MTFB Oscar Take Updated: Screenplays / International Feature Race: Russia / A Peek at 2022

MTFB OSCAR TAKE UPDATED: SCREENPLAYS

Here's your latest Oscar predictions for Screenplay writing from MTFB.  These categories were last updated here on Oct. 14th.  TFF #48 films are in Bold.

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

1) Belfast (1)

2) Licorice Pizza (2)

3) C'mon C'mon (4)

4) King Richard (3)

5) Don't Look Up (5)

Alternates: Mass and Spencer

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

1) The Power of the Dog (1)

2) Nightmare Alley (2)

3) The Lost Daughter (3)

4) CODA (4)

5) The Tragedy of Macbeth (5)

Alternates: Dune and West Side Story

INERNATIONAL FEATURE RACE: RUSSIA

The Hollywood Reporter, among others, revealed that Russia has chosen TFF #48 selection Unclenching the Fists from director Kira Kovalenko as its official submission for consideration in International Feature Oscar race.

Unclenching the Fists joins three other TTF #48 films that have been previously announced for consideration.  Those films are Asghar Farhadi's A Hero from Iran, Paolo Sorrentino's The Hand of God from Italy and Jonas Poher Rasmussen's Flee from Denmark.

Here's the link to the Scott Roxborough story from The Hollywood Reporter.

A PEEK AT 2022

Just this week Jordan Ruimy at World of Reel posted a speculative list of films that could be released and make a splash in what he calls "a landmark year for movies.

I took a gander at the list and landed on a few that seem like possible TFF #49 selections largely based on the director and past associations with TFF.  They include:

Damien Chazelle's Babylon

Noah Baumbach's White Noise

Kelly Reichardt's Owl

Alejandro Inarrito's Bardo

Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio

Florian Zeller's The Son

The Dardennes' Tori et Lokita

Other films are expected from directors that have made an appearance at Telluride at least once including: The Way of the Wind (Malick), Women Talking (Polley), Tar (Field), The Whale (Aronofsky), Crimes of the Future (Cronenberg), The Zone of Interest (Glazer), Poor Things (Lanthimos), Amsterdam (Russell), Asteroid City (W. Anderson), The Killer (Fincher and, of course, Killers of the Flower Moon (Scorsese)

The complete list is here from World of Reel.

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MTFB Oscar Take: Updated Supporting Acting Categories / Gotham Awards Nominations and Telluride / Critics Say The Power of the Dog Is Tops / And Speaking of Jane Campion... / Trailer for The Real Charlie Chaplin /

 MTFB OSCAR TAKE: UPDATED SUPPORTING ACTING CATEGORIES

Here's your update on the Supporting Acting races.  This updates the predictions last posted for these categories on Oct. 11th.  TFF #48 performances are indicated in Bold and their previous position in my predictions are indicated to the right in parentheses.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

1) Kirsten Dunst/The Power of the Dog (1)

2) Anne Dowd/Mass (2)

3) Caitriona Balfe/Belfast (4)

4) Aunjunue Ellis/King Richard (3)

5) Judi Dench/Belfast (Alt.)

Alternates: Ruth Negga/Passing and Marlee Matlin/CODA

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

1) Bradley Cooper/Licorice Pizza (1)

2) Ciaran Hinds/Belfast (2)

3) Jamie Dornan/Belfast (New)

4) Ben Affleck/The Tender Bar or The Last Duel (Alt.)

5) Kodi Smit-McPhee/The Power of the Dog (Alt.)

Alternates: Jared Leto/House of Gucci and Jason Isaacs/Mass

GOTHAM AWARDS NOMINATIONS AND TELLURIDE

The New York based Gotham Awards, which aim to highlight independent film releases, announced its 2021 nominees on Thursday.  Here's how TFF #48 films fared:

The Lost Daughter: Best Feature, Bingham Ray Breakthrough Director (Gyllenhaal), Best Screenplay, Outstanding Performance (Colman). Outstanding Supporting Performance (Buckley)

Flee: Best Documentary Feature

The Card Counter: Best Screenplay, Outstanding Performance (Isaac)

Red Rocket: Best Screenplay, Outstanding Performance (Rex), Breakthrough Performance (Son)

C'mon C'mon: Outstanding Performance (Phoenix), Outstanding Supporting Performance (Hoffman)

Complete Gotham nominations are here from Deadline.com.

