TIFF Long Take

Throughout the 80’s, 90’s and early 2000’s, sports movies were one of Hollywood’s most celebrated and bankable genres. Recently though, things seem to have changed. Of the top 50 grossing sports movies of all-time, only 3 have come in this decade with Creed, The Fighter, and 42 barely cracking the list. So what’s going on? Have the quality of sports movies declined? Are studio’s making less of them? Or have audience tastes just changed? To figure it out, Rob sits down with The Ringer’s Adam Nayman.

Nayman discusses how the definition of a “sports film” has evolved over the years, why the genre has seen such a steep decline this decade despite hitting with the critics, and why making more baseball and boxing movies probably isn’t the answer.

He also talks about how sports documentaries have thrived in the place of narrative sports films, how sports movies have likely been a casualty of the decline of the mid-budget film, and which director he would like to see revitalize the genre.

As much as we love to argue about their relevance, there’s no denying that an Academy Award is still the height of prestige in the film industry. But is winning an Oscar more about politics then merit? Over the last 40 year’s studios have increasingly relied on incredibly expensive, and often quite nasty, campaigns to get their film’s a statue. To get the story the evolution of Oscar campaigns, Rob and Geoff talk to Screen Rant’s Kayleigh Donaldson.

Donaldson talks about how the term “Oscar bait” originated, how Michael Cimino’s now classic film The Deer Hunter defined the modern Oscar campaign, and the unfortunate legacy of Harvey Weinstein and Miramax’s smear campaigns.

She also discusses what an Oscar means to the bottom line of a film in 2018, why, despite their massive marketing budgets, superhero films have not been able to get in the academy’s good graces, and why Get Out may have run this year’s most effective campaign.

Last week marked the release of the contentious Bollywood film Padmaavat. The lavish epic about a Hindu queen, Padmavati, is one of the most expensive Bollywood films ever, but is not without its detractors, with many claiming the film is historically inaccurate and disrespectful. Rajput and Hindu extremists who oppose the film attacked Padmaavat’s crew while it was in production, vandalised theaters screening the film, and offered a bounty to behead director and lead actress.

To make sense of the outrage surrounding Padmaavat, Rob and Geoff sit down with Dilani Rabindran, founder of Viewfinder Film Consulting, and programmer at Reel Asian Film Fest.

Rabindran walks them through Padmaavat’s long and troubled history, explains the furor surrounding its plot and themes, and questions if the controversy surround the film has helped it gain a wider audience.

She also breaks down the concessions the film had to make to be cleared by the censor boards in India, and how the film has helped spark a debate on the limits artistic license.

Since its start in 1978, The Sundance Film Festival has served as both an exhibition for the best independently produced films from around the world, and, as the first major film festival of the year, an early predictor of the year’s movie trends. To get the story of the films and themes that shaped this year’s festival, Rob and Geoff speak with IndieWire’s Senior Film Critic, David Ehrlich, who just finished up a week in Park City.

Ehrlich talks about the most buzzed about films from this year’s slate (including Josephine Decker's Madeline's Madeline, Boots Riley’s Sorry to Bother You, and Jennifer Fox’s The Tale), why the absence of an “early awards frontrunner” isn’t a bad thing, and Netflix and Amazon’s quiet week.

He also discusses female filmmakers dominating the festival’s major awards, and his favourite films from his year’s covering Sundance.

Since the early 1980s, the Bechdel-Wallace test (often just called “The Bechdel Test”) has helped call attention to the gender imbalance in Hollywood by asking two simple questions of a film: Does it have at least two named female characters? And do those characters have at least one conversation that is not about a man? But nearly 40 years since its creation, is the test in need of a successor that could better influence Hollywood’s decision makers? To find out Rob and Geoff speak with Walt Hickey, Ella Koeze, Rachael Dottle of FiveThirtyEight.com. The three recently published a study where they interviewed a number of women writers, directors, actresses and producers, and asked them what they thought the next Bechdel Test should be. They then ran these new tests on the top 50 films of 2016 to see how they stacked up.

Hickey, Koeze and Dottle discuss how the opinion of the Bechdel test has evolved since 1980, why the time seemed right to find a replacement for the test, and the glaring need for female representation behind the camera, in addition to onscreen.

They also point out the distressing lack of Latina representation in top grossing films, and wonder how this year’s crop of potential Oscar nominees would fair when taking these newly imagined tests.

