This Had Oscar Buzz - BONUS – Sundance the Night (with Cameron Scheetz)

Episode Date: February 2, 2024

We’re breaking into your regular podcast schedule to bring you a special bonus episode recapping our thoughts on the films of this year’s Sundance Film Festival! And we’ve asked Queerty’s Cameron Scheetz back on to tell us what the festival was like on the ground at Park City (along with thoughts on non-virtual films like … Continue reading "BONUS – Sundance the Night (with Cameron Scheetz)"

Oh, oh, wrong house. No, the right house. We want to talk to Marilyn Hack, Millen Hack and French. Dick Pooh. So it's with great pleasure that we join together to share the telling of vibrant stories that come from all over the world. If you find yourself far from Park City, you're part of an exciting evolution of the Sundance Vision. We're all here to experience the festival's magic and celebrate this general. generation's most innovative storytellers.

So again, welcome and enjoy. Welcome to the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast, where we usually talk about old movies, and now we're talking about new movies, because this is our Sundance, 2024, special spectacular. This is our bonus episode on the Sundance Film Festival. We are here to, uh, this is a little, like what? This is breaking news, right? Like, breaking news, they're new movies. This will come out as soon as, uh, we, we, we. We get the audio set and everything.

So, sure. We're just going to turn this one right over. Broken. But, yes, exactly. For the, Chris, how many years in a row now have you done virtual Sundance? I think 2021 was my first year. So I guess this is my third or fourth? Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's good. Fourth year in a row, I was very late guys this year. And so when I applied on the very last day, They were like, LOL good ones. So I instead purchased a few tickets to what was available digitally, which was...

Now, Chris, as a accredited press member, you were still limited to the dramatic and documentary competitions. Yeah. It was pretty much everything that was in competition, but none of the things that were out of competition, which is usually some of the higher profile titles. Right. However, we do have a ringer here. We called in a backup. We called in reinforcements. I was on Instagram, and who was all over my Insta stories, reporting from the ground, from the elevation in Park City, our good friend and former guest, from the Hairspray episode, if I'm not mistaken.

Right. Cameron Sheets, welcome back to this had Oscar wives. Thank you. Oh, I'm so, so delighted. I can't believe how long it's been since Harry. I know. Time is so flat for our show specifically, I think, because everything during the COVID years, it just all feels like kind of one year. We kind of ended up at like year three real quickly because we were like, wait a second. We had kind of just started to get the ball rolling before COVID. And then all of a sudden, like two more years had gone by in a blink. So yeah, that's crazy. Though I do think you were the inseptor of one of the things. that are, like, one of the codes to crack to this had Oscar buzz in terms of saying, you were the one that said, hairspray, everybody on the poster, it's on there known for.

Yeah. And now we're always looking out for those movies, like August Osage County. Yes. Oh, yeah. There was another one recently that I was just like every time. I wish I could think of it. It is sort of Gosford Park, too. Like, Gosford Park is kind of that way.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think that I had that discovery while watching hairspray with. former guest, Kevin O'Keefe. Like, I think it's kind of, you know, so it is a big, you know, it's a very much a part of this, the story of this podcast. It's all in the family. We're all in the family. It's an honor.

But yeah, we had to have you on as our special Sundance correspondent. You, I was getting very, very, like, jazzed for a lot of the movies that you were talking about. You seem to have a fairly positive experience at the festival. So, I guess, before. we get into the specific movies, just what was the vibe there at Sundance? What was, how's the weather? Like, in general, sort of set the stage for us, Cam. Oh, yeah. Well, so this is my second time covering, my second time in person. I, you know, you mentioned my, my Instagram. I call myself a micro vlogger when I'm there. It's like the one time that I do that on my Instagram where

I'm, like, front-facing camera posting. Yeah, one little tunnel there that you walk through every day. I was so fascinated by it. I got to, I got very familiar with, like, the path that you took from wherever you were staying to the theaters. Oh, as did I. Yeah, sure. I mean, I was going to say, I think my updates end up being more about the weather than

they are about the films. I mean, you know, it's no your audience. Yeah, exactly. My mom is watching those, and so it's mostly for her. She wants to see the icicles, I get it. Yes. And it was, I would say, pleasant there for the most part. It was a little, I mean, it was a little colder the year prior. And so I remember just my experience this whole time was just like, wow, I was just brolicking. I was out there skipping down the street. Although, you know, still trying to not slip on like the slush and whatnot. It was, it was lovely. I really just kind of been enamored with Park City, I think. It's just such a beautiful place. And part of it is me being someone. when they grew up in the Midwest and in northern Ohio where we got lots of snow and being in L.A. now, I come back to that. I'm just like, oh, my God. It did look like very, as Buffalo was

going through like, horrendous horrible week-long blizzard, I was like, wow, Park City looks really lovely. Like, that's the nice, like the nice winter. It is. I think I've gotten lucky these two years with the weather there, but yeah, I will say that that certainly colors my overall experience with the films and everything. I'm just so thrilled to be there. Most of my time is sitting in this little room in my apartment, typing away. So it's nice for me to get this opportunity to be out and, you know, obviously see these films, but also just talk to other people that do what we do. And I don't get that off. Was the impression that it was a pretty good festival, or I feel like I've heard a lot of good things about movies. I think there's some, I think that

there's some that people were excited about. I did see a tweet that was getting some traction that was like, man, Sundance really didn't have that big movie this year that everyone got excited about. And I remember a couple days in feeling like, yeah, I think we're waiting on that. I think there's some, you know, passion

behind some of these titles, but maybe they were more divisive. It wasn't like we had to like runaway Sundance fit. Right. Also, the awards, obviously we're only talking about a limited scope of what the Sundance Awards will honor, but that sort of

points to that, too, in my mind. It's not like these were the films that everyone is talking about on the ground. Yeah, the competition movies were not really from afar, it seemed like the movies that people were really excited about on the ground at in Park City,

which kind of makes me wonder how they're going to proceed, or if they're going to proceed with the virtual element of this festival, because I'm sure, that as other festivals around the world and the country do less and less virtual components, are the, you know, movies going to continue to make them accessible in that way?

You know, does it is, are we moving away from that as we move away from the pandemic? I know Sandance has been the festival that's tried to hold on to it, but this year I felt a real disparity even just in what the people who are on the ground of what they seemed to want to talk about, you know, at least you know. No, that's true. And and my understanding is that the, well, and my memory of last year, everything that was going to be online for the most part was available right away, at least if you're press accredited. And so, like, you know, I would see a few things one day and then get home at night and just be like, I'm going to online and eat something and watch something else on home on the virtual

service now this year it didn't start until midway through the second week and weekend I guess you could say so yeah that sort of changed the way folks talked about the festival too it seemed yeah it also was it felt like

it was very front-loaded in terms of enthusiasm just because I feel like the movie that most people were super excited about was I saw the TV glow and that's the one that I'm ready to like claw strangers face is off to go and get a chance to see so that's the one that I'm ready to like you know lead the I'm ready to be like in the front of the line of the army which I mean I didn't get to see it it wasn't available to virtual press but I love Jane Schoenbrun's first movie we're all going to the world's fair so much yeah I I really don't want this to be another Sundance movie where it comes down to

elevation and people kind of already have their knives out for it. So I'll be very excited to see it, but Cam, what did you think of the movie if you got to see it? It is definitely my favorite of the festival and, you know, trying to pull my head out of the cloud, Park City clouds a little bit, but yeah,

I similarly was coming into the festival, like this was my most anticipated. I was so excited to see what Jane was going to do with, obviously more of a budget and a bigger cast and a bigger scope. I mean, I feel like they really delivered just such a singular vision that is so unsettling and is just so for us. You know, it's so for everybody that grew up with that one TV show or multiple TV shows that they couldn't get out of their mind. I mean, there's early on, two of the characters are reading an episode guidebook. And I couldn't think of the last time I've seen one of those, like, actually shown in media, you know?

