This Had Oscar Buzz - THOB Returns to TIFF!

Episode Date: September 16, 2024

We’re back from our annual trip to TIFF and we’re giving you another exhaustive episode on all the films we saw! Topics include the newly minted People’s Choice winner The Life of Chuck, Oscar nominations we are anticipating from the lineup, the muted-mixed response to Saturday Night, Nicole Kidman back in full force in Babygirl, the rapturous response … Continue reading "THOB Returns to TIFF!"

Christopher, it is time once again. It is that time. It is that time. There's a chill in the air, maybe a little bit. Cider is being poured into cups somewhere. It's game season. It's game season. And we don't mean football.

Some of us. We mean real games that matter in our good. Yes, exactly. A game for all of us. This is the Vulture movie Fantasy League. is back for year three. I am fairly confident in saying that we are back

and better than ever. For one thing, bigger and better than ever. I am now a full-time Vulture employee behind this whole thing. So at the very least, my standing is back and better than ever. But also the game is really,

as someone on television might say, stepping its pussy up for season three. And you can spread that word around. We have more sign-ups. We have a far more robust podcaster division, which we will talk about. We have beefed up prizes somewhat considerably, I will say. Joe, tell the good people at home what they can win by playing the movie Fantasy League. Sure.

So just a quickie reminder, if you didn't play Movie Fantasy League before, if you are new to this podcast for this year, or if you are new to the concept of fantasy sports, We at Vulture have devised a fantasy movie game wherein you draft a roster of eight movies within a budget. We have provided fake price amounts for each movie, which can correspond to their various values in awards season and also box office. And once you've made that roster, those films, once we kick off the point earning process on a October 3rd, those films will start accumulating points for you all the way through to Oscar net. You'll get points for awards that are won in the precursor season. You will get points for box office milestones met. You will get points for Rotten Tomato scores. And after the Academy

awards are all said and done, the winners will get, as Chris mentioned, a really, really nice selection of prizes. So first through third place gets, Chris, you tell me, if you were first through, if you had your choice of these three prizes, first through third place gets their selection of a 65 inch Roku plus series 4K television, a Roku stream bar, S.E, or Fowers and Wilkins, P.I.8, wireless earbuds. Wow. Ooh. What strikes you fancy there? I mean, I always want to be in first place, but, you know, a runner-up, a runner-up soundbar also sounds quite lovely. But this is the thing. If you're in first place, you get your pick of those three prizes. Oh, yes. Then I'm taking that soundbar. There you go. Take that soundbar. Fourth and fifth place,

get Lego Jaws kits, which is pretty rad and interesting. First through 10th place. We're going to need a bigger Lego boat. That's right. First through 10th, if you finish in the top 10 this year, you will be getting a subscription to what Chris lovingly calls the channel. And this is the Criterion Channel. Tons of value right there. And if you finish in the top 20, you are getting a subscription to movie pass. That's right. Movie Pass is back in prize form.

So plenty of reasons. Plenty of reasons to sign up. You could also, if you so choose, you can join a podcaster league. So we have gathered the hosts of several, many, many, many of our favorite movie and movie-adjacent podcasts, everything from Lank Check to ExtraHawk Great to Black Men Can't Jump in Hollywood. We've got Who Weekly. We've got Little Gold Men and still watching from our friends at Vanity Fair. We've got fighting in the war room and the B-side and screen drafts and unspooled. So many more. And the idea here is if you want to compete among your fellow fans of that podcast, say you're a fan of Keep It with Ira Madison and Lewis Retail, then you can sign up, you can have your mini league name be Keep It Crew, which they have, crew with a K.

And then you throughout the season get to check in with your scores and see how you're doing as relative to the other fans of that podcast. Now, if you're listening to us, we can assume that you are a fan of this had Oscar buzz. And thus, you may want to sign up to compete in the mini league known as Chris. The Garyators. The Garyators. That is G-A-R-Y-A-T-O-R-S. It's like gladiators. But you're a Gary.

But you're a Gary. And how do we pronounce it, Chris? Garriators. Garriators. We love it. Okay. So all of this is to say signups are going on now through October 3rd. So you have some time.

I sometimes would advise people to maybe wait a little bit, see how things develop in the award season before you make your selection, but just don't forget to make that selection. However, Chris, and don't tell us, but I know that you have major team selection already. I, listen, listen, I made my spreadsheet, I strategize, and my team is locked. I'm very excited for you to finally reveal this in a matter of weeks. For the rest of you, if you want to go sign up, you can go to the landing page at vulture.com

slash movies dash league, and you can go to, if you want to go straight to the signup page, if you want to say, forget about brushing up on things like the rules or what's, what, what's new for the season, and you want to go right to the signup page, that is, moviegame.vulture.com. But I would suggest you go, you check out the landing page. I wrote a whole draft kit in terms of explaining all of the major contenders. You can see what everything costs, how much all of the various movies costs. And I would also go check out the podcaster page, because you can see just how many of our

rad movie podcasts we have roped into this endeavor. So, Chris, any last words before we send our listeners off to go check out the movie fantasy league? Where can they sign up? Signups at moviegame.vulture.com. The landing page is vulture.com slash movies dash league. We will see you there. Tata. We want to talk to Maryland Hacks,

Maryland Hacks and friends. I'm from Canada water. Dick Pooh. Welcome to the 49th. edition of the Toronto International Film Festival. We're thrilled to be here. You're in for some crazy shit. Hey, hey, hey, hey.

Welcome to Tim. Live from Toronto is Saturday night. Thank you for hosting a festival. The platforms, films with such unique voices and audiences. I hope it inspires all of us to have more conversation and more listening. Hello and welcome to the This Head Oscar Buzz podcast, the only podcast whose hosts regularly turn into animals metaphorically and literally. Every week on this had Oscar Buzz, we usually talk about a different movie that once upon a time had lofty Academy Award aspirations, but for some reason or another, it all went wrong.

But once a year, we take a trip up to the seasonably temperate north and take in the cinematic delights and Tim Horton's coffee on display at the Toronto International Film Festival. I think I said the word seasonably, which is very funny. That's very Joey saying supposedly on friends. You know what? I'm sticking with it. I'm your host, Joe Reed. I'm here, as always, with the nun lurking outside the papal conclave whose habit is full of secrets. Chris Fyle.

Hello, Chris. I am here made possible through the generous sponsorship from TikTok. Oh, God. Okay. We have to talk about that right away. Every programmer and TIF executive whatever introducing a special presentation movie that had to say it looked so embarrassed. So embarrassed.

It was very embarrassed. Never have they been more embarrassed by a sponsor. Oh, God. And the audience laughed every single. That's the other thing. It's the audience laughed every single time. So well done, TikTok. Because it's ridiculous when you're like, you're showing up to like a Giazhang K movie and

you're like, it's possible because of TikTok. Yeah, thank you, TikTok. Yeah, thank you, at least sponsor the shorts program or something. Anyway, Chris, welcome to our annual TIF episode. we have returned. We are well rested. We are now well rested after I took a whole day yesterday, which I did nothing but sleep. From the fresh announcement, just as we got on mic of the People's Choice Award winners.

Do you want to say? Should we say right off the matter? We'll build a little suspense. Sure. Sure. Let's start with... Here's how we should start things off. We took a few questions on Twitter.

we will hopefully answer throughout this episode. Yes. Ben asked us to break down all the ads that play before the films. What better thing to talk about before we actually talk about these films? So here's the thing with the pre-roll ads. And like, I know that like this is my ninth in-person Tiff. I risk coming across as like grumpy, older, you know, the denizen of film festivals. But, excuse me.

But we really, some of the classics have really fallen by the wayside, right? We no longer get the Grosch ad for the Grosch People's Choice Award, which was always a favorite of mine. The L'Oreal ad is long gone. Not even the Bulgary ad. That got replaced by the Bulgary ad, which is now also long gone. We don't really have a high fashion sponsor anymore this year. So there's no. There's no sense, right, exactly, there's no sense of hoity toady, red carpet ready, anything like that.

So what we have is a decent, I thought this, I thought pre-roll was decent this year. I thought it was solid. Nothing spectacular, but I thought it was very solid. Starting with the ad from Rogers, which is the new sort of presenting sponsor. It's the sponsor of the People's Choice Award. It's one of their big telecom companies up in Canada. It was like average people getting very highfalutin and pretentious about movies in a way that was funny. The concept was for two weeks a year, everyone around the city becomes a cinephile. And it's, you know, the crossing guard at school has an opinion about, you know, a Finnish cinema. And the cab driver thinks that a movie was, you know, more of a documentary. you drama than a straight-up verite, or something like that, you know what I mean? Everybody's using their high-falutin terms.

I think it's very cute. I think it's very funny. But it was almost indistinguishable from the RBC one, which was also like average people being funny about movies. Sure. There were two versions of the Rogers one. One was clearly superior than the other because one had the, shout out to our friend Katie Rich, who is going to be with us. in this discussion in spirit because she was with us through most of the fest.

So almost all of these conversations were originally had with Katie. Should almost call Katie in for the better man discussion since the three of us like sprawled in basically an empty Scotiabank P&I. We'll talk about it. But Katie's favorite version of the Rogers ad was the one with the construction worker talking about how this was more of a classic Catherine Breaugh film than the last Catherine Breaugh film. It was a good bit. you had the, I can't remember who, what ad this was for, but it was the filmmaking is not a glamorous pursuit. I think that might have been the RBC ad, which was people doing the sort of like nitty gritty stuff of making films. You're wedging into, you know, the corner of a dank bathroom to get a shot. You're carrying, you know, crates of coffee across a room. You're, you know, all this stuff. Which I thought that was, that was. But it bled straight into the Rogers one in a way that I was like, why don't get this. I understand.

But I liked the fact that it was at least making the point of like, if, you know, rather than just sort of being like, hey, rah, rah, we love Rogers, this one is like, hey, like, yeah, we're a bank, but, you know, we can finance some of these small movies and that's fine. And then that bled into the Cineplex volunteer ad, which is just like, here's some volunteers being kind of funny. I liked this volunteer ad. They all made into one soup. I like the, the volunteer ad was maybe my favorite ad, but it was also just like the comedic tone was exact in three different ads. I understand what you're saying. These multiple heads are not talking to each other.

The volunteer ad is one I look for every year to see how they do it. The very first year I came, it was this very sort of high concept recreating iconic scenes from the movies of our youth. they were doing a breakfast club scene and say anything seen and all this sort of stuff, whatever. Did they reuse the one for the previous two festivals, or am I just really, like, missing seeing the, for the love of film? The lady, for the love of film. I think they did that two years in a row. Why do I think that that was two festivals in a row?

I think they did that two festivals in a row. I was glad to see something new. I thought the, this, the concept for this one was, um, TIF volunteers, training. how to do line management. And it was very fun. Doing bits and being funny. If you've ever been at the festival, you will absolutely appreciate the ruthless efficiency of the people in charge of the lines. There's a lot going on.

There's a lot of moving parts. I respect all of those people. They're all very good at their jobs. And we love them. So yes, those are our pre-roll. I can't remember any of the other pre-roll stuff. I'm sure there were a couple more. But those were the importance.

No beauty companies, no diamond companies. So, like, no glamour, which, like, usually helps offset, like, all of these different ads to be, like, here's all of our variety. Right. And then you have the TIF ad, the, like, you know, TIF 12 months a year, all year round, kind of a thing. Yeah. And then, like, the, the ad for, like, this is the festival, this is the vibe we're setting was so loud this year. It was loud. It was so loud.

It felt engineered to drown out the people doing the piracy ars, you know, because they always do an anti-piracy logo and everybody in the like paying audiences does like an R for pirates, you know, Canadian humor. Yeah. Can I tell you, did you also experience the other, the new crowd participation thing, which was the, the ad for Christy sound systems? And people saying, we love you, Christy. We love you, Christy.

Guys, you get one crowd participation, the pre-roll ad moment. Like, we don't need to give Christy's a new one. Anyway. But, like, I felt like that, the TIF one was so loud, like it was an active attempt to drown out the art in a way that was. The thing about the TIF ad, though, is, so speaking of Katie, again, we're going to be mentioning Katie a lot. Katie, of the angler of the prestige junkie podcast, our dear companion on this, she had a live version of the prestige junkie podcast at TIF this year with special guest Hugh Grant, at which I was the very fortunate opening act. I talked to Katie a little bit about stuff at the

festival and then made way for Hugh Grant to talk about Heretic. But one of the things that they we're talking to us about beforehand was that, you know, we'll be recording some of this on video for use with promo stuff. And I said, Katie, later, I said, Katie, you're going to end up in that TIF pre-roll ad with, like, you know, Michelle Yo accepting an award and people on the red carpets and whatever. I'm like, they're going to show a shot of, like, you interviewing Hugh Grant, I'm saying. Blink and you miss it. And friend and former guest, Kyle Amato was on this. Is he really? What was he doing? Is that red carpet? The, like, brief second clip where you see Ava DuVernay, which like,

Get out of here. Last year, it's from last year at the origin premiere, Kyle got getied. Like, it's literally a picture of Ava DuVernay and like over her shoulder, you see Kyle Lavato taking

a photo on his phone and apparently you can see him in that pre-roll. Slowly, but surely this had Oscar Buzz guests will be taking over the pre-roll for TIF, so there we go. Exactly. Exactly. All right. All right. So, we're going to get into the films of the festival, the stuff that we both saw, the stuff that we saw individually. There is a handful of stuff that we either missed because the schedule

wasn't cooperating or missed because we made the strategic decision that we would be able to see these movies later. So we'll talk about all of that. Before we do, Chris, let's give their listeners a quick rundown of why they should sign up for this at Oscar Buzz. Join us over on Patreon for more fun time. ahead. Let's do it. So listen, over on our Patreon, Turbulent Brilliance, for $5 a month, you're going to get two bonus episodes

every month, the first of which we call an exception. These are discussions about movies that fit that this had Oscar Buzz rubric, but managed to score a nomination or two. Coming up in about two weeks, I think we have maybe what could be

a blockbuster, turbulent brilliance episode. Everyone wants it and it's coming perfectly timed for Joker Folly Adieu. We are talking about best makeup and hairstyling nominee House of Gucci.

