The Movies Everyone’s Talking About After Venice and Telluride

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1:06Hello and welcome to Little Gold Men, vanity affairs podcast for film, TV, and awards lovers. I'm Rebecca Ford. And I'm John Ross. From the Colorado mountains to the Adriatic Sea, we've been around the world and back to cover the launch of fall festival season. John and I were both at Telluride this year, and our colleague Chris Murphy was at Venice, So today we'll be recapping all the highs and lows from both festivals with Chris, who will join us in just a moment. But first, let's talk a bit about the Creative Arts Emmy winners. They were announced over the weekend. DTF St. Louis won big. It won supporting actor for David Harbour and supporting actress Linda Cardellini.

1:48Rebecca, how are you feeling about? I texted you. I felt like we needed to redo some of our predictions because I think— I'm nervous. I know. DTF winning those acting awards over beef is notable, I think. I feel like Netflix might be shaking in their boots a little bit. And I didn't really see that coming. Like, that show is great. DTF is great. I watched it. I loved it. I just didn't know it had maybe caught on as much as it had. So that feels like things might really go their way on the main show on September 14th. And Widow's Bay, right? Betty Gilpin won for guest actress. I think that was pretty notable.

2:30Yeah, that didn't surprise me as much as it won all of the directing stuff. Because everyone gets to vote for Best Comedy and everyone gets to vote for limited series. the spread in which DTF and Widows Bay won across the different branches makes it look more likely that they'll go home with the final statue at the end of the night. But I'm sticking with hacks, even though I was really happy for Widows Bay. And, you know, if we're wrong, we'll just change it on the internet and pretend like it never happened. No, we don't do that. We just, you know, we're not perfect. We choose our choice. Yeah.

3:10I do want to shout out that Remarkably Bright Creatures, the movie that you and Hillary made fun of me because you'd never heard of it, did win for best movie. So I was right about that one. Yes, you were right about that one. And I still have yet to see it, but I'm excited to catch up on it. You know how much I love octopuses on Netflix, even though that never seems to make it to air. Also notable that the late show with Stephen Colbert won writing for a Variety series. The Variety series might be an interesting set of winners because it has those, you know, new rules. Yeah. And, you know, John Oliver always wins every single time.

3:57But I don't know, maybe Colbert will sneak up on him. I think he might. I feel like that's probably what's going to happen. But just a reminder for listeners, the Emmys are on Monday. They are on a Monday. Oh, I know, yeah. It's so weird. And I will be at the Emmys while John is busy at Toronto. So we'll be everywhere. Anywhere you need to know, we'll be there.

4:27All right, let's jump into the festivals. Here to help us out is Vanity Fair staff writer Chris Murphy, who has just been on the ground in Venice. He got back yesterday, I believe. Yes, I did. Chris, welcome to the pod. Thank you. I know I'm the New York correspondent, but you could call me the Venice correspondent if you want now. I'm happy to take that over. I see you've changed. For the listeners who can't see him, he's holding two glasses of Aperol spritz. It's very strange. It's eight in the morning. Yeah, and Linguina Vangole. Ciao, Bella. Chris, before we get into the films, this was your very first year at Venice.

5:00How would you describe the experience? Yeah, I mean, it was a, I like to say it was a working dream. It was absolutely like magical and so fun and so great. But it's like a really like, you know, stressful, quick turnaround. You're writing, you're getting footage, you're trying to capture celebrities, you're trying to talk to the celebrities, you're judging the films, all while traveling everywhere by boat, which is not the easiest thing to do. But it was such an incredible experience. And I had a ball. And I did, you know, did do a lot of work, though, at the same time. Yeah, that's what I will say about festivals.

5:32It's like so much fun, but so much work. So what was the vibe on the ground? Did it feel like people thought it was a good year, a strong year? Yeah, I think mixed to positive would be the vibe on the ground per the films. There are definitely some that played like really well and were really strong. There were some that either flopped or underperformed. And I don't know if there was like one like absolute like breakout. I think we'll get to Wild Horse 9, which I think was maybe the strongest of the films that I saw the offerings on the ground at the festival. But I do think there was a little bit of, OK, like step in the right direction.

