Will Mixed Reviews Impact 'Wicked: For Good' at the Oscars? Plus 'Marty Supreme' and European Film Awards

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0:32Welcome to Screen Talk, IndieWire's weekly podcast, bringing you up to speed on goings on in Hollywood. I'm Anne Thompson in Los Angeles.

0:39Ryan Lattanzio:And I'm Ryan Latonzio in New York. This week, we will parse the Oscar chances for Wicked and Marty Supreme, which are widely screening now. And actually, Wicked is, by the time you listen to this, Wicked will have opened in theaters. Wicked for good, that is. We will read the tea leaves also of the European Film Award nominations and look at a new rental offering at Letterboxd. But Anne, why don't you get us started and tell us about your night at the Governor's Awards on Sunday. And then also this week, you went to the LA premiere of Hamnet. So you've been busy. Yeah, there's a lot going on. So as we said last week, I mean, everybody brought everybody they could into town to show up at the Governor's Awards.

1:18And I'm always a little bit silly. I don't care. You know, I run around the thing with my little iPhone and take pictures of people, partly to remember what my conversations with them were. And it was just fun to see the, you know, the Austin Butler. And I have no idea why he was there, by the way. No clue. Eddington isn't really in the Oscar race.

1:41Ryan Lattanzio:Or caught stealing, which I feel like I'm the only one who saw that. He's very charming, though, I have to say. I like hanging out with Austin Butler. He was hanging out with Josh O 'Connor. They were meeting for the first time. Josh was ostensibly there for Knives Out, which is the last of all those movies that he did. Rebuilding is in theaters now, which I do recommend for Josh O 'Connor, more than Knives Out. Although he's very good in it. Can't save it. Can't save it. And I was amused because Francine Maisler, who's one of the top, you know, maybe the top casting directors in Hollywood, made a beeline for him to be introduced to Josh O 'Connor, which I thought was, of course she did, if she hadn't already met him.

2:27Ryan Lattanzio:Well, and right at the moment where he's just said publicly that he's going to take a break from acting. He did have four movies this year. And then, no, but I got to see Emma Stone hanging out with Donna Langley, the chairman of NBCUniversal, and Hugh Jackman was there. You know, and Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise are sitting at the front of the room getting, you know, reaction shots and rooting on, you know, Lily Tomlin as she stumbled through her introduction to Dolly Parton. Dolly didn't come. Dolly was in Nashville, sent a videotape. Thank you. She was based, these honorary awards come in different categories.

3:07So she was getting the Hirschholt, which is the charitable one. And I was pretty impressed with all her charities, all the, for women, for books, for her local, uh, Nash, you know, Tennessee, uh, folks, you know, she's done a lot. And, uh, the number of books she's given away was huge, millions and millions, hundreds of millions of books. And then, you know, you have, why was she also being, because she did, you know, nine to five and, and, and she's a songwriter and she's, she's part of that, of that music world. And then you had, and you're in your E2 giving Cruz the award because they're going to be making, they have a movie coming up at Warner Brothers next year.

3:49and singing his praises. The sizzle reel for Cruise was the best thing of the whole night because it was done by Mark Wallen, who is a great trailer, you know, the top trailer maker in Hollywood. And it was pretty amazing to cover all that ground, you know, from like 1981 to the present. It was pretty crazy.

4:11Ryan Lattanzio:Last night I was hanging out with the If I Had Legs, I'd kick you crew at a dinner and somebody was telling me how that sizzle reel was 25 minutes. And in all the 25 minutes of it, there was not one shot of Nicole Kidman. That is true. Even the back of her head. I noticed that. No quote unquote suppressive person, Nicole Kidman in sight. Not in there. Not in there. I mean, for all we know, Tom Cruise is the last remaining Scientologist around. I mean, it's sort of a dying cult as I understand it. Yeah, there's a number of them that supposedly are still part of the church but i think that a lot of them have um defected and just haven't said anything publicly because of the you know um attendant dangers and risks that come with that uh so he was you know he was fine and then and then you had you couldn't deny that reel was undeniable you couldn't deny all the films that that he's done over the years and and you know, it all ended up on the Mission Impossible stuff.

5:14And then you have the third, Debbie Allen, the choreographer who choreographed seven Oscar shows. So she was, she got one also, she got an honorary Oscar also. And it was fun. It was just fun to work the room and see everybody go over and say hi to Ted Sarandos, who was saying that, you know, K-pop demon hunters never would have done any business in theaters, you know, and how he did, in fact, make good with Sony and, you know and they've got a new deal and i talked to the director of k-pop demon hunters and she had not um started writing the script yet she looked a little panic stricken when i brought it

5:51Ryan Lattanzio:up you know well i'm sure everybody's asking that question she needs an she needs to have an answer at the ready she hasn't started she's a she's avoiding it and that and that you know so it was fun to you that's what's great about it you see the safdie brothers by the way being very friendly Ryan with each other and, and, you know, hanging with Adam Sandler and Chalamet never came. He was supposed to be there. He was on the guest list. He had gone out and done that bit with Adam Sandler at the Fairfax high school where everybody played basketball and David Fenkel, who's the head of A24, apparently like played basketball in college.

