Digging Into This Year's Telluride Lineup, from 'Hamnet' to 'Bugonia' and More

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0:36Hello and welcome to Screen Talk, IndieWire's weekly podcast that brings you up to speed on what's going on in Hollywood. I'm Anne Thompson, just arrived in Telluride, Colorado. And I am not Ryan Lattanzio. I am David Ehrlich, also just arrived in Telluride, Colorado, though we are staying across town from each other. Yeah. We have two new wire employees too close to each other. God forbid. God forbid. We do it in Venice. We do it in, I mean, in Cannes. We do stay in the same place there. But Ryan is in Venice. But you two are also reviewing some of the same movies there. We are pretty festival agnostic when it comes to the movies that we review.

1:22you know it is it's a complicated process that's not worth getting into here but I will be reviewing a lot of the movies that are playing in Venice I don't believe Ryan's viewing any of the things that are playing at Telluride but he's got his hands full over there he does he does he does and you've already reviewed some things so tell us what you've already seen there's always an overlap yeah I've seen a good deal most of which it is too early to talk about quite yet because as we're recording this, Venice has really just gotten underway. Telluride doesn't start until tomorrow. I have seen the opener at Venice, the Paolo Sorrentino film La Grazia, Grace, which I thought was a real stinker.

2:05I'm happy to elaborate on that if I need to. But, you know, I gave Sorrentino a hard time for sort of making his like horny brained, you know, dumbness with Parthenope, which was very in the mold of his recent maximalism. It was very over the top. It was all about what must it be like to be a crushingly beautiful young woman if Sorrentino can't wrap his head around the concept. And I think that was maybe a little bit beyond the pale for a lot of his viewers. The reviews were not so hot. And so now he's pivoted in the complete opposite direction and made his most ascetic and pared down movie since very early in his career, if not ever, about where Tony Sorvillo plays the Italian president who is widowed and nearing the end of his term and looking back on the love of his life and what it all means.

3:01And it is morbid and unclear and I think just generally a bit of a mess. But that sounds like Jay Kelly. well uh i will i will definitely take j kelly over la grazia even if one is more fun to say than the other uh yeah jake kelly yeah again you haven't seen jake kelly yet have you not yet no that's one of the ones that's coming here that's gonna play both places along with it sure is uh they are gonna have the jake kelly contingent here netflix is going guns blazing and i will say i understand why or at least i did for the first 30 seconds of jake kelly and that seemed like a ridiculous metric um you know until you see it and maybe you'll understand what i mean but for the first like 30 seconds of j kelly i really felt like oh netflix has finally done it they've got their best picture in the bag i just felt like all the pieces were coming together so they lose it right away huh the rest the rest of the movie struggles um some other people liked it more than i did i do think i liked it more i think yeah he says that it's dear and sappy yeah you know it's it's it's sentimentality back this is the reason i compared it to like it says that it's it's clooney looking at his at his life yes it is uh it's clooney playing a thinly veiled version of george clooney it's very much in touch with the metatextuality of it all um to the point where the movies that jay kelly has made in his life are literally the movies that George Clooney has made.

4:34I'm talking about, you know, Siriana and, you know, the American and things of that nature. And, you know, Baumbach is somebody who I prize for his biting wit and the emotional clarity he's able to sort of win through that. I don't know if this degree of sentimentality suits him. The movie was co-written with Emily Mortimer, the actress who's in the film as well, which is an interesting choice. And, you know, No, but its sentimental streak is sort of backstopped by the fact that it's a deeply sad movie. And I think the sadness does win out in the end, but it's not often a particularly interesting one.

5:15And I think the structure, it's very much about the life of the mind. And it's sort of going into his flashbacks as he's watching, unable to change the pivotal moments from his life. I think they sort of get in the way of a movie that loses the character at its center a bit. But it ends strong. It wastes Adam Sandler, which is a shame because it's fun to see him in a refreshingly tender role without a rageful component where it's really just about a more quiet resignation. But there's a lot going on in this movie. Basically, every actor currently living is in it to some degree. It looks beautiful.

5:50And as I said, it ends spectacularly, which may help even with the Oscar voters. Who knows? But it really did feel like a big shortfall for me. Yeah, I'll catch up with it here. And Begonia? Begonia. Yeah, I mean, I I struggled with I didn't struggle with Begonia. I struggle with the concept of how to approach Begonia because it's a remake of a Korean film from 2003 called Save the Green Planet that Ari Aster and I both have a great affection for. and he decided to remake that film. Well, he was thinking about it shortly before COVID, but it was when COVID settled in, he started writing Eddington, the movie that became The Eddington We Know Anyway, where he really began thinking of it.

