This Had Oscar Buzz - THOB does TIFF-ty

Episode Date: September 15, 2025

Joe and Chris are back from the Toronto International Film Festival and it’s time to unpack everything we saw. Though we recorded prior to the announcement of this year’s People’s Choice Award winner, we talk at length about this year’s triumphant Hamnet and the word on the ground about the runners up as well. We discuss our … Continue reading "THOB does TIFF-ty"

Oh, oh, wrong house. No, the right house. We want to talk to Marilyn Hack, Millen Hack, and friends. I'm from Canada water. Dick Pooh. Hey Tiff, happy 50th. Happy 50th, Tiff! I am absolutely and totally and completely thrilled to wish Tiff the 50th anniversary.

Oh shit, I shouldn't have said anniversary, but it doesn't matter. Happy 50th birthday Toronto Film Festival. 50 years, TIF, congratulations. There's something magic about the Big FI-O. I mean, 50 is like, is that middle age now? You're not old yet, but you're no longer young. As Neil Young says, ain't getting old. I'm not getting younger, though.

Hello and welcome to the This Had Oscar Buzz podcast, the only podcast that remembers the Groshold Days. Every week on this had Oscar buzz we'll be talking about a different movie that once upon a time had Lofty Academy Award or aspirations, but for some reason or another, it all went wrong. The Oscar hopes died, and we're here to perform the autopsy, except this week will be, as our annual tradition demands,

we'll be recapping our experience at the Toronto International Film Festival. I'm your host, Chris Fyle, and I'm here, as always, with a man who would pull that ham with Annette Cho Reed. Happy Tifty, Chris. Tifty! Tifty! We saw that ad tifty times, it feels like. I sure did.

We talked about this with our friend, Katie Rich, who we got to spend a lot of time with, and yet not enough time with, as always. at the Toronto Film Festival. Not my favorite, not our favorite crop of pre-roll TIF ads. And a lot of them were rollover from previous years. A lot of them were rollover. I think the stuff we liked best maybe like wore us down. Like by the end of the fest, I was like, all right, Tifty, you got me.

I'm saying Tifty. You know, mission accomplished. The Tifty volunteer ad, though, that ends with them meeting faceless as the caption says celebrity who drops their program. First of all... That could have been handled a lot more spectacularly. A blanket

celebrity who looks more like a CEO from what we do see of celebrity that has a TIF program book that they drop in an empty Scotia Bank theater. It left so many questions. Left so many questions. Like

Canada, you're you know, find a reason to tout your superstars here. Like, that should be David Cronenberg. That should be Sarah Polly. That should be, you know, Seth Rogen. I don't know. Somebody, like, you know, Canadian Famos.

Like, get them in there. Get him on camera. I say all of this as unrealistic, as if I didn't lock eyes with unnamed, sure, we'll say celebrity in the Scotia Bank theater. And I... Are you going to keep everybody's identity a secret, all the celebrities you saw? I mean, I don't want to put this person on Blatt.

I mean, like, this person was there for an obvious reason. But, like, locked eyes, we smiled at each other, and I pitched myself down the stairs. I threw myself down the stairs. I'm just kidding. I didn't. Spiritually, I send it, though. Man, I'm out here telling the stories of the time I saw Amy Adams on an airplane. and, you know, followed behind Diana Ross's entourage through customs, and you're keeping all this bottle.

Fine, I'll say, I locked eyes and we smiled at each other with Marianne John Baptiste. Marianne John Baptiste, people. You know what that means to me. I am not the type of person to go up and say hi, and I think she's on her way to a screening. But that was enough. That was good. Here's my thing. TIF does such a good job of, and I'm going to say this complementarily, self-mythologizing. I think they do a very good job of sort of marketing themselves and how, and their sort of place within the firmament, you know, film-wise, but also Canadian-wise. And yet, puzzlingly so. They don't put their volunteer ads out on their YouTube page. And it's like, there's no real reason for it. There's no reason to keep. this veil of secrecy. It's not like, well, if I can get the TIF volunteer ad for free,

I'm not going to spend my money on TIF tickets or anything. I just think it would be fun. Similarly, the ad from several years ago that I always bring up where Christopher Plummer narrates the This is Canadian content and we're proud of it, nowhere to be found anywhere. Like, there are so many classic TIF clips on their YouTube page, just like put in a super cut of like, your You're your pre-roll stuff. People like that stuff. People literally... They're like this, and where are two of them?

People literally shout out pirate noises at the piracy warning, and they clap along to the, to the, you know, to the various bulgary and Varda lounge ads. So, like, clearly, this is a thing that your community values. By the way, listeners, if I sound like I am in an increasing range of vocal distress, it's because, I am. My poor immune system, as soon as I got home, my immune system was like, and I'll see you in a week. It's almost a say we've had max three and a half hours of sleep in the past week every night. I could use some sleep. I could use some water. Like, there are, there are aspects of good, healthy living that we have bypassed over the last week. But you know what? I'm going to, I'm going to soldier on through this episode for you all. Because, you know,

If we wanted a nutrient during this whole festival, there was only one thing we could say to each other because you can't get any type of sustenance that is not, you know, fried food in and around the festival, unless you go to Ravi Soups, which shout out to the good people of Robbie Soups, Joe, I can't believe I got through a whole festival without looking at you and saying, oh, well, we could Robbie Soups. You can't make me laugh. I will hurt my throat if I laugh. Oh, well, we could Ravi soup. We could Ravi soup. I had to miss Ravi soups this year because I had so many things that I still had to keep writing. I had to skip too many screenings. This is all of my own doing. Next year, I am going to prepare better and get my work siloed away.

But you don't care about that. You care about the movies. And we are here. We're here to do that. Joe, let's protect your voce as much as we can. Off the top. First order of business, which we have been Laxon. We apologize. We do apologize for this. You still got a week and a half to get it in. But the Vulture Movie Fantasy League is up this year. Joe has been working hard on that and it is exciting. However, we all need our Gary League this year. And we've been neglecting to tell

you the Gary League name on Mike. We apologize. This year, the Gary League name is Gary's Supreme, capital G, A-R-Y-S, space, capital S-U-P-R-E-E-M-E, Gary's Supreme. Gary's, as in plural Gary's, not in possessive Gary's. So there's no, there's no punctuation here. There's no, whatever, we are, we are Gary's Supreme. Here's the other thing, And again, we do apologize for not communicating this right off of the top. We had a very hectic pre-Toronto moment. If you have already signed up for the movie's Fantasy League and you, not knowing the name of the Gary's League, either put in last year's league name or didn't put in anything and you want to be included, if you find a way, you find a way. way to get in touch with me and I will figure it out. I will, I will find a way either at me

on Blue Sky or on our Patreon comment threads. If you are a patron, and I will find a way. I'm going to help Joe out and jump in and say, tell Joe your mini league name and then he will add you to the Gary's League. So whatever your roster name is. Yeah, tell me your team. Yeah, tell me your roster name. And we can, because one of the things that we do before we start the points accruing phase, which is coming quickly. I should say that the key dates to remember are starting September 26th. That's the date that you need to draft a team if you want to be able to draft any film that has opened from January 1st until January 26th. We do have this year a new thing where we have kind of a rolling sign-up. So you can continue to create a team

up through December 18th, but the later you go past the 26th, you are limited to only films that have not accrued points by then. So the second movie earns a fantasy league point. you can't draft it. The second a movie opens and thus earns a box office point, you can't draft it. So if you want to wait through December 18th, you'll know more, but you'll be more limited in what you can draft. But anyway, yeah, the one thing I said, before we kick off the points earning phase in earnest, we are wonderful managing editor, Anusha, goes through and kind of tidies everything

up, make sure everything, the, you know, uppercase, lowercase, all stuff is uniform and whatever. So we will get everybody who wants to be in the Gary's League, in the Gary's League. But if you are signing up from now until the signups are closed, that is Gary's Supreme. Gary's plural, Y.S. Gary's Supreme. All right. All right. And quickly, I will take over duties of hyping the Patreon.

to protect your voice. Listener, you know we have a Patreon. We call it this head Oscar Buzz Turbulent Brilliance. It's only going to cost you $5 a month. Those of you who are not over there, what are you going to get if you do decide to make the leap and sign up for turbulent brilliance? Well, you're going to get two bonus episodes every month

for that $5. The first is going to come on the first Friday of every month. The theme of this episode is, These are movies that fit that this had Oscar Buzz rubric of great expectations and disappointing results, but managed to score an Oscar nomination or two. These are the type of movies listeners have been asking for us to do from the beginning. The Patreon served a natural place for us to be doing films like, oh, this month's episode on AI Artificial Intelligence, a Stephen Spielberg masterpiece. We've also talked about movies like Contact, Madonna's W.E. Molly's Game, The Lovely Bones, I'm kind of hopping around the history, but we've got a ton of great movies.

Movies we love like Mulholland Drive and Inside Lewin Davis and Far from Heaven. Movies we maybe don't love like Nine or Hitchcock. We've had guest episodes. We're going to have some more guest episodes coming up. But then what's that other second episode, Joe? Well, it's the third Friday of every month, the theme of which we call excursions. These are deep dives into Oscar Ephemoreau. We love to obsess about on this show.

We've talked about the SAG Awards and I'm an actor speeches. We've talked about old entertainment weekly fall movie previews. We've recapped old awards shows like Indy Spirit Awards, MTV Movie Awards, the Golden Globes. This month we are returning to one of our favorite subjects. That is the Hollywood Reporter Actress Roundtables, as voted on by the Patreon on garries, we will be talking about the very overstacked 2015 lineup of eight actresses, including eventual best actress winner, Brie Larson.

So go sign up for This Had Oscar Buzz Turbulent Brilliance over at patreon.com slash this had Oscar buzz. Yes. Now to the festival. Joe, you mentioned before we got into the business section of the episode. things that we missed otherwise that were not films. Let's kind of quickly run down some movies that neither of us saw and we can maybe have small comments of on the round thought about those movies.

