Some Other Post Oscar Notes / So Early, But... / Interviews and Profiles

SOME OTHER POST OSCAR NOTES

2023's edition of the Telluride Film Festival was much more Oscar connected than the 2022 SHOW.  The 49th TFF had films that earned 17 total nominations and a single win for Best Adapted Screenplay for Sarah Polley's Women Talking.

The 50th version saw a dramatic jump in both nominations and wins.  35 total nominations and an a solid nine wins.  For context the 35 nominations tied 2016 and 2021 TFFs for the years with the most nominations.  The nine Oscar wins is the third largest number of Oscar wins for TFFs. 2016 saw TFF films win 12 Oscars and in 2013 TFF films won 10.

For other trivia about the TFF/Oscar connection take a look next week at my TFF Unofficial Oscar History page which has a link above.

SO EARLY, BUT...

Gold Derby is up with an incredibly early list of 20 films that they bill as "Early Contenders" for Oscar glory a year from now.  That gives me an opportunity to begin looking at those films and see which ones could be TFF #51 contenders as well.

What to kook for?  TFF history with a film's director, producer and/or distributor.  Or sometimes it's a gut feeling irrespective of any of those characteristics.

At any rate...here are films from the list of 20 that seem like TFF possibilities:

The Apprentice Dir: Ali Abbasi.

Bird Dir: Andrea Arnold.

Blitz Dir: Steve McQueen.  Distrib: Apple TV+

Conclave Dir: Edward Berger.  Distrib: Focus Features

Maria Dir: Pablo Larrain (it probably also doesn't hurt for TFF chances that the cinematographer is Ed Lachman)

Megalopolis Dir: Frances Ford Coppola

Parthenope Dir: Paolo Sorrentino

The Piano Lesson Dir: Malcolm Washington. Distrib: Netflix

Queer Dir: Luca Guadagnino

Here's the link to the entire piece from Gold Derby.

INTERVIEWS AND PROFILES

Actor Christian Friedel for the two time Oscar winning The Zone of Interest from The Hollywood Reporter.

OSCAR 2024 / Turn the Page

OSCAR 2024

A memorable Oscar night last night.

Telluride 2023 films pick up an astonishing nine Oscar wins.  That was above what I was predicting.  The Oscars went to:

Poor Things (4): Best Actress (Emma Stone), Production Design, Costumes and Makeup/Hair.

The Zone of Interest (2): Best International Film and Sound.

The Holdovers (1): Best Supporting Actress (Da'Vine Joy Randolph).

Anatomy of a Fall (1): Best Original Screenplay.

The Last Repair Shop (1): Best Documentary Short.

My prediction success: 19 of 23 for a rate of 82.6 %.  That's a bit higher than my 78.5% rate since 2014. I missed Best Actress, Best Sound, Best Animated Feature and Best Visual Effects.  

I was pleasantly surprised to get all of the Short subject winners right.  For the first time ever, I believe, in each of the four categories that I picked incorrectly, the film/performer I had as the potential upset was, in fact, the winner.

Over at Gold Derby, though, 19/23 is nothing to get snooty about.  I finished 891st out of  11,034 participants.

19/23, though, was better all but one Gold Derby expert (Nikki Novak from Fandango).  I was tied with Shawn Edwards, Susan King and Pete Hammond.  I was ahead of experts from Variety, Indiewire, Next Best Picture, ABC, USA Today, People and Awards Daily.  I'm thinking of petitioning Gold Derby to become one of their expert contributors.

TURN THE PAGE

And now, as we do every year at this time, we turn our attention in a more concentrated fashion to speculation and prediction about the lineup possibilities for the Telluride Film Festival.  Over the next few weeks, I'll be scouring media for early Oscar 2025 predictions for clues as well as the Cannes lineup, set to be revealed, we believe, on April 11th.  That should give us some notions about what to expect over Labor Day weekend.

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My First Stab at Oscar / Trailer for All of Us Strangers /International Submissions / Daddio Has a Home

MY FIRST STAB AT OSCAR

Here's my way-too-early first attempt to predict Oscar nominations at the end of the run of Telluride-Venice-Toronto.  TFF #50 films are in Bold.