And I was like, oh, my gosh, that took me right back. It's for those people, of course. And it's, it's, the people who held on to their Buffy episode guide from Entertainment Weekly. Exactly. Yeah, I know. Yeah. Yeah, the energy was wild. I, you know, this was the first night I got there.

It was the first actual night of the festival. And I think, yeah, the energy was, folks were very excited. And it's, it's like an uncomfortable watch at times intentionally. So I think it can be a little unsettling. And it's, there's. there's a whole, like, mid-movie moment where we basically get two unedited, like, band performances, which is Jane kind of throwing it back to, like, what, you know, all of those shows would do where they would have just band stop in play, which is cool.

But, you know, at the same time, they're sort of like, where are we going? Like, what's happening here? Yeah. It's, uh, I really, really loved it. I think that Justice Smith is, is really wonderful as always. Oh, boy. Yeah. I feel a special, I feel a special kinship for Justice Smith because, have I, Chris, did I ever talk about on this podcast about the HBO Young Artists

series with Anna DeVere Smith that I love so much? Yes, yes, you have, but not in a while, so. HBO did a series on young arts is like an organization that mentors young performing arts students. It seems like it's just like they take a handful of kids from LaGuardia for the special, but like, you know, one hopes that it was also like people from the rest of the world. But anyway, they take a handful of them, like five of them, and they put him in an episode with somebody, a professional in their field. So like five aspiring musical theater kids all went and worked with Patty Lepone for a series of days and like got mentored by Patty Lepone and also got

like taken to Joe Allen for lunch and like that kind of a thing. And Patty's absolutely odd for mind. It's fantastic. But the one, and like everyone's in a one. And like, everyone's in a And so Justice Smith was in the one, also Jess Sinclair, the one that was taught by Anna Devere Smith. Now, of course, Annie DeVir Smith's style of theater is very immersive. She interviews people for like days and weeks and whatever and then like interprets their words through a character. And she's teaching them that method of theater. So they're each interviewing each other and then performing as each other. And it's wild shit, but it's so amazing. And HBO didn't like, it wasn't this like Bally Hood HBO series. There were only maybe a few episodes, but like Alan Alda has one and Kathleen Turner might have one. But they don't, they're not available. And they were like not available long before David Zazlap started like zapping, you know, the whole series out of whatever. There has to be some rights type of thing.

Like, was that music used or something? I just need somebody who has a job inside the vault at HBO to just like record them on on some video files and just send them my way because I love him so much. Anyway, so that's why I love Justice Matt. What else did you? What else on the ground were people talking about a lot? Yeah. Yeah, that that definitely night one was that

I remember pretty early on hearing from a few people that DD was like this charmer, crowd pleaser which I'm sure we can get into. I feel like Chris you saw that one. I didn't see DD actually. I ran out of time. I could maybe watch it after we finished this, but I kind of ran out of time. I watched 20 movies kind of over the marathon of the weekend,

because it couldn't watch that much during the week. D.D. won the audience award, and it won an ensemble prize. Audience award for the dramatic competition. What's like the nutshell description of D.D.? It's coming of age set in 2008, this Chinese-American student whose name is

Chris, it's very like autobiographical. It's sort of summer before he goes into high school. There's relationships, there's friendships, there's his sort of shaky relationship with his older sister who's about to go to college and his mother, played by Joan Chen, Godbuss. Oh, wow. Joan Chen is like making a comeback now

because she was also in murder at the end of the world. Oh, my gosh, right. Yeah, I forgot where I had just seen her. Yeah. She's really, really wonderful. I mean, there's a little bit of, for me, watching this because of their extended scene where you're watching the aim chat box window. There's a little bit for me where I'm like, you know, this is the same thing that 1015

was for me, where I'm just like eating up these references. There's a hello goodbye music, you know, needle drop where I'm just like, oh, I was, you know, it had me, it had me. Oh, that's fun. I like that. So it's a nice time. It feels like, you know, your, and I don't, non-derogatory, it feels like you're like classic sun dance charmer, you know, it's exactly what you're probably the most receptive audience of that kind of thing. I know a lot of people, that's like that pejorative, like, you know, oh, it's so sundancy or whatever. And it's like, I find sundanciness in movies charming, you know, for the most part. So, for the most part. I, the best thing that I saw of the five that I saw, um, was a real pain, which did win the jury prize for the U.S. Dramatic Competition.

Jesse Eisenberg's second feature, wrote-directed it. The Wildersault Screenwriting Award, which does not have a great track record. But this is where he also sold to Searchlight, so we'll see what they do with it. I mean, it's, you've both seen it, right? Yes. Okay. You text all caps. Jennifer Gray.

Jennifer Gray! Oh my God, I was so excited. I fully did, looking at my television, pointed at the scream, screamed Jennifer Gray. Jennifer Gray. It was fantastic. But also Will Sharp, as our friend Katie Rich pointed out, looking like unrecognizably mid, sort of just like, instead of just like the stone cold hottie that we all saw on White Lotus and like just put him in like some baggy clothes and some glasses and

and he's not... A page boy hat or something. Yeah, exactly. Karen Culkin's gotten the majority of the raves and kind of rightly so because I really think he's fantastic. I, the comparison that I have, and like with the caveat that it's not as good as this movie, but a few things are, which is you can count on me. It's giving me slight you can count on me vibes in a very good way. I think that's a decent comparison. And it's you can count on me

plus something else because they're two cousins who their grandmother has died and they're going back. Cousins who used to be close like brothers is the way they sort of describe it. They're going to Poland to see not only a lot of Jewish history

but also the home that their grandmother came from. And Kieran Culkin is as you can imagine between him and Jesse Eisenberg, the more ne'er do well of them. Surprise, surprise. What I felt so much about this movie, I was like, this is fabulous. We are in the era of the Kieran Culkin star vehicle. Yes. Yeah. I loved it. There's a scene at a war memorial that goes on longer than you think it will.

And the longer it goes on, the more sort of like delightful and kind of insane it gets. But it's just like, it's a movie that allows its humor and its pathos to sort of build in these really interesting ways. I think Eisenberg seems like he's a fairly patient filmmaker, which I like. I thought it was a major step forward somewhat from his last movie that I didn't like at all. I liked it, but it was definitely, like, it was definitely more of a, like, indie first film. And then this one feels much more confident. Much more confident in its simplicity and I think its ability to provide depth. I think there is a monologue.

that happens at like the middle of the movie that feels info dumpy in a way that's too convenient for me that I didn't love at all. I thought it kind of deflated the movie and didn't really need to info dump and didn't really need to spell. That's where I think it lost some of that confidence that it had because it felt like this real need to spell out some things we already understand. or might have been more interesting to learn in a more organic way later. I don't disagree. We're talking about the dinner table. The dinner table. Yeah.

