Cannes Critics for Week One / More on Rasoulof's Seed / Interviews and Profiles for Cannes Films

CANNES CRITICS FOR WEEK ONE

As of this morning here are what some of the critical polls from Cannes are showing from among the Palme d'Or contenders that have already screened:

Screen Daily has their top five thus far (on a four point scale):

1) Caught by the Tides 2.6

2) Emilia Perez 2.5

3) Kinds of Kindness 2.4

4) Bird 2.3

4) Three Kilometers from the End of the World

Link to the Screen Daily chart.

Ioncinema's panel's top five (on a five point scale):

1) Emilia Perez 3.7

2) Caught by the Tides 3.5

3) Oh, Canada 3.1

4) Bird 2.9

5) The Girl with the Needle 2.8

Link to Ioncinema's chart.

The International Cinephile Society's top five (on a four point scale):

1) Caught by the Tides 3.28

2) Bird 3.00

3) Oh, Canada 2.70

4) The Substance 2.69

5) The Girl with the Needle 2.65

5) Three Kilometers from the End of the World 2.65

The link to the ICS chart.

Normally I would have Reini Urban's massive Cannes list accessible but the link to that has been broken for a couple of days now.  Perhaps by Thursday's post it will be available.

MORE ON RASOULOF'S SEED

A new note this week on the continuing journey for Mohammad Rasoulof''s The Seed of the Sacred Fig.  NEON has picked up the film on Friday ahead of its premiere Cannes scheduled as the next to last film to screen in the Palme d'Or competition.  The acquisition probably bolsters the chances that the Rasoulof film makes it into the TFF #51 lineup as their presence at Telluride in recent years has been substantial.

Rasoulof is currently in hiding somewhere in Europe after fleeing Iran to escape from an eight year prison sentence.

The acquisition news is covered here by Indiewire.

PROFILES AND INTERVIEWS

Of Cannes films that might be a TFF contender:

Jeremy Strong for The Apprentice from The Playlist.

Andrea Arnold for Bird from The Hollywood Reporter.

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Daddio Full Trailer / Looks at Cannes/TFF Possibilities / Participant and Netflix Choices Could Impact TFF

First, my apologies for not having a post up last Monday.  I was finishing up a very, very busy weekend and just ran out of time.

DADDIO FULL TRAILER

Sony Pictures Classics has delivered a full trailer for Christy Hall's Daddio starring Dakota Johnson and Sean Penn. This follows a teaser that was released a few weeks ago. The TFF #50 selection  is set for a limited open on June 28th.

Here's the IMDb description for those who didn't see the film at the fest:

"A woman taking a cab ride from JFK engages in a conversation with the taxi driver about the important relationships in their lives."

LOOKS AT CANNES/TFF POSSIBLES

With the announcement of films for the Cannes Film Fest have come some promotional materials allowing us to begin to see images for those films and perhaps some for films that will then play TFF #51,  Here's a couple:

Barry Keoghan in Andrea Arnold's Bird:

And a photo of Jeremy Strong and Sebastian Stan from Ali Abbasi's The Apprentice:

From Guy Maddin, Evan and  Galen Johnson's Rumours:

PARTICIPANT AND NETFLIX CHOICES COULD IMPACT TFF

Word this week that Participant, the production company behind such TFF fare as Roma, Spotlight, Flee, The Look of Silence and numerous others will be closing up shop.  Meanwhile, it was reported that Netflix is shifting focus in terms of the films it produces and will be less auteur focused.  Netflix has been among the most represented film producer/distributors at Telluride for the past decade.

Both circumstances could have a real effect on TFF programming.

Both stories were reported at World of Reel.  Here's the Participant story and here's the Netflix story.

       

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MTFB Predicts More Oscar Winners / For Those Who Have Been Asking... / Interviews and Profiles: Arnold and Smit-McPhee

MTFB PREDICTS MORE OSCAR WINNERS

I started predicting the winners of all of the Oscar feature film categories last Monday with prognostications in the Big Eight categories.  Today I continue with a half dozen additional categories.  As always, TFF #48 films/performers are in Bold.

