The FAC Assesses Support / Shortlists / Berlin 2017 Begins Revealing

Good Monday everyone and welcome to Michael's Telluride Film Blog and The Film Awards Clearinghouse.  I hope everyone enjoyed and survived their weekend.

THE FAC ASSESSES SUPPORT

Supporting Acting categories that is.  The last FAC look at the Supporting races was a month ago (Nov. 17) and a lot has changed since then on the men's side.  The women's side is remarkably stable. Let's take a look at the latest assessment...

I have used the publicly available Oscar predictions from the following pundits:

Erik Anderson/Awards Watch
Clayton Davis/Awards Circuit
Greg Ellwood/The Playlist-Awards Campaign
Scott Feinberg/The Hollywood Reporter
Joey Magidson/Hollywood News
Nathaniel Rogers/Film Experience
Sasha Stone/Awards Daily
Kristopher Tapley/Variety-InContention
Anne Thompson/Indiewire

TFF #43 films are in Bold.  The person's previous position follows its title in parentheses.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

1) Viola Davis/Fences (1)
2) Michelle Williams/Manchester by the Sea (3)
3) Naomie Harris/Moonlight (2)
4) Nicole Kidman/Lion (4)
5) Octavia Spencer/Hidden Figures (6)

6) Greta Gerwig/20th Century Women (5)
7) Janelle Monae/Hidden Figures (8)
8) Molly Shannon/Other People (10)
9) Helen Mirren/Eye in the Sky (7)
10) Felicity Jones/A Monster Calls (9)

Hot: Shannon
Not: Mirren
On the Cusp: Lily Gladstone/Certain Women
Comment:  As I wrote above, a very stable category over the past month with no additions pr deletions from the top ten and only minor movement among them.  Viola Davis is clearly the prohibitive favorite.  It increasingly seems that the only person with a chance to pull the upset is Michelle Williams who has taken a number of critic's prizes in the category.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

1) Mahershala Ali/Moonlight (1)
2) Jeff Bridges/Hell or High Water (2)
3) Dev Patel/Lion (3)
4) Hugh Grant/Florence Foster Jenkins (4)
5) Lucas Hedges/Manchester by the Sea (6)

6) Ben Foster/Hell or High Water (NR)
7) Michael Shannon/Nocturnal Animals (7)
8) Kevin Costner/Hidden Figures (NR)
9) Issei Ogata/Silence (NR)
10) Aaron Eckhart/Bleed for This (8)

Hot: Foster, Costner and Ogata who jump into the top ten for the first time this season.
Not: Eckhart, and Stephen Henderson, Liam Neeson and Peter Saarsgard who dropped out of the top ten over the past month.
On the Cusp; Ralph Fiennes/A Bigger Splash
Comment: Ali has become a juggernaut of sorts as he has won critic's prize after critic's prize for his work in Moonlight.  He's not as prohibitive a favorite as Davis is among the women but he's getting there.

Thursday...a look at the screenplay categories and we'll measure the effect of Moonlight and Loving being moved from the Original to the Adapted category.


SHORTLISTS



The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences narrowed a number of categories this past week and those decisions had immediate ramifications for films that played at Telluride in September.

For example, the Foreign Language field was pared down to nine films:

Australia: Tanna
Canada: It's Only the End of the World
Denmark: Land of Mine
Germany: Toni Erdmann
Iran: The Salesman
Norway: The King's Choice
Russia: Paradise
Sweden: A Man Called Ove
Switzerland: My Life as a Zucchini

The field includes only one T-ride title-and possibly the ultimate favorite for the trophy-Toni Erdmann.  Left off were both Neruda and Fire at Sea which played TFF #43 and were thought to be serious players for a FLF Oscar nomination.  The final five nominees will be announced Jan. 24th.

Coverage of the shortlist announcement is here from:

Awards Daily

Gold Derby

Indiewire

Deadline

Awards Watch

Also, The Academy pared down the list of films still eligible for the Visual Effects nomination and Telluride still has a player in that race as Denis Villenueve's Arrival was named one of the ten films still under consideration.  Having a Telluride film in contention for the Visual Effects Oscar is a rare but not unheard of occurrence (Gravity was nominated and won in 2013).

Entertainment Weekly has the story which includes all of the films still alive in addition to Arrival.

Additionally, The Oscar Documentary shortlist was announced last week.  Among the 15 films making the shortlist were  a number that screened at TFF #43.  The Eagle Huntress, The Ivory Game and Fire at Sea made the list that will be whittled to five films on Jan. 24th.

The New York Times  has coverage here of the announcement.


BERLIN 2017 BEGINS REVEALING

We heard this week a few of the titles that will debut at the Berlin International Film Festival which runs Feb. 9-19, 2017.

Here's why that matters to readers of this space.  You can make a safe bet that a couple of Berlin titles make their way to Telluride in nine months.  Last year, for example, Mia Hansen-Love's Things to Come and Gianfranco's Fire at Sea both premiered at Berlin and then made the trip to the San Juans. In 2015 Taxi and 45 Years did the same thing.  So, we can cast a glance at the few announced films from this week and pick out some films that make the most sense for a Telluride play and there are a few that have some characteristics (i.e. directors that have had films play TFF in the past) that make them prime suspects:

The Party/Sally Potter (TFF 2012- Ginger and Rosa)
Spoor/Angnieska Holland (TFF 2013-Burning Bush, TFF 2011-In Darkness)
The Other Side of Hope/Aki Kaurismaki (TFF 2011-Le Havre)
A Fantastic Woman/Sebastian Lelio (TFF 2013-Gloria)

Coverage of the Berlin reveals is here from:

Variety

The Playlist

The Film Stage


That's Monday's post.  Come back for more on Thursday.


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Many Manchester Moments This Week / Bleed for This Highlighted / Musical Notes on La La Land

It's Monday...wake up!

A parenthetical note before we begin...both Kenneth Lonergan's Manchester by the Sea and Ben Younger's Bleed for This opened this past weekend, thus explaining the slew of pieces/posts that we saw about both films from the latter part of the previous week...


