Obsessing about the Telluride Film Festival and the film awards season since 2008!
"The best blog out there for predicting what will be going to Telluride."-Matt Neglia, Next Best Picture
"The Nostradamus of Telluride"
-Tim Appelo, Movies for Grownups
"But it's our job." - Anne Thompson, Indiewire
The Hollywood Reporter talked recently to director/writers J.C. Chandor and Bennett Miller. THR spoke with Chandor about last year's critical favorite (and one of my favorite films from TFF #41) "All is Lost". THR also spoke to him about his upcoming "A Most Violent Year" starring Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain. I'm in hopes that "Year" follows "Lost" to Telluride. The post also features a few notes from Bennett Miller vis-a-vis "Foxcatcher". Take a look at the post here:
Official trailer for "Fury" via joblo.com and YouTube
Brad Pitt's World War II tank drama has both a new poster and a new trailer. The film is set for a November release and it's not completely outside the realm of possibility for it to play T-ride. I can actually see the possibility of it playing along with Angelina Jolie's "Unbroken" at TFF #41. You can look at a couple of stories about the latest "Fury" P.R. barrage here:
Sarah Polley made a big splash at Telluride a couple of years back with her documentary "Stories to Tell". Now the actress turned director has her next project lined up. The Hollywood Reporter reveals that Polley has secured the rights to John Green's ("The Fault in Our Stars" guy) "Looking for Alaska". Might we see that in Telluride at a future fest? I wouldn't rule it out. Check the THR post here:
Since Oscar nomination morning last Thursday, three groups have weighed in on their choices for the Best in film.
***PRODUCERS GUILD AWARD
Well, it just keeps getting weirder and weirder. The Producers Guild named "12 Years a Slave" AND "Gravity" Best Films late last night in an unprecedented tie. A topsy-turvy race for the Oscar is now even topsier and turvier. Many pundits thought that The PGA would point us toward the Best Picture winner...and maybe it has...sort of. A lot of the those same pundits thought "American Hustle" was going to continue its winning streak last night and that didn't happen. So, the takeaway here seems to be the most wide open Best Picture race in a long, long time.
For some analysis, take a look at this post filed last nigh from Kristopher Tapley of HitFix/InContention:
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association handed out their Golden Globes last night. There are 14 film categories.
Telluride #40 films won 3 Globes:
"12 Years a Slave" for Best Drama", Alfonso Cuaron for Best Direction for "Gravity" and Alex Ebert for Best Score for "All is Lost".
The biggest winner of the night was David O. Russell's "American Hustle" which won three Globes: Best Comedy/Musical, Best Actress (Comedy/Musical)-Amy Adams and Best Supporting Actress-Jennifer Lawrence.
"Dallas Buyers Club" was named twice in acting categories. Matthew McConnaughey won for Best Actor (Drama) and Jared Leto won for Best Supporting Actor.
Other awards went to:
Cate Blanchett/Blue Jasmine-Best Actress (Drama)
Leonardo DiCaprio/The Wolf of Wall Street-Best Actor (Comedy/Musical)
Spike Jonze/Her-Best Screenplay
"Ordinary Love"/Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom- Best Song
"The Great Beauty" Best Foreign Language Film
"Frozen" Best Animated Film
Although they had multiple nominations neither "Nebraska" (5 noms) nor "Inside Llewyn Davis (3 noms) could break into the winners circle.
Also, oddly, the Foreign Language category only had one nominee that was unrelated to Telluride and it won: "The Great Beauty".
THE FILM AWARDS CLEARINGHOUSE VOL. 5B (abridged)
I had claimed last week that today's post would include updates of where Oscar predictors are in terms of six categories: Makeup/Hair, Costumes, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing and the three categories devoted to short form film making.
And that's not going to happen.
First, the Makeup/Hair list won't change until Thursday morning's nomination announcement as the Academy had already named the nine films that are short listed from which the nominees must be chosen.
Additionally, I had thought/hoped that there would be more predictions for the Short Form categories (Live Action, Documentary and Animation) from the nine Oscar experts that I peruse, but alas, only two of them have weighed in on those categories so far. I am hoping that they will all make some predictions for these categories before Wednesday and I will try to include that collation before nominations are announced on Thursday morning.
That being said, here's the update for Costumes, Sound Mixing and Sound Editing.
