the humor about the humor in the movie and the type of jokes that come out through this is what was really special to me.

There's maybe a final monologue that I was like, you don't need this. I hate that. Oh, I like that. I thought it was good. That felt like a little less trust of the audience. But it is a good movie. A-24 picked it up, which is not a surprise. It was produced by Pastel, Adela Romansky, and Barry Jenkins's company.

They previously had movies with A-24, like After Sun and All Dirt Roads Turned Salt. That's the name of that movie that I liked, right? Taste of Salt. All Dirt-Rot, yes. All-Tor-Rat's Taste of Salt, yeah. Yeah, and we'll see how much of an effort A-24 puts behind. this movie. We should all be very interested in Ava Victor.

They definitely have a really smart and sharp and unique comic sensibility. It's also kind of friendship cinema, too. Naomi Aki plays her best friend, and it's really well done. Lucas Hedges is the neighbor. John Carroll Lynch shows up for one, like, farm-burner, perfect scene. New England accented John Carroll Lynch. Really fantastic. Is it Kelly McCormick who plays the really annoying girl in their study group?

And it is quite the quintessential, really annoying girl, too. That character is maybe... This is sort of what we mean why... But there's, you know, it's funny. I think it's smart. I think sometimes when you get these, you know, really sort of like well-observed character indies, these are not movies with gunfights. And so at some point, you need movies to have the big sort of like bang, bang, shoot them up, like explosions finale.

And the version of that is what we get at the end here with Ava Victor talking to a baby. And I really enjoyed it. The movie we did not like, unfortunately, is Omaha, the John McGarro starring Road Trip movie where there is a... And I don't relish talking about not liking this movie. Yeah, we can briefly say that Omaha stars John McGarro as a single parent of two small children on a road trip basically after tragedy. And John McGarro is good. I think there's just a withholdingness to this movie that felt, given where it goes, a little evil and contrived to the audience. go with evil, but yeah, I know what you're saying.

For as much as I will always hate on a horror movie that like withholds, withholds, withholds, and then just ends. This is that, that, but a drama. But a drama, but it's sort of like a dad drama. And it withholds so that it can be emotionally manipulative in a way that it didn't need to be? I mean, yes. I guess, I think that's a, that's a perfectly, perfectly justified interpretation of it. I don't know if I would even go so far as to sort of call it out for manipulation. I just feel like it does not have a second gear.

I think it ultimately just stays in this one gear. I think the place that it goes, the one sort of like surprising thing that happens, ultimately, you can't be really surprised by because ultimately that's where the movie's headed the whole time. I think McGarro's quite good. I don't think it will happen for this movie, but I could see an alternate universe where an indie studio had picked this up

and would go for like an awards campaign for Magarro, and you could get, you know, if you packaged it right, I think you could probably get some awards traction for him. I don't think that's what's going to happen here because ultimately, I don't think there's a ton of, of enthusiasm around the movie. I will say also, this is a movie

where you get two wonderful scenes with Talia Balsam at the end. So like, and I don't even know if I'd say wonderful scenes, but like, it's wonderful because it's Talia Balsam. Like, you're happy to see her. It did kind of play to me,

like, an Academy nominated live action short where everybody's just like, what? Yeah. Especially the way it ends, I would say. It ends with an extended

title card basically. Info dump. That, and it's only an 80-minute movie, so it's like if they had cut, you know, and there's about enough. I was happy about that at least. I was happy that, like, in 80 minutes, I about had enough, so that was. Right, right. Another movie that, well, a movie we actually disagree about.