The thing about TIF is it is something of a exercise in triage where you have to make some hard decisions as to what needs to be seen before other things and certain things, certain considerations will bump a movie down your list, whether it's that it'll be opening soon, so if you miss it here, you won't have to wait too long, whether it's that the buzz is pretty bad. And so you want to sort of maximize your chance of seeing good stuff. And then, of course, like the vagaries of scheduling and when you have to write things and whatnot. So certain movies definitely fell through the cracks. this year for me, which is too bad because a lot of these movies were ones that I was really looking forward to seeing. This was also, you know, from people who were not at the festival as part of the press score, and also from press, you know, you heard a lot about difficulty in getting tickets out of the ordinary this year. This really felt like TIF was back in a big way that it hasn't been in the recent years

and that you hear about a lot of screenings that a lot of people were getting shut out because the P&I's filled up very quickly. So, like, some of this also is affected by that. I also feel like, anecdotally, maybe the press, the publicists for the various movies

were more inundated with the requests this year or had fewer tickets to distribute this year, one of the two. Because that, ended up being an avenue that I found very useful in previous years that was a lot more arduous this year, let's say. I think the biggest one we should talk about in terms of the one that neither one of us saw is Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein. I think the buzz coming out of Venice and did it also play telluride? Yes, it was one of their surprise ads or sneak previews.

And so the word of mouth on that movie just kept being underwhelming and underwhelming and underwhelming, with the exception, I should say, everybody, most everybody seems to agree that Jacob Alorty is quite good in that movie. But I think that also... Yeah, people seem to have like things here and there that they're positive on, but I would say it's a pretty mixed negative reception. And I think the same goes for, despite the fact that it won a prize at Venice, the smashing machine, Benny Safdi's, The Smashing Machine, starring Dwayne the Rock Johnson and Emily Blunt, which I think underwhelmed. I think it's one of those things where I think when I saw the trailer, I was like, this

looks bad. And then I had started sort of from a combination of hearing from some people who had seen it early and, you know, sort of maybe being a little bit cynical about the way. And again, we're recording this before the People's Choice Awards come out. there's a non-zero chance that audiences respond to this the way that, like, the Venice jury did. Yeah, there's also a strong chance that Frankenstein wins that people's choice, too, because it was clearly the hottest ticket of the festival, even though they were screening it constantly. Yeah.

Not constantly, but, like, after a premiere daily, basically. Yeah. Word of mouth on smashing machine was bad, and it's opening very soon. So I did not have a ton of urgency to see that one. Talk about the voice of Hindra Job, because you, really wanted to check that one. I tried to get a ticket to it. I could not score a ticket. It was, you know, the voice of Hindrajab won the grand jury prize at, so basically second place at Venice. It wasn't always available on our press ticketing thing. I don't know why that is. I think

they moved the screenings around or something. Heard universally positive things about it. I believe watermelon pictures is releasing it this year, so we should have a chance to see it. So the Tunisian submission, which Calder Benhannia, previously nominated for Four Daughters, which Joe is a huge fan of. I really loved Four Daughters. The Four Daughters is also a movie that blended documentary and, like, a narrative reenactment into one. And I believe there is an aspect of that, from what I hear in the Voice of Hindra Job as well. There's also been, I wouldn't say controversy, but I would say debate over the film's use of... Use of Hindra Shob's audio.

Right. Like, real-life audio. This is a movie about... Red Crescent trying to rescue Hindra Shob. And so there's a, there's, there is some debate around critics from what I had heard that even on the Venice jury, there was, internal debate over how much certain people like the movie, I think initially there was a reductive sort of notion that Alexander Payne, the jury president, was opposed to it, and other people were not. And then the more you really heard about it, that there was a lot more of a sort of nuanced debate, particularly between, particularly among Middle Eastern critics who not, not. Everybody sort of was cool with that tactic in the movie.

So it'll be interesting to see when the movie comes out how, you know, how it's received in that way. Obviously, a few more hot button issues right now than what's going on in Gaza, the genocide in Gaza. Would have loved to have seen the film P&I conflicted with a assignment I had, and then I couldn't get a ticket for. a movie that I think you probably heard a or at least I can say I heard wildly different responses from the few people I talked to is Nuremberg. James Vanderbilt's take on the Nuremberg trials where Gables, it's Gables, Russell Quo plays Gables, right? Gherbles, yes. And Rami Mollick plays essentially a court-appointed psychologist who is set to interview the folks, the Nazis, the folks.

And Michael Shannon is also, I believe, a lead of the movie. Michael Shannon's a lead. Leo Woodall, I believe, has a pretty big role between that and Tuna. I think Leo Woodall was one of those people who were kind of a bit of a TIF breakout that I didn't see either one of his movies. I'm seeing it in New York, Nuremberg, soon, and that's,

it's one of those things where the trailer looked a little cringy, but in a way that like, oh, this could be maybe like more mainstream popular, and maybe that's what they're going for. Well, yeah, it felt like the type of trailer designed to put butts in seats

rather than the movie might be a little bit more, you know, nuanced and not agro. And the more we can get a wide, audience to um see a movie about how we should be prosecuting uh yeah white supremacists and fascists yeah get in the spirit of of prosecuting people for crimes against uh democracy and et cetera yeah yeah um two movies i would qualify as saying bad buzz that we didn't see is ballot of a small player which i didn't hear a single person say anything say anything positive about it though most of the people i talked to saw it at tell you ride not here so i'd be curious if it's a

had maybe a better audience reception here. And then I would say the only thing with really like nuclear buzz was sacrifice the Romaine Gavris like wealthy satire where there's a, Andrew Taylor Joy

leads a terrorist group that infiltrates like a rich donor party. A fairly starry cast from what I remember looking at Salma Hayek Pino is in that movie. Chris Evans. Chris Evans is in that movie. I heard it compared pejoratively to the films of Rubin Ostland a couple of times, which, and it was

people who clearly had a very low opinion of Rubin Ostland compared it to his movies. So it's in that sort of vein. So yes, I could have stayed an extra morning and taken the late train and seen sacrifice, but I opted not to. Again, I mentioned Tuna, which I heard very good things about and I really wanted to see that's the Leo Woodall Dustin Hoffman I believe it's a heist movie but like from

also played tell you ride yes who was the director of that one mildly positive buzz yeah is that a director who had done anything honestly don't remember I don't either it's fine we're just going to try and breeze through these ones because we haven't seen them so we don't have a ton to say this season sorry Seth Rogen

Keanu Reeves comedy Good Fortune A lot of people said was the people I talked to That's how it liked it said it's a good comedy I feel like Katie liked it yeah It's like kind of just a comedy that showed up there Erupsia I believe is how it's pronounced the Charlie XX debut that showed up on the first night and then I Charlie XX by the way also in sacrifice from what I understand

Sure sure she's in a billion movies including the Iraqi coming up Yeah people I did not hear anything past day two of that movie because I think people kind of forgot about it. But I think that was a day one movie that a lot of people fit into their schedule because it was so short. Yeah, an hour and 10 minutes. And mostly they were just like, yeah, it was good. Charlie's pretty good.

Like that kind of thing. Paul Greengrass is The Lost Bus starring Matthew McConaughey and America Ferreira had apparently a very strong premiere. We didn't see it. You can watch it on Apple very soon. Didn't talk to a lot of people who saw it, though I heard positive things. And then like the quiet movie. that I think we would have maybe liked to see

but didn't. The coral coming. Ray Fines needs a coral. Which the Nicholas Heitner movie, Nicholas Heitner, of course, the guy who made the history boys. I sort of expected that to at least have like pleasant good buzz. I think that movie

was probably a casualty of a lot of screening face-offs because it screened very early in the festival when they're really like aggressively screening all the Sundance and Cannes against each other. Things that are known quantities that people still have to catch up to, including Nouveauvog, which neither of us saw, but should be able to see very soon on Netflix.

The Richard Linklater movie about the making of Breathless, yes. The afterlife comedy, Eternity with Elizabeth Olson and Miles Teller and Callum Turner. I did hear some a little bit late, positive buzz. Well, we met those nice ladies at the elevator that they really love the movie. That is true. That's among the good buzz that I had heard about that. So, intrigued. didn't hear a G.D. word about Alejandro Amanabar as the captive, which was a, I believe, two and a half hour movie about Miguel de Servantes, the guy who wrote Don Quayette.

What if Cervantes was gay, basically. And then, Ammanabar premiered a movie at Toronto that had no buzz. Shocker. I know. And then James McAvoy's directorial debut, which my conspiracy theory thing is the stories that went around of James McAvoy getting punched at a bar. I'm like, this could be fake, right? Like, this could be, they're trying to drum up some attention for this movie. Let's not indulge in conspiracy theory for conspiracy theory's sake here. All right, we're closing in on a half hour, though.

Let's talk about the movies we did see. Okay. Especially the TIF premieres, because I do feel like a lot of the movies that got Best Buzz are stuff that did premiere, and we'll talk about those in a second. But in terms of the TIF premieres, I did think it was kind of. kind of a rough year for TIF premieres, and it kind of colors my assessment of the festival overall, with the exception, I would say, the notable exception of Ryan Johnson's Wake Up Dead Man, which is the third film in the Ben-Wa-Blanc series. I think my initial assessment of this movie was probably a little more underwhelmed than it deserved because I was still kind of

trying to process. It's definitely less overtly funny than Glass Onion. Glass Onion was a hoot and holler when that thing screened at Princess of Wales. And in this one, there's some very unsubtle political allegory, which I think is fine. I think Ryan Johnson has something to say. I think there will be people who don't like that aspect of it who find that it's taking whatever like easy shots and like oh no there's a trump figure oh no whatever to me i think it feels to me like a movie that is made for never trumpers which i find to be intriguing um but mostly

i walked away being kind of blown away with josh o'connors josh connor's incredible in this movie i saw people go to the extreme of calling this movie a two-hander which it's not it's no But it is less interested in the ensemble than some of the previous ones. But I think the trade-off you get is, like, seriously one of Josh O'Connor's best performances. I will say, I think the underwhelming nature of the ensemble, to me, is mostly if you went to this movie to see some good Andrew Scott stuff. Because Andrew Scott, I think, is one of the people most sort of underserved by the script. and maybe that role would have been better off being cast with somebody less with less of a maybe name value, whatever. But like, Carrie Washington gets her moment.

I think Daryl McCormick from Good Luck to You, Leo Grand, if anybody ever saw that movie, gets a decently important role. Glenn Close certainly has her moments. And Josh Brolin is a, you know, a fairly important figure. But, yeah, this movie is more a Josh O'Connor movie than anybody else's, and more than, more than Knives Out was an Ada-Darmus movie, more than Glass Onion, certainly was a Janelle Monet movie. This is, this is Josh O'Connor's show, and he walks away with that movie, both comedically and I would say dramatically, he really, really nails some, like, tricky sincerity in that movie. I would also say that, like, this is like, I immediately came away from that movie. I was like, oh, on a thematic level, this is like a beefy movie. I think it's the most thematically rich of the trilogy and probably my favorite of the trilogy.