Yeah. Totally. Sorry, Jeff. No, I was going to say, I don't disagree, but I also feel like I still wound up very invested. I think the end, the sort of open-ended ending where I wanted to just sort of sit with it and sit with Karen, especially for longer. Literally. And just be like, figure it out. Like, literally.

Just like, yeah, and, like, you know, figure out where things are going to go. But a really, really good movie, and I really hope that people check it out. On the flip side of that, last night, Chris, you and Katie were subject to my Suncoast tweets. Because you liked Suncoast, which did not get good reviews and we'll be on Hulu very soon. Likeed is a very strange way of putting it, because I can absolutely recognize that it's not a very good movie. But it did make me cry, and it did keep me watching the entire time. Even though, speaking of, you can count on me, my hero, Laura Linney, I don't think it's a very good character to play. I think that character is written without giving her a whole lot of nuance to play.

Cam, did you see Suncoast? What was your... I regret. I did not. I regret to inform me. Were you warned away from it by people? It was mostly like, okay, this does, I could be inclined to see this, and though I just wasn't hearing enough about it. on the ground, I guess, as we've said, that I didn't make it a priority, but... Well, and it's going to be available so soon. It is going to be available very soon. It's the movie that is set at the same hospice that when and where Terry Schiavo was staying in a way that, like, is meant to

a set things in a place and time and be, like, sort of goose the drama of it, even though it's mostly a comedy. But it's like a, you know, in a dramedy. And it would be so much better if that, none of that was going on. It's so, it is no way integral to the plot at all. I will say, though, it is a movie that takes place during the first season of Laguna Beach and is very aware of that. And that's all I'll say about that. Nico Parker got the breakthrough performance prize for. Nico Parker, who could have, could be an actual just clone of her mother.

She just looks the spitting image in both, like, face, but also in, like, the way she moves and the way she, uh, and the way she speaks. But, yeah, she's very good. I liked her a lot. All right. What else have that? Something else that I haven't seen than you guys. I'm going to go, I'm going to, I'm going to dip into the premieres and the, um, and the midnight stuff. Well, you called a real pain your favorite thing of the festival.

Oh, yeah. What's? Well, and Cam, you said I saw the TV glow was your favorite. What else was your favorite? What was your second favorite? My second favorite, and I guess we've all seen this one now, is so we can talk about it. Let's dive into stress positions a little bit. I mean, I loved this movie. It was fully on board. It was

really divisive. It sounded like, but the minute I realized we were like basically getting John Early in a slapstick comedy, partially, that. I was like, okay. For a while. Yeah. Yeah. It is that a bit. What if John Early were in a slapstick version

of a Jeffrey Eugenity's story? One million percent. Like it's the closest we're ever going to get to a Middlesex adaptation. But listeners, set during the early days of the pandemic. Of the pandemic. Which, like, if that has you running in the other direction, I promise

you, this is finally the funny COVID move. and we never have to do one again because it does it so well. Agreed. Agreed. I mean, I also... Go ahead. Well, I was going to say the, the, the,

creating a weird ecosystem inside a brownstone in this way feels like a thing that we should have more examples of that we don't. This sort of like, all these really sort of like eccentric

and very sort of like specifically drawn it's all incredibly queer of course it's all like all the boundaries between everything are very sort of fuzzy and fluid and you're not quite sure who if anybody were supposed to be like who's who's my anchor in this like who is the character who I'm supposed to be like that's so me because every time you think there is and then you're like no no I don't know this is I don't want that to be me so the brilliant something really I I think is right. My favorite moments are where you have these different combinations of characters just in a room

bouncing off one another. There's one earlier on where Theta Hemis characters over at the apartment John Early. Terry Goon. John Hurley plays a character named Terry Goon and his nephew. They're all just sort of there getting drunk together. I love that scene. Yeah. Really.

it. Yeah, I was just kind of, I was viving off of the energy. I think a lot of people took issue. There's, there's a lot of voiceover and there are multiple voiceovers. There's competing voiceovers. I think it's a silly complaint because I think my thought about the movie was, I was so fascinated by its structure because it felt like a structure that I might have experienced from a book and not from a movie. And it's so interesting, Joe, that you made a, like, you know, fiction, a novelization. A novelization. fiction comparison. That's what it felt like. Because that's exactly what I thought too. And I saw some people saying it was like stagey. Like it felt like a play. No, it feels like a novel. It really does feel like. I liked that. I, when I saw those complaints about the voiceover, I was like, but this is something that I actually liked about the movie because it gave me that, like I would be used to getting in a book, but in a way that felt fresh and not clunky.

I loved what, I mean, especially for the nephew, oh, I loved hearing his take on his upbringing, really, and how it kind of came. This Fire Island wedding, honey, like, what went down at this wedding? Also, that kid's mother has got to be a piece of goddamn work. John Early's unseen sister, who we, like, only see when she gets pushed off of the boardwalk in Fire Island. Like, oh, my God. Just like, one of those great literary characters who's never part of the action or like a great character in a play who you leave with as much to talk about that character who you never see as you do with the characters that you spent all your time with?

Yeah. Well, it's just like this Grubhub guy who like fully seems like an extra in his first appearance. And then all of a sudden becomes this like fairly crucial character by the end of the movie in a way that feels like true to the time and place of. when it is set, too, where all of a sudden your entire world is, you know, in the span of, like, the square box of your building and the front stoop of it, and that's about it. I was just going to point out, and someone else did online, someone smarter, funnier than me, but pointed out Chekhov's massage gun. Oh, my God, the character of Terry's ex in this is so. So the second you see him, you're like, I know exactly what your deal is.

Like, oh, my God. And that actor, I was like, I don't know that face, but I know that voice. Where do I know that voice from? Pull him up on IMDB? Bob's Burgers. Bob's Burgess. Yeah, John Roberts, who plays Linda. Yep, yeah, exactly.

Yeah, it's such a nondescript name, you know, no offense to anyone named John Roberts. But I remember seeing the cast list and being like, wait, who is this? I thought it was John Reynolds at first. I kind of tripped my mind up and I was waiting to see John Reynolds of search party fame but uh So now where would I know Theta Hamel

from? Info Wars. See, I don't listen to Nimfo Wars. Oh, okay. That makes all the sense of me. Truly, uh, because Theta's in it, wrote it, directed it.

I thought one of the breakthroughs of the festival for what I saw, cannot wait to see what Theta makes next. Um, just a real, uh, in terms of like delivering satire and the way that satire has kind of become a certain you know satire in the past you know a few years feels like it's other things mimicking other things mimicking other things this feels like something very fresh that you know if there were references or you know style that it's trying to be in the vein of i didn't really have movie references i maybe had more like fiction shit and references. I wanted to, Theta,

I've not listened to Nipro Wars either. I just have sort of appreciated Theta on, as a presence on social media on Twitter. But I've been told time and time again that even if I don't go through back and listen through Nympho Wars, there's a two-parter episode called Kill Drag Race that is apparently an all-timer and is a sort of easily accessible one for us that, you know, do watch Drag Race.