6:34And the two movies, Begonia and Eddington, do really feel like they have a lot in common in terms of what they're preoccupied with. He produced this one. But it's kind of a twist movie. And if you've seen the original, you know where it's going. and I think it's going to be a radically different experience for people who are going in fresh. And so I don't know if I'm the best barometer for how it's going to play with a wider audience, but it's definitely Yorgos still, you know, it's not a Tony McNamara movie. He's not going big. It's not for a general audience. It is kind of unpleasant. It's very small despite being shot in VistaVision.

7:15It feels like it could be a stage play. Most of it takes place in a basement. You know, the cast is phenomenal. Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons both but really Emma Stone continue to be two of the most interesting actors alive right now um it's just uh yeah it's an interesting movie it did make me wish you know McNamara or not after kinds of kindness you know it's only been two since poor things but like I would I would like to see Yorga Slandimos bite off a little bit more next time around um but it is a timely movie I think it's well timed for a remake of this particular story and I do think that people who don't know where that story is going will get a lot of mileage out of it.

7:52So I have been catching up with some of the movies that played in Sundance and Berlin so I finally saw the If I Had Legs I'd Kick You the Rose Byrne which I think she will get nominated there's no question people sure hope so hard to think of a better performance this year. well the the one that that uh among the women no no one they're they're not so far i haven't seen anything that could compare it and then blue moon which was in berlin which is richard winklater's second movie here he has nouvelle vague from from can the bloomer bloomer blue moon is is ethan fox and he gives an extraordinary performance oh interesting uh that is beyond what you know i I think he's a great actor.

8:40I always have, but this is really beyond the beyond and very moving, very, very touching. I look forward to seeing that. I mean, we were talking about this earlier when all of the people we just mentioned more or less happened to be on our flight to

8:57and I, yeah, I mean, I, I, that was really what sold me on it. What you were saying about how it was sort of an emotional punch to the gut, because that was something, you know, I found sorely missing, among some other things, from Novel Vague, which did not do a lot. It's not the intention of Novel Vague. No, of course not. It's a rhyme. But it does speak to that it's mostly it's, you know, to do with its surface pleasures. And I was missing just any sort of weight to it. And so the idea of Linklater having a movie that lands a little bit harder this year is exciting for me. Yeah. And then I'm excited to see two book adaptations, Klo Zhao's version of the tearjerker bestseller Hamnet, which is about Shakespeare and his wife and the loss of a child.

9:45Sounds like a good time. And Jesse Buckley. I know it's going to be another tearjerker from what I've been told from people who've read the book. but that's an interesting situation like if you if you had a reaction like that to a book and then the movie doesn't give you the same reaction you know it can be it can be a negative for people so we'll see we'll see about that yeah um i mean that's yeah sorry i was just saying exciting premiere here yeah no i'm looking forward to philip of lothorp's uh h is for hawk also that memoir is really cool about it's another another book about death another movie exactly um but these are all upbeat movies right yeah i mean but the thing about h4 hawk is that nobody knows the movie exists there's been like no discussion about it whatsoever um in i it wasn't even aware i read h4 hawk uh and uh you know it stayed with me to some degree and i you know work in in this business for a living, you know, did not know that that movie existed until maybe last week.

10:50What's going on is that there are a lot of British movies, a lot of UK movies in this lineup, an enormous number. And I asked Julie about that. And she said basically that the cupboard is kind of bare on American entries. And so she just ended up booking all these British films. And there's a ton of documentaries, too. there are there's like at least oh by my count in the main program well that leads us to a little bit of overlap the one other venice film that i i can speak about so far uh that because by the time this podcast goes up it will have already premiered uh across the pond and is playing in telluride also and i would bet is among the very best of the american docs that will be here is Laura Poitras' new film, Cover Up, is ostensibly a profile of the investigative reporter Seymour Hirsch, whose work spans from before the Vietnam War, but was really put on the map because of his coverage of and is digging into the My Lai Massacre.

11:58And it gives Laura Poitras and her co-director Mark Obenhaus, an opportunity to sort of take a step back and cover 50 years of American malfeasance and cycles of impunity between how money and power are able to obscure the truth and get away with all sorts of some cruelties and evils, atrocities and so forth. And I think it's so interesting, not only because all of its various episodes are, you know queasy and compelling but also because it draws such a clear line between something like the mylai massacre and the genocide in gaza in terms of how these events and the information about them is promulgated out to the masses uh and really sees them as part of the same continuum um and that the world continues to play by the similar playbook and i guess in another way it's sort of a lament for you know journalism on the whole and and a call to action for more people to dig into the facts as Seymour Hersh has always done.

