Yes, it’s almost December! And the first awards show is on its way.

The IFP Gotham Awards sound the clarion call for the awards season, and they’re coming on December 2nd. That was a fast year! Former Gothams chief Joana Vicente is just finishing her first season running the Toronto Film Festival, and it’s been a huge success. Brava!

Now, our old pal Jeffrey Sharp has succeeded Joana as Executive Director of the IFP and the Gotham Awards. Today they’re announcing their first two honorees for this year– Oscar winning actor Sam Rockwell, and trail blazing director Ava Duvernay.

Rockwell won the Oscar last year for “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.” His long resume is filled with outstanding work. In December he’ll appear in Clint Eastwood’s “Richard Jewell” movie, which will undoubtedly earn him awards attention.

Duvernay was totally overlooked for her spell binding movie, “Selma.” But since then she’s gone on to many accolades. This year she’s going to win Emmy and Golden Globe awards for her mini series, “When They See Us.” She has really become a force for good in the culture! I remember when Ava was Jennifer Hudson’s publicist. She always knew she was going to change the world.

The Gothams are going to be pretty swell this year down at Cipriani 55 Wall Street. But slow the year down, please!

Two of the movies at the Toronto Film Festival really aren’t about what they’re touted to be. Marielle Heller’s “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” is about Matthew Rhys’s character’s relationship with his father, played brilliantly by Chris Cooper (who must be nominated for an Oscar, my friends). Tom Hanks’s Mister Rogers, also headed to awards citations, is really bystander to the main action no matter how nice or important he is.

Similarly, in James Mangold’s racing adventure, “Ford v. Ferrari,” neither Henry Ford II nor Enzo Ferrari are the main characters. In fact, Ferrari barely speaks, while Ford– played by Tracey Letts– is sort of there for bombastic explosions. The movie is about the friendship between car designer Carroll Shelby (Matt Damon) and race car driver Ken Miles (Christian Bale). Miles’s life is very fleshed out, but we learn little about Shelby except that he knows cars.

It’s a funny juxtaposition for two films that are clearly headed for the Oscar season. Of the two I prefer Heller’s film, which is very idiosyncratic, just like her “Can You Ever Forgive Me” from last season. Mister Rogers was already given a biopic with the documentary “Would You Be My Neighbor?” so it wasn’t necessary to do that again. Instead, Heller bases her story on journalist Tom Junod’s Esquire piece about Mister Rogers. At the time he was writing it, Junod’s estranged father was dying. Mister Rogers helped bring them together. “Beautiful Day” is a nice take, then, on something that could be have been redundant. And Hanks embodies Rogers in the way Renee Zellweger does Judy Garland– it’s not an imitation. It’s a little bit of genius.

“Ford v. Ferrari” really makes it on the racing. The recreations of Le Mans and Daytona are so exciting they should bring out all the fans everywhere. Plus, Christian Bale- as usual– makes the little known Ken Miles (known to racing fans only)– one of his great character portraits. Bale is a master at these people. You can’t stop watching him. Matt Damon is also great, but his character is underwritten. While he keeps the cars moving, and Miles employed, we don;t know anything about him. I was disappointed. My whole life people have talked about the Shelby Mustang. Did he not want his story told? Maybe his kids want their own movie. It’s a head scratcher.

It’s not easy out there if you’re a filmmaker. Audiences may love your work, and then the critics come after you with long knives.

In the case of Rian Johnson’s very clever “Knives Out,” this wasn’t the cast. Its Toronto screenings have produced raves. The hilarious Agatha Christie type murder mystery has a 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. Everyone who’s seen it, loves it. Craig sporting a Southern accent is a hoot, and the whole cast, most especially Ana de Armas, shines.

But elsewhere, movies shown at the Toronto Film Festival have had schizophrenic responses. They’re cheered and given standing ovations, then shredded by the reviewers.

Right now, Todd Phillips’s excellent “Joker” is getting a lot of pushback. The RT score is 77. I expected at least a 90. But as press files in, they are not happy with the violence expressed by Arthur Fleck, aka The Joker. He’s coming as off as one of the crazy, lone gunmen from real life who’ve killed huge groups of people in real life. The reviewers are not responding to it as fiction. It’s very wrong to compare Joker, a comic book character, to the Dylan Root’s and so on of this world. But then again, there is no hero counterbalance in the film. And that may be an issue.

“Jojo Rabbit” is also scoring around 73. Taika Waititi’s Hitler satire is extremely divisive. Some people seem to love it. I am among those who didn’t. Fox Searchlight is much better served by their Armando Iannucci movie, “The Personal History of David Copperfield,” which is so entertaining and hilarious it’s like a balm after “Jojo,” which also had a stamding ovation– unaccountably– at its premiere.

