'The Fabelmans' looks like this year's Oscar front-runner, but here's why that's complicated

Steven Spielberg was onstage at Toronto's Princess of Wales Theatre, talking about the End or, more precisely, how his new movie memory piece, "The Fabelmans," isn't quite the End or a signal that he's retiring, but simply an acknowledgment that the clock is ticking.

"It wasn't now or never," he said of making the long-gestating film, a crowd-pleasing look back on his childhood and a burgeoning passion for making movies, "but I almost felt that way."

And you don't have to be a 75-year-old filmmaking legend to relate in some way to Spielberg's sentiments. If you care about movies — and I'm guessing that if you're reading this