TIFF Takeaways + Our Best Picture Predictions

0:01Into the wild, the Cartier Panther encounters a shimmering crocodile, a lonely lovebird, a breathless zebra, and a restless tiger.

0:21Hello and welcome to Little Gold Men, Vanity Fair's podcast for film, TV, and awards lovers. I'm Rebecca Ford. And I'm John Ross. We did it, John. The first three major stops of the fall festival circuit, Venice, Telluride, and TIFF are behind us. How are you feeling? I spent all day yesterday in bed, so now I feel great. Well, today we're going to take stock of everything that went down at the Toronto Film Festival. Then we're going to go ahead and share our two early predictions for the 10 films that we think will be nominated for Best Picture at this year's Oscars. But before we get to that, we have a couple other news items to discuss.

1:02John, you saw Digger. I haven't seen it yet, but you went to the very first screening. I did, and my reaction was more positive than other people's. I felt like I left it feeling more or less entertained. But we are going to have an upcoming episode all about Tom Cruise, so I don't want to get too far into it. I think it's going to cause a lot of discourse, right? Like, that's what we can say is I feel like there's going to be a lot of conversation about it. Yes. The answer is yes. And our long national nightmare is over, but not really. We just mean personally for us covering entertainment. As of Monday morning, it sounds like Paramount has settled its antitrust case with the various different states' attorneys generals.

1:52This is breaking news. We're recording on Monday, so we don't have all the details about the settlement yet. I saw some reporting that there may be a$30 million penalty per film if Paramount doesn't release its promise 30 films annually. Whoa. Yeah. And then I saw some reporting on editorial boards for CNN and CBS. But by the time this episode comes out, I'm sure we'll know a few more of the details. But the headline is that they've reached a settlement before, Or, you know, October 1st was when these ticking fees come into effect where Paramount has to pay for every day the deal doesn't close.

2:29So I think there was definitely some urgency to this. But the bottom line is this clears the way for this deal to happen. Yeah, it's happening. Most people I talked to felt like it was going to happen, but just unclear how long that would take and what they should be doing in the time leading up to that. So clarity is really what people want at this point.

2:56All right, let's talk about TIFF. Here to help us out is the one and only Hilary Bussis. Hi, Hilary. Hello, everyone. Here I am again. Well, we need you because we're talking TIFF. You and John were both there on the ground at the festival. How did it go? Give us sort of the big broad stroke headlines. So yes, TIFF. I will say that my favorite movies or TIFF are actually movies that premiered at Telluride or Venice. So it was a good place to see movies. But I don't know if the TIFF movies themselves were necessarily the biggest draw. I was a little surprised and excited by the movie that won the People's Choice Award, which was La Bola Negra, the Spanish movie that I think is going to have a long tail this award season.

3:41And I don't know, I think that getting this award at TIFF has kind of set it on that path. I don't know, John, what's your biggest TIFF takeaway?

3:53TIFF is a great festival. I've actually always been kind of a supporter of TIFF when people have dogged it. Now, I had never gone to Telluride to TIFF, which changes some things. But still, even then, the biggest problem with the festival is that they premiere movies that have had premieres in Telluride and Venice much, much later. So Friday and Saturday night, they have these world premieres that included I Play Rocky, which we should talk about. And then later in the festival, starting Monday and Tuesday, they have Wild Horse 9, La Bola Negra, which won the audience award, Elsinore. And those are films that are more important, I think, for people like us to see.

4:46Yeah, I missed Ink, the Danny Boyle movie, because it premiered on Tuesday after, you know, a long weekend and a long Emmys telecast. So I think that there were probably a lot of press that had to get out of town before that happened. And we all missed Possible Love because we were at home covering the Emmys, which is unavoidable for them. You know, every four or five years, the Emmys coincide with TIFF. But long story short, I guess I felt like I was there and it felt kind of like a regional festival, Rebecca. and not... One of the three biggest. One of the three biggest. Yeah. And in fact, when you look at New York Film Festival this year, which is premiering Artificial, The Homestock, and Behemoth, plus all the other stuff that they have, if I'm Hillary, I would be like, well, why am I here?

