In a new IndieWire poll, 137 critics have cited 15 films as the best they saw at four recent fall festivals — Venice, Telluride, TIFF and NYFF.
I am telling you straight and true that the failure of said critics to include Reinaldo Marcus Green‘s King Richard is incontestable proof that a significant percentage of these critics are living deep inside their own heads and anal cavities. Because King Richard, trust me, connects, and will almost certainly become a top Best Picture contender. The critics also included Spencer (a surreal, all-but-unendurable immersion into the misery of Lady Diana), Red Rocket (a respectable Sean Baker film that traffics in depravity and Texas trashitude), Bergman Island and Dune.
The #1 critics pick, Jane Campion‘s The Power of the Dog, is going to be hated by Average Joes and Janes. I called it “a chilly and perverse cattle-ranch drama that insists over and over that it’s a very bad thing for toxic males to suppress their homosexuality. Campion is a top-tier filmmaker but Dog‘s milieu is grim and stifling and melancholy, like the dark side of the moon. Yes, Benedict Cumberbatch is excellent as the enraged and closeted Phil.”
1. The Power of the Dog
2. Titane (HE says distinctive, respectably self-owned, overpraised by Cannes jury)
3. The Worst Person in the World
4. Drive My Car
5. Petite Maman
6. Memoria
7. Dune (HE alert)
8. Red Rocket (HE horror horn)
9. Bergman Island (HE alert)
10. The Tragedy of Macbeth
11. Spencer (HE horror horn)
12. Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy
13. Parallel Mothers
14. C’mon C’mon
15. The Lost Daughter