I use the publicly posted predictions of these Oscar experts:
Sasha Stone/Awards Daily
Kris Tapley/HitFix-InContention
Anne Thompson/Thompson on Hollywood
Peter Knegt/IndieWire
Alex Carlson/Film Misery
Nathaniel Rogers/Film Experience
Scott Feinberg/The Hollywood Reporter
Clayton Davis/Awards Circuit
Brad Brevet/Rope of Silicon
The films position on the last FAC is in parenthesis. Telluride #40 films areBold.
COSTUMES
1) 12 Years a Slave (1)
2) The Great Gatsby (3)
3) American Hustle (2)
4) Saving Mr. Banks (4) 5) The Invisible Woman (7) 6) Inside Llewyn Davis (5)
7) Lee Daniels' The Butler (6)
8) Oz The Great and Terrible (9)
9) Hunger Games: Catching Fire (10)
10) The Hobbit: Smaug (8)
Comment: No film dropped away but "Invisible Woman" made a significant move into the fifth slot. "Llewyn's" prospects may have dimmed slightly due to the perception that the film is in some Oscar trouble overall. The 1-4 spots seem solid but #5 looks like it'll be close.
SOUND EDITING
1) Gravity (1)
2) Captain Phillips (2)
3) Rush (3) 4) All is Lost (4)
5) The Lone Ranger (5)
6) Iron Man 3 (6)
7) Pacific Rim (7)
8) Man of Steel (8)
9) World War Z (New)
10) Star Trek Into Darkness (9)
Dropping Out: Oblivion.
Comment: A remarkably stable category with the 1-8 spots unmoving. At this point, "Gravity" is the only sure nomination with "Captain Phillips" a near lock.
SOUND MIXING
1) Gravity (1)
2) Rush (2) 3) Inside Llewyn Davis (5) 4) All is Lost (4)
5) Captain Phillips (3) 6) 12 Years a Slave (6)
7) The Lone Ranger (7)
8) The Hobbit: Smaug (9)
9) Frozen (New)
10) Man of Steel (8)
Dropping Out: Pacific Rim
Comment: The one place on the charts where "Llewyn" actually picked up ground. "Gravity", again, is a lock. Spots 2-4 are probable.
And a reminder of the seven film short list for Best Makeup/Hair:
American Hustle
Bad Grandpa
The Lone Ranger
The Great Gatsby
Dallas Buyers Club
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters
Among these categories TFF #40 films (assuming The FAC was 100% correct) would account for 7 nominations and another 2 possibilities.
INDIEWIRE'S 2014 LIST AND TELLURIDE
IndieWire was up this week with their list of independent films that they have the greatest desire to see in 2014 and, of course, I have parsed it for the most likely TFF #41 titles. The post is entitled : "50 Indie Films IndieWire Wants to See in 2014"
IndieWire listed the films alphabetically, so I will too. Among the 50 listed, here are the films they mention that, in my view and at this time, have the greatest likelihood of playing TFF #41:
"Birdman"- Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's comedy starring Michael Keaton. Fox Searchlight is producing and distributing.
"Carol"- Todd Haynes directs Cate Blanchett as an older woman who falls for a younger woman played by Rooney Mara. The Weinstein Company is distributing and Film4 is among the producing partners.
"Every Thing Will Be Fine"- Wim Wenders directs James Franco who is haunted by a death he accidentally causes.
"Far From the Madding Crowd"-Thomas Vinterberg directs Carey Mulligan and Matthias Schoenaerts in the adaptation of the Thomas Hardy classic. Fox Searchlight is listed as a producing company by IMDb. They'll probably distribute in the U.S. as well.
"Foxcatcher"-Bennett Miller directs Steve Carell, Channing Tatum and Mark Ruffalo in this true story of Olympic wrestling hopes that go disasterously wrong. I had this on the 2013 Telluride watch list for much of last year until it was pulled from the potential fall schedule. It's back on this year as the speculation is that it is now a likely awards player this year. Sony Pictures Classics is distributing.
"Maps to the Stars" David Cronenberg directing Robert Pattinson (again). I'm back and forth on its Telluride chances. It sounds intriguing but so did "Cosmopolis" and "A Dangerous Method" neither of which set the world on fire. I expect it will play Cannes and the reaction there might well determine its Telluride potential.