House of Gucci. It's time to take out the trash. We'll be talking about House of Gucci. Don't miss listening to this episode. Don't miss me laying it out on the line in support of Jared Leto's performance in that movie. I think we're both

going to be out. We're both going to talk. We're both going to be pro letto. Yeah, yeah, it's going to be weird. Previous exception episodes have include Children of Men, Knives Out, Vanilla Sky, Charlie Wilson's War, The Mirror Has Two Faces, Lovely Bones, Pleasantville, movies like that. We got a whole year's worth of exceptions for you to catch up on, and you can do it for just $5 a month. Second bonus episode you're going to get, we call an excursion. These are deep dives into Oscar Ephemera.

We love to obsess about and talk about on this show. things like E.W. Fall Movie previews. We've recapped old award shows. Most recently, we did the entire breakdown of the 90s Oscar and morning announcement ceremonies, if you want to call them that, coming in October. We should be calling them that. Morning announcements. That's perfect. Morning announcement ceremonies is something. Once they decide to change that into a prime time nomination special, morning announcements is going to be necessary to describe how things used to be. We did an all-games excursion for listeners who love when we play games and trivia on the show. Coming in October, though, as chosen by our listeners, we're going to be doing the 2018 actress roundtable from the Hollywood Reporter. It's going to be a very gaga month over on turbulent brilliance, which don't think that there will be much to discuss beyond. Well, like, she has an album coming out.

But Joker is going to be, luckily, less than the conversation, it sounds like. We pod for the applause, applause, applause. But who else are we going to get to talk about in that roundtable, aside from, you know, Catherine Hahn falling in love with Rachel Weiss. We're also going to be talking about Ms. Nicole Kidman. Nicole Kidman, of course. It's going to be a very applicable. Who's in the race this year, but, you know, more of an understated presence in that roundtable. a lot going on. It's going to be very applicable for of a podcast because we'll be able to talk

about Gaga with relation to Joker, Kidman with relation to baby girl, Catherine Hahn with relation to Agatha all along, which I think I'm going to be watching. And then finally, Glenn Close in relation to the deliverance and my newfound campaign for her to get a best supporting actress now. If she shows up on your ballot, I will be proud of you. Honestly, Supporting actors is a real interesting year this year, so I don't even, I don't know. As we will be talking about in the months ahead. So go sign up to This Had Oscar Buzz Turbulent Brilliance over at patreon.com slash this had Oscar Buzz. And we have lots to enjoy.

So, Chris, as you mentioned in the lead-up, we are recording mere moments after Cameron Bailey announced the winner of the People's Choice Award. Now, they announced second runner-up and first runner-up, so we did get to see the top three balloting choices. Before we do so, though, let's talk about how the People's Choice Award at TIF is arrived at, because I think it's probably pertinent to the way that the award has been going lately and also, I think, this year's outcome. You have to go online to vote for it. It used to be that you could, like, as you're leaving the theater, put your ticket stub in a little box, and then they count the ticket stubs. But now you have to be self-motivated enough to go online and vote for a movie. Which, in turn, encourages the real enthusiasts.

I would say it encourages the stands. I think, Chris, you would say the same. And I think it results. It's just a different strata of movie that's going to be in contention for people's choice. I think when you were voting with your ticket stub, I think, again, that probably allowed for maybe a little bit more passive voting. I think it may be allowed for movies that premiered earlier in the festival to vote because all of a sudden, like, you know, people are just sort of casting their ballot.

Their ticket stubs willy-nilly. But it's all of course weighted towards movies that play larger venues or have more screenings or have more screenings right just on a base level on top of the thing of it's going to be the more like fandoms and motivated audience like yeah well and that definitely people who feel they have a vested interest who get to who are willing to go online and cast a boat well and standem certainly played into it this year so a third runner-up was Anora, which was your Can Palm Door winner. Second, or, sorry, that's second runner up. First runner up was Amelia Perez, which is also a Cannes film, which is going to be. If you don't think that

the Selena Gomez stands had nothing to do with that, you were probably not on the ground at this festival. But also, as you had mentioned, Amelia Perez had a lot of screenings. This was a movie that really sort of kind of got out the vote. I think it's screened at Princess of Wales, the largest venue

three times, which I don't know. if I'd ever seen that before. Yeah, I can't think of anything. But the People's Choice winner ended up being Mike Flanagan's The Life of Chuck, which is a surprising choice if you had just been sort of casually paying attention to the festival.

You, Chris, were very astute in predicting it because you sort of read the tea leaves of the fact that it got a bunch of screenings added at the end of the week. And the word on the ground, at least that I kept hearing about this movie because I didn't see

was that from like our circle of people and like regular people waiting in line, unanimously what I was hearing was it's okay to some people saying it was bad, but that the Mike Flanagan fans were eating it up. This was my experience. Or would love it if they weren't at one of those screenings. This was my experience. I imagine, I haven't checked the like Rotten Tomatoes, the critics' reaction to it. I don't expect critics at large to be big fans of it.

So this is, Mike Flanagan, if you don't know, is the TV and film creator who has done a lot of Stephen King adaptations. He did the Gerald's Game adaptation. He directed Dr. Sleep. And then has done a bunch of the Netflix sort of horror miniseries, Haunting of Hillhouse, Haunting of Bly Manor, Midnight Mass. Most recently, follow the House of Usher. and his professional relationship with Netflix has officially ended. So this movie, Life of Chuck, does not have currently distribution. This is the first time soon.

First people's choice winner in over a decade without U.S. Distribution to win. Did you check that? Where do we go now? The Nadine Labaki film in the early 20 teens, I believe. Is that also the last? Sorry. That was the last one without.

U.S. distribution at the time to win, but I looked it up and shortly after the festival is when Sony Classics bought that. This is sort of what I expected with Life of Chuck. I think it's going to get gobbled up pretty quickly. But was that movie also the last... There's probably already, like, talks for a deal

for this movie. It's just not been announced. Was that also the last movie to win people's choice to not go on to get a Best Picture nomination? That I forget, but I wouldn't be surprised if that's the case unless there's like a...

Well, I mean, Boy in the Heron didn't. That's true. Did that win people's choice? No. It didn't. It was... This is the thing that where it's like the most, it's just like the Oscars. Oh, American fiction.

Boy in the Heron opened the festival. Right, and I believe laced in the top three. I think that's right. I think that's right. The extent to which these things are gamified or preordained could be debated or speculated upon but, you know, it is in TIF's interest to have a world premiere win this prize. And I think we were somewhat surprised in our circle that in the immediate reaction that Wild Robot did not place, which seemed like one of the most well-received world premieres. Which was a world premiere.

So I will, to that I would say, yes, I agree with you that it is in Tiff's interest to have a world premiere when there are people's choice. That said, I think having been at that life of Chuck premiere, it does not take a lot to convince me that this movie would legitimately be the highest vote getter. Like, those fans were absolutely lit for this movie. I can imagine it because that's what, like, Knives Out was like, the Nives Out premiere. It was very Ryan Johnson also has a big fandom. So the thing with Flanagan is from being. This, he does genre television, genre television, often about young characters.

And often with this, he's, the thing that he's very good at is blending these kind of broad horror concepts with very emotional storytelling. Often, this is the thing that people who don't like his stuff, kind of ding him for, is that his horror tales all sort of end up in these very sort of heartfelt monologues. and that's how, you know, we resolve these things. And Life of Chuck isn't too terribly different. There's a way in which you can watch this movie and be like, oh, I can see how this would have been like a season of television crunched down into one film.

It takes, it sort of takes a three-part structure. The first part is this very sort of Twilight Zone-esque setup where society is sort of rapidly crumbling, She would tell Egeophore and Karen Gillen play sort of exes who kind of experience this sort of like downfall of society together while at the same time there is this sort of mysterious recurrence of these billboard ads thanking this mysterious person named Chuck who just seems to be a regular office guy and Chuck is played by Tom Hiddleston. As the movie goes on, the sort of the levels of reality are kind of explored. It becomes sort of two different movies among the two other parts. Tom Hiddleston has, in particular, one dance scene where he absolutely brings down the house. He's unbelievably good. And the crowd aided up, the crowd, which had already given a standing ovation to Stephen King,

who had been in the crowd. This is based on a Stephen King novella. King was in the audience seated next to Mark Hamill. So, like, again, this is fandom Thunderdome, Stephen King, Mark Hamill from the Star Wars franchise, Tom Hiddleston from the MCU, Mike Flanagan doing his Mike Flanagan thing. And I'm generally a Mike Flanagan person. I really appreciate his shows. This movie, I think, is flawed. I'm not going to get on board with the critics who like eviscerated, but if you're not on board with the Flanagan thing, it wouldn't surprise me to see them eviscerated. But I think in general, to me, the story was of that screening wasn't the movie. It was the reaction to it. It was seeing the fact that this guy who has been making more, more than not, more often than not Netflix stuff can pack a crowd, you know, can pack a theater with a crowd full of his, you know, know, fans, because it wasn't just, like, friends and family of the movie that were loud.

Like, these were people who bought tickets and were fans and were loud. And I'm like, let this man's fandom loose on movie theaters and make some goddamn money for God's sake. Because, like, he hasn't had a theatrical movie since Dr. Sleep. Not since Dr. Sleep, I don't believe. Dr. Sleep was not a huge box office movie, but Dr. Sleep was also really before this fandom It was when the fandom was in its early stages. It's the one thing that gives me pause and makes me worry that Netflix has conditioned this very fervent fandom to just sort of like wait for the shows to come to them and wait for the movies to come to them. And if we can encourage this fandom to go out into a theater and hoot and holler as a communal experience to this movie, I think this could be a pretty profitable movie.

Now, we'll see who decides to acquire this film for distribution. But I'm intrigued. It'll be interesting if it's a major studio that buys it because we don't really see that at film festivals, but it does seem like this could have the potential to. I think we're not looking at an Oscar movie, which I think is a net good for this prize and for the festival. because I do think that this festival has been slowly trying to court movies with mainstream appeal but not necessarily awards appeal to continue to increase their profile. And like maybe this could be a stepping stone in that direction, which I have mixed feelings about that as a person who attends this festival.

Same. Well, here's the other thing, though, is so last year's People's Choice winner is American Fiction. So there's a little bit of a cart before the horse thing in that like, was American fiction always going to be appealing enough to be a best picture nominee and therefore it's winning the people's choice award is more the tail, you know, is the dog wagging the tail is the fact that like the popularity of this movie, of course would have been popular enough to win a TIF people's choice. Or is the idea, because we've built up this whole idea that like TIF People's Choice Award winners become best picture nominees, it's become a one of the more reliable bellwethers in the award season. Did American fiction winning that award put that movie on enough people's radars? Because, you know, Oscar voting is not only just like straight up quality. It's also being able to envision a movie. as an Oscar player and then it becomes something you can vote for. And so I do think there is

value in the TIF People's Choice Award in that it can put people on notice for a movie like American Fiction in a way that they might not normally have been. And ultimately, I think that's a good thing for movies like that. I think American Fiction probably had the stepping stones of its campaign prior to winning that prize. You know, like it was MGM, Amazon on whatever you want to call them. They're big contender last year. So they probably would have made a push without that pedigree up front.

Did it make it easier for them to do that? Probably. But I also think it's a net good because I think in a lot of recent years, the winner of this prize in terms of awards, box office, has also, like, winning this prize had set it up for disappointment,

like things like Fableman's Jojo Rabbit, movies that not really, you know. You're not wrong. You're not wrong. Yeah. Yep. So I think it's good to have something that is going to, in all likelihood, being outside of that conversation. I would be surprised if Life of Chuck.

I don't know if I necessarily would be surprised if Life of Chuck gets released this year. But I think the wise choice is probably for a distributor to pick it up and to plan out like a February release for it. A spring hit. A late winter, early spring, kind of a hit and or even like early summer. I don't know. Find, you know, whatever, like people get paid to do this. Figure out when you can best harness this fandom, but like put it in theaters and make a push for these people because like it, it was fun. Watching these people have such a wonderful, I don't want to be patronizing when I say that these people.

I am, again, one of their number. It's just always fun to see a theater that's sort of rocking and rolling with a movie like that. Right, right. That was good. I enjoyed that. Even though we think this is not an award contender. I would not have voted for this in my top 10 of TIF movies. But like, I'm not super mad about it, honestly.

I think this is still a good moment to bring up the ghost of Glenda Miss Jackson's Twitter question about what wins the wife award for TIF movie that's not going to come out until a full. year later, but Mills may still be a player next year for Oscar. Oh. There's not really, I don't think that there is one this year. What's our sing-sing maybe this year? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, of the movies that were world premiering without

distribution, I don't think any of them went over well enough for that. Like, there haven't been deals on any of these movies. The, like, on Swift Horses of the festival. Yeah. You don't think Eden's gonna stick around for a year and become

the best picture winning out next year? People didn't really seemed to think that movie was good enough, but they were happy to see Ron Howard, you know, get freaky, I guess, which I don't really know what that meant. Neither of us saw Eden. Unfortunately, this is the Ron Howard movie where Jude Law and Vanessa Kirby and some folks go to the Galapagos to escape society and shit gets weird. That's about as far as I've heard of it. And there's sex stuff, there's violence. Jude Law apparently has no teeth at one point. Let's use this to maybe transition into the movies that neither one of us saw, because that was one.

