The autumn competition firehose has opened. We’re now inundated with new film premieres (TIFF, for one, has a staggering 209 options), with Telluride wrapped and Venice heading into its last weekend.
On this episode of IndieWire’s “Display Discuss” podcast, IndieWire Editor-at-Giant Anne Thompson and Govt Editor Ryan Lattanzio break down the highs and lows of the autumn competition circuit to date, from the standouts to the shocking misfires. Anne was in Telluride, which overlapped with Venice in programming a collection of Netflix titles, together with Guillermo del Toro’s lushly mounted “Frankenstein” (we’re considerably break up on that one; Anne’s a perennial del Toro head) and Noah Baumbach’s “Jay Kelly.”
Starring George Clooney as an ageing Hollywood star staring down a possible PR disaster after a scuffle with a former performing class peer, it’s Baumbach’s most sentimental film but, although Clooney and Adam Sandler as his supervisor are more likely to rating Oscar nominations. Should you like your Baumbach brittle (Ryan is a self-described “‘Margot on the Wedding ceremony’ homosexual”), then “Jay Kelly” isn’t for you. The film Netflix should prioritize is Kathryn Bigelow’s nuclear doomsday thriller “A Home of Dynamite,” which went off spectacularly at Venice and subsequent performs the New York Movie Pageant.
Again at Telluride, Anne was excessive on the Colorado mountains and the world premiere of Chloé Zhao’s “Hamnet,” which earned ecstatic critiques and Oscar predictions throughout the board. Focus Options strategically introduced Zhao’s Shakespeare-era romantic tragedy, starring Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal, to Telluride realizing it will get one of the best critiques there, and is the competition Zhao is loyal to.
Focus’ different awards season horse within the race, “Bugonia,” they took to Yorgos Lanthimos’ common launchpoint in Venice, the place it earned extra guarded critiques in comparison with the rapturous Telluride reception. Ryan stated that a few of its bludgeoning satire — it’s about an alt-right conspiracy nut (Jesse Plemons) who kidnaps a big-pharma CEO (Emma Stone) he thinks is an alien — felt like acquainted Lanthimos schtick. Anne reveres the movie and spoke to Jesse Plemons.
We each noticed “After the Hunt,” which skipped Telluride to debut solely out of competitors in Venice earlier than opening the New York Movie Pageant. Luca Guadagnino’s cancel-culture drama set on the planet of academia didn’t play effectively at his native Italian competition, and on the eve of a rowdy press convention. Anne criticized the size and agreed with Ryan’s evaluation that the script is commonly muddled and incoherent regardless of a hefty efficiency from Julia Roberts as a philosophy professor grappling together with her scholar’s (Ayo Edebiri) towards a colleague, performed by Andrew Garfield.
Hearken to the podcast in full, and listen to extra of our favorites and also-rans from Venice and Telluride, under.