MTFB Oscar Update: Lead Acting and More / Lots of News Today /ASC Names Its Nominees / Online Film Critics Society Loves the Dog / Interviews and Profiles

 MTFB OSCAR UPDATE: LEAD ACTING AND MORE

Here's an update for my predictions of  the lead acting categories, cinematography, editing and production design for the 94th Academy Awards.  As always, TFF #48 films/performers are in Bold. The previous position for these predictions is indicated to the right in parentheses.  These categories were last predicted on Jan. 13th.

BEST ACTRESS

1) Nicole Kidman/Being the Ricardos (2)

2) Olivia Colman/The Lost Daughter (3)

3) Lady Gaga/House of Gucci (5)

4) Jessica Chastain/The Eyes of Tammy Faye (4)

5) Kristen Stewart/Spencer (1)

Alternates: Jennifer Hudson/Respect and Alana Haim/Licorice Pizza

BEST ACTOR

1) Will Smith/King Richard (1)

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

3) Andrew Garfield/tick, tick...BOOM (3)

4) Denzel Washington/The Tragedy of Macbeth (4)

5) Peter Dinklage/Cyrano (5)

Alternates: Javier Bardem/Being the Ricardos and Leonardo DiCaprio/Don't Look Up

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

1) Dune (1)

2) The Power of the Dog (2)

3) The Tragedy of Macbeth (4)

4) Belfast (5)

5) West Side Story (3)

Alternates: Nightmare Alley and Spencer

BEST EDITING

1) Dune (1)

2) Belfast (2)

3) West Side Story (3)

4) The Power of the Dog (4)

5) Don't Look Up (Alt.)

Alternates: Licorice Pizza and No Time to Die

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN

1) Dune (1)

2) Nightmare Alley (2)

3) West Side Story (3)

4) Belfast (4)

5) The French Dispatch (5)

Alternates: The Tragedy of Macbeth and Cruella

  

LOTS OF GUILD NEWS TODAY

Really good day for Belfast, The Power of the dog and King Richard

TFF #48 Guild nominees:

Producers Guild: Belfast, King Richard, The Power of the Dog

Directors Guild: Kenneth Branagh/Belfast, Jane Campion/The Power of the Dog

Writers Guild: King Richard for Original Screenplay, The French Dispatch for Original Screenplay

Editors Guild: Belfast, King Richard, The Power of the Dog

Actors Guild (from two weeks ago): Cast nominees: Belfast and King Richard.  The Power the Dog had three individual acting nominees.

ASC NAMES ITS NOMINEES

The American Society of Cinematographers announced its nominees for the best work of 2021 on Tuesday.  In the feature film category two TFF #48 films made the grade.  Belfast and The Power of the Dog were among the five films named.  Others included Nightmare Alley, Dune and The Tragedy of Macbeth.  A number of Oscarologists reported that the ASC and Oscar normally match 4 for 5 each year.  This year's odd film out could have been West Side Story.

The cinematographers' guild will be matched today with guild nominations from the writers, the directors and the producers.  What that will tell us about possible Oscar nominations could be very interesting and enlightening.

Deadline has a listing of  all categories that the ASC named Tuesday linked here.

ONLINE FILM CRITICS SOCIETY LOVES THE DOG

Jane Campion's The Power of the Dog won several major categories from OFCS which announced their winners on Monday.  The film won:

Best Picture, Direction (Campion), Actor (Cumberbatch), Supporting Actress (Dunst), Supporting Actor (Smit-McPhee), Adapted Screenplay, Editing and Cinematography and Original Score.

Other TFF #48 films that received recognition included The Lost Daughter which saw Olivia Colman named Best Lead Actress and Maggie Gyllenhaal was named for Best Debut Feature , The French Dispatch won Best Production Design,  Petite Maman was named one of ten Best Non-U.S. Features.

The complete list of winners and nominees are here from Next Best Picture.

INTERVIEWS AND PROFILES: 

The Power of the Dog from Variety.

Belfast from Deadline.

Jamie Dornan of Belfast from Deadline.

Caitriona Balfe of Belfast from YouTube.

Maggie Gyllenhaal on The Lost Daughter from Deadline.

Asghar Farhadi on A Hero from Indiewire.

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Oscar Update: Six Categories / Guild Love for Nomadland, The Truffle Hunters and More / MTFB''s Final Oscar Nom Predix on Sunday!

OSCAR UPDATE: SIX CATEGORIES

NOTE: FINAL OSCAR NOMINATION PREDICTIONS FROM MTFB WILL DROP ON SUNDAY WITH OSCAR NOMINATIONS ANNOUNCED MONDAY MORNING.