Neither one of us saw the Tiff opener, which is Nutcrackers, which was the David Gordon Green Ben Stiller movie. Sold to Hulu. Everybody seemed to think it was not very good. Yeah, nobody really, I don't know if I talked to anybody who even saw it, but there was not a ton of enthusiasm for it. I think strategically you and I had both made the decisions that Amelia Perez and the Wild Robot, for as often as they were screening, were at least me, were really inconvenient to my schedule.

And ultimately, we made the command decision at the last minute to see Better Man instead of Amelia Perez, Better Man. We'll get to Better Man. I didn't see any of the Netflix movies. And I usually don't see Netflix movies at the festival. for this very reason. But you have a way of seeing the Netflix movies theatrically in your market. Yeah, they typically screen for us here, and, like, they're one of the few that have continued to do so. So, like, I know I will see those in enough time.

I won't get to see them. Wild Robot opens in, like, two weeks, even though we know a lot of people who saw it, and everybody was incredibly enthusiastic. I'm so excited for Wild Robot, but that will absolutely play locally in Buffalo. Yeah. The Netflix movies don't play theatrically in Buffalo. but I need to figure out a way to see them, perhaps, when I'm in New York next. Because both Amelia Perez and the piano lesson, I heard very good things. Neither one of us saw We Live in Time, the John Crowley movie.

But I was surprised, I was kind of bracing for that movie to be kind of savaged by critics. And ultimately, while it wasn't like the ravest of raves, I think the general tenor of reviews that I saw, We Live in Time. This is the romantic drama with Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield from John Crowley, who's the director of Brooklyn. Most of the reactions would be, that's a good, solid, romantic drama, tearjerker. It did the job. I cried. We'll probably make money, but we'll have an uphill climb in terms of awards, especially if the best chances for Florence Pugh is really good. who's probably gotten the best notices of the movie, but that's a very stacked best actress race for reasons that... It is.

Romantic dramas, when was the last time... Well, you know what? I'm Boo Boo the Fool, because, like, I say when was the last time a romantic drama succeeded in the same year that fucking... It ends with us was just a blockbuster, so what the hell do I know? But it ends with us, had the benefit of book talk,

and... Who we live in time made possible through the generous sponsor. of book talk, even though it's not based on a book. We Live in Time is probably going to make money, though. I hope so. I hope so. I love those two leads, and I want, you know, different types of movies to be blockbusters. Another movie I would love for it to be a, you know, crowd pleaser based on its genre is Justin Kurtzels, The Order, which is a Jude Law, Nikki Holt bank robber movie that neither one of us got to see. but I'm definitely interested in seeing before the end of the year. I think it's set to open in early December.

Vertical releasing. Vertical releasing, the reason that I was like, I can wait. Because they put stuff on VOD right away. It's usually not good, though. Like, this movie got very much good react, mildly good reactions. Everybody pretty much saying it's a standard straightforward action movie that's pretty good. That's good enough for me. You know what I mean? I'll see the movie, but there was no urgency in me seeing it at the festival.

We also both decided to not jump through the copious hoops that would be required for us to see Megalopolis, which was screening, but not really for critics. This was very much a, we'll do the festival. We're not going to open ourselves up for ridicule by these critics, which is so... I think it's the first movie since I've at least been going that didn't. not have a press screening um in the lineup whatsoever it's an extension of the whole obviously the whole controversy with the AI trailer where they were you know harnessing the power of the critics hate us and one of the things that my colleague bilga obari mentioned when this whole thing happened was that the irony of this whole thing is if megalopolis is going to be that kind of cult, instant cult hit, you know, you got to see this thing, even though it's crazy.

The people who are going to be leaving that charge are going to be critics. You know what I mean? It's not like Megalopoulos has like comic book fans who are like, you know, waiting to do this. It's like, it's the critics. It's, you know, you know exactly the type of critics, you know, Bilga, I love, but like, Bilga's exactly the type of critic who is going to, you know, ride for this movie. And it's so weird that they are taking... I feel like I am too. Exactly. It's so weird that they're taking such a hostile...

I'm kind of probably like Megalopolis. They're taking such a hostile posture towards critics when it's just like, baby, they're your only hope for this right now. And it's not just the, the, that there was no P&I. also the logistics of like it was a gala and like press can't redeem for gala premiere so it's like it would have been and the second the other screening was in the imax which only seats so many people it would have been logistically very difficult as press to get a ticket to it so we both kind of washed our hands with it and we'll see it when it opens they placed the screenings for it in the center of a moat with spikes and um Piranha in the water and all this sort of stuff. Well, and it also played opposite, you know, my, the thing that I was chasing for this festival, which was the Brutalus and the 70 millimeter screening. All right. So let's jump, let's, good transition.

Let's jump into the movies that we both saw, starting with Brady Corbets, the Brutalist, which he won the best director prize at Venice after I had seen the movie, but before you had seen it, I believe, is. Correct. So we saw it at different screenings. This is the almost three and a half hour long, although some of that is intermission. The intermission, which by the way, is included in the film print of the movie. So the majority of that, like, expensive film reel is an intermission. It's not like one of those things. Like, you go see Lawrence of Arabia in 70 millimeter and it's like intermission and then they bring the house like. up, there's nothing on screen. No, the film print keeps a rolling with a time ticker on there, so you know how much time you have. But it's like, it's very expensive to just have that. It sort of goes in, it sort of fits part and parcel with the idea of this movie just being such a flex for a filmmaker who hasn't really succeeded on that level before. Lord knows I'll stick up for Voxlux being an work of absolute madness and, you know, whatever.

It's not like Brady Corbett has been, even among indie directors, a particular smash success, right? He's certainly somebody whose work has been interesting enough that you'd want to keep an eye on it. And I think that's why a lot of people had their eye on the Brutalist. But to have this movie, which is this 70-millimeter, gorgeously filmed, like, as we talked about Chris, you know, getting a ton of bang for its budget. And I think that should be the narrative moving forward if they really want to contend with awards is that this movie was made for just under $10 million. And it looks like when you see the movie, that's like the most insane thing you've ever heard. Like how like I want in I want to see the like meeting minutes from the budget meanings. Yeah.

This movie because how is it possible? So this is this is a movie about a Hungarian. Jew who escapes the Holocaust, comes to America and builds a career as an architect of this brutalist architecture.

The head of experiencing poverty and such within the states as well. Yes, yes, yes. So it's this very kind of, the word being used a lot, and I think it's a good one, is novelistic. There is a lot of, it feels like it's based on a novel.

It feels like it's based on a true story. It's interesting that this movie is coming a year after Oppenheimer. Not that it's necessarily the same kind of movie, but it also feels like... It's a fictional character influenced by people who it did actually live. Sure, but it also just feels like a, you know, this sort of soaring biopic, the other movies that it's being compared to are things like there will be blood. Katie mentioned the master a few times. So there is this sense of this unbelievable talent amid the sort of wretched, you know, vile capitalism of the United States. And the United States is sort of hostility towards immigrants and Jews and in many ways, sort of, it's jealousy towards the creative class.

And there's a lot going on. Right, because I think as much of this story that is applicable to the immigrant experience, there is also an element that this is a movie about a creative person and the creative process and how over the period of time, art that is not understood in its day eventually gets appreciated. I think that is an element to this movie on top of its political realities on top of its structural intrigue. Every time I talk to you about this movie, it sounds like you like it more, which I find delightful. It is maybe the movie that has grown on me over my experience. I mean, like, I saw it as my second to last movie on a four movie day. My initial reaction, there's a lot of fact. And I immediately had to go home and write about another movie after seeing this movie.

It makes sense that I had a muted response at first while still be. being very impressed by it. That's the thing. When, like, when I say that, you know, when I refer to a movie with a lot of meat on the bone, usually I'm talking about, like, I don't know, a T-bone steak. This movie is like a Renfair turkey leg meat on the bone in that, like, you got a lot of literal meat on the bone, but you might also bite into it and get stabbed by a stray bone, too. Like, it's like that.

There are two, I will say, without spoiling the movie, because we don't know what the release is going to look like for this. I think, you know, it might take some time for people to catch up to it, especially if the release is going to be. By 824, who have a lot going on. They sure fucking do. And maybe they have less going on than it seems like they do. We'll get into that. We'll get into it. It's going to take a while for people to see it. so I don't want to spoil too many of the elements.

There are two scenes in this movie that I may be outright hate to dislike, or like hate to strongly dislike, I would say. One of which I feel like is just saying something out loud that it's like, no, we get it, we get it in a way that feels like a younger filmmaker, unable to help themselves. And then another scene that, really feels like a young filmmaker unable to help themselves. And I think that fits the Brady Corbett sort of, you know, a model that we've seen also.

You know what I mean? Yeah. It also... Sorry, go ahead. No, I was going to say, I think one of the most impressive things about this movie, and we've had this conversation about the way that the movie is essentially engineered, I feel like, for lack of a better term, this is a real roarship. Shack movie because like the epilogue of it is very stylistically different from the rest of the film. It's a leap in time. Again, without spoiling or going into any details. Sunday in the part with George, but with a brutalist architect. But it becomes this like Rorschach that is designed

and intentionally meant to say your reaction to it says more about you than it says about the film, and it's not a film interested in telling you what to think about these things, but I think your reaction, your personal thoughts on, like, is this good? Is this bad? Or, hmm, I think that is what the movie is trying to do in a way that I find really, really impressive. And, like, you're talking, you talked about some of the films that it's compared to. I mean, like, I really think that this is a movie from the filmmaker of Voxlux and that it's like kind of, you know, split into different styles. That whole like novelistic great American novel is very true of the first act of this movie. And it progressively becomes something more modern, like with that idea of it's supposed to be a mirror to the audience and reveal or expose their perspective on the story of Laslo Toth.

character we've been following for almost four hours. Laslo Toth, by the way, if they put a little bit of effort into it, could be, could become the Lydia Tarr in that, like, just fool people into thinking Laslo Toth was a real person, because, like, it does seem like the kind of a movie that's about a real, you know, a real architect. It also sounds like, you know, a chocolatier, like, you know, like Lindor Truffles. Yes. Can I have one of your Laslo Tots? Do you have any...

It also sounds like a coffee, you know, like High Point Coffee. Sure, of course. The other thing I wanted to mention, though, in terms of just the way that this movie is going to be received is the fact that it does have this intermission, which bifurcates the movie into two very sort of neat halves, and because the second half sort of right from the jump announces itself as being very different than the first half. Not like we're in a different time or place or telling a different story, but like there's a character introduced right at the beginning of the second act, which definitely like divides the first half from the same. second half, it is going to invite a lot of people to do the, well, I liked the first half, but not the second half. Or I think that the first half does this thing, but the second half does this thing, which I don't think is an illegitimate way of viewing the movie, but I will just say that, like, that is a danger with, you know, putting this, you know, intermission into your very long

movie is you are inviting people to turn your movie. into two movies and allow them to like one movie and not the other one. And maybe that ultimately hurts the perception on the movie. Perhaps. I mean, I think on top of its Immaculate Craft, I mean, we were

really both blown away by the score. Yes, nominate the score. Who's the composer? I keep forgetting his name. I think it's Daniel Pemberton, but let me double check. Oh, do you think so? Oh, okay. I didn't even catch that. Let's see. The Brutalist.

Daniel Bloomberg. Daniel Bloomberg, apologies to Daniel. What a real fucking barn burner of a score. And Low Carly cinematography, obviously on film, but just like, especially, like, knowing what the shoot, they shot this movie in like 33 days, I think. Just the, what everybody really achieved with this movie kind of has to be marveled at, regardless of your thoughts on the substance of the film itself. But I think the most inarguable thing that, like,

everybody seems really on board with is Adrian Brody's performance. He's incredible. He's absolutely incredible. I, like, we'll talk about the Oscars of it all in a little bit, but I just think just for the performance in the, in the film, I think he's stunning. And a real, like, lead actor showcase of a thing. Like, this is a, you know, this is a spotlight kind of a movie.

So A24 has got a lot of best act of contenders on their hands all of a sudden. And we'll see how they release this movie. I also think that there is a possibility that this gets slapped with an NC17. And I don't know what. I mean, would that hurt this movie? Probably not. I don't think this movie's making a ton of money anyway. Do you know what I mean?

So give it the NC17. Give it a little bit of a cachet, you know what I mean? Give it a little bit of a sense of danger. I think, I think. A24 is so, like, in bed with AMC, though, like, and are they going to be able to get, you know, the, the objective is for as many people to see this on film, probably, as possible. This is where a boy becomes a man as far as a film studio goes. This is where you, when they release an C-17 movie. This is your right of passage, A-24.

Let's do this. All right. However, we, my transition point for us is that I think we have a real possibility of the 2002 lead acting winners being the 2024 lead acting winners. I don't think that's like a certainty, but I think there's enough possibility. I'm just going to mention the fact that we have become the John Mulaney bit about drawing the happy birthday sign where we've drawn the big. giant H at the beginning, and now we don't have enough room for the rest of it. We have, we've got a lot of movies to get to in the next hour. And some of them merit less conversation.