We haven't talked about one we disagree about yet, and that's Zodiac Killer Project. Oh, boy. This is a documentarian. who was going to make an documentary adaptation of the Zodiac investigation, of the Zodiac Killer. One particular person's account

of thinking that they had caught the guy, essentially. Right, right. And it falls through, but what he essentially does is take you through the process of how he would have made that movie and his growing concerns with effectively true crime as a genre as a genre in

documentary and a lot of the you know the the standard manipulative things that we see on these Netflix docs and such so it does kind of play more video essay than pure documentary um Joe and I disagreed on this movie. I had a decent amount of fun with it. Yeah, I, I kind of hated, I kind of hated it. I found it to be unavoidably really smug, really snide, really sort of superior about a thing that like, I think we all kind of have come around to the idea that like true crime as a genre is pretty problematic. True crime as a genre is pretty saturated. And, becoming more and more indistinguishable from project to project yeah formulaic and these none of these things seem are in any way novel and so to have this kind of you know didn't i didn't i do something sort of posture to this as you are and i will say the stuff were like he shows the side by sides of a lot of these projects and the tropes in these projects i did i found them you know i was entertained by that, you know, momentarily, I do think, again, as you mentioned a video essay, like, I do feel like this is TikTok culture come to bear where you're just like showing an unrelated, you know, just showing a wall. And while you're showing a wall, you're just sort of like talking to me about things. I think this is just so, and I was so increasingly frustrated with

this movie where I was just like, you know, I, we get it. We truly get it. We truly get it. True crime is a genre. You have now decided that you are better than, even though you were trying to make this movie and couldn't do it. And so, and if it were more, if it weren't so fucking tedious, I maybe probably would have given it a little bit more of a pass, but I just found it to be, for somebody who made a movie called paint drying, I'm not surprised that this person has a movie called paint drying on his filmography, so, yeah. The thing that for me kept it from being

tedious, because, like, I do, I agree with some of what you're saying. Like, I think the whole, like, thesis of this movie is a little late. Like, we're kind of already on board with the idea that, well, this is all trash that's bad for us.

Like, I think that that's a little late. But the thing that keeps the movie interesting and fun is that I think it's very funny. throughout this guy just has a really interesting sense of humor yeah I think I think that's maybe just an area where like you know in the eye of the beholder because I definitely yeah yeah yeah yeah I think his humor contributed to your feelings that it was a little smug but it at least kept me laughing throughout the movie I would be much more interested to see a defense of the genre than a than a take down of the genre at this point at this point I would much much rather see something where somebody makes you know, the opposite case and sort of tries because I do feel like for as much as true crime is sort of, you know, again, it's it's passe at this point. It's sort of like the, you know, it is popular, but it's popular among the, you know, the undifferentiating masses, the uncultured masses or

whatever. And I feel like the thing that would interest me is to have somebody come in and make a case for, you know, how this can be done well. Because That, to me, is at least like you're not sort of piling on at this point. The last movie that we both saw that I'm actually really interested to hear your thoughts on because we didn't talk about it at all is Sunfish. Oh, I'm going to disappoint you. I don't have a single interesting thing to say about Sunfish. See, I didn't hear many people talking about this movie, unfortunately, and I kind of found it really lovely. I think that's a perfectly valid take on that movie.

I think there is loveliness to it. It just didn't... Queen Marcelline Hugo as a grandmother reading Agatha Christie books. Like, you know, I'm gonna like this movie. I don't like it. I was a little sort of removed from it. I didn't quite know what was...

And for a stretch there, just after having seen Omaha, I'm like, are we really going to do more sad kids? I can't watch any more sad kids. That poor kid in the band, in the orchestra, or whatever. I was just like, oh, God. First time writer-director,

Sierra Falconer. This is a quad trilogy? It's an anthology. Yeah. It's a four-part, yeah. Anthology even doesn't feel like the right word because it's all connected. It's all the, sure.

It's different stories on a surrounding lake of young people. You essentially make a ring around the lake and sort of place. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and you have the girl who's with her, who learns how to sail, staying at her grandparents' house. You have a kid at an art school. You have two sisters as one is about to go away to college, and they basically host an Airbnb. And then you have another pseudo-crime story of this one young woman who gets kind of in over her head. Yeah.

And I think it's just a, it's kind of, the, the separate stories coming together for one movie is the type of thing I would not like, but I think tonally, especially the three of these are stories of women. It's kind of just the thing that I'm in the tank for. I saw, the little bit I saw people talking about this movie was comparing it to Kelly Reichart. And I don't think that's quite it. Yeah. There is a modesty to the movie. And I think the summer camp story is definitely the weakest segment, the most extraneous. It was just tough.