And I think, you know, you mentioned, like, it's taking kind of cheap shots. I wouldn't say that it's taking, I think Glass Onion takes cheaper, more obvious shots. I think that there is, yes, there is like obvious correlaries to contemporary society and certain types of people, but I think it's not really a movie that's trying to be prescriptive about where we are now and is kind of trying to get to the sole root of the issue for a lot of people and, you know, how to move forward. I will say it's a movie that has sit well, sit very well with me. Like in the days since I've seen it, it's really been a rewarding movie to kind of like turn over in your head. Yeah. And it's, if all of this sounds vague, we're trying to, you know, keep the pleasure of how

this movie unfolds itself to you and not spoil anything for people. I think it's hard to talk about. It's a murder mystery. We know that. It's a murder mystery. It has to do with the Catholic Church, both Josh O'Connor and Josh Brolin play priests. Yeah, the other characters sort of fill out the ensemble. Daniel Craig is back as Benoit Blanc. His hair is not my favorite of the hairstyles in the three. there is as was the case with the certainly with glass onion there's some actor cameos that I don't want to spoil including one that kind of unlocks the movie a little bit so there's some good stuff there's a needle at least one needle drop that delighted me so good stuff there I think it'll also delight Gary's if we're thinking of the same one one I kind of need the Golden Globes to nominate Josh O'Connor, though, this year. Like, I know getting him an Oscar nomination is going to be tough, but, like, Daniel Craig has gotten a Globe nomination, I believe.

Did Jean Monnet get a Globe nomination for Glass Onion? I don't think so. I don't think so other critic's choice or something like that. She got. It might have been critics' choice. I do also think, you know, as much as we also don't want to spoil Josh O'Connor's performance, we don't want to spoil. anyone else in the ensemble, I think without getting too far into any plot mechanics, I think it's one of the better of the three Daniel Craig performance. Maybe not the best, but one of, like,

it's at least second place, if not first place. And then Glenn Close, I think they should do it. They should go for it. They should go for it hard. Get her that Isabella Rossellini supporting actress Murder Mystery Oscar. Do it. Do it. I think she's, she's quite good. I also, as you saw, if you follow me on letterboxed, there's a discussion I want to have once this movie opens about this movie serving as Glenn Close making an apology for advancing the career of J.D. Vance with Hillbilly Ellogy. And that's all I will say. Let's keep it moving to another movie, a movie we did not like Rental Family, which I think as soon as that trailer dropped and knowing that this is a searchlight movie, a lot of people put expectations on it. This stars Brendan Fraser as an American actor living in Japan who is basically supporting himself through small gigs like commercials, etc. and he gets hired by a basically performance firm where they place actors in the lives of their clients to basically, you know, act out things that they otherwise could not act out. You know, imagine like if Nathan Fielder's, the rehearsal was group therapy.

Or if you've seen Yorgos-Lanthamos's Alps, there's. A version of Alps that you could, like, watch with your grandmother. That's rental family. But I think the other, the crucial difference is Alps understands how this goes very easily dark, how hiring an actor to play, let's say, an absent family member, or, you know, a boss who just fired you, who you want to, like, tee off on or something like that, that, you know, where these things could go dark. And I think rental family is so insistent on being a heartwarming movie that it ends up sort of infuriating you. I found it to be deeply phony. Now, it is your contention, I believe, that this movie has no shot at having a presence in award season. And I'm not entirely sure I agree with that.

I mean, that was my immediate reaction walking out of the theater because I thought the movie was bad. And I think it has no conflict throughout the movie until, like, the final 50s. minutes. Like this thing you're saying where it's like the movie avoids the any type of darkness that could come from this concept, this, you know, idea of people being surrogates for whatever someone's gone through or going through. I think it goes so far into that that there's no real tension or conflict. You know, Brendan Fraser's character basically gets everything out of his interactions with these clients out of his very first, you know, what do you want to call it, session than he ever does throughout the whole movie. I think the idea of is,

there's especially a plotline with a little girl where it's like, could you do this to lie to a little child, a little sweet child? You know, it really avoids any of that type of tension or of thought until the very end of the movie. Well, and I think my problem was that it's so incredibly obvious that what they're doing will lead to these complications, that it's not even, it's, it's, it's not even a question. It's one of those things where it's just like, and I think it goes beyond just being like, oh, these characters are so stupid. Why don't they know what I know?

It's literally just like, the entire premise is so. phony because, like, it, it just requires such a, such a leap in imagining that, you know, anybody wouldn't see on its face how having somebody step in and play a father, the, not a father figure, but, like, the father to a young girl and essentially just, like, knowing, and knowing that you're, you know, this is a temporary gig. Anyway, I want to mention what Brendan Fraser said before my screening. Oh, he said it before mine, too, and I was like, give me a break. So it's this very practiced, obviously, positioning.

He said that the movie is a love letter to Tokyo, which that is fine. And I do feel like there is a palpable sort of sense of, you know, fondness for Tokyo in the movie. A movie that is a love letter to Tokyo. but the emotional climax of the movie, not instead in Tokyo. Well, there you go. A love letter to Tokyo addressed to loneliness anywhere and sealed with a cherry blossom kiss, at which point I demanded he hand his Oscar back on the spot. We're going to get into Hamnet, but if anybody thinks that the breathing exercises before Hamlet are cringy,

him saying that is like ten times crinchier to me. And then on his way out, he was. who's got the box of tissues, which I wrote about this at Vulture, sort of contrasting that with Hamnet. And the ways in which sort of guaranteeing a, a, you know, cathartic cry for your movie is a bit of a double-edged sword. And when it delivers, as it did with Hamnet, you become the talk of the town. And when it doesn't, the people for whom it doesn't work, I think end up really presenting the movie as I, like, I was watching rental family and there were definitely sniffles around me. So like it worked for some people. But it didn't not work. I think also like the stuff on the periphery of rental family is more interesting. Every time that it's like about the business, which ultimately has nothing to do with Brendan Fraser, that's the most interesting stuff. I wanted more of that. There's a moment where like the third. three people who run the business have to like trek him down and it becomes this kind of manic almost Charlie Kaufman like flirting with that type of strangeness. It's it would have definitely

worked better as a more overt comedy or like a like I Heart Huckabee's kind of a you know thing. And I hate to have this criticism about literally anything but it also felt like it would be better as a TV show, you know, because if you're trying to strike this tone, you're trying to like have this tapestry of all these different clients and also deal with the business. Like you could probably do that better in a TV show. I also thought Fraser, while not actively bad, he's definitely better in this than he is in the whale. I still think he's kind of miscast. Like the, he's no Bill Murray and Lost in Translation. Yeah. The better version of this movie in every direction is a movie that doesn't get made because I'm like, this movie is 10 times better if Reed Burning.

or an actor like Reed Bernie is the lead because he's right for it and Fraser is it but like this movie doesn't get made if Reed Bernie is the lead yeah

all right let's talk about Roof Man a movie that I liked but I think you really liked like I think you were kind of the most effusive person I had seen I definitely talked to people

who were more effusive than me I really liked it I mean I certainly viewed it through the lens of C in France and also Channing Tatum Like, this is, it's the true story of this man who, in the late 90s, early 2000s, went to jail for robbing about 40 or 50 McDonald's, going through the roof of the building every time. So that's how he gets this name Roofman. And he breaks out of jail and hides out in a Toys R Us, meanwhile falling in love, I think the harshest critics of this movie would say manipulating.

a woman in her family at the same time while trying to evade capture. Channing Tatum is the lead guy. This character is shown as having a family before prison and like just the type of like trying and failing constantly

dude that like is C. and France's specialty. Like this is about a very C in France guy. And I think Channing Tatum is so good in this movie and like a perfect fit for C. and France's vibe, you know, like, this is kind of my suspicion going into this movie that I would feel this way, and I was happy that I did, because, like, give me another C.N. France movie starring Channing Tatum today. Like, I think he fits as well into his milieu as much as Ryan Gosling does. It's obviously C.N. France trying for a more comedic tone. I think the balance is right. And, like, it's not like he ever misfired.

on the comedic tone. It's clear that it's not his strongest suit. Otherwise, it would be a stronger movie. But I really liked it. And I think Channing Tatum is a good fit for him. I think it's a really kind of fun role for Tatum. It's, I don't know why so many things are reminding me of the Martian these days, but like the way in which he sort of like was able to figure out how to go on living in this Toys R Us and to sort of build his little kingdom behind the display wall of the bicycles or whatever. I was like, that's all really clever. I liked that. I think you're right that, like, this is Derek C. in France trying to do something more comedic, more accessible, more mainstream, yada, yada. My issue with that is, I'm in favor of it if it pays off. I don't think

this kind of a movie has an audience for it theatrically anymore. Like, I don't think people go to the movies to see a movie like Roofman anymore, which is. is my worry. And so then I'm left with, I wish it was the kind of Derek C. and France movie that has that, like, extra gear to it that really sort of, like, hits you in your gut and sort of, like, feels like it's, you know, saying something that really kind of connects with you. I think Roofman falls short of that, certainly falls short of, like, something like the Place Beyond the Pines, which I realize that, like, a lot of people, really don't care for that movie.

So, like, when I say it's no place beyond the pine, some people are, like, good. Right. And it also kind of lacks the visceral visual quality of that, and even Blue Valentine. You know, I think even the aesthetic of the movie is going for something more mainstream. But it's also, like, the aesthetics are dealing with nostalgia at the same time. So it was interesting, like, having Tickle Me Elmo visual gags from C in France. I will say also, if you are a fan of The Place Me on the Pines, A, Emery Cohen is in this movie. Emery Cohen, who has sort of followed a Brady Corbe sort of visual trajectory.

And it's just like two little sort of like twerpy guys who now have sort of like filled out into these kind of like dad bod, you know, eras. I have grown to be really fond of Emery Cohen. So I was very happy that he shows up in this. He gets kind of a pivotal role. And then Ben Mendelssohn, where's a Hawaiian shirt and sings songs? Sing's Christian tunes. Sings Christian stuff. He even Uzo Aduba sing at the church group.

And honestly, I will say, too, between Roofman and Wake Up Dead Man, there's a little mini trend of like finding the good in organized religion and faith, which I think is... Testament of Man Lee, too, which we're going to get to. It's an interesting. trend in that, like, I think you can sort of see it a little bit in culture, too, where people are being like, well, you know, in this world where we've lost real world spaces where we can, like, encounter each other and come together, maybe, you know, a not bigoted, not harmful version of religion would be good for some people.