But yes, so Nicole Kimman and Baby Girl. I mean, she's getting nominated. She very well could win. Baby Girl. Especially considering momentum because she could have very likely been second place all season long when Jessica Chastain won. Yes, but I think it will probably behove Nicole for people to not think about

being the Ricardo's. For as much as I was the apologist for that movie, people did not like that movie. Baby Girl, the new movie from Helena Rhine, who directed Bodies, Bodies, Bodies, last we saw. Although this is, she wrote and directed Baby Girl, which I think is a decent distinction. Because this movie feels a lot

more grown-up than bodies, bodies, and not just because it's about an older character. I think there is a maturity to this movie, which is essential because it is about a 50-something CEO, let's say she-e-o, girl boss cinema. No, this movie is definitely playing with these ideas of feminism in the C-suite set and how much that applies. She ends up embarking on an affair with an intern played by Harris Dickinson. This affair is very much characterized by erotic power games, which opens up the door to quite a lot of commentary on things like power, things like the perception of women in executive. roles, the way that, you know, women relate to other women in the professional sphere and are expected to relate to other women in the professional sphere. This is all done very much not as a polemic. This is all very much not done as this kind of didactic. This is a movie that really kind of explores the space of how would this play out and what sort of messy, thorny little corners of messaging do we end up with? And it is...

But I will say one of my favorite things about the movie is it has this POV about how we talk about these things. Like characters will like go and do the like Twitter bullet point. The Twitter discourseiness of it. And the movie has this POV that we are all very stupid when we talk about these things. Yeah. And that was so funny to me. Well, it's not even just that we are very stupid, but that like these conversations are often completely divorced from human behavior. You know what I mean? Which is, which does.

It's also like reductive. Even when we like sound smart, we sound stupid. Because ultimately human behavior does not conform to talking points and is, you know, will be hypocritical, will be contradictory will be one of the one of the great things without spoiling where this movie goes one of the great things about it is the ways in which these two characters step into and out of this reality that they've agreed to take part in right that they that it's that it's both um fantasy and reality for that You know what I mean? That you see these moments where they are fully invested in these roles that they have agreed to play. And then every once in a while, Harris Dickinson's character will kind of drop the Dom persona. And her character will drop the submissive persona. There's an incredible scene back at her house where he shows up to her house.

with one of the other co-workers, the sort of this woman who's kind of an apprentice figure to Kidman's character. And all of a sudden, Kidman goes from sub to Dom in this sort of power relationship. And it's incredible, incredible. All of the scenes where they're kind of navigating the particulars of this relationship and how it's going to work are often very funny. they're very not to sound trite but like messy in a realistic human way like these are people who are trying to figure out how to communicate but they themselves are bad communicators like this is also not a movie that is interested in punishing its characters for transgressing and this you could absolutely see a movie where ultimately it explores the ways in which this arrangement that they have. decided to make, destroys at least one of their lives. And it's just not interested in something

quite so easy or tidy in that way. You know what I mean? I think sometimes a lot of these films feel a responsibility to sort of have everything end in this cavalcade of disaster because that's the way the world is. And I think Helena Rine is saying with this movie is just like, no, shit's messy, but it's, but it's a little too easy to just sort of take the nihilist's view of like, well, you know, we can't have, we can't have equitable human relationships. So trying to sort of step out of these roles that we have ultimately leads to downfall and degradation. And this movie's not interested in that in a way that I find refreshing as hell

I think the other refreshing thing about it is that it has this real pop sensibility that I think is going to help this movie appeal to a lot of different people I mean no because I don't want to spoil the soundtrack the way that it was spoiled for me yeah there's some good needle drops in this movie

though multiple um sorry I just got real loud but like I I'm gonna quote Coco Montrease like, but we're going to talk about it. Yeah, there, I do think, I mean, like this movie's opening at Christmas. I think this movie could make real money.

I think so too. I think so too. On top of being a real best actor. It'll be interesting to see. Harris Dickinson would deserve it. I'm just going to lay down the gauntlet right now, FYC, Harris Dickinson. Harris Dickinson, I think, is going to get a supporting actor nomination. The other thing, though.

We'll see. Nicole Kidman releasing this movie around Christmas time with the sort of type of performance that she's giving in it is almost a full circle eyes wide shut thing where she's finally going to get the credit that she didn't get for eyes wide shut. That's the spoiler we'll give. Baby girl is a Christmas movie. Baby girl is a Christmas movie.

Let's fucking go. Baby girl is a Christmas movie in that like the holiday season is conceivably like three months long. I could not keep track of time. There are so many holiday parties in this movie. It's totally true. You're totally right. The friend feels the same way. We'll talk about the friend in a little bit. The friend is a Christmas movie where Christmas seems to last for six months. All right. We also talk about a movie we minorly disagree on. I am placed in people's choice in a way that I was not surprised by. This was like on the ground. You know, you hate to reduce it to this because I think this was a widely anticipated movie at the festival, and that's Sean Baker's and Nora. The bro set is out for this movie. Okay. The bros are down with the business.

Timeout. You do have a habit of taking movies that you're a little bit down on and then chalking up their enthusiasm to bros in a way that... No, there's a lot of people that are enthusiastic about this movie, but like... Because then it all of a sudden throws me as a supporter of this movie in league. No, that's not what I mean. I'm saying separately from a lot of the people, this is like the bro-choice movie. Like, I'm not saying if you are down with this movie, that you are that.

I'm saying the people that are that, like, this is like the movie that they are excited for. I dispute it. This is the new Sean Baker movie, Mikey Madison, from Scream. What the fuck? Scream 5. Scream derogatory. Whatever. scream derogatory and once upon a time in Hollywood and also better things from television

plays a Brighton Beach stripper named Anna who uh Amy no or Annie Annie Annie right yes um whose full name is anora that becomes a whole thing later on who ends up sort of being assigned to this the fuck boy son of an oligarch who comes into the strip club, she sort of catches his fancy, and he, hers, and they kind of, they latch on to each other and embark upon this sort of foolish whirlwind, let's get married thing, that she sees as her way out of this awful life of hers. And then the movie takes a turn, his family is not very happy that he has jumped into this marriage with a stripper, and it becomes a somewhat sort of road caper movie as they, like, bounce around Brighton Beach and sort of Southern Brooklyn.

And like old school farce, you know? Yes. And it's a lot of her sort of like she's, you know, it's a little ransom of Red Chief, right, where like she is the kidnappy, she's the detainee, but she's also just like slapping the fuck out of these guys and like hurting them and and degrading them and whatnot. And then it kind of then slips into the more sort of, you know, dramatic implications for all of this.

This was the Palm Door winner. This is Sean Baker's, since Tangerine, this is what, 1, 2, 3, 4? movie since the breakout. This is being seen as, you know, the one that nailed it, right? The one that got him the big award. And so now there's a lot of Best Picture Buzz. The Palm Win helps. Yeah. Well, that's sort of what I mean. Best Picture Buzz. The sort of Palm Door, Neon Pipeline is at work here. I found the movie, just enjoyable to watch. Just a pleasure to have in class, as far as I was concerned. I sort of took the ride. And I think ultimately, this movie kind of made me realize that, like, Sean Baker is our premier filmmaker of folks on The Hustle. Folks, you know, like scammers complimentary is sort of where Sean is at. And I was really interested. to it you are less so i'm i'm mild on it i'm positive on the movie but i i struggle to get as enthusiastic as everybody else just because like when the setup of the movie like hits like i just felt like uh you know everything that was to come was like right there and maybe i'm just too

cynical for this movie you know i think i think you're cynical in a in a specific way towards this movie. I disagree with you on this, and I know what you're going to say, and that's not what it is. It's that, like, the whole conceit of this movie, it's like, well, then here's two more hours of every single thing that I expected to happen

from this setup in a way that wasn't as satisfying to me. Even though, like, I spent a lot of the time laughing. I loved Anora as a character. I think Mikey Madison's performance is my favorite thing about the movie, maybe the least expected thing is the precise comic tone that it's trying to achieve. But I think there's a fine line between inevitability as intentional in the setup.

Like, what happens in this movie is what was always going to happen. And a movie just being too predictable. See, and I just, I, and perhaps I am, you know, a sucker. But there were multiple ways in which I thought this movie sort of curves away. And I don't want to get into it too much because like that that does sort of get in the spoiler. Right. Right. It's hard to talk about why we both feel specifically the way we feel about this movie without getting into like, I think there is a, um, there is an offshoot of your Finn Wolfhard problem to this movie that is keeping you from investing in what I think for most people would be a, you know, a possibility for this storyline to go that you kind of ruled out out of hand because...

You think I'm ruling out Twink Funk Boys, and that's not what it is. It's that this character in the way that he is presented, or I would actually say the way he presents himself, to the protagonist, how do I want to say this without spoiling the movie? And I feel like marinating on it too long is itself going to make tire spin and spoil it. But like...

Well, that's... We can talk about this movie later on, too. Like, we're going to have plenty of chances to talk about it more. I will just say, the way the character presents himself to the protagonist, I maybe questioned him much sooner than the movie wants me to.

I think you can question that character while still sort of allowing, there's a way in which that character sort of ends up that is even more, I don't know, you're right. It's the more we talk about it, the more we're going to spoil it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It comes out in a month, go see it. You can argue with us and your friends. I think that this movie is going to, a lot of people are going to like this movie. Yeah, I agree. I think a movie that maybe we're a little bit reversed on is.

Pedro Moldivar's English language debut, The Room Next Door, which stars Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore as sort of longtime friends who are reconnecting while Tilda has, now that Tilda has gotten this terminal diagnosis. And the movie becomes both them, you know, sort of not re-litigating their friendship, but kind of re-re-you know, re-presenting the sort of history of the friendship. I mean, this very kind of peder all mode of our way in which it's, you know, its anecdotes and its stories and its flashbacks and its side characters and that kind of a thing. And then it all kind of boils down to this incredibly sort of emotionally fraught bond between these two characters incredibly well acted, I think, by both Tilda Swinton and Julian and more. This movie is a statement. Neither of them really giving the performance you expect

them to give this movie. This is true. This movie is a statement for a red mat lipstick in a way that I was, should have seen coming because it's Pedro. There is a sort of casting twist in the final reel of this movie that I think is really interesting. There are multiple angles on this movie that reminded me of the hours. All of these things are good. I think the room next door is a very good movie. I think the difference between you and I is, I think you have entry to the realm of the ecstatic for Pedro El Mottivar that I don't. And I don't think that's necessarily me, like, criticizing this movie or El Mottavar's movies in general. I just feel like I've never, maybe the closest I've ever felt was bad education, but I don't think I've ever really felt

transported to, you know, the hiltz with an Almodivar movie, the way that I think a lot of people have. I think for me personally, this probably skews more towards the, like, ideas forward movie of Almodovar's work. Like, I do think that this is a movie kind of about ideas and...

I mean, in a way, all of his movies are. Yes, but, like, I think, the guiding principle about this movie or the guiding theme is the thing that makes us most human, most alive, is our ability to have choice. And I was very, very moved by that just as a theme in the way that it's used in this movie. And, like, I was also moved, like, it's a Sigrid Nunes novel as well as the friend is, too. And, like, the friend feels like the less ideas, more emotional. forward version of very similar themes. But, like, I'm a big Elizabeth Strout fan. This felt a little bit like a lot of my favorite Elizabeth Strout books in terms of, like, you're getting all of these backstories and personal experiences and characters' point of views about various different situations, especially, like, the specific plot-driven one,

in a way that, like, you walk away from this movie. Feeling like you just saw the portraiture of a full human being in all of their humanity in a way that I was just very impressed by. I can see how this is a movie that will not be for everyone. There is, I think it's, even though it's about weighty stuff, it's not a heavy movie. There's such a light touch to it that I think maybe too light for some people, people might need their hand held through this a little bit more. And, like, I could understand. It'll be interesting to see tonally whether people who would normally have accepted this kind of a tone in a Spanish language film from El Moldivar. Snag on it a little bit now that it's in English because it feels a little, like, one fewer degree of removal from their own reality.

Do you know what I mean? Right. And my point of view on that was like, well, yes, he's a melodramatist. Like, all of his stuff is melodrama. People do talk like that in, you know, all of his movies, even though this is the first English language one. Right. Maybe it just draws more attention to itself in my mind. I'm hoping he makes more English language movies with more English-speaking stars, though, because, like, there's a whole, like, there's a whole color palette that he can dip into with, you know, actors here. And I think that's great.

Very briefly, because I know I do want to sort of keep things moving. We'll get into this, I'm sure, in future episodes, too. But, like, where is your sense of this movie as a two-lead movie in which they are probably going to pitch Tilda Swinton as a supporting actress for awards season? I think I'm fine with saying Tilda is supporting in this movie. I do think, you know, Julianne Moore is the protagonist. I think the reason people will have an issue with that is that she is the more passive, receptive character. and people are, people always have problems when that is your protagonist

as if that makes them not a protagonist somehow. But I have less of an issue with that. Speaking of films that are based on novels, we both saw Mariel Heller's Nightbitch, a movie that I wrote about at Vulture and I sort of took the, while, you know, owning my part in this, owning our part in this,

I took a bit of attack of, let's maybe not reduce everything Amy Adams does from now on to is this going to be the thing that gets her the Oscar, because ultimately it's maybe not a service to her in a movie like Nightbitch in Witten, just because I watched that movie and I think there's absolutely no way they're giving her the Oscar for this, partially because I don't think the movie is fully successful. But I think as a movie that's not fully successful, I think it is no less incredibly interesting to talk about and think about, particularly with regard to both Amy Adams, and I think maybe even more so for Mariel Heller as a director, because this is nothing like anything that she has done before. It's definitely, I think, her most populous movie. And people look at me like I grow a second head when I say that. But I think that this has a more mainstream sensibility than her other movies. Well, it does, particularly when you think of... So the quick gist of Nightbitch is, based on the... I didn't realize this in the movie that sometimes they go through a whole movie

and I don't realize that we have never named our main character. Often this happens with major stars where I'm just like, it's Amy. But Amy Adams plays a character who's only known as mother because this is a movie and a story which deals with the sort of dehumanization of women when they have children, they sort of lose sense of self, sense of drive, sense of potential. They sort of become only a sort of life support system for this child, while at the same time loving this child. And like this is, you know, maybe the best thing about the movie is that it does not sort of, you know, turn this child into the worst.