CRITICS SAY POWER OF THE DOG IS TOPS

Jordan Ruimy/World of Reel has conducted and informal poll of over 50 critics asking them to name the best film of 2021 to date.

Winning the poll is Jane Campion's The Power of the Dog which currently sits in the #3 spot on MTFB's Oscar Take for a Best Picture Academy Award nomination.

Other TFF #48 films to make Ruimy's list include Bergman Island (#13) and Red Rocket (#15).  The Father, from the TFF #47 list, made the grade at #8.

Ruimy's complete list is here.

AND SPEAKING OF JANE CAMPION

The Film Stage has gathered interviews from The New York Film Festival with Campion as well as Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst and KodiSmit-McPhee that accompanied The Power of the Dog's NYFF screening.

That's all linked from The Film Stage post which you can find here.

TRAILER FOR THE REAL CHARLIE CHAPLIN

Altitude Films and Showtime have released a trailer for the Peter Middleton and James Spinney's documentary The Real Charlie Chaplin.  The trailer appeared on YouTube on Oct. 20th.  Here it is:

 AND INTERVIEWS:

Indiewire with Todd Haynes on The Velvet Underground

Entertainment Weekly with Will Smith on King Richard getting a song from Beyonce.

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MTFB Oscar Update: Lead Acting / Belfast News / Interviews: Stewart, Ahmed, Isaac / The Lost Daughter Trailer

MTFB OSCAR TAKE: LEAD ACTING

Here's an update for my predictions of  the lead acting categories for the 94th Academy Awards.  As always, TFF #48 performers are in Bold. The performers' last position in these predictions is indicated to the right in parentheses.  These categories were last predicted on Oct. 7th.

BEST ACTRESS

1) Kristen Stewart/Spencer (1)

2) Jessica Chastain/The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2)

3) Frances McDormand/The Tragedy of Macbeth (3)

4) Olivia Colman/The Lost Daughter (New)

5) Lady Gaga/House of Gucci (4)

Alternates: Penelope Cruz/Parallel Mothers and Jennifer Hudson/Respect

BEST ACTOR

1) Will Smith/King Richard (1)

2) Denzel Washington/The Tragedy of Macbeth (3)

3) Benedict Cumberbatch/The Power of the Dog (2)

4) Peter Dinklage/Cyrano (4)

5) Andrew Garfield/tick, tick...BOOM (5)

Alternates: Clifton Collins/Jockey and Joaquin Pheonix/C'mon C'mon

BELFAST NEWS

* Won the Audience Awards from both the Middleburg and Mill Valley Film Festivals this past week.  Here's that story from Sasha Stone at Awards Daily.  Incidentally, The Rescue won for Best Documentary at both fests and C'mon C'mon won Audience Favorite for U.S. Cinema at Mill Valley.

*Jumped to a larger lead on the Gold Derby odds for the Best Picture Oscar.  Here that is from Gold Derby.

*Focus Features dropped a new trailer for the film.  Here that is from YouTube:

INTERVIEWS

Variety's Clayton Davis with Kristen Stewart (Spencer)

Variety's Matt Donnelly with Riz Ahmed (Encounter)

Indiewire's Eric Kohn with Oscar Issac (The Card Counter)

THE LAST DAUGHTER TRAILER

Netflix released a first trailer on Monday for Maggie Gyllenhaal's The Lost Daughter which stars Olivia Colman, Dakota Johnson and Jesse Buckley.  The film is due Dec. 31st.  Here's the trailer from YouYube:

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MTFB Oscar Take: Updated Best Picture and Director / More from Todd Haynes / Hansen-Love and Bergman Island / AFI-TFF Crossover

MTFB OSCAR TAKE: UPDATED BEST PICTURE AND DIRECTOR

Here's the MTFB latest update on predictions for Academy Award nominations for Best Picture and Best Director.  These categories were last predicted here on Oct. 4th.  As always TFF #48 films are indicate in Bold and the film's previous position is indicated to the right in parentheses.