"Mr. Turner"-Mike Leigh's project about English artist J.M.W. Turner. Sony Pictures Classics is distributing and many of the producing companies have Telluride history. This might be the surest TFF #41 bet of all the possible films on this list.
"Suite Francaise"-Saul Dibb directs this story of WWII french occupation and an unlikely love story. Michelle Williams and the red hot Margot Robbie (Wolf of Wall Street) star. The Weinstein's are distributing.
"While We're Young"-one of two Naoh Baumbach projects that might pop up at Telluride (the other didn't make the IndieWire list, but it's just as likely to be at TFF #41 as this). The film stars Ben Stiller, Amanda Seyfried and Naomi Watts.
I hope all the readers/followers and peeps that just stumbled onto this space had a safe and joyous start to their New Year. The CEO and I saw in 2014 by watching the last few episodes of "Breaking Bad". Good stuff. Hale Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul.
2014: THE OSCARS AND TFF #40
As we wait for the next two weeks for Oscar nomination morning (Jan. 16), I'll be posting Oscar prediction updates in each of the posts between now and then. Today...looking at a different metric. Just to see what it would tell me, I've put together the results of "Best Film" announcements from: The National Board of Review, The American Film Institute, The New York Film Critics Circle, The Los Angeles Film Critics, The HFPA's Golden Globes and The Screen Actors Guild.
Working with the choices from these six organizations and setting a standard that possible nominees had to be named by at least 2 of them, here's what they reveal as the "probable" Oscar nominees on Jan. 16.
Best Picture: Four films were named four times and would, therefore seem the most likely nominees: "12 Years a Slave", "Gravity", "American Hustle" and "Her".
Three films have three mentions: "Nebraska", "Inside Llewyn Davis" and "The Wolf of Wall Street"
Three films are mentioned twice: "Captain Phillips", "Fruitvale Station" and "Saving Mr. Banks".
How accurate is this method? I have no real idea as I've never tried it before. I can tell you that in 2012 the same method would have suggested that the Best Picture nominees would be: "Argo", "Django Unchained", "The Life of Pi", "Lincoln", "Zero Dark Thirty", "Les Miserables", "Moonrise Kingdom", Silver Linings Playbook", "Beats of the Southern Wild" and "The Exotic Marigold Hotel" (seriously).
As you remember, the actual nominees included "Amour" and excluded "Moonrise" and "Marigold". So this metric would have predicted 8 of the 9 Best Picture nominees last year.
Monday, I'll post an update for the Big Eight categories using my usual methods.
Finally, Kris Tapley at HitFix/InContention reminds us that the Producers Guild announces their nominees today.
LOOKING TO TFF #41
It's never too early to begin thinking about what might be on the bill of fare for the next Telluride Film Festival. Even though we're still eight months away, we can begin to parse various pieces of information and start speculating.
For example, HitFix posted their "25 Most Anticipated Movies of 2014". Form their list we can glean some films that have the potential to make the grade at TFF #41. Obviously, there are some films that aren't likely, Christopher Nolan's "Interstellar" for example...although, after seeing "Gravity" at T-ride last year, maybe I shouldn't close that door. You can find the HitFix complete list here:
From their list, films that could conceivably be on Telluride's radar include:
#24 "Foxcatcher"...yea, yea...I know. I had this on the TFF #40 list for most of last year and then the decision came down to move the film to 2014. The chances of it being held for an awards friendly release date are probably pretty good (it doesn't have an announced release date to the best of my knowledge) and as I have pointed out before, Bennett Miller had a decent run after "Capote" showed at the SHOW in 2005 and to top it off, its U.S. distributor is Sony Pictures Classics so call it a "maybe".
The only other two on the HitFix list that seem to have some Telluride "feel" are Angelina Jolie's "Unbroken" at #16 and Jon Stewart's (of The Daily Show) "Rosewater" at #8 and neither one would seem to be particularly strong candidate for Telluride inclusion based on the filmmakers, studios and distributors known to be involved at this time.
A COUPLE OF TRAILERS FROM TFF #40
One of the more popular, if not THE most popular film that screened at Telluride last Labor Day was Penn and teller's documentary "Tim's Vermeer". It's in the conversation for a Best Feature Doc Oscar nomination and it's safe to say that Telluride audiences loved it. It topped my "People's Telluride" film ratings with a 4.67 average rank on the five point scale, beating "12 Years a Slave" and "Gravity".