You know what I mean? Right. But so to cope with this dehumanization, and, you know, this is a thing that's happening to her much more so than she's sought out. But she turns into a dog at night and runs around with other dogs and comes home in the morning with muddy feet and, you know, piles of dead animals on her doorstep that she and her pack of mom dogs have killed. It's an odd movie. We knew this about it going in. I think there was a possibility that, like, well, we've, you know, we just gave best actress to a movie about a baby brain in the body of an adult human woman. Searchlight movie, which is why I think we shouldn't fully disregard this movie in an awards conversation. Talk about that, then. Talk about, talk about, talk. They're just very,

and they're very good at getting best actress Oscars. Like, I, I agree that the movie is not as good as it could be. Um, specifically, I think the more, and I hate to say this, but the more Scoot McNary is involved in this movie, like the Scoot McNary stuff is the worst in this movie. You're right, but I do love him, but you're probably... I love Scoot McNary so much. But, like, that's the crunchiest stuff in the script. And, you know, but I do think that this is a movie that has mainstream appeal. And, like, I've had a lot of frustrating conversations and a lot of, like, responses to when I say that, that I don't love. And people are like, yeah, but who's going to go see this movie? I think I said that. When I'm here, the people who keep asking me, what

about Nightbitch that I hear from, or like, did you like Nightbitch, are a lot of moms and women who live where I live, you know? And, like, I do think that there is an audience for this movie. Let's not forget, not that I think Nightbitch is going to make $100 million at the box office, but, like, who showed up in droves to it ends with us? A lot of adult women and their friends. And that is the audience for this movie. And people think that just, like, those people don't go to the movies or. Those people don't exist, and it drives me a little crazy. As a childless person, I hear quite a bit about how expensive it is for a parent to go to the movies,

because they have to pay for child care, and they have to pay for blah, blah, blah, and whatever. And so I am taking those people at their word that it is perhaps an obstacle to go out to the movies. But then when they have a movie that appeals to them that they could maybe go with their friends to, and they don't necessarily need it to be the greatest movie, but they just want to have a good time watching something that heels of done that they can watch with their friends. Particularly because this movie, and I'm going to try and say this in a way that doesn't sound condescending,

but I may fail. There is a sense of like wine mom bodiness to the concept. I might as well just turn into a dog. and breastfeed my litter of pups. You know what I mean? Like that kind of a thing. And I think this movie is much more interested in being that movie than being an Oscar movie.

Sure. I think that this movie was coming out in March or April, people would not be half as harsh to it as they're being. And like, I don't think this was by any stretch one of the better movies that I saw at this festival. But people are being too much. My problem with Nightbitch is it's all idea and no plot in a way. way that I just ultimately...

It's vignettes. I get to and I get it. I get to and I get it placed with this movie far sooner than it wants me to, particularly because it backloads a lot of its most interesting ideas, but by that time, I think I've kind of been sort of alienated by the fact that there's just no plot, there's no story. You give this this incredibly odd concept of this woman who turns into a dog at night, and then what's to be done about it, nothing. What's the problem with it? I don't really know. Is there

anything that needs to be accomplished? No. Like, I don't need her to like dig into the like, you know, ancient Transylvanian curse or whatever that like she feels like she's like, or whatever, like this librarian who seems a little bit knowing about what's going on. But I don't need, I don't need answers. What I need there to be is something that needs to happen. progression of action and events. Well, I think that eventually comes into the third act of the movie. The movie just doesn't do it well. Yeah.

Yeah. I root for this movie, though. I don't want this movie to fail. I don't want this movie to be dismissed. I don't want like razzy nominations for this movie because ultimately, I don't think that'll happen. No, I don't either. But like, as I said in my article, I'm glad that even if this is not an Oscar nomination for Amy Adams, I'm glad that she's back to doing this stuff

and not vice and fucking hillbillie elegy. You know what I mean? It feels like Amy Adams come a movie star again. Even if it's not the best movie, it feels like it's serving her in a way that like vice is never going to. If we're going to continue to have the when is Amy Adams going to win the Oscar conversation, we at least need to keep pace with the Amy Adams as an act. who deserves to have an Oscar conversation.

And I think Nightbitch at the very least contributes to the latter. So, that's fine. On the same wavelength of movies that we think are going to underwhelm our hopes and dreams, we both saw Luca Guadino's queer, and I think we're both, to some degree or another, underwhelmed by it. Not quite for me. This is another movie that has grown on me. Partly because I think I saw it at the wrong time of the festival.

This was the movie that, like, more than anything I saw, I just felt so tired while I was watching it. Yeah. Even more than the brutalist. In, you know, I think it was a mistake to bring it to this festival. I was at the Princess of Wales premiere for it, and it went over like a lead fucking balloon. there were people around me walking out at like the 15 minute mark into the movie. Really? What turned them off?

I think, I don't know. I think a lot of people are too unfamiliar with William S. Burroughs and what the vibe will be. This is not call me by your name Luca Guadonino. This is very much Susperia, Luca Guadonino. know, there's anachronisms, it's all very heightened, it gets progressively stranger as, you know, there's more and more drug activity into the movie. Give the nutshell of the plot of this movie for our listeners who may not know. Daniel Craig is basically playing a stand-in for Burroughs, when Burroughs was basically fucking off to Mexico City to just live in a pseudo-queer community of expats who were all into drugs, essentially, or most of them were, he is a hardcore heroin addict,

and he basically sublimates his addiction issues into an obsession with this younger, possibly queer male, and it eventually leads to them in going on an excursion into the jungle in search of ayahuasca. It is very largely based on Burroughs' own experiences. I think maybe my issue with it is Luca is not interested in the background to the novel which includes Burroughs accidentally killing his wife

which ultimately fueled his addiction which ultimately was fueled by his queer I'm pushing back on this though because you're not the first person who has mentioned this other people have also mentioned this I don't think Luca is under any obligation to include anything to do with the wife especially if it was not in the novel

This is not a biopic. This is a fictional story. Right. No, no, no, no. I don't think he's obligated to. I think, and you know, this is very clearly Luca channeling burrows through his own fascinations. I don't think he's obligated to.

I just think it is a piece of the puzzle that makes the book work that it is a snag of, well, this maybe doesn't work a little bit. Or, you know, the character, Daniel Craig is playing, we don't fully understand it. I'm fine with just chalking that up to a weakness in the book or the film rather than expecting that I will need to do like supplemental research in order to make this story work. Do you know what I mean?

I'm... I hear you. And ultimately I think this movie, I don't love the Daniel Craig performance at the center of it. And I think I'm sort of realizing that that's maybe my biggest problem with it is I don't. I don't think he's getting an Oscar nomination. Oh, I don't think this movie is getting any kind of Oscar. I think it's very possible that we'll be talking about this movie in a year.

So maybe we don't want to go overboard with it. But like, I love Daniel Craig. I just don't think he's making it for me in this movie. I will say, if you're interested in watching this movie, watch it for, at the very least, Leslie Manville's appearance mid-movie, which is worth the price of admission. I hope A-24 goes for a crazy-ass. Supporting actress nomination for her.

She's... I mean, she's gotten one before. Drew Starkey, everything he wears or doesn't wear in this movie is perfect. That being said, if you're expecting going into this movie that Drew Starkey's going to like rock your world, temper your expectations. There's not a whole lot for him to do in this movie. Oh, acting wise, sure. I think I really liked it and probably even loved it.

It's just the context in which I saw it was not an advantage to the movie. And I think that's true of people across the spectrum that saw it at this festival. It's interesting that the both of us, I think, emerged from our respective screenings, somewhat nonplussed, and you have moved towards the loving it and I have moved towards the not loving it. And I think that's deeply interesting. Another movie that got kind of a split reaction or sort of kind of all over the spectrum reactions was Jason Reitman's highly anticipated Saturday Night, which is the comedic farce dramatization of the first ever episode of Saturday Night Live, the absolute chaos that was roiling behind the scenes trying to get this episode onto the. the air, all surrounding the show's creator, Lorne Michaels, who is played by certified baby boy, Gabriel LaBelle. This had Oscar Buzz, sponsored actor, Gabriel LaBelle, made possible through the generous

sponsorship from Gabriel LaBelle. But this movie is sort of stacked with incredible young talent. Cooper Hoffman plays Dick Ebersoll. Rachel Sennett plays Rosie Schuster is her name. I'm going to get that name. I'm going to get some people's names wrong. Corey Michael Smith plays... One of the biggest problems with the movie is on several occasions.

People like, even major characters like Rachel Sennett's character, you're like, now, who the fuck is this person? Right. Like there's a Tracy Lett scene that's like, who is Tracy Letts supposed to be? Like, I'll give you a quick rundout. Yes, Rachel Senate does play Rosie Schuster, who was a writer of the show. Ella Hunt plays. You don't even have to like know the people's names before you do it, but you need to know what they do at S&L. And you don't understand that.

I'm not as deep into SNL lore where like I know who Michael O'Donohue was. But like Tommy Dewey sort of nails that character from the break and is really, really good, I think, in that role. Tommy Dewey rules in this movie. Ella Hunt, Kim Matula, and, who plays Lorraine Newman, Emily Farn,

play Gilda Radner, Jane Curtin, Lorraine Newman. I think all three of them are fairly underserved, although I will give it up to Bolden the beautiful veteran Kim Matula

for having at least one really good scene as Jane Curtin. She has a good scene with Lamorne Morris as Garrett Morris that I think is really good. Lamor Morris is also

really good in this movie. I liked Matt Wood as John Belushi. even though the movie kind of leaves a lot to be desired with that. Nicholas Braun plays both Andy Kaufman and Jim Henson in a kind of cheeky... To varying success. I think in general I appreciate... The thing about Nicholas Braun is he's maybe too identifiable as cousin Greg from succession to be able to...

Like, I think he disappears into Henson. I think him as Andy Kaufman is Nicholas Braun as cousin Greg as Andy Kaufman. Well, and I forget, because he wasn't supposed to play two roles. I think at the last minute, someone who was playing one or the other had to drop out and he was there. I don't know how it ended up being like, well, we'll just do Nicholas Braun in two roles. Wouldn't that be funny? Given the success of the performances, I would be inclined to believe that it is Andy Kaufman that he just randomly stepped into. It's not a particularly good Andy Kaufman impersonation.

Right. The movie kind of drifts in between people who are characters and people who are cameos. You get things like Matthew Rees, George Carlin, J.K. Simmons plays Milton Burrell. John Batiste plays Billy Preston. Those all feel very cameo-ish, whereas, like, Nicholas Padani plays Billy Crystal in a way that is both kind of uncanny. But also, I think... But I think he's quite good also, like in the, like, you know, brief moment. where he's asked to kind of play a character.

I liked this movie while still feeling like I could have loved this movie. And if it had sort of been, first of all, the sound mixing was brutal. I've heard this from multiple people who saw this at the Princess of Wales. I think those theaters just have shit acoustics. They're not theaters meant for... Because I talked to Bilga about this, and he said that, because he had seen it at Telluride, and he said that was not a problem at Telluride. So I'm going to want to see this movie again to counteract.

because the score was just mixed far too loudly for me to understand what was going on. Really good Batisse score. Really good Batiste score. Dan Aykroyd should send the biggest flower basket imaginable to Jason Reitman for casting him as Dylan O'Brien, the most absurd glow-up I've ever heard of in my entire life. Looks nothing like Dan Aykroyd, but again, I think it's an actor who got it for the voice because I was like, Dylan O'Brien doesn't sound like that. Yeah.

No, and he's good, but he's also just like a fucking babe. And it's really funny to see Dan Aykroyd played by a fucking babe. I like the chaos that's going on behind the scenes. I have absolutely no interest in parsing how much of this was what really happened or not. That does not interest me whatsoever. What does interest me is the fact that I think, with some script tweaking and some maybe, you know,

deciding to focus on certain things among others or really like dialing in on certain things, the movie could have been a lot sharper, could have really like hit a lot better. I think when the movie decides to drill down on things like it does with, Chris, you mentioned

in your review, Corey and Michael Smith as Chevy Chase, it gives him... Will 100% beyond my supporting actor Ballard. Because it gives him multiple sort of story beats to actually create a character arc, and that doesn't really happen for anybody except for maybe him, maybe, like, definitely Gabriel LeBelle, although like Lauren's arc in this movie is mostly just like, I think this show is going to be the greatest show ever. Nobody believes me. Like that's sort of. Right. Whereas like, well, and that's why I maybe came down more positive, shockingly, on this movie that a lot of people are, even though like I'm very accepting of what the movie's issues are. Like, There could not be a worse movie for you to sideline, basically, all the women. Right.

Like, what are you doing? Like, come on. But I do think that this movie is maybe not getting enough credit about it, or maybe I'm over-crediting the movie for this. But I do think that this is more than just a movie about the first night of S&L. I think it's a movie that has a theme and an idea of being about something. And that is how hard and what all the obstacles are in creating something. I think it's for the first time. And the impossibility of pulling things off.

