Commentator, comedian, podcaster and author Kat Timpf isn’t here for your preconceived notions. Whether she’s bringing her vibrant personality to a stage or sharing her libertarian perspectives on “Gutfeld!” via Fox News, one can always count on her to make light of heavy topics with a witty and unapologetic approach.

Originally from Detroit but launching her comedy career in Los Angeles, Timpf graduated magna cum laude from Hillsdale College. Over the years, she has remained incredibly active, seamlessly balancing her comedy career with her influence in the political space. She recently announced her first pregnancy, and her second book, “I Used to Like You Until… (How Binary Thinking Divides Us),” was published Sept. 10 by Simon & Schuster and follows up her New York Times bestseller, “You Can’t Joke About That: Why Everything Is Funny, Nothing Is Sacred, and We’re All in This Together.”

Crediting humor for helping her navigate both the highs and lows, Kat Timpf’s popularity comes from a relatable blend of hard laughs and genuine emotion, with context playing a crucial role. On Sept. 14, Timpf is bringing all of that (plus cool merch) to Thousand Oaks on her “I Used to Like You Tour” at the Scherr Forum Theatre, where she’ll be showing off her comedy chops, all while inadvertently squashing those “you can’t have it all” naysayers.

It’s so crazy how well “Gutfeld!” is doing. I mean, not crazy, I was a huge “Red Eye” fan. I always found it random that it was on Fox News. It was interesting trying to tell certain people why the show was so great.

Kat Timpf: Yeah, I was a huge fan of “Red Eye” before I ever was on it. I didn’t tell Greg that until a year after I got hired, though. And I still have to explain to people about Fox because people have ideas about it, that everybody there is about the same thing, and it’s just not accurate. It’s totally possible to have a friendship with people that you don’t agree with on political issues, which is beyond frustrating to the point of me having to write this book.

Choosing sides seems to be the thing people demand, but it’s rarely black-and-white.

Right, and people will say that you’re a “fence sitter” because you don’t firmly sit on one side or the other because you have different independent views. I’m not sitting on a fence, I’m actually very firm in my own views. It actually would be a lot easier for me to go all in on one side or the other because then I’d have this whole team of people backing me up, no matter what I said or did. It’s easier to have a team of allies.

I have to imagine that people you know, and don’t know, also have been free and loose with the baby advice?

I have no idea what to expect, obviously, and I’ve definitely been given advice from people online, which bothers me less than people just being so mean and hateful. I’m 35, so they call it a “geriatric pregnancy.” So, for years I was getting these hate comments like, “You don’t understand anything about the world because you don’t have any kids. Your eggs are scrambled and drying up, and you’ll regret this soon. You’re so selfish.” Then I got pregnant, and you would have thought that this is what these people wanted, right? I mean, I didn’t do it for them, but now people are saying, “Can you just shut up about being pregnant already?” Some of them are the same people! Some people are just gonna be haters no matter what. I just hate the whole, “Oh, you’re not the first person in the world to be pregnant.” I know that! But it’s the first time I’ve been pregnant! Life can be so monotonous and there are so few things that inspire a sense of genuine wonderment and amazement about life and being alive. I’ve been so dead inside that sometimes I’m just like, let me have this! You’re mad that I’m happy and excited about having a baby? So, if people want to give me actual useful advice because you mean well, I’m good with you.

The most bizarre thing about social media is that you’ll never make a stranger happy. And truly, why is it even important?

Right? I’ve never seen someone else being excited about something in their life, whether it’s them getting married, having a baby, getting a new job or coming out with a book, and just being like, urghhh no thanks. Life can be really depressing, and life can be really boring, so if you’re excited and happy about something, that’s amazing and I’m happy for you.

I do love that you clap back when needed. And not to be cheesy, but you do bare it all in your new book. I found it strong and vulnerable.

I’ve definitely always been like this, but I’m a sensitive person too. I write a lot about that in the new book. There have been times where people have said mean things to me and I’ve direct messaged them and said something like, “That really hurt my feelings.” Nine times out of 10 the person will say, “I’m sorry.” Now, one time out of 10 they’ll be even more mean, and that makes me feel really bad. That’s actually the concept of the cover of the book — I’m naked and I’m covered in hate mail. It’s just vulnerability in the face of overwhelming hatred. And I think that being vulnerable about your own stuff in your life can help people when they now see that you’re human. For me, it also goes back to intention, and you have to be able to stand up for yourself when people are coming for you with bad intentions. If we could just all see each other as humans rather than this team or that team, we could find a lot more to agree on than we think.

It really is wild that people will see you for your job but not as the human working a job to pay for your life. It’s like, we are not them.

