THE PROFESSIONALS' TELLURIDE
As I have been doing since 2012, I asked a panel of 18 industry journalists, bloggers and professionals to rate the films they saw at TFF #50.
A couple of notes by way of explanation. The Pros were asked to rate the films they saw on a scale of 1-5 with 1 being not-so-very-good and 5 being "fantastic". Additionally, a film had to be rated by more than half of this year's panel of pros to make the list.
I am, as always, indebted to all of the industry professionals who took time from their crazy busy schedules to provide me their feedback. I can't adequately express my appreciation.
Here's this year's panel:
Erik Anderson/Awards Watch
J. Don Birnam-Jorge T/SplashReport.com
Clayton Davis/Variety
Marshall Flores/Awards Daily
Mark Johnson/Awards Daily and Good as Gold
Dave Karger/Turner Classic Movies
Joey Magidson/Awards Radar
Ryan McQuade/Awards Watch
Scott Menzel/We Live Entertainment
Clarence Moye/Awards Daily
Matt Neglia/Next Best Picture
Christopher Schiller/ScriptMag.com
Sasha Stone/Awards Daily
Anne Thompson/Indiewire
Chris Willman/Variety
Anonymous
Past toppers for each Pro Poll and their average rating have been:
2012: The Central Park Five (4.7)
2013: 12 Years a Slave (4.7)
2014: Birdman (4.72)
2015: Son of Saul (4.44)
2016: Moonlight (4.82)
2017: The Shape of Water (4.5)
2018: Roma (4.73)
2019: Parasite (4.75)
2020: No Fest
2021:Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (4.44)
2022: TAR (3.93)
To qualify for inclusion a film had to have been seen by at least half of The Professionals. So using that metric Here is the Professionals' Poll for TFF #50:
1) Poor Things (4.53)
2) Anatomy of a Fall (4.44)
3) The Taste of Things (4.43)
4) The Holdovers (4.21)
5) The Zone of Interest (4.15)
6) All of Us Strangers (3.92)
7) Saltburn (3.89)
8) Rustin (3.42)
9) The Bikeriders (3.23)
10) Fingernails (3.13)
11) Nyad (3.11)
12) El Conde (2.68)
The films that were seen by the most pros were Poor Things and The Bikeriders. Each was seen by 15 out of the 16. Next in line were The Holdovers and Saltburn which were watched by 14 of the 16.
It's interesting to note that five films reached a better average score from this year's lineup than last year's top average for TAR (3.93).
After this year's poll, The Professionals' All Time Top Ten (through 2023) looks like this with Poor Things entering the all time Pros Top Ten at #9. Son of Saul and Marcel the Shell with Shoes On which had been tied for the all time #10 spot were displaced.
1) Moonlight (4.87) (16)
2) Parasite (4.75) (19)
3) Roma (4.73) (18)
4) Birdman (4.72) (14)
5) 12 Years a Slave (4.70-tie) (13)
6) Central Park Five (4.70-tie) (12)
7) Foxcatcher (4.63) (14)
8) La La Land (4.58) (16)
9) Poor Things (4.53) (23)
10) Argo (4.50-tie) (12)
10) The Shape of Water (4.50-tie) (17)
RE-VISITING TFF #50
***My first thought is how solid TFF in 2023 was. The lineup was varied and deep. I was particularly taken with The Holdovers, The Zone of Interest, The Bikeriders and Poor Things. I missed getting in All of Us Strangers, Anatomy of a Fall and Nyad which were on my initial list to get to during the festival but I got to add Daddio, Tuesday and The Falling Stars all of which I enjoyed/admired.
The fest was DEEP!
***As always, it's great to see friends and colleagues at the festival and catch up. It's also fun to make new friends. Do I always get to run into people I want to see? Nope. But I got to see some folks who returned to the fest after having been absent for a bit. Always nice.
***Also always nice is meeting readers of the blog. That might be the best part! It's certainly not the "perks". Absent the accreditation as a journalist there aren't any perks.
***Readership really exploded this year. It always spikes in August and September as the fest approaches and then happens but 2023 blew through previous highs for views. As I post this morning MTFB has had approximately 78,000 views in the last 40 days.
***For those who missed it-MTFB went 24/25 on The Final Bets this year. 6 of 10 from the Original Ten bets back in June and the overall percentage of correct predictions from the final posted since I started recording these as "Bets" is 97%.
OSCAR EXPERTS AND TFF
I ran down some of the latest projections from some serious Oscarologists after the fest concluded. Thee are projections post-Telluride and with a good portion of Venice concluded. I'll be passing some of these along in the context of TFF #50 films over the next week to ten days. In each case I'm looking at their projections in the eight "above-the-line categories: Best Picture, Direction, the four acting categories and the two screenplay categories.
Starting with Clayton Davis at Variety who projects:
Poor Things with five nominations with one other possibility: Best Picture, Direction (Lanthimos), Actress (Stone), Supporting Actor (Ruffalo) and Adapted Screenplay. The Other possibility is a second Supporting Actor nomination for Willem Dafoe. As an aside, I fully expect Poor Things will load on craft nominations as well. I can see the film grabbing double digit nominations when Oscar noms are announced on Jan. 23rd.
The Zone of Interest with four nominations: Best Picture, Direction (Glazer), Actress (Huller) and Adapted Screenplay.
The Holdovers with three nominations and an additional possibility: Best Picture, Actor (Giamatti) and Original Screenplay. The added possibility is a nomination for Alexander Payne for direction.
All of Us Strangers with one nomination and two other chances: Best Adapted Screenplay. The other shots are Actor (Scott) and Supporting Actor (Bell).
Saltburn with one nomination and another possibility: Best Original Screenplay. The other chance is Best Picture.
Rustin is projected to have a Best Actor nomination for Coleman Domingo.
TFF #50 films that Davis does not have predicted with a nomination but does have close enough to be considered potentials include:
An astounding six "maybes" for The Bikeriders: Best Picture, Direction (Nichols), Actor (Butler), Supporting Actress (Comer), Supporting Actor (Hardy) and Original Screenplay.
Nyad with a shot for Annette Bening as Best Actress.
Anatomy of a Fall possible for Best Original Screenplay.
POOR THINGS WINS IN VENICE
Yorgos Lanthimos' Poor Things, which screened to pack houses at Telluride last week, has won The Golden Lion, the top prize given at the 80th Venice Film festival. Two other TFF films earned honors from Venice juries. Pablo Larrain won Best Screenplay for El Conde and Alex Braverman's Andy Kaufman documentary Thank You Very Much was named Best Documentary in the Venice Classics section.
ME AND THE BBC
I wrote last week that I had been approached by the BBC to be interviewed for their program Talking Movies with Tom Brook. I said "sure" and that interview occurred a week ago on Sunday.
Well, the program appeared on the BBC yesterday and here in the USA on BBC News. I lifted it and edited it to focus on my "appearance". I'm in twice and my guest star is Anne Thompson of Indiewire:
TRAILERS: NYAD AND THE ROYAL HOTEL
NYAD:
THE ROYAL HOTEL:
THE PEOPLE'S TELLURIDE
You have another week until the clock runs out on you chance to be a part of this year's People's poll of TFF #50 films.
All you have to do is rate the films you saw and then report to me your assessment of each film on a 1-5 scale with 1 being "UGH!" and 5 being "GREAT".
Report your ratings to: mpgort@gmail.com
The deadline for this year to turn in your ratings will be Sept. 15th.
EMAIL: mpgort@gmail.com
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