For the first time with the Jason Reitman movie, I find it to be better directed than it is written, which is very interesting to sort of realize that. I just like, I think part of it is when you stack a movie with this many actors who I really like. I want more time with Andrew Barth Feldman, just because I think he's so funny. I think you look at the way Cooper Hoffman nails his one scene where he's asked to really, like, give a, you know, significant piece of monologue. And he's so good in that scene, that's seen in the stairwell with him and with him and, uh, Lorne. And it's like, oh, my God, he's created like an entire story arc in this just one scene. Wouldn't it have been great if we had gotten just like a little bit more of him, a little bit more of this story? I think the movie ultimately does limit itself by its concept of we're just going to do straight shot 90 minutes before SNL goes live.

And also the concept of it is this is a three ring circus. And so I think I think Reitman does want this sense of there's a hundred people here and everybody is on their own little like journey. They got Al Franken and I can't remember who the other character is trying to set up the, the blood, what the fuck is it? What's the sketch that they're trying to set up? That, whatever. But it ends up with, like, Lauren getting blood splashed. I mean, like, to me, and I kind of mentioned,

I reviewed the film for The Daily Beast. Oh, it's the Julia Child sketch, of course. Duh. Yeah. That stuff was good. This is very much the same filmmaker as the frontrunner. Go back and listen to our episode on the Frontrunner, where it's like, it's about an ecosystem. And sometimes we don't fully understand everybody's role in that ecosystem.

That's what Reitman is going for. And where that movie was incredibly snoozy, this one is, I think this movie functions as well as it does because of the, like, freneticness of it. Yeah. I think you're right. All right. Weird that I'm more positive than most people on this movie. I was so impressed that you were really like this. And again, I do think on balance, you like it probably a little bit more than me,

although I'm giving myself room to see it again with a proper sound mixing. And I can easily see myself liking it a little bit more. I do also think people are disregarding. We'll see because, especially with when the release is timed, if this doesn't make money and ultimately doesn't become a big deal, it's not going to get great reviews. You know, this movie could just go away. but I do think the aspect of it that is about how difficult it is to create something will really resonate with the industry.

I also think the irony is, even though I find a lot of its weaknesses to be on a screenplay level, original screenplay is very accommodating this season. And I think I could definitely see this movie as a screenplay nominee. Let's keep it moving. Okay, a movie I think we both liked. me, maybe a little bit more than you, but we'll see. Scott McGee and David Siegel's The Friend, which is another movie based on a novel by the woman who wrote The Room Next Door,

whose name is? Sigrid Nunez. This is about Naomi Watts plays the best friend of a fellow college professor played by Bill Murray, who at the very beginning of the movie, it is not a spoilers to say, dies and is, and bequeaths to her, so says his widow, bequeaths to Naomi Watts,

his Great Dane, his giant ass Great Dane, who barely fits in her, you know, one bedroom right off of Washington Square Park, West Village apartment, and On a sort of purely functional level, the movie becomes about how she's going to accommodate this dog into her life in a building that does not allow dogs, and in a life that has not, you know, been built to accommodate dogs. While she is also dealing with the emotional fallout of the death of her friend, there's a lot to do with, he was sort of this womanizing college professor, and there's a legacy to that that has to be dealt with on multiple. levels. She is trying to write a novel that the Murray character did not really have a lot of faith in her to write. And so she's dealing with a lot of that. And it's sort of this, it feels like initially it is going to be part of this subgenre that Naomi, by the way, has already participated in, which is grief symbolized by animal companion.

This is, you know, the penguin bloom, the what the fuck ever, Melissa McCarthy starling movie that might have just been called the starling. And yet, this movie becomes, I think, quite a bit more. Yeah. Braden on Twitter asked us, in honor of your Monuments Men episode, what movie that you saw would you reward with truly moving picture? This is the only movie at the festival that made me cry. Yeah. There were a lot of snorffles in my theater, I will say, when certain things happened in this movie. There is a certain level.

Like, I got out of this movie and I was like Middlebrow excellence. Spring matinee excellence. You know, I think that's the level that it's operating on, but I mean that in a complimentary way. I think that this is a movie that could serve an audience that is really, really underserved. But I was really moved by this movie. Do not be surprised Chris Fyle if Naomi Watts ends up on my best actress ballad at the end of this year. If it's a 2024 release. Yes. I would neither be surprised nor questioning of that choice. I think

there's one scene in particular that I wouldn't really spoil, but you know the scene that I think is absolutely the best work she's done since Mulholland Drive. You know, this is this has a you know middle brow populace bent to the movie it's directed by scott mcgee and david seagull who've done among other things the tilta swinton film the deep end that would be really fun to do an episode on um and like it i think it goes about its themes in a way that is never condescending but never pretentious um and in a genuinely emotional way that I was impressed by it's a great New York City movie it's a great great New York movie it's a great pet movie I will say as a person I've talked about this on

this podcast before I was never raised with pets I have never owned a pet I have only ever cohabitated with somebody who owned a pet once I'm not a pet person I am not necessarily as hostile to pets, as I, you know, might have been. But I don't have that parasite that cats put in their poop that drives, that gets in people's brains that make people, you know that whole thing. You know the thing? We're like cat owners have a parasite in their brain that they've gotten from cat poop that makes them. Where did you learn this? Did you learn this on TikTok? No, look it up. Chris at Science. Someone posted an article on Facebook. Chris is science. I'm going to Post an article to this. People understand what I'm talking about. But I also in general just don't have that part of me that watches a movie about pets and all automatically sort of identifies with it. That said, I am. You loved the dog. No, I was going to say, no, I'm going a different place. That said, I am a person who lived in New York City for 15 years. And so ultimately, when this woman is being given this dilemma of, do I keep this dog or do I keep my,

a rent-controlled apartment off of Washington Square Park I have a very, very strong, very strong stake in the outcome of this story now. So all of a sudden, everybody else in this movie is like, oh, my God, what's going to happen to the dog? And I'm

going, oh, my God, is she going to be able to keep this apartment? So the stakes are through the roof no matter what. So no matter what you're going into this movie. It has to be said, and it's not, and it's not said explicitly in the movie, but like, she inherits a full adult grain

Great Dane. That's not just inheriting a dog. That's inheriting a baby horse. Yes. That's the, that's the gist of the movie. Like that is the that's what takes it for the concept from good to great is she is inheriting a

large adult son. She's inheriting a fail son is what she's actually done. So yeah. There is definitely an audience that this movie is not for them. But like, this movie did scratch an itch for me and I will say there I will agree with you that there's probably an audience where for this is not for them but you can expect the people that will hate this here's what I will say though if you think of this concept and you think that's probably

not a movie for me I think 40% of those people will end up liking this movie better than they thought they would do you know what I mean that's probably that's probably fair I mean it's not particularly cloying it's not particularly like obnoxious these are likable characters. It's not Marley and me. Right. It's not bludgeoning you for your tears. I think it like there's a lot that is

to be said for it within its sort of modest as you say sort of like middle brow excellence. It's operating first emotionally but it's not operating emotionally in the way that like Marley and me is. I do think that there is a more intellectual bent to this even though I

think that this is the less intellectual version of the room next door, basically. Okay. Neither one of us saw The Wild Robot, as we mentioned before, which I think may end up being our frontrunner for Best Animated Feature. There had been talked that that could be a best picture contender. I think without the TIF audience award, that becomes a little bit harder.

But we did see an animated film from Latvia called Flo that made Chris, quote, the film Dumb and Dumber to me, 100. Four times a day. It was delightful. Excuse me, Flo? What is the soup du jour? It's the soup of the day. That sounds good.

I'll have that. This is a movie about a cat who survives an apocalyptic flood of some kind in... I spent so much of this movie being like, are we in the future? Are we in the past? Are we in an alternate universe where cats have supremacy? are cats the people of this world? There is no dialogue in this. It's a world that is a metaphor for the divisiveness of our time.

Sure is. And so ultimately, to survive the aftermath of this flood, this cat must be in together with a dog, a capybara, a lemur, a bird of some sort. Katie and I were trying to figure out forever what kind of stork-type creature was this bird. I think it's a stork. It's a stork. Yeah, but like the particular sort. of like plumage of this stork as whatever. It's a stork like bird. The largest stork you've

ever seen. The press notes don't even specify it, Chris. So like the press notes are not even taking the chance to say. Yeah, they're like a bird. A bird. Um, I likened that set up to the land before time, but without a dialogue in that like there's a leader. There's one of them who's in charge of like the boat. Like the capybara is like the navigator. The bird is the leader. The dog is kind of the dumb one. The lemur is, you know, chilling. The lemur's the neurotic one. The lemur is the neurotic one. You're right, you're right. The dog is mostly the one who's kind of chilling. And sometimes is joined by other dog friends. And when they're all together in a pack, they're kind of selfish. And they kind of fuck things up for the rest of the animals. Maybe so. And then in the middle of all this.

the most emotionally conflicted one. Like, what do I do? Like, do I go with the other dogs? Do I stay here? And then the middle of this is this protagonist cat who is taking it all in and who sometimes sees a giant prehistoric whale and sort of follows it there and sometimes gets separated. Tyakon makes an appearance. Sometimes get separated from the group and sometimes reunites with the group. And there is, as we said, no dialogue, but I think it's a gorgeously animated movie. I think in any other year, I would say this is a lock. The only thing that gives me pause is that animated feature this year, in particular, is a fucking barn burner. There are so many major contenders this year.

And yet, I think that this stands out enough that it will probably be fine. It could end up as an international feature nominee. I agree. In addition, or instead of animated feature. So, but if you look at animated feature this year, I'll get into this. as the year goes on, but like, wild robot, inside out two. There's a new Nick Park, Wallace, and Gromit movie. There's this Lord of the Rings anime movie.

There is Moana Two. There's, there's, the new Marion Max, the Marion Max director has a new movie. Memoir of a Snail. There's just a lot. There's a lot going on. I think Netflix has a thing, has an animated thing. There's just a lot. There's a lot happening.

Flo opens in November, listener, we think you will probably like it. I don't really know who I couldn't recommend Flo, too. It's the soup of the day. That sounds good. I'll have that. Bird, Andrea Arnold's Bird, another movie quite like the Brutalist, where it's very easy to separate it into two movies and to decide that I like one better than the other. That's sort of where I came down on Bird.

There's the Barry Keoghan parts of Bird and the Franz Rogowski parts of Bird. were worried that after last year's saltburn and passages double feature that there would be too much sexual chaos by putting Barry Keogan and Franz Regowski in a movie together, rest easy. They don't share any scenes together. So they are in two completely separate parts of this movie, united by this young actress whose name is something that I want to thank you, who plays Barry Keogan's daughter who is very annoyed that he has decided to get married to this person who she's never met before

and who wants her to wear a leopard print bodysuit as part of the wedding party. Pink leopard print body suit. Very, very, very, very, very queer-coated movie. You were very much into the queer coding of this movie sort of across the board. It's definitely there. I was very much more attuned, and this is probably because I had pitched an article on meme king, Barry Keogan, but I was very much more attuned to all of the goofy shit Barry is doing in this movie,

which is absolutely awful. He's my favorite thing about the movie. He's 100% my favorite thing about the movie. I think it's Andrea Arnold, so she does a very good job of sort of observing the, you know, the day-to-day and the sort of like moments of quiet

gorgeousness of what's going on. It's like the fact that like Barry Keogan spends most of this movie carrying around a hallucinogenic toad and sort of scheming for ways in which they can use it to make it money. Who he never gets the hallucinogen out of that. But he certainly sings to it on multiple occasions, and that's great. Barry Keogan sings three separate songs in this movie, people. Chaotic soundtrack movie.

If you are wondering whether you should see it. See, I came away from it with less to say than I would have wanted from an Andrea Arnold movie, a filmmaker I generally like and I think has, you know, interesting methods. I think it's deceptive because her style is so present. Like you see a frame of the movie and you know it's an Andrea Arnold movie. That is there. But I think she is doing something a little different. like impressionistic and that everything you're witnessing isn't reality and we maybe are deceived

in that way because she is such a realist filmmaker. And this is so much more impressionistic because it is heightened from the way that the protagonist sees her own life. I'll say though, there are elements of American Honey, which like American Honey never really like leaps past the realm of the real. But there's poetry in American Honey that I feel like draws a little bit

of a through line to what we see in the Franz Ruggowski parts of Bird, which are the parts of the movie that's much more fantastical,

that is much more taking a risk. I don't think that risk always pays off. I think sometimes we're just sort of left with like, oh, okay,

so it's a metaphor. I get it. And I think that maybe is a little bit less satisfying. then the stuff in the berry parts of the movie that feel satisfying in a more human way. I think Arnold does a decent job at the very end of sort of tying it all together in the person of this young girl. But I don't know if it fully nails the Franz Riggowski parts of the film.

Right. I think there is a slight laboredness to, This heightening of everything that it's a lot of the things that the protagonist hates about her life or is frustrated by our, you know, these, like, the style of the movie that is trying to express that in a non-realist way. Yeah. Loses some of the, like, I didn't, it's, it's a movie I feel like I should feel more when I watched that movie and I didn't really feel. much um understandable but yeah movie that i felt a lot during and by that i meant i felt a lot of hatred to my life in that moment uh was michael gracy's robbie williams biopic better man roby williams biopic but make it monkey like that is yes yes and as you mentioned is Saboteur monkey. 100% it's his inner saboteur monkey.

The thing about Better Man, which is so funny, is the TIF press materials are all very much playing it coy about like very interesting casting choice. And like you'll have to see it to understand what, you know, is so creative about it. When meanwhile, this news broke like months ago that. Yeah, but like in, you know, gossip sites and such. Like we knew that there would be a CGI monkey. I think there's also no. and then seeing. Well, and...

