TIFF – This Had Oscar Buzz

THOB does TIFF-ty

Joe and Chris are back from the Toronto International Film Festival and it’s time to unpack everything we saw. Though we recorded prior to the announcement of this year’s People’s Choice Award winner, we talk at length about this year’s triumphant Hamnet and the word on the ground about the runners up as well. We discuss our favorites of the festival (neither of which world premiered at the festival), our mutual least favorite film Rental Family, and standout performances from the likes of Amanda Seyfried, Sir Ian McKellen, Josh O’Connor, Ethan Hawke, and many more!

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347 – Take This Waltz

After a career as an actress, Sarah Polley made her directorial debut with Away From Her, landing Oscar nominations for both her screenplay and Julie Christie’s performance. Her follow-up would be a slight gear shift: the intimate character study of infidelity, Take This Waltz. The film stars Michelle Williams as a writer who begins to feel a divide between her and her husband (Seth Rogen), exacerbated by her lust for her rickshaw-operating neighbor (Luke Kirby).

This episode, we talk about our love for Polley and the film’s inquisitive (if a bit divisive) portrait of marital malaise. We also discuss Sarah Silverman’s well-regarded supporting performance, Rogen’s very booked-and-busy first years of stardom, and the film’s expert use of “Video Killed the Radio Star.”

Topics also include Toronto geography, Dying for Sex, and Williams joins our Six Timers Club.

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342 – Strictly Ballroom (Festival Fever!)

This week, Festival Fever gives us our first Baz! Strictly Ballroom gave then-stage director Baz Luhrman his debut film, one of a number of Australian comedies that would achieve cult followings in the US. But this tale of young ballroom dancers who take artistic license and fall in love on the way also became a hit at the Toronto International Film Festival, winning the coveted People’s Choice Award. With a spring release the next year, the film is the only one of Luhrman’s to not be nominated by Oscar in any category.

This episode, we talk about the maximalist appeal of Baz and the road to TIFF’s People’s Choice Award becoming such an Oscar predictor. We also discuss the film’s first success as a midnight film in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard section, star Tara Morice’s exquisite performance, and the film’s surprise strong showing with BAFTA.

Topics also include Kath & Kim, “Time After Time,” and the 1993 Golden Globe musical/comedy lineup.

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339 – 99 Homes

99HOMES_00014_CROP (l to r) Andrew Garfield stars as ‘Dennis Nash’ and Michael Shannon as ‘Rick Carver’ in Broad Green Pictures release, 99 HOMES. Credit: Hooman Bahrani / Broad Green Pictures

2014 fall festivals saw the debut of Ramen Bahrain’s 99 Homes, a dark crime saga centered around the housing crisis of the previous decade. Andrew Garfield (fresh off of his mildly received run of Spider-Man movies) stars as a father who tries to rebound from his eviction by taking up work with the slick real estate operator who evicted him, played by Michael Shannon. Once the film was released in the fall of 2015, Shannon earned Supporting Actor nominations at each of the major precursors, only to miss out on Oscar nomination morning.

This episode, we talk about Shannon’s snubbing and his two unlikely Supporting Actor nominations. We also discuss the short life of Broad Green Pictures, Garfield’s performance in Angels in America, and the 2015 Best Supporting Actor race.

Topics also include Joe’s first TIFF, Florida onscreen, and our upcoming May miniseries!

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318 – My Policeman (with Katey Rich!)

As is our Thanksgiving week tradition, The Ankler’s Katey Rich returns to talk about another film with indistinguishable young actors. In 2022, fans and awards prognosticators were hyped for Harry Styles to make the leap to movies and leading man stardom. Amidst the gossip for Don’t Worry Darling, literary adaptation My Policeman loomed, with Styles cast as a man caught in a bisexual love triangle between his wife (Emma Corbin) and the art curator (David Dawson) he secretly loves. The film flashes forward to their older selves as they grapple with the consequences of their actions. All that hype amounted to a film quickly forgotten between its world premiere and its Prime debut.

This episode, we talk about Styles’ disappointing and brief jaunt into films including Dunkirk and Eternals. We also talk about DWD Watch 2022, the film’s TIFF Acting Tribute honor for its ensemble, and the film’s much ballyhooed gay sex scenes.

