Monday, September 23, 2013

Coming Attractions/Oscar Conversations/12 Years Talk/Labor Day Poster/Blue View/India Chooses

Good Monday to All...to the extent that it CAN be a good Monday...

COMING ATTRACTIONS



I'm always sniffing around for news of films announced, going into production, deals struck that seem to me to have some potential, for a variety of reasons, to end up playing as a part of some future Telluride program. This year, Steve McQueen's "12 Years a Slave" is a perfect example.  I'd been collecting and occasionally posting stories about it for months.  The earliest story I can find that I still have stored in my "Future Telluride" file is from Dec. 2011.

Another example occurred this week with the announcement from Fox Searchlight that they're going to produce a new adaptation of  Thomas Hardy's classic novel "Far From the Madding Crowd".  While the fact that it's a classic piece of literature and that it's Fox Searchlight would have been enough for me to consider it as a future Telluride prospect, the additional news that it's to be directed by Thomas Vintenberg also piqued my interest.  Vintenberg's "The Hunt" played T-ride #39.  The announced casting of Carey Mulligan and Matthias Schoenaerts didn't hurt its profile either.

Here's the announcement story as posted earlier this week from Movie City News:
http://moviecitynews.com/2013/09/thomas-vinterberg-to-direct-far-from-the-madding-crowd-for-fox-searchlight/

All of this also got me to thinking about what I DID have stored away on my hard drive so I went through it and cleaned it out this week and in doing that I discovered that there are still a lot of films that I've stashed info about.  Some will never get made.  Some have no realistic chance of being on the Telluride program. But some are very likely to end up in the San Juans on some future Labor Day weekend.  More about that a little farther down.

After culling the "Future Telluride" list, I was left with 167 entries for nearly 70 films.  I dumped about an equal number from the file.  Still, that's a ton of reference material left.  And what can I tell you from all of that?

Well, there are some things that are just pretty good guesses as far as the future at Telluride is concerned.  The ten  best shots are these:

Werner Herzog's "Queen of the Desert" starring Nicole Kidman as the real life Gertrude Bell.  IMDb says it's scheduled for a 2015 release or, perhaps his "Vernon God Little" project.

Errol Morris' "Holland, Michigan" starring Naomi Watts or his "Freezing People is Easy".

The Dardennes Brothers "Two Days, One Night" starring Marion Cotillard.  IMDb lists it as a 2014 release.  I would not be surprised at its inclusion at Cannes followed by a screening at Telluride.

Bill Pohlad's Brian Wilson/Beach Boys film "Love and Mercy" starring Paul Dano, Elizabeth Banks, John Cusack and Paul Giamatti.

Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's first comedy "Birdman".  Michael Keaton, Edward Norton and Emma Stone star among others.  This is another film I suspect will travel the Cannes/Telluride pipeline.  (I told Inarritu I was anxious to see it there next year when I ran into him in the Galaxy lobby just prior to the first screening of "12 Years a Slave").

Lone Scherfig's "Posh".

Noah Baumbach's "Untitled Public School Project" and/or "While We're Young".

Mike Leigh's "Turner" or whatever it might eventually be titled starring Timothy Spall as the painter J.M.W. Turner.

Of course my file includes a lot of wishful thinking as well:

Paul Thomas Anderson's "Inherent Vice"
Brad Bird's "Tomorrowland" starring George Clooney
Robert Redford's on again/off again "A Walk in the Woods" project
the purported Charlie Kaufman adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaugterhouse Five"
Justin Kurzel's "MacBeth" with Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard
Lynne Ramsay's Moby Dick in space project (Mobius?)
George Clooney's possible Smothers Brothers film
and Warren Beatty's proposed Howard Hughes film

So, here's to the films that might happen to be a part of our future Telluride experiences.  Over the next few weeks, I'll link to the stories about some of them that I still have sitting in my cache.

OSCAR CONVERSATIONS



Three podcasts focused on the Awards season and/or the post-Telluride lay of the land are offered/linked here for your amusement and edification:

Anne Thompson and Kris Tapley's Oscar Talk:
http://www.hitfix.com/in-contention/oscar-talk-ep-110-telluride-venice-toronto-wrap
 
Sasha Stone's Oscar Podcast:
http://www.awardsdaily.com/oscarpodcast/?p=2131

And The Playlist's podcast:
http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/podcast-the-playlist-talks-tiff-and-venice-film-festival-20130917


12 YEARS TALK

HitFix's Greg Ellwood sat down with Michael Fassbender last week to talk about Steve McQueen's "12 Years a Slave":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KL2cb0g4IQ4&feature=youtu.be&a

LABOR DAY POSTER

We have art for Jason Reitman's "Labor Day:


Check the story from Rope of Silicon:
http://www.ropeofsilicon.com/first-poster-jason-reitmans-labor-day/

BLUE VIEW

Abdellatif Kechiche's "Blue is the Warmest Color" has a trailer tailored to domestic audiences that was released this past week:



Here's the accompanying story from FirstShowing:

http://www.firstshowing.net/2013/nc-17-rated-palme-dor-winner-blue-is-the-warmest-color-first-trailer/?uid=983e5a79bbfad64ab445cd9e2428cd738d7274f8


INDIA CHOOSES NO LUNCHBOX

The Good Road (India Oscar entry 2013)

In something of a surprise, India announced their choice for the Foreign Language Oscar competition and is was not Ritesh Batra's "The Lunchbox" which many, including me, had thought would be the choice.  The Indian authorities instead they choice is "The Good Road". directed by Gyan Correa.

The Hollywood Reporter posted this story about the choice:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/oscars-india-nominates-good-road-633774


More on  Thursday...




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