6:30So he, he was, everybody was very impressed with his, basketball skills. And then even Lisa Tabak from Netflix admitted that she had played basketball in high school. She was an athlete at one time. You never know what you're going to learn at these things. And there was Stellan Skarsgård with Elle Fanning and Renata Renspey who when you see, you've met her, so you know this, she's very tall.

6:58Ryan Lattanzio:Yeah, she is. There are actors who are tall. It's a thing. Stalin Skarsgård is tall. Josh O 'Connor is tall. And the other, Austin Butler is tall. And Leonardo DiCaprio is tall. It isn't that often that you see tall people. Tom Cruise is not tall. No. You know who's tall is Nina Haas. Yes, she is. She is like six feet tall. She's very excited about the IndieWire honors. She's all jacked up. I just spoke to her yesterday for 30 minutes and talked a lot about, obviously, about Hedda, a lot of other good stuff. She told me the story about how Christian Petzl discovered her, which is actually kind of similar to the way that Alfred Hitchcock discovered Tippi Hedren, which was on television completely out of context, almost like channel surfing.

7:51Ryan Lattanzio:But anyway, yeah. No, she deserves more honors than she gets, I would say. I like her a lot. I know that we've talked a lot about Hedda and it doesn't seem to be happening, but I'm still rooting for her. As far as Hamnet goes, I went to see it a second time. It was at the Academy Museum. The intros also included Spielberg, of course, who did come across this material and did channel it over to Chloe Zhao, who, you know, eventually read the book and understood that she could do this if she wrote the script with the writer Maggie O 'Farrell. and watching it a second time I still love this movie I think it's extraordinary but I also recognized that it's an art film it's not a mainstream film it's not going to be a big box office success I don't think it could ride the tail of Oscar attention but I'm worried because they're over hyping it as you said last week they did it again at the premiere this is the best movie ever made this is extraordinary you're in for an amazing experience they made a big deal about the audience experience that was part of the theme of of my um both nights really is just this recognition that that the people in hollywood are really worried about their business at the you know the theatrical business is under well ham that's not saving it maybe it'll be a big hit on peacock i don't know but i don't think so either i'm kidding no i think it'll do even worse there because you can because you're able to shut it off and uh that's the kind of movie that should be in theaters for a long time not this three-week window that that universal has you know and focus that's the kind of i noticed that sony pictures classics movies nuremberg blue moon they're holding in.

9:41They're hanging in in the theaters. They're doing okay.

9:44Ryan Lattanzio:The stakes are lower for those, though, than they are for something like Hamnet. I don't know that it could sustain that long of a run of, say, like a 45-day proper window that one battle after another got, because that was an event. I mean, that's eventized cinema in a different way. That's what they're trying to do with Hamnet. I don't think it's going to happen for Hamnet. I don't know what... The event is, I suppose, the ending that I think a lot of people have overhyped really the second half of the movie but it's not easy to get there i would argue so i cried again i cried quite a bit again but not the same way i had it was a different experience the second time i was very very obviously jesse buckley is extraordinary in it and the actors even if you argue that they that she goes you could argue some people argue that she goes too big.

10:37I would not argue that at all. I think she's just right. But the the actors will go for it. I know that that much I know.

10:46Ryan Lattanzio:Well, also, the first time you saw you were high on the Telluride air, probably low on oxygen. And, you know, that's it. Yeah. So, of course, everyone's crying in that room because everyone's kind of uncomfortable in some way. Right. Or sort of be high on the experience. I didn't shed a tear, not a tear fell from me. I kind of fell asleep at one point. Ryan, Ryan. It's got a kind of a boring first half. It really does. Oh, I was totally immersed. I was immersed in the love story and the way the two actors are, are, you know, coming on to each other. I was into it. The part, the one thing that struck me this time, that surprised me a little bit was that it is a little bit of a stretch that they would be so separated, that she would have so little knowledge of his work, that they try to explain it in various different ways.

11:46And apparently it was true in the book. But it is it is a little bit, you know why why doesn't she know what he's what he's doing you know i mean she's not interested i don't know i it just it just that's that struck me a little bit you know she's yeah he's the erudite educated head man and and she's the earth goddess you know she's she's tied to the to the elements it's very elemental i do love that i love that part of it i love the way they do childbirth I love the way they show you how things were actually done, you know, when before there was electricity, before there were, you know.