It was tough to watch this poor little kid. The only reason I actually sought it out was it got written up when my colleagues, Bilga Beery and Fran Hoffner, did their little Sundance wrap up at Vulture. And Bilga, I think, shouted it out. So that's sort of, so there are definitely like people who, you know, were on board for this movie. I feel like I felt kind of bad after I was just like, man, I was not, I did not connect to that one at all. And I feel bad because it does, it like, it's not bad. There's nothing, you know, there was nothing wrong with it necessarily. I just was very, I don't know, nonplussed.

I hope it finds some opportunities to be seen because I think. I think there's a certain audience for that. I will watch her next movie, Sierra Falconer. I will be interested to see, you know, what she does next. Let's quickly run through some movies that only one of us has seen, starting with You Saw Bubble and Squeak, which was, I think, unilaterally hated. Kind of despised. Here's the thing.

It's not a good movie. It's Evan Toy is the director. It was produced by, um, Minari producer, Christina O and Stephen Yun, and stars Hamesh Patel, who I love, just wonderful, wonderful Hamesh Patel, and Sarah Goldberg from Barry, who play a honeymooning couple in a sort of, whatever, like, fictional Eastern European country, where everything is absurd. And there is something to do with the smuggling of cabbages, and they have to go on the run from the authorities. Matt Barry from what we do in the shadows plays the leader of the sort of investigative force who is doing an incredibly, I think, good and funny Werner Herzlogg impersonation, just to what end. no one knows. To what end is kind of the motivating thing?

Maybe this movie is everything that kind of happens in this movie. You're like, okay? Like, it's obviously the absurdity is intentional. Like, the tone of the comedy is very overt, very arch, very sort of like, very, not arch necessarily, it's absurdity. It's just sort of like very high-key absurdity. They eventually run into Dave Franco, and they run into him as he is costumed in a bear costume, sort of charging at them. That, of course, because it's Dave Franco, he, you know, almost seduces the wife away from the husband.

It's all very, very clumsy. It's obnoxious in parts, and yet I have to admit, after sad kid movies and, you know, At least a pallet cleanser for you? It kind of like, it held my attention longer, you know, than... Even though you hated it. I didn't hate it. I just like, I very much, I was like, this is a bad movie. I'm like, this here is a bad movie.

I did not necessarily hate the experience of watching this bad movie. I would not defend it in any way. The stuff with the cabbages is just so dumb. Here's the other thing is watching now a movie about a repressive Eastern European country is not the fun that used to be, because now I'm just like, oh, future. Oh, future us. Like, I don't love it. I don't love it on our destination to becoming a repressive Eastern European country ourselves. I don't love it. But, yeah, I mean, it's obnoxious. It's an obnoxious movie with some unavoidably... You know, I don't know. I liked some of the people in it. I can't defend it. I won't defend it.

I'll take it up then in lists of movies that I saw. Train Dreams is probably one our listeners are hoping to hear about. It was one of the buys of the festival. Netflix picked this up, and it is a bummer. This is a really beautiful movie. Joel Edgerton stars as a logger in the early days of building the rail system. He's married to Felicity Jones. Carrie Condon also shows up later.

If you've been wondering where Carrie Condon is, she's pretty awesome in the movie. Oh, I love that. It's beautiful. It's based off of a Dennis Johnson novella. Carrie Condon doing an American accent or doing her own Native Irish? I believe. She's definitely doing a voice.

And it's based off a Dennis Johnson novella. That was a Pulitzer finalist. And if you've ever read any Dennis Johnson, it is Barry Dennis Johnson. I saw people comparing it. to Malik. I think it's more palatable than that. It's also kind of like gets in, gets out, and does its thing and has a lot of just like really, you know, it's an expedient movie, but it does affect you. And it's gorgeous to look at. It's narrated by Will Patton. And like I immediately text someone after I watched that. I was like, Will Patton has a career for the rest of his life in life insurance and peer mission. ads. Just like the man should be narrating more movies. Joel Edgerton's wonderful.