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

1) Summer of Soul

2) Flee

3) Attica

4) Ascension

5) Writing with Fire

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

1) Encanto

2) The Mitchells vs. the Machines

3) Luca

4) Flee

5) Raya and the Last Dragon

BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE

1) Drive My Car

2) The Worst Person in the World

3) The Hand of God

4) Flee

5) Luana: A Yak in the Classroom

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

1) The Power of the Dog

2) Dune

3) The Tragedy of Macbeth

4) Nightmare Alley

5) West Side Story

BEST EDITING

1) Dune

2) The Power of the Dog

3) Don't Look Up

4) King Richard

5) tick, tick...BOOM

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN

1) Dune

2) Nightmare Alley

3) West Side Story

4) The Power of the Dog

5) The Tragedy of Macbeth

Comment: Probably the best chance of a TFF #48 film picking up a win in these categories is for the Score for The Power of the Dog.  Outside shot for flee as Best Documentary Feature.

Through 14 predicted categories I have TFF #48 films winning the following:

The Power of the Dog-Picture, Director, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay and Cinematography

Belfast-Original Screenplay

King Richard- Actor

I'll have predictions for the remaining six feature film categories ( Score, Song, Costumes, Makeup/Hair, Visual Effects and Sound) up in Monday's post and keep up with all my current predictions on the MTFB Oscar Take page.

FOR THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN ASKING

The answer is officially up on the TFF website.  Several readers have asked over the past month or so about information regarding pass sales.  My standard response has been that I knew of no information and was assuming that passes would go on sale on March 1st as they have for the past several years.  That expectation proved out at some point recently as the fest posted the following on its "Purchasing Passes" page:

Though on time for the pass sale to start is listed, I expect that we will see that from the fest sometime within the next few days.

INTERVIEWS AND PROFILES

Andrea Arnold on Cow with mubi.com

Kodi Smit-McPhee on The Power of the Dog with Awards Daily

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Oscar Winners Predix #4: Lead Acting, Score, Song and Sound / DGA Awards Some Telluride Players / Speaking of Directors / BAFTA Winners

 OSCAR PREDIX #4: LEADING ACTOR, SCORE, SONG AND SOUND

I'm back predicting the winners of this year's Oscars with less than two weeks left until the awards are passed out.  Today I am updating the lead acting categories as well as predicting the winners for Score, Song and Sound for the first time since nominations were announced.  As always TFF #47 film are in Bold.

BEST ACTRESS

1) Carey Mulligan/Promising Young Woman

2) Viola Davis/Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

3) Frances McDormand/Nomadland

4) Andra Day/The United States vs. Billie Holiday

5) Vanessa Kirby/Pieces of a Woman

Note: This race is really tight, so it seems, with Viola Davis and Carey Mulligan neck and neck and just a hair in front of Frances McDormand and Andra Day.  I have Mulligan in the top spot but that could change by Oscar morning when I will be posting my final predictions in all 23 categories.

BEST ACTOR

1) Chadwick Boseman/Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

2) Anthony Hopkins/The Father

3) Riz Ahmed/Sound of Metal

4) Steven Yeun/Minari

5) Gary Oldman/Mank

Note: Boseman stills seems to be the easy choice here but Hopkins BAFTA win yesterday does give one a little bit of a pause.

BEST SCORE

1) Soul

2) Mank

3) Minari

4) News of the World

5) Da 5 Bloods

Note: Soul is a prohibitive favorite.

BEST SONG

1) Speak Now/One Night in Miami

2) Io Si (Seen)/The Life Ahead

3) Fight for You/Judas and the Black Messiah

4) Husavik/Eurovision 

5) Hear My Voice/The Trial of the Chicago 7

Note: A fairly competitive category with Speak Now and Io Si (Seen) very close and a win for either Fight for You not out of the question.

BEST SOUND

1) Sound of Metal

2) News of the World

3) Mank

4) Soul

5) Greyhound

Note: Sound of Metal is a prohibitive favorite.

THE DIRECTORS GUILD AWARDS SOME TELLURIDE PLAYERS

The Directors Guild of America named their winners for excellence for 2020/21 and a couple of the big awards went to directors who would have been in Telluride last September had the fest been able to occur.

Chloe Zhao was named Best Director for a feature film for Nomadland and Michael and Gregory Kershaw were named Best Director for The Truffle Hunters.  Both films were listed by the Telluride Film Festival as films that would have played at the 47th edition.

The complete list of winners can be found here at the DGA website.

SPEAKING OF DIRECTORS

Jane Campion (via Variety)

As I was writing about the DGA results, I saw that Variety's Clayton Davis had re-posted an article named "Directors Whose Work We're Excited to See in 2021".  So, here's the f=directors from that list that have been to Telluride before and the projects that we expect to appear before the end of the year:

Andrea Arnold/Cow

Jane Campion/The Power of the Dog

Joel Coen/The Tragedy of MacBeth

Guillermo Del Toro/Nightmare Alley

Tom McCarthy/Stillwater

Denis Villenueve/Dune

Chloe Zhao/The Eternals

The complete list and more is linked here.