Okay. So I've been meaning to dive into those, especially now that I'm such a fan of stress physics. Yeah. Neon has it. We don't know when it's coming. Yeah, that's right. I would have to imagine that this movie is coming out in the summer because it would be

the perfect time to... Whenever they released Fire Island, they should release it. You know what I mean? It's just like not to like, you know, typecast everything, but like, whenever, you know, follow success. I wouldn't sell it as that. to like list no but i don't know but like whenever in the calendar you know that that that proved to be you know fertile ground joe i know you didn't see my favorite of the festival but cam i hope you did did you see good one i didn't no oh okay my favorite of the festival um another debut by india

donaldson uh this debut actress uh lily callias i believe it's pronounced uh goes on a camping trip with her father, played by James LaGroes, uh, great James LaGroes and, uh, his like best friend from college days, basically. And a lot of people, I've seen a lot of people compare it to Kelly Reichart, um, I was saying in our group chat today that it was like, Kelly Reichart's old joy,

but mixed with something like maybe eighth grade, even though that's not the best comparison. It's basically all of these little micro moments throughout this camping trip where, you know, this teenage girl has full awareness of the failings of her father and her father's awful friend. And the movie can still be kind of funny, not too heavy, and it all is kind of building towards a certain type of confrontation that, with a lot of grace to it too and a lot of affection and complication. And I think the type of parent-child relationship that you don't really see in these type of movies where it's about the failings of a parent and still kind of working with the complicated feelings of your own experience,

your experience with that parent, and do your parent not, doing good enough. And I'm speaking in vague terms because I don't really want to spoil it because there were moments where it was just human interaction at the end of this movie and I was gasping because I was

just like, oh, this is not going in the, well, it's not going in the eighth grade type of thing where you're supposed to feel warm and fuzzy feelings. You're supposed to feel something more complicated and difficult to reconcile. And I

I thought this movie was really wonderful and graceful. I was shocked it didn't win some type of prize because you could see it having won any of the prizes that they handed out for the U.S. Dramatic prizes. Because, like, Lily Gleas is really great. James McGrose is fantastic. It's a great script. It's really strong, like, a really exciting debut that I would be really excited to see whatever India is. Donaldson makes again. I understand why a festival, like, can, would be sort of tight, keep a tight grip on

its awards and not, like, want to give too much away. I don't quite understand why a place like Sundance, whose entire job is to sort of launch these movies and do greater success, doesn't just, like, give, like, five acting awards away and, you know, six, you know, filmmaker awards. They give awards away for whatever they want to call it. It's just like some of the names of these prizes sometimes are banana. Launch, launch, you know, these movies however, whatever it's going to take. The other thing, and this is a nitpick that obviously doesn't have anything to do with the quality of the film because I haven't seen the quality of the film.

But I'm just going to implore indie directors who title their films, these minimalist, sort of like very vague titles. It makes it impossible for people who have not seen your film. to remember hearing about your film because all of a sudden it's just like which one is good one i've said that phrase 12 different times in the last six days because it's just like there's nothing in the context of the movie i'm sure it's an interesting panel i'm sure but like give me something to remember like if you're like the whole point is for these things to sort of like stick in my brain so that i will end up seeing them and um i feel like it's a this is a recurring thing at sundance where like Every year, there's like two or three movies and we're just like, what is that title?

It sounds like four other titles. Like, I mean, like, Love Me, the Stephen You and Kristen Stewart movie that is half like Bitmoji, half Wally, and then they finally show up. I tried really hard to like that movie. I tried really hard. And I see why everyone hated it, but you can also see the version in your head of the movie that is not annoying. and not where everything works. It's literally the plot is after the apocalypse, a boy awakens in the post-apocalyptic ocean

and meets a satellite and they fall in love and they learn about human existence through old school YouTube and then they basically, through, I guess, an app become Stephen Yun and Kristen Stewart's bitmojis and then they become Kristen Stewart and Stephen Yun, and they go... Chris, I'm 40-something years old. I can't. I just...

I absolutely cannot say, I tried. I tried because I saw everyone dragging this and I went... I tried, and it doesn't work. It doesn't. One movie that seemed to get a lot of really good notice, and I think all three of us have seen it, is between the temples. Have we... Yes, I'll seen it?

No, can't happen. Um, this is the one where Jason Schwartzman plays a canter, uh, who is also fairly depressed, who's a widower and, um, his, uh, mothers, his lesbian mothers played by Caroline Aaron and and Dolly De Leon, which is just like, let that phrase marinate in your head for a while. Right. Um, and, uh, they're to keep trying to set him up with various unsuitable people. And then what he runs into is his old music teacher, played by Carol Kane, who is, I think, pretty tremendous in this movie. And Carol Kane is, she wants to have an adult bat mitzvah essentially. And a lot of this is, you know, she had been married to a person who was Catholic, and so she

wasn't really religious throughout her life. And now she wants to do this seemingly, sometimes it sounds like she wants to do this just for something to do. But it's also a way for them to sort of of like connect, and it becomes this unconventional love story, but is it more just like a story of two people connecting? And the filmmaking kind of, it's directed by Nathan Silver, it's a good movie that does not look like a good movie, if that makes sense. Like, it's got this very decidedly low-fi aesthetic that pushes me away. And I know that it's like intentional and I know that it's like low-lodge.

basically. What's that? Safty's adjacent, basically. Kind of, yes. And, like, everything is a little too closely filmed, and everything is very fuzzy, grainy. And I'm like, you've got good performances here. I don't think you need to work this much

to make it seem like you're faking and interest in it when, like, they're genuinely interesting. So that was my only problem with Between the Temples. Otherwise, I think it's a really interesting movie. Chris, what did you think? I think it takes a while for that movie to, like, grease its tires a little bit to get going.

It doesn't need to be a two-hour movie. But, I mean, there's wonderful stuff in there, but I agree with you everything. I think it kind of looks bad in a way that is intentional, but also not. Schwartzman is wonderful as well. I hope that we can. Schwartzman's really been bringing it

between Asteroid City and this. He really brought it in Asteroid City. He's hitting his stride, yeah. But, Cam, tell us about something else that we should all be looking forward to. There's been a few now that I feel, I feel bad. I didn't see. I almost I saw so many things. Did you see Love Lise Bleeding?

I don't want to, like, set you up for no. Okay. Tell us about Love Lies Bleeding. Well, I was just going to, for context, too, you know, I'm with, I'm the entertainment editor for Queerty. So I was sort of going into this being like, let me prioritize the films that are going to smack you in the face with pureness. Yes. And boy, those Love Lies Bleeding smack you in the face. and do all sorts of other things to you.

Thank God. It is wild. It is going to some of the lesbians I know, they'll just die from a heart attack from it. I think I needed it to pick a lane a little bit more. But to back up, yeah, give us a little nutshell, yeah. Right.

