More Venice Rumblings / Cannes Critics Respond / Ten Bets in a Month

MORE VENICE RUMBLINGS

Now that Cannes is well and truly underway...see the critical reactions so far in the next bloc...speculation about what films that might be playing Venice is heating up.  As Venice spec heats up, so does the speculation about which films will play Venice and Telluride.  As I have mentioned before, the two fests now commonly share 6-7 titles per year.

Variety's Nick Vivarelli posted on Thursday a piece titled:  Beyond Cannes: Are Zendaya, Emma Stone and Bradley Cooper Already Packing Their Bags for Venice Film Festival?  

His claim is that there are a number of films already lined up for Venice.  Of the films mentioned in the article, a good number of them could be reasonable candidates to double-dip at Venice and T-ride including:

Poor Things/Lanthimos

Challengers/Guadagnino

Priscilla/S. Coppola

The Captain/Garrone

Maestro/Cooper

Nyad/Chin and Vasarhelyi

Saltburn/Fennell

The Book of Clarence/Samuels

The complete article is linked here.

CANNES CRITICS RESPOND

As Cannes is essentially at its midway point, here's a look at the critical response thus far with an eye toward what seem to be contenders for the Palme d'Or as well as a few other films a few other films of interest.

First, among the Palme d'Or competition films that have jumped to the fore in as far as the general critical reaction, at the top is Jonathan Glazer's The Zone of Interest.

Reini Urban's Critics compilation has Zone with an 8.22 average (on a 10 point scale) and the top comp film with more than 10 reviews averaged.  Hirokazu Kore-eda's Monster is second meeting that same criteria with a 7.69 average.  Regular readers will know that I have been tracking both of those films as TFF #50 possibilities for some time.  Also making some noise according to the Urban metric are Nuri Bilge Ceylan's About Dry Grasses (7.65),  Justine Triet's Anatomy of a Fall (7.50) and Todd Haynes' May/December (also on the MTFB TFF #50) watch list.

Among other films that I am watching that also meet the above criteria are the ecstatic reactions for Martin Scorsese's Killers of the flower Moon (8.57)

Michel Gondry's The Book of Solutions 7.48

Steve McQueen's Occupied City 6.45

Wim Wenders Anselm 6.41

Other films from Cannes that are on my TFF radar but that haven't screened yet or have fewer than 10 reviews as yet:

Perfect Days (Wenders)

The Old Oak (Loach)

La Chimera (Rohrwacher)

Strange Way of Life (Almodovar)

I have my eye on a couple of other critical compilations that focus exclusively on Palme contenders.  Those are from Ioncinema and the International Cinephile Society.  Ioncinema uses a four point scale while ICS uses a five points scale.

The top five on the Ioncinema list thus far:

1) The Zone of Interest (Glazer) 3.9

2) About Dry Grasses (Ceylan) 3.4

3) May/December (Haynes) 3.3

3) Anatomy of a Fall (Triet) 3.3

5) Monster (Kore-eda) 3.2

5) Youth (Bing) 3.2

The top five on the ICS chart are:

1) The Zone of Interest (Glazer) 4.18

2) Anatomy of a Fall (Triet) 3.67

3) May/December (Haynes) 3.50

4) About Dry Grasses (Ceylan) 3.46

5) Youth (Bing) 3.33

And finally from Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes

Killers of the Flower Moon  Meta: 91  RT: 97

The Zone of Interest  Meta: 99  RT: 100

May/December  Meta: 82  RT: 93

Anatomy of a Fall  Meta: 90  RT: 100

Monster  Meta: 79  RT: 100

TEN BETS IN A MONTH

Mark it on your calendars...MTFB's first Ten bets for the 50th edition of the Telluride Film Festival is headed your way on June 22nd.  What might you expect?  Mid-level prediction success!  I looked back over the last 11 years (leaving out the Covid year of 2020) and here is my accuracy for each of the first time "Ten Bets" since I began formatting my predictions this way in 2011:

2011: 8/10
2012: 5/10
2013: 6/10
2014: 7/10
2015: 4/10
2016: 3/10
2017: 7/10
2018: 5/10

2019: 4/10

2020: No Fest

2021: 8/10

2022: 6/10

My average over the 11 years of "Betting" is 5.7 correct films from the first Ten Bets each year.  Not bad but also not burning the house down either.

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All About Cannes and Telluride: The Critics / The Palme d'Or and Telluride / Killers Trailer!!!

ALL ABOUT CANNES AND TELLURIDE

THE CRITICS

As the 76th Cannes Film Festival ramps up (it opened on Tuesday) I thought I'd focus a bit on things I look at to gauge a film's chances at playing T-ride after debuting in France.  As I have written before, there are, on average, 7-8 films that premiere at Cannes and then have their North American Premiere in the San Juans over Labor day weekend.

One data point I pay attention to is Reini Urban's collection of the critical response to Cannes' films.  Urban has been doing this annually since 2010.  So, to get a sense of what those critical composite ratings can tell us, I ran down the results of the last ten years (excluding the Covid year of 2020).  Turns out that an average of four films from the Cannes critical top 25 make the trek to Telluride.  The Cannes/Telluride connection from this top 25 each year ranged from a high of seven films in 2013 to a low of two in 2012 and 2016.  Here's the breakdown with a film's position in the ratings:

2012:

1) Amour

6) No

2013:

1) Blue Is the Warmest Colour

4) Inside Llewyn Davis

5) The Missing Picture

11) All Is Lost

15) The Lunchbox

20) The Past

25) Nebraska

2014:

9) Two Days, One Night

15) Red Army

23) Leviathan

24) Mr. Turner

2015:

3) Carol

14) Son of Saul

15) Hitchcock/Truffaut

2016: 

1) Toni Erdmann

11) Graduation

2017:

5) Faces/Places

8) Tesnota

24) The Rider

2018:

4) Shoplifters

7) Cold War

9) Girl

19) Birds of Passage

20) Border

2019:

1) Parasite

3) Pain and Glory

5) Portrait of a Lady on Fire

23) A Hidden Life

2021:

13) Red Rocket

15) A Hero

19) The French Dispatch

21) Bergman Island

2022:

1) La Pupille

2) Aftersun

6) Close

11) Broker

15) Godland

18) One Fine Day

So, I'll be keeping an eye on Urban's composite critical response.  As a matter of fact, the collection has already started even this early in the fest with some critics already having benefited from pre-fest access.  

Early, early films that I have on my T-ride watch list that are in the top 25 (with only 6-10 critics collected thus far) include: May/December, La Chimera, The Book of Solutions, The New Boy, The Old Oak and Club Zero.

Stay tuned.

THE PALME D'OR AND TELLURIDE

Someone usually asks me every year about the odds of Cannes' Palme d'Or winning film making the Telluride lineup and that answer is about half the time.  Since 2003, here are the Palme winners that have crossed the Atlantic and screened in the mountains of southwest Colorado:

2003: Elephant

2005: L'enfant

2007: 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days

2009: The White Ribbon

2012: Amour

2013: Blue Is the Warmest Colour

2018: Shoplifters

2019: Parasite

So, by this metric, it would seem that this year's Palme winner might be a film to keep an eye on for Telluride since we haven't had that occur since 2019.

KILLERS TRAILER!!!

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Cannes Opening Imminent - Top Possibilities / WOR and the Best of the '60's -Part Two / Looks At: Poor Things and Cobweb

CANNES OPENING IMMINENT-TOP POSSIBILITIES

Set photo from Jonathan Glazer's The Zone of Interest

The 76th Cannes Film Festival is just hours away from its opening and MTFB continues to monitor the pre-fest buzz for films that could make the trans-Atlantic crossing from France to southwestern Colorado on Labor Day weekend.

As frequent readers know, traditionally many films make the Cannes/Telluride Two-Step each year.  On average (based on the last 12 years) there are 7-8 films that make that double-play.  Last year nine films made the trip including Aftersun, Armageddon Time, Broker, Close, Holy Spider and The Pupils.

As we near the start of this year's fest on The Croisette, Indiewire has published their list of "Most Anticipated" titles.  Looking at that, here's another stab from that list at what might SHOW up at T-ride:

La Chimera/Rohrwacher

Fallen Leaves/Kaurismaki

Killer of the Flower Moon/Scorsese

May/December/Haynes

Monster/Kore-eda

Strange Way of Life/Almodovar

The Zone of Interest/Glazer

The complete Indiewire story and list are linked here.

As always, I'll be keeping track of the critical reaction from Cannes as that can sometimes point to the viability of films moving forward. Here are the dates that some of the films of interest will be having their initial public screening:

In Palme competition:

Monster 5/17

The Zone of Interest 5/19

May/December 5/20

Perfect Days 5/25

La Chimera 5/26

The Old Oak 5/26

Others not in Palme Competition:

Occupied City 5/17

Strange Way of Life 5/17

Anselm 5/17

The New Boy 5/19

Killers of the Flower Moon 5/20

Cobweb 5/25

Closing night ceremonies will take place on May 27th.

WOR AND THE BEST OF THE 60'S -PART TWO

Last Thursday I wrote about participating in World of Reel's poll of the greatest films of the 1960's.  Since that post WOR head man Jordan Ruimy has published the individual ballots of all 130+ people who participated.  That let me see how my list of ten great films of the 60's stacked up with everyone else.

 Here's my list of ten and where they landed within the top 40 that Ruimy posted last week:

2001: A Space Odyssey (1)

The Apartment (9)

Cool Hand Luke

Dr. Strangelove (3)

The Graduate (5)

The Hustler 

Lawrence of Arabia (4)

Midnight Cowboy (17)

To Kill a Mockingbird

They Shoot Horses Don't They

As to the films that I listed that did not make the Top 40, here's the number of ballots they had with this note, it took 7 ballots to make the Top 40.:

Cool Hand Luke-5

The Hustler-5

To Kill a Mockingbird- 6

They Shoot Horses Don't They-3

The complete list of individual ballots is here.

LOOKS AT: POOR THINGS, COBWEB AND  ANSLEM

POOR THINGS TEASER

I will admit that I am fascinated by what this Yorgos Lanthimos film might be.  Additionally, I'm a big fan of Emma Stone  The IMDb description:

"The incredible tale and fantastical evolution of Bella Baxter (Stone), a young woman brought back to life by the brilliant and unorthodox scientist Dr. Godwin Baxter (Dafoe)."

Here's the teaser from YouTube that was released by Searchlight on May 11th:

Here's The Hollywood Reporter on the film.

COBWEB

I have Director Kin Jee-woon's Cobweb as an outside shot to make the lineup for TFF #50.  It play's in an Out-of-Competition slot.

The IMDb Desription:

"an experimental and genre-defying drama shot entirely on sound stages in support of a film-within-a-film narrative."

Here's the trailer with subtitles from YouTube:

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Kaurismaki's Fallen Leaves Has a Trailer / Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey Tops WOR Poll / McQueen's Occupied City Is Four Hours Long

KAURISMAKI'S FALLEN LEAVES HAS A TRAILER

Aki Kaurismaki's Fallen Leaves has been on the MTFB TFF #50 watch list for some time.  For moths it was rumored to be a choice for Cannes and that proved to be true as it was announced as a part of the Palme d'Or competition lineup back on April 13th.  

The film is set to be screened in Cannes on May 22nd.

Sales agent The Match Factory has released a trailer for the film ahead of its screening at Cannes.  Here it is from YouTube:

Here's the Variety story about the film and its trailer release.

KUBRICK'S 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY TOPS WOR POLL

I wrote on Monday that I had participated in World of Reel's latest "decade" poll.  This one called on a group of critics, bloggers and such to name the best films of the 1960s. Well, the results are in and Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey topped the poll with 53 votes.  Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho was #2 which was just outside the ten films I submitted.

Here's the top ten from World of Reel:

1) 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kubrick) 53 votes

2) Psycho (Hitchcock) 50

3) Dr. Strangelove (Kubrick) 35

4) Lawrence of Arabia (Lean) 34

5) The Graduate (Nichols) 27

6) Bonnie and Clyde (Penn) 27

7) Persona (Bergman) 27

8) Rosemary’s Baby (Polanski) 22 

9) 8 1/2 (Fellini) 21

10) The Apartment (Wilder) 20

And a reminder of my top ten:

2001: A Space Odyssey

The Apartment 

Cool Hand Luke

Dr. Strangelove

The Graduate

The Hustler 

Lawrence of Arabia

Midnight Cowboy 

To Kill a Mockingbird

They Shoot Horses Don't They

WOR's story lists the top forty vote getters and you can see that entire list here.

MC QUEEN'S OCCUPIED CITY IS  FOUR HOURS LONG

The program for Cannes screenings reveals that Steve McQueen's documentary about Amsterdam and the effect World War II had on that city-Occupied City- is listed as being 4 hours and 6 minutes long.  That seems daunting but I can still see it as a TFF #50 selection. 

Here's the IMDb description of the film:

"The past collides with the present in this excavation of the Nazi occupation of Amsterdam: a journey from World War II to recent years of pandemic and protest and a provocative, life-affirming reflection on memory, time and what's to come."

McQueen has some Telluride history-Hunger, Shame, 12 Years a Slave.  The film is being distributed by A24 which certainly has had a presence at Telluride in recent years. 

Additionally, McQueen's other project-Blitz- which is a feature film focused on the Blitz of London during WW II,  may not be ready in time for TFF.  Jordan Ruimy at World of Reel indicated as much in his Venice post on May 5th. Absent its availability for TFF/Venice/TIFF Occupied City may be a hot commodity for the fall fests.

You can see the Cannes program here.

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I'm Back / Trailers: Next Goal Wins, Strange Way of Life, Desperate Souls / Photos: Flower Moon, Poor Things, New Boy / News of Drive-Away Dolls

 I'M BACK

Well hello.  I've been away for awhile.  

Actually, the last three weeks I've been away has been the longest that NTFB has been dormant at any one time since I started writing the thing back in August of 2008.  What was up?  The wife and I went on a quick tour of  Europe.  But we're back now...as of Tuesday evening... and I'm here to crank MTFB up as we stare down the barrel of the Cannes Film Fest (starting in 11 days!)  We'll see what the results there, both critically and in terms of award winners, tell us about clues to films we could see in the San Juans on Labor day weekend.

TRAILERS

Over the past three weeks we have seen trailers released for two films that could show up on the TFF #50 playlist and one from TFF #49.  Looking ahead to the potential TFF #50 titles:

NEXT GOAL WINS

 

And STRANGE WAY OF LIFE from Pedro Almodovar (his short film that will be opening the Cannes fest in a few days):

And from TFF #49 the trailer for the documentary Desperate Souls: Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy:

PHOTOS

New stills have been released from three films that I have on my TFF #50 watch/wish list.  Take a look:

KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON (Scorsese)

POOR THINGS (Lanthimos)

THE NEW BOY (Thornton)

NEWS OF DRIVE-AWAY DOLLS

Ethan Coen (of Coen Brothers fame) has been quietly working on his first solo feature film, Drive-Away Dolls and now we know when it will be leased and some other interesting tidbits from a number of outlets.  The film has been set to release on Sept. 22nd which means it's possible for Telluride as well as Venice and Toronto. The 9/22 date means that it will not play NYFF as it doesn't open until Sept. 29th.  The film is distributed by focus Features.

The film stars Margaret Qualley, Geraldine Viswanathan, Matt Damon, Pedro Pascal, Colman Domingo and Bill Camp.

IMDb Pro describes it as follows:

"Jamie regrets his breakup with his girlfriend while Marian needs to relax. In search of a fresh start they embark on an unexpected road trip to Tallahassee, but things quickly go awry when they cross paths with a group of inept criminals."

Articles from Ioncinema and The Film Stage have speculated that TFF is a possible landing spot for the film.  Coen was part of a three-headed tribute along with his brother Joel and music man T. Bone Burnett at the 40th Telluride Film Festival in 2013.  It would be a nice return to TFF for its 50th fest this year.

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Cannes: What's In and What's Out / Hiatus Time Starts Today

CANNES: WHAT'S IN AND WHAT'S OUT

The Cannes Film Festival has announced their lineup across several different categories and generally speaking the various outlets that have been speculating what will play have been spot on.

These are the films that seem the most likely to make the crossover between Cannes and Telluride from each of the various sections:

Competition:

The Zone of Interest/Glazer

Fallen Leaves/Kaurismaki

Monster/Kore-eda

La Chimera/Rohrwacher

May/December/Haynes

Perfect Days/Wenders

Un Certain Regard:

The New Boy/Thornton

Out of Competition:

Killers of the Flower Moon/Scorsese

Cobweb/Jee-woon

Special Screenings:

Occupied City/McQueen

Anselm/Wenders

Short Films:

Strange Way of Life/Almodovar

As has often been the case with Cannes,  Festival Director Thierry Fremaux revealed that there will be other films added in the coming days.  I'll be eagerly watching for those additions to see if the added films might also smell like they could be Telluride bound.

Here's the complete lineup from Variety.

HIATUS TIME STARTS TODAY

MTFB will be on Hiatus for the next three weeks.  I'll still be keeping an eye on the buzz from Cannes and other possible sources of intell re: TFF #50.  

Should anything vital emerge over the next three weeks I'll post that on my Twitter account @Gort2 and/or MTFB's Facebook page.

MTFB will return on May 4th. 

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Oscar #95 Postmortem / Looking Forward

OSCAR #95 POSTMORTEM

When the Oscar's show ended Sunday night I was a bit disappointed in my 18-5 record predicting the Oscar outcome.  That's a success rate of 78.3%.  Respectable and about what I have averaged over the years since I started doing Oscar picks as a part of the aftermath of covering the Telluride Film Festival.  Of the five I missed, the only one that wasn't in last Sunday's post that wasn't a pick or at least a possible spoiler was All Quiet on the Western Front in Production Design.  Curtis and Fraser were both listed as "Spoilers" in their acting categories as were BP: Wakanda Forever and The Whale were for Costumes and Makeup/Hair respectively.  So I felt a little better.

Then Monday morning I took a peek at Gold Derby's Experts chart and felt a lot better.  Turns out that had I been listed among their experts I would have finished second to Perter Travers of ABC TV.  Peter went 19-4.  Two other experts were at 18-5 like me but Gold Derby has a points system that had me ahead of them substantially.  I won't name names but I came out ahead of a lot of the pros and that, I'm a little embarrassed to say, makes me feel pretty, pretty good.

The Gold Derby Experts results chart is linked here.

Of course, to bring me back to Earth, I finished 701 out of nearly 10,861 non-professional users...that's in the top 6.5%.  My points accumulated: 12,919:

So, all-in-all...not a bad record for me in 2023.

ALSO- turns out I made it onto Awards Daily's Big Bad Prediction Chart after I posted final predictions on Sunday morning.  Here's the link to that.

Over the last ten Oscars, here's what the MTFB success rate has been:

2023: 18/23 78.3% (Everything Everywhere All at Once)

2022: 21/23 91.3% (Coda)

2021: 16/23 69.6% (Nomadland)

2020: 19/24 79.2% (Parasite)

2019: 19/24 79.2% (Green Book)

2018: 21/24 87.5% (The Shape of Water)

2017: 15/24 62.5% (Moonlight)

2016: 15/24 62.5% (Spotlight)

2015: 20/24 83.3% (Birdman)

2014: 22/24 91.7% (12 Years a Slave)

That's 186/237 over the decade for a success rate at 78.5%.

Oscar 2023 was a rough year for Telluride films.  TFF films earned 17 nominations but only one took home a trophy and that was Sarah Polley for Best Adapted Screenplay for Women Talking.  Other places where TFF films had a realistic shot but came up short included Cate Blanchett for Best Actress for TAR, All the Beauty and the Bloodshed in Documentary Feature and Le Pupille in Live Action Short.

The 1 for 17 finish marked the lowest TFF Oscar haul since 2009 when TFF films had 16 nominations spread among seven films and none took home an Oscar.  The last time TFF had a one Oscar year was 2001 when No Man's Land won Best Foreign Language Film.

As I have mentioned, you might consider Everything Everywhere All at Once TFF-adjacent due to the fest's feting of Michelle Yeoh as a part of a salute to Sony Pictures Classics 30th Anniversary with a screening of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.  I suspect Yeoh's appearance was, in part, to keep her in the limelight during the fall fest season for EEAAO's and her run to the Oscars.  I know nothing, but a calculation of that sort makes a good deal of sense.

Also in the "TFF adjacent" category was Documentary Feature winner Navalny which reportedly screened at one pf the parks in Telluride the Wednesday night before the fest opened.

LOOKING FORWARD

As we turn our attention away from Oscar season and back to TFF #50 speculation.  We'll be looking for three areas for clues.  Way-too-early Oscar predictions and the Cannes lineup and the post Berlin Film Fest's slate of films.  Cannes and Telluride average a 6-8 film overlap from year to year.  Additionally, early Oscar prognostications can give us insight into what Oscar watchers think will be the most "important" films of the year which usually translates into films that, at least early on, seem like films that many of the major film fests will want to program.

We already know that Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer and Greta Gerwig's Barbie are off the table as they are both announced for a July 21st release.  But despite that, there are a bunch of interesting possibilities on the table.

The first too early Oscar forecast I ran across from a major outlet was from The A.V. Club.  Among the titles of 23 possible Best Picture nominees were seven films that are on my early TFF #50 watch list:

AND from Yorgos Lanthimos

The Color Purple from Blitz Bazawule

The Holdovers from Alexander Payne

The Killer from David Fincher

Killers of the Flower Moon from Martin Scorsese

Next Goal Wins from Taika Waititi

Poor Things from Yorgos Lanthimos

Here's the link to the A.V. Club's full list.

Meanwhile, for a good listing of potential Cannes selections, take a look at Jordan Ruimy's evolving list at World of Reel which currently includes a number of intriguing possible overlapping films between Cannes and T-ride including from the list above: Flower Moon and Poor Things.

Others that seem at least possible for TFF #50:

May/December-Todd Haynes

Monster -Hirokazu Kore-eda

Priscilla-Sofia Coppola

The Royal Hotel-Kitty Green

And finally from Berlin, Gold Derby compiled as list of 20 films and among those are some titles that are worth noting as possible TFF choices:

She Came to Me-Rebecca Miller

The Survival of Kindness-Rolf de Heer

Ingeborg Bachmann-Journey Into the Desert-Margerethe Von Trotta

Afire-Christian Petzold

Here's the complete list of 20 Berlin films from Gold Derby.

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