I think Netflix picking it up is it's going to get the his three daughters treatment and it's going to suck. Had it not been Netflix, had it been A-24 who got this one. I mean, that's where it would probably more belong. Then do you feel like that's a Joel Edgerton perhaps? I just don't see people watching this on Netflix. I think Netflix just like put up the biggest money

because they were looking to buy something. It's a good movie. I hope listeners watch it when they have the opportunity to. I saw TwinLis. I did not like Twin Lists. I would say it was one of the worst things I watched. That's the movie that I found to be rather smug. I think Dylan O'Brien is an interesting actor.

And I think he's, His position is going to keep growing. I think, though, will be better roles for him than this movie. I don't want to talk too much. Basically, the concept is two young men, one of whom is gay, both have lost their twins, and they meet in a group meeting for people who've lost their twins. And I won't say anything more than that. It's

co-stars James Sweeney, the writer-director of the movie, in maybe one of the most insufferable characters that I've seen in a minute. And a character who, you know, it's kind of an aserbic comedy where it's like, okay, how much are we really supposed to be on his side?

But there's other characters, including one played by Ashling Franchiosi, who, like, we're supposed to hate them. And it's like, I don't have a good reason to hate this character and you want me to hate this character. It's kind of a... She's going to find a bunch of movies in the coming year, too, so I'm interested to see...

Sister is booked and busy. And she's a good actress, too. I like her. Yeah. I saw something on socials where, like, Audible was interviewing all these actors about what they're reading. And she was like, I've been eating Devil in the White City. I was like, girl, are you auditioning for Scorsese?

Are you auditioning? Is that still happening? So, this won the audience award. What is happening? This won the audience award. So this was definitely the one, one of the handful of movies that really kind of popped out of this festival. People really liked it. There's also, you know, it got pirated and specifically got pirated for an extended sex scene in the movie.

Right, right. Which, like, the sex scene is, it's in the first act of the movie. It's not a spoil. to say that it happens, but it's still unfortunate, especially because the movie doesn't have distribution. I really, really did not like this movie, but I know I'm an outlier, so I do... Everything I see of it makes me feel like I'm going to like it, so I'm going to be really disappointed if I end up not liking it. But I'm very, very eager to see it. Of all the things that I couldn't see at Sundance, this is maybe near the top of my list of stuff that I really, really need to get distributed. and let me see it.

A movie I loved that seemingly not a lot of people did was by design, which stars Juliette Lewis as a woman who covets a chair and then imagines herself as that chair. Sure. It's a film by Amanda Kramer, who you will get to see Please, Baby, Please, on to me, myself, and I.

Yeah. I really enjoy, Please, Baby, Please. And I probably enjoyed this even more. it is not a shock to me that straight people didn't get this movie yeah I loved that movie I also loved cactus pears

which won the Grand Jury Prize for World Dramatic it's a queer story about two men in India who are unmarried and that you talk about playing clothes having a sensuality to it

and like a steamingness and a longing to it this movie does it beautifully as well Wonderful. And then quickly, I would just say I watched a ton of docs, including docs I did not like, like Andre is an idiot, which is apparently that won the audience award. And A-24 has that movie. Didn't like that.

Loved Black News Terms and Conditions. That's a movie that I don't know what its theatrical life will be like because it's so kind of innovative and mold-breaking. Khalil Joseph, the director of the film, comes from art spaces and also was one of the filmmakers involved in Lemonade. Yeah, just kind of this multimedia and also fictionalized dealing in like areas of science fiction fiction on just like black images, black history, black identity

in maybe the kind of like rare, bold, vision that I got to see this Sundance, so that was pretty thrilling. There was a lot of strong docks and some okay docs. Seeds won the Grand Jury Prize for U.S. Docs.

I would be willing to bet that that's going to last throughout the year. That's a beautiful black and white movie about black farmers that just really kind of enmeshes you in the milieu of

these people's lives. Yeah. There's a documentary about to catch a predator and copycats of the show called Predators. That one got a lot of ink, I feel like, predators. I think it fails to kind of connect the major thread for the movie for me, but it's hard. I mean, like, that movie is stomach churning. It's a really good doc.

