Wednesday, July 23, 2014

ICYMI: Parsing Toronto's Announcement/More Toronto Analysis/Additionally/What About the Peeps?

Good Wednesday Everyone...

Don't forget: VENICE ANNOUNCES COMPETITION FILMS TOMORROW!

I'm including the late morning post concerning Toronto's announcement at the top of today's post:


IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: PARSING TORONTO'S ANNOUNCEMENT



The Toronto International Film Festival announced the first wave of films for their lineup this morning.  It may tell us some things about Telluride...and Venice (which announces their big guns Thursday).

Before I attempt to take this apart, a couple of caveats...

1) We believe that Toronto is going to follow their own announced policy of labeling films "World" or "North American" premieres to the extent that those films will not play Telluride and/or Venice earlier.

2) That they have the information from the distrib/producer types in order to make that call.

That said, here's what we "know" from this morning's announcement:

Selected Toronto Galas and their premiere status:

"Foxcatcher" Canadian Premiere
"The Judge" World
"Riot Club" World
"Wild" International


Select Special Presentations and their premiere status:

"99 Homes" Canadian
"Coming Home" North American
"The Drop" World
"Eden" World
"Force Majeure" North American
"The Good Lie" World
"The Imitation Game" Canadian
"Love & Mercy" World
"Manglehorn" North American
"Maps to the Stars" North American
"Men, Women and Children" World
"Miss Julie" World
"Mr. Turner" Canadian
"Phoenix" World
"Rosewater" Canadian
"Theory of Everything" World
"While We're Young" World
"Wild Tales" Canadian


Takeaways:

Here's what seems to be your best guesses based on the announcement this morning about films that could be headed to Telluride:



"Foxcatcher", "Wild", ""99 Homes", "The Imitation Game", "Mr. Turner", "Rosewater" and "Wild Tales".

Films that surprised me by the "World Premiere" status: Bill Pohlad's "Love and Mercy" and Noah Baumbach's "While We're Young" (perhaps the "Untitled Public School Project" shows up at Telluride?)

Films of interest not mentioned at all this morning: "Birdman", "Fury", "Unbroken","Interstellar", "A Most Violent Year", "Macbeth", "Suite Francaise", "Carol", "Clouds of Sils Maria", "Two Days,One Night", "Every Thing Will Be Fine", "The Homesman", "St. Vincent", "Big Eyes", "Suffragette", and "Far from the Madding Crowd"


Remember, though, that Toronto still has a ton of titles to announce over the next two-three weeks and that could certainly include some of the films listed above.

Also a surprise...no announcement of an opening film...very weird.

I'm personally very excited, if this pans out, for "Foxcatcher", "The Imitation Game" and "Rosewater". Honestly, I'm over the moon about the possibility of "The Imitation Game".


MORE TORONTO ANALYSIS



In addition to my take form Toronto's announcement from yesterday take a look at Anne Thompson's/Thompson on Hollywood and Steve Pond's from The Wrap. You'll notice that their conclusions are much like mine though Anne seems a bit more definitive in her Telluride pronouncements.  For example, Anne flat says "Birdman" will play T-ride.




AND ADDITIONALLY...



I still fully expect Werner Herzog's "Queen of the Desert" to make the Telluride lineup.  Additionally, there was a good deal of buzz today that J.C. Chandor's "A Most Violent Year" could well be headed to Telluride.  Oddly, there continues to be a persistent buzz that Sundance favorite "Whiplash" has a Telluride pulse which would violate Telluride's "can't have played in North America before" policy.  Admittedly, that policy has been bent on occasion and I'd straight-up go see it just to chance a meeting with J.K. Simmons...who is a God.

Among the other films on the "unclaimed" list above the most likely to make T-ride's list are: "Two Days, One Night", "Clouds of Sils Maria", "Far from the Madding Crowd", "Macbeth", "Every Thing Will Be Fine" and "St. Vincent"


One last note for this section of the post...if you look at last week's "Ten Bets"...well, everything included there could still be on the TFF #41 program. Here it was from last Friday:

10) Wild
9) Red Army
8) Foxcatcher
7) The Look of Silence
6) Leviathan
5) The Roosevelts
4) Two Days, One Night
3) Mr. Turner
2) Queen of the Desert
1) Birdman


BUT WHAT ABOUT THE PEEPS?



Yes indeed.  Who could turn up in support of their film in five weeks and who will be receiving a tribute? Good questions.  Let's use the "Ten Bets" and our Toronto analysis to hypothesize possibilities.

Start with directors because they're almost always attending with their film:

Jean Marc Vallee, Bennett Miller, The Dardennes, Mike Leigh, Werner Herzog, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Morten Tyldum and Jon Stewart.

Cast types: (a partial list here)

"Birdman": Michael Keaton, Edward Norton, Emma Stone, Naomi Watts, Amy Ryan and Zach Galifinakis.
(I'd expect Keaton and put him on the list of possible tributes)

"Queen of the Desert": Nicole Kidman, Robert Pattinson, James Franco, Damian Lewis
(Dicey here...maybe Kidman...she's the lead...if she comes...also a possible tribute and she could pal around with buddy Naomi Watts if she comes with "Birdman")

"Mr. Turner": Timothy Spall.
(I expect Spall, especially since he won Best Actor at Cannes...as a matter of fact, I think Telluride could be awash in Best Actor contenders...see Keaton above and others below)

"Two Days, One Night": Marion Cotillard
( I'm not sure Ms. Cotillard will be keen on returning to T-ride...I'd like it, but, who knows)

"Foxcatcher": Steve Carell, Channing Tatum, Mark Ruffalo.
(Carell is a possibilty and even Tatum and Ruffalo could come along.  Depends on the Best Actor assessment by SPC)

"Wild": Reese Witherspoon, Laura Dern
(I kind of expect both women to show up)

"The Imitation Game": Benedict Cumberbatch, Kiera Knightley, Mark Strong
(I think Cumberbatch is a real possibility)

"99 Homes": Andrew Garfield, Laura Dern
(see above note about Dern.  Garfield could come back...was in T-ride in 2010 with "Never Let Me Go")

More on Thursday...


Follow me on Twitter @Gort2


2 comments:

Rich said...

I love Michael Keaton, I really do. I'm wondering though, what in his career points to a Telluride tribute? Hugely popular, but not an art-film actor.

Rich said...

I love Michael Keaton, I really do. I'm wondering though, what in his career points to a Telluride tribute? Hugely popular, but not an art-film actor.