Folks have seen the trailer probably, so I guess this one's a little bit more. We know where this is sort of going, but Chris and Stewart has a mullet, drives a truck. hell yeah. And works at a gym. Very hell yeah. And she's really wonderful in this. Like, truly, I think she's having a blast and it's fun to watch her have a blast. But she works at a gym. She has some sort of a shady pass that we're gradually learning about. Her father is played

by Ed Harris, who is bald on top and has a long, long, long hair. And grayging into his natural role as the cryptkeeper. I was going to say riff-raf core a little bit. So yeah. I could not put that together. He loves bugs. He loves bugs, too. So there's also a little bit of, like, there are bumps crawling over him in multiple scenes. So it's very tricky for court. So he is some sort of shady figure we'll learn about throughout the course of the film. And at the gym one day, Katie O'Brien comes in as this amateur bodybuilder, traveling across the country, sleeping wherever she can in order to make it to Vegas to compete in the spotty billing competition show so she stops in what i believe is oklahoma i actually

kind of forget but it it almost doesn't matter this movie is just like being you in the face with like late 80s like americana it's it it it doesn't you know you just kind of know this place even if you don't know exactly where it is um and so those two you know they have they have their night where they hook up and and uh katie o'brien character and i forget the character's name ends up Jackie, it says, on the Wikipedia page. Jackie, that's right. Ends up staying at Kristen Stewart almost immediately, which I did love. I was like, this is the movie, like, making commentary on, like, you know, U-Hauling.

They move in together immediately. And then I would say it goes off the roles in good and bad ways many different times throughout the remainder of the film. I think, like, there's some interesting stuff with Dave Franco as someone who works for Ed Harris. but is also married to his daughter, Jenna Malone, Kristen Seward's sister. I'm just talking to referring them as the actors.

No, do it. Do it. All these complicated dynamics at play, and it's hard to say too much without giving a ton of way. If you watch the trailer closely, there's moments where it looks like Katie O'Brien's character is like hulking out, and

yes. Great, great. We'll be beating those allegations. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Katie O'Brien is from the Mandalorian, right? That's where people know her from, mostly? So, yeah, and I mean, I haven't seen, but I think that's, like, definitely the bigger credit.

She's really good. I just think the film sort of sells her character short in a way, and I wish that she would have a little bit more agency. It's partially the point of thing, but... Oh, she's also going to be in Twisters. That's interesting. Man, the cast for... The cast for Twisters is insane.

Yes, it does. We've talked about this. That's right. Everybody in that cast is so hot. Yeah, that's totally true. Good for Twisters. I can't wait. But I'm curious to see what the response is.

I mean, it was really, people went wild that night. I really like St. Maude. I think the two of you. Yes, I really like St. Mod. I'm a little mixed on St. Maude, but there's great stuff in there. Yeah.

This felt a little bit more, a little bit less focused than that in my mind. And so I, you know, I guess mileage may vary, but people are eating it up. And, again, it will kill people. Like, there's lots and lots. It's so horny for the first, I would say, half hour before it becomes much, much darker. But it is extremely horny. So if that's the queerest thing that you saw and maybe stress positions was the second queerest thing that you saw, like what takes, what took the bronze?

Oh, gosh, ranking them in turn. Well, I guess we should maybe talk about, there's a couple of documentaries I wanted to mention, but I wanted to bring up Pony Boy. Oh, which I saw. Yeah. Oh, great. We've all seen men? Yes.

Let's talk Pony Boy. Let's talk about Pony Boy. I'll say that my gut reaction was just like, I was feeling pretty gleeful watching it because I was like, yes, we're really leaning into these archetypes and mafia movie tropes, But my God was every one in the cast, I think, really just going in.

I was like, they did not need to go this hard. And yet they did. I will say, we've seen a lot of these sort of like, you know, hustler on the street, got to make do one crazy night. Something goes wrong. I got to get out of this. Like all these sorts of movies. I was somewhat fascinated by the sort of economics of this brothel that was

being run out the back of this laundromat that's um by dillon o'brien uh dylan o'brien you guys we need to we need to have a short conversation about how hot he is in this movie and how awful i felt thinking about that because he's such a scumbag he's such a scumbag but like oh my god he's so hot um it's also wild to see victoria pedretti doing the full scarlet johansson in the marble columns snell sketch like voice where she's just like the accent is so like it's laid on so thick i think it's so funny um but even down to like murray bartlett as the sort of like hunky cowboy riding through town you know gonna gonna save a pony boy on on their way to Vegas or whatever and it's like oh this feels very like early aughts indie you know i was gonna say it felt almost like it's nothing like sin city

but I think the kind of violence crime type story reminded me of like an aughts, maybe late aughts type of grungy crime movie that I don't like very much and as a result

I didn't really care for pony boy it just probably wasn't for me but I mean it's stars and is written by River Gayo and I think they are an incredible performer. Don't know about them as writer. But the acting in this movie is good, and which I should say, in the first

10 minutes, Murray Bartlett sings Bruce Springsteen's, I'm on fire. And that's all you need, really. It's very hot. It's very hot. It was so hot. I lost my mind. Also, India Morgan's a very short scene towards the end of the movie. I would like to see India more get a leaning role on something soon because, like, I really believe that, like, she's earned it. It's so, like, what a great scene. A scene that sort of communicates a ton about two characters and their relationship to each other in a very short amount of time. So give me, give me an Indian Moore movie, please. Yeah, I feel like that scene, one, right, she just looks the most glamorous anyone who's ever looked at that scene. And I felt like,

that to me is like the Trojan horse of the movie. I would love for this to play in some way that a lot of people can see because I do think just that, you know, I know how the internet is. I know how we are about Dylan O'Brien. I think like there's some very obvious mainstream up here. Yeah. Yeah. And it would be really cool to, you know, yeah, I think certain, with certainly some notes I could keep to the script. Um, some, honestly, I love Murray Bartlett, you know, I loved him singing, but that whole element of this story didn't really work for me. It felt very sort of tacked on a little bit.

Yeah, yeah. But I, yeah, the cast I was having a lot of fun with regardless. And I was, I was saying afterwards, like, I've not seen the haunting of Hill House any of those, unfortunately. Right. I just didn't know what, Victoria, I didn't know Victoria for Dreddy's game. Like, I had no idea that she was going to go that.

Nothing else she has done is this. So I will say that. It's just like, you won't be giving that on Hillhouse. I thought she was very good on Hill House. And then in you, she's just sort of, I don't know. I don't know how to, I don't know how to sum up that character. The last movie I saw that I haven't talked about yet, so I'll sort of throw this out there, is, oh, I don't see it. Where was it?