MANY MANCHESTER MOMENTS THIS WEEK

Kenneth Lonergan's Manchester by the Sea was the focus of a good amount of publicity this weekendas it opened for public consumption.  The film has garnered terrific reviews ( 95 on Metacritic and 99% on Rotten Tomatoes) and is considered to be in play for a number of high profile Oscar nominations (Picture, Director, Original Screenplay and it has at least four cast members that are part of the conversation with Casey Affleck and Michelle Williams thought to be very likely nominees).

Consequently, here are links to a few of the stories for MBTS that popped at the end of the week:

Here's Anne Thompson's take on how the film was put together.

Kate Erbland/Indiewire  on the editing for the film.

And Indiewire's Bill Desowitz writes about the constrction of the film's flashback sequences.


BLEED FOR THIS HIGHLIGHTED

Also opening this past weekend was Ben Younger's boxing flick based on the life of boxer Vinnie Pazienza.  Miles Teller (of Whiplash fame) plays Pazienza and Aaron Eckhart shines as his trainer Kevin Rooney).

The Hollywood Reporter posted this Miles Teller piece on Friday.  Meanwhile, the film's publicity folks posted this behind-the-scenes video on its Facebook page.



MUSICAL NOTES FROM LA LA LAND

Last Thursday I posted a link to a story from Variety that featured among other things about the film, a focus on the music that is such a fundamental part of it.  As the weekend approached I started seeing stories elsewhere that included a full rendition of the song City of Stars from La La Land's soundtrack (it's a very likely Oscar nominee for Best Original Song).  The stories also included the complete track list from the film's forthcoming album (I can't really wait for the album to become available).

Here, for your listening pleasure is the YouTube version of Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone dueting their hearts out:

And here are links to a three of those stories that include the duet as well as the film's official track list:

From The Film Stage.

From SlashFilm.

From The Playlist.

The film's soundtrack will reportedly be available on Dec. 9th, the day the film opens.


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Arrival Arrives Amid Accolades / THR Talks to Teller / La La Land's Journey to the Screen / Looking to 2017

Good Thursday everyone...hope you survived Tuesday...


ARRIVAL ARRIVES AMID ACCOLADES

Denis Villenueve's SciFi think piece/adventure yarn Arrival will arrive in theaters tomorrow.  The film currently sits at Metacritic with an 81 score and from Rotten Tomatoes, the film is certified fresh at 97%.  The film did reasonably well in the post T-ride MTFB ratings with a 4.13 rating (out of 5.0) and  a #6 ranking from The People's Telluride, a 3.88 and #7 rating/ranking form The Professionals and a 8.01 rating and a #4 rank from The Composite Telluride.  The film also continues to flirt in a number of Oscar categories as you have seen here on the periodic FAC updates that I post.

With its imminent release, the film has continued this week to receive a lot of attention in the media including Anne Thompson's piece at Indiewire from yesterday that discusses the reasons that the film could not have been made within the traditional studio environment.  Also appearing this week we saw this post from Variety that focused on Amy Adams and the importance of communication as a part of the story of the film.

Arrival's IMDb page is here.


THR TALKS TO TELLER

Scott Feinberg continued his ongoing Awards Chatter podcast series at The Hollywood Reporter yesterday with a sit down with Bleed for This (77% at RT with only 13 reviews, TFF rates/ranks: Peeps: 3.41 #14, Pros: 2.71 #13, Comp: 6.12 #13) star Miles Teller.  The true life boxing story opens next week (11/18).

The Post from THR includes a profile as well as the podcast and you can snag it here.


LA LA LANDS JOURNEY TO THE SCREEN

The Hollywood Reporter's Rebecca Ford wrote a fairly lengthy piece this week detailing the travails of the development of Damien Chazelle's Oscar favorite (at least for the time being) La La Land.  La La Land is scheduled to open Dec. 16 and is set to play as part of the AFI Fest next week.  It currently looks on track to reach double digit Oscar nominations and quite conceivably be the most nominated film of the year on Jan. 24th.

The film has had a very charmed run through the fall film festivals with a Best Actress prize for Emma Stone from Venice and the Audience Award from Toronto.

Click here to read the Ford article.



LOOKING TO 2017

Keep this on your radar for the next 10 months or so.  Paramount will open Alexander Payne's Downsizing on Dec. 22, 2017.  That puts it smack in the awards calendar window and also in a position to make the lineup for Telluride.  Payne has become one of TFF's "Usual Suspects" over the last decade or so after having Guest Directed in 2009 he has since screened The Descendants (2011) and Nebraska (2013) at the fest.  Downsizing stars Matt Damon and Kristen Wiig and tells the story of a man who chooses miniaturization as a solution to some of the issues in hos life.

Here's the Downsizing IMDb page link.

As well as the THR story that includes the release date news.


That's all she wrote for this Thursday.  More on Monday.  Have a good weekend!

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Things to Come is Coming (and has a trailer) / Talking Telluride Films

Good Monday people...


THINGS TO COME IS COMING (AND HAS A TRAILER)

Telluride watchers were rewarded this past week with a new trailer for Mia Hansen-Love's Things to Come starring past T-ride tribute recipient Isabelle Huppert (and it IS the year of Huppert with this performance plus Elle and others).  Things to Come was very well respected by MTFB's Pros as it  was pegged at the #3 spot with a solid 4.20 rating.  The film currently has an 88 Metacritic score and 100% on Rotten Tomatoes (with 36 critics weighing in).


Here's the new trailer (with English subtitles) from Sundance Selects via YouTube:

Things to Come opens in the United States on Dec. 2nd.


I have also linked coverage of the trailer release from Indiewire andFirstShowing.net .



TALKING TELLURIDE FILMS

Kristopher Tapley's Playback Podcast had actor Aaron Eckhardt as his guest this last week.  Eckhardt is getting notice for his roles both in Sully and Bleed for This.  Eckhardt could be in the Best Supporting Actor conversation for both of those roles, though his turn in Bleed for This seems to be getting the most attention.

Here's the link to the Playback podcast.

Additionally, The Hollywood Reporter published a multi-actress interview with German actresses. Two of those are Sandra Huller from Toni Erdmann and Paula Beer from Frantz both of which were part of the TFF #$3 program.

That interview is here.

And, Indiewire's weekly Screen Talk podcast featuring Eric Kohn and Anne Thompson (both of whom serve as MTFB pors for rating films each year at TFF).  This week the duo talk Birth of a Nation and 20th Century Women.