13:00But it is a fascinating movie. And I think, you know, all of her movies are striking in their way. But I really think that this is as impactful as anything that she's made. And I would be at this point, I mean, documentaries, documentaries, it's hard to predict those races. But I would be surprised if that did not become a clear lock for a best Oscar nomination. It has to be acquired first. I'm a fan of hers anyway, but I can't. And also, you know, just to see a movie about journalism, God forbid, as we all head into this. I don't know why Neon doesn't own this movie already. After their success with all the media and the bloodshed.

13:43I don't know what's going on with that. They probably want to see how it plays and how it gets reviewed. I mean, there's Ask E. Jean, which is here with Jean Carroll, the Ivy Nearpal film. So I'm looking forward to seeing that. And one of the UK films that I didn't know existed was Every Man, the Lives and Times of Peter Asher, which is part of the McCartney theme here. So McCartney dated Jane Asher, lived with her, lived with her brother Peter. And this is about him, the music producer of all sorts of great great bands and then and then uh we've got paul meskel here with the um can film the history of sound and we have him here with hamnet and he plays paul mccartney in the new beetle movie and then we have harris dickinson here with urchin which i loved at can wait urchins here yeah yeah that's good good for them good for urchin urchin's a very good movie it's a great movie and and needs attention and i think frank delane gives one of the best performances of the year and deserves you know what amen he is phenomenal in that film so then i'd be scared to see him in tune but uh but he's uh he's a great guy i interviewed him and harris the dickinson plays uh lenin in in the sam mendes uh you know yeah movies and so they're both they're in the middle of shooting one of them i I would, I, I, everybody's spirit.

15:10Whenever I talk to someone about the Beatle movies, they won't tell me anything. So it's annoying, but that's sort of an interesting. What's there to tell? They're going to be the Beatles. They're going to, they're going to make some music. Which movie are they doing first? Which Beatle movie? And then the McCartney documentary for Morgan Neville, which is Wings post Beatles. So that's going to be interesting to see. it's a heartney theme uh uh for the for the for the podcast um so what's the other you know there's a lot of other good good stuff to come but we'll we'll like making a movie about the star wars franchise after the last jedi only no no no it's an interesting it's a from what i can gather it's it's a it's about a man who has to reinvent himself basically well you know there's another movie at this festival about a famous musician who feels uh like he has to reinvent himself uh yeah uh which i talk about that not not yet but yeah it'll be that's premiering on on friday night here um and yeah i guess pointless to bring up but uh interesting that's another of the the bigger draws um but i'm putting you know i'm putting a lot of hope on hamnet just because Because I think Tell Your Eye is in dire need of, I mean, this really only matters to a small handful of people who go to all these festivals and give a shit about what premieres wear.

16:42But in my mind, anyway, it feels like it needs a killer app or two. It needs stronger draws. And just last year, it had Nickel Boys, which for my money was the best film of this decade. And that was only here until it resurfaced at the New York Film Festival. It was a huge get for them. And looking at the lineup this year, again, there are one or two movies I haven't seen. There's The Hamnet, there's The Ballad of a Small Player. The follow up to Conclave, which did very well out of here last year. It did, sure did. Which that feels like a more Telluride suited movie. I think The Ballad of a Small Player is probably not going to be a crowd pleaser to the same degree.

17:21But yeah, I do feel like Venice has exclusive rights to some of the more exciting movies. The Testament of Anne Lee, After the Hunt, The Wizard of the Crown. House of Dynamite. They have the Bigelow. Dynamite. And they have Frankenstein, the Guillermo del Toro. Although there might be a sneak or two here. Yeah. That never had. They're going to do that? I don't know. I find it hard to get too excited about a Guillermo del Toro movie at this point. I have to be honest. I love him as a human being, but as a filmmaker. You're speaking sacrilege. As a filmmaker. I hate it. You are a critic. You have an open mind.

17:58Well, as soon as the movie starts and the lights go down, I mean, everything starts at square zero for me, of course. Square one, I'm mixing my metaphors. But in terms of just, you know, my general enthusiasm, Guillermo del Toro making a Frankenstein movie just feels like a hat a little bit. it's a too obvious combination uh and a movie i'm sure he feels he needs to get out of his system i hope to be proven wrong the netflix of it all further sort of sours the taste uh i don't know i keep forgetting it exists and that's the smashing machine that's a movie i'm more excited to see so yeah we'll see i mean i haven't seen those movies i have not heard a single thing about them i haven't talked to anybody who's seen them so um i really don't know how they're going going to play.