I guess it wasn't a dramatic competition. Yes. Oh, it was in world dramatic competition. Handling the undead. The zombie sad, sad, sad competition. zombie movie starring Renata Rinesov and Anders Danielson Lye from the author of Let the Right, which you can tell by watching it. Like it feels very much like what if zombies, but also everyone is just very sad. It's the, it's like day one zombie apocalypse, but we don't get past

the part where everybody is still mourning. They're recently dead relatives. And they just start to come back, there is one, like, for for the most part, it's very kind of quiet. It's not bad. It does. It's a very slow. Yeah, I think you're being a little generous. It is very, I

don't complain about slow movies. It is very slow. That's, people barely speak in the whole movie, which is normally fine for me, but this, it didn't hold my attention incredibly well. It did hold my attention better than a movie that that slow usually

does um there is one scene with a rabbit that will stay with me for a very long time and we'll probably make people mad um but it can this movie came with a content warning oh did it I missed the content warning it did that's funny um yeah I was I think I liked it I definitely think I liked it more than you I mostly ran right to IMDB and it's like what is Anders Danielson Lai signed up for in the future because I'm like he had such a big year two years ago with Bergman Island and he was also worst person in the world right they don't share any scenes together by the way Renato and Anders it's very like they're like four different stories and they're like mostly kept separate three I guess

but I want him to be I am losing my voice so I'm going to leave it to the rest of you guys But yeah, I thought it was okay. Did you see anything else in the U.S. dramatic competition? I am trying to wrap my head around. Oh, I saw it in the summers, which was in the competition. The dramatic jury prize winner and the winner. Yeah.

You know, I think it was pretty understated. And I really like applaud it from, as the title may be suggested, it's about these two children every summer going and staying with their, their father for a month or so played by the artist Residente and the kids are played by different actors as they get older but yeah it's understating

I definitely applaud it not going where it could have gotten the easy route of just like hitting these notes you never have these big emotional confrontations between father and children it's like it's it's nice in that sense but it really never rises above a certain temperature in my mind,

maybe because of that. I agree. I liked it. I think I liked it a little bit more than most people seem to have, with the exception of the jury, that seemed to really love it. I thought Resente was maybe the performance of the festival for me. I thought his performance was incredible. You know, I have kind of a ceiling with these type of episodic movies.

where you know you're you have such a clear structure in front of you and it's you know not necessarily building to something but like you keep going through a structure and I think it in subtle ways you know deterred from or not deterred but it's not quite the structure you think it's going to be and that each of these chapters kind of have their own rhythm and what that means for the characters because of course there are different chapters that they're at different chapters that they're like I thought that that was really kind of sharp, but it is a very subtle, understated movie that I hope people can see, because I think there is some really good stuff there, not just Resente's performance, but, yeah. Cam, did you see Presence, the Steven Soderberg? I did.

The Soderberg. What did you think about that one? I was so excited about the prospect of being at Sundance and seeing a Soderberg. it just felt like daddy content, you know? You go back in time. Like, yeah, for real. He was on one that night, too, at the premiere. And it was very, very funny.

So reports of people having to leave because they were so scared? Is that going to do this movie any good? I feel like that was overreported. It's not that it's scary, but there is attention to it. And I don't want to say too much. But the idea is that this is a ghost movie. And Soderberg basically plays the ghost in that, The camera is the lens into this home.

A family moves in. Lucy Lewis, the mother, thank God. She is mother, of course. And, you know, I'm forgetting his name right now, but the father is from Mrs. Us. Chris Sullivan. Yes, Chris Sullivan. They have two kids, and the daughter pretty immediately.

There's this moment early on, because the camera is constantly sticking to the house in the moment early on where she looks into the camera, and then, like, backs away. And it's this really striking moment because you're like, whoa, what's going? You just don't expect it. Yeah.

Yeah. I, my take on it is just that I was having such a blast with it until I wasn't. I think that there's just a turn of sorts, which I, again, don't want to give away that just didn't really sit with me. But there's a final. So is the Soderberg in, like, unsane mode? Yeah. It definitely feels a little bit more like he's just experimenting with more.

Noodle and around. Having some fun in between. Yeah, the final, the final, like, scene is really, really great. And that's where Lucy Lou is, like, oh, she mails it. And, and importantly, Julia Fox, maybe 90 minutes on screen had me howling. Oh, my God. I was literally just about to, I love you, Cam, but I literally was just about to be like, can we as a culture agree to let the Julia Fox stick die out?

Not yet. I hate to break it to you, Joe, but it's not just going to go. I can't do another year, Julia Fox. I really can't. Yeah, he knows how to use her. I mean, which is to say in 90 seconds first, but, you know, like, Soderberg knows what he's doing. But I don't think every performance is incredible. I think it's a little bit of Mitzbach performance-wise.

But it is fun, and, you know, at Soderberg. I think there's people, there's going to be a lot of fans. But I usually, I'm all in on Soderberg, I would say. so I was a little let down. I heard good things about this movie Thelma, the June Squibb, Fred Heshinger. I can't believe it hasn't sold yet. I know what? It kind of looks like crap, but this movie is going to make, I mean, unless it goes to Netflix or something, and you could see it doing well on Netflix.

But like, it was maybe the one movie that I saw that I was like, oh, this could make money. Did you like it or did you not like it? I liked it. How was my friend? Fred. Fred is lovely. I mean, listen. We're going to be doing a Fred movie very soon, Chris. Oh, we will. We will. We will. We'll be recording it this weekend.

Listen, I am a sucker for a movie that ultimately is about the love between a grandmother and a grandson. So it's like I, you know, the, the, I was not going to not like this movie. Yeah. And Parker Posey is really, really funny. uh obviously obviously june squib is wonderful in this role and it's exciting to see her in a starring role but i think my major takeaway from the movie is the dearly departed richard roundtree who is so wonderful and it's like thelma's friends maybe kind-of-ish love interest it's

Richard Roundtree was the best thing about the movie. I mean, I think obviously just the plot synopsis alone, June Squib is a senior citizen who gets scammed through basically a phone scam pretending to be her grandson in peril, and she gives them thousands of thousands of dollars. And then she goes vigilante mode on a motorized scooter to get her money back. I mean, you know, it's, when you hear that plotline, it is very much that movie. It's very, it's very silly.

It's very touching. It's... Where else have we seen Richard Roundtree in love interest mode recently, Chris? Oh, swear to God. Well, he passed away last year. Yeah, but it was like within the last, hold on. Moving on. Did you see moving on, Chris?

Oh, right, moving on. We saw that a tiff together. The Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin. He's Jane Fonda's. of interest in that. I forgot. I saw that as well. He's good in that too. Or he was. Yeah. Um, yeah. Um, I, I think it's funny to point out that early on in Thelma, uh, June Scrib and Fred, grandmother and grandson are watching Mission Impossible together. And that sort of becomes this through line in terms of just that action. And, you know, I think there's an

element of, of a lot of the humor where it's like this basically could, you could see this being in like an S&L sketch, where she's on the phone and, like, trying to figure out how to get something done and the score is pounding, but she's just trying to, like, X out of a pop-up ad and can't find the X. Like, that is the humor. And I think it works really well. I mean, I think credit to her. That's nice. It's lovely. And you're right, Chris. It's like, this should be selling and this should be somewhere because people are going to get it up. Yeah. Another one I saw a lot of coverage on was Will and Harper, the Will Ferrell documentary. Did you get a chance to see that one? I did. That was my last night I was there. I was at the premiere four, and Will was on my flight the next morning,

which was very special. Oh, that's fun. Yeah, that was fun. But more importantly, this film, Will and Parker, it is about Will Ferrell and his longtime friend, Harper, Steele, who for years was a writer on S&L. That's when they first met. They started there around the same time, and she, I think she's like early 60s now and so came out as trans during the pandemic and we're set up at the beginning that she loves road trips and she loves small town America

and she loves just being on her own on the open road and stopping by the dive use of dive bars and now all of this feels uncomfortable to her so she and will have this idea to do this road trip together and it's you know on one end there's just like of course like you get these two really really funny people and it's going to be a blast watching them just talk about any old thing along the road but it is really

really lovely to um i think you know as as the receptant out of the festival maybe pointed to it's just it's it's cool that will feral wanted to do this for her and and she sort of is it was very open in talking about her privilege and having this this very, very popular famous friend who can sort of guide her along this trip. But it feels hate to say it, you know, cliched, but it feels

important and it feels like this could be a helpful thing to have out in the world. I mean, that's correct. As of recording, there's still a bidding war going on around it. Is there? Yes, there is. So, like, someone is going to get this movie and for a pretty penny. And hopefully take care of it.