The Screentalk podcast is here.



That's a wrap for Monday.  More to come on Thursday...including a new Film Awards Clearinghouse update.


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The FAC Looks at Supporting Acting and Screenplays / Fire at Sea Has a U.S. Trailer / New Film for Inarritu and Lubezkl

This is your last Thursday in September 2016...hope it's a good one!

THE FAC LOOKS AT SUPPORTING ACTING AND SCREENPLAY OSCAR CATEGORIES

The Film Awards Clearinghouse is back this Thursday with a look at the Best Supporting Actress and Actor categories for Oscar glory as well as the Original and Adapted Screenplay categories.  As always, The FAC uses the publicly available Oscar predictions from the following experts:

Erik Anderson/Awards Watch
Clayton Davis/Awards Circuit
Scott Feinberg/The Hollywood Reporter
Joey Magidson/Hollywood News
Nathaniel Rogers/Film Experience
Sasha Stone/Awards Daily
Kristopher Tapley/Variety-InContention
Anne Thompson/Indiewire

After crunching the most recent data available, The FAC says that these are your front runners...

TFF #43 films are in Bold.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

1) Naomie Harris/Moonlight
2) Michelle Williams/Manchester by the Sea
3) Nicole Kidman/Lion
4) Kristen Stewart/Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk
5) Olivia Spencer/Hidden Figures

6) Greta Gerwig/20th Century Women
7) Lupita N'yong'o/The Queen of Katwe
8) Felicity Jones/A Monster Calls
9) Margo Martindale/The Hollars
10) Helen Mirren/Eye in the Sky

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

1) Liam Neeson/Silence
2) Hugh Grant/Florence Foster Jenkins
3) Mahershala Ali/Moonlight
4) Lucas Hedges/Manchester by the Sea
5) Michael Shannon/Nocturnal Animals

6) Jeff Bridges/Hell or High Water
7) Stephen Henderson/Fences
8) Aaron Eckhardt/Bleed for This
9) Peter Sarsgaard/Jackie
10) Steve Martin/Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk


BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

1) Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk
2) Fences
3) Silence
4) Lion
5) Arrival

6) Hidden Figures
7) Nocturnal Animals
8) Love and Friendship
9) Sully
10) Live by Night

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

1) Manchester by the Sea
2) La La Land
3) Moonlight
4) Loving
5) Jackie

6) 20th Century Women
7) Hell or High Water
8) The Lobster
9) Florence Foster Jenkins
10) Captain Fantastic


Telluride analysis:

These categories, if the FAC were 100% accurate, would result in:

3 additional nominations for Moonlight
3 additional nominations for Manchester by the Sea
1 additional nomination for La La Land
1 additional nomination for Arrival

with Sully and Bleed for This adding an additional possible nomination.

The major eight categories when added to last week's First FAC for Best Picture, Director, Actress and Actor give us the following totals:

6 nominations for Manchester by the Sea (Picture, Actor, Director, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor and Original Screenplay)

5 nominations for La La Land (Picture, Director, Actress, Actor and Original Screenplay)

5 nominations for Moonlight (Picture, Director, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor and Original Screenplay)

1 nomination for Arrival (Adapted Screenplay) with a chance at 3 more

No nominations for Sully but it's in the convo for a possible 3 nominations

1 possible nomination for Bleed for This

Overall, that's 17 nominations for TFF #43 films with another 7 possibilities and, of course, The FAC won't begin to look at other categories for some time yet but expect some additional nominations for TFF #43 films their as well.  As a matter of fact, if you made me, I'd guess that La La Land is going to end up in double digit nominations and will probably be the nomination leader when those are announced on Jan. 24th.


FIRE AT SEA HAS A U.S. TRAILER

Fire at Sea (Fuocoammare) Gianfranco Rosi's Golden Bear/Berlin award winning documentary about the European refugee crisis and which played at TFF #43 a few weeks ago has a new U.S. trailer. The film is set for U.S. release on Oct. 21 in a limited fashion and then will expand from that point.  Fire at Sea is being distributed by Kino Lorber.  Here's the trailer from YouTube:

And, for good measure, here's coverage of the new trailer release from Alex Billington's FirstShowing.net as well as The Film Stage



NEW FILM ANNOUNCED FOR INARRITU AND LUBEZKI

Alejandro Inarritu has had a strong relationship with cinematographer Ernest Lubezki (Birdman, The Revenant) as well as a real love affair with Telluride (Babel, Biutiful, Birdman) so when a new project is announced involving Inarritu and Lubezki, Telluride fans should take notice.

Which is to say, that the two visionaries have just announced plans to work on a virtual reality short film that would be centered on the crossing of immigrants from Mexico into the United States.

The project doesn't yet have a title but that's of little import.  Of greater interest is the question of whether Inarritu returns to T-ride after having missed the fest last year when The Revenant was not ready for a Labor Day rollout.

Check the original story from Indiewire here.


That'll do for this Thursday.  More coming on Monday, have a great weekend.


EMAIL:  mpgort@gmail.com OR michael_speech@hotmail.com

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The People's Telluride Revealed / A Week Removed and Some Reflections / The Gold Derby Says...

Welcome to Monday and the return for MTFB to a more manageable, less crazed twice-a-week posting schedule (Mondays and Thursdays) with extra posts when news warrants...

Call your friends and neighbors because it's time for...


THE PEOPLE'S TELLURIDE REVEALED

After collecting data from MTFB readers for a week I have the results of this year's People's Telluride film festival ratings.  Using a 1-5 scale with 1 being "not-so-good" and 5 being "a masterpiece".