The Playlist linked to the trailer for the film in this story this week:
Meanwhile, one of the most divisive and least well received films of the fest also put up a trailer this week. Jonathan Glazer's "Under the Skin" was dead last (of the 21 films that got enough ratings to warrant inclusion on the list) on The People's Telluride ratings with a 2.0. I actually admired the film. I think it succeeded in creating the world that Glazer wanted us to experience.
Thompson on Hollywood reported that the film will be released April 4 and also linked to its trailer here:
Two of my favorite films from TFF #40 continue to get a lot of ink as the awards season goes on and that includes continuing interviews with the stars of "Nebraska" and "Inside Llewyn Davis".
Bruce Dern's awards offensive included an interview with Walter Scott of Parade that you can find here:
And Carey Mulligan talked to Steve Pond of The Wrap about "Llewyn" (and includes a brief mention of TFF #41 possible film "Far From the Madding Crowd"):
Deadline put up a story this week about their take on the use of silence in films this past year and the impact that could have on the Sound Editing Oscar field. The three films they focused on: "Gravity", "All is Lost" and "12 Years a Slave"...Telluride much?
I’m continuing the report from The Film Awards Clearinghouse
that I started yesterday by looking at the “under the line” categories for the
first time in a comprehensive fashion for this awards season. The exception is in Makeup/Hair where I have
included the Academy Short List of films.
As always, I
use the publicly posted predictions of these Oscar experts:
Sasha
Stone/Awards Daily
Kris
Tapley/HitFix-InContention
Anne
Thompson/Thompson on Hollywood
Peter
Knegt/IndieWire
Alex
Carlson/Film Misery
Nathaniel
Rogers/Film Experience
Scott
Feinberg/The Hollywood Reporter
Clayton
Davis/Awards Circuit
Brad
Brevet/Rope of Silicon
Telluride
#40 films are Bold.
FILM EDITING
1) Gravity
2) 12 Years a Slave
3) Captain Phillips
4) American Hustle
5) Rush
6) The Wolf of Wall Street
7) All is Lost
8) Inside Llewyn Davis
9) Her
10) Nebraska
CINEMATOGRAPHY
1) Gravity
2) Inside Llewyn Davis (TIE)
2) 12 Years a Slave
4) Prisoners
5) Captain Phillips
6) Nebraska
7) Rush
8) Her
9) All is Lost
10) The Wolf of Wall Street
PRODUCTION DESIGN
1) 12 Years a Slave
2) The Great Gatsby
3) Saving Mr. Banks
4) The Hobbit: Smaug
5) Inside Llewyn Davis
6) Gravity
7) Her
8) American Hustle
9) The Invisible Woman
10) Oz: The Great and Powerful
ORIGINAL SCORE
1) Gravity
2) 12 Years a Slave
3) Saving Mr. Banks
4) The Book Thief
5) Philomena
6) Captain Phillips
7) All is Lost
8) Her
9) Monsters University
10) Rush
ORIGINAL SONG
1) Let It Go/Frozen
2) Young and Beautiful/The Great Gatsby
3) So You Know What It’s Like/Short Term 12
4) Amen/All Is Lost
5) The Moon Song/Her
6) Happy/Despicable Me 2
7) I See the Fire/The Hobbit: Smaug
8) You and I Ain’t Nothin’ No More/Lee Daniels The Butler
9) Ordinary Love/Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom
10) In the Middle of the Night/Lee Daniels The Butler
COSTUMES
1) 12 Years a Slave
2) American Hustle
3) The Great Gatsby
4) Saving Mr. Banks
5) Inside Llewyn Davis
6) Lee Daniels The Butler
7) The Invisible Woman
8) The Hobbit: Smaug
9) Oz: The Great and Powerful
10) The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
VISUAL EFFECTS
1) Gravity
2) The Hobbit: Smaug
3) Pacific Rim
4) Iron Man 3
5) Star Trek Into Darkness
6) Elysium
7) World War Z
8) Oblivion
9) The Lone Ranger
10) Man of Steel
SOUND MIXING
1) Gravity
2) Rush
3) Captain Phillips
4) All is Lost
5) Inside Llewyn Davis
6) 12 Years a Slave
7) The Lone Ranger
8) Man of Steel
9) The Hobbit: Smaug
10) Pacific Rim
SOUND EDITING
1) Gravity
2) Captain Phillips
3) Rush
4) All is Lost
5) The Lone Ranger
6) Iron Man 3
7) Pacific Rim
8) Man of Steel
