The 6 Worst People You’ll Meet During Fall Festival Season

Before I prime you on the dangers and pitfalls ahead during awards season, a quick bit of shilling here:

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Now, on with the show…

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In the words of the Chairman of the Board himself: “One day you turn around, and it’s summer. Next day, you turn around, and it’s fall.”

Or more specifically, one day you turn around, and it’s the biggest summer in movie history.

The next day, the grim specter of awards season rears its fearsome head.

And so we pivot from calculating how many hundreds of millions it takes to not be a “disappointment” to timing standing ovations in Venice and debating on the streets of Telluride how many supporting actor slots are still available — none or maybe all, who can even say? All that, and not to mention tabulating the winners and losers from night two of the pre-Emmy Emmys. (Ahem, I’m sorry, the Creative Arts Emmys.)

Here’s the thing, though – Hollywood has always surrounded its movies with nonsense and flim-flam. Hype and hoopla are part of the game. Complaining about the awards-season industrial complex is like going to a classic French restaurant and objecting to butter in the sauce.

But something has changed. The machinery around movies has become so loud that we increasingly talk about everything except the movies: the scandal, the standing ovation, the viral reaction, the filmmaker’s politics. Meanwhile, the films themselves have gotten smaller — or at least their place in the cultural firmament has.

The September trio of festivals — Venice, Telluride and Toronto, where I’ll be this week with The Ankler team — marks the official kickoff to the Oscar race, with the finish line at the Dolby a mere six months and six days away. Our best and supposedly most grown-up films are showing their faces in the next couple of weeks, and to read the reporting about them, you would hardly have any sense of what the hell any of them actually are. Every trade report, trending topic and instant Letterboxd verdict brings another variety of silliness into bloom. I expect to bump into every one of them in their natural habitat.

So keep this guide handy. You’re going to meet them all.