Do you think... And maybe I can take this out if I need to. Is it a spoiler to say that, like, Robbie Williams never appears in the movie? Like, I don't think it's a spoiler to say something that doesn't happen. I mean, that's one of the things that it's like, well, you're talking about one of the problems of the movie, is like you expect with this concept that at some point, you know,

because it's all like, he's a monkey because it's a representation of... His self-hatred. his self-loathing, how he perceives himself in an industry. So you expect, you know, when we come, when the movie comes to the final station, as it's arriving at its final destination and it's completing its character arc that he suddenly becomes human Robbie Williams. Never happens. Not in this movie.

You spend the last 15 minutes waiting for the moment where it's going to happen. It doesn't happen. It does sort of lend credence to my friend Whitney. theory that, like, Robbie Williams just didn't want to have to be on set. But he's going out and doing press for this movie, so... The thing about Better, man. So, you and Katie and I saw this all together in a sparsely attended press screening. Which I would say, I decided to go on seeing this listener because this was not a festival

that Joe and I got to see much together. So I was like, I'm just going to see whatever. But we were going to see Amelia Perez. And then the both of us were like, well, Katie's seeing Better Man. Why don't we all just like woop it up at Better Man? We emerged from this movie like Goldilocks's Three Bears in which like Katie mostly liked it. You hated it. And I was in the middle, but more towards you than towards Katie. I found this movie deeply obnoxious. I was not bored by it though, even though I think ultimately that it sort of succumbs to the very thing. It's trying to. to defy by doing its creative casting choice is it's trying to kind of distract you from the fact that this is ultimately a very standard musician biopic. I've talked about this ad nauseum. The beats of these are all the same. There's been nothing new said about this since behind the music premiered. It's the same fucking arc if I have to see one more drug addicted musician sort of floating in a pool of his own regret. You know what I mean? It's,

there are certain things that are like, yes, fine, I saw a movie where a monkey got jerked off in a gay club, like, by a woman, but just don't you just, you know. I saw a movie where a CGI monkey had a heroin needle sticking out of his arm, right? So much heroin in this festival. I think if there was ever a movie to sort of take the absolute, like, egotist move. of I can't even show my face in a biopic. I have to do. I have to, you know, obscure it somehow. It all plays into the sort of like legendary sort of like egotism and narcissism of Robby Williams. That's fine. Here's the other thing, though, is I'm an American. I know Robbie Williams. You know how the thing we're like people, you know how the thing we're like if you, if you, if you, if you, had a person who only existed in two dimensions, they would only be able to experience you as like a flat sliver of a person. They would never see. Sure. That's how I feel being an American watching a movie about Robbie Williams. Robby Williams is somebody who I know like two songs by

take that, one of which by the way is in Enora, none of which are in Better Man because I'm pretty sure that they couldn't get the rights to take that. The music rights situation with this movie is fascinating. They also couldn't get the music rights to Millennium, as our friend and former guest, David Sims, surmised because it has the James Bond theme sampled in it. But most, almost all, the movie, the music in this movie

is Robbie Williams' solo stuff. But I only know, like, two or three of Robbie Williams songs. I certainly rock DJ, objectively perfect. The rock DJ song. Objectively perfect. That number is tremendous.

I, that number in the movie is my living fucking hell I want to I love a big dance number and that was the big But it's a big dance number from the director of the greatest showman It is an eyesore It is

Just Here's the thing If I can limit my scope of that screen To who I know are real people And who are not CGI people Right because they're trying to say they actually did it all in one shot And I love anything Give me a whole big big

group of dancers and I am a satisfied person. But anyway, the thing about being an American watching this is, I don't know. I think this movie is going to hit English people completely different than it hits us. It's going to make so much money. I think it's going to make so much money in England. I think we've passed, we've bypassed the days of the BAFTA's nominating one gratuitously British thing for Best Picture. I say bring that back. I think this movie deserves to be that kind of a movie. I think it's such a homer pick for them. I think I literally, I got out of this movie and I hopped on a chat on a group text with me, Katie, and David Sims. And I'm like, David, you need to Britsplay in this movie immediately. And he was, of course,

very excited about the idea of, you know, a Robbie Williams movie. He's like, you don't understand. He was the most famous person in England for my entire childhood. And I was like, okay, that makes a whole more sense then because, like, there are things with, like, the All Saints singer who, you know, he's with, who ends up leaving him for Liam Gallagher, a story I knew nothing about. You do get the music rights. Huge Robbie Williams songs, not in this movie. All Saints never ever also objectively perfect pop song is in this movie. There's definitely more All Saints than there is take that in this movie. Listen, I like Robbie Williams's music. I should be in the tank for this movie. and I thought it was one of the worst things I saw. It's deeply obnoxious. It's also goes on forever. Deeply obnoxious. I do kind of want to give it credit, though, for, you know,

it is the standard musical biopic that just so happens to have a monkey in it for no real good reason. But, like, it is so much more self-effacing about his narcissism and, you know, his issues in a way that I think is commendable and sets this movie apart from things like Rocket Man or Bohemian Rhapsody. Sure. That, like, dodge that in a way that's kind of hard to describe if you haven't seen it. I would say yes and no, though, because the self. It absolves itself, so I agree with the no.

little. Well, the whole idea of the sort of the winking self-aware narcissist has been a part of his persona for so long. You look at the millennium video. Look at the rock DJ video. It's all about him sort of winking at the camera and being like, aren't I, you know, so unbearable. Aren't I so annoying? You know what I mean? So like I do feel like there is a ceiling on which I'm going to give this credit, this movie credit for being self-effacing when like it's, it's, it's, It's self-effacing in a self-aggrandizing way, if that makes sense. Do you know what I mean? So I get that. I get that. I'm glad I saw it. And I'm glad we all saw it together. I thought of all of the movies that I saw at TIF, that was one of the ones that was most an experience. And I'm happy for that.

All right. Cordelia asked us on Twitter if the Best Picture nomination is a possibility. Quite simply no. No, but again, I want that BAFTA nomination to happen. And not just Best British Film. I want that to get a BAFTA nomination. Make it happen. I also feel like best visual effects is maybe not a thing either, even though you have a feature-length C.G.I. Monkey throughout it. I mean, you also have another Planet of the Apes movie canceling out that in this year. By the way, this movie is not set, does not have a release date in the United States yet. I don't know if this. Yes, it does. It has a limited Christmas Day release. We will see. We will see. Who is distributing? Paramount. All right. Well, color me wrong. Okay. Now let's do a quick little roundup because we are over the two hour mark. Things that you saw that I didn't, starting with, I think, your favorite of the festival.

Yes, my favorite of the year. Mike Lee's hard truths. I'm so excited to see it. Listeners know I'm in the tank for Mike Lee, but even so, you know, I think leading into this festival, there was a lot of speculation because the world premiere was happening here, not at a competitive festival. festival like Cannes or Venice, not even a telluride, which Mike Lee came out and said, even they denied the movie. You know, I was bracing myself for this to be, you know, not a return to form. And, I mean, it truly is one of his masterpieces. Marianne Jean-Baptiste is basically playing this woman who, in a post-COVID world, is so consumed by anger that she has alienated those close to her and as we see in several vignettes struggles to function in even like the most basic tasks that we as human beings do like going to

the grocery store or navigating a parking lot and it is so incredibly funny in a Mike Lee observational uh you know conversational way for much of the movie And when it pivots to, oh, Marianne Jean-Baptiste's pansy, the character that she's playing, is a very deeply struggling person who's not only reckoning with the amount of anger she has, but a certain level of grief. She is also, like, consumed by this fear that doesn't really get explained in a way that, like, it's, you know, true Mike Lee humanism that I was in I mean, I didn't cry at this movie, but like the most moving thing that I saw at the festival.

Marianne Jean-Baptiste is absolutely everything that has been said about the performance. Tiff is not really a standing ovation crowd, especially after movies. Like very, very enthusiastic. But like when she came out for the Q&A, the audience leapt to their fucking feet. I understand.

the hesitation to just call her as an Oscar nominee because the character is so unpleasant and there will be people who will struggle to connect with this movie because she is so unpleasant and because Bleaker Street is not is not a tried and true distributor and we don't know how far I want to release a Patreon bonus exclusive that is just you alone, ranting the list of names of unlikable characters who got their actresses nominated for best actress

anyway, just as an example of why we shouldn't be ruling out Marianne John Baptiste because she's playing. But also, I mean, like the performance is the damn performance. I will say. Aside from her, Michelle Austin and David

Weber, I think need to be in this conversation because they're also absolutely incredible. As somebody who sort of has observed it from the outside because I didn't see it at this festival, I think one of the, if not, it's not the maybe number one Oscar buzz story originating out of Tith, which is going from Marianne John Baptiste as part of a group of maybe 10 or so actresses who we've talked about since the beginning of the year to now being talked of as the performance of the year. This is the performance to watch. This is the thing. And I think it does a world of good in terms of getting people excited to see this movie. And to get that story out there, the whole thing of, you know, she was a nominee for Secrets and Lies in 1996.

This is a reunion with Mike Lee. There's a narrative there. In characters who could not be any more different. Sure. And performances that could not be any more. more different. So that was your favorite of the festival. My favorite of the festival was also a movie that only of the two of us, only I saw, which was Rungano Nione's On Becoming a Guinea Fowl, which... My biggest regret that I had to miss. Whenever you see it, you are going to flip your

lid for it, I think. I think it's... I loved I Am Not a Witch. I had now going to have to go run out and finally watch, I Am Not a Witch. The film is set in Zomper. It is a, the film itself is a co-production between Zambia and the UK and Ireland and the United States, Rangano Nioni, is Zambian Welsh. It's, A-24 has this movie. A-24 has this movie. The only thing I'd ever seen of this was a still, which is of the lead actress, whose name is Susan Chardi, who fucking rules in this. She's in the sort of like, late-night rave costume. She's got the sort of like Bono sunglasses.

She's got this sort of bejeweled sort of skull cap thing happening going on. She's wearing the Missy Misdemeanor Elliott sort of like. Fabulous. Trash bag sort of giant billowing, whatever. And so I'm like, oh, this is a movie about like late night party culture. But no, this is what she's wearing when she comes upon the dead body of, her uncle in the road. And so the movie then becomes this whole sort of story of the familial processing of grief, which becomes less and less about making everybody feel okay than it is

about dealing with grievances and protocol and tradition and reckoning. And it is a movie about big, complicated family and also sort of the interaction between families and also the way in which sort of these kind of local customs are shown to be working at cross-purposes with things like actual healing, you know, with people. It is an auntie movie to beat the band. There is so much anti-action in this. There's a lot of comedy in it while also having a lot of very, like, heavy stuff. Susan Shardy will one million percent beyond my best actress ballot. It's one, she's going to be one of these people who I'm going to keep hectoring people about until everybody sees this and sees how good she is in this movie.

And it's not even... I look forward to joining that bandwagon. And she's not even, like, given these, like, Park and Bark Spotlight moments of, like, you know, acting or anything else. She's just like, she's just fucking good in, you know, within this ensemble. And I'm glad that A24 has it. I hope they aggressively pursue foreign language or whatever international feature nomination for it. If it is going to be Zambia's representative for the Oscars.

And I think it's rad. I can't wait for you to see. it because I genuinely do feel like you're going to love it. It seemingly did incredibly well at this TIF because out of Cannes, it was the movie that got probably the most, why was this not in Maine competition reviews? But at this festival, it was a movie, the two movies I probably heard the most that people said were their favorite films of the festival were hard truths in this. So like, we are not the outliers, unfortunately.

We are not the iconic lasts we believe ourselves to be. All right, give me a quick roundup of like the other things that you saw that I didn't, that you want our listeners to know about. Walter Salas is, I'm still here, I think is one million percent getting an international feature nomination. To me, it's, you know, it follows one woman who became an activist through the kidnapping of her politician husband who was kidnapped by the military regime. and it took years and years of working against the regime to discover that they did indeed assassinate him along with countless others that this happened to in Brazil at the time. And it's more so than what you would typically see with this type of biopic. I think it's a movie that's much more interested in the activating moment for someone who would

go on to become an activist, played by Fernando Torres, who gives this absolutely incredible performance. The performance was the main takeaway for me for the movie. I think the movie is kind of all the performance. Do you think this is an international feature contender? To win, maybe not, but it's getting nominated. I think if we weren't looking at as competitive as a year and Sony Classics had a very different slate that they would be pushing an actress for. I think we would be talking about a best actress contender. But given that their movies are the outrun,

this, and the room next door, I don't know how much energy they're going to put towards getting her nominated, though she would absolutely deserve it. One of my other top favorite movies, a real Chris Files special, was Alan Garardi's Misericordia, which I kept kind of, comparing to

it's like if Rope and Gone Girl was made by We'rea Sothockel. It's... Okay, I'm in. I need everybody when they get to see this movie. Just imagine

an undercurrent soundtrack of me trying to stifle cackling throughout it, because that was me the whole movie. I found it so incredibly funny. It is a gay Frenchman returns to the rural village. that he's from where he used to be basically an apprentice to a baker and the baker has died.