5:37Why did I leave my home? Yeah. For the ketchup-flavored chips. So they have to reconfigure how they want to position the festival, in my opinion. But it's still such an easy festival to see stuff. And there's a lot, a lot of movies. You know, it has one of the most robust lineups because they have so many movies. This year, they added a market. But Hillary, what were some of your favorites that you saw there? My very favorite was the debut. I will not shut up about this movie. I have told so many people how much I loved it. It's Hillary's full-time job for the rest of the season. I am a publicist for the debut at this point.

6:21But Jesse Eisenberg and Paul Giamatti and Julianne Moore, who star in the movie, were all there. Jesse Eisenberg wrote and directed and gave himself a small part in it. Memorable part, though. Yes, small but memorable. He gives himself a very funny song. He cracked me the hell up in that movie. Yeah. It's such a good movie. It's like if Waiting for Guffman didn't hate everybody in Waiting for Guffman, like it's warm and tender and like about the beauty of art. But it's also very funny just in like a way that's not mean spirited, which is great. I don't know. It just really won me over. There's this like dynamite scene between Julianne Moore and Paul Giamatti when she is, you know, learning to tap into her character in this like ridiculous musical.

7:03You know, you got like mid scene applause. Like when something like that happens, you know that an audience is really reacting to something. I do want to say with that movie, I think people would benefit from knowing, because I loved it too, but, you know, John and I were at the premiere, and it's quite surreal in the second half. He pushes it really far, and I think people should sort of be prepared for, you know, because A Real Pain, Jesse's previous film, was pretty traditional, and I think he's really pushing it this time with this one. So I think going into that, it's nice to know that, you know, he's going to ask you to go on a much wilder ride.

7:36And I think he succeeds at it, but it's a far bigger risk for him, I think, in tone. And I think he really pulled it off. So I agree. It was such a great movie. Well, if you don't like going on that ride, then I don't know what's wrong with you. We're judging you harshly. Yeah. Well, John, what did you like best at TIFF that you had not already seen? Ruh-roh. The best movie I saw was A Talent for Murder, where Helen Mirren plays Patricia Highsmith, the author of The Talented Mr. Ripley. It's a really fun movie. it's got a fun pulpy plot to it where this guy comes and lives with her to try to convince her to write her last novel but then they you know sort of start plotting what would be a quote unquote hypothetical murder for maybe her book or maybe real life or I guess for me it was one of the bigger premieres at the festival I wouldn't say it's going to be one of the bigger players for this entirety of awards season, but it's definitely a ton of fun.

8:43And Helen is great in it. Everyone is actually great in it. I think that was kind of the best. I got to interview Sean Penn, who's the executive producer on this documentary, Black Sunflowers. And it's about young people in Ukraine living during the war. And it's like a mix of rave culture and then them going to war. And it was very, very intense. But actually, it was really good. And the director is a music video director. And he really embeds himself with these groups of kids. And it was an interesting take on an issue that we've been talking about for a while. But to see it through the eyes of these, like, teenage girls or young 20-somethings was interesting.

9:34So those were the two best. I think we should talk about the award winners. La Bola Negra won the Audience Award, which is traditionally sort of an award that means you are going to be a Best Picture nominee. And Elsinore won the International Award. So it's basically what we thought. It's these really strong, emotional movies, especially that have great endings, because you do often vote right after you see a movie. So I wasn't surprised to hear La Bolanegra won, and I feel like we can very much consider it a true Oscar contender now. Yes? Yeah, for sure. I mean, this is a huge boost for them.

10:15Sort of funny that it and Elsinore have a few things in common, too, in that they're both, you know, queer period pieces. Not the only movies that kind of have that theme this season, but probably the two that are the Oscar-iest characters. We can talk about I Play Rocky, which I think is a big crowd pleaser. I don't, not sure it's an awards season film. We're not going to reveal my personal journey with the film. But Hillary, should we give the audience 30 seconds of our impression of the film? John, I don't know if anyone thinks this is funny, except for you and me. But okay, so. And I just want everyone to know that Hillary and I can play either part.