Topics also include Brokeback Mountain, Emma Corrin’s other 2022 contender Lady Chatterley’s Lover, and the spit.

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263 – A Good Year

After the Oscar and box office success of Gladiator, director/star duo of Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe decided to reunite in 2006 for a very different kind of film, A Good Year. Starring Crowe as a finance bro who returns to the French vineyard of his beloved but estranged and now deceased uncle (played by Albert Finney), the film offered Scott the chance to shoot a film close to home and stretch himself into comedy. With Marion Cotillard as Crowe’s love interest and Abbie Cornish as the uncle’s rightful heir, Scott’s fledgling comedy chops resulted in a misfire and one of the biggest bombs of his career.

This episode, we discuss the Ridley Scott post-Best Picture filmography and the 2006 Best Actor race. We also look at Cotillard’s Oscar win during a strike year, Cornish’s world-traveling dialects, and the 2006 TIFF Galas.

Topics also include Industry, a former lost episode, and Buffalo voice.

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Back to TIFF!

We’re back from our annual trip to the Toronto International Film Festival! Once again, we’ll be dissecting our festival experience, the films we saw, and what lies ahead for the season. We discuss the Peoples’ Choice Award winner American Fiction and its chances in the awards race, several International Feature contenders at the festival including Perfect Daysand The Teachers’ Lounge, the highs and lows of festival films by actors making their directorial debuts, and our top 5 films of the festival!

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216 – Snowden

Welcome all our new CIA listeners, because this week we are talking about 2016′s Snowden. Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt as controversial whistleblower Edward Snowden, the film follows Snowden’s journey through exposing the surveillance state and his exile to Russia, all while maintaining his relationship with girlfriend Lindsay Mills (played by Shailene Woodley). With Oliver Stone at the helm and Laura Poitras’ Snowden doc Citizenfour having recently earned the Best Documentary Feature Oscar, the film arrived with high expectations that it immediately disappointed when this bland biopic debuted at TIFF.

This episode, Joe gives us a recap of his New York Film Festival experience this year before we dive into Stone’s misfire. We also talk about Oscar winners that have played Oscar winners, Gordon-Levitt’s distracting baritone while playing Snowden, Peter Gabriel’s film awards history, and Stone’s fall from the height of his cultural significance in the 1980s and 1990s.

Topics also include TIFF premieres that open to general audiences during the festival, the 2011 Best Supporting Actress race that Woodley narrowly missed, and Chris’ ongoing journey with Survivor.

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Reunited at TIFF!

It’s an annual tradition! Joe and Chris (reunited for the first time in years!) are reporting on the films of the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival, including this year’s (Not Grolsch) People’s Choice Award winner: Steven Spielberg’s The Fablemans. And we’ve got bets against each other gaining some heat! This episode, we unpack our feelings about some of the festival’s biggest titles including Glass Onion, Women Talking, The Woman King, The Banshees of Inisherin, and The Inspection. We also discuss potential THOB titles of the future, Taylor Swift crowd control, and the dire Best Actor race. Topics also include the TIFF preroll ads, International Feature contenders, and TIFF’s history of People’s Choice winners and Oscar.

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205 – The Four Feathers

Long-time listeners of the podcast will recognize this week’s episode as one promised from the very beginning! In 2002, The Four Feathers arrived with major Oscar follow-up and star-on-the-rise pedigree. The film was Shekhar Kapur’s directorial follow-up to the Oscar anointed (and Cate Blanchett launching) Elizabeth, and starred three of the biggest young would-be megastars in its love triangle: Heath Ledger, Wes Bentley, and Kate Hudson. But on top of being one of many cinematic versions of A.E.W. Mason’s, the film bored critics and audiences when it world premiered as a TIFF gala, and fizzled entirely upon release a few weeks later.

This week, we talk about its three headliners at critical points of their careers: Ledger being foisted onto traditional leading man roles, Hudson following her Almost Famous Oscar nomination, and Bentley trying to escape that floating plastic bag. We also talk about Kapur’s dual Elizabeth films, the film’s supporting male cast of recognizable faces, and the film’s apolitical stance post-9/11.

Topics also include sideburns, the film’s brownface makeup, and Ledger’s final stretch of roles.

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