Old Stevie might need to clear some mantle space. Per Deadline, the three-time Oscar winner’s autobiographical film The Fabelmans, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival last week, won the coveted People’s Choice Award on Sunday. While winning awards is all well and good, this has a special meaning. Oscar watchers think TIFF’s Audience Award is a bellwether for Best Picture at the Academy Awards. Since 1978, the audience award has gone to Best Picture winners such as Green Book, 12 Years A Slave, Slumdog Millionaire, American Beauty, Nomadland and Chariots Of Fire. Most winners at TIFF tend to be nominees. Films such as The Big Chill, Shine, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Silver Linings Playbook, Precious and The Intimidation Game were also nominated for Best Picture. The runners-up for the award also do well. Argo, Parasite, and Spotlight didn’t make it to TIFF just to win Oscar night. This is all good news for Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery by Rian Johnson and Women Talking by Sarah Polley, both runners-up this year. But failing to win Best Picture isn’t the only option. Jojo Rabbit won the audience award and earned Taika Waititi the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay, and Michael Moore’s Bowling For Columbine won Best Documentary Feature. What does this tell us? Well, nothing, but it’s fun to think about. It also gives a sense of the types of films Oscar voters tend to prefer. However, watching the Academy Awards will also tell you that the Academy prefers films like Green Book to If Beale Street Could Talk. If they didn’t, Beale Street would have won. As for the TIFF People’s Choice Midnight Madness award, that’s “Weird.” Eric Appel’s Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, a biographical spoof starring Daniel Radcliffe, won the Midnight Madness award, with Ti West’s Pearl and Tim Story’s The Blackening as the two runners-up. Maybe this year will be the start of a new tradition and Weird will win Best Picture. We can only hope that the Academy does the right thing and dares to be silly.
