Monday, January 18, 2016

And Now...On with the Show (The Oscar Show, that is)... / Peering into the Future / Reaching Back to TFF #37...For Some Litigation

Welcome to the new week...Oscar's First Act has concluded with last Thursday's announcement of the nominees.  Now we move to Act Two which culminates on Feb. 28th.  This period of weeks between Oscar nomination announcement and the actual awards is always a sort pf odd limbo-esque time.  The race that has been in some motion, really since the conclusion of Labor Day weekend and Telluride's fest continues but in a much different fashion.

What has been a very broad affair including many, many films is now truncated to the nominees and  as a couple of the Big Time Oscar Pundits have said since Thursday, the campaigning continues but becomes less obvious and noisy.

At the same time, this space begins to turn, a least a little bit, to its post-Oscar (and primary purpose) which is the attempt to discern some of the films that might be on the program for TFF #43.

Today's post straddles the duality of Oscar and TFF prognostication and that's where we'll be for the next five and a half weeks...

We start with...


AND NOW...ON WITH THE SHOW (THE OSCAR SHOW, THAT IS)...



So here we are 96 hours, give or take, removed from the revealing of Oscar nominations.  Ridley Scott isn't nominated.  No actors of color made it into any of the 20 acting slots.  Lenny Abrahamson IS nominated.  These are among the most discussed topics for Oscar observers these past few days.  But, of course, the other question is...who/what is going to win in a few weeks?

Not surprisingly, there's non shortage of Oscarologists with their early predictions.  I have linked Kristopher Tapley/Variety-InContention, Scott Feinberg/The Hollywood Reporter, Sasha Stone/Awards Daily and (collectively) The Gurus of Gold from Movie City News and their early line on winners below.

Some observations from looking at all of their predictions:

Spotlight remains the favorite to win Best Picture but there is some serious thought that The Big Short, The Revenant and Mad Max:Fury Road are still playing.  Most believe that The Martian, Room, Bridge of Spies and Brooklyn are not likely Best Picture winners.

Prohibitive favorites seem to be (even this far out from the actual awards):

Leonardo DiCaprio/The Revenant for Best Actor
Brie Larson/Room for Best Actress
Sylvester Stallone/Creed for Best Supporting Actor
Tom McCarthy and Josh Singer/Spotlight for Original Screenplay
Adam McKay and Charles Randolph/The Big Short for Best Original Screenplay
Amy for Best Documentary
Son of Saul for Best Foreign Language Film
Inside Out for Best Animated Feature


These eight picks seem pretty solid already.  Some others seem very likely (Mad Max:Fury Road looks good for Film Editing and Production Design for example) but aren't what I would call locks. Of course, some categories seem very, very competitive: Original Score and Song for example.

The FAC will be periodically updating Oscar predictions as we move through these next few weeks. Check back here.  You might remember that, last year, The FAC hit 20 of 24 categories on Oscar night and 22 of 24 in 2014.

Here are your links to The Gurus, Tapley, Feinberg and Stone:

http://moviecitynews.com/2016/01/gurus-o-gold-nomination-day-part-1-of-2/

http://variety.com/2015/film/in-contention/oscar-predictions-oscars-academy-awards-1201600870/

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/awards/predictions/oscars/2015/academy-awards-11416/

http://www.awardsdaily.com/


PEERING INTO THE FUTURE



One of the ways I get the ball rolling in earnestness about Telluride film speculation is to analyze the first of the year "Most Anticipated" film lists from a variety of outlets and look for titles that seem T-ride possible.  Today. I begin that process by looking at The Playlist's list of 100 films they're most excited about.  Among the titles they include are 20 that seem like they might SHOW up on Labor Day weekend.  Here they are with their position on The Playlist list (and an occasional comment):

#96 A United Kingdom
#95 True Crimes
#93 Trespass Against Us
#92 The Zookeeper's Wife
#89 Queen of Katme
#83 The Founder (the story of Ray Kroc and the development of McDonalds starring Michael Keaton)...It's high on my Telluride request list...
#74 Neruda
#62 The Promise
#61 Gold
#60 Comancheria
#51 HHHH
#45 Salt and Fire (Herzog returns to Telluride?)
#38 Personnel Shopper
#28 Passengers (this really isn't all that likely... save for the fact that its Morten Tyldum's directorial follow-up to The Imitation Game).
#23 American Honey
#19 The Unknown Girl
#18 It's Only the End of the World
#9 The Lost City of Z
#5 The Salesman (the latest from Iranian genius Asghar Farhadi.  After both A Separation and The Past playing Telluride, you have to believe that this is very likely.  It might start out at the #1 spot when I actually begin putting together a Telluride #43 list in June).
#3 War Machine (this lands on the list because it's in the hands of Netflix which made its debut at Telluride last year with Beasts of No Nation and Winter on Fire.  I think there's a decent shot that they'll be back).

So there are 20 films from The Playlist list.  If my past record at extrapolating from The Playlist is any indicator we can expect that five will make the Telluride lineup.  Last year's parsing of The Playlist 100 included these films that I wrote could play T-ride: Beasts of No Nation, Black Mass, Suffragette, Spotlight and Carol.  In 2014, with the same circumstances, I mentioned: Leviathan, Mr. Turner, Two Days One Night, Birdman and Foxcatcher.




Here's the link to The Playlist's complete hot 100 FOR 2016:

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/the-100-most-anticipated-films-of-2016-20160104


Thursday, I'll take a look at The Film Stage's list of  100 2016 films.


REACHING BACK TO TFF #37...FOR SOME LITIGATION



Remember Tabloid?  Errol Morris' look at one time beauty queen Joyce McKinney?  It was one of my favorite films of TFF #37(2010).

Now, it looks like we may hear about it again some five years later as the subject of the documentary, Ms. McKinney has decided to sue Morris.

Her claim is that she was lied to and disparaged in the film.  Check out the story from The Hollywood Reporter:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/errol-morris-heads-trial-irate-854823


That's a wrap for Monday...more to come on Thursday...


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