This week, on a very special live episode of TIFF Long Take, Rob and Geoff sit down with Canadian director Jeremy Podeswa. In his home country, Podeswa is likely best known for his celebrated independent films The Five Senses and Fugitive Pieces, but across the globe he’s quickly gaining notoriety as one of television’s most prolific and skillful directors — with episodes of Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead, and The Handmaid’s Tale among his many credits.

Podeswa talks about how the perception of working in television has changed in the last 30 years, how he found himself directing TV after years of trying to make his own films, and why he doesn’t see much of a difference between film and television anymore.

He also discusses how to push things forward creatively while still being respectful to the history and vision of the show on which you’re working, how he got involved in the world of Game of Thrones, and how to direct actors, like Peter Dinklage, who have been playing the same role for years.

When it comes to contending in Hollywood, Canadian actors have always punched above their weight. But for every Ryan Gosling, Tatiana Maslany, or Rachel McAdams, there’s a Paul Gross, a Mary Walsh, or a Gordon Pinsent — actors who have, for the most part, forgone a career in the US and instead made names for themselves within the Canadian film and television scene. It makes us wonder: which career path should Canadian artists be following? To get the answer, Rob and Geoff sit down with an actor who has a foot in both camps, Maxim Roy. Maxim is well known amongst Canadians for 19-2, Allure, and Les Boys, but has also built a career south of the border with roles in Shadowhunters and The Factory.

The three discuss why so many Québécois actors are reluctant to work outside their home province, what the anglophone-Canadian film industry could learn from the francophone industry, and if star Canadian directors like Denis Villeneuve and Jean-Marc Vallée should be making more of an effort to cast Canadian talent.

They also talk about why French-Canadian actors don’t break through internationally in the same way actors from France do, and why French-Canadian characters aren’t more present in English-language films.

This week on TIFF Long Take, Rob and Geoff put 2017 in the rearview mirror and look ahead to the films, TV shows, events, and conversations that they’re most intrigued by in the coming year. Joining them to discuss are film critic for The Ringer K. Austin Collins and TIFF Programmer Kiva Reardon.

The four talk about their rabid anticipation for Ryan Coogler’s Black Panther and Alex Garland’s Annihilation, the timeless brilliance of Agnes Varda, and what the hell we can expect from Clint Eastwood’s The 15:17 to Paris.

They also get excited for unlikely genre films from Claire Denis and Luca Guadagnino, wonder what changes Hollywood will make after a year of exposed abuse and harassment, and question where HBO will go after Game of Thrones.

On their final episode of the year, Rob and Geoff look back on a sometimes unreal year in film and television, and reflect on the trends and themes that shaped the industry by revisiting some of their favourite TIFF Long Take conversations from 2017.

Excerpts include:

• IndieWire’s Anne Thompson on the death of the old studio system (2:10);
• Variety’s Owen Gleiberman on Netflix and Amazon’s negative reception at Cannes (6:40);
• Vanity Fair’s Katey Rich, Mike Hogan, and Richard Lawson on how the Oscars view streaming services (9:25)
• Franklin Leonard on the importance of Moonlight (14:50)
• BFI Southbank’s Gaylene Gould on reframing the context of classic films (17:00);
• Los Angeles Times’ Tre’vell Anderson on why are studios are reluctant to finance diverse films (20:50);
• IndieWire’s Tom Bruggeman on what film studios could learn from the Mayweather vs. McGregor fight (24:45);
• The Ringer’s Adam Nayman on franchise fatigue and the decline of Summer blockbusters (29:00);
• Jason Blum on the economics of the genre films (36:25);
• TIFF’s Peter Kuplowsky and Faculty of Horror’s Alex West on why horror has thrived while the greater box office is on the decline (40:20);
• USC’s Professor Stacy Smith on the the data behind Hollywood sexism. (47:35);
• Ashley Mckenzie on working in a male created system (51:35); and
• Christine Kleckner and Steph Guthrie on where the film industry goes after #MeToo (54:40).

On this episode of TIFF Long Take, Rob and Geoff chat with Diana Elbaum, prolific Belgian producer and founder of Entre Chien et Loup. She is one of the leading advocates of international co-productions, a model that has led to a number of recent Canadian successes like Room and Brooklyn (both co-pros with Ireland).

In this episode, Elbaum explains why being a producer is not the glamorous life it’s made out to be, and how co-productions help smaller countries create thriving film scenes while allowing filmmakers to make more ambitious movies on limited budgets.

She also discusses the headaches that come with co-producing, and how the declining popularity of European cinema amongst North American audiences has changed her job.