Thursday, January 31, 2019

Latest Gurus of Gold / First Look From the Berlin Fest / I Nominate / Behind the Scenes of First Man

We're back on this last Thursday in January...


LATEST GURUS OF GOLD



The Gurus of Gold have begun the transition from predicting Oscar nominees to predicting Oscar winners.  Editor Ray Pride tasked all of the Gurus with predicting winners in eight categories: Picture, Direction, Actress, Supporting Actress, Actor, Supporting Actor, Original Score and Original Song.  

For what it's worth, my number one choices in each category are the overall leaders after all the Gurus that responded were counted.  Here's Anne Thompson's analysis from Indiewire on her take about the effect of the SAGs on Oscar.

It should be noted that the poll was conducted prior to winners being announced at the SAG Awards this past weekend.  Wins there by Rami Malek and Emily Blunt could change the landscape.



FIRST LOOK AT BERLIN FEST TITLE



One of the first titles from the Berlin Film Fest to draw my eye as a potential TFF #46 title was Agnieska Holland's Mr. Jones (formerly Gareth Jones).  For those who really follow this space closely you know that I had this film on my radar last year as a possible choice for TFF #45.

Holland has some history with TFF and Berlin usually provides a couple of titles to each year's Telluride lineup.

Now, Variety has exclusively premiered a first look at the a clip from the film and further, the clip has become available on YouTube  and is included here:



 Here's some of the description of the film from the Variety story:

"Mr. Jones tells the little known story of Gareth Jones, an ambitious young Welsh journalist who travelled to the Soviet Union in 1933, and discovered the appalling reality behind the myth of a communist "utopia"".



I NOMINATE



Every year some film or films emerge from the Sundance Film Fest that catch the eye of the critical community and inevitably there is speculation that one or two of those might end up on the Telluride list .

As readers of this space know, that's not impossible but it is exceedingly rare.  In terms of feature films, the last to do it was Kenneth Lonergan's Manchester by the Sea in 2016.  Prior to that it had been Lone Scherfig's 2009 Carey Mulligan starrer An Education.

Despite the rarity, though, there will be a few of the Sundance titles that some will think have a shot.  So...despite the fact that it's phenomenally unusual...I hereby nominate Scott Z. Burns The Report.  The film has been well received in Utah and stars current Oscar nominee Adam Driver (BlacKkKlansman) and focuses on the investigation into CIA "enhanced interrogation" techniques following 9/11.  Amazon Studios nabbed the distribution rights this week for a solid $14 million.  Reportedly Amazon is looking to position the film for a fall release.

Sounds like a fine addition for TFF #46 to me.




BEHIND THE SCENES OF FIRST MAN



SlashFilm posted a new behind-the-scenes clip of Damian Chazelle's First Man last week.  he clip focuses on what Chazelle and crew was able to do using the actual resources of NASA as they put together the film about the first lunar landing and the path that Neil Armstrong took on his way to becoming the first human to walk on the lunar surface.

Here's the clip from YouTube:







First Man is available to stream now.


That's your Thursday edition of MTFB.  It will return on Monday.


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