9) Star Trek Into Darkness
10) Oblivion
MAKEUP/HAIR (ACADEMY SHORT LIST in alphabetical order)
American Hustle
Dallas Buyers Club
The Great Gatsby
Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters
The Hunger Games: Catching Fire
Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa
The Lone Ranger
FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
1) The Hunt (TFF #39)
2) Wadjda (TFF #39)
3) The Past
4) Gloria
5) The Great Beauty
6) The Broken Circle Breakdown
7) The Rocket
8) Bethlehem
9) Gabrielle
10) Ilo Ilo
ANIMATED FEATURE
1) Frozen
2) The Wind Rises
3) The Croods
4) Monsters University
5) Despicable Me 2
6) Ernest and Celestine
7) A Letter to Momo
8) Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2
9) Epic
10) O Apostolo
DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
1) Blackfish
2) Stories We Tell (TFF #39)
3) 20 Feet from Stardom
4) The Act of Killing (TFF #39)
5) The Square
6) Tim’s Vermeer
7) Cutie and the Boxer
8) The Armstrong Lie
9) After Tiller
10) God Loves Uganda
NOTES ON THIS EDITION OF THE FILM AWARDS CLEARINGHOUSE
*Telluride #40 films and what The FAC says:
“12 Years a Slave” gets 11 nominations: Best Picture,
Director, Actor, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, Adapted Screenplay, Film
Editing, Cinematography, Production Design, Score and Costumes. It also has a possibility for a Sound Mixing
nomination.
“Gravity” gets 9 nominations: Best Picture, Director, Actress,
Film Editing, Cinematography, Score, Visual Effects, Sound Mixing, Sound
Editing. It also is in the mix for
Production Design and Original Screenplay nominations.
“Inside Llewyn Davis” gets 6 nominations: Best Picture,
Original Screenplay, Cinematography, Production Design, Costumes and Sound
Mixing. It also has a chance to be
nominated for Director, Actor and Film Editing.
“Nebraska” gets 4 nominations: Best Picture, Actor,
Supporting Actress, Original Screenplay.
It could also be nominated for Director, Supporting Actor, Film Editing
and Cinematography.
“All is Lost” gets 4 nominations: Actor, Sound Editing,
Sound Mixing and Song. It’s also in the
mix for nominations for Cinematography, Film Editing and Score.
Single nominations are predicted for: Prisoners
(Cinematography…Prisoners also has a possibility for a nomination for
Supporting Actor), The Past (Foreign Language), Gloria (Foreign Language) and
The Wind Rises (Animated Feature).
I fully expect that we’ll see another nomination or two from
the “Shorts” categories. For example; “Get
a Horse”.
Other TFF #40 film nomination possibilities:
“Blue is the Warmest Color” has 2 possible nominations for
Actress and Adapted Screenplay.
“Labor Day” has 2 possible nominations for Actress and
Adapted Screenplay.
“The Invisible Woman” has 2 possible nominations for
Production Design and Costumes.
“Bethlehem” has a possible nomination for Best Foreign
Language Film.
“Tim’s Vermeer” is a possible nominee for Feature Documentary.
TFF #39 is represented by nominations for Foreign Language
Film for “The Hunt” and “Wadjda” as well as Documentary nominations for “Stories
We Tell” and “The Act of Killing”.
That ultimately puts the TFF #40 totals at 38 nominations in the 21 "feature" categories with another 22 possible nominations. I'm going to continue to predict a total of 40 nominations for TFF #40. It's very clear that Telluride is going to have the most Oscar nominations for its collective group of films this year than any year since I started doing this blog and that almost certainly means the most nominations for any year in its 40 years of existence.
Finally, if we believe that the film that is ranked #1 in
each category is likely to win the Oscar, The FAC says the following happens on
March 2:
“12 Years” wins 6 Oscars: Best Picture, Actor, Supporting
Actress, Adapted Screenplay, Production Design and Costumes.