10:55Yes. Let's do it. Okay. We're going to do it. We can go back and forth. In the beginning, I'm going to start as NS if you're Rob and you're Rocky, but then we can switch. Okay, sounds great. Rocky, I see you. You've been staring at my tits all night. Stop. No, why would I do that? I'm a nice guy. I know what type of guy you are, Rocky. You always be fighting. I'm not like that. Yes, you are. I know you are. We should go on a date sometime, I see. Oh, my God. Do you like photography? I love photography. I'm an artist. Wow. I think the listeners may not realize you have switched characters midway through this.

11:35Because we're both really in it. Yes, you're both so good, so authentic. John and I were doing that for like three days. So it's hard for me to discuss this film outside of that. Because you starred in it in both roles. You can't be objective. So as someone who hasn't seen it, but I know the history of Green Book, which had the same director as I play Rocky, Peter Farrelly. It won Toronto. It won Best Picture at the Oscars. That was quite a strange year for those of us who covered it. But are we talking about the possibility of the same thing happening here? I think if it had won People's Choice, maybe.

12:13It got second place in People's Choice, but that's not the same as winning. I think John is right that this is probably not going to go the distance. It's not going to run all the way up the steps of the Philadelphia Art Museum. so to speak. I think that it could maybe sneak in in a couple of places. But the problem with the movie is that all it does is remind you of what a good movie Rocky is. And you're like, why am I not watching Rocky? But listen, I said the exact same thing about Bohemian Rhapsody. And Rami Malek got an Oscar for that. So, you know, we cannot discount the power of nostalgia.

12:46Yes, but Bohemian Rhapsody is a much bigger film in scope and also made a billion dollars at the box office. This is going to make money. If it does make money, I think it is a huge testament to MGM Amazon that they are figuring out a real path for that studio and what works for them because then they'll have had Project Hail Mary, which made a ton of money, and a movie like this, which is an important type of movie. It's a feel-good studio. Holiday release. Like, it's Thanksgiving and you're like, what are we going to see? and you're going to see this. But in terms of us looking at it through the awards lens, there's a lot of buts and ifs in there that I think it would have to overcome to get into the 10.

13:34And I don't, I think it's got a long road. I was so blindsided by Green Book that I feel like I have to take this seriously, sight unseen, even though I've heard your off mic reviews. I guess we'll see when we get later in this episode if either of you put it on your top 10. But any films that really disappointed you, didn't work, you maybe had hopes for and they didn't deliver? Yeah, my answer is Misty Green, which I really, I wanted it to be great. I was excited about it. I was excited about Chris Rock writing and directing again. I was excited about the discovery of a new actress, you know, Rosalind Elazar, who plays the title role, who is a struggling actress in the film.

14:14She's a TV star mostly. She's on slow horses. She doesn't have as much name recognition as, you know, Chris Rock, obviously. And it's always exciting when somebody like that gets a big showcase. But even though she's good, the movie does not hold together. And I was disappointed by it. It's interesting, I think. And I think that it's kind of thematically rich. But that's not the same thing as saying I enjoyed watching it. John, anything else? You've seen so much coming in that I feel like you didn't. No. I mean, I saw this movie, The Face of Horror, by director Anna Biller. It's her follow-up to Love Witch.

14:52I don't think it's quite as strong as Love Witch, which is this sort of cult classic. I guess it's only like 10 years old. But it's done in that Technicolor style, but it doesn't quite have the humor that Love Witch had. But I was still glad I got to see it. I saw like Off the Beaten Path films at TIFF, which there's a lot of. but I didn't walk out of any movie being like, ugh, that was bad. Well, there also wasn't like a big discovery in the style of Obsession, I feel like. Like TIFF this year was really harping on the fact that Obsession was bought at the festival last year and then became this enormous unforeseen hit.

15:30And like there was a retrospective screening of Obsession at the festival this year, even though it's a year old. Yeah, I think that's what TIFF did this year is what a lot of these awards experts would hope it would do for their films that premiered either at Telluride Cannes or Venice is like solidified them as a crowd pleaser, right? Like Club Kid, La Bola Negra, Wild Horse Nine, The Debut, they all premiered elsewhere. But everything I heard was people talking about those films at TIFF, so. They played really well. All of those movies played very well at TIFF. Yeah, so I think that is probably the biggest success, which is not probably what the festival wants is their narrative.