BEST PICTURE

1) Oppenheimer

2) Killers of the Flower Moon

3) Poor Things

4) Barbie

5) Maestro

6) American Fiction

7) The Holdovers

8) Past Lives

9) The Zone of Interest

10) The Color Purple

Alternates: Anatomy of a Fall, Air, Saltburn and Spiderman: Across the Spiderverse.

BEST DIRECTION

1) Christopher Nolan/Oppenheimer

2) Martin Scorsese/Killer of the Flower Moon

3) Yorgos Lanthimos/Poor Things

4) Greta Gerwig/Barbie

5) Jonathan Glazer/The Zone of Interest

Alternates: Alexander Payne/The Holdovers, Bradley Cooper/Maestro and Justine Triet/Anatomy of a Fall.

BEST ACTRESS

1) Lily Gladstone/Killers of the Flower Moon

2) Emma Stone/Poor Things

3) Carrie Mulligan/Maestro

4) Annette Bening/Nyad

5) Sandra Huller/Anatomy of a Fall

Alternates: Margot Robbie/Barbie, Natalie Portman/May December and Fantasia Barino/The Color Purple

BEST ACTOR

1) Cillian Murphy/Oppenheimer

2) Colman Domingo/Rustin

3) Leonardo DiCaprio/Killers of the Flower Moon

4) Bradley Cooper/Maestro

5) Paul Giamatti/The Holdovers

Alternates: Jeffrey Wright/American Fiction, Andrew Scott/All of Us Strangers and Barry Keogahn/Saltburn.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

1) Da'Vine Joy Randoplh/The Holdovers

2) Emily Blunt/Oppenheimer

3) Jodie Foster/Nyad

4) Julianne Moore/May December

5) Danielle Brooks/The Color Purple

Alternates: Penelope Cruz/Ferrari, America Ferrera/Barbie, Viola Davis/Air and Sandra Huller/The Zone of Interest.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

1) Robert Downey, Jr./Oppenheimer

2) Mark Ruffalo/Poor Things

3) Ryan Gosling/Barbie

4) Robert DeNiro/Killers of the Flower Moon

5) Willem Dafoe/Poor Things

Alternates: John Magaro/Past Lives Dominic Sessa/The Holdovers, Sterling K. Brown/American Fiction.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

1) Barbie

2) The Holdovers

3) Past Lives

4) Maestro

5) Anatomy of a Fall

Alternates: Air, May December and Saltburn.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

1) Oppenheimer

2) Killers of the Flower Moon

3) Poor Things

4) American Fiction

5) The Zone of Interest

Alternates: All of Us Strangers, Origin, Dumb Money.

TRAILER FOR ALL OF US STRANGERS

Searchlight released a trailer for Andrew Haigh's All of Us Strangers last Thursday.   The release came just a bit too late for my regular post then so I have included it today.  All of Us Strangers stars Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal.  It is set for a limited release on Dec. 22nd.

INTERNATIONAL SUBMISSIONS

The United Kingdom chooses The Zone of Interest.

The United Kingdom has selected Jonathan Glazer's The Zone of Interest as its choice to compete for the Best International Film Oscar.  The choice was not a surprise.  The film won the Grand Prize at Cannes last May (just behind Palme d'Or winner and fellow TFF #50 selection Anatomy of a Fall).

Zone is a very likely nominee and possible winner in this category.

Variety, among other outlets, reported the choice late last week.

France chooses The Taste of Things.  That was, perhaps, a bit of a surprise as Anatomy of a Fall might have been the more likely choice after having won the Palma d'Or at Cannes last May.  Vanity Fair, among other outlets reported the choice.

DADDIO HAS A HOME

Deadline has reported that Christy Hall's Daddio has been acquired for distribution by Sony Pictures Classics.  No word yet on release plans for the film that stars Sean Penn and Dakota Johnson.

EMAIL:  mpgort@gmail.com

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