“Gravity wins 7 Oscars: Director, Film Editing,
Cinematography, Original Score, Visual Effects, Sound Mixing and Sound Editing.
“Frozen” wins 2 Oscars: Best Animated Feature and Original
Song
Single Oscars would go to:
“Blue Jasmine”: Best Actress
“Dallas Buyers Club”: Best Supporting Actor
“Inside Llewyn Davis”: Original Screenplay
“The Hunt” wins Best Foreign Language Film
“Blackfish” wins Best Documentary Feature
Telluride #40 would have screened films with 14 wins plus
another win for TFF #39 (The Hunt).
After the announcements from The Screen Actors Guild and The Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the lull in the "12 Years a Slave" momentum has been stymied, I think.
It feels like that there was some loss of momentum after some of the critic group announcements, but the last two days have put some wind back in its sails.
Golden Globe breakdown:
Telluride #40 Films:
12 Years a Slave (7 nominations): Best Picture (Drama), Director, Actor (Drama), Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, Screenplay, Score.
Nebraska: (5 nominations): Best Picture (Comedy/Musical), Director, Actor (Comedy), Supporting Actress, Screenplay.
Gravity (4 nominations): Best Picture (Drama), Director, Actress (Drama), Score.
Inside Llewyn Davis (3 nominations): Best Picture (Comedy/Musical), Actor (Comedy/Musical), Song.
All is Lost (2 nominations): Best Actor (Drama), Score.
Labor Day (1 nomination): Best Actress (Drama).
3 Foreign Language nominations: Blue is the Warmest Color, The Wind Rises, The Past.
Also 2 nominations for TFF #39 films: Greta Gerwig's Best Actress (Comedy/Musical) nomination for Frances Ha and the Best Foreign Language nomination for The Hunt.
27 total TFF nominations today from The Golden Globes.
Add today's announcement to yesterday's Screen Actors Guild nominations:
Best Supporting Actor:
Barkhad Abdi/Capt. Phillips
Daniel Bruhl/Rush
Michael Fassbender/12 Years a Slave
James Gandolfini/Enough Said
Jared Leto/Dallas Buyers Club
Best Supporting Actress:
Jennifer Lawrence/American Hustle
Lupita Nyong’o/12 Years a Slave
Julia Roberts/August: Osage County
June Squibb/Nebraska
Oprah Winfrey/The Butler
Best Actor:
Bruce Dern/Nebraska
Chiwetel Ejiofor/12 Years a Slave
Tom Hanks/Capt. Phillips
Matthew McConnaughey/Dallas Buyers Club
Forest Whitaker/The Butler
Best Actress:
Cate Blanchett/Blue Jasmine
Sandra Bullock/Gravity
Judi Dench/Philomena
Meryl Streep/August: Osage County
Emma Thompson/Saving Mr. Banks
Best Ensemble:
12 Years a Slave
American Hustle
August: Osage County
Dallas Buyers Club
The Butler
12 Years-4 nominations
Nebraska-2 nominations
Gravity-1 nomination
Surprises???
Kate Winslet's "Labor Day" Best actress nomination.
No Oprah for Supporting Actress???( actually no "Butler" anywhere on the GG list this morning). Sally Hawkins seems to have benefited.
No Woody Allen love for Picture, Director or Screenplay.
Glad to see: "Inside Llewyn Davis" love for the film and Oscar Isaac. Also happy to see Redford's name especially after not seeing it yesterday from the SAG nominations.
And a nice boost for "Nebraska" which, I think, over-performed this morning with its 5 nominations. Particularly pleased that Alexander Payne got a directing nod.
The choices of the New York Film Critics Circle that were announced on Tuesday... (TFF #40 Films in Bold)
Best Picture: American Hustle Best Director: Steve McQueen/12 Years a Slave
Best Actress: Cate Blanchett/Blue Jasmine Best Actor: Robert Redford/All is Lost
Best Supporting Actress: Jennifer Lawrence/American Hustle
Best Screenplay: American Hustle Best Cinematography: Inside Llewyn Davis Best Foreign Film: Blue is the Warmest Color
Best First Film: Fruitvale Station Best Animated Feature: The Wind Rises
Best Non-Fiction: Stories We Tell***
***TFF #39 film
And the announced winners from the National Board of Review from yesterday:
What's it all mean?