BEST PICTURE

1) Belfast (1)

2) King Richard (3)

3) The Power of the Dog (2)

4) Licorice Pizza (4)

5) Dune (5)

6) West Side Story (6)

7) Nightmare Alley (7)

8) Spencer (9)

9) The Tragedy of Macbeth (8)

10) House of Gucci (New)

Alternates: CODA, Don't Look Up, and tick, tick...BOOM

 BEST DIRECTOR

1) Kenneth Branagh/Belfast (1)

2) Jane Campion/The Power of the Dog (2)

3) Denis Villenueve/Dune (3)

4) Guillermo del Toro/Nightmare Alley (5)

5) Paul Thomas Anderson/Licorice Pizza (4)

Alternates: Reinaldo Marcus Green/King Richard and Pablo Larrain/Spencer

MORE FROM TODD HAYNES

My last post included a Todd Haynes' interview with The Playlist.  Today I include a link to a separate Haynes interview that was posted last Thursday at Awards Daily.  Frank J. Avella wrote it up and it is linked here.

HANSEN-LOVE AND BERGMAN ISLAND

The Playlist's Andrew Bundy posted an interview with Bergman Island director and writer Mia Hansen-Love.  Hansen-Love has made my list of Telluride "Usual Suspects" with fest appearances over the years that have included: Things to Come and Goodbye First Love.

Here's the link to the interview.

AFI-TFF CROSSOVER

The American Film Institute has announced its full lineup for AFI Fest.  AFI's list includes a number of films that cross over with TFF #48 titles, especially documentaries.  They include:

Cow

Red Rocket

Petite Maman

King Richard

Unclenching the Fists

Bernstein's Wall

Citizen Ashe

Julia 

Procession

The Real Charlie Chaplin

And the Shorts:

Love, Dad

Motorcyclists Happiness Won't Fit Into His Suit

Play It Safe

Soft Animals

The complete rundown of AFI programming can be found here from Awards Watch.

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MTFB Oscar Take: Screenplays / Indiewire Critic's Survey of the Fall Fests / Todd Haynes on The Velvet Underground / Belfast Adults Are All Supporting

MTFB OSCAR TAKE: SCREENPLAYS

Here's your latest Oscar predictions for Screenplay writing from MTFB.  These categories were last updated here on Sept. 30th.  TFF #48 films are in Bold.

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

1) Belfast (1)

2) Licorice Pizza (2)

3) King Richard (4)

4) C'mon C'mon (5)

5) Don't Look Up (3)

Alternates: Mass and Spencer 

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

1) The Power of the Dog (1)

2) Nightmare Alley (2)

3) The Lost Daughter (New)

4) CODA (4)

5) The Tragedy of Macbeth (5)

Alternates: House of Gucci, Dune and West Side Story

INDIWIRE'S CRITICS' SURVEY OF THE FALL FESTS

Indiewire surveyed 137 critics and charged them with evaluating the films they had seen through the run of fall fests including Telluride, Venice, Toronto and New York'  Here's how TFF #48 films from that survey:

The overall #1 film from all four fests combined was Jane Campion's The Power of the Dog. 

 

#5 Celina Sciamma's Petite Maman

#8 Sean Baker's Red Rocket

#9 Mia Hansen-Love's Bergman Island\

#11 Pablo Larrain's Spencer

#14 Mike Mill's C'mon C'mon

#15 Maggie Gyllenhaal's The Lost Daughter

C'mon C'mon was the critic's favorite specifically focused on Telluride alone.

The top three documentaries all played TFF #47: Flee, The Velvet Underground and The Rescue.

The Power of the Dog was also named Best Directed Film.

Best Performances from all of the fests combined included Benedict Cumberbatch in The Power of the Dog at #3 and Kristen Stewart in Spencer at #4.

The complete results can be found here.

TODD HAYNES ON THE VELVET UNDERGROUND

As mentioned above, Todd Haynes' doc about The Velvet Underground was named as one of the three best documentaries that played the fall festivals.  Haynes was recently featured in an interview for The Playlist.