The People's Telluride had its largest participation since I started it a few years back which is gratifying.  For the purposes of the ratings and to maintain some semblance of balance, I have limited the list of films included to those that were rated by at least a third of respondents.  Over 40 films/programs were rated by at least one respondent and 21 received enough votes to be included in the final ratings.  The films that were the hottest tickets based on the fact that they were the most rated/viewed were:

1) Arrival
2) La La Land
3) Moonlight
4) Sully
5) Bleed for This

The People's Telluride Ratings for 2016 (the number in parentheses is the film's average rating)

1) Moonlight (4.37)
2) La La Land (4.33)
3) Maudie (4.29)
4) The Eagle Huntress (4.21)
5) Manchester by the Sea (4.18)
6) Arrival (4.13)
7) Bright Lights (3.90)
8) Frantz (3.89)
9) Toni Erdmann (3.80)
10) Sully (3.79)
11) Lost in Paris (3.69)
12) Wakefield (3.59)
13) California Typewriter (3.53)
14) Bleed for This (3.413)
15) Una (3.406)
16) Norman (3.30)
17) Chasing Trane (3.29)
18) Through the Wall (3.17)
19) Things to Come (3.05)
20) Graduation (2.90)
21) Into the Inferno (2.86)

It's worth noting that the film that has finished in the SECOND spot of this poll for the last four years has won the Oscar for Best Picture;

2012- Argo wins Oscar (Stories We Tell was #1 in The Peep's T-ride)
2013- 12 Years a Slave wins Oscar (Tim's Vermeer was #1)
2014- Birdman wins Oscar (The Imitation Game was #1)
2015- Spotlight wins Oscar (Room was #1)

In 2016 La La Land finishes #2 in The Peep's poll and Moonlight is #1.  Does this portend La La Land winning Best Picture?

One other La La Land note, over the weekend Emma Stone who I last saw with my own eyeballs eight days ago in Town Park won Venice's Vest Actress Award for La La Land.

Some other history...none of this year's films crack the Top Ten People's rated films in the five year history of its existence.  Here are the ten best rated films of the past five years according to the People:

1) Stories We Tell-12 (4.80)
2) Argo-12 (4.75)
3) The Imitation Game-14  (4.73)
4) The Attack-12  (4.70)
5) Tim's Vermeer-13 (4.67)
6) 12 Years a Slave -13 (4.55)
7) Room -15 (4.47)
8) Birdman-14 (4.46)
9) Spotlight-15 (4.45)
10) The Act of Killing-12 (4.41)

Moonlight's 4.37 rating would put it at #12 just behind Gravity (4.40) and just ahead of Beasts of No Nation (4.35).

The lowest all time (well for these five years) is from 2012...Paradise: Love with a 1.1 rating and over that time span 98 films have gotten enough responses to be included in The People's Telluride.

COMING THURSDAY...The Professionals Telluride.




A WEEK REMOVED AND SOME REFLECTIONS

The 43rd edition of the Telluride Film Festival came to a close a week ago today.  My wife and I stayed through Monday evening for the first time in years and I have to say I'm glad we did.  It allowed us to get a couple of more films and it also allowed us to stay for the Labor Day Picnic which turned out to be a big deal to me (see below).

Encounters with readers throughout the weekend really made me think that MTFB has gained a modestly substantial following.  I kept running into people through the fest that would mention that they were readers.  I am always thrilled and also disconcerted at that.  The notion that people would recognize me as a result of the blog never entered my mind when I started writing in this space eight years ago.  It is humbling and esteeming all at the same time.

Last year I was stunned when Malala's Yousefzai's father reached out to me to arrange a meeting because he had been a reading the blog.  This year's head turner came on Monday when, as I was congratulating Barry Jenkins for his direction I mentioned that I "wrote a little blog about the festival" at which point he stopped me to ask "Are you Michael?"

Well, I was floored.  This is a young man who is right on the cusp of his big breakout with Moonlight and he knows who I am?  Craziness.

We continued the short conversation and I went on my merry way (actually to the Gondola to The Chuck to catch Bleed for This...Oscar nom for Aaron Eckhardt please).

Later I contacted Mr. Jenkins through Twitter and also friend requested him on Facebook.  We're friends now.  I promised that I wouldn't be a stalker.

Other items...

***The final Ten (Plus) Bets list from day before the lineup for this year was announced was 20 for 20. That's right.  For those keeping score, every film on that last list made the TFF #43 lineup.

Here's how MTFB has done with last posted predictions over these past few years:

2016-20/20
2015-19/20
2014-15/15
2013-14/15
2012-15/20
2011-12/18


As you can see, I've gotten better and to be fair, the process is easier since Toronto laid down their "honest premiere status" policy in 2014.


***With today's posting of the results of The People's Telluride Ratings, and since you have shared your ratings with me,  I thought I'd share my ratings with you:

1) La La Land 4.5
2) Moonlight 4
3) Arrival 4
4) Sully 4
5) Toni Erdmann 4
6) Bright Lights 4
7) Manchester by the Sea 3.5
8) Norman 3.5
9) Una 3.5
10) Wakefield
11) Bleed for This 3
12) Through the Wall 3



THE GOLD DERBY SAYS...

If you've followed this blog for awhile you know that it's about to switch its focus for the next six months or so and report on the Oscar race with particular focus on the films that played at TFF #43.

To that end, here's a breakdown of the leaders in the major six categories at the conclusion of the fest (but before Toronto and Venice have finished) from The Gold Derby.

Best Picture nominations would go to: Manchester by the Sea, La La Land, Moonlight and Arrival (assuming at least eight films are nominated.  Sully is also a possibility.

Best Direction nominations would go to: Kenneth Lonergan/Manchester by the Sea and Damien Chazelle/La La Land.  Close: Denis Villenueve/Arrival, Barry Jenkins/Moonlight and Clint Eastwood/Sully.

Best Actress: Emma Stone/La La Land with Amy Adams/Arrival as a possibility.

Best Actor: Casey Affleck/Manchester by the Sea, Ryan Gosling/La La Land with Tom Hanks/Sully  as a possibility.

Best Supporting Actress: Michelle Williams/Manchester by the Sea, Naomie Harris/Moonlight

Best Supporting Actor: Lucas Hedges/Manchester by the Sea, Marhershala Ali/Moonlight and Kyle Chandler/Manchester by the Sea

From these six categories Manchester would earn six nominations, La La Land would get four, Moonlight would get four with another possibility, Arrival would get one with another two possible and Sully has three possible.

Check the complete odds for the current Gold Derby predictions here.

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Short Post for a Tuesday / Day Four in the Books / Reminder

Good Tuesday every one....the 43rd Telluride Film Festival has come to a close.  It was awesome.