I have said since before TFF #40 started that I expected "12 Years a Slave" to win Best Picture. I'm also on record as having said (since its first trailer dropped) that David O. Russell's "American Hustle" might have the best chance of beating "12 Years". In light of the last week or so, I still feel the same way...though a lot of people are on the "Gravity" and/or "Wolf of Wall Street" wagon as well.
My take on the NYFCC wins is that they do give "American Hustle" an immediate boost but that the reported closeness of the vote for Best Picture and the Steve McQueen win for Best Director means that "12 Years a Slave" is still in very good shape. I think that "Gravity" is the film that may have been nicked up by its exclusion altogether from the NYFCC announcement.
Redford's NYFCC win gives him a shot of adrenaline in the Best Actor race, which many think is the most competitive of all the major categories.
Now, on to the parsing of yesterday's NBR announcement...Here's that list again:
NBR NAMES SPIKE JONZE'S "HER" BEST PICTURE OF 2013
Telluride Film in Bold... Best Film:HER Best Director: Spike Jonze, HER Best Actor:Bruce Dern, NEBRASKA Best Actress: Emma Thompson, SAVING MR. BANKS Best Supporting Actor:Will Forte, NEBRASKA Best Supporting Actress: Octavia Spencer, FRUITVALE STATION Best Original Screenplay:Joel and Ethan Coen, Inside LLEWYN Davis Best Adapted Screenplay: Terence Winter, THE Wolf of Wall Street Best Animated Feature:The Wind Rises Breakthrough Performance: Michael B. Jordan, Fruitvale Station Breakthrough Performance:Adele Exarchopoulos, BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR Best Directorial Debut: Ryan Coogler, Fruitvale Station Best Foreign Language Film:THE PAST Best Documentary:Stories We Tell William K.Everson Film History Award: George Stevens, Jr. Best Ensemble:PRISONERS Spotlight Award: Career Collaboration of Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio NBR Freedom of Expression Award:Wadjda Creative Innovation in Filmmaking Award: Gravity
Top Films
(in alphabetical order) 12 YEARS A SLAVE Fruitvale Station Gravity Inside Llewyn Davis Lone Survivor Nebraska Prisoners Saving Mr. Banks The Secret Life of Walter MITTY THE Wolf of Wall Street Top 5 Foreign Language Films
(In Alphabetical Order) Beyond the Hills Gloria The Grandmaster A Hijacking The Hunt
Top 5 Documentaries
(In Alphabetical Order) 20 Feet from Stardom The Act of Killing After Tiller Casting By The Square
Top 10 Independent Films
(In Alphabetical Order) Ain’t Them Bodies Saints Dallas Buyers Club In a World… Mother of George Much Ado About Nothing Mud The Place Beyond the Pines Short Term 12 Sightseers The Spectacular Now
Huge boost for "Her" and now it probably moves up on a number of Oscarologists charts as a potential Bet Picture nominee. "Nebraska" gets a boost too. Certainly for Dern's nominations chances but the inclusion of Forte as Supporting winner may help him become a part of the conversation and likely helps the film overall in the Best Picture race.
Also, a likely boost for "Prisoners", which has been largely forgotten in the last month, as well as "Fruitvale Station". I don't think that these results mean that "Her" moves up to the top of the board...I still think "12 Years" probably is the frontrunner. It is worth noting that "American Hustle", which the NYFCC thought was triple worthy of notice on Tuesday, wasn't mentioned at all by the NBR yesterday.
LLEWYN DAVIS ABOUT TO BE INSIDE...THEATERS
The Coen Brothers fantastic "Inside Llewyn Davis" is set to open in limited fashion this weekend and, as you might expect, there is an intensification of P.R. accompanying that. I've linked a few things that seemed interesting...btw...buy the album, it's terrific!
From The Playlist, Charlie Schmidlin talks to actress Carey Mulligan about "Llewyn" and other matters:
The Academy's short list for the documentary feature Oscar was released this week and includes 2 TFF #39 films and a single possibility from TFF #40. The Los Angeles Times reports that TFF #39 docs Sarah Polley's "Stories We Tell" and Joshua Oppenheimer's "The Act of Killing" made the cut as did Teller's "Tim's Vermeer" which was the highest rated film on The People's Telluride poll I conducted after the conclusion of this year's film.