6:11You know, there were some solid films, but I think a little wanting. The films weren't my favorite part of the festival, I will say, even though. What was your favorite part? I mean, can I say the spritzes? Or Venice. Venice and meeting people and being on the ground and the whole experience. And the films were good, but I would say mostly good, not great. Okay, well, let's talk about the films. What films delivered for you and also the Venice audience? Okay, so I do think the number one film would be Wild Horse Nine. It sort of was like built for Venice. That's, you know, Martin McDonough's film about CIA operatives in 1970s Chile who go to Easter Island.

6:57John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell are the two. And they just deliver really great performances. And I will say, going into this, I was not looking forward to Wild Horse Nine. I loudly and proudly hate Three Billboards outside of Ebbing, Missouri. Same, same, same, same. Same, same. But this is his most enjoyable film, I felt. Oh, yeah, by far. And it got a 14-minute standing ovation. And one of those standing ovations where I was at the premiere, they were like, everybody was clapping for them. They walked down the steps and they got to, like, you know, soak in the crowd from down and then go up.

7:25They went twice. No other film I saw got, you know, went up and down the steps of the Sala Grande twice. So it really did play well. I do think part of that, like, there's a whole sort of extended references to Venice in the film, which I think really played with the hometown crowd. But John Malkovich is so fantastic in this. It's such a funny, like, wry, but also depressing, you know, performance in just, you know, Rebecca saw two so we could get into it. But I just thought he was so great. And it's really funny. Well, also, you know, having like political import. It's a period piece, but it also does speak to diplomatic relations today and how the U.S.

8:03interferes with other governments and whatnot. And then you get Parker Posey being like crazy for two scenes, which is fun, too. so of all the films I think it was sort of the surprise like oh this is a real strong contender I knew it wouldn't be a surprise because I saw this movie many months ago and I it's exactly what you're saying it fires on so many different levels like the performances the script is incredible but we kind of knew that about Martin McDonough but it's the perfect match like Sam Rockwell and John Malikovic were like born to read his words you know and I think it played really really well at Telluride as well So I think we can, you know, say that it's on a solid road to Oscars at this point.

8:44It's funny. I ran into Martin McDonough at Telluride and I was like, oh, it went so well in Venice. I heard about your long standing ovation. And he was like, well, I've figured out how you can kind of juice the crowd. You know, you like hold up John Malkovich's hand and they clap again. I got that on video. He did that. He was, you know, being humble about it. But I agree. It's a real success. Well, but that's also 100 percent true. I mean, the standing ovation going by continuing to perform. I don't think that they were necessarily doing that, but, you know, they all are performers. But Chris, what else did you love?

9:18I know you loved Primetime, right? I did. I loved Primetime. I think that was probably my, you know, close second, if not like tied for first movie. And it did play really well, too, at the festival. I mean, Robert Pattinson as Chris Hansen from To Catch a Predator doing like a weird voice and going like a gopher broke. Like it's like a Moby Dick movie. It's basically like he's calling Ishmael and he's like trying to catch those white whales and they're all child predators. It is as intense and like sort of darkly funny, but it has so much momentum and it's taken so seriously, obviously. But like there's also an extended reference to Rent and the song Seasons of Love plays a big part in the film.

9:59Oh, well, that intrigues me. You're like, this is made for Chris Murphy. It kind of is. That's intriguing for me. It is really, really, really intriguing. I don't want to spoil too much, but just look out for that needle drop. And the performance is beyond Pantom 2. I mean, Merritt Weaver is fantastic as his lead producer, Andy. And then Skylar Gisando as one of the actors who is an adult who plays a child to learn the child predators. Skylar Gisando is fantastic, kind of emerges as the heart of the film in many ways. I will say, you know, it's based off an Esquire article that has existed for 20 years, sort of about the series.