I just really wish that it connected the threads of, okay, so none of these things were prosecutable. Nothing that that show did was prosecutable. So you're potentially just putting all of these criminals back out on the street. And it never really, it never closes that button for me. Sure. One thing I want to, I'm curious about. So you look at last year's Sundance in terms of the documentaries.

And they had black box diaries, sound direct to a coup d'etat, sugar cane, orselin war. All of those end up becoming Oscar nominees. Even they have also like stuff like daughters and a remarkable life of Ibelene, which were shortlisted. Obviously, the documentary space with Sundance has a much stronger sort of pipeline towards, you know, the Oscars. Is there anything that you saw that you're like, I could see this sort of, you know, lasting through the year and showing up again at the end of the year on short lists?

2,000 meters to Andrivka is a follow-up to the Oscar-winning 20 Days in Mario Paul that is, I've seen people say sequel, and I feel like follow-up or extension is a better word. Sequel's not a way to put... For documentaries. It's less that than, I think. think it's really impressive it follow i i probably liked it even more than mario pol it um

it you know it follows a battalion on their way to andrievka and it's it's not just like the hardline journalism or just that that the first movie was it also feels dioristic and it feels you know it it's a very different kind of movie um i could see that going all the way though the Academy does love to give people documentarians Oscars and then not nominate them again. Mr. Nobody Against Putin, which is about a Russian teacher as Russia is invading Ukraine and starting the whole campaign of propaganda in the country and trying to buck that in any way that he can. I could see that going all the way. And then the World Doc... a grand jury prize winner

cutting through rocks which is about a politician who she's female politician and she's like she rides a motorcycle and she you know bucking a very patriarchal

society in Iran I believe and it's just kind of the type of portrait political portrait documentary that the Academy will usually respond to. Nice.

So in general, good Sundance for you? No. Yeah. I hate to like set you up like that, but yeah. I mean, my favorites were my clear favorites, and those were probably trained dreams by design, plain clothes. And sorry, baby and sunfish. Yeah, yeah. Playing Clothes and Sorry Baby were definitely like the two for me. And then of the docks, seeds and black news were my favorites.

Yeah. Well, I'm glad you, I mean, to have that many, you know, even that many favorite movies, it's, you know, a good success. And we hope that, we hope that Sundance is able to sort of maintain its strength and find, you know, obviously we've joked about after the leaks that this is the last year of virtual. Sundance. But maybe it becomes more accessible in its new home, you know, a little bit less daunting to travel to, a little bit less daunting to, you know, find yourself accommodations to something. I don't know. Sundance has always been for me the least likely festival for me to go to just from when during the year it happens. You also don't want to be completely wet and freezing cold and have to, you know, go a mile between venues. Right.

Which, again, none of the new venues are in any place warm, which is kind of funny to me. But maybe that's part of, maybe I understand that's the character of Sundance. You don't want to, like, the parkas, the, you know, the, you know, your press setups in a, in a lodge, you know, these things are all part of the character. I get it. I get it. But yeah, I think I've always had an attachment to Sundance as a con. And I hope that we continue to have a film industry with a strong, you know, indie foundation that Sundance in its best form can provide. Agreed. And with that, I think that's our episode. If you want more This Head Oscar Buzz, you can check us out on Tumblr at thisheadoscarbuzz.com, on Instagram at this head oscarbuzz and on Patreon at patreon.com slash this had Oscar Buzz. Joe, where?

can the listeners find you? I am on Blue Sky. I am on Letterboxed, both at Joe Reed, Reed spelled R-E-I-D. I am also hosting a Patreon exclusive podcast called Demi Myself and I, where I cover the films of Demi-M-M-M-M-M-E-M-M-A, and it's super fun, and you should check it out at Patreon.com slash Demi-P-O-D, and join me. It's a good time. And you can find me on Blue Sky and Letterboxed at Chris V-F-E-I-O. We would like to thank Kyle Cummings for his fantastic artwork.

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