Here's the link to the complete L.A. Times article which includes the complete list of short-listed documentaries:
Best Picture: American Hustle Best Director: Steve McQueen/12 Years a Slave
Best Actress: Cate Blanchett/Blue Jasmine Best Actor: Robert Redford/All is Lost
Best Supporting Actress: Jennifer Lawrence/American Hustle
Best Screenplay: American Hustle Best Cinematography: Inside Llewyn Davis Best Foreign Film: Blue is the Warmest Color
Best First Film: Fruitvale Station Best Animated Feature: The Wind Rises
Best Non-Fiction: Stories We Tell***
Good Monday All...back in the Panhandle of Oklahoma after a fantastic weekend at the Rio Grande Art and Craft Festival in Albuquerque, NM. It was a great time!
AND SASHA SAYS
Today, I am continuing to break down the Oscar predictions from a number of Oscar experts and their predictions as they relate to films from Telluride #40 (and a little bit of TFF #39). Today, as promised, I'm taking a look at the current predictions from Awards Daily's Sasha Stone. If her prognostications are 100% correct this is how Oscar nominations would shake out for films from TFF #40:
"12 Years a Slave" (14 nominations): Best Picture, Director, Actor, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, Adapted Screenplay, Film Editing, Cinematography, Production Design, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Costumes, Score and Makeup. (Personally, I think "12 Years" is good for 11 noms...I'm not seeing the Sound nominations or Makeup).
"Gravity" (10 nominations): Best Picture, Director, Actress, Film Editing, Cinematography, Production Design, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Score and Visual Effects.
"Nebraska" (6 nominations): Best Picture, Director, Supporting Actress, Original Screenplay, Cinematography, Film Editing. (I actually think Bruce Dern is going to get a Best Actor nomination).
"Inside Llewyn Davis" (6 nominations): Best Picture, Director, Supporting Actress, Original Screenplay, Production Design, Costumes
"All is Lost" (4 nominations): Best Picture, Best Actor, Original Screenplay, Film Editing (I suspect "All is Lost" also has a pretty good shot in the Sound Mixing and Editing categories).
Stone also has single nominations for:
"Labor Day": Adapted Screenplay
"Prisoners": Cinematography
"Gloria": Foreign Language Film
"The Past": Foreign Language Film
"Tim's Vermeer": Documentary
"The Unknown Known": Documentary
"The Wind Rises": Animated Feature
and TFF #39 title "The Act of Killing" for Documentary.
Overall, at this point, Awards Daily's Sasha Stone has TFF #40 films with a mind blowing 47 nominations and an additional nomination for TFF #39.
Personally, I think a TFF #40 total of 40 nominations is more likely, which is still an incredible total number for the films of Telluride #40.
SEE A LOT OF LLEWYN
The Playlist has linked three clips from the Coen Brothers' "Inside Llewyn Davis" over the past few days. For those of you that didn't see the film in Telluride or elsewhere, here's a chance to look at a good portion of the film. The three clips come in two separate posts and include a musical performance featuring Llewyn himself (Oscar Isaac) singing "Green Green Rocky Road":
The Wrap's Steve Pond sat down with Oscar hopeful and the lead from Alexander Payne's "Nebraska", Bruce Dern for a talk about the film and Dern's long career:
Perhaps the stiffest challenge to Bruce Dern getting an Oscar nomination is the other 77 year old that has roared back to acting prominence this year. Robert Redford will almost certainly be nominated for J.C. Chandor's "All is Lost" and a number of Oscarologists question whether the five man field will be big enough for 2 septuagenarians (I'm betting that it WILL be).
Redford was the subject of a recent session with Pete Hammond of Deadline.com/Awards Line. That's here:
Anne Thompson of Thompson on Hollywood spent some time with composer Howard Britell who worked (and succeeded I think) to give Steve McQueen's "12 Years a Slave" its musical verisimilitude. You can review that article here:
Two big precursor announcement coming this week as The New York Film Critics announce their choices for the Best in film from 2013 tomorrow and The National Board of review will announce their choices on Wednesday. I'll post those here as soon as they're announced and parse their meaning...if they have some...in Thursday's blog post.