10:31So if you plot wise, if you know where it's going, then you know where it's going. But that doesn't really take away. It doesn't take away from the performances or the filmmaking Lance Oppenheim directed it. But it's really propulsive and intense and at times scary and also compassionate and empathetic about who are the villains in society, who are the predators. It's not like overly moralistic in a way that I found to be really fascinating. So it was great. And Robert Pattinson was really nice. His partner, Sookie Waterhouse, changed her shoes from heels to sensible loafers right after the screening, which I caught on camera, which is very smart because you got to walk a lot in Venice.

11:11even though you're taking a boat or you're walking. And the after party was really fun. It was the editor's birthday. And, you know, everybody sang happy birthday to him. So, yeah, I would say that probably played super well as well. But then another film that I missed that I was flying away for, didn't get to see, Bunker, that got the longest standing ovation of anyone. It got a 15-minute standing ovation, which is interesting because I think the reviews haven't really borne out. No, because this is what happened last year. As the festival goes on, the standing ovations get longer. And it's also like a real life gorgeous couple that we all know at the center of this movie, you know, with Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem.

11:48So I think that's like part of it as well. Yes. Sometimes the star power makes those ovations go on a little bit longer. But the longest standing ovation of Cannes was the last film that played in the festival. La Bolanegra. Now that was also a very good film, but that's when it got juiced up to 20. So standing ovation math is very, very tricky. It's like advanced calculus or something. Zero doesn't equal zero. Chris, did anything else play really well while you were there that we should take note of? Yeah. Musk, the literally four-hour documentary about Elon Musk, really, you know, hard to watch.

12:26But, you know, that was just, it's staggering and it's like comprehensiveness about like everything about Elon Musk. I think that played really well. The Oasis documentary, Don't Look Back in Anger, that played super well. even though Liam and Noel did not show up to the press conference. They didn't show. They didn't show. They opted out of that. But people really enjoyed that documentary. And we'll say some things that, like, I really liked Bucking Faster. I think Rooney and Kate Mara do incredible work, and it's, like, a really interesting character study and really fascinating, weird little gem of a movie.

12:58I think it's maybe a little too weird for certain people. It played well, got, like, a six-minute standing ovation, but not, you know, didn't do gangbusters. But I mean, the performances in that Orlando Bloom is also fantastic. He sort of like returned to form for him. Oh, and then another movie that played super well, which I didn't get a chance to see because you're running around everywhere at these festivals. You can't do everything. Possible Love did super well. I mean, that might review wise, it only got like a four minute standing ovation. But review wise, I think that has gotten the most acclaim.

13:30And people are like, this is just such a beautiful movie about class struggle and whatnot. So I think Possible Love is also up there as one of the best received movies. I feel like Possible Love is kind of like one of those movies that doesn't have a lot of buzz going in, but then this really like lands it on the map. It's a Korean film by Lee Chang Dong. And I'd heard a little bit about it before the festivals because it was being pitched to me. But I, you know, I just didn't have time to check it out. But I regret it now because it's everyone seems to be talking about it. And I think that's the kind of discovery that can sort of have a run through award season.

14:05And that's a Netflix film. So I think we will be hearing more about that. And then there were some movies that didn't. Let's hear about the bad, Chris. Yeah, let's get to the bad. Okay. What is it? Rose and Thorne? Okay. Thorne. Okay. My personal biggest Thorne. No offense to Paul Schrader, who I guess said that he used AI to cast black people in a film because he couldn't find any black actors willing to play criminals. Yeah. But his new movie, The Basics of Philosophy, was really bad, I thought. really didn't live up to the hype. It has Jack Houston in it. It's about like a repressed philosophy teacher who's got secrets and did bad things to certain people.