SHORT POST FOR A TUESDAY

As you read this I am in a Jeep Patriot headed back from Heaven (Telluride) to the home base in Oklahoma.  So excuse me if this is short.  I have about a 9 1/2 hour drive topped by a play rehearsal ahead of me.

First and foremost a shout out to my hosts for the 11th consecutive year: Larry and Mitzi Mallard of Telluride.  They make the fest and by extension this Blog possible.

Also a tip of the hat to professional friends who have embraced MTFB in various ways: Kris Tapley, Sasha Stone, Tomris Laffly, Scott Feinberg, Eric Kohn, Anne Thompson, David Ehrlich, Mark Johnson, Greg Ellwood, Kenny Miles and the irrepressible Chris Schiller.  You folks make me feel like a part of the club.

And to the Festival a big thanks.  Julie Huntsinger, Shannon Mitchell and Richard Parkins...you make me feel welcome.

Finally, to  my wife Kristy who indulges the obsession that I have for the Telluride Film Festival...Thank you.


DAY FOUR IN THE BOOKS

A lazier day than two or three and that's OK.

Slept in a bit on Day Four so started with the Labor Day Picnic at 11:00.  Nice eats.  Good ice cream.  Stuck around long enough for the arrival of the iridescent Emma Stone.  Before leaving Town Park I had the chance to speak briefly with Moonlight screen writer and director Barry Jenkins.  In the midst of that conversation came the revelation that he knew of MTFB and mentioned that this space had been the first to suggest a Telluride play for his film (thanks to Jason Osiason).  He was appreciative. That moment became the highlight of a very eventful weekend for me.  Thank you Mr. Jenkins!

Caught my breath and then  hiked to the Gondola to catch the 1:00 pm screening of Bleed for This. It's competently constructed and lead Miles Teller does a convincing job as the central character, real life boxer Vinny Pazienza.  For my money the film is stolen by Aaron Eckhardt as Vinny's troubled trainer,  I'm imploring any members of the Academy or any readers that know members of the Academy to lobby for Mr. Eckhardt here.  Liked him in Sully on Saturday...loved him in Bleed for This on Monday.  He's fantastic.

Closed film watching late Monday afternoon at the Chuck with the Israeli film Through the Wall which was a delight.




REMINDER

The 43rd Fest is done...so People and Professionals...send me your film ratings!  1 to 5 scale with 1 being not so good and 5 being a Kubrick level masterpiece.

Email to:

mpgort@gmail.com

OR

michael_speech@hotmail.com

OR

Via Twitter @Gort2

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as a comment to this blog

Monday's TBAs and Special Programs / Pics of the Day / Day Three Comments/ And on the Fourth Day / Don't Forget

Welcome to Monday, Labor Day, Sept. 5, 2016...the final day of the 43rd Telluride Film Festival. Was it good for you?

MONDAYS TBA'S AND SPECIAL PROGRAMS

SPECIAL ADDED PROGRAMS:

At the Pierre: Volker Sclondorf's Voyager @ 4:00pm
                       The Fabulous Baron Munchausen @ 7:00pm

TBAs by Venue

The Palm

Una @ 1:00pm
Moonlight @ 3:15pm
Sully @ 6:00pm
Lost in Paris @ 8:15pm

The Galaxy

Things to Come @ 3:00pm
Manchester by the Sea @ 5:30pm


The Chuck

Through the Wall @3:30pm
Toni Erdmann @5:45pm


The Zog

The Eagle Huntress @1:00pm (Free)
Arrival @ 3:45pm
La La Land @ 6:45pm

Sheridan Opera House

I Called Him Morgan @ 9:00am
Frantz @ 3:00pm
Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer @ 5:30pm
California Typewriter @ 8:00pm

The Nugget

Bright Lights @ 1:00pm
Mifune: The Last Samurai @ 3:15pm
Chasing Trane @ 5:15pm
Neruda @ 7:45pm

The Masons

The Pagnol Trilogy @ 1:30pm, 4:00pm, 6:45pm


The Pierre

Calling Cards @1:30pm (Free)
Other programming is above in the Special Programming section

The Backlot (all programs free)

The Fanatic Heart: Bob Geldof and WB Yeats @ 9:15am
Beauties of the Night @ 1:00pm
The Family Whistle @ 3:30pm
Bernadtte Lafont @ 5:00pm
Cool Cats @ 7:30pm


PICS OF THE DAY

Via the CEO Kristy Patterson;

Bryan Cranston from Wakefield's Q and A:

And Richard Gere from Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer Q and A:

DAY THREE COMMENTS

Toni Erdmann...funny...ver funny and touching but a meandering second act and a third act that strains credulity.  That said, it's still very good.

Una...Rooney Mara is outstanding in this adaption of the Davod Harrower play Blackbird (which I saw in June with Michelle Williams and Jeff Daniels).  Ben Mendelsohn gets acted off the screen (imho).  Frankly I'd love to ahve seen a Daniels/Mara film version and something script-wise closer to the stage version.

Wakefield...I liked this quite a lot though the heavy use of voice over may challenge some viewers. Bryan Cranston carries the load with Jennifer Garner giving solid support.

Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer.  I liked it  quite a bit too.  Solid performances from richard Gere and company especially Lior Ashkenazi as the Prime Minister of Israel.

Oscar prospects from Sunday: Mara for Una, Erdmann for Best Foreign Language Film.


AND ON THE FOURTH DAY

MTFB sleeps a bit and then...

11:00 Labor Day Picnic
12:00 Noon Convo in Town Park
1:00pm Bleed for This (The Chuck)
3:30pm Through the Wall (The Chuck)
8:15pm Lost in Paris (Palm)



DON'T FORGET...

Time to start thinking about rating those films you've seen this weekend.  Send them in on a 1 to 5 scale with 1 being "putrid" ad 5 being"poifect".   The People's Telluride composite ratings will be posted here in a week to ten days.


Send ratings to...

mpgort@gmail.com

michael_speech@hotmail.com

Twitter @Gort2

or as a comment to this blog.

Goodbye Gene / Una Busted / Oscar and Fall Film Anticipation / Reminders

Welcome to a bleaker Tuesday because Gene Wilder is gone...