I was going to say, I wanted to be taken care of, but I could see it, you know, and this isn't a bad thing either, but I could see it and popping up on Hulu one day and doing well on there or something like that. You know, it's just obviously a star power. They've a lot of fun little S&L cameos too. I won't say too much more, but if this gets the release it deserves, we could have a Kristen Whig, best original song on me. Oh, my God.

Yeah, that's fine. But it's so, so lovely. It's definitely the crowd pleaser of the festival. By the way, important to note, directed by Josh Greenbaum, who did, Barb and Starr, go to Vista. Okay. Let's get some good success for Josh so that we can get a sequel in the works. I'll say at the Q&A afterwards, he's talking about, like, how he met Will. And he's like, so I first met him through Barb and Sarr and round of applause.

People are still on their feet anyway. And then we did this silly movie this last year called Strays, chirps, like, tricklechurchs, like, friends. And then after one, no one gave a shit. Sorry, God. But yeah, we obviously, there's love for Barben Sars. So I think that was probably heard. But it's cool. It's a great collaboration between the three.

Yeah. Did you see the Sersher Ronan starring film The Outrun? People did not seem to like the movie, but there were, to me, wild raves for her performance. People, I saw someone comparing it to Jenna Rollins in Woman Under the Influence. Wow. That's very high praise. I didn't see this one. And, you know, of course, like going into the festival, it's like, surcha, search.

I've got to see the searcher. Why wouldn't I want to? But again, just trying to prioritize them more, like, hitting you in the face with, this is. a queer story. I was like, we'll wait and see. And I think I saw enough good things I was convinced that I needed to see it while I was there. But it just, timing didn't work out for me, sadly. But yeah, that was an interesting response for sure. The other one that I had heard good things about that I will remember, because it does have a distinctive title, is My Old Ass. So, big sale sold to Amazon. Oh, poor, poor film. Amazon still doesn't know how to do anything.

although it's Amazon MGM so at least there's you know the that I feel like the the good ones sort of tend to I seem to agree that American fiction was doing well and it's like sort of really

scheduled that they had I think they're planning on they were planning on sort of pivoting off of the Oscar nomination so hopefully yeah it's still expanding but again not sure what my old ass refers to but like I will remember it and I will I forget who the young performer is,

but it's Aubrey Plaza as the older version of that character coming to, if I remember the plot line correctly, coming to visit her younger self to tell her not to date a boy of some kind. Yeah. All right. Yeah, yeah. And this is, I should have seen this one. I think that the younger character played by, I look up, Maisie Stella, her big credit seems to be

Nashville. I think she was one of Arne Britton's daughter. Oh, okay. All right. Oh, and Maddie Ziegler's in it. I was waiting in line for, yeah, that's right, and Maria Dicea. Yeah. Oh, I love Maria Dicea. Oh, my God, yes. I was waiting in line to see Love Lies bleeding at the Eccles when everyone was getting out of this. And so I was, like, seeing people leave. And I was like, what do you think? What'd you think? And I just remember saying, it's going to sell for millions. It's incredible. And so people were very a piece of immediately leaving it. I know. I regret missing this one, too. But, but, um, Yeah, I didn't see the fallout from from this director, the Jenna Ortega, Maddie Ziegler, like, right away, put, I mean, it's, it was like the. That was a South by movie. Oh. Right.

Okay. But this sounds very, very different. Yeah. Of course, this is more of a sweet comedy. Now, as somebody representing queer media cam, were you required to see the Pedro Pascal movie, Freaky Tales? or was that more of an optional for you? It was definitely something that I was like, I should prioritize this.

And I have this funny moment, not to throw anyone under the bus, but prior to the festival was talking to a Sundance programmer. And I was like, is there anything I should see that I maybe wouldn't be aware? And they told me that there's a, I feel bad. They told me there's a queer storyline in prequietals. And I was like, cool, cool, cool.

I'll check it out. That's great. I included it in our, like, festival preview and then somebody with the film broke me and said, there's not, sorry, like, thank you for the before, but we don't want to sell it incorrectly. Oh, wow. So I'm extremely confused, and...

They should have at least been, like, Normani's in this movie. Tell the people that Normani's in the movie. Right. Right. Yeah. And press me, like, in my little capsule write-up for the preview, I was like, Pedro Vascall and Normani, like, what else do you want? And J. Ellis, who is also just a beautiful, beautiful person. Yeah.

I didn't see it, though. I was told... I saw some pretty mixed-to-negative reactions. That's mostly what I saw as well. And it hasn't sold yet. I mean, not a lot has sold yet, unfortunately. Of the... It is a wild cast, though.

Can I just say, sorry before you move on, Chris. No, go ahead. I'm looking at this cast, Peter Pascal, J. Alice Normani, but, like, Ben Mendelssohn. It's basically Fleck and Moden doing their Sin City, it sounds like. Angus Cloud made this one before he passed. Jack Champion, who is the weird... little beast twink from Avatar too. Keir Gilchrist, write and scream.

Kier Gilchrist, my beloved United States of Terra star, Kier Gilchrist. And I see just Tom Hanks as video store employee. So like, I'm going to want to check it out for that. I'm sorry. I'm just a am. All right. Anyway, Chris, I interrupted you. One that I kind of expect to still sell at some point.

and one of the last things that was among my tops that we haven't discussed is this documentary called Daughters. It was in the U.S. documentary competition. Not only won the audience award for U.S. documentary, but it won this, I guess, fake prize, but Sundance as of last year, added a festival favorite prize, which to me sounded like a way to get the movies

that are just premier distinction that are not in any competition, you know, a chance at winning an award. And it won that as well. So this was like the highest audience response of a movie at the whole festival, basically. And you can see why, because this is just like, I mean, like I'm on the verge of tears watching the entire, through the entirety of this movie. It basically follows a prison program that allows inmates visits with, with, essentially with their children, but this follows a program where it's basically dads to daughters,

and they do like a father-daughter dance, and you follow these family's stories. And you see a lot of the systemic prison issues in various prisons throughout the country that, you know, don't allow any type of visitation and whatever the, you know, the success rate is incredibly high for inmates within these programs of never returning to the prison system. And it's an incredibly emotional movie. I imagine if it sells to the right person, or not person, but to the right distributor, this is a movie we could be talking about all year long.