Well, and wake up dead man definitely deals with that more directly. just in the effort of moving things along, the last Tiff World premiere that we both saw was Stephen Soderberg's The Christophers. Joe, would you like to tell us about the Christophers? I have no idea when people are going to end up being able to see the Christophers. I do have this, like, sort of thought of, like, oh, is this just going to be another Soderberg movie that, like, premieres on HBO Max sometime in, like, April or whatever, and it is the rare Sodaberg movie that feels almost like a chamber piece a little bit, that feels very kind of, it's not strictly a two-hander between Ian McKellen and Michael Cole. There's characters played by James Corden and Jessica Gunning. But I think for all intents and purposes, this is Ian McKellen, Michaela Cole, a very sort of cavernous and sprawling London townhouse. A townhouse that is somehow two townhouses, but I could never really figure out how they were connected.

I imagine like some walls just got like blown out at some point over the years. But anyway, McKellen plays a painter who is past his prime who is sort of been. reduced to recording cameos for various people in his studio. It's also mildly canceled, not like, ostracized. He's more so, like, ostracized because he, like you say, he's past his prime. He's, you know, he's, you know, adherent to the old ways. He has no use for, you know, millennials or, God forbid, Gen Z. You know what I mean?

Most he's canceled for being an asshole, not for doing something bad. Right, yeah. Right. Michaela Cole is hired by his rotten-ass kids, James Corden and Jessica Gunning, to finish a unfinished series of paintings of his so that they will eventually, after he dies, be able to sell them. Michaela Cole has her own sort of past with this character that gets sussed out. You get a feeling that it's going to be this sort of like battle, cross-generational battle between the two of them, but it's a much more interesting story than that. I think Ed Solomon wrote the script for this. Ed Solomon, who wrote Men in Black, among other things. It's a really interesting movie that features, I think, a pretty incredible Ian McCallon performance.

I loved him in this. And I was so happy he couldn't attend the festival. He sent a video because his doctors advised him not to fly over the ocean, which sort of, you know, gave me the just. the jumblies in my something, I'm just like, oh, Ian McKellen's old. And the movie kind of plays into that a little bit, where he's, you know, how many more chances are we going to get for Ian McKellen to put bravura acting like this on screen? And thank you to Steven Soderberg and Ed Solomon for doing that because he's so fucking good. It's so great. He's so great in this movie. And like, the dialogue-heavy nature of this movie, I think probably puts both of us in a

position to like it a lot more than some of the people I've seen. I think, I think I've seen even people who are positive being a little unfair towards this movie. It's a great time. It's a great two-hander. They're both really great. But like Ian McCullen, if this is going to be one of the performances, like, you know, sad to say, but if it's one of the ones he goes out on, he's going out on such a high. I thought of Peter O'Toole getting nominated for Venus sort of late in life. And I was like, wouldn't it be nice? Wouldn't it be nice for Ian McAllen to get a Venus-esque nomination?

Yeah, I walked out and said if this was 2004, Ian McCollin would be walking away with the best actor Oscar. He's so good and so funny in the movie. Yeah. Yes. Some movies that premiered at the fall festivals but did not world premiere at Toronto, that we both saw, Joe, let's get into Hamlet. I almost don't want to go into Hamlet too much because I feel like we're going to be talking about it a lot over this award season.

I'm also afraid people are going to get so annoyed by this movie before, because all of the talk of everybody crying. It's pretty delicate. It's pretty, like, you, it's, you really have to surrender yourself to it, especially in the early going. Because, like, obviously, there are big emotions. The story of it is, it is, it is. No spoiler to say it is the story of William Shakespeare and his wife Agnes and their family, their oldest son, dies of the plague, essentially. These are all things that are known. Well, they're not known. We don't know that he died that way. It's just we knew at that time that one and four children did die of the plague.

Well, but we knew that he had a child who died, and that that child was the namesake for Hamlet, to play Hamlet. But there's a lot of movie that comes before that, and I think the delicacy of that movie, whatever, the delicateness of that movie is very important to getting you emotionally to where you are at the end of the movie. and I think it's not going to be a movie that will serve, that will be served well by kind of concrete expectation. I think go into this movie very open to sort of, again, sort of surrender to especially the Jesse Buckley character. She plays a very interesting character. It's far more interesting than just like grieving mother. It really, really is. And I think it's a movie that kind of transports you into a headspace and ideas that are not immediately apparent by the logline of the movie.

And I think it's incredibly shrewdly made. You mentioned that it's kind of building to the place that it ultimately goes to. I think the finale of this movie is so powerful. But is the type of thing that rides a razor's edge of it could have been ridiculous. but because Chloe Jow is such a smart filmmaker, the whole movie feels constructed towards building to earning what it ultimately does, and I think it does entirely. Here's the other thing is there are going to be people who don't like this movie. There are going to be people who don't jive with this movie, and I think ultimately

that's part of the deal. You know what I mean? Like, I think this is a movie that is very very... much sort of trying for something deeply emotional. And I think there are certain people who are not going to click with this. I think there are certain people who just don't click with Chloe Jow's vibe in general. And you're going to see that. And ultimately, I'm ready for that. I'm, you know, I'm not going to get, unless it's a real unfair assessment. And I've seen one of those. One of those that it was like, all right, we got it. Like 10 words into your like 3,000 word triadist against the movie. It's like, we got it, dude. It's padded cell fucking shit.

Anyway, I really liked it. I think it holds up. I think we're going to be talking about it, a bunch of throat awards season. I think I would like to pump the brakes on any kind of like put Jesse Buckley's name on the Oscar statue right now, just because this is not the time to be narrowing the field. This is the time to be expanding. I agree, while also out the other side of my mouth, I'm going to say, it's over. It's over. It's over.

Like, she's winning an Oscar. But I fundamentally agree with you. We should not be narrowing the field. However, I do think, though maybe there's case examples that would prove me wrong. If it's like we have someone so far out, we could get we're more interesting nominees. Fourth and fifth nominees? It's possible. It's possible.

I would also close the Hamnet conversation for, like, for anyone who hasn't seen it online at both this and tell your ride, what the hubbub was is Chloe Jow is ahead of the screenings, is leading the audience in a breathing exercise. She only did this twice, right? I think she did it every time in tell you ride. How many times it did screen and tell you ride, though? I don't know how many times they screen things there, but multiple times over a weekend. the effort is to like center yourself become like a part of the audience that you are with blah blah blah blah I know that it causes a lot of eye rolls I think they should stop doing it immediately so that like the movie doesn't get negative word on it but what I will say to anyone rolling their eyes without getting spoilery about the movie this exercise is is in service of the movie, and in service of what the movie is going for. I will also say, if in 2025 you're going to act surprised that somebody in Hollywood is being a bit woo-woo, then I'm not sure where you've been.

So, you know, make your peace with it. But then see the movie, and it's like as woo-woo as the movie is, it's really intelligently made. Another movie we both saw, Park Chan-Wook's no other choice. Yes. Not the movie that I was expecting, but I really enjoyed it. It is very much a dark comedy, very much a, it is a two-and-a-half-hour movie that definitely seems like it's going to be about two or three other movies before it sort of settles into the movie it's going to be. I thought it was going to be a little bit of like a corporate satire. And then I thought it was going to be, oh, can this guy pull off this scheme of having a fake business or whatever?

And then it settles into this like very kind of like dark, soft, almost like not quite horror, but like a thriller, sort of like a soft thriller a little bit while also being very comedic. It's very good. Full of really good performances, I should say, too, like lots of. Li Biong-Hun is so great as the lead. So great. Yes. So I really liked it. Awards prospects, which are not to be all and end all of everything.

I don't know if I see it. It's going to be South Korea's submission for the International Feature Oscar. I think it's on their long list. I don't think they've officially announced yet. But they've got a long list of like 20 movies. But they've submitted. a park before so it's it's very possible it is i'm with you i think i would love to see libyong hun make some headway in the lead actor race because i think that arc is so huge and he aces it and

it he's also still incredibly funny throughout the whole movie it it is an extremely fun movie especially once it finally locks in i think the first hour is a little loose, looser than it could be. But I had a tremendous time with this wild-ass movie. Yeah. Obviously, when you get a chance to see it, highly recommended. Opens Limited on Christmas. One movie we didn't agree on.

And I mostly, I am the fly in the ointment for this movie. I was maybe the only person in our group that saw this movie. We saw it with a group of about six people. I think it was the only one who didn't super care for it. This is the Testament of Anne Lee, the Mona Fastwold movie about the founder of the Shaker religious movement, played by Amanda Seifred. I quite like Amanda Seifred. She's unreal in this movie. I'm so glad that she got an opportunity like this to go to – I don't want to make it sound like, you know, hardship is acting.

but that she really gets to show how robust and thoughtful and physical of a performer she can be for someone who I think often gets reduced to like Mamma Mia and Mean Girls. Sure, yeah. No, that's true. Listen, she was right there with Mank. She said Mank. She's a bunch of that movie. I love her in Mank. She's never not great. She's good in this movie. I don't want to, kind of let this movie off the hook by sort of self-flagellating and being like, I was in a bad mood, I was very tired. But like I do feel like this movie was a little bit of an entrapment situation where it is

the early morning screening in a festival, which like we're all keeping bad hours and getting no sleep. And then you sit there and it is this very, you know, the visual palette is very, you know, very gray and dim and then money browns these songs are so they're repetitive they're almost chanting they're almost yeah it's just like it's very hypnotic slash somnambulant like it's it's designed to lull you to sleep i thought i found it to be an annoyingly snoozy movie, I did not connect to the music at all. Oh, see, I thought the musical sequences were just, like, really through the roof.

I'm kind of annoyed with the whole, like, we're a musical, but it's like, you're not really a musical. You are technically, like, I would not argue that this is not a musical. Oh, I'm so thrown by this critique. If you're going to be a musical, be a fucking musical. It is a musical. There's so many musical sequences. There are. That's the thing.

It is technically a musical, but it does not tell its story through song, I don't think. I would starkly disagree, but I hear you. Yeah, I don't think I talk to anybody about this movie who didn't have some kind of reservation about it. My reservation is you have these, as you say, very hypnotic, kind of outlandish compared to the type of of choreography, camera work that we typically see in a musical or in a period piece. And then it has these wild swings towards these very, very conventional period biopic dialogue scenes, especially in like the last hour of the movie. That, like, that was my reservation that I, you know, I, whenever there wasn't a musical sequence at a certain point, I thought it stopped

kind of being interesting, but those musical sequences are so ecstatic and so singular and not really like anything. Like, the comparison I kept making is like, it's like if Robert Eggers made a Lerman movie. The choreography is obviously not exactly like what the shakers were doing, neither is the music, though Daniel Bloomberg based the music in original spirituals. but it gives you this kind of shocking sense of what it would have been like to live in that society and then see these this like ardent religiosity that's very outside the norm with these people I was really taken with it um Cyford has one particular solo number that I think is the most

conventional musical number in the movie but it's also just like stunning I was like this It's, the movie still doesn't have distribution. I think if it gets released this year, which at this point I kind of don't suspect it will be. I think it would just be absolutely absurd to not include her in the best actress conversation. I think she's kind of through the roof in this thing. Two things I want to mention. One of which Thomas and McKenzie is in this movie, handles the narration. We discover in this movie that, no, Thomas and McKenzie doesn't always have to talk in that baby bird voice.