That’s what it is, and this book is for anyone who has ever felt like someone’s written them off for just one single aspect of themselves. A single difference in viewpoint, or association, or an assumption should not be enough to write off another person entirely. We lose so much when we do that. And I know this book is coming out during a very contentious and very polarized time, and I didn’t write this book because of that, I wrote it in spite of that. I really think this is an important book, and it’s also a fun book to read.

“This book is for anyone who has ever felt like someone’s written them off for just one single aspect of themselves,” Timpf says of her new book “I Used to Like You Until.”

(Melinda DiMauro)

Do you ever trip out thinking about what life was like when you came out to L.A. versus you coming to L.A. now?

Yes! I wrote about being in L.A. a little in my first book, but when I came to Los Angeles out of college, I was struggling. I worked at Boston Market waiting tables and I lived in a really crappy apartment, and then I couldn’t afford that apartment, so I had to move in with this bartender I was kind of sort of seeing. I was really struggling trying to do what I am doing now. I had done stand-up one time before, so I started doing comedy in L.A. because I was going through so much rough stuff. I found that it was really helpful to get onstage and make fun of the things making me feel powerless. It gave me a sense of power over it. I kept doing it when I moved to D.C. for a job, and then I quit three times, but then I got back onstage and it’s like, I love this!

I’m sure Scherr Forum Theatre in Thousand Oaks adding a second show because you sold out the first one feels pretty great too?

It really does! I’m very, very excited. Those shows are the opening two shows for the tour, so I’m very grateful. There is no place for me quite like the Los Angeles area because of the effect that it has on me. Thinking about how much I struggled here, hoping for that sliver of a chance that I’d be able to do what I’m doing now — it’s so awesome. I have a lot of new material, and I could not be more excited about it. I’ve never played this venue either, and honestly, it’s still overwhelming to me that I get to do this. I’m just very grateful for every single person that comes out. I think that opening this tour in this area is the best way to do it. Every time I get out of the airport and I’m driving through L.A., I still get emotional. I’m very grateful and I hope I never stop being astounded by all of this.

Comedy is such a complex thing because you’re watching a somewhat insecure mind that absolutely shines in a spotlight.

I have a whole line of “Are You Mad at Me?” merch so, spot on. I’m insufferable, really, but at least I’m self-aware!

Conclave begins with the image of a cardinal tensely making his way along a Roman highway late at night, his crimson biretta cap clasped tightly in his hand. It’s a stark, almost funny image, the elegant robes of this high priest trudging through a bleak, contemporary urban setting. The characters of Conclave won’t spend much time in the world at large — this is one of the few times we will see one outside in Edward Berger’s film — but the dissonance will continue to resonate. These are men carrying out what they view as an ancient function: electing a new Pope, now that the old one has died. They diligently shut out the modern world, but it’s still there, outside the windows and beyond the doors, constantly felt in everything they do.

At the center of the squall is Thomas Lawrence (Ralph Fiennes), the dean of the College of Cardinals, whose job it is to run the conclave, as cardinals from around the world gather inside the hallowed sanctuary of the Sistine Chapel to cast ballots for a new pontiff. It’s a perfect role for Fiennes, who can do both placidity and intensity — sometimes, somehow, all at once. Thomas exudes gentleness and tolerance. He’s a deeply conflicted man who admits, in an initial address to the conclave, that he values doubt and abhors certainty — and yet, as the picture proceeds, he becomes more obsessed with controlling the outcome.

Berger’s film is adapted, quite faithfully, from Robert Harris’s 2016 novel, and it combines the pulp velocity of a great airport read with the gravitas of high drama. It solemnly depicts the ornate rituals around the death of the Pope — the ribbons placed across his door and fastened with melted red wax, the seals clipped off his rings, the constant prayers and the secretive mutterings — with only a slight nod to the sheer pointlessness of it all. It means something to these men, and that’s enough. Same, too, with the lugubrious dance of the conclave itself, with its round after round of balloting and tallying and quiet reflecting.

Many film critics who participate in year-end awards voting will find themselves nodding with recognition during Conclave at how allegiances shift between ballots in response to who’s ahead, who’s likely to win, and whose support seems to be crumbling. I have no idea how accurate this is to the way cardinals actually vote, but both the book and the movie have the confident ring of truth, or at least truthiness. And it’s interesting to learn that the Very Serious Men who elect popes scheme as effectively as the New York Film Critics Circle did when it voted (well-deserving) underdog Rachel Weisz best actress in 2012 to prevent front-runners Jessica Chastain and Jennifer Lawrence from getting the prize instead; or when the warring camps of Days of Heaven and Deer Hunter supporters at the National Society of Film Critics in 1978 famously fought each other to a standstill and allowed Bertrand Blier’s Get Out Your Handkerchiefs to sneak in and win Best Picture that year.