BAFTA WINNERS

Nomadland had a really fine night last night at the awards ceremony for the British Academy of Television Arts and Sciences winning four of the organizations Golden Masks.

Chloe Zhao's examination of the wanderers that make up a large community of R.V. dwellers in the American west won Best Picture as well Zhao for Best Director, Frances McDormand for Best Actress and Best Cinematography.

Florian Zeller's The Father also pulled off a major upset and a minor upset.  Anthony Hopkins upset Chadwick Boseman in the Best Actor category while Zeller and Christopher Hampton won Best Adapted Screenplay over Zhao for her Nomadland screenplay.

You can find the complete listing of BAFTA winners here from The Hollywood Reporter.

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Werner's Second Stop/Second Thoughts on "The Artist"/Dark Teaser and Wuthering Pix

Still waiting...waiting...waiting...

WERNER'S SECOND STOP

Word this morning from multiple sources that Werner Herzog's new documentary about people on death row in Texas "Gazing into the Abyss"  (or maybe it's now just "Into the Abyss"...not sure) has been added to the lineup for the Toronto International Film Festival.

I am and have been pretty certain that if it were ready for screening that it would be on the Telluride playlist.  It's inclusion in Toronto's lineup indicates that that threshold has been reached and makes it a virtual certainty for Telluride.

You can read a couple of posts about the new additions to Toronto from The Playlist at IndieWire here:
http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/archives/tiff_11_new_films_from_werner_herzog_morgan_spurlock_alex_gibney_more_added/#.Tjles-WG9dd.email

And The Hollywood Reporter here:
http://shar.es/HKLye

The "Abyss" IMDb page:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1972663/

SECOND THOUGHTS ON "THE ARTIST"



I have also been very bullish on the chances that Michael Hazanavicius' "Cannes sensation "The Artist" would be on the Telluride program.  Last week, two tweets from Ioncinema as the main Toronto lineup was being announced only deepened my certainty.

Then there was yesterday.

The Montreal World Film Festival announced that it has booked "The Artist" for what it bills as its North American premiere.  Montreal's fest runs in the middle of August.  Talk about a throwing a monkey wrench into my thinking. I saw one tweet from a guy who is now certain that this inclusion at Montreal means that "The Artist" is NOT Telluride-bound.

So after contemplating this all night, here's what I've decided...I STILL think this film will be at T-ride in a month.  However, I was about 98% sure yesterday.  Today that's certitude is at about 75%.

And I'd be less than honest if I didn't mention that I'm less certain about "Drive" and "we Need to Talk About Kevin" as I was a week ago since that boost in assuredness also derived from a tweet from Ioncinema.

I'll see if we can't pick up any other clues...

Man, I hope I'm right.  This film is high on my wish list.

Here's the story as posted from The Playlist at IndieWire:
http://dlvr.it/dYr9v

"The Artist" IMDb page:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1655442/


DARK TEASER

Despite the fact ( or actually because I am banking on 2009 history repeating itself) that Todd Soldonz's "Dark Horse" is already announced for both Toronto and Venice, I still have a strong feeling that it will turn up in Telluride as well; just like "Life During Wartime" did in 2009.

We've seen some stills from the new film but yesterday, the first teaser showed up online. 

It's...um...sparse and enigmatic...you know...Solondz...

Here's a link to the teaser and story at Slash Film:
http://bit.ly/pDImz9

"Dark Horse" IMDb page:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1690455/

WUTHERING PIX

Actress turned director Andrea Arnold's "Wuthering Heights" adaptation is still on my list of possibles for Telluride this year.  Arnold's last effort "Fish Tank" was at TFF #36 in 2009.

In her version of the Emily Bronte classic she has a cast of little-knowns and no names.

Anne Thompson of Thompson on Hollywood (at IndieWire) has linked to Shadow and Act to show us the first stills of James Howson as "the first black Heathcliff". 

That should put a new spin on an old story.

Here's the still from Shadow and Act:

 Here's the link to the accompanying story at S & A
http://blogs.indiewire.com/shadowandact/archives/1st_look_at_james_howson_as_1st_black_heathcliff_in_andrea_arnolds_wutherin/

And the link to Thompson's tweet:
http://twitter.com/akstanwyck/status/96781834368716800

"Wuthering Heights" IMDb page:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1181614/