Like, she does have other vocal intonations, which is... She does a hard pivot away from bird lady into witch. There's a lot of witch stuff happening at TIF this year. The other thing, as I said, and everybody gets mad at me when I say this, there is a number that involves an older, old man running through the woods with like a divining rod. That number is bad. And I said, this is the from penis to vagina of this movie. That number can go. It can go. It, to me, was so cringy. Anyway, cover-up. Laura Poitras's cover-up.

The only documentary I saw at Tiff this year. Coming very, very sort of like Ballyhooed, obviously, Laura Poitras, who won the Oscar for Citizen Four, and then was nominated for all of the beauty and also the bloodshed. This is a essentially more so than I expected, this is a essentially biography of Seymour Hirsch, who is the sort of famed investigative reporter who has worked for the New York Times and the New Yorker, but is essentially kind of an investigative reporting institution unto himself. And it sort of talks about the stories that he kind of made him. his bones on the Milai massacre in Vietnam, certain aspects of the Watergate break-in, the Abu Ghraib story from the Iraq War. And I think cleverly, I think you will probably get some people that will say maybe a bit too subtly ties it thematically to everything that is going on now, particularly with what's going on with Israel and the genocide in Gaza.

I think those connections are made fairly well. I think particularly the section about Milai really lays some good foundation towards this idea of like, you don't want to think that the country is capable of doing something like this on purpose and with intention. and so most people sort of want to look away. And I think that stuff's very powerful. And the movie does kind of just end at the point where you think, ah, now we're going to get into Gaza, and they don't. And Seymourish is not the type of person who's going to give you the, you know,

the quote to help you end your movie. So the movie does end abruptly. He also, there are some interesting parts in the movie where he seems very resistant. to the idea of sitting down for this movie anyway. Like, they talked about how it took 20 years for Laura Poitris to, you know, wear him down to agree to do this movie, and he still seems ambivalent about it. And I think Mark, Open House, co-directing the movie, helps that because he'd worked with Open House before on other projects, not specifically about him.

Yeah, you get a bunch of people sort of talking about how, like, you know, sigh Hirsch is great, but he will, like, you know, he'll cuss a bitch out. But I also, watching this movie, I'm like, I want to hang with you, friend. Like, I want to, like, spend an afternoon just sort of hearing you tell stories because he is a very gifted and natural, I think, speaker and storyteller. And he's just a very compelling figure. And I think the movie succeeds on that level. I am not the one to talk to about, like, is there? this a, you know, spectacular documentary on a filmmaking level.

Sometimes I just want to hear a good story out of a documentary, and I think that's what I get out of this. I mean, I think part of what's special about it is this trust of the audience you're talking about, that it never fully underlines, you know, contemporary concerns in a way that, like, tells you what you should be thinking about. But, like, through just simple juxtaposition, like, you get. it. And I mean, Seymour Hersch is so, this would probably like make him want to run away into the woods. He's so fucking entertaining throughout the whole movie that, like, I think it's really

special. Yeah. Yeah. Recommended. And then other movies we caught up to that we both saw that played other festivals throughout this year. I saw Train Dreams at Sundance, but you did not and you caught up to it this festival. And you saw Train Dreams. via the online portal? Yeah, which is not the way to watch that movie. Listeners, when this movie comes out through Netflix, if you have a, I know that this always sounds patronizing for people like us, but give train dreams a chance in a theater if you have the opportunity to that isn't.

It's a Netflix movie, so it's going to be a challenge for a lot of people. But like, excuse me, if possible, just seek it out that two-week window, right? when it opens. Can you look up while I talk about it? November. Okay. So just keeping out for it. I will say without question, Train Dreams was my number one movie of the festival. I just fell in love with it. And it's funny because it's compared a lot in a lot of the reviews I'm seeing to Malik. And it's not that I don't see that. But like, for whatever reason, I connect to it so much more easily than I connect to Malik stuff. This is Clint Bentley, by the way, who's directing, who was the co-writer on last year's movie Sing Sing. He and Greg Quaid are essentially

work not dissimilarly, maybe, to Mona Fastfold and Brady Corbe, and that like, they both sort of work on the writing. One of them directs one project. One of them directs the next part. I'm so sorry, my voice is going. But I want to talk about this movie so much. You are Merrill winning. her globe tribute, your voice will suddenly bounce back

when we start talking about politics. It sets, it starts in the sort of 19 teens. Joel Edgerton

plays a man who's working as a logger in the sort of mountain northwest and Idaho area.

And it just sort of follows this character as the kind of first half of the 20th century sort of rolls on through. And he's, you know, he has a very formative experience early on where he witnesses a Chinese railroad worker being dragged off, excuse me, being dragged off by two people and,

and thrown off a bridge. And it, it's, and I don't think that's too much of a spoiler to say. I mean, it's a harrowing movie. But it's a thing that sort of informs a lot of what happens with him in the ways in which he kind of views a little bit, you know, the capricious nature of, you know, of fate, essentially. Like there are, you know, certain characters end up with certain things happening to them, and there's not a ton of rhyme or reason. this Edgerton character kind of just sort of takes it all in. You get Will Patton narrates. I mean, this like omniscient sort of perspective. When we talk about voice acting Oscars, we're always talking about like someone in an animated movie. But if we had a voice acting Oscar, I would be so annoying about getting it for Will Patton this year. The Will Patton narration is just like touched by the gods. It's crazy. It's so good. But it's just, it is a movie that feels very wisely observational.

Like, it has these really kind of, I like sitting in the headspace of this movie. I like sitting in the, and like, the visuals are very beautiful because you have these, like, these, you know, forest scenes. and there's a scene of a fire and everything. There are even these like interiors that take place by the like, you know, gaslight of these, you know, little lamps or whatever. Everything looks lit so beautifully. The score, which, excuse me, from the best of my knowledge, and I want to get somebody at Netflix to sort of delineate this, Bryce Destner from the National is credited with a lot of the score, but also Nick Cave also has contributions. Nick Cave does an original song. I think Edgerton's just fantastic in it, in a role that is not going to be Oscar baity because it is so that's based in stillness and it's based in quietness.

Felicity Jones plays his wife, but like you get actors showing up for very short, but I think very impactful moments. William H. Macy has an incredible section of this movie. Carrie Condon shows up just when you need her, just when you need her. Clifton Collins, Jr. is around for a moment. I love it. It's on, it's, it's, cannot imagine it won't end up being in my top two or three movies of this year. Like, if it's not, that means that the end of the year really, like, brought it.

I know, I know. That's, that's my feeling about some of the, I'm so glad that you love this movie. And I'm so glad that you also are side-eyeing the mallet comparisons because it's just like the kind of movie that's made to get those comparisons. But then when people do make those comparisons, but then when people do make those comparisons. It's super superficial and lazy, because, like, I

don't really see Malik in this movie either. It's like, people just think that the signifier of Malick's style is, like, filming something outside, like, you know, filming on location. There's not of Malik's sort of religiosity to the

movie. There's not of Malik sort of withholding to this movie. I think the kind of spirituality of Malik and this movie are not The same, you know, as much as, you know, this, as much as, you know, this movie has its removed to it, it's not remote, you know, I think that this is an accessible movie in a way that people often criticize Malik. I don't like this as a Netflix movie. I'm really, I know. It's so ill-suited, I think, to Netflix. I think, even beyond just the seeing it in a movie, but also see it in a theater. But, like, it's on the bench behind, at the very least, Jay Kelly and House of Dynamite and perhaps other, you know, Netflix interests.

Frankenstein for as much as it didn't really get a great run through the festivals is going to be a priority for, at the very least, Crafts nominations. So I can't help but imagine that, and I think it's once again, you know, after. Clint Bentley and Greg Quaidar kind of went through this with A-24 and Sing-Sing last year. Sing-Sing was A-24, right? That was the problem, that they had too many other priorities. And to all of a sudden be in this situation again, I'm very frustrated for them. I think Train Dreams is kind of well-positioned given the festival responses to Jay Kelly and Frankenstein. Because I think if more people see it and more people have as passionate of a response as you have,

And I really like this movie. I feel like I've only talked to people who are very positive on this movie. But I do feel like I'm going to have to, like, twist some arms to, like, get people to see it. Because it does feel like it's... I watched the trailer, and I made the Aanthese Trainsies Dreams joke, because it does... And you know I love David Lowry, but I do love a good Anthem Body Saints joke as well. My number one movie of the festival. Yes.

Let's hear it. It was just an accident. this year's Palm Door winner. What a great movie. Along with no other choice, I was like, oh, he's doing a Cohen's. Like, this is kind of a Cohen's movie as no other choices, but like very much distinctly in those directors' voices. I feel like both of those movies, I could be like, if you like Cohen Brothers movies, you're

going to like this. And it might get more people to see it than otherwise would have. My glib little nutshell description was Death and the Maiden meets search party, which just marinate in the possibilities of that for a second. It was just an accident. It's about a man and then several people who also get involved who believe that they come across their former torturer from prison and the impulse and then moral conundrum of should we? we make ourselves, this person, pay for what they've done to us. It sounds incredibly heavy. It certainly gets to some really, like, ground-shaking moments, especially towards the end. I think this probably has the final scene of the year of all movies.