Where was I? Oh, right, Conclave. Amid such stately ceremony, Berger finds ways to insert gradually escalating tumult and cattiness. Though he tries to be fair and balanced, Thomas is allied with Aldo Bellini (Stanley Tucci), a progressive candidate who wants to continue the Church’s liberalization and engagement with the world. Opposing them is Goffredo Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto), a reactionary Italian who thinks the Church has been on the wrong track ever since it got rid of the Latin Mass in the 1960s. But there are other candidates as well — chiefly, Joseph Tremblay (John Lithgow), a supreme politician who, for all his outward soft-spoken humility, clearly has great ambitions. And then there’s Joshua Adeyemi (Lucian Msamati), a charismatic cardinal from Nigeria who could become the first Black pope.

None of these people actively campaign for the papacy. Save maybe for the flamboyant Tedesco (a not very big role that Castellitto turns into a full, rollicking meal), they’re all lowered eyebrows and hushed whispers and collegial exchanges, soberly prostrating themselves before God and seeking His guidance…all the while quietly and viciously stabbing each other in the back. Such muted machinations present a wonderful showcase for these actors, as well as Isabella Rossellini, as a head nun who becomes more central to the plot, and the relatively unknown Mexican actor Carlos Diehz, as a heretofore unknown cardinal named Vincent Benitez. Secretly named the Archbishop of Kabul, Benitez shows up unannounced on the day of the conclave and sends what promised to be a predictable gathering into the first of its many entertaining tailspins.

Despite the fact that they’ve all been cocooned deep inside the Vatican, with the doors barred, the priests of Conclave are all quite aware of how everything they do will have real-world repercussions, particularly in the way the Church is perceived. That fragile isolation isn’t just a psychological element. We sense throughout that the outside world is undergoing turmoil of which these men are mostly unaware — though we suspect they soon will be, both metaphorically and physically. Berger expertly milks that anticipation, then nails several artfully heated and lively climaxes. My audience at the Telluride Film Festival began roaring with delight and surprise, and I’ve heard similar reports out of Toronto screenings as well. So, well, don’t be surprised if this sinfully entertaining movie wins a few awards.

This time last year, “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer” were taking a victory lap after saving cinema. We spent the summer swooning over Celine Song’s heartbreaking love story “Past Lives” while Cannes and the fall film festivals unveiled the likes of “Killers of the Flower Moon,” “The Zone of Interest,” “Poor Things,” “Maestro,” “The Holdovers,” “Anatomy of a Fall” and “American Fiction.”

Those 10 movies became the finest group of best picture Oscar nominees we’ve had since the motion picture academy expanded the category in 2009. A mix of critical favorites, audience crowd-pleasers and the raw material for a dozen different Halloween costumes, this class was impeccable and, at least for the near future, unrepeatable.

Which brings us to 2024, where, at the moment, the two movies that have most thrilled audiences at Cannes and the fall film festivals are Jacques Audiard’s “Emilia Pérez,” a musical soap opera about a Mexican cartel boss looking to transition to a woman, and Sean Baker’s “Anora,” the madcap, generous story of a Brooklyn sex worker who impulsively marries the young son of a Russian oligarch. Both films premiered earlier this year at Cannes, where “Anora” won the festival’s highest prize, the Palme d’Or.

“This isn’t exactly a mainstream movie,” Baker said at Cannes, both stating the obvious and expressing the tone of the upcoming awards season in a mere half-dozen words.

From the size of the crowds standing outside theaters showing “Anora” at Telluride, you might have suspected Baker was underselling his movie a bit. Hundreds were turned away, a notable (and happy) contrast to the divisive reception that Baker’s last movie, “Red Rocket,” received at the festival two years ago.

Have audiences become more open and adventurous? We’re about to find out as we enter an Oscar season that seems as unsettled as any in recent memory, dominated by international auteurs, indie offerings and, fingers crossed (because we could really use a maximalist miracle), Ridley Scott’s “Gladiator II.”

Even the one blockbuster that’s already locked for a best picture nomination, Denis Villeneuve’s “Dune: Part Two,” stands as daring cinema, its spectacle aiming for both the gut and the intellect.

Villeneuve’s first “Dune” movie won six Oscars two years ago. The sequel might equal that count. But being the second film of a planned trilogy (even if Villeneuve doesn’t like to define the series that way), a best picture win is unlikely, an outcome any middle child already knows in their secret heart.