12:27Ryan Lattanzio:And bathtubs and hygiene as well. None of that. They're dirty. They're very dirty. They're dirty. And the makeup is good. I don't have they don't show they make the makeup invisible in a way that I approve of, you know. Yeah. They're not smelling good. That's for sure. Brian, what do you make of this new letterbox digital rental business thing? Yeah, so I got an email yesterday that the subject line was Letterboxd launches video store. So of course, I'm thinking Blockbuster or something to that effect, or even Vidiot's in LA. Most people on Letterboxd have no relationship to Blockbuster because that is way before their time.

13:03Ryan Lattanzio:but yeah so they're basically opening what is a tvod digital rental outfit rather than tvod meaning that the prices are going to be lower than on other platforms but it's also going to include older and new films i do think letterbox is one of the best things that's happened to cinephilia in a long time because what it's done is really removed the sort of gatekeeping aspect from being a cinephile. And it doesn't feel so much like this rarefied activity that it was before. You could create these watch lists and there's a page for every, even the most obscure movie. And so it's like even the most obscure films are more accessible to people.

13:41Ryan Lattanzio:And so what Letterboxd is promising here, and we'll see how it plays out, is opportunities to stream festival movies that would otherwise languish on the circuit without distribution. So I wonder if that does mean that Letterboxd is making an eye toward distribution. I would not doubt it at all. This video store is going to promise a more curated list of titles than other platforms. And we'll know more about that next week. But I just hope that it's not deja vu where we see a lot of the SVOD movies already available on Mubi, Tubi, Criteria, and HBO Max. They admit that that's going to be true.

14:20The difference, the part that I thought was smart, the part that made sense to me is the idea that if you're on Letterboxd, and there are a lot of people who are, and you see a movie you like, or someone recommends a movie, you can click on it right away in an impulsive purchase way. And I think that makes a lot of sense. I think that, wasn't IMDB trying to do that too?

14:44Ryan Lattanzio:Yeah, that fell apart. Yeah. Because what they were doing was more like a justwatch.com kind of thing where they were compiling data and links to, I think, other streaming platforms. But in that sense, like creating a streaming platform of their own, just sort of mirroring off these other ones. But that didn't really go anywhere. You know, the owners of Letterboxd, Matthew Buchanan and Carl Von Randau, a couple of years ago sold a majority stake of the company to a Canadian investment firm called Tiny. So, you know, obviously out spinning out of that, they're making some kind of moves here. And so this does feel like when we're talking about, it's not picking up festival films, but giving them a platform to the public.

15:26Ryan Lattanzio:I mean, that's distribution. Interesting. Interesting. I think they could make it work. I think that it'll all be in the ease of use, you know, whether it really is, if the platform, they're a pretty good platform, if they can make it easy for the consumer to click and buy, I think it'll make it work. Switching gears a bit, Anne, what's your takeaway from the European Film Award nominations this week? What is their impact on the Oscar race? I also, what is the overlap between the European Academy and the Academy stateside? Oh, that's a good question. All right. Now that we have a much more international group of voters, people are looking at the European Film Awards with more interest.

16:15And I think what you look for is a certain amount of overlap. And it is so predictable that the overlap is those neon titles. So you have the Jafar Panahi, It Was Just an Accident. You have Joaquin Trier's Sentimental Value. The one that might make the shortlist, at least, at the Oscars, but I don't think it will make the final five, is the German entry, The Sound of Falling, which got good critical response at Cannes, but I still think that one is a little bit arcane for the average Oscar voter in the committee.

16:51Ryan Lattanzio:Totally agree. That's a movie that is really, I mean, it's a beautiful movie, but it's hard to parse and to grasp in even just one viewing. It's like, there's a lot going on there. Yeah. I hope people see it. I hope people do check it out. So Surratt got in there also. I have great hopes for Surratt. I actually, I've been talking to people. It's interesting. A lot of people are talking about this whole phenomenon of what happens at film festivals where we all get to see it and hype all these movies and write them up and build the buzz. And over the course of these festivals, these certain titles get a lot of attention.

17:30And then by the time the Oscar voters actually catch up with them, they're overhyped and they don't like them as much. And they think they're not what they're promised to be. one of the ones that isn't overhyped and that people are really enjoying discovering is Surat.

17:45Ryan Lattanzio:Yeah, there's a couple other on this list that, well, we've already talked about how some people feel sentimental value is overhyped. That's still going to happen. Totally. That's not in any danger. And that did very well here. You know, there's only two acting categories for actress and actor. There's no supporting. Because otherwise, I think some of these supporting people, and Stellan has gone lead here for the European award. Which he should be. He should be Lee. That's category fraud. But he'll win. He might win supporting actor in the Oscars. The other one is Renat Rensve. She's in there too.

18:18Yeah. She's the only one, right? That would be a factor in the Oscars.