I am updating Oscar nomination predictions with days left until the nominees are announced.  As usual, you'll see the last position of the film/performer in parentheses and when the category was last predicted.  TFF films are in Bold.

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE (last predicited Feb. 22nd)

1) Crip Camp; a Disability Revolution (1)

2) Time (2)

3) Collective (3)

4) Dick Johnson Is Dead (4)

5) All In: The Fight for Democracy (8)

6) The Truffle Hunters (7)

7) Boys State (5)

8) Welcome to Chechnya (6)

9) My Octopus Teacher (-)

10) Gunda (-)

INTERNATIONAL FEATURE (last predicted Feb. 22nd)

1) Another Round (1)

2) Quo Vadis, Aida (4)

3) Two of Us (3)

4) Collective (2)

5) La Llorona (5)

6) I'm No Longer Here (7)

7) A Sun (6)

8) Night of the Kings (9)

9) Dear Comrades (8)

10) Sun Children (10)

CINEMATOGRAPHY (last predicted Feb. 25th)

1) Nomadland (1)

2) Mank (2)

3) News of the World (3)

4) Tenet (4)

5) Minari (7)

6) Judas and the Black Messiah (6)

7) The Trial of the Chicago 7 (5)

8) First Cow (9)

9) One Night in Miami (8)

10) I'm Thinking of Ending Things (-)

EDITING (last predicted Feb. 25th)

1) The Trial of the Chicago 7 (1)

2) Nomadland (3)

3) Mank (4)

4) News of the World (2)

5) Tenet (5)

6) Sound of Metal (6)

7) The Father (7)

8) Promising Young Woman (-)

9) One Night in Miami (8)

10) Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (10)

ORIGINAL SCORE (last predicted on Feb. 25th)

1)  Soul (1)

2) News of the World (2)

3) Mank (3)

4) The Midnight Sky (4)

5) Tenet (5)

6) Minari (6)

7) The Trial of the Chicago 7 (7)

8) Da 5 Bloods (8)

9) The Little Things (9)

10) Blizzard of Souls (10)

ORIGINAL SONG

1) Io Si/The Life Ahead (2)

2) Speak Now/One Night in Miami (1)

3) Hear My Voice/The Trial of the Chicago 7 (4)

4) Husavik/Eurovision Song Contest (5)

5) Fight for You/Judas and the Black Messiah (3)

6) Turntables/All In: The Fight for Democracy (6)

7) Wuhan Flu/Borat Subsequent Moviefilm (8)

8) Never Break/Giving Voice (7)

9) Rain Song/Minari (9)

10) See What You've Done/Belly of the Beast (10)

GUILD LOVE FOR NOMADLAND AND THE TRUFFLE HUNERS (AND MORE)

Both the Directors Guild and the Producers Guild announced their nominees earlier this week and TFF #47 selection Nomadland and Chloe Zhao was named on both lists.  

Additionally, other TFF #47 films were also haled by the DGA.  Florian Zeller was nominated for Best Frist Feature for The Father and Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw were nominated for Best Direction of a Feature Documentary.

The Truffle Hunters also was PGA nominated as well.  

The American Society of Cinematographers also named its nominees this week which included Nomadland in its Feature film lineup, The Truffle Hunters and another TFF #47 selection, Gianfranco Rosi's Notturno for Documentary Cinematography.

Coverage is here:

DGA from Variety 

PGA Features from Entertainment Weekly

PGA Docs from Variety

ASC from Awards Daily

REMINDER AGAIN....MTFB'S FINAL OSCAR NOMINATION PREDICTIONS WILL BE HERE ON SUNDAY

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Saturday Night was Precursor Night / The Last Big Domino... / More Anticipation

SATURDAY NIGHT WAS PRECURSOR NIGHT

I wrote on Thursday that we'd have a busy Saturday night with guild awards being announced from Directors, Cinematographers, the Cinema Audio Society, the USC Scripter Award for adapted screenplay and the Annie Awards.  TFF #46 was represented in the glut of news with Ford v Ferrari's win from the film's design from the Cinema Audio Society.