Check out what Haynes has to say.  The interview is linked here.

BELFAST ADULTS ARE ALL SUPPORTING

Focus Features has announced that all of the adult actors in Kenneth Branagh's Belfast will be campaigned as Supporting players for the awards season.  That puts an end to speculation that both Jamie Dornan and Caitriona Balfe would possibly be categorized as leading performers.  Now, child actor Judah Hill will be the lone Belfast cast member who is campaigned as a leading actor.

Variety's Clayton Davis broke the details on Monday.  That story is linked here.

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MTFB Oscar Take: Supporting Update / Citizen Ashe Has a Home / Deadline Talks to...Everyone

MTAFB'S OSCAR TAKE: SUPPORTING UPDATE

Here's your update on the Supporting Acting races.  This updates the predictions last posted for these categories on Sept. 27th.  TFF #48 performances are indicated in Bold and their previous position in my predictions are indicated to the right in parentheses.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

1) Kirsten Dunst/The Power of the Dog (1)

2) Ann Dowd/Mass (2)

3) Aunjunue Ellis/King Richard (3)

4) Caitriona Balfe/Belfast (4)*

5) Adriana DeBose/West Side Story (New)

Alternates: Judi Dench/Belfast and Ruth Negga/Passing

* Depending on category placement 

Personally, I'm pulling for Dunst and Balfe.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

1) Bradley Cooper/Licorice Pizza (1)

2) Ciaran Hinds/Belfast (2)

3) Corey Hawkins/The Tragedy of Macbeth (3)

4) Jason Issacs/Mass (4)

5) Jared Leto/House of Gucci (New)

Alternates: Ben Affleck/The Tender Bar and Kodi Smit-McPhee/The Power of the Dog

I'd urge Academy voters to remember Tony Kotsur in CODA and Kodi Smit-McPhee in The Power of the Dog.

CITIZEN ASHE HAS A HOME

Magnolia has acquired the domestic theatrical distribution rights to the Rex Miller/Sam Pollard documentary about tennis legend Arthur Ashe.  The film made its debut at the year's Telluride Film Festival.  The film also screened this past weekend at the BFI London Film Festival.  The film was produced by HBO Max and CNN Media among others.

More details can be found here from Blackfilm.com.

DEADLINE TALKS TO...EVERYONE

Deadline.com's "Contender" series (London) has begun and is highlighting a number of the films and filmmakers that were a part of  the 2021 edition of The SHOW.  I have linked a bunch of them here:

Belfast

Cyrano

Spencer

The Lost Daughter

The Hand of God

The Power of the Dog

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MTFB Oscar Take: Lead Acting / Interviews: Cumberbatch, Rex and Dunst / Cyrano Trailer / Red Rocket Goodies / New Poster for Belfast

MTFB OSCAR TAKE: LEAD ACTING

Here's an update for my predictions of  the lead acting categories for the 94th Academy Awards.  As always, TFF #48 performers are in Bold. The performers' last position in these predictions is indicated to the right in parentheses.  These categories were last predicted on Sept. 23rd.

BEST ACTRESS 

1) Kristen Stewart/Spencer (1)

2) Jessica Chastain/The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2)

3) Frances McDormand/The Tragedy of Macbeth (New)

4) Lady Gaga/House of Gucci (3)

5) Penelope Cruz/Parallel Mothers (5)

Alternates: Olivia Colman/The Lost Daughter and Jennifer Hudson/Respect

BEST ACTOR

1) Will Smith/King Richard (2)

2) Benedict Cumberbatch/The Power of the Dog (1)

3) Denzel Washington/The Tragedy of Macbeth (3)

4) Peter Dinklage/Cyrano (Alt.)

5) Andrew Garfield/tick, tick...Boom (4)

Alternates: Bradley Cooper/Nightmare Alley and Clifton Collins/Jockey

INTERVIEWS: CUMBERBATCH, REX AND DUNST

Benedict Cumberbatch at the New York Film Festival

(Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images)

I'm passing along select interviews with actors that were at TFF #48 last month with projects.