While “Anora” and “Emilia Perez” established themselves at Cannes, the fall festivals offered a murkier picture of the season. “The Room Next Door,” Pedro Almodóvar’s first English-language film, won the Golden Lion for best film at Venice. The drama follows a terminally ill journalist (Tilda Swinton) who asks a close friend (Julianne Moore) to stay with her as she contemplates taking her own life. Festival buzz at Venice and Toronto, aside from the Golden Lion, felt respectful but not quite rapturous.

The Telluride premieres of “Conclave” and “Nickel Boys” offered contrasting portraits of the ways audiences receive movies at festivals. The movies played back-to-back on Telluride’s opening night, with Edward Berger’s “Conclave,” a lively and occasionally clever melodrama about a bunch of petty cardinals choosing the next pope, wowing the crowd with a series of pulpy plot twists. Ralph Fiennes does most of the heavy lifting, playing a dutiful and doubting man overseeing the vote. “Conclave” feels like a movie made for the Oscars: absurd, stylish and not nearly as shrewd as it thinks it is. Expect it to clean up.

“Nickel Boys,” RaMell Ross’ disorienting adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s celebrated novel, followed “Conclave” and knocked its audience sideways. Shot from the point of view of its characters, two Black boys navigating the horrors of a Florida reform school, “Nickel Boys” invites moviegoers to immerse themselves and bear witness. Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, wonderful as a loving grandmother, said festival-goers approached her after the screening, calling the movie “tough.” That’s fine with her.

“I think that we have been conditioned as moviegoers, particularly in this country, to have an expectation of how we should feel watching a film,” Ellis-Taylor told me at Telluride. “I want to be an advocate for cinema that is not palliative.”

To that end, the movie of the season might be “The Brutalist,” Brady Corbet’s three-and-a-half-hour epic that inspired a fierce bidding war after its Venice premiere, with chic indie studio A24 winning the rights. The story of a Hungarian-Jewish architect (Adrien Brody) who survives World War II and relocates to America, the film is sprawling, nervy and demanding. It has an overture and an intermission and has been compared to “The Godfather” in the way it examines the American dream. The hype will be overwhelming when it arrives in theaters later this year.

By contrast, a below-the-radar standout is Indian filmmaker Payal Kapadia’s astonishing “All We Imagine As Light,” winner of the Grand Prix prize at Cannes, and also a selection at Telluride, Toronto and the upcoming New York Film Festival. The film follows the lives of two roommates who work together as nurses at a hospital in Mumbai, capturing their dreams and disappointments in rich, evocative detail.

Kani Kusruti and Divya Prabha in “All We Imagine As Light.”

(Petit Chaos)

Some films failed to make it out of the festivals unscathed, with critics roasting “Joker: Folie à Deux,” the sequel to Todd Phillips’ “Joker,” with Joaquin Phoenix reprising his Oscar-winning turn opposite Lady Gaga. The good news: Gaga will now have more time to tour behind her new record rather than campaigning for an Oscar.

“Maria,” starring Angelina Jolie as legendary opera singer Maria Callas, is Pablo Larraín’s latest look at a famous woman imprisoned by image and celebrity, following “Jackie” (about Jacqueline Kennedy) and “Spencer” (about Princess Diana). It’s a feast for the eyes and ears, but also a bit lifeless. Reviews were mixed, but never underestimate how awards voters will swoon for a biopic.

Jolie will have plenty of competition in the lead actress category, including Mikey Madison (“Anora”) and Karla Sofía Gascón (“Emilia Pérez”), along with Saoirse Ronan, who received a tribute at Telluride primarily pegged to her work playing a woman trying to maintain her sobriety in “The Outrun,” a Sundance premiere.

There’s also a ferociously raw turn from Oscar winner Nicole Kidman in “Babygirl,” an erotic thriller that was the talk of Venice and Toronto, and more greatness from Amy Adams, somehow not yet an Oscar winner, in the Toronto-premiering “Nightbitch,” a movie about the demands and joys of motherhood that also prompted a great deal of conversation, much of it decidedly dumb. Demi Moore was in Toronto too for the North American premiere of “The Substance,” a horror movie about women’s value in showbiz that contains the best work she has ever done.

Which brings us to movies not yet seen. There’s James Mangold’s look at Bob Dylan going electric, “A Complete Unknown,” starring Timothée Chalamet. Jon M. Chu has staged a lavish adaptation of the Broadway musical “Wicked.” And Oscar-winning director Steve McQueen pays tribute to Londoners living through World War II in “Blitz,” which will premiere in a few weeks at the London Film Festival and will close the New York Film Festival, making it one of the last contenders to launch.

Except, of course, for “Gladiator II,” this year’s only appropriate answer to the question: “What’s your Roman Empire?” Unless it’s Ridley Scott, cranking out epic movies year after year, well into his 80s. He’s an acceptable response as well.