18:41But I hope for my sake and someone who's desperate to see as many good movies as he can this fall, that they are both, you know, all time masterpieces. All right, we'll find out shortly. But the Cannes movies, what's going to happen at Telluride, that is what part of what this festival is doing, is we will see how some of these movies actually play with audiences, the people here, you know, from around the country, you know, the real, the people who actually buy badges and stand in line and check out the movies not the patron pass holders um they they actually are gonna you know tell us whether the mastermind but i think connor or the history of sound or the secret agent or it was just an accident but i think like the programming has played into that too much i think that you know julie hunsinger and company know what movies are going to connect with that audience and they they feel responsible to bring that those movies to them um sentimental value i can tell you right now it's going to absolutely crush here it's a deeply lovable movie it'll be this year's anora which they booked into tiny rooms and turned away half of the people here uh you know the jafar panahi film is going to cry people are going to love that movie it's very accessible it's um gripping uh i think that that's going to play great you know what's i think we know that the history of sound is not gonna really you know i do wish and you know it's their prerogative it's not like they tell your right knows their audience um but i i don't buy it so much as a bellwether because i do think they know what's going to play here and they program in that way like they did not program uh the other best film at Cannes, which was Sir Rock, which is a movie that they, I think, I'm sure felt, and maybe rightly so, would not connect with the crowds here as much.

20:38And that's fair, but it is a disservice to people who do come here and pay, you know, out the ass and just want to see great cinema. You know, it does, I think, sort of, you know, narrow down the kind of the palette of the movies that are playing here. And there are other films at Cannes I could say that about. There are exciting films that are playing at Venice that I can't speak to yet that I think should be here and would play well here, but for whatever reason aren't here. And there are movies playing here like La Grazia that feel like a waste of a slot to me. And maybe there's horse trading with Netflix and they have to say, you know, if you're going to play Ballad of a Small Player, you have to.

21:16Oh, it's actually, no, it's not Netflix because I keep thinking that it's not Netflix because of The Hand of God, which left something in pressure. No, I think they would have liked to get A House of Diamonds. that's what it was I didn't get yeah yeah yeah so La Grazia's movie for anyone keeping score but yeah it's I don't know why La Grazia it's I don't think that's a movie that is going to reward the cost of being here so I don't know but I'm going to question the programming at any festival it's the nature of the beast but I do think that it's clear what movies are they can hold over which are so strong are going to connect.

21:56Yeah, they will be. But that was true last year. That was really true last year also. Last year wasn't like Amelia. I knew nothing. Yeah. And this year, I think there will be. I mean, Cannes has all the juice right now. It's like, it's not just you, you're twiddling your thumbs into the fall anymore. I'm talking purely about the context of the Oscar race in that conversation. I mean Cannes is where the heavy hitters are premiering and so Telluride does position itself well it has an advantage over Venice in terms of serving its audience in its TVs they don't show those films in Venice exactly they do the world premieres but New York is going to be the next you know there's Toronto which will amplify some of the stuff that's here and then you're going to go to Toronto so you're we'll make a pit stop in Toronto yeah and then I'll see you in New York though that'll be fun Yes, the New York Film Festival, I think, is going to be exciting this year.

22:53It's a good program. And they have a lot of things that are missing here. Say again, sorry. So they have Syrah. They have some of the things that are missing here. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, there are omissions from that lineup. As there are, like, you know, Nadav Lapid's, yes, I've written about at length on Indy are missing from all these festivals in Zirksum, even though it now is distribution from Kino Lorber. But, you know, and there are movies that I've seen in Venice that I thought were great and should have been the New York lineup, but they have their own taste. But I think there are also a lot of, there are some interesting world premieres as always at the New York Film Festival that I'm excited to see.

23:27There's Daniel Day-Lewis's return in Anemone. There is another film that's world premiering there that I was on the tip of my tongue. I want to see the Jim Jarmusch. Sure, yeah. That'll be at Venice. I'd say, I think the trailer for the Bradley Cooper movie with Will Arnett. looks fantastic actually. It was a good trailer. Yeah I'm more excited for the movie than I than I in the trailer would make me on its face but I'm curious how Brad the story of Bradley Cooper the filmmaker continues to unfold as someone who really thinks that his star is born captured lightning in a bottle and maestro uh fell on his face so um yeah i'm curious to see what he's gonna do interesting guy um will arnett having a leading role is a lot of fun in a heavier you know in a heavier hitting movie anyway uh yeah it's gonna be it's gonna be a fun few months david thank you for doing it i appreciate it i know you're very busy i'll see you around i will see you in the mountains okay bye-bye Thank you.