Nice. That's great. Cam, anything else you want to shout out? I was going to say just another documentary I saw, and this was in the next program was seeking Mavis Beacon, in, and I thought this was really, really fascinating, and I was really taken with it. This is, if you're familiar with Mavis Beacon teaches typing software, did either of you grow up using that? No, but it sounds familiar. The name sounds familiar.

Well, you know it, and it's funny because, like, the original, well, so Mavis Beacon at the center of it is this figure that teaches you typing, and her face is beaming on the, like, software box but you know there's a little bit of a thing where everyone maybe assumed she was real but she wasn't and and it's funny because um this software has like taken on it's adopted different folks in more recent years uh different faces and i've seen some of these faces come up in memes which is besides the point anyway the filmmaker jazz jennings is is like someone that grew up with this program and was like, okay, Mavis Beacon wasn't real, but like, who is this woman?

Why don't we know who this woman was, this model that was used in the photograph and goes on this search in a very, in a very modern queer, extremely online, goes about it in a very extremely online way, where is, I thought it was really, really lovely because it's like, you know, it's investigative. It's an investigative documentary, but it's really like picking at itself and what it means to be an investigative documentary the whole time. It's like, I mean, do we have the right to tell this story? Like, was, I mean, did they have the right to use her image in the way they did in the first place, the software company? Where did she go? Did she want to disappear?

Should we be able to have the right to disappear online? Like, it just brings up all these questions that I was really, I've just never seen any movie do that. And I just, sort of as cool, you know, in this era of continued true crime obsession to sort of, even though there's not a crime here, just have this documentary that's just interrogating the whole, the whole ecosystem of that, really. It was really cool. I'm really excited. I mean, Jazz Jennings, the filmmaker, I don't, this was like their first, they're pretty young.

This was like their first thing. I would love to see them do this type of investigation, you know, in whatever form. moving forward. I thought it was really fun. And Neon has this too, so it'll be... That's true, yeah. You've sold me on this because I wasn't quite sure whether I was interested in seeing this and now you've sold me on it. So good job.

Yeah, it's interesting. Also, the pandemic comes into play in this in a way that I didn't like hate. It also does a great job of showing us like there's a word for it, right? Where the screen is the desktop and we have something going on in one

window and there's a chat here. It does that really, really well. Nice. So I really appreciated that, yeah. That's awesome. I want to make sure I mention that. As sort of tends to be my feeling with Sundance every year is even when there's nothing that sounds like I'm almost more interested in the movies that don't sound like they're these like slam dunk hits on the level of like a past lives or something like that where it's, you know, movies that feel like their throwbacks to something else. that are going for something a little more odd.

It's that sort of like it's either side of the spectrum, right? It's either the ones that feel a little dated and I tend to feel like drawn to that kind of datedness. Yeah, is, is there anything you want to, you want to bring up before that we maybe haven't asked you about Cameron? I definitely feel like we touched on my favorites. I also just was thinking documentary-wise. I saw the Luther never too much documentary, which is like,

You know, just great to have like a renewed appreciation and Batman's talent. And, God, I mean, that voice is insane. Oh, Luther Vandross. You can't beat it. Yeah. Yeah, beyond renewed appreciation beyond just being obsessed with never too much again and having that show up in my Spotify. Nice.

But it is interesting in what the movie does and doesn't say about his sexuality. Like, it really hammers home this point that he was like, super private in that regard. But it really kind of throws Patty LaBelle onto the bus. And I think people were mad at her for basically outing him when she did. But it just seems kind of strange. It was an odd take, I thought. I was curious, I again ran out of time. And I didn't really see any reactions to that movie, too. So I didn't know how to prioritize it or not. Or, you know, it also just seems like the type of thing that would get bought. So I'd have the opportunity to see it again. But especially after the Little Richard doc last year, which also had a complicated relationship

with that, with presenting that and telling that part of the, you know. Well, and how many Whitney Houston documentaries did it take before they finally addressed Whitney Houston sexuality? Like, this does seem to be a trend with, you know, these posthumous documentaries, so that are sort of treating this idea of like, well, they decided to take it to the grave, so now we must all decide to never talk about it. And it's like, at some point, y'all, Like, history is history. And then you had the Rock Hudson documentary. Which is so good.

Which is so good. I'm saying. See, that's what I want. Here's some stories. Yeah, exactly. All right. Chris, anything else do you wanted to mention about the stuff? I was, I mean, I definitely saw more documentaries.

Again, I was kind of disappointed on the dock side this year. I would also say one that listeners might be interested in. I saw exhibiting forgiveness, which has a great performance from Andre Holland. Andre Newellis Taylor is also in it. Andrew Day is in it. As Andre Holland's father, John Earl Jek's, Jokes is really good. That is a movie that I thought that the screenplay was fairly heavy-handed and kind of a blunt instrument, even if the themes of the movie were a lot more complex than the dialogue was.

was so I can see why people are having a really mixed reaction to it, but I think thematically it really resonated with me. I'll be interested to see what happens with that movie, because Andre Holland is really great in it. Nice. Yeah, I think that's it for me. Cool. Cameron, we cannot thank you enough for joining us for our special dispatch from Sundance.

We got to get you back on a real episode soon. Yeah, yeah. get back to us with um you've you suggested something recently and yeah um get back to us again about that because we definitely talk we'll talk okay great great awesome eager to revisit for reasons where can people find you uh on queerty on social media all that sort of stuff yeah i mean i i i guess i'm still kicking around on x uh we're all kicking around on x man we're just we're wandering the streets yeah yeah i'm on camera cheats on there i'm on Instagram, which, as I've already alluded to,

I'm not normally posting as much of my stories as I do in a at Sundance, but you know, I don't think people need videos and me walking around my apartment every day. You say that now. You would have fans. You would have walk-around fans, yeah. Yeah.

All right, go read Cameron on Queerty and go bother him on Instagram about not posting more walking around as a part of him. I can find our, oh, I gotta get to do this. without an outline, Chris. Okay. If you want more, This Had Oscar Buzz, you can check out our podcast

at Had underscore Oscar underscore Buzz on Twitter. This Had Oscar Buzz on Instagram. And if you want to join our Patreon, that is patreon.com slash this had Oscar Buzz. Christopher. What's your socials? Chris F-E-I-L. And I am Joe Reed. Reed spelled R-E-I-D. Thank you. you to Taylor Cole for our theme song, Gavin Muvius and Dave Gonzalez for our technical advice and, God,

it's so weird doing this without us. Being polite to our emails like, this happened. What do we do? Oh, my gosh. Seriously, Dave, something went wrong. Help. Kyle Cummings for our artwork, of course. All you wonderful listeners. And we will be back with a brand new

main feed episode on Monday. So get ready for that because that one is a good one, even though it's another two and a half hours to three hour episode. Girl, we have just been with these vulture updates really do like push us past the point of, of, that update will be brief. It'll be brief. It'll be good. All right, everybody, thank you for listening. And until next year, may Sundance remain nice winter and not brutal winter.

All right. Bye.