We increasingly learn more about the circle that he comes from and the relationship that he had with them. And then it kind of develops into a darkly comic thriller aspect in a way that I wouldn't want to spoil. But Misericordia absolutely going to be on my top 10 of whatever year. I was going to say, do you think this is released this year? year it doesn't have a release date but janus sideshow has it and it's on the short list for the french international feature submission i think it's the least likely of that short list that also includes amelia peres um to ultimately be selected and then i guess the last one i would really note for our listeners is joshua oppenheimer's the end um which is

Tilda Swinton, Michael Shannon, and George Mackay are all a family of really, really wealthy people that come from an oil company who, after basically the apocalypse live in an underground bunker and they are the last remaining effects of society. We knew going into it that this was a musical, but we, knowing that it's Joshua Oppenheimer, I think incorrectly expected it to be doing a thing. Oppenheimer is a documentarian who's made movies like the act of killing and the look of silence, both of which were very sort of high-concept documentaries that had to do with recreating recreations and things like that. And this is, you know, it's much more straightforward than I think we were expecting, and I think that's been some of what's so jarring about it. I think not all of it works, but it is another movie that really grew on me over the course of the festival. There are people who like it much more than even I do. I also heard from people who hate it. Yeah.

Yeah. But there's just things that don't work, but I think the core of it, which is basically a movie about how families sustain themselves past catastrophe, past tragedy, past Apocalypse is the best thing about that movie. It also stars Moses Ingram, who is a surviving human who basically makes their way to

the bunker and, you know, changes the dynamic of this family. Interesting. Last few things, I saw a lot of raves for Giacopola's The Last Showgirl. I do not understand what people see as a good movie there. I thought it was basically

non-functioning in some stretching. which is, though Pamela Anderson is funny and very good in this role, I thought the movie was pretty bad. And then I'd also like to highlight the Canadian submission this year. I saw a lot of international movies and contenders, like all we imagine is light and Giazanka's caught by the tides. I saw a grand tour. Loved all of those movies. But I think the one that's kind of rising above for me is the Canadian submission. universal language made by and starring Matthew Rankin.

It's this movie that reimagines a Canada where, rather than English and French, Persian and French become the national languages. And it's kind of this heightened surreality of all of these, you know, very melancholic characters circling each other within a Canadian identity Tim Horton's factors in as a like A plus visual joke in this movie. It's incredibly funny. I think if you like Wes Anderson movies, like there's very easy access point into liking this movie,

though like Wes Anderson is an imperfect comparison. Loved universal language, I hope people check it out. Asyloscope has it and we'll get an official release in February, but I'll be rooting for it to get that international feature nomination. This won the Best Canadian Discovery Award today at the award ceremony. And I will be seeing it in a matter of weeks at the Buffalo Film Festival, which I discovered was playing this movie only very recently. So several of the comedic sequences are just like flawless comedy. Yeah, I'm excited. I'm very excited. be saying this. All right. My

sort of wrap up, I saw Conclave. This was another big Tiff premiere, Edward Berger's Conclave. A hoot and a holler. And in a way that I was very, I was not prepared for, I had no idea what kind of a movie this was going to be. The trailer seemed to promise a thriller

of some sort. I read the Wikipedia synopsis of the book after hearing you and Katie allude to this twist at the end of the movie so many times. And I read it and I was like, how are they going to pull that off? And they, as far as I'm concerned, they do. They pull it off in a way that I found to be both. It wasn't just, and I'm going to be very vague, because I do encourage you to actually just see the movie. Just don't worry about twists or whatever.

whatever, just see the movie, but they manage to deal with a delicate subject matter in a way that is not only just, to me, not offensive, but also they make it part of the movie's sort of affirmative message in a way that I find very well done. It's, it's, I think it's good. We'll see how the wide reception is. I will say my audience. Loved it. The round of applause at the end was very enthusiastic. Ray Fines, Stanley Tucci, both, I think, are on the Oscar nomination radar for this. Some people seem to think Isabella Rossellini is also on the Oscar nomination radar for this. I would caution you that she is in very, very little of this movie, including her big scene that got mid-movie applause is a short scene. We're not even talking like Beatrice Strait in Network kind of a thing. It is brief. So much as she's wonderful and is playing a nun, so we like that. I also saw Hugh Grant in Heretic. I mentioned I was on Katie's Ancler podcast live. I got to meet Hugh Grant backstage. I got to tell Hugh Grant all about Buffalo Wings.

It was the sort of moment I'd been waiting for my entire career. So now Hugh Grant knows that there is no buffalo or cow product of any kind in Buffalo Wings, that they are, in fact, merely chicken wings. So I have a feeling that Hugh Grant's only experience of Buffalo Wings has been in the boneless form. So, like, I understand why he said, Buffalo Wings. I understand it's a hunk of cow. And I said, no, no, no. They are in fact chicken wings.

Anyway, speaking of avian fowl, The Penguin Lessons was my... Oh, wait, I should say I didn't like Heretic very much. I loved Hugh Grant as a person. Hugh Grant's very fun in Heretic. I found Heretic to be a very frustrating horror movie. Heretic was repeatedly a movie that I heard nothing good about. I was surprised they brought it to them.

I think all the actors are good. Hugh Grant is good. I think the two actresses, the one from the Fablemans and the other one from Yellow Jackets. Everyone's good in that way. But like the movie itself was very like, yes, yes, I too have taken a comparative religions course. But anyway, the last movie, the movie I saw on my last day, I saw Peter Catanio's The Penguin Lessons. Peter Catanio, of course, is the guy who directed the Fulmonte.

The Penguin Lessons was my, I'm going to watch a British movie about low-stakes events, and I'm going to relax my brain, and it's going to be a nice little break for me. and you know what, it fit the bill. I wrote about this for Vulture about how I tend to sort of replenish myself at film festivals by watching at least one sort of middlebrow British cool-down movie every festival. This one fit the bill. Steve Coogan plays an English professor in 1970s, Argentina. and things are happening outside of the private school that he teaches.

But in his private school, he has rescued a penguin from an oil slick and has now come to adopt this penguin. And this penguin is going to help him teach the children about getting along communists and fascists alike. I don't know. It's just like, it's, it's... Exactly what I wanted. Shout out to, oh, what's his name? I literally looked it up a second ago and I totally forgot it. The supporting actor in this movie, Bjorn Gustafson, who is sort of his, the other teacher, who is very funny. And I looked him up and like, where do I know that guy from? He's the guy from spy. He's the swede from spy who Melissa McCarthy repeatedly kicks the shit out of. Just a delight in Penguin Lessons. This is a movie I anticipate probably. will get a release at some point next year.

Do you know that Wicked Little Letters just got released like this week? Last summer, yeah, it was the Sony classics hit. But that was a movie that was at TIF last year. These movies tend to like take their time making it to theaters. But like once it does, it's not like Mrs. Harris goes to Paris is probably like the ideal of this kind of movie, even though that was not a festival movie for me. But it's not that.

It's not Mrs. Harris goes to Paris level. It's not the meddler, which is the amazing. version of this type of movie that you see at a festival and you're like, I'll take a chance on it. And it turns into something amazing. But it hit the spot. The first movie I saw on my last day of the festival, like, heck yeah. I was very into it. I think we did it. Well done, us. We did it. Okay. So before we go, I have tasked us with the game activity, let's say. I want each of us to pick five, make five predictions as far. far as Oscar nominations in any category that we are most confident about, called from the field of TIF movies. And at the end of the Oscar season, we'll revisit this and we'll see how well we did, and we can hold each other's feet to the fire. These are not bets. We are not placing money on this, but these are, you know, predictions. Yeah.

Why not? And we're, okay. Are we trying to not overlap or are we over? I think we're going to make an attempt. I have some extras, I think, in case we have overlap. I would like us to be as diverse as possible so that we don't, we have more chances to, you know, game points on each other. Who's going first? I'll go first.

This one we talked about. This one is kind of a, you know, low hanging fruit. I think Adrian Brody is definitely getting nominated for, best actor, but in terms of making a call, I'm going to say Adrian Brody wins best actor this year for the Brutelist. Okay. That's my call. That's a call.

That's my call. What do you think about that? I mean, Adrian Brody previously won in a split kind of year? Listen, we have gotten second Oscars for Hillary Swank, and who else has gotten second Oscars? I feel like we're in a, we're in an era of like... I mean, technically third, but like, kind of Francis McDormon. Francis McDormand, like, we're in an era. Herschelah got a second Oscar.

Christoph Waltz got a second Oscar. We're in a second Oscar era. So we'll see. All right. What's yours? What's your first one? I'm going to say Marianne Jean-Baptiste for Hard Truth's best actress. I'm into it.

I want it to happen. My next one, and this is one we were sort of talking around, I think Mark Idlstein, who is the young oligarch fuckboy from Anora, I think, is going to get nominated for Best Supporting Actor. There you go. I think... Big crowd response in our press screening for that actor. Big crowd response, I think he is... I think if people like Anora, I think people will really like that actor. I think this is a point of contention between the two of us.

I think he's quite good. I don't think he's bad. I think you misinterpret me with that character. I don't think he's bad. I just think everything that happens in relation to that character is too predictable. It says nothing about the performance. Very funny performance. My second one's Nicole Kidman and Best Actress.

I mean, it's happening. I think we're going to have a ton of reason to talk about this, so I don't want to, like, blow it too soon. But do you think, speaking of second Oscars, do you think she could win? Absolutely. Absolutely. I think there's already momentum of her getting a second Oscar. I think the way we talk about Nicole Kidman in terms of, you know, the re-appreciation of some of her most daring work. I think there will be an eagerness to award something. that's going for it in the degree that she's going for it. I'll also say this. I think the fact that she is in multiple TV shows that are not worthy of her talents works as kind of an anti-Norbit for her in that it's like, let's reward her for like taking a chance with good movie shit again. And maybe she'll like- We're so grateful to see her in something like this. All right. My next one, I talked about this before. I am going to say it right now, on Becoming a guinea fowl becomes Zambia's nominee in the best international feature category. Good call. I'm also going to say an international feature one. I've said it earlier, but I'm still here is one million percent being nominated in that category.

Nice. My only prediction in the craft categories, but I do want, I have a good feeling about this, even though people are going to maybe like scratch their heads. I think we could get a best costume design nomination for Conclave. Interesting. All of those cassocks. All of those casics, all that cardinal wear. A lot of colors. A lot of, you know, a lot of variation there.

I don't know. A lot of bold colors. What's your next? I have a more boring slate here, but I'm just going to say flow and animated feature 100%. I think flow probably even gets in an interoperative. international feature as well. I would love a double nomination for Flo. That would be rad.

My last one, I don't quite know how bold this is because they haven't really perused the best picture prediction charts lately. Are people predicting Baby Girl as the best picture nominee? I don't think so at this point, but I think they will start to. I'm going to. I very much see this as a... I think especially if that movie becomes a hit. Picture nominee?

I think that movie will make money, but will it be a hit? I also think Helena Ryan could get a best director nomination, but right now, the prediction I'm making is that Baby Girl is the best picture nominee. People are going to talk about that movie. People are, and that helps. Like, especially at this stage, if you can see a movie and know, oh, this is absolutely going to be talked about and, like, seen and unpacked, that's definitely, you know. All right.

What's your last? I'm going to, I forget if you were in this conversation, but I had this conversation at TIF. and I think, you know, best picture is in so much flux. There's a lot of things that could happen there. But I do think what's going, what's my prediction for best director, who I think the best director frontrunner is. And even though we didn't see this movie, it's Jacques. I know.

I think that's fully fair game and I think that's in play. I think that's a good call. I think it's, I think it'll be. easier for it to, that it's going to happen, that Jacques O'Diard is the best director, frontrunner, and I think I think Best Picture is going to be in flux for a while. So you think Jacques O'Diard could win Best Director, even if Amelia Perez does not win Best Picture? Yes. While also, I think the both of us probably think Amelia Perez is the frontrunner to win Best International Feature. Yes. All right. I mean, if people keep really loving on becoming a guinea fowl and they,

They have other places to award Amelia Perez. Who knows? Netflix is also very good at getting directing Oscars. They've never won best picture. All right. We're going to be keeping tabs on all of this stuff. I know this was a very long episode, but I know our listeners really like when we talk about the current Oscar race.

So I hope you all enjoyed this one. Chris, any last things to say about Toronto, obviously? Next year is going to be the 50th anniversary, and we both plan. We'll see what that hold. Here's what I will say. Airbnb renters of Toronto, please just make sure you have multiple sets of keys for your apartments. You know, we're all living in the real world.

You all know that people descend upon Toronto in early September to share apartments so that they can go to the festival. Just give us multiple sets of keys when you know there's going to be two guests. Make it easy on us. That's all we ask. Tim Horton's Keep up the good work We love you

All right That is our episode If you would like more This Head Oscar Buzz You can check out the Tumblr At Thisheadoscarbuzz Tumblr.com You should also follow our Twitter account

At had underscore Oscar Buzz Our Instagram at This Head Oscar Buzz And our Patreon At patreon.com slash this had Oscar buzz Chris, where can the listeners find you? Twitter and Letterbox

At Chris V File That's F E I am on the socials, including letterboxed at Joe Reed, Reed spelled R-E-I-D. I am also on Vulture, doing the Cinematrix, and the Movie Fantasy League. I'm also hosting the podcast, Demi, myself, and I, which you should absolutely sign up for over at patreon.com slash Demi Pod. That's D-E-M-I-P-O-D. We would like to thank Kyle Cummings for his fantastic artwork, and Dave Gonzalez and Gavin Muvius for their technical guidance. Please remember to rate, like, and review us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get podcasts.

A five-star review in particular really helps us out with Apple Podcasts visibility. So crack open a nice cold grulsh and think up something lovely to say about us. That is all for this week, but we hope you'll be back next week for more buzz. A.

This is Canadian content, and it's time we take credit for it. Starting now. Oh, Canada!