Other winners:

DGA: Sam Mendes/1917
USC Scripter: Greta Gerwig/Little Women
ASC (cinematography): Roger Deakins/1917
Annie: Klaus

The DGA win for Mendes has shifted the sentiment to 1917 to be the favorite for Mendes to win the Best Director Oscar and the film to win Best Picture.  A number of number pros pointed out, however, that three of the last four years the DGA winner won the directing Oscar but the film did not win Best Picture:

2015: Alejandro Inarritu wins DGA and Oscar for The Revenant. Best Pic: Spotlight
2016: Damian Chazelle wins DGA and Oscar for La La Land.  Best Pic: Moonlight
2017: Guillermo Del Toro wins DGA and Oscar and Shape of Water wins Best Pic.
2018: Alfonso Cuaron wins DGA and Oscar for Roma.  Green Book wins Best Pic.

So the recent past suggests that 1917 winning Best Picture isn't a lock.  Lots of folks are saying that perhaps Parasite pulls off the surprise a la Moonlight.  My guess is that, should anything besides 1917 wins that it will actually be Tarantino's Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood.

The other results from Saturday's awards suggest good Oscar news for Gerwig and Deakins.  The Annie award for Netflix's Klaus may be less predictive.  I'm still expecting Toy Story 4 to take the Oscar statue in two weeks.


THE LAST BIG DOMINO...

The last big precursor is the Writers Guild Awards that will announced Saturday.  Nominees are:

WGA Adapted Screenplay nominees:

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
The Irishman
Jojo Rabbit
Joker
Little Women

The Oscar nominees differ with the inclusion of The Two Popes and exclusion of A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.

WGA Original Screenplay nominees:

1917
Booksmart
Knives Out
Marriage Story
Parasite

The Oscar nominees differ with Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood in and Booksmart out.


MORE ANTICIPATION

I'm continuing to look at the various lists of "most anticipated" films for this and that source as I'm at the very start of trying to get a bead on which films might be in line for consideration of inclusion at TFF #47.

Today I'm looking at the list of 68 films from Vulture.  Those films are listed by announced release date so it's easy to look at their list beginning with the films listed for September or later as well as films that are still listed with release dates to be announced.

That said, here's what Vulture is looking forward to that feels like a TFF #47 possible:

I'm Thinking of Ending Things (Charlie Kaufman)
Mank (David Fincher)
Dune (Denis Villenueve)
News of the World (Paul Greengrass)
Bergman Island (Mia Hansen Love)
The French Dispatch (Wes Anderson)
Nomadland (Chloe Zhao)
On the Rocks (Sophia Coppola)

The complete Vulture article is linked here.


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BAFTA Loves Telluride / TFF #45 Films Duke It Out for ASC Award / Oscar Predictions for Seven More Categories / Albert Finney 1936-2019

Welcome to a new week on this Monday...


BAFTA LOVES TELLURIDE

The  British Academy of Film and Television Arts named their film award winners on Sunday night and films that played TFF #45 last Labor Day weekend dominated the ceremony.  Alfonso Cuaron's Roma won for Best Film, Film not in the English Language, Direction and Cinematography.  Yorgos Lanthimos' The Favourite won the most trophies of the evening with seven including: Best Actress-Olivia Colman, Supporting Actress-Rachel Wiesz, Outstanding British Film, Original Screenplay, Production Design, Costume Design and Makeup/Hair.

Additionally, TFF #45 selection Free Solo won Best Documentary.

TFF #45 films totaled 13 BAFTA wins altogether.

Complete lists of winners in all BAFTA categories plus some insight into what effect these results have on Oscar...whose voting opens tomorrow, is explored from these linked sources:

Deadline

Hollywood News

Indiewire



TFF #45 FILMS DUKE IT OUT FOR ASC AWARD

The American Society of Cinematographers sent a ripple of surprise and uncertainty into the Oscar race for Best Cinematography on Saturday night as they gave their top film prize to Lukasz Zal for shooting Pawel Pawlikowski's Cold War.  Zal bested Alfonso Cuaron's Roma, thought by many to be the favorite for Oscar glory as well as other TFF #45 films First Man and The Favourite.  The other ASC nominees was A Star Is Born.

Indiewire has the story on the ASC presentation which is linked here.


OSCAR PREDICTIONS FOR SEVEN MORE CATEGORIES

Here are my Oscar predictions for seven more categories (which completes the wave of predictions for all 24 categories over the past week). 