But this movie is also incredibly funny. It's very funny. Up until maybe the final 15 minutes. it's up this movie. This movie is so funny. Yeah, I hope people get the chance to see it. Neon's putting it out. Neon has a lot of movies this fall, so it's hard to tell what their priorities are. I feel like it's going to be this movie because they're getting it out in October, and then they'll have a whole season to make sure that people are seeing and loving this movie. It's also a big international co-production. Obviously, the whole story with Jafar Panahi being,

he had been you know jailed in Iran and then essentially exiled and but this there's a lot of countries that could claim this movie as its international feature I was to be Francis submission I think they would be smart to select it I kind of want I kind of want Luxembourg to do it just I don't know how that works if France shortlists it I don't know and doesn't select it can another country short. I know that this is why the whole thing is kind of a maddening process and we're going to, you know, we come back

again to Unbecoming a guinea fall last year and how we were hoping that, you know, the movie film council. Yeah. Well, you know, this is just like a great movie that I think you know,

hopefully, hopefully it reaches the Academy's taste. I'm bracing for this to not go well just because the movie's so great another movie I think... Can we talk about the movie that knocked me on my ass the most that I was like... I was planning

already to see it at a different screening and I was like, Joe, you're going to need to see this movie, you're going to need to see this movie. I just, from the things I've heard, you need to see this movie and you got to see it before I did is Sirot. Oliver Lachet's Surat which like for most of the festival was running as my favorite and then I saw

Panahi at basically the end of the festival. Sirot is set in the deserts of Morocco where these raves are happening in the desert And a father and son Traveling band of ravers Yeah You know a lot of people have made the Mad Max comparison Because these ravers moving through the desert

Are in these giant like trucks and rigs To, you know Travel from rave to rave to rave to rave To me it's climax It is desert climax Climax is not a bad comparison to this movie Yeah What was my comparison?

Climax, I think, is definitely a better comparison, too. Everyone compares it to Sorcerer. Yeah, I have to see Sorcerer now. It's a father and son have traveled to Morocco in search of a lost daughter who they believed to be on these, like, rave quests. They meet some ravers. She's gone missing. Well, she could be at this secret second rave across the desert and, you know, they

transport and bad things happen. Listener, this is a very dark movie that we won't spoil for you. Okay, yes, that is true, but also, like, bad things do happen, but it's not, I don't want to, like, oversell that either because, like, there are also, like, personal connections are made and sort of bridges are built between very different types of people, people who sort of, like, live, you know, have these very different sort of outlooks on life. Sergei Lopez plays the father of this missing daughter, and he's obviously very wary. He's not, he's not, he doesn't bring a ton of anger to these people, but he does not fully, you know, trust them or know their way of life. And his young son is more, you know, amenable to that. And so you see a little bit of on the father's face, a little bit of like, oh, am I going to like, you know, lose another child to the Is he going to run away with these ravers at some point?

Because, you know, they're getting along. Because they're, like, the cool, like, crowd. But then in the second half, yes, like, it takes some twists and turns that you, some of which you may see coming and some of which I can't imagine. If you have any chance to see it with a crowd, this is one million percent a movie to see with a crowd. Like, my whole crowd of 500 people was, like, completely breathless through the second act of this movie and

I mean you're right you're right to point out that like for all the darkness that this movie goes to it is kind of also a very transportive transcendent experience because makes a good use of setting makes a good use of sort of you know the natural beauty of its

surroundings and that kind of it. The title of the movie comes from you know the bridge between heaven and hell and you know the Rifters Walk between life and death and like it's very tonally true throughout the movie. The raver sequences are very, very hypnotic and absorbing. Even when they go on for a long time, like, your eye can kind of wander the frame

and just really kind of get lost in it. But this is a movie where the agony and the ecstasy are not all that indistinguishable from one another. You know, things can be both terrifying and exhilarating in this movie. It's getting a qualifying release in November, and then the plan is for it to get a wider release in January. My fear is that we get another Locumeris situation where ultimately that does nothing for the movie because it doesn't get selected by its country as the international feature situation. Do you think it won't? Do you think Spain won't select it? It's one of the three shortlisted movies. One of the others is Romeria from Cannes that was also at Toronto, but I didn't get to see it.

It didn't really make any waves in Cannes. However, Spain has selected Carlos Simone twice before. So I wonder if they might select her again. Am I wrong in that El Mottivar is a producer on Sarat? Yes, he, it's from one of his production companies, I believe. Also, Oliver Lacha is like a seven-foot-tall Galician model. Every person I talked to about this movie was like, I loved Sarat, that director is so hot. Where it's just like, not to be super glib about these things, but, you know, he could very well get this movie very far just by like shaking hands in rooms and being as hot as he is.

And it's just such a great movie, such a great movie. Yes. What's next to him? Last in this kind of category of movies. Blue Moon. I was very happy that you loved this one. I loved Blue Moon. I mean, I'm kind of already in the tank for Blue Moon.

I didn't realize until afterwards. This is Richard Linklater basically in a contained setting of Sardis, looking at Lorenz Hart as, you know, Richard Rogers is opening Oklahoma and starting his partnership with Oscar Hammerstein. Right. And Lorenz Hart is, he's an alcoholic, he's, um, he's, um, he's homosexual, bisexual. Right, right. Has, is sort of going on and on and on about this young woman that he's met, played by Margaret Quali, and sort of, um, you know, sort of, you're never quite sure how much of this, you know, he's hyping up for himself and it only exists in his head. It's a series of mostly conversations. Overlapping, it's not like

discrete conversations where it goes from like one to one to one. You know, he'll talk to Bobby Conavale as the bartender. He'll talk to Patrick Kennedy, who plays E.B. White, who is so good in this movie. The guy who's playing the piano in the bar. Also, by the way, good idea, Richard Linkletter to have a movie where you're just playing

standards for the entire hundred minutes on the piano over the behind all these scenes. It's, I think it's really lovely. I think even at 100 minutes, it does sometimes by the end feel like you've run a marathon because Lauren's heart is a fairly exhausting man in this movie, at least to be around. I'm uniquely prepared to deal with any movie about an asshole. I don't even think he's necessarily an asshole. I think he's just exhausting.

You can see it. Andrew Scott plays Richard Rogers. He shows up. about halfway through the movie, and you can see that weariness on his face of just like, I can't go through this. I can't go through this again. He clearly wants to be able to work with Hart, but you can tell that the process of working with him is arduous.

But like, as Ethan Hawk plays him, first of all, there's some really hilarious, I don't know whether it's forced perspective or he's walking in a ditch or whatever, but like he's famously short. character. There's someone credited in the credits with something to the effect of like height genius or hype magician and truly get a special Oscar for the person to make his diminutive stature is part of his characterization and it really comes across. But he's also just like he's gossipy and he's funny. And again, the conversation that he has with E.B. White I think is easily my favorite aspect of the movie. I think E.B. White, who I guess

wrote his obituary, right? Was that sort of wrote a, wrote an essay sort of memorializing him? But he, I wouldn't say he's necessarily fond of heart during this conversation, but he's compelled by him and he's interested in him. And like, they agree on enough and, you know, they can sort of bond in a way. Yeah, I really like it. I don't know if it's going anywhere. award season, so any pictures classics has it.

Releasing next month. In a Just World, Ethan Hawk would be winning a best actor Oscar for this movie. I don't know about winning, but certainly would be in the mix to be nominated for it in a Just World, absolutely. I just love, I'm you know, I'm a Richard Link Letter guy. I just am.

And there is something he has a gift with conversational cinema that I find to be so up my alley and this movie was so up my alley um i mean my mine as well uh i loved that this you know people if i hear the word stagey one more time about like literally any movie i'm going

to you know call up webster myself and say this move this word is no longer in the english language um i think there's still a lot going on i think through the lens of lorence heart Linklater is ultimately making a movie about what it means to be adored, what it means to need adoration from another person, and, you know... It's also a movie that really gets to this idea that, you know, is present in a lot of artists where, like, I need to be better than crowd-pleasing. I need to... Like, Oklahoma is so anathema to Lauren's heart because it's going to run for, you know, 100 years, because it's going to be played and, you know, performed in high schools and stuff like that.

And he wants to write something challenging and esoteric and complicated and not easy. And I think you can see a little bit where he feels, it feels like he's trapped by that a little bit. And Rogers isn't. I think it's this movie that also, like, doesn't demonize Richard Rogers as being, you know, too soft or too craven for, you know, the public's approval or anything like that. He just wanted to try something different. And Andrew Scott, who's good in the movie, won the supporting performance prize for Lynn, which is kind of odd. I can understand wanting to award this movie for acting period, but, like, that's, I don't think, going to be an awesome. Oscar nomination or really in the conversation.

There's not really much of a hook to it. In a world where this is a Best Picture nominee and like a SAG nominee, maybe. But it's not going to be. But I don't think that's going to happen. I am artificially narrowing the field and I shouldn't be doing that. Right, right. I'm sorry. I feel like I'm making you do that.

Let's move on to movies that only one of us saw. And we'll maybe go through these a little bit more quickly. to help you rest your voice I'll jump into mine I saw Alice Winnicor's Couture in which it's like a tapestry of women in the Paris

fashion industry led by Angelina Joe Lee who stars as a film director who it's very funny that she says I don't know anything about fashion and it's like well you're Angelina Jolie so this is a little silly

however it's the first time in 20 years, 25 years, that Angelina Jolie is just playing a person, and she's very good in the movie. This is basically kind of what I harped on in my review for The Daily Beast. And then, but it's a movie at odds with itself because it also wants to be kind of about everybody, and it doesn't satisfy anybody else's character arc, but her stuff is really good. I've talked to some people who thought that it was kind of like, you know, basic, you know, not to spoil the movie, but like basic cancer diagnosis stuff.

I actually thought it did that stuff really well. And, you know, the performance is really good at that in terms of the displacement it kind of creates. And it's just nice to see Angie be normal. a movie and not like fighting superheroes, fighting spies, or fighting, um, I don't know, fighting, fighting an uninterested public as in Maria. Sure. She's good in Maria, but, you know. I think she's good Maria too, but yes, I agree with it.

This allows her to be a normal person. Uh, quickly, I will say Claire Denise the fence. It is the first Claire Janine movie I did not like. Uh, don't want to harp on Claire. Get them, Claire. I, listen. I'm always in the tank. I don't think that movie's good.

And then John Early's Maddie's secret. I really hope someone buys this movie. John Early, it's his directorial debut, but he also plays this woman named Maddie, who is in the food influencer world in like basically a fake America's Tows kitchen. And she kind of rises in the popularity ranks, while also dealing.

with an eating disorder. Who else is in this movie? Who's the supporting cast? Cape Roland. Is in this movie. Vanessa Bayer is in this movie. Pat Regan is in this movie. And then as John Early's mother,

Kristen Johnston shows up. Fantastic. It's a very funny movie that strikes a very difficult tone of being earnestly about the thing that it's about. I do think it takes, you know, disordered eating and food you know eating disorders very seriously but it is a comedy and I don't think that any of that if anybody's concerned is ever the butt of the joke while it's also drawing on

john earlier said he was inspired by like lifetime movies I kind of also see like a martha coolidge vibe to the movie and it's just so it's just so funny it's like the kind of thing that is striking a very specific comedic tone, nails it throughout the whole time. The comparison I kept using was but I'm a cheerleader in terms of being a movie that's seriously about what it's about, but also purely being a comedy that is its own vibe. Was that a Midnight Madness movie? It wasn't. Probably for the better because that Midnight Madness. Well, I was just trying to think of what's going to win Midnight Madness because that was a very quiet section this year. I feel But I love this movie.