GOODBYE GENE

Gonna take a moment here that's Telluride unrelated but not really.  If part of what the Telluride Film Fest is supposed to be a celebration of the greatness of cinema past, then it's altogether appropriate that we mark the passing  great in this space.

We all learned yesterday that the great Gene Wilder had died from complications associated with Alzheimer's.  Like millions (and that's no hyperbole) it broke my heart.

Wilder was at the center of two films that absolutely the form the core of what I think a comedic film can be: Blazing Saddles (which I have said before, I don't think anyone, even Mel Brooks could get made today) and Young Frankenstein, which for my money is the funniest film comedy made in my lifetime and which Wilder co-wrote.

He and other great roles as well, The Producers and Willy Wonka are the two that come most quickly to mind.  And don't forget that half great half not-so-great partnership with Richard Pryor.

Huge, fun films that would be fundamentally different if some other actor played those roles (Remember that Wilder was not the originally cast Waco Kid in Blazing Saddles, that was supposed to have been Gig Young...really...try to imagine that).

And one of my favorite little nodules about Wilder...he was the original Billy Bibbitt in the 1963 Broadway production of One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest that starred Kirk Douglas as R.P. McMurphy, Ed Ames as Chief Bromden and William Daniels as Harding. The mind reels.

We lose famous and notable people every day.  People that have entertained, educated and inspired us and it's easy to get inured to those losses.  But Gene Wilder is in a different, more rarefied category.  You could see it and feel it online when the news broke: an immense outpouring of loss and grief and remembrance.

I wonder if he knew how much he was loved.  I'd like to think he did.



UNA BUSTED

Quite a bit of furor over the interwebs yesterday morning as Screen International/Screen Daily posted its thought-to-be-embargoed review for Una.  The post was labeled a "Telluride Review".

The post/link disappeared fairly quickly but not until after it had caused a good deal of hubbub about the embargo breach.

Here's the original Tweet:

But very quickly, this is what you found at the end of that link:

The other ramification, of course, is that it confirms that Una is on the TFF #43 lineup that will be announced on Thursday.

Una is a drama based on David Harrower's play Blackbird that was recently revived on Broadway starring Michelle Williams and Jeff Daniels.  The film version features Rooney Mara and Ben Mendelsohn.



OSCAR AND FALL FILM ANTICIPATION

Two big previews were published yesterday.  Todd McCarthy's Hollywood Reporter piece about anticipated fall films that included mention of a number of expected Telluride titles and McCarthy signals expectations of a Telluride play for some of them. and Vulture.com makes some pre-fall fest Oscar predictions that may give us an insight into how substantial TFF #43 might be on the upcoming awards season.  First the McCarthy/THR piece.

McCarthy singles out Damien Chazelle's La La Land and Denis Villenueve's Arrival as probable Telluride plays.  He also says Sully is "heavily rumored" for Telluride.  McCarthy also says Francois Ozon's Frantz "looks to be set at all the festivals" (which includes T-ride).  He then runs off a list of films that I'm expecting to play TFF: Moonlight, Una (see above), The B-Side, Into the Inferno and Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall...

Also included in that list is the music doc I Called Him Morgan which leads me to think that McCarthy is signaling that it could be a Telluride play as well.  I mentioned I Called Him Morgan as a Telluride possibility back a couple of weeks ago (Aug. 15) along with Beauties of the Night, Chasing Trane and American Anarchist.  Morgan, Trane and Beauties were also mentioned here as possibilities on Aug. 10 in a post including TIFF announcement analysis that also suggested The Ivory Game, Water and Sugar and India in a Day.  Could be that some of these make the Telluride program too.

McCarthy's THR piece is Here

Meanwhile, Kyle Buchanan at Vulture.com takes a stab at predicting six major Oscar categories. Here's the expected Telluride players in each:

Best Picture: Moonlight (which some predict gets a boost from the Nate Parker/Birth of a Nation rape controversy), Manchester by the Sea.  He also mentions Sully, Bleed for This and La La Land.

Best Director: Eastwood/Sully, Chazelle/La La Land, Lonergan/Manchester, Jenkins/Moonlight all have a shot

Best Actor: Casey Affleck/Manchester, Tom Hanks/Sully, Ryan Gosling. La La Land, Miles Teller/Bleed for This

Best Actress: Amy Adams/Arrival, Emma Stone/La La Land, Isabelle Huppert/Things to Come

Best Supporting Actor: Aaron Eckhardt/Bleed for This

Best Supporting Actress: Michelle Williams/Manchester, Naomie Harris/Moonlight, Janelle Monae/Moonlight

Check out all of Buchanan's meditation at this link: Vulture


DON'T FORGET...

Rate films for The People's Telluride!

TOMORROW'S FINAL TEN (PLUS) BETS FOR 2016...

Contact MTFB at:

mpgort@gmail.com

OR on Twitter @Gort2

OR check out Michael's Telluride Film Blog on Facebook:

Michael's Telluride Film Blog Facebook Page

Or leave a comment.

Hints and Allegations / Tributes Anyone? / Sully Shots

Good Monday everyone.  The 43rd Telluride Film Festival begins in 4 days!


HINTS AND ALLEGATIONS

I ran across a lot of revealing information over the weekend pointing to confirmations or near confirmations of a number of films that dot the latest Ten (Plus) Bets list from last Friday.

The most telling is the all but certainty now that Clint Eastwood's Sully is part of the fest this week.

Jeff Wells of Hollywood Elsewhere nudged up against declaring it to be a part of the lineup on Friday afternoon in this HE Post .  Then Saturday evening Wells went all in saying that Sully "will premiere at next weekend's Telluride Film Festival."  That post is Here .

So count Sully as an in...and more about some possible ramifications below...

Also buttressing the Sully claim was the latest Screen Talk podcast from Indiewire featuring Anne Thomson and Eric Kohn (both of whom will join in from Telluride this week as part of The Professionals who will rate films that they see for MTFB).  The first part of the podcast deals with Telluride and its influence and though they go to great pains to stress that they "know nothing" they suggest a number of "possibilities".  I suspect that they "know" more than they can admit.

They run out five titles including Sully.  The other four currently are in the last Ten Bets list and they are: Arrival, Manchester by the Sea, La La Land and Bleed for This.  So, though they can't tell us any more than that these titles are speculative, it is my belief that they are all but confirming them for this weekend.