VISUAL EFFECTS

1) Avengers: Infinity War
2) First Man
3) Ready Player One
4) Solo: A Star Wars Story
5 Christopher Robin

SOUND EDITING

1) First Man
2) A Quiet Place
3) Black Panther
4) Roma
5) Bohemian Rhapsody

SOUND MIXING

1) A Star Is Born
2) First Man
3) Roma
4) Black Panther
5) Bohemian Rhapsody

MAKEUP/HAIR

1) Vice
2) Mary queen of Scots
3) Border

ANIMATED SHORT

1) Bao
2) Animal Behavior
3) Weekends
4) Late Afternoon
5) One Small Step

DOCUMENTARY SHORT

1) Period. End of Sentence.
2) End Game
3) A Night at the Garden
4) Lifeboat
5) Black Sheep

LIVE ACTION SHORT

1) Marguerite
2) Detainment
3) Fauve
4) Skin
5) Mother




ALBERT FINNEY 1936-2019

Photo via IMDb

 A note here on the passing of this past weekend of five time Oscar nominee Albert Finney.  Finney has a spot in my heart since his role as mobster kingpin Leo in what is probably my favorite Coen Brothers film Miller's Crossing.

Four of Finney's Oscar nominations were for Male Lead: Tom Jones, Murder on the Orient Express, The Dresser and Under the Volcano.  He was also nominated for Supporting Actor in Erin Brockovich.  He turned down a knighthood in 2000.

Finney was 82.

Here's Indiewire's story on Finney's death.



That's the MTFB for this Monday.  More on Thursday.

Guilds and More Guilds / BAFTA Nominates / Golden Globe Analysis

Welcome back to MTFB...

GUILDS AND MORE GUILDS

Since Monday's post a number of the guilds that make up workers in the film world have named their nominees for excellence in their areas of expertise.  Here's a note about each of those beginning with the Director's Guild of America (DGA).

The DGA nominees included these TFF #45 films:

On Monday the DGA named their documentary nominees which included Elizabeth Chai Vasarheyli and Jimmy Chin for Free Solo.

The Writers Guild nominees included from Telluride:

Roma for Original Screenplay and Can You Forgive Me? for Adapted Screenplay.

Others nominated for Original Screenplay included: Eighth Grade, Green Book, A Quiet Place and Vice.  Others nominated for Adapted Screenplay are: BlacKkKlansman, Black Panther, If Beale Street Could Talk and A Star Is Born.

Here is coverage from The Playlist.

The American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) named four TFF #45 films for their award for 2018:  Roma, Cold War, The Favourite and First Man.  The other nominee was A Star Is Born.

Additionally, Girl and TFF #44 film The Rider were named for the ASC Spotlight Award

Here is coverage from The Hollywood Reporter.

The Art Directors Guild (ADG) named a number of TFF films for consideration for their awards in  the Period Film Category TFF nominated films were: First Man, The Favourite and Roma. 

Complete nominees in all categories are here from Variety

Cinema Audio Society nominees included First Man and Free Solo.  The full list of CAS nominees is linked here from Awards Daily.


BAFTA NOMINATES

Early Wednesday morning the British Academy of Film and Television Arts announced their film nominees for 2018.  TFF #45 hit The Favourite led the field with 12 nominations.  Roma and First Man each had seven.  Other TFF #45 films also made the grade for nominations.  Here's the BAFTA/TFF #45 list:

The Favourite (12): Best Film, Best British Film, Direction, Original Screenplay, Actress, Supporting Actress (2), Cinematography, Film Editing, Production Design, Costume, Makeup/Hair.

Roma (7): Best Film, Best Film Not in the English Language, Direction, Original Screenplay, Cinematography, Film Editing, Production Design.

First Man (7): Adapted Screenplay, Supporting Actress, Cinematography, Film Editing, Production Design, Sound, Visual Effects.

Cold War (4): Best Film Not in the English Language, Direction, Original Screenplay, Cinematography.

Can You Ever Forgive Me? (3): Adapted Screenplay, Actress, Supporting Actress.

And four TFF #45 films that earned a single BAFTA nomination:

Dogman: Best Film Not in the English Language
Shoplifters: Best Film Not in the English Language
Free Solos: Best Documentary
The Field: Best British Short Film

TFF #45 films earned 37 BAFTA nominations in total.

Here's the complete coverage of the BAFTA announcement from Indiewire.

Last year TFF #44 films had 31 BAFTA nominations including 12 for eventual Best Picture Oscar winner The Shape of Water.

GOLDEN GLOBE ANALYSIS

Here are a sampling of takes from the results if last Sunday's Golden Globe results:

Anne Thompson/Indiewire

Sasha Stone/Awards Daily

Kristopher Tapley and Michael Schnieder/Variety

Joyce Eng/Gold Derby

Alissa Wilkinson/Vox

Brendan Morrow/The Week


That's your MTFB for this Thursday.  I'll have more for you on Monday.


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