16:08They want to, you know, have an obsession, have a world premiere. That's a big deal. But I think for those films, it was very successful. Yeah, I agree. All right. Before we move on, what festival do you think was the most valuable this season? Telluride. Duh. Yes, I agree. Yeah, Telluride had the strongest bump this season because studios avoided Venice for the reasons that we said. They thought it was too controversial. The press conferences were getting too heated. there was too much criticism of films that didn't work. Toronto wasn't able to figure out where to program these films in their lineup, so none of these films received the bump.

16:53That happened when some of these films premiered in Telluride. Keep in mind, La Bola Negra was a canned premiere. It went to Telluride and then it went to TIFF, but it got this momentum starting from Telluride that then was christened during TIFF with this People's Choice winner. All right, we're going to take a quick break. When we get back, our predictions for this year's Best Picture contenders don't go away.

17:31into the wild the Cartier panther encounters a shimmering crocodile a lonely lovebird a breathless zebra and a restless tiger

17:53Welcome back to Little Gold Men. Venice, Telluride, and TIFF are now behind us, which means that the best picture race is starting to come together in sharper focus. John, Hillary, and I have each made our own list of the 10 films we think will be nominated. But in classic Little Gold Men fashion, we haven't shared our picks with each other. So we'll be doing this live on air to see where we overlap and where we don't. Who wants to kick things off? I think, John, I think you're ready. You do it. I am ready. Number one, a little movie called The Odyssey. Number two, La Bola Negra. Number three, Dune Part 3, but we haven't seen it.

18:31Four, The Invite. Five, Wild Horse 9. Six, Project Hail Mary. Seven, Fatherland. Eight, Elsinore. Nine, The Debut. And ten, I Have Possible Love, but I haven't gotten to see it yet. Okay. Very interesting. We will save our comments for in a minute. Hilary, your turn. It's a lot of overlap, but we do have a few divergences. So I've got The Odyssey, The Debut, Bola Negra, Wild Horse 9, Invite, Dune 3, Project Hail Mary. And the places where we differ are Fjord, Behemoth, and I Play Rocky. But listen, I wrote that an hour ago. and then during our conversation just now, I talked myself out of it. But whatever, we'll get into that.

19:22Okay, I'll go next. The Odyssey, Wild Horse Nine, La Bola Negra, The Invite, Project Hail Mary, The Debut, Dune Part 3, You Can See Everything, Club Kid, and Possible Love. Oh, a documentary. So we have seven films that we all have on our list. That's a pretty significant amount. I thought there'd actually be more discrepancies here, But let's just go through them. I think some of these need very little explanation and some need maybe a little bit more. We all have The Odyssey and we all put it number one. It's the front runner at this point. It would be, I just don't think that there's another movie probably even that can beat it now.

20:02Like we're so far away from the Oscars, but I just don't know what else Best Picture could possibly be. Unless Dune is somehow, you know, as big as The Odyssey. Yeah. So we all also put Dune, sight unseen. None of us have seen it. the previous two films were on the Best Picture list. The second film didn't do as well in nominations or wins as the first, but this is the last one. I think all of us expect it to be very good. And we're all also thinking about The Lord of the Rings, I think, when we put Dune on there. Yes, the third film won Best Picture. Yes, and everything else. Yes, it was a sweep.

20:35And I would list Project Hail Mary in there as sort of like a big crowd pleaser. It just came out so long ago. I think it probably needs a resurgence now that the fall festivals are over. I assume they're going to kind of pop back up and do some more screenings and stuff. They need to do whatever the hell Apple did for F1. Exactly the same for this, because F1 got an Oscar nom. We were all surprised. This movie stars a rock, literally, and Ryan Gosling. And Gosling is not the most ambitious campaigner, but neither was Brad Pitt for F1. He basically didn't do anything, and they still got a nomination.