Not fairing well either are two “literary” movies– the adaptation of “The Goldfinch,” which is set to bomb this weekend with a 26 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, and terrible reviews from Toronto; and Steven Soderbergh’s Netflix film, “The Laundromat,” starring Meryl Streep. The latter is a rare disaster for both director and star. Charitably, it has a 54 on RT. But truly, this is one better served by the Netflix platform and not viewed in a theater, where there are exits.

Edgy quirky and clever, Marc Meyer’s directed “Human Capital” is a dramatic, twisty, intriguing movie ride.

Starring Liev Schreiber, Marisa Tomei, Peter Sarsgaard, Maya Hawke, and Alex Wolff, the film is based on Meyer’s adaptation of Stephen Amidon’s 2004 novel, which was first made by Italian filmmaker Paolo Virzi in 2013. Oren Moverman wrote the terrific multi layered script.

The super-rich, the wannabe rich, the compromises we all make in work and marriage, all bound together by a hardworking waiter being hit on his bike, and thrown in a ditch while the car drives away on a dark road.  Then the film flashes back to an earlier time and splits into three different parts, each following a different character in their own respective drama and all beginning from the same moment.

Schreiber plays Drew Hagel, an insecure real estate agent who has gambling issues.  His daughter, Shannon, played wonderfully by Maya Hawke, is dating Quint Manning’s (Sarsgaard) son Jamie (Fred Hechinger.)  Oh yes, the family happens to be worth billions.  Drew invests money he doesn’t have with Quint which goes south quickly.  Marisa Tomei wonderfully plays Quint’s wife Carrie, an embittered former actress who lives a life of luxury but is completely unhappy.  So, she buys and renovates an old theater in their chic suburban neighborhood, hires her board of directors including a professor, played by Paul Sparks, who is a fan boy of hers.

Looming all along like a cloud hovering, is the hit and run accident. Meanwhile Shannon falls for the more rough and tough Ian (Alex Wolff) fueling a melodramatic romance there.  And the drama continues.  What makes this film so alluring, besides the social commentary, i.e.: the rich and their rules vs the non-rich, is that it all weaves together making “Human Capital” a provocative, compelling and totally enjoyable film. Audiences will eat it up!

(WARNING MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS)

Joaquin Phoenix received cheers and a standing ovation tonight in Toronto for his starring performance as the “Joker.” Todd Phillips’ origin story of Batman’s villain is super violent but also a magnificent comic book opera. The movie’s look and feel are extraordinary and the acting from all the players is top notch. The story owes its life to two Scorsese movies, “King of Comedy,” and “Taxi Driver.”

Arthur Fleck (the Joker’s real name) is part Rupert Pupkin and part Travis Bickle. Ironically, Robert De Niro is here, too, playing a Jerry Langford type talk show host, the character Jerry Lewis so famously portrayed in “King of Comedy.”

The Scorsese samples aside, director Phillips’s film on its own is the story of a misfit, a loner, in the early 1970s. Fleck is clearly saddled with mental problems and a rich inner of imaginary success and a girlfriend (the very very good Zazie Beetz). But he’s plagued with taking care of his ailing mother, the sweet Penny (also excellent Frances Conroy) who– we learn in a bit of Batman revisionist history– once worked for millionaire Thomas Wayne.

And that’s where the non Scorsese plot kicks in: Penny believes that she and Wayne had a relationship that produced Arthur. Is it true? Or is it a fantasy? Whichever is the case, Arthur’s lack of a father and his hatred for the world he cannot access– successful, happy people– is what fuels his psychosis and his unrepentant violence.

The violence is extreme. That’s a warning to those who will need to shade  their eyes a couple of times when Arthur just snaps. Phoenix’s Joker is not Cesar Romero’s or Jack Nicholson’s or even Heath Ledger’s. He is deranged. He commits the worst crimes imaginable without thinking twice. He is cracking jokes, but ones only he thinks are funny. That’s important to know, going in. He’s not trading quips with Adam West.

Still, the physical production of the film is so full of art and wit, the violence can be put aside. Phillips has lots of little gracenotes that the audience will love, be on the lookout for them. (There’s one that we can talk about after the movie opens.) Phillips has made an origins story movie but it’s also a standalone, so “Joker” functions on many levels.

As for Phoenix, he is the odd duck of his generation, but he’s also kind of a genius. He’s uniquely gifted. I’d say this is his best work, but he’s had so much of it. You will be shocked by his weight loss in this movie. Arthur is emaciated to the point  where Phoenix contorts his body, much as he did in “The Master,” so that his mental pain is expressed in the physical.

But this is acting. Don’t mistake Phoenix, who’s back to normal weight now and very funny in real life, for Arthur Fleck. His ability to breathe life into these strange cinematic creatures can’t be underestimated. They reside in a stratosphere of originality.

And oh yes, Best Actor (because that’s all anyone’s interested in these days)? He’ll be there, leading a list that so far includes Michael B. Jordan, Leonardo DiCaprio, Adam Driver, and possibly Christian Bale, plus names to come. But Phoenix is at the top. The standing ovations are real.