Benedict Cumberbatch/The Power of the Dog and The Electrical Life of Louis Wain from The New York Daily News. 

Simon Rex/Red Rocket  and Kirsten Dunst from Variety's Awards Circuit Podcast with Clayton Davis.

 

Jane Campion's The Power of the Dog will be released in limited fashion in theaters on Nov. 17th.  It will be available on Netflix on Dec. 1st.

CYRANO TRAILER

From the folks at MGM and United Artists comes the release of a trailer for Joe Wright's Cyrano.  Here it is from YouTube:

Cyrano is set for release on Dec. 25th.

RED ROCKET GOODIES

From A24 we have a poster and a trailer for Sean Baker's Red Rocket.  The poster, as you can see, is above and the trailer is below via YouTube:

Red Rocket is set to be released on Dec. 3rd.

NEW POSTER FOR BELFAST

From Focus Features comes the release of a new poster for Kenneth Branagh's Belfast.

Belfast is set for domestic release on Nov. 12th.

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MTFB Oscar Take: Picture and Director / Changes to the Pages / Jenny Slate and The Boston Globe / Time's Look at Nuclear Family

 MTFB OSCAR(r) TAKE: PICTURE AND DIRECTOR

Here's an update for Academy Award predictions for Best Picture and a first take for Best Direction.  A film's past position is indicated in parentheses.  As always TFF #48 films are indicated in Bold.

BEST PICTURE

1) Belfast (2)

2) The Power of the Dog (1)

3) King Richard (4)

4) Licorice Pizza (5)

5) Dune (3)

6) West Side Story (6)

7) Nightmare Alley (7)

8) Macbeth (New)

9) Spencer (New)

10) Don't Look Up (8)

Alternates: House of Gucci and CODA

BEST DIRECTION

1) Kenneth Branagh/Belfast 

2) Jane Campion/The Power of the Dog

3) Denis Villenueve/Dune

4) Paul Thomas Anderson/Licorice Pizza

5) Guillermo del Toro/Nightmare Alley

Alternates: Reinaldo Marcus Green/King Richard and Pablo Larrain/Spencer

Current predicted nominations for TFF #48 films in the "above the line" categories:

Belfast (6): Picture, Direction, Supporting Actress (Balfe), Supporting Actress (Dench), Supporting Actor (Hinds), Original Screenplay.

The Power of the Dog (6): Picture, Direction, Actor (Cumberbatch), Supporting Actress (Dunst), Supporting Actor (Smit-McPhee), Adapted Screenplay.

King Richard (4): Picture, Actor (Smith), Supporting Actress (Ellis), Original Screenplay.  Alternate for Direction (Green)

Spencer (2): Picture, Actress (Stewart), Alternate for Direction (Larrain) and Original Screenplay

C'mon C'mon (2): Actor (Phoenix), Original Screenplay

The Lost Daughter: Alternate for Adapted Screenplay

Cyrano: Alternate for Actor (Dinklage)

CHANGES TO THE PAGES

As I mentioned last Thursday. I have, as of today, added a new page to the "Pages" section of MTFB that features my ongoing Oscar (r) predictions for this year.  I'll update that page each time I update any categories  throughout the season.  In addition to that addition I have updated "History of the Telluride Film Festival Part Two: 1996-Present" include 2020 and 2021.  I have also retired the Select History of the Fest page as it is redundant with the larger History sections.  Take a look!

JENNY SLATE AND THE BOSTON GLOBE

films was 

The voice of and co-creator of Marcel the Shell, Jenny Slate, was recently interviewed by The Boston Globe as she was participating at the Globe Summit.  Naturally Slate's film, Marcel the Shell with Shoes On, was a part of that conversation.

Here's the link to The Globe interview.

TIME'S LOOK AT NUCLEAR FAMILY

Floating under the threshold of getting enough votes in either MTFB's Professional or People's polls of TFF #48 films was Ry Russo-Young's Nuclear Family.   Thorough the Labor Day weekend, however, I persistently heard good things about the film while I was in line.

Time.com has profiled the film maker and her family in post from last week.

That post is linked here.

And, from YouTube, here is the official trailer:

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