Saturday, June 22, 2013

Best of the Week

Good Saturday.  Back home in the Oklahoma Panhandle after a 16 hour marathon drive from Birmingham yesterday.

BEST OF THE WEEK

Here's the best material that I posted this past week on MTFB:

ANNECY ENDS



Probably the world's most important animated film festival has come to a conclusion in France.  The Annecy Animation festival was a contributor to last year's Telluride fest.  "Rio 2096" won the top prize, the Crystal Award.  Other award winners and a complete wrap-up of the festival, check out this from Variety:

http://variety.com/2013/film/news/rio-2096-takes-top-honor-at-annecy-fest-1200497503/


SALINGER TRAILER

I had been thinking that the upcoming documentary on J.D. Salinger had a shot to be a Telluride film...but I have discovered that the release date is now set for Sept. 6...the weekend after TFF concludes.  That doesn't make it impossible and I can actually see a scenario wherein The Weinstein Company might think the immediate opening after a Telluride weekend might make a lot of sense.  So, don't rule it out completely.

All that to get to this...it has a trailer...



Here are a couple of posts that accompanied the release of the trailer this week:

From Movie City News:
http://moviecitynews.com/2013/06/trailering-salinger-231/

And from The Playlist:
http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/watch-captivating-trailer-for-documentary-on-famed-literary-recluse-jd-salinger-20130613


MANDELA'S POSTER



A film with a somewhat rosier prospect of Telluride play is Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom starring Idris Elba as Nelson Mandela and directed by Justin Chadwick.  That film released its first poster yesterday as per this post from The Hollywood Reporter:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/idris-elba-channels-nelson-mandela-569953



A LOOK AT 12 YEARS A SLAVE



First official images from Steve McQueen's third feature which has a better than even chance at making the TFF #40 lineup:

From The Playlist:

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/first-look-michael-fassbender-benedict-cumberbatch-chiwetel-ejiofor-in-12-years-a-slave-20130618


Also from Rope of Silicon:

http://www.ropeofsilicon.com/twelve-years-a-slave-pictures/


THE VENICE SPEC STARTS



Variety's Justin Chang and Nick Vivarelli have posted the first serious speculation about what might make the grade for the Venice Film Festival.

As I have pointed out a number of times, Telluride and Venice normally share only about 2-3 films each year.

So what might we learn from the Variety speculation?

The first two films mentioned are "Gravity" and "Twelve Years a Slave".  I'm of a mind that "Gravity" in an unlikely TFF entrant but that Steve McQueen might very well follow the same path that he has with his first two films...both "Hunger" and "Shame" played the Venice/Telluride double header.

The next paragraph of the article suggests a number of Venice possibilities...the most Telluride-interesting title might be Terry Gilliam's "The Zero Theorem".



The final paragraph teases films that aren't likely to be at Venice (so they say) because they'll be other places...perhaps T-ride.  The most intriguing to me are Bennett Miller's "Foxcatcher" and Spike Jones "Her".

For the whole article look here:

http://variety.com/2013/film/news/venice-film-festival-gears-up-for-a-starry-70th-anniversary-1200497948/


INDIE WIRE HAS A LIST

Major film blog warehouse, IndieWire has posted the 50 films they'd love to see at one of the 3 fall fests...Telluride, Toronto and Venice.

Of the 50 they list, they mention Telluride specifically in four cases: "The Double", "A Most Wanted Man", "The Young and Prodigious Mr. T.S. Spivet" and "The Monuments Men".  Frankly, I dubious about all but "Most Wanted" and I'm lukewarm about it at best.

Looking at their entire list of 50,the films they list that I think have the best T-ride chances are:


"The Fifth Estate"



"Foxcatcher"




"Labor Day"
"Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom"
"Philomena"
and




"Twelve Years a Slave"

Here's the link to the complete post:

http://www.indiewire.com/article/fall-festival-wishlist-the-50-films-we-hope-to-see-in-venice-toronto-and-or-telluride


FEST FLIGHTS

The TFF folks have announced additional flights/charters for this year's 40th Festival.  Check here for the news:

http://telluridefilmfestival.org/news/2013-06

Follow/Like Michael's Telluride Film Blog on Facebook.

Follow me o Twitter @Gort2


More on Monday...have a good weekend.

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