14:42So that wasn't great. And then I will say, interestingly enough, Inc., the premiere of Venice this year, which the opening film kind of only did all right. I think it sort of starts out strong and then it kind of tapered off and people got a little restless. And then it's about Rupert Murdoch purchasing the sun. I'm teaming up with this hotshot editor to make The Sun, and you think it's going to be way more about Rupert Murdoch, and it's really not about him. It's way more about the editor of The Sun. It only got like a four-minute standing ovation, which is kind of short, and it did feel like a little bit of a weird choice for the opener.

15:17I mean, it's directed by Danny Boyle, who's like, you know, an Oscar-winning Slumdog millionaire director. He's fantastic, and it is like well-directed and propulsive and edgy, but it was a little DOA. Yeah, I think opener films are not always the strongest, I would say, at festivals. So I was surprised it was the opener as well. And I know Danny Boyle was nervous about it because I interviewed him. And I wrote a first look about it and I was really trying to emphasize that it's not that much about Rupert Murdoch. It's really about Larry Lamb, played by Jack O 'Connell. And I think people's expectations, because all the headlines are like Rupert Murdoch movie.

15:51Yeah, I was wondering how that would play there. Anyone who saw it at Telluride seemed to like have a very good experience, but I don't think it's blowing anyone away. It's a very watchable movie. Netflix feels like a great place for it, honestly. In that like, I'm excited to like turn it back on again when it's on Netflix and then maybe be able to pause it and, you know, go get, you know, some food and then come back and finish it. Yeah. I did learn a lot about sort of that time period. And I didn't know about Fleet Street, like that all the newspapers were published in London on the same street.

16:23Like there's some really interesting journalism stuff in there. So yeah, I agree. I kind of thought that would be the reaction there. So back in July when the Venice lineup was announced, we all talked about feeling like this was a rebuilding year for the festival. Chris, now that you've been, you've seen most of the films. Does that feel like a fair characterization? Yeah, I think so. I don't know if it's done rebuilding yet. I think there's still some work to go in regards to that. I mean, obviously, we talked about the films, but I do think there was a sense of, you know, there's a lot of discussion about the lack of female representation at the film festival.

17:05And I think Mayal Tuki, who is the one woman who had a film in competition at the festival, Woman Unknown, like that went over okay, you know? And I think there's definitely still work to be done in terms of like some quality of films and like finding like real like, you know, films that'll blow your mind. And also, I guess, casting a wider net to look for films. Well, I think that this year they had to reframe the festival as a safe space. Right. Because what had happened is people were like, oh my God, a movie can just die in Venice or the press conferences can get too political. I happen to have thought, Chris, that the press conferences this year were more subdued than in previous years.

17:53People used to ask, people ask crazy questions in Cannes, but towards the end of Venice, like, people were really asking crazy questions. I mean, they almost canceled the jury press conference and then they brought it back at the last minute. So I think people knew, like, okay, you better trade a little carefully here. Like, for example, Wild Horse Nine, which is a movie that has political undertones. That conference was, the questions that were asked were pretty basic and not inflammatory. And I'm not so sure two years ago if that would have happened. So I think in their rebuilding, what they showcased was that they are making the festival a little bit less, quote unquote, hot in a way.

18:40And that was what was preventing some of the big studios from coming. Although I'm going to say in the next segment, a different theory on that, which is that maybe the movies are bad. But, uh... Well, John, we're going to get to your theory in the next segment. First, we're going to take a quick break. And when we get back, tell your eye. Don't go away.

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20:18Welcome back to Little Gold Men. As regular listeners know, I'm a little bit of a Telluride evangelist. John, this was your first time at the festival. I'm really dying to know what you think. Are you part of my cult? Yeah. Yay! Yeah. I mean, listen, it's not hard to get me to join a cult. I'm always cult curious. I'm cult forward. but it is drop-dead gorgeous. There's a completely different vibe. It's a small community of people. They're all film lovers. They're all filmmakers. I mean, just on the ground alone, there was Bill Gates, Oprah, Eddie Q was there from Apple. And then I heard Josh DeMauro was there.