I can't wait for more people and more queer people to see this movie. All right. So for my stuff that I only saw. Of the world premier of Tiff. Yeah, David Michaud's Christie, which is a biopic of the boxer, Christy Martin, who sort of was the most famous and kind of pioneering female boxer in the late 90s into the early aughts, mid to late 90s. If you, she's one of those people who like, a lot of people do know her story.

She had, she was in, in abusive marriage. She, uh, I don't want to maybe go into it more than that because like from the sounds of the audience that I watched this in, there were a lot of people who do not know where this story goes and they were very shocked. The audience was hanging on a thread for this movie. I really, that was my main takeaway, was like, this plays so well with a crowd. I thought the initial, maybe half an hour, maybe a little bit less than that, is on real shaky ground. I saw a movie that, to me, was trying very hard to be like an I-Tanya kind of a thing.

I think Merritt Weaver, especially, who plays Christy Martin's mom, kind of gets stuck in that land. the wigs in this movie are kind of wild if you are somebody who goes to a movie to freak out about insane wigs. This is a good movie. But the story here is going to be Sidney Sweeney playing Christy Martin. It is a very sort of typically, almost stereotypically, Oscar Bate kind of a role for a young, beautiful actress to play, you know, this unglamorous boxer. Obviously boxing movies are a big, you know, a big winner with awards in general. I think she's good. I think she ultimately, I think I came around on the movie by the end. I think she's a big part of that. I think she, you know, holds the center of this movie very well. And again, that audience was cheering for her, gasping for her, laughing at the parts.

Like, Chad Coleman shows up and he plays Don King. This audience was losing it at everything that Don King says. Again, festival audience, whatever, these are not particularly antagonistic audiences. I also think expectations were significantly lowered for this movie, and it sounds like the audience was pleasantly surprised, too. That was the tenor that I took from people that I talked to about this movie. If you want to hear more from me about it, I wrote about it at Vulture, but I do feel like this movie is, I tried to sort of suss out whether this was, to the degree to which this is being distributed by Black Bear, which is this new, this production company financier, film financier, that is getting into the distribution game. I had read on deadline that Black Bear was distributing in the movie internationally, but now the movies got a release date for November.

Yeah, they're releasing it here, too. So they're releasing it in the United States as well. they also, by the way, had a production credit with train dreams, which I think is interesting, but are obviously not distributing that because that's Netflix. So you and I talked about this thing about like there's like a dozen new weird little upstart distributors these days and we're trying to like make heads or tails of who does what? I know that Black Bear had like a brunch at the festival. Like they were really trying to make their presence felt.

I wasn't able to go to it. but I'll be interested to see if they can make their headway because, like, I know this is not going to make everybody happy, but, like, I think Sidney Sweeney could end up being, like, for lack of a great comparison, maybe the Anad d'Armas in blonde of, you know, in terms of the best actress nominee, I think it can happen. I think this is a three out of five-star movie. I can pretty much guarantee there will probably be five lead actress performances that I would put ahead of Sidney Sweeney on my list. But I don't think she's bad in it. And I think ultimately it's a very effective performance in a very effective movie. And like that sounds like faint praise. At the end of the day, though, like we're worried about these sports movies canceling each other out.

And from the reaction so far, people like Christy more than they like the smash. machine. Granted, the smashing machine is going to have a lot more money behind it and make a lot more money. So the book is not closed on that, but just in terms of those movies, how they have lived so far. This can be also in my section where I talk about what you call it, Euphoria Alums, because the TIF was sort of overrun by Euphoria actor, Sidney Sweeney, was in what Maude Apatow directed? her first movie, Poetic License. And at 117 minutes, it's the shortest feature film directed by Ann Apatow since the 40-year-old Virgin, which I think is interesting. It's still too long, but you know what, it's fine. Leslie Mann plays a professor's wife who audits a poetry class and ends up crossing paths with these... I wouldn't say toxic besties, but, like, they're probably more up in each other's lives than they maybe should be, played by Andrew Barth Feldman and Cooper Hoffman, who I think are both tremendous.

I think I would watch a dozen more movies with the two of them in the lead if they want to keep, if, you know, Maude wants to keep, you know, maybe they're her Jonah Hill and Michael Sarah. Yeah, exactly. I think the weakness of this movie is the Leslie Mann stuff. I think, you know, Anapetow making a movie about how a Leslie Mann character isn't, uh, uh, wants to, wants to do more with her life. Groundbreaking, right? Um, I wanted more, I just wanted to follow the Cooper Hoffman and Andrew Barth Feldman characters throughout this. I know, Chris, you have become a Cooper Hoffman devotee as of, uh, I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to talk about it. But I do love those two boys. I think they're great. Um,

Sticking with the Euphoria thing, Barbie Ferreira, stars in Mile and Kicks, which is the newest movie from a Canadian filmmaker Chandler Levak, whose previous movie was at the festival a couple years ago, and it was called I Love Movies. I think it's I like movies. Sorry, I like movies. We both really like that movie. Poetic license is pretty good. It's a young girl in the – I'm trying to – it's a very – It's a very specific time period. Yeah, what did I say?

You said poetic license. Sorry, I'm looking at a list. Mile end kicks. Barbie Ferreira plays a sort of aspiring music journalist who moves to Montreal and ends up getting caught up with the members of a band, some of whom deserve her attention more than others. I love the Montreal setting of this movie. I love a movie that can sort of immerse me in. in a city that I don't see in a lot of movies. I think it's,

I think it's, for what it is, I think it's very watchable. I think it probably doesn't hit that, like, next level that you want it to hit, but I'm very interested to see whatever Channel Lavec does next. And I think to round out the euphoria thing, Coleman Domingo plays a radio host in Dead Man's Wire, and is really, really,

fun in that movie. That is a movie that is kind of a little bit of a comedic quasi-commetic take on like a dog day afternoon kind of a situation. Bill Scarsguard plays a

man who's been wronged by his financial services company and he takes the son of the owner hostage at the butt of a or at the end of a shotgun. I think that movie's good I think some people think that movie's great.

My colleague, Bilga Abbey, really, really loved it. I wish I was quite there with it, but I really enjoyed it. And then Bad Apples, which is a very dark comedy, starring Sir Sharonin as a public school teacher in Ireland who deals with a problem student in ways where she doesn't quite expect, and you as the audience member, don't quite. expect. I think search is very good. I think the movie is probably just going to be kind of brushed aside as sort of festival filler. Nobody at the festival really seemed to

talk about that much. I thought it was pretty good. And there you have it. All right. Let's do the final stretch of movies from earlier in the year. Also from the previous one, I saw Lucretia Martel's long in production documentary Neustra Tierra, very kind of wild to see her make, especially on her first documentary, something that's a little bit more straightforward and conventional about, you know, a community of northern Argentinian indigenous people, including basically an assassination of one man, being forced out of their community. It's good. Lucretia doesn't make bad movies.

It is, I'm still kind of grappling with her doing something more conventional. As far as like the can catch up that I did, let's talk about sentimental value, which you didn't get to see yet. Sentimental value, I know I am on the outside of Joachim Trier's whole thing. While I like his movies, I've never crossed over into loving. I actually loved this movie. I wouldn't say unexpectedly. But it doesn't have, it didn't have any of those hangnails that I don't like about his previous movies

like Worst Person in the World. If you haven't heard about this from Cannes, it follows a film director and his estranged daughters, including one played by Renata Reinsva, who is an actress, and he is effectively making a movie that they all believe to be about their, intergenerational trauma. He tries to get his daughter played by Reinsva to star in the film and she

refuses and he replaces her with like a famous we assume be actress played by L. Fanning. There is, you know, a lot of people have had emotional responses to this movie and I think some of it, you know, being about actors and filmmakers, we assume will do very well with the Academy. I actually think the secret weapon of this movie is there's so much and so much more than you expect that's about, you know, family baggage and intergenerational trauma. That's never too on the nose. But it's enough like and widespread detail that I think kind of any audience member can project their own experience and their own family into this story. somewhere that really makes you emotionally connect with it.

It'll be out in November. You're going to be hearing about this movie all season long. Stellant Scarsgaard is going to be pushed in supporting actor, and it's such a fraud. He is a lead of this movie. Now, I've heard people push back against this notion. It's crazy to me. Renata Rinesse may be in less of the movie than he is. I missed timed this screening.

I thought it was at 6.30. It was at 6. the dumbest thing you can do at a film festival and I was too late to get into it and I'm sad and I'm mad and I will be seeing it soon so I will be soon not sad anymore but yes um also saw from can one director and actor for Wagner Mora uh Kleber Mendoza Fios The Secret Agent what a great movie uh paula's Wagner who is not a spy but like uh you know It goes into the contemporary, you know, political reality of Brazil and then also under the dictatorship. There are some time leaps in this movie.

Wagner Moore is so hot and so compelling in this role. Wagner Mora took his shirt off for the Anklers studio space in Tiff. Congratulations, Katie. Yes. Love this movie. Open around Thanksgiving. Uh, also loved a, loved, question mark, a private life for Rebecca Slatowski's movie that was... You've certainly made me excited to see it after telling me about it, so...

Jody Foster stars as an American who has lived in France for most of her life, so it's like, she, she's speaking in French throughout most of the movie, and then only ever speaks in English to cuss. So it's like, if she just, like, enters a room and it's like, fuck, you know, that's in English, she's never like, man, you know? So it's like that lets us know that she's American. So Jody Foster stars as a therapist whose patient dies and is believed to have taken her own life. But Jody Foster gets suspicions that she was actually murdered and goes, you know, trying to discover who her killer is. This is the most basic log line I could give you for this movie because I wouldn't want to spoil it for any deranged gay people who want to go see this movie.

This is also a movie that is I had the... utmost certainty is going to be marketed and presented to audiences as if it is a deeply normal movie. I promise you it is not. That is part of the pleasure of this movie. It's also just wonderful to see Jody Foster on screen. This movie goes some places, not like goes to the most unhinged things you could ever imagine, but like truly just like, well, a movie can be about anything. And I don't want to sound like I'm dumping on this movie, because I'm certainly not. I had a wonderful time with it, but I do maybe need gay people to go and show up to this movie. Yeah, it is also on France's shortlist for the International Feature Submission.