18:23Ryan Lattanzio:Yeah. Well, yeah. There's like Inga Lelias, Ebstauter. A lot of people are rooting for her to sneak into the best supporting actress race, but it's going to be a challenge. I think she gets in. I think she gets in overall, Elle Fanning. I think so, too. Yeah. Because I don't think Elphani finally has that much to do. She's good. I'm not arguing against her. If they both got in, that would be an enormous sign of strength for that movie. I don't know if that'll happen. You know, I put, you know, so I think this is one of those things where it's good if you get mentioned. It's not bad if you don't get mentioned.

18:59And it's just another notch for the ones who are on their way. I keep saying that the can entries are the ones that are doing the best, which seems to happen year after year after year.

19:14Ryan Lattanzio:uh some an advantage or an asset that the that the efa nominations have over the academy awards is that they actually now i don't know how long they've been doing this for maybe you can tell me they now require that a certain number of docs and animated films are part of the 10 or whatever however it's actually quite more than 10 now maybe it's 15 yeah 15 films in the nominations i noticed it this year for the first time. I did not realize that they did that. I think that the Arco is one of the films that's mentioned several times and it will be one of the best animated nominees. That's a neon film.

19:53Ryan Lattanzio:That's neon. The other one I got to catch up with is Little Amelie, which also is not my favorite. I haven't seen that yet either. But it's supposed to be very good. So that's, you know, that's basically where we are with that with that group um and then um ryan what's going to happen with wicked all right so i saw wicked for good on monday and as you know i was not uh the biggest fan of the first movie uh and so having a year-long wait between two films only illustrates the um failure that is inherent to separating a three hour under three hour musical into two um two and a half hour movies the reviews for this are not good metacritic has it at 60 and i just that does not a best picture make and as we said last year nor does cgi talking animals which there are more in this movie of that uh this movie it is so flat and so boring it starts with i think almost an hour and 20 minutes of material that was not part of steven schwartz and winnie holzman's stage book and this includes uh animals talking and running around.

21:01Ryan Lattanzio:So I'm also kind of exhausted already by these think pieces and there's more to come, but there's issues people are taking with the movie's politics, particularly that Glinda ends up kind of like a dictator in the same way that Oz does, if you read it from a certain perspective. But there's new songs that are added, something about the girl in the bubble. They're driven by these sort of same two to three chords. Also, Cynthia Erivo and Jonathan Bailey, These characters get to finally explore their romance in this film, but these two actors have absolutely zero chemistry, which makes for a kind of creepy, almost sex scene that really is sort of pushing up against the limits of the PG, since it's more than just implied what's going down.

21:46Ryan Lattanzio:also in this sort of quasi-sex scene there's like a hideous cardigan the alphabet puts on just before that's sort of like an oversized crochet blanket that looks like it's been set upon by hundreds of moths that so that was kind of distracting obviously jonathan bailey and ariana grande fared much better as a couple because in reality he's a gay man and she's a pop icon so of course they're going to have more chemistry so i i leave this i i put fault with the actors and and almost done once again this film is visually hideous with under saturated diluted color palette that is supposed to again suggest groundedness and realism but i said this last year but the lands of shiz and oz they still look like the grove mall or the americana at christmas time and i don't want to spoil this but this movie integrates the victor fleming and l frank bombs wizard of oz in a way that is done very poorly but i think there is some circumvention there because there probably was a rights issue.

22:45Ryan Lattanzio:But I'm curious, you probably feel really differently about this movie. So I went to see it with low expectations, but even though I really enjoyed the first one and I saw it twice. And here's the thing. I agree with you that the first part of it is kind of boring. It just doesn't take off until they get back to the book and they get back to the real story and they start singing. That's what you need. You need them to be singing and you need the two women to be engaging. So the first part is all about Glenda and the bubble and the wand and setting her up as if she's got magical powers, even though she doesn't.

23:23Michelle Yeoh has a song in this and there's also a song again. They gave another song to Jeff Goldblum. They just bring the whole thing to a complete halt. You know, it's just, and she can't sing at all. So I'm like, no, I don't want to listen to this. her character never worked for me, never did. I like her so much. She's miscast. Yes, it's not her fault. He's okay. I mean, I don't mind Jeff Goldblum. He's okay as the wizard. So we get to the part where they all start singing and the plot sort of takes off and you see that, you know, finally the Wicked Witch of the West is going to be, you know, in charge of the monkeys, the flying monkeys.

24:06You know, you need all of these things to happen. And Glinda is very good in this. I have to say Ariana Grande has a good storyline. She's working it out. I see what you mean politically, but I think she's going to be a force for good. I think that is the idea, that she's a good witch, not a bad witch. It's a musical, and this particular musical is very much carried by the music and these two great singers who are really sublime. So whenever they open their mouths and sing, I'm happy, and I'm enjoying it. You and I agree on the visuals we did last time. They're not any better this time. You know, I wonder.