That podcast is here: Indiewire Screen Talk: Telluride

Additionally, Pete Hammond writing for Deadline.com mentions in his review of the just opened Hands of Stone mentions the wave of boxing pics arriving at nearly the same time writing "Bleed for this which debuts next week at the Telluride Film Festival".  That review is here: Deadline.com

And still there is more...

A number of sharp eyed individuals contacted MTFB in the past couple of days to give me a heads up with regard to this year's TFF app.

If you downloaded the app already, then you will have seen the tab to click for the map.  If you do that or look at this screen grab:

You're going to see mention of The Eagle Huntress for the Abel Gance Outdoor Theater (letter B) and The Elsa Dorfman Gallery at The Courthouse (letter D).

These clues tell us that the documentary The Eagle Huntress (From Sony Pictures Classics) will be playing the festival in some capacity and that the Elsa Dorfman Gallery presence confirms that Errol Morris' The B-Side will be playing as well.  A note about The Eagle Huntress: it played Sundance back in January and its presence along with the now-expected Manchester by the Sea will mark the first time that I'm aware that TFF has programmed two Sundance films in a single year.

So, taken altogether, we can add two more films to the "we're pretty sure" will play list: Sully and The Eagle Huntress and we believe that five others are all but confirmed: The B-Side, La La Land, Manchester, Arrival and Bleed for This.

And don't forget, we added Bright Lights: Starring Carrie Fischer and Debbie Reynolds last Friday via Anne Thompson.

Remember the final Ten (Plus) Bets will be posted Wednesday morning.

TRIBUTES ANYONE?

I've touched on possible tributes a few times this summer and now, with so few days remaining, it seems like a good time to get really serious about assessing who might get Silver Medallions this weekend.

To start, let's look at the list of possible attendees I posted on Aug. 23:

From Things to Come: Isabelle Huppert

From La La Land: Emma Stone  and Ryan Gosling (JK Simmons would be cool too)

From Arrival: Amy Adams, Forest Whitaker and Jeremy Renner

From Moonlight: Mahershala Ali, Naomie Harris and Janelle Monae

From Bleed for This: Miles Teller, Katey Sagal and Aaron Eckhardt (Ted Levine would be cool too)

From Neruda: Gael Garcia Bernal

From Una: Rooney Mara and Ben Mendelsohn

From Maudie: Sally Hawkins and Ethan Hawke

From: Manchester by the Sea: Casey Affleck and Michelle Williams (producer Matt Damon would be cool too)

From: Norman: The Moderate Rise... Richard Gere (Steve Buscemi and Hank Azaria would be cool too)

From: Wakefield: Bryan Cranston and Jennifer Garner

From other possibles and still outside shots:

From Sully: Tom Hanks, Laura Linney, Aaron Eckhardt and director Clint Eastwood

From: The Accountant: Ben Affleck and Anna Kendrick (JK Simmons, John Lithgow and Jeffrey Tambor would also be cool)

From Live by Night: Ben Affleck, Scott Eastwood, Zoe Saldana and Elle Fanning (Chris Cooper, Chris Medina, Brendan Gleeson would also be cool)

From Eternity: Audrey Tautou, Berenice Bejo and Melanie Laurent

From The Founder: Michael Keaton, Laura Dern (Nick Offerman would be cool)

From The Circle:Tom Hanks and Emma Watson (Patton Oswalt would be cool)

From Gold: Matthew McConnaughey, Bryce Dallas Howard and Edgar Ramirez (Corey Stoll and Bill Camp would be very, very cool)

From Miss Sloane: Jessica Chastain (Mark Strong, Michael Stuhlbarg, John Lithgow and Sam Waterston would be cool)

From The Sense of an Ending: Emily Mortimer (Jim Broadbent would be cool)

From this list we can move Sully from the "other possibles and outside shots" to the "probable" category and see what we can discern.

Let's focus on the films listed here that seem "probable" now for T-ride.

First, we can dispel both Clint Eastwood and Isabelle Huppert from tribute consideration as each have already been feted by TFF (Huppert in 1986 and Eastwood in 1990).  Rooney Mara was tributed last year, so mark her off.  Lauara Linney was also a tributee (2004).

Of the actors in the probable list...I can see the possibility of wither Forest Whitaker or Amy Adams from Arrival getting a tribute.  Whitaker's Best Actor Oscar in 2007 came from Last King of Scotland which made a big splash at the 2006 TFF.

Neruda offers Telluride regular Gael Garcia Bernal who could easily be set for a tribute for his now fairly lengthy career.

Maybe Ethan Hawke or for that matter Sally Hawkins both of whom are in Maudie.

From Manchester by the Sea, I could actually see producer Matt Damon getting a tribute.

Richard Gere would be a terrific tribute candidate and I expect that if Norman: The Rise and Fall plays, he could well be in town.

Wakefield's Bryan Cranston is red hot right now but as most of his experience has been in television up to the last few years, I suspect a tribute for him is farther down the road.

And, of course, if Sully is in play, Tom Hanks seems to scream for a tribute.  But remember, I was all in for a Michael Keaton tribute last year.  Was really certain that would happen and...um...I was wrong.  So even what seems like an obvious choice might not be the actual choice.

Tributes at Telluride are rarely completely actor focused.  Directors are also a big favorite for the honors but finding a director from the "probable" list that isn't relatively early in their career is a bit difficult (Chazelle, Hansen-Love, Villeneuve for examples).  So, maybe TFF looks eleswhere for a tribute.

Or, I'd still like the fest to honor the film Taxi Driver on its 40th anniversary in much the same way that they did Apocalypse Now a couple of years ago.

Nevertheless, the above paragraphs could contain the names of each of the three recipients or none at all.  TFF tributes are notoriously difficult to anticipate.

You have any ideas or guesses?  Shoot me a line.  My contact info is below.


SULLY SHOTS

Tom Hanks in Sully (via The Playlist)

Now that we're thinking that Sully is a probable lock to play the fest, it seems like The Playlist's post from yesterday with a ton of stills from the film might be fun for those of you looking forward to it, here's a link to that post.  Sully Pics from The Playlist


One other note about Sully; I suspect that its inclusion means that we will not see Warners other two possible films that I have been keeping tabs on this summer: Live by Night and The Accountant.