I think the entire nation of France would be on drugs if they submitted this movie as their international feature contender. I also saw what is presumed to be the Colombian submission from Cannes called A Poet. This is a film by Simone Mesa Soto about a man in a poetry community in Columbia, basically, where he is almost like a Daniel Klausy type of character that he is so earnest and uncompromising and devoted to the art of poetry, but kind of pissing everyone off along the way. and he takes a young woman as a protege, and there is fallout from that. But just the comedic tone of this movie, I found really special. And the lead performance by Uppemar Rios was maybe one of the best performances I saw, and he's a non-actor. And just incredibly, he was so funny as just like one of these people who life is just like such an ordeal for him, and everybody is, he becomes so unpleasant through it.

You know, this is like catnip for me. But I hope people seek it out. It's going to be one of the first releases of this new distributor, One Too Special. Love to Poet. Sound of Falling I caught up to from Cannes. Tied the Jury Prize with Sirat. This is a movie that I wish I liked a lot more. I think it's closer to a mallet comparison than something like Train Dreams is.

It's this fractured narrative of four. or five generations of women that have lived in this farmhouse in Germany in the 20th century and kind of this tapestry of not just sexual angst, but there is sexual trauma throughout this movie. And it's all from this, you know, feminine perspective of these women, not just the young women, but sometimes there's mothers that we see the perspective of. And, you know, just like kind of the hardship of living under fascism and you know these very isolated familial settings that I can see why a lot of people really loved this movie

for me it was kind of missing some type of baseline that was tying all of it together it's a little too in the clouds for me like it needed maybe a little I don't want to say meat on the bones like there's not substance to this movie it was just like anyway people can seek that out

I believe is the German submission I would be surprised if it makes it because of some of what I'm saying caught up to the Christian Petzled movie Mirroaz number three one two special is also releasing that wish I liked it more as much as his past

three to five movies It's good. I think people should seek it out. It's another one with Paula Beer. Hetzelt seems to make movies at such a clip, at such a like rapid. I feel like every year there's a new pet sold at Tiff. And he makes these like cozy movies that are in some like vaguely aspirational setting. And this one's like just a cottage in French countryside. And there's, it's the story of two women. I think ultimately where it starts with a car crash and then young Paula Beer ends up. at the house of this older woman. There's some mystery around it that, in terms of identity, and I think ultimately where it goes ends up being something less than you hope that it becomes.

Yeah. Nice. How about you? A few more movies, including one that was not in the TIF lineup, so we don't have to talk about it if you don't want to. No, I'll mention it certainly. I saw Eleanor the Great, which is the Scarlet-O-Hansson directed movie starring June Squib as a...

Opening in like a week and a half. Yes. On, is it going directly to Hulu? Is that the deal? No, it's Sony Classics. It's going to theaters. It's going to theaters. Good.

June Squib plays... I've seen an older lady. An older lady. Why am I euphemizing this? June Squib plays an old lady who moves to New York City for the first time after her best friend in Florida dies. and ends up getting caught up in this lie that she is a Holocaust survivor when actually, she ends up, like, accidentally in a meeting at the community center for Holocaust survivors,

and she ends up telling her friend's story instead of her own. She also befriends a college student played by Aaron Kelliamen. And so the movie is about sort of their relationship, their friendship. Squib plays this woman's fairly... I wouldn't go so far as to say ornery, but, like, prickly doesn't have a great relationship with her daughter, played by Jessica Hecht, or her grandson, whose face is in his phone the whole time. I think the movie's plot is a little conventional in terms of just like it really is just, like, based on a misunderstanding, and when's this going to, you know, get revealed? And then when are they going to, you know, figure it out? I found it hard not to compare it to Thelma because it's another June Squibb lead role.

All of a sudden goes her whole life without being the lead in a movie, and now she's got two years in a row. Wouldn't surprise me if Eleanor the Great did better for June Squib in terms of like the awards season than Thelma did, even though I think Thelma's the superior movie. But it's not bad. I thought it was, you know, good performances. would be interested to see what that Scarlet-Johansson girl does next. She seems interesting. Yeah, then I saw the Sundance holdover, Sundance in Berlin. If I had legs, I'd kick you from director Mary Bronstain,

which features an amazing Roseburn performance as the mother of a young girl who has some kind of eating disorder. You never really see the daughter's face. There's some really interesting sort of like, camera stuff where you're really just up close, uncomfortably close on Roseburn. And like there's, you know, the whole thing is about her breaking down and being unable to deal with the daughter and there's a flood in her apartment and she's got to live in a motel and her husband's out of town on business. But he calls all the time and is not sure why she's not handling things better. She's also a therapist who has her own therapist, played by Conan O'Brien, who doesn't seem to like her very much. And she's just sort of, failing at seemingly everything, but mostly at being a mother. I feel like this is not an uncommon theme in movies, especially sort of these days.

These movies about women who are kind of plagued by their unsuitedness, seemingly to be mothers. But I think Rose Byrne's performance really makes this a must watch. In a correct world, she'd be right up there in the Oscar hunt. I think she's probably on the fringes of it right now. But depending on how the rest of it shakes out, I could see her being a contender. Obviously, the themes of that dovetailed with Lynn Ramsey's Die My Love, which did not play at Tiff, but did screen for certain press off campus at the Cineplex. so I saw it, I really liked it, I think I've had trouble accessing Lynn Ramsey movies before, and I didn't with this one. I don't know whether that's just that I'm improving or whether it, you know, Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson, also Sissy Spacex in that movie, and it's really good.

Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson play a married couple who moved to a somewhat out of the way house that Pattinson's uncle lived in and died in. The remote setting of the movie and the fact that they very soon have a daughter, have a child, made me think of mother. Also Jennifer Lawrence being there made me think of mother. made me think Lynn Ramsey either loved mother or really hated mother. And I think it might have been the latter, but we'll see. I was very compelled by it. I think Jennifer Lawrence is really good. There's an unrelenting nature to it that I think will turn some people off. I think it can repeat beats. I think there is every chance that that is intentional. I think there is a sort of sense of, you know, the cyclical nature to. to this kind of thing, the repetitive nature to, you know, Lawrence's character is going through a kind of postpartum psychosis. And, you know, a lot of her behavior ends up being repeated, even though you think, well, maybe she's pulled it together at this point. And all of that feels like it's very intentional. It takes some interesting chances. I don't think it's going

to be widely beloved. The can reception that it got makes more sense to me now. This is a re-cut of the movie, but it doesn't sound like people have, the people I talk to who were part of that invited screening, doesn't sound like the response is all that different to a new cut of the movie. And again, I really like it. I really like it. And I think I will probably be on the high end of, you know, people's, you know, people's

response to this. I don't necessarily, I hope it doesn't get panned or thrashed or whatever, but I think it's going to be, anybody who's sort of hoping that this is going to be an Oscar play, I think Lynn Ramsey is still probably not quite suited for that yet. So when that does end up premiering, I'm glad at least that it had some kind of presence, at least adjacent to TIF, because I was really worried that this movie was just going to disappear and get released next year, and nobody would talk about it. So at the very least, it seems like they're going to make a run for it for the end of the year. And it's worth seeing. Joe, as we come up on the two-hour mark, should we predict the People's Choice Award winner?

I have less of a handle on this than I ever thought I had. Most of the movies that I think are most likely, the response that I get from people is, but it's not a little. a TIF premiere, and they like to reward TIF premieres, which history has proven that correct. Belfast won recently in the past five years, and it wasn't a TIF premiere. Although that was an odd TIF. That was the sort of like the year that TIF did and did not exist, right? It was, you know, it was held, but a lot of people weren't there. I think if there's a world premiere that's winning, I think it's Christy. I think that would be very interesting. I just feel like in a year where it felt like

None of the TIF premieres felt that undeniable. I think you could see it going to something like Hamnet. Yeah. Which is just, you know. You can also read the tea leaves on the movies that got screenings added. Hamnet and Christy are both of those movies, as is Roofman. I think it's, I think we would be foolish to discount predicting Wake Up Dead Man or Frankenstein to place, given their, you know, placement. in the festival.

Sentimental value as well. Well, there is also going to be an international people's choice winner this year, which apparently Hamnet is also eligible for because it's a British production. Even though Chloe Zhao has not American-born but has only ever previously worked in America. So we'll see. We're recording all of this, of course, listener, before this is announced, you will know. so you can either rue in laughter at our foolish predictions or be like, aha, they were right. Due to timing, we could not perform.

We could not record after the announcement was made on Sunday, but. DMU Emmy Awards. I think my realistic prediction for the winner, I'm going to say Hamnet for people's choice and then sentimental value for international people's choice. I don't, I can't trust. I can't justify how that would work out since they're both international eligible. Yeah. But that's what I'm going to say.

I also, if we are choosing three performances, there are two of them that I did not get a chance to mention. I'll just briefly say. Yom Hairan from No Other Choice, who plays the wife of a sort of. of secondary character, is so funny and so good, and I love her so much. And our young child, Noah Jup, shows up late in Hamnet. The longer young child. To me, like, is instrumental to that last scene, that last sequence working as well as it does. I think he's so goddamn good and wanted to shout him out.

Well, great. I think that's our episode. If you want more This Had Oscar Buzz, you can check out the Tumblr at this had oscarbuzz.com. You should also follow us on Instagram at This Had Oscar Buzz. And then on Patreon at patreon.com slash this had Oscar Buzz. Listener, don't forget to sign up for the movie Fantasy League.

Go to moviegame.vulture.com. And then our league is Gary's Supreme. Gary's G-A-R-Y-S-S- Supreme. Supreme. This is if you order a Gary and it has sour cream on it. I was going to say like mushrooms, peppers, onions, pepperoni, sausage. Like, it's the full Gary Supreme. Yes.

Joe, where can the listeners find more of you? Letterboxed and Blue Sky at Joe Reed. Read spelled R-E-I-D. Also, check me out on Vulture. I wrote about a bunch of different things. having to do with TIF and I'll link them all in the Tumblr post

in addition to my work as well. Yes, exactly. And then you can find me on Letterbox and Blue Sky at Krisvi File, that's FIIL. We would like to thank the city of Toronto. And the volunteers at the festival. Clap for the volunteers, everyone.

Everybody who stayed in our building where the elevators were halfway out and we all struggled. We were all in a conference. We were all in, like, Sirot with the elevator situation. We'd really like to thank Kyle Cummings for his fantastic artwork, Dave Gonzalez, and Gavin Mavius for the technical guidance when we needed. And Taylor Cole for our theme music, please remember to rate, like, and review us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get those podcasts. Five-star review in particular really helps us out with Apple Podcast visibility.

So, I don't know, TIFT, not TIF-T, TIF-5 stars. something. We're fried. That's all for this week. We hope you'll be back next week for more buzz. Bye.