Toronto International Film Festival – Page 2

221 – The Front Runner

We’ve previously discussed the work of Jason Reitman with our Men, Women, and Children episode, and this week we have another Reitman bomb: 2018′s The Front Runner. The film features Hugh Jackman as Senator Gary Hart and dramatizes Hart’s failed presidential campaign that was thwarted by an infidelity scandal. Released on Election Day after a very mild fall festival run, the film posits Hart’s case as the beginning of political muckraking in America, but fails to make a compelling case for that argument or find a pulse on the political climate in the immediate year’s following the 2016 Presidential Election.

This episode, we talk about Jackman’s prestige run in the shadow of Wolverine and his prospects this year with the reviled The Son in a weak Best Actor field. We also welcome Reitman regular J.K. Simmons into our Six Timers Club, and discuss Reitman’s other 2018 release Tully, post-Hart political sex scandals, and Vera Farmiga Phone Acting.

Topics also include Phil Hartman’s Clinton impersonation, current awards season malaise, and our upcoming mailbag episode!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

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.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

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.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

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.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

179 – On Chesil Beach

Saoirse Ronan came on strong at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival with two films that had the opposite experience: the immediately beloved Lady Bird and the misfire On Chesil Beach, which cratered after world premiering on the first day of the festival. The film reunited Ronan with Ian McEwan, the author of her Oscar-nominated breakthrough performan in Atonement, and cast her as a young woman in the mid-century who experiences a disastrous honeymoon with decades worth of emotional consequences. Also starring Billy Howle (who she would quickly reunite with for The Seagull) as her hot-tempered husband, the film received a very tepid response at the festival despite its pedigree and received a very quiet release the next spring.

This episode, we’re talking about Ronan’s increasingly prolific career and the performances that brought her Oscar nominations, including Atonement, which we will defend to the death. We also discuss the history of Bleecker Street films, their difficulty in securing Oscar nominations, and our favorites of their lineup.

Topics also include that one cello piece used in all of cinema, frustrations over the term “Oscar bait”, and Bebe Zahara Benet’s Jungle Kitty.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

BONUS – Another Year, Another TIFF

Chris and Joe are back “at” the Toronto International Film Festival, and as we’re prone to do, we’re bringing you a bonus episode to recap the experience. We review our virtual TIFF experience from home with a quick mention of the films we missed and how this hybrid year has made for a more muted festival. We discuss our favorite films of the festival, which films might have boosted or lost their Oscar chances, a strong lineup of documentary films, and potential International Feature submissions.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

146 – The Place Beyond the Pines (Focus Features – Part Four)

This week, our Focus Features miniseries brings us to The Place Beyond the Pines, Derek Dianfrance’s epic, novelistic tale of fathers and sons. The film reunited Cianfrance with his Blue Valentine star Ryan Gosling as a motorcyclist who turns to crime, with consequences that will reverbate across households and generations. After launching at TIFF in 2012, Focus Features held the film until the following spring, leaving it as a highly divisive afterthought come awards season.

We unpack Cianfrance’s ambitious triptych vision with a stellar ensemble cast of Gosling, Bradley Cooper, Dane DeHaan, Ray Liotta, Rose Byrne, Ben Mendelsohn, and Eva Mendes. We discuss the film’s underserved female characters, early 2010s Gosling fatigue, and its emotionally intelligent exploration of masculinity that still left some viewers cold. And there’s still room to rave over cinematographer Derek Cianfrance and his bold work for this film that left him with a concussion.

Topics also include Cianfrance’s underseen HBO limited series I Know This Much Is True, Michelle Williams’ nomination for Blue Valentine without one for Gosling, and reading A Little Life on vacation.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

BONUS – If Queen Street Could Talk

We’re going to TIFF! If you haven’t seen, the first titles for this year’s Toronto International Film Festival lineup have been revealed. Joe and Chris couldn’t wait to talk about it, so we are treating you to a special bonus episode to discuss what’s to come from what many people consider the official start of the Oscar season. We’ll be discussing the films and performances we’re most anticipating, those that make us nervous, and what we hope will be announced at a later date!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS