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
Here are my latest predictions for Oscar nominations in the specialty categories. Telluride films are Bold. All of these categories will have five nominees except Makeup/Hair which will have three.
CINEMATOGRAPHY
1) Roma
2) A Star Is Born
3) First Man
4) Cold War
5) The Favourite
6) Black Panther
Possible: If Beale Street Could Talk
COSTUMES
1) The Favourite
2) Mary Poppins Returns
3) Black Panther
4) Mary Queen of Scots
5) Bohemian Rhapsody
6) Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Possible: BlacKkKlansman Vice, If Beale Street Could Talk,
FILM EDITING
1) A Star Is Born
2) Roma
3) Vice
4) BlacKkKlansman
5) First Man
6) The Favourite
Possible: Bohemian Rhapsody, Black Panther
MAKEUP/HAIR
1) Vice
2) Black Panther
3) Mary Queen of Scots
4) Bohemian Rhapsody
Possible: Border, Stan and Ollie, Suspiria
ORIGINAL SCORE
1) If Beale Street Could Talk
2) First Man
3) Mary Poppins Returns
4) Isle of Dogs
5) Black Panther
6) BlacKkKlansman
Possible: A Quiet Place, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
ORIGINAL SONG
1) Shallow/A Star Is Born
2) All the Stars/Black Panther
3) I'll Fight/RBG
4) Girl in the Movies/Dumplin'
5) Trip a Little Light Fantastic/Mary Poppins Returns
6) Where Lost Things Go/Mary Poppins Return
Possible: Revelation/Boy Erased
PRODUCTION DESIGN
1) The Favourite
2) Mary Poppins Returns
3) First Man
4) Black Panther
5) Roma
6) Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Possible: BlacKkKlansman
SOUND EDITING
1) First Man
2) A Quiet Place
3) Black Panther
4) Roma
5) Mary Poppins Returns
6) Ready Player One
Possible: A Star Is Born, Bohemian Rhapsody, Annihilation
SOUND MIXING
1) A Star Is Born
2) First Man
3) Mary Poppins Returns
4) Roma
5) A Quiet Place
6) Black Panther
Possible: Bohemian Rhapsody
VISUAL EFFECTS
1) First Man
2) Black Panther
3) Ready Player One
4) Avengers: Infinity War
5) Mary Poppins Returns
6) Solo: A Star Wars Story
Possible: Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
I'll have my )mostly) final predictions on Monday for all Oscar categories.
LATEST GURUS OF GOLD
The upcoming Gurus of Gold post from Movie City News will focus on the Oscar acting categories and Best Picture. Not sure exactly when it will go up. Likely in the next day or two. Jump on over to their site to check out last week's Gurus and a look from me and 12 other Oscar experts.
As we steer the ship toward Tuesday's Oscar nominations reveal, here's a look a three recent interviews from directors whose films played TFF #45 and are now a part of the awards conversation:
From The Hollywood Reporter, Roma's Alfonso Cuaron takes us on a tour of his the Mexico City that serves as a setting for the film:
From The New Yorker, Elaina Patton talks to Cold War director Pawel Pawlikowski. Linked here.
And from The Playlist, Griffin Schiller talks to First Man director Damien Chazelle (and also a bit with actress Claire Foy). That is linked here.
That's today's MTFB. A reminder again that next Monday's regularly scheduled post I'll have (mostly) final Oscar predictions.
EMAIL: mpgort@gmail.com OR michael_speech@hotmail.com
Welcome back from your weekend and to the first of December.
NEW YORK CRITICS LOVE ROMA (AND FIRST REFORMED)
The New York Film Critics Circle met in NYC on Thursday last week and named the recipients of their accolades for 2018. Telluride films from TFF #45 and TFF #44 had some results to be pleased with.
Alfonso Cuaron's TFF #45 entry Roma was named Best Film of 2018 and was also named winner for Direction and Cinematography. Other TFF #45 awards went to Pawel Pawlikowski's Cold War as Best Foreign Language Film and Richard E. Grant for his Supporting Performance in Marielle Heller's Can You Ever Forgive Me?
Meanwhile Paul Schrader's First Reformed from TFF #44 was named winner for Best Screenplay and its lead, Ethan Hawke, was named Best Actor.
Telluride films claimed seven of the 12 competitive awards that were determined by the NYFCC.
My take: We probably need to take Ethan Hawke seriously as a potential Oscar nominee for Best Actor as well as First Reformed as a possible Best Picture nominee.
The newest Gurus o' Gold at Movie City News went up on Friday. We Gurus were asked to update Best Picture as well as ranking for possible nominees for Best Foreign Language Film and Best Documentary.
My ballot looked like this:
Best Picture
1. A Star Is Born
2. Roma
3. Green Book
4. The Favourite
5. Vice
6. If Beale Street Could Talk
7. Black Panther
8. BlacKkKlansman
9. First Man
10. Can You Ever Forgive Me?
11. Mary Poppins Returns
12. First Reformed
Best Documentary
1. Won't You Be My Neighbor
2. RBG
3. Free Solo
4. Minding the Gap
5. Science Fair
6. Qunicy
7. Crime + Punishment
Best Foreign Film
1. Roma
2. Cold War
3. Shoplifters
4. Burning
5. Capernaum
6. Sunset
7. Border
The TFF presence from the complete Gurus assessment from Friday has
The International Press Academy announced their nominees for their 23rd annual Satellite Awards on Thursday last week.
Among Telluride films, Yorgos Lanthimos' The Favourite was the most nominated film with nine competitive nominations as well as a special ensemble prize. It was nominated for Best Feature-Musical/Comedy, Best Actress Musical or Comedy (Colman), Best Supporting Actress (both Stone and Weisz), Direction, Original Screenplay, Cinematography, Costumes and Art Direction/Production Design.
Alfonso Cuaron's Roma was nominated in eight categories: Best International Film, Best Actress Drama- Yalitza Aparicio, Direction, Original Screenplay, Cinematography, Film Editing, Sound, Art Direction/Production Design.
Damian Chazelle's First Man was nominated seven times: Best Feature-Drama, Best Actor-Drama (Gosling), Best Supporting Actress (Foy), Score, Sound, Film Editing, Art Direction/Production Design.
Joel Edgerton's Boy Erased was nominated in four categories: Best Actor-Drama (Hedges), Best Supporting Actress (Kidman), Best Supporting Actor (Crowe), Song.
Marielle Heller's Can You Ever Forgive Me was thrice nominated: Best Actress-Drama (McCarthy), Best Supporting Actor (Grant), Best Adapted Screenplay.
Paul Schrader's TFF #44 entry First Reformed was nominated three times: Best Independent Feature, Best Actor-Dram (Hawke) and Best Original Screenplay.
Pawel Pawlikowski's Cold War was a two time nominee for Best International Feature and Cinematography.
Other TFF #45 films that earned one nomination were:
Destroyer-Best Actress-Drama (Kidman)
The Old Man and the Gun-Best Actor-Drama (Redford)
Shoplifters- Best International Feature
Free Solo-Best Documentary Feature
TFF #45 films nabbed a total of 37 Satellite nominations.
That's your MTFB for this Monday. I'll have more on Thursday in a post that will be updated during the day to reflect Golden Globe nominations and Telluride's impact on them. Until then...
EMAIL: mpgort@gmail.com OR michael_speech@hotmail.com
The other is an article from The Advocate that features half a dozen new posters for the film that debuted in The Advocate and are designed to highlight specific groups working to end conversion therapy.
Time.com published an online article from Ciara Nugent on Friday that reviews the actual incidents depicted in Mike Leigh's TFF #45 film Peterloo. The actual events including the massacre occurred in August of 1819 in Manchester, England.
Peterloo will open in the U.S. on April 5, 2019. It's opened in the U.K. this past weekend.
Netflix has released the final film from Orson Welles. The Other Side of the Wind, which played at Telluride a couple of months back was available to stream as of last Friday. Also available was the accompanying documentary from Oscar winner Morgan Neville (Twenty Feet from Stardom). They'll Love Me When I'm Dead explores the project of finally finishing Welles' last film and is also available to stream on Netflix.
Jordan Ruimy conducted an interview with Neville for The Playlist which appeared on that site on Friday. It is linked here.
INDIEWIRE CELEBRATES CUARON
Indiewire presented its second annual Indiewire Honors last Thursday. Eight film makers were honored including writer/director/producer Alfonso Cuaron. Cuaron received Indiewire's Vanguard Award.
Indiewire;s Eric Kohn wrote the story which included comments from Cuaron about Roma which was a huge success at Telluride after winning the Golden Lion at Venice.
Roma is now considered a strong Oscar contender and, at least at this point, is positioned as the film with the best chance to continue Telluride's crazy streak of having screened the last eight and nine of the last ten winners of the Oscar for Best Picture.
OSCAR PREDICTIONS UPDATE: BEST PICTURE AND DIRECTOR
Time to update MTFB's Oscar predictions in the Best Picture and Direction categories. Green Book is on the move!
BEST PICTURE
Here's the latest Best Picture predictions updating the previous round that I posted back on Oct. 15th. Each film's previous position is listed in parentheses and TFF #45 films are Bold
1) A Star Is Born (1) 2) Roma (2)
3) Green Book (5) 4) The Favourite (3)
5) BlacKkKlansman (6) 6) First Man (3)
7) If Beale Street Could Talk (7)
8) Black Panther (8). 9) Can You Ever Forgive Me? (12)
10) Vice (10)
Others: Vice, Widows, Boy Erased
Green Book continues to pick up momentum while First Man continues to fall to earth. Look out for Vice as well. I think that it could make a real splash as we get closer to its screening.
BEST DIRECTION
1) Alfonso Cuaron/Roma (1)
2) Bradley Cooper/A Star Is Born (2)
3) Spike Lee/BlacKkKlansman (4) 4) Damien Chazelle/First Man (3) 5) Yorgos Lanthimos/The Favourite (5)
Others: Peter Farrelly/Green Book, Barry Jenkins/If Beale Street Could Talk, Ryan Coogler/Black Panther, Marielle Heller/Can You Ever Forgive Me?, Adam McKay/Vice
The category has remained essentially static these last two weeks. For my money the top three spots feel like locks with a real battle royale for the #4 and #5 spots.
I'll update the lead acting races on Monday.
NEW BOY ERASED TRAILER ARRIVES
Focus Features has released a new trailer for Joel Edgerton's gay conversion therapy drama Boy Erased starring Lucas Hedges, Nicole Kidman and Russell Crowe. The film is set to open tomorrow.
Here's the new trailer from YouTube:
NETFLIX SETS ROMA RELEASE
Indiewire's Anne Thompson reported last night that Netflix has arrived at its release strategy for Roma and other films for this year's Oscar season. The streaming behemoth will release Roma theatrically in a limited fashion (NY and LA) on Nov. 21st. It will be platformed with additional theaters added on Dec. 7th and Dec. 14th which is also the date that it will available for streaming.
Other films included in Thompson's story include the Coen Brothers' The Ballad of Buster Scruggs and Suzanne Bier's Bird Box.
Jason Reitman and Hugh Jackman at the Telluride Film Festival Q+A for The Front Runner
Jason Reitman sat down to talk to Awards Circuit's Joey Magidson recently about his upcoming The Front Runner. Reitman directed and co-wrote the film starring Hugh Jackman as former Sen. Gary Hart.
Jackman's performance and the screenplay have received some attention in regards to possible Oscar consideration.
It's a truncated MTFB today as I am smack in the middle of our state's One Act Play Contest Final. My kids are doing a truncated version of The Crucible.
UPDATED OSCAR PREDICTIONS: SCREENPLAYS
Here's where I am predicting the screenplay contests as they stand at the moment. I last had them picked on Oct. 4th.
These predictions are followed by their position in parentheses at that last posting. Telluride films are Bold.
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
1) If Beale Street Could Talk (1)
2) A Star Is Born (6)
3) BlacKkKlansman (4) 4) First Man (2) 5) Can You Ever Forgive Me? (3)
Others: Boy Erased, Widows, Black Panther, The Front Runner
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
1) Roma (1) 2) The Favourite (3)
3) Green Book (2)
4) Eighth Grade (4)
5) Vice (6)
Others: First Reformed, Ben Is Back, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
GURUS ASSEMBLED
Movie City News Gurus of Gold is up with its second posting for this brand new Oscar season and as I have posted earlier, I have been asked to Guru for MCN this season...Thanks MCN!
Highlights of the new post are predictions for Best Picture as well as Best Actress and Supporting Actress.
Telluride films in play for Best Picture according to the Gurus are Roma, First Man, The Favourite and Can You ever Forgive Me? Also mentioned from TFF are: First Reformed (TFF #44), Boy Erased, Cold War and The Front Runner.
Among the Best Actress contenders are Telluriders Olivia Colman/The Favourite and Melissa McCarthy/ Can You Ever Forgive Me? Also possible: Yalitza Aparicio/Roma.
And in the Supporting Actress category: Claire Foy/First Man, Emma Stone/The Favourite and Nicole Kidman/Boy Erased. Also possible: Rachel Weisz/The Favourite and Vera Farmiga/The Front Runner.
Welcome Back from the weekend. It's Monday...all...day...
UPDATED OSCAR PREDICTIONS: THE SUPPORTING RACES
Here's the latest of my Oscar predictions for the Supporting Acting categories. The last pass at these categories was Oct. 4th.
Each prediction is followed by its previous position 0n Oct. 4th in parentheses. Telluride performances are in Bold.
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
1) Regina King/Beale Street (2) 2) Claire Foy/First Man (1) 3) Emma Stone/The Favourite (4) 4) Nicole Kidman/Boy Erased (3) 5) Rachel Weisz/The Favourite (5)
Others: Amy Adams/Vice, Marina de Tavira/Roma, Tomasin McKenzie/Leave No Trace, Elizabeth Debecki/Widows
BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
1) Mahershala Ali/Green Book (1) 2) Richard E. Grant/Can You Ever Forgive Me? (2)
3) Sam Elliott/A Star Is Born (4)
4) Timothee Chalamet/Beautiful Boy (3)
5) Sam Rockwell/Vice (5)
Others: Michael B. Jordan/Black Panther, Russell Crowe/Boy Erased, Adam Driver/BlacKkKlansman, Nicholas Hoult/The Favourite
Meanwhile, after having told everyone that a new Gurus of Gold would be up at Movie City News last Friday, it seems that I was premature and that the newest Gurus will post sometime this week.
I'll let you know when I know.
GOTHAM AWARDS NOMINATIONS REVEALED
Telluride films from both TFF #45 and TFF #44 scored well as the Gotham Awards nominations were announced this past week. The Gothams focus on rewarding excellence in independent film making.
Both The Favourite (TFF #45) and First Reformed (TFF#44) were out front with three nominations each.
The Favourite had nominations for Best Feature, Best Screenplay and a Special Award for the three actresses that are highlighted in the film: Olivia Colman, Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz.
First Reformed was nominated for Best Feature, Best Screenplay and Ethan Hawke for Best Actor.
Chole Zhao's The Rider (also from TFF #44) was nominated for Best Feature.
Richard E. Grant was nominated for Best Actor for TFF #45 favorite Can You Ever Forgive Me? and Yalitza Aparicio was nominated for Breakthrough Performance for Alfonso Cuaron's Roma.
With its limited release this week, we saw a real surge in profiles, interviews and other pieces about Marielle Heller's Can You Ever Forgive Me? starring Oscar contenders Melissa McCarthy and Richard E. Grant.
UPDATED OSCAR PREDICTIONS: BEST PICTURE AND DIRECTOR
MTFB had its first set of Oscar predictions up two weeks ago and it felt like it was time to begin updating them so I've started that process today with updates for Best Picture and Best Direction. I'll continue to update two categories each post for the next little bit and will eventually beginning to expand the predictions beyond the Big 8 categories as we move deeper into awards season.
So, here are your updates for Picture and Direction (with their last position in parentheses):
BEST PICTURE
1) A Star Is Born (2)
2) Roma (3)
3) First Man (1)
4) Green Book (4)
5) The Favourite (5)
6) BlacKkKlansman (6)
7) If Beale Street Could Talk (7)
8) Black Panther (8)
9) Can You Ever Forgive Me? (9)
10) Vice (-)
Others: Eighth Grade, Widows, Boy Erased
BEST DIRECTION
1) Alfonso Cuaron/Roma (1)
2) Bradley Cooper/A Star Is Born (2)
3) Damien Chazelle/First Man (3)
4) Spike Lee/BlacKkKlansman (4)
5) Yorgos Lanthimos/The Favourite (5)
Others: Barry Jenkins/If Beale Street Could Talk, Ryan Coogler/Black Panther, Peter Farrelly/Green Book, Adam McKay/Vice
On Thursday, I'll update Best Actress and Actor.
FIRST MAN LAUNCHES
Damian Chazelle's First Man opened last Friday. The film is still my choice for Best Film of the Year...though I still have other films to see...specifically Beale Street, Green Book and Vice which sound as if they all might have the goods to relegate First Man to second place.
As you might expect, with its release came a good amount of interviews and profile pieces. I have linked a few here for your perusal.
Producers of Marielle Heller's Can You Ever Forgive Me? dropped a new poster for the film last week. Sadly it boasts the Toronto International Film Fest logo rather than Telluride's. Despite that I decided to go ahead and post it here:
As I looked at past posts before writing today's tidbits I discovered that I haven't included a picture of the first poster that was out for the film. So here that is as well:
Meanwhile, ShowBiz411 posted an interview yesterday with actor Richard E. Grant who co-stars with Melissa McCarthy in the film. Here's the link to that interview.
Can You Ever Forgive Me? opens in the U.S. on Friday.
That's your Monday MTFB. More to come on Thursday.
EMAIL: mpgort@gmail.com OR michael_speech@hotmail.com
The final list of all submitted films from around the world for consideration for the Foreign Language Oscar has been completed this week with 87 films on the final list.
Among that list of films are a good number that were a portion of the TFF #45 lineup. By nation of submission they are:
Belgium: Girl
Cambodia: Graves Without a Name
Colombia: Birds of Passage
Italy: Dogman
Japan: Shoplifters
Mexico: Roma
Poland: Cold War
Sweden: Border
Of that batch of eight films I think Roma, Cold War and Shoplifters are strong contenders to make the final five and there is a possibility that all five films that eventually get nominated will have played at Telluride.
Here is linked coverage of the list of 87 films from:
HOLLYWOOD NEWS WEIGHS IN WITH OCTOBER OSCAR PREDICTIONS
Joey Magidson posted his first big pass at Oscar predix at Hollywood News on Friday last week. It's interesting in part because he picks all 21 feature categories. Because of that we can begin to get a sense of the overall Oscar prospects for films beyond the eight major categories.
Here's the breakdown of Magidson's picks beginning with TFF #45 films with predicted nominations in parenthesis:
First Man (12): Best Picture, Direction, Actor, Supporting Actress, Adapted Screenplay, Production Design, Cinematography, Film Editing, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Visual Effects and Original Score. One other possibility is Costumes.
The Favourite (8): Best Picture, Actress, Supporting Actress, Original Screenplay, Production Design, Cinematography, Costumes and Film Editing. Also possible: Direction and Supporting Actor.
Roma (6): Best Picture, Best Foreign Language Film, Direction, Supporting Actress, Original Screenplay, Cinematography. Also possible: Film Editing. I'm more than a little surprised that Magidson doesn't have Yalitza Aparicio anywhere in his top ten for Best Actress.
Can You Ever Forgive Me? (3) Best Picture, Actress, Supporting Actor. Also possible: Adapted Screenplay.
The Front Runner (2): Best Actor, Adapted Screenplay. Also possible: Best Picture, Supporting Actress and Film Editing.
Boy Erased (1): Best Song. Also possible: Best Picture, Actor, Supporting Actress and Original Score.
Cold War (1): Best Foreign Language Film. Also possible: Best Picture, Cinematography.
Shoplifters (1): Best Foreign Language Film.
That would be a total of 34 nominations if Magidson is 100% correct.
In addition, three other TFF #45 films land in the "also possible" camp without being picked as a nominee in any category:
The Old Man and the Gun: Best Actor, Supporting Actress.
Destroyer: Best Actress.
Birds of Passage: Best Foreign Film.
That totals 19 other "possible" nominations beyond the 34 he's currently predicting.
Among the other films Magidson is picking as Best Picture nominees (besides the TFF films) A Star Is Born leads the way (and ties First Man) with 12 predicted nominations: Best Picture, Direction, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Film Editing, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing and two Best Song nominations. Magidson lists no other possibles for ASIB.
Others in his BP list and their predicted nominations:
Black Panther (8): Best Picture, Production Design, Costumes, Film Editing, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing, Visual Effects and Song.
If Beale Street Could Talk (6): Best Picture, Direction, Supporting Actress, Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography and Original Score.
BlackKklansman (5): Best Picture, Direction, Adapted Screenplay, Film Editing and Original Score.
Vice (5): Best Picture, Actor, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress, Original Screenplay.
Green Book (4): Best Picture, Actor, Supporting Actor, Original Screenplay
Me with Richard E. Grant of Can You Ever Forgive Me?
1) Mahershala Ali/Green Book
2) Richard E. Grant/Can You Ever Forgive Me?
3) Timothee Chalamet/Beautiful Boy
4) Sam Elliott/A Star Is Born
5) Sam Rockwell/Vice
Others: Michael B. Jordan/Black Panther, John C. Reilly/Stan and Ollie, Adam Driver/BlackKklansman, Joel Edgerton/Boy Erased
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
1) Roma
2) Green Book
3) The Favourite
4) Eighth Grade
5) First Reformed
Others: Vice, A Quiet Place, Ben Is Back, Stan and Ollie
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
1) If Beale Street Could Talk
2) First Man
3) Can You Ever Forgive Me?
4) BlackKklansman
5) Boy Erased
Others: A Star Is Born, Widows, The Front Runner, Wildlife, Beautiful Boy
The TFF #45 breakdown should the predictions in these four categories be 100% accurate:
The Favourite (3): Stone and Wiesz/Supporting Actress and Original Screenplay
First Man (2): Foy/Supporting Actress and Adapted Screenplay
Can You Ever Forgive Me? (2): Grant/Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay
Roma (1) Original Screenplay
Boy Erased (2) Kidman/Supporting Actress and Adapted Screenplay
Also additional possibilities:
The Favourite (1): Colman/Supporting Actress
Roma (1) deTavira/Supporting Actress
Boy Erased (1): Edgerton/Supporting Actor
The Front Runner (1): Adapted Screenplay
AND...added to Monday's totals, the accumulated predictions for the eight major categories are:
The Favourite-6
First Man-5
Can You Ever Forgive Me?-4
Roma-3
Boy Erased-3
Added Possibilities:
The Front Runner-3
Boy Erased-2
Roma-2
The Favourite-1
Destroyer-1
And from TFF #44
First Reformed is predicted to be nominated for Best Original Screenplay and Ethan Hawke is a possible nominee for Best Actor.
PETERLOO MOVES
It was announced on Tuesday that Mike Leigh's Peterloo, which played TFF #45 as well as Venice, Toronto and will play as past of the BFI London Fest, will move its release date . The film was scheduled to be released in the U.S. on Nov. 9th but now Amazon Studios has pushed the release date to April 5, 2019.
The distributor also said that the film will be released this fall in the U.K. so that it will qualify for the BAFTAs.
The film has had something of a rough go this year as it was reportedly not chosen for Cannes. At Telluride last month the response to my polls of both fest-goers and industry professionals revealed that Peterloo didn't draw enough respondents from either group to merit including it in the ratings lists.
Peterloo details the true story of a Labor movement in Britain in August of 1819 that was organized to gain the right to vote. That resulted in the deaths of 15 people with another 400 injured as the in an action taken by the cavalry that has become known as the Peterloo Massacre.
Chris O'Falt at Indiewire posted his latest Toolkit podcast this week. His guest is The Old Man and The Gun director David Lowery. Lowery also adapted the screenplay from an article by David Grann from his New Yorker article. Grann was also represented at Telluride by Trial by Fire, also based on another of his New Yorker articles.
Lowery spends some time talking about the making of the film which may or may not but probably is Robert Redford's last acting gig.
Here it is for TFF #45. The composite mash-up of ratings from both the People and the Professionals. The Composite Telluride combines the ratings for films that came from both sets of Telluride attendees that I canvas immediately after the fest.
I began doing The Composite in 2013 and in each year the film that has finished at the top has gone on to win the Best Picture Oscar.
Here's a quick look at the top five Composite films for each year since I started:
In 2013 the top five composite films were:
1) 12 Years a Slave (9.25)
2) Tim's Vermeer (8.97)
3) Gravity (8.75)
4) Nebraska (8.38)
5) All is Lost (8.26)
In 2014 the top five were:
1) Birdman (9.18)
2) Foxcatcher (8.83)
3) The Imitation Game (8.79)
4) Wild Tales (8.43)
5) '71 (8.15)
In 2015 the top five were:
1) Spotlight (8.86)
2) Son of Saul (8.74)
3) Beasts of No Nation (8.62)
4) Steve Jobs (8.17)
5) Carol (8.13)
In 2016 the top five were:
1) Moonlight (9.19)
2) La La Land (8.91)
3) Manchester by the Sea (8.13)
4) Arrival (8.01)
5) Maudie (7.89)
In 2017 the top five were:
1) The Shape of Water (8.72)
2) Lady Bird (8.58)
3) Faces Places (7.96)
4) Darkest Hour (7.90)
5) Hostiles (7.78)
Finally, heading into 2018 the top ten films for the duration of the existence of the Composite Telluride have been:
1) 12 Years a Slave (9.25) 2013
2) Moonlight (9.19) 2016
3) Birdman (9.18) 2014
4) Tim's Vermeer (8.97) 2013
5) La La Land (8.91) 2016
6) Spotlight (8.86) 2015
7) Foxcatcher (8.83) 2014
8) The Imitation Game (8.79) 2014
9) Gravity (8.75) 2013
10) Son of Saul (8.74) 2015
Only 12 films of the 33 featured films had enough responses collectively between the two polls to create the Composite Telluride ratings. Here's where they landed on the 2018 Composite Telluride ratings (combined ratings in parentheses and the film's positions for both The People's Telluride ratings and The Professionals):
1) Roma (9.20) 1-1
2) First Man (8.51) 2-2
3) Free Solo (8.33) 5-3
4) Cold War (8.16) 6-3
5) Can You Ever Forgive Me? (7.91) 8-5
6) The Favourite (7.66) 9-6
7) Boy Erased (7.43) 4-10
8) White Boy Rick (6.94) 7-11
9) The Front Runner (6.74) 10-13
10) Destroyer (6.69) 12-9
11) Border (6.57) 16-8
12) The Old Man and the Gun (6.56) 14-10
As you can see, the largest disconnect between The Pros and the People was with Ali Abassi's Border with The People rating it at #16 while The pros had it at #8. Another large disagreement was on Joel Edgerton's Boy Erased with the People ranking it as the #4 film of the fest while The Pros have it at #10.
It will be interesting if Roma or First Man should win Oscar for Best Picture as either film would continue a TFF ratings trend. A Roma win would continue the streak of Telluride films that have placed at the top of the Composite ratings in each year I've done them. A First Man win would continue the almost uninterrupted trend of #2 films from The People's Telluride to win Best Picture. That's been true every year of The People's T-ride save for 2016 when Telluride favorite Barry Jenkin's Moonlight won over Damien Chazelle's La La Land. Had La La Land won (which most pundits expected) that #2 trend would still be unbroken.
Something's got to give this year. And, of course, there's always the possibility that The Telluride streak gets busted this year (eight straight BP winners and nine of the last ten played Telluride). Maybe A Star Is Born wins (many are predicting that to happen) and that ends the streak.
Finally, Roma moves to the #2 spot on the all time Composite list which bumps Laszlo Nemes' Son of Saul to #11.
The new all time Composite list:
1) 12 Years a Slave (9.25) 2013
2) Roma (9.20) 2018
3) Moonlight (9.19) 2016
4) Birdman (9.18) 2014
5) Tim's Vermeer (8.97) 2013
6) La La Land (8.91) 2016
7) Spotlight (8.86) 2015
8) Foxcatcher (8.83) 2014
9) The Imitation Game (8.79) 2014
10) Gravity (8.75) 2013
CONTINUED OSCAR ASSESSMENTS
Various Oscar prognosticators continue to weigh in with their perspectives on the season as Telluride/Venice/Toronto festival gauntlet has come to an end (New York's fest is just underway) and here's a look at the highlights of more of those as MTFB continues to pivot to its secondary mission to follow the awards season fortunes of the films that screened as a part of TFF #45.
Variety's Kristopher Tapley has a Best Picture piece posted. Tapley names ten films that seem to have the edge for Best Picture at this time. Included among them are T-ride selections Can You Ever Forgive Me?, The Favourite, First Man and Roma. Among "Other Films to Consider" Tapley includes The Front Runner and Cold War.
Tapley is on record as having said that he won't get to large scale predictions in multiple categories for Variety until December.
Vanity Fair's Richard Lawson goes with early takes for the six major Oscar categories: Picture, Direction, Actress, Actor and Supporting Actress and Actor.
By category, here's what T-ride films/performances he sees in the race at this point:
Best Picture: Roma, First Man (Lawson becomes the first journalist who echoes my opinion-voiced on the gondola in Telluride-that First Man shares some stylistic attributes with last year's multi-nominated Dunkirk). Lawson also suggests The Favourite is "still in play" and that the BP fortunes of The Front Runner and Boy Erased "dimmed" in Toronto.
Best Actress: Lawson says Olivia Colman/The Favourite and Melissa McCarthy/Can You Ever Forgive Me? are probable. He also opines that both Yalitza Aparicio/Roma and Nicole Kidman/Destroyer could make the race as well.
Best Actor: Lawson, like many, think Robert Redford has a real shot at a nomination for The Old Man and the Gun owning in some measure to the fact that Redford has said it's his last acting gig. Ryan Gosling/First Man is also mentioned and Lawson says we shouldn't count out Hugh Jackman in The Front Runner.
Best Supporting Actress: As many do, Lawson suggests both Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz could earn nominations for The Favourite. Also on his radar is Claire Foy from First Man.
Best Supporting Actor: Richard E. Grant for Can You Ever Forgive Me? is the TFF most likely Supporting Actor nominee according to Lawson. He also suggests that Russell Crowe might be possible from Boy Erased.
Best Direction: Lawson suggests that the five directors nominated could include Alfonso Cuaron/Roma, Damien Chazelle/First Man and Yorgos Lanthimos/The Favourite.
The Guardian also put together a post-festival Oscar analysis that isn't as focused as those above. It does, however, conclude with what it says are Ten Safe Nominee Bets which include TFFers:
Alfonso Cuaron/Roma/Direction
Richard E. Grant/Can You Ever Forgive Me?/Supporting Actor
Olivia Colman/The Favourite/Actress
Robert Redford/The Old Man and the Gun/Actor
Many outlets posted/published lists of the critical reaction to films that played at all three just concluded festivals. Here are a couple of takes:
Metacritic
The critical aggregating outfit had an extensive article posted Sunday with a breakdown of films into four categories: Award Winners, Other Highlights, Minor Disappointments and The Duds. Here's where TFF #45 ended up with their Metacritic composite score:
Award Winners:
Roma (Golden Lion/Venice) 96
The Favourite (Grand Jury Prize/Venice) 92
Other Highlights (alphabetical):
The Biggest Little Farm 74
Can You Ever Forgive Me? 83
First Man 83
Fistful of Dirt 71
Free Solo 79
Non-Fiction 83
The Old Man and the Gun 84
The Other Side of the Wind 82
They'll Love Me When I'm Dead 81
Minor Disappointments:
Boy Erased 68
Destroyer 62
The Front Runner 67
The Great Buster 69
Peterloo 69
And finally, Indiewire published "The 12 Best Movies of the Fall Festivals" on Sunday which included The Favourite and Roma. Find out the other ten films in the complete article here.
TFF HISTORY PROJECT
For those who enjoy re-visiting Telluride's past film fests, the Selected History Page has been updated for both 2017 and 2018. Additionally, I have added the link for the TFF #45 program to the Extended History 1996-Present page. I'm still planning to expand the Extended History with the information available for the fests beginning with 2006 right up to 2018 over the next few months.
FINAL TRAILER FOR FIRST MAN
Three weeks before its release, Universal has revealed a new and final trailer for Damien Chazelle's First Man. Here it is from YouTube:
First Man starring Ryan Gosling as Neil Armstrong opens on Oct. 12th.
That's your MTFB for this Thursday. I'll have more on Monday.
EMAIL: mpgort@gmail.com OR michael_speech@hotmail.com
After a week and a half of voting and rating, here is the 2018 edition of The People's Telluride. This year's TPT had 60+ respondents. That's the largest response to my call for film ratings from the attendees of the Telluride Film Festival since I started the exercise back in 2012.
As a note for clarification, I have only included films that earned ratings from at least 20% of film goers that provided me ratings so as to provide a representative sample for reasonable purposes of comparison. 16 films had enough responses to earn a spot in this year's ratings.
The People's Telluride has been a solid barometer of success for films as we enter the awards season melee. For many years, the film that was named #2 by the TPT poll won the Oscar for Best Picture. Barry Jenkins Moonlight ended that string a couple of years ago by snagging the top spot. Things returned to form last year as Guillermo Del Toro's The Shape of Water finished #2 to Greta Gerwig's Lady Bird among the People.
Here are the top rated films from the People for each year since I started doing the poll:
2012:
1) Stories We Tell (4.80)
2) Argo (4.75)
3) The Attack (4.70)
2013:
1) Tim's Vermeer (4.67)
2) 12 Years a Slave (4.55)
3) Gravity (4.40)
2014:
1) The Imitation Game (4.73)
2) Birdman (4.46)
3) Wild Tales (4.23)
2015:
1) Room (4.47)
2) Spotlight (4.45)
3) Beasts of No Nation (4.35)
2016:
1) Moonlight (4.37)
2) La La Land (4.33)
3) Maudie (4.29)
2017:
1) Lady Bird (4.38)
2) The Shape of Water (4.22)
3) Darkest Hour (4.04)
Going into this year's festival, these have been the top ten People's choices overall since 2012:
1) Stories We Tell (4.80) (12)
2) Argo (4.75) (12)
3) The Imitation Game (4.73) (14)
4) The Attack (4.70) (12)
5) Tim's Vermeer (4.67) (13)
6) 12 Years a Slave (4.55) (13)
7) Room (4.47) (15)
8) Birdman (4.46) (14)
9) Spotlight (4.45) (15)
10) Gravity (4.40) (13)
Sooo...drumroll please...here are this year's results (with the average rating following in parentheses:
1) Roma (4.47)
2) First Man (4.34)
3) Shoplifters (4.29)
4) Boy Erased (4.23)
5) Free Solo (4.19)
6) Cold War (4.02)
7) White Boy Rick (3.88)
8) Can You Ever Forgive Me? (3.81)
9) The Favourite (3.76)
10) The Front Runner (3.69)
11) Meeting Gorbachev (3.68)
12) Destroyer (3.44)
13) Trial By Fire (3.43)
14) The Old Man and the Gun (3.39)
15) Non-Fiction (Double Lives) (3.14)
16) Border (3.07)
That means that Alfonso Cuaron's Roma will join the top ten of The People's Telluride ratings tied with Lenny Abrahamson's Room from 2015.
Another tidbit for those of you who obsess over this stuff as I do...Here are what appeared to be the most watched films from TFF #45 (based on the percentage of my respondents that reported having seen the film at TFF:
1) The Favourite (78% of respondents say that they saw this film)
2) The Front Runner (70%)
3) Boy Erased (65%)
4) Roma (63%)
5) First Man (58%-tie)
5) Destroyer (58%-tie)
7) Cold War (55%)
8) Can You Ever Forgive Me? (53%)
9) White Boy Rick (50%)
10) The Old Man and the Gun (40%)
I'll have The Professionals' Telluride ratings up in Monday's post and The Composite Telluride a week from today.
BREAKING DOWN TFF #45
Now that TFF 2018 is in the books, I took a little time to inventory some of the information that helps me to come to some decisions every year. It's sort of my post-action assessment to learn lessons and trends and then apply that to the process of predicting the TFF lineup for the following year.
So, if you're interested...
33 films were announced as a part of TFF #45's main SHOW.
Film Fest Crossover:
As best as I can tell, this is the count of films that crossed over between Telluride and various other film festivals-
Toronto-17
London-10
Venice-9
Cannes-8
New York-7
Karlovy Vary-4
Berlin-1
Distributors that had films play-
Netflix-6
Fox Searchlight-3
Amazon-2
Magnolia-2
Sony/Columbia-2
And one each from: The Orchard, Neon, Focus Features, Annapurna, Universal, NatGeo, A+E, Sundance Selects, Cohen Media and Sony Pictures Classics.
Notes on the unusual from distributors-
Only one SPC film and that was late breaking acquisition The White Crow.
No A24 films after some great success in recent years at TFF.
Big showing from Netflix fueled by Roma and the excitement about Orson Welles The Other Side of the Wind.
A larger than normal presence of big studios with 3 films from Sony/Columbia and Universal.
The Usual Suspects-
The list of people that are or seem to have become "TFF Usual Suspects" for 2018 includes Damien Chazelle, Pawel Pawlikowski, Matteo Garrone, Rithy Panh, Werner Herzog, Olivier Assasyas, Mike Leigh , Alfonso Cuaron, Jason Reitman, Peter Bogdanovich, Ralph Fiennes, Charles ferguson and Yann Demange.
NEW U.K. TRAILER FOR FIRST MAN
Anton Volkov's Trailer Track website reports that Universal has released a new trailer for Damien Chazelle's First Man for the United Kingdom. Here that is from YouTube:
I GOT A NEW GIG
Though I am a little intimidated, I'm also pleased to announce that I have been invited to participate this Oscar season as one of Movie City News' Gurus of Gold.
The invitation came as a result of a recommendation made by my friend Sasha Stone who runs Awards Daily and is herself a Guru.
Here's my first chart (that's me on the far right, which will make my friends that know my political proclivities laugh really, really hard):
Thanks to Sasha for the recommendation and to Davis Poland and Ray Pride at Movie City News for giving me this opportunity. I'll try not to screw this up.
That's your MTFB for this Thursday. More on Monday including The Professionals' Telluride.
EMAIL: mpgort@gmail.com OR michael_speech@hotmail.com