REMINDER...

Don't forget to relay your film ratings for The People's Telluride this weekend.  I'd suggest that you wait until we get through the whole of the fest and then contact me with your complete list of films and your ratings of them on a 1 to 5 scale with 1 being poor and 5 being wonderful!  Use any of the contact methods below:

Contact MTFB at:

mpgort@gmail.com

OR on Twitter @Gort2

OR check out Michael's Telluride Film Blog on Facebook:

Michael's Telluride Film Blog Facebook Page

Or leave a comment.

Ten (Plus) Bets #10 / Toni Erdmann News / Add an Doc to Your T-ride List / Oscar Watch Podcast

It's Friday...aren't you glad?

The 43rd Telluride Film Festival starts in 6 days!


TEN (PLUS) BETS #10

Here's the latest version of MTFB's Ten (Plus) Bets for films to appear at the Telluride Film Festival. It's the next to last Ten Bets for TFF #43.  I'll post a final iteration on Wednesday morning just before I head west.  If the past is an indicator, we should see the official list sometime on Thursday morning. We have some additions and adjustments due to news that I'll delve into in more detail below as well as the revelation this past week that The Red Turtle is billed by the Toronto International Film Festival as a North American premiere.

Here's last week's Ten (Plus) Bets:


20) Journey Through French Cinema
19) Defying the Nazis
18) The B-Side
17) Into the Inferno
16) Wakefield
15) Graduation
14) Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer
13) Manchester by the Sea
12) Maudie
11) Una
10) Frantz
9) The Red Turtle
8) Fire at Sea
7) Neruda
6) Bleed for This
5) Moonlight
4) Arrival
3) La La Land
2) Things to Come
1) Toni Erdmann

And now Ten (Plus) Bets #10:

20) Staying Vertical

19) Bright Lights: Starring Carrie Fischer and Debbie Reynolds

18) A Journey Through French Cinema

17) Wakefield

16) Norman: The Rise and Fall...

15) Graduation

14) The B-Side

13) Into the Inferno

12) Manchester by the Sea

11) Maudie

10) Frantz

9) Una

8) Fire at Sea

7) Toni Erdmann

6) Neruda

5) Bleed for This

4) Moonlight

3) Things to Come

2) La La Land

1) Arrival

Continued possibilities: Defying the Nazis, Sully, Nocturnal Animals, Exile, The Sense of an Ending, Eternity,The Circle, The Founder, Gold, Miss Sloane, The Mercy, The Accountant

Again, look for a FINAL TEN (PLUS) BETS on Wednesday next week.

TONI ERDMANN NEWS

A couple of items about Cannes critical sensation Maren Ade's Toni Erdmann.

First, the film has been officially chosen as Germany's entrant for the Foreign Language Oscar.  That news came yesterday and really wasn't surprising.  The film was so warmly received that it would have been a stunner if it hadn't been selected.

I went on record yesterday as suggesting that it could even figure into the Best Picture race depending on its reception in Telluride.

That reception, however, seemed to be about to be rendered defunct yesterday when Jason Osiason alerted me to the fact that the film had been unveiled in the second wave of films for Fantastic Fest (Sept. 22-29).  Fantastic Fest listed the film as a U.S. Premiere.  Jason's point, and it was well taken, was that it couldn't very well be a U.S. Premiere if it had already screened at Telluride three weeks earlier.

However...

Toronto has it listed as a Canadian Premiere and would ONLY do that if it had screened somewhere on the North American continent prior to its Sept. 8 screening date in Canada which means to me that Toni plays T-ride.

Additionally, the Fantastic Fest premiere designations for some other films are a little shaky.  For example, both Fantastic Fest and The New York Film Fest claim to be the U.S. Premiere of  Paul Verhoeven's Elle.  Obviously, both things can't be true.  Another oddity: Fantastic Fest lists Andrea Arnold's American Honey as a "Texas" Premiere and yet I can't find any place the film is screening in the U.S. prior to its appearance at Fantastic.  Under normal circumstances that might lead me to think that the film would make Telluride's lineup but its designation as a North American premiere at Toronto makes that improbable.

  

Meanwhile, I also got an email from MTFB friend Christopher Schiller who had noticed that in the second wave of film announcements for the Austin (TX) Film Festival that Garth Davis' Lion (which I thought was a probable Telluride film for a long time) was being listed as a "Texas" Premiere.  He was curious about it for the same reason Jason had been curious about Toni Erdmann's FF designation and it does seem odd.  Austin's Fest runs Oct. 13-20. Lion is labeled by TIFF as a World Premiere.  So why doesn't Austin label it as a North American Premiere?

I wrote yesterday that there might be some uncertainty about "the veracity' of the "honest premiere policy" this year and today's Toni Erdmann and Lion news makes that seem even more plausible today.


Here are links to the relevant announcements from Fantastic Fest and the Austin Film Fest


ADD A DOC TO YOUR T-RIDE LIST

Image via IMDb

You can add another documentary to your list of films making the TFF #43 lineup as an Indiewire story yesterday from Anne Thompson reveals that Bright Lights: Starring Carrie Fischer and Debbie Reynolds is set to play.

The doc is co-directed by Fisher Stevens and Alexis Bloom.

The revelation comes in an article Thompson writes about the Oscar prospects for a number of this year's docs.

Thompson also repeats the claim that emerged earlier this week that Werner Herzog's Into the Inferno will also make the lineup.

The complete post is here from Indiewire


OSCAR WATCH PODCAST

Sasha Stone and Ryan Adams of Awards Daily returned to podcasting last night and the  cast includes a discussion of probable Telluride films (as well as the Nate Parker situation).  A certain blog devoted to Telluride's Film Fest gets a mention!  Listen to it here: OscarWatch Podcast


That's a wrap for this Friday.  Stay tuned to this space as I may take the unusual step of posting special notices through the weekend if conditions warrant.  Otherwise, MTFB is back on Monday.

Have a great weekend!

Contact MTFB at:

mpgort@gmail.com

OR on Twitter @Gort2

OR check out Michael's Telluride Film Blog on Facebook:

Michael's Telluride Film Blog Facebook Page

Or leave a comment.