21:04Yeah, who's the new head of Disney. I mean, it's actually a pretty staggering amount of like heavy hitters from these studios that are coming, I think because it has just such a great word of mouth. So, yes, I'm a believer. I've drunk the Kool-Aid. Welcome. I mean, we'll get to an experience on the ground, which was Rebecca's descent into the mouth of madness. Hey. Oh, wow. Hey, excuse me. I want to hear about that. Well, yeah, well, let's just get into it. I do want to say I think this was my favorite Telluride that I've been to. And this is my sixth year. Because of me? Yes, just because of you.

21:41Oh? No. I mean, the lineup was super strong. I felt like very few films flopped. Like nothing really flopped, actually. There were some that were maybe okay. But most things people loved. I didn't see a bad movie there. And it had what we should just start off discussing, which is a surprise screening. which is every year Telluride has a few things on the schedule that are called TBAs to be announced. And they announced them the day before. So the night before you look at your app and you see what they've added. This year, Julie Hunsinger decided to have a true surprise screening where you walk into theater and you don't know what it is, which is very hard to do because all we do is gossip at this festival.

22:22And usually you can find out what the surprise things are ahead of time. But they pulled it off. It was on Sunday, and I didn't find out what it was until Sunday morning, which is very late for me to find something out. How did you think that you handled that? A little frantic, I would say, because as a journalist, we are trained to find out information. And I have never had this much. It wasn't just trouble finding out what it was. It was so much misdirection. Well, people begged you to stop. Just you. You're the only one who begged me to stop. How did you ultimately find out? Well, it's like putting together a puzzle, Chris.

23:03So on the first night, I went to a filmmaker's dinner and I cornered someone from A24 who may listen to this podcast. And she's not the best poker face in the world. And so I had figured out it was an A24 movie by the first night. But then there were so many rumors flying around. The rumor was it's a documentary. The rumor was a 2027 film. The rumor was a film we didn't even know existed. And so you just kind of got misdirected. For a while, I thought it was the Ruben Oslin movie. I heard Frank Ocean. For a while, it was a Frank Ocean movie, which is also an A24 movie. And then it ended up between a secret Elizabeth Holmes documentary or the Emma Stone movie, because Emma was there and I had heard from someone that Emma knew what it was.

23:45And so then I was like, okay, well, it must be an Emma Stone movie. Both of those were Nathan Fielder movies. So we knew it was A24 and Nathan Fielder. Anyway, you had to be there, but it was... No, you really, Chris, had to be there. John got a peek into my very aggressive reporting style. And we value that at the Unity Fair. So thank you. I've never seen anything like this from her. But I did find it out. Thank you for doing the work. She did find it out. And then even we waited online for like maybe a minute when they opened the doors. And Rebecca was like, I can't do this. Like, we got to get in there now.

24:22And I was like, well, they've just started letting people in. It's a 600 person theater. I don't like lines. But she doesn't like lines. But I will say this. I'm going to give a shout out to Rebecca and Emily on our social team. Rebecca ran out of that screening, wrote up. I think it was the first to post about the Nathan Fielder Elizabeth Holmes doc, which we're about to talk about, which was the craziest thing I've ever seen. And then Emily, who was on the ground with us for social, was able to socialize it at 11 p.m. at night. Kudos. They're amazing. Yeah. So shout out. It was a big, you know, hit for us online and it was all worth it.

24:58But I witnessed really something that I've never seen from Rebecca, who's usually so cool and calm and collected. The bottom line is don't keep a secret from me. But let's talk about it. You can see everything. That's the title. Yes. The Nathan Fielder, Elizabeth Holmes doc. Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim are the directors. it was two hours and 45 minutes, right? We're not going to reveal spoilers, but wow. It's tricky because I've been telling the many people who've been texting me about this, don't read about it, go in as blind as you can, because that was part of what made the experience special for us, is we just had no idea where it was going to go.