21:21And I think that Amazon MGM is really determined to get a Best Picture nomination for this movie as well, and they have their resources to do it. So I think that's why we also are feeling kind of confident it'll get in there. Yeah, and there's just not that much light entertainment on here besides Project Hail Mary also. Yeah. So those are sort of the big blockbusters. I think we all feel very good about La Bola Negra, especially after winning a TIFF. It's a long movie. It's three hours. I didn't know if that was going to maybe scare people away from seeing it. But I think with the buzz it has now, everyone's going to be very sure to watch it.

21:58And I really think that that ending is such a knockout. And it's such an ambitious film that I don't have any doubts on that one. What else? Wild Horse 9, which had an incredibly successful festival run. I think we all feel confident that that will get in there. It's going to get a ton of acting nominations. Yeah, Malkovich won the Actor Award at Venice, which was a big win for him. Right. Screenplay. Director is harder to tell this year. I mean, the Academy loves Martin McDonough. They do, but director is a very tough race this year. I'm sure we'll talk about it on a separate episode. Yeah. The invite, a bit of a surprise in that when it first came out, it did very well at the box office and we were all very happy.

22:50Hillary and I saw the movie in Sundance and really liked it. But this movie now is just overperforming on like a lot of different levels. it's over performing on PVOD which is like people are renting it and people love this movie which is important getting an Oscar nom yeah I think they also love this kind of movie which like not to repeat myself too much but it's a it's an acting showcase it's got four stars who are really at the top of their game it's like a very adult movie like not just that it has sexual themes but it's like a movie for grown-ups to steal AARP's label and it just is nice to have stuff like that in the mix.

23:32It's the kind of, you know, the Phantom mid-budget movie that we were always talking about disappearing and getting replaced by the limited series, like, and having one of those in the Oscar race is, yeah, it's like a throwback, but also it's a very well-made version of that kind of movie. Yeah. This movie works, and I think they're going to reward it in a lot of areas. I think Olivia Wilde's going to have a very good Oscar year. Yeah, I hope she makes it into director. I know we're not talking about director, but she deserves to. Yeah. It'd be nice to have a woman in there because it's looking a little light on that fact.

24:07And then we all picked the debut, which I actually wasn't sure everyone would. I am nervous that it might be more divisive once more people see it, just because of, like I was saying, how far he pushes it. But it is a crowd pleaser. And I was at a screening here in LA as well, and the audience loved it too. I mean, it was a DGA screening, so very much an industry audience. Well, that's who's voting. Yeah, right. Those are all voters in that room. So if normies don't like it, it doesn't matter because they don't decide what gets Oscar nominations. Right. And you have to remember how many former musical theater kids are in the voting body of the Academy.

24:44There are thousands of us. And we will get every single one of their names by the end of this season. And A24 will have a very specific list moving forward of how many people saw Rent original run. Yeah, they're going to get on the stage at the Dolby and they're going to sing Seasons of Love and everyone is going to have to listen. And they've made a really cute fake playbill for the movie that they're handing out at screenings. And Jesse actually wrote like the director's note that's really funny. So I can tell the marketing is already going to be very specific here and probably very successful.

25:20John and I also both picked Possible Love, which neither of us have seen. But the buzz out of the festivals was deafening. I heard from so many people. The buzz is very high. And I did not put it on my list because I also haven't seen it. But in retrospect, I'm wondering if I should have. Because yeah, that feels like a real breakout. Yeah, this is a Korean drama by Lee Chang Dong. So it has a challenge that broad audiences probably don't know these actors. They may not be as familiar with it. But when I was thinking about what foreign language films could possibly get in, we have La Bola Negra already, but there's usually more than one.

25:59I went back and forth on Fjord, which we'll talk about. But I felt like this could be the one that really just sweeps audiences up, I think, in this sort of momentum. Literally the exact same, Rebecca, exactly the same. I looked at my list. I felt like it was light on foreign language. foreign language doesn't mean anything anymore in terms of best picture. I don't think that there's a limit. I think what's happened is that foreign language movies now are being watched in full by the Academy. And if this is as good as everyone is saying out of Venice, I think it'll be one of the ones that audiences embrace.