Jojo Rabbit wins top prize at Toronto International Film Festival, raising hopes for Oscar season
Aux Features Film
As predicted by our own A.A. Dowd in one of his TIFF dispatches, Taika Waititi’s Jojo Rabbit—in which the Thor: Ragnarok director plays Adolf Hitler as the petty, cartoonish imaginary friend of a shy Nazi boy—has won the People’s Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival. This is particularly noteworthy because TIFF has a streak going when it comes to the Academy Awards, with 10 of its last 11 People’s Choice winners going on to get (at least) a Best Picture nomination. Theoretically, that means Jojo Rabbit should have a pretty good showing when it’s time for the Oscars, assuming the members of the Motion Picture Academy are still fans of movies that are about people being united by love and understanding. Jojo Rabbit doesn’t have a man eating a whole pizza like a sandwich, as last year’s TIFF and Best Picture winner Green Book did, but a dumb goofball Hitler might just be the 2019 version of that.
The runner-up at TIFF was Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story, which Variety says is also getting a lot of buzz for potential Best Picture, Best Director, and acting nominations at the Oscars, and the second runner-up was Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite (Variety says it’s a lock for Best International Feature Film, which seems like a safe bet). This means bad news for the Joker stans out there, all of whom will no choice but to express their disappointment on social media now that their clown prince was knocked out of the running at TIFF, but that obviously doesn’t mean its own Oscar dreams have been crushed. After all, what is more chaotic and Joker-esque than upending established film festival trends?
56 Comments
“…assuming the members of the Motion Picture Academy are still fans of movies that are about people being united by love and understanding.” So this film is from the “Fantasy” genre?
You just had to come at me with Elvis.Thanks:)
Why’s Tobey Maguire wearing glasses?
His Spider powers must be on the fritz again.
Nick Lowe is so angry right now.
Phoenix’s performance was said to be the standout element of Joker. So he could get a nomination for that, but for Best Picture it would help to be less of a one-man show. There’s already precedent for the actor playing the Joker to win an Oscar while the film itself goes without a BP nomination.
He’ll probably win he is overdue.
If he could die suddenly that might improve his chances.
Since he’s engaged in at least one movie-related hoax before, he could fake his own death, and then claim no-backsies on his posthumous Oscar.
Would that be the second time two different actors won for playing the same character (after the Godfather movies)?
Doing some googling, there have been a lot more times a single role has resulted in multiple nominations, but that might indeed be the only case of two separate actors winning:http://mentalfloss.com/article/24122/quick-10-10-pairs-actors-oscar-nominated-same-role
I like the tidbit about Kate Winslet being nominated alongside a second actor playing the same character in the same movie… twice.
This Joker movie has the veneer of importance and it’s not a comic book movieEither way Phoenix is pretty much guaranteed the win. The only fun will be to see what hw does during the acceptance speeches
I think it’s rather early to talk about guarantees.
dying to see this one.
It’s all about The Lighthouse, man. The Lighthouse, I say!
What?
He said “IT’S ALL ABOUT THE LIGHTHOUSE, MAN. THE LIGHTHOUSE, I SAY!”
King shithead Basranti being the arbiter of what people are allowed to like does it again. Comparing JoJo to Green Book and Joker fans being Stans. Does it still sting to be a third rate Sean O’Neal?
Well Green Book won the Oscar and Joker has Oscar buzz so this comparison isn’t unwarranted. He barely even lightly ribbed the those two movies. Why are you upset?
Because he really, really, really wishes he had Barsanti’s job writing for The A.V. Club.
He misspelled the name of the person he’s writing about, so he’s definitely avclub material!
Get laid. Your theories suck, incelibate puke.
I want to imagine that’s just Sam’s alt account he uses to trash himself after every article as a motivator. “GOD! YOU’LL NEVER BE SEAN O’NEAL! I WILL HAUNT YOU WITH YOUR OWN JOKES TO THE GRAVE!”I mean I can’t imagine an actual person writing grudge-filled comments like that. I mean this is the Inter… oh.
His Tyler Durden Kinja alt.
Deep down inside, aren’t we all a third rate Sean O’Neal?
I’m a bargain bin, 4th rate, very used O’Neal at best. 🙁
I’m Sean O’Neal’s bartender. He respects and fears me most of all.
Sean O’Neal most of all.
This is a perfectly reasonable reaction to a blog post.
You do realize you don’t have to fuck EVERY bootlicker, right sir?
O’Neal you didn’t.
Why so serious
Why so serious?
I dunno, what proof do we have that Academy judges are fans of stories about lost innocence set during the holocaust?
They used to eat that shit up. Now it’s people playing famous people, movies about Hollywood and Fish Fucker movies.
That’s very good news for my movie ‘That Time Orson Welles Fucked a Fish in Hollywood’.
Not to be confused with ‘Once upon a time Orson Welles Fucked a Fish… in Hollywood’ which is a better film, but showed too many toes. I mean, for the general public, not for you, of course.
So is this the favorite to win the Best Picture Oscar? If not, what else is there? I havent seen this yet obviously but it doesn’t seem particularly great or notable, although I do like Taika’s previous work.
Was Burning this year? I forget the release date or how the Oscars judges release dates. But that. Definitely that.
I believe that got snubbed last year.
Dang. Reasonably sure it only got screened here this year, hence my confusion. That’s a shame.
Not even nominated for foreign film was a complete embarrassment.
I’m pretty sure burning was last year. I’m ashamed to say I’ve only seen the topless scene.
+1 Burning was unbelievable.
Eh…. it’s a comedy so it -probably- won’t win.
To win? Hell to the naw naw. To be perhaps nominated in a wide field of eight nominees, most of which were never going to win anyway? It’s possible. I want every good thing for Mr. Waititi, though, so I may be a bit biased, but I’d love a Best Director nomination for him. And not even necessarily for this movie, either. Just somewhere down the line.
I’m guessing they’ll throw Tarantino a bone. Or something will come out during bait-season this winter and soak up all the love.
So is this the favorite to win the Best Picture Oscar? If not, what else is there?I think at this point the favourite is probably A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood.
Take away the award and Taika Waititi’s
Take away the vowels and A.A. Dowd is just another dwd
But, Dowd said that you’re supposed to ignore the jokes in a comedy!
Seriously doing the peepee dance over here waiting for this to come out.
Damn! If only the Joker had been a holocaust survivor.