I'm Back / Netflix and Cannes: The Breakup Continues / Malick at Cannes and Then... / Schiller Talks Telluride and More / Lucy in the Sky Teaser / Burn's Country Music / New Pic of Hanks as Rogers

Spring Break has concluded...

I'M BACK

After a ten day hiatus MTFB is back today after having spent Spring Break doing this and that.  Spent some of the break in NYC.  Saw Aaron Sorkin's adaptation of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird with Jeff Daniels.  It's nearly perfect.  Saw Bryan Cranston in Network...Cranston is phenomenal.  Did some other stuff.

It was good to step away for a few days, but I'm back now as we head our way to the announcement of the films that will play at Cannes which really does begin the Telluride speculation season on some earnest.   Here we go...


NETFLIX AND CANNES: THE BREAKUP CONTINUES

While I was away we found out that Netflix will again have zero films playing at the Cannes Film Fest in May.  The impasse that created that situation last year has not been resolved and as such, Netflix apparently will not be bringing any films to France in any of the programs.

That was reported in a  number pf places this past week including this from Variety.

In addition, as it turns out, the big fish in Netflix's barrel this season, Martin Scorsese's The Irishman reportedly wouldn't be ready anyway.  It seems that there is still far too much effects work to be done.  That according to Zack Sharf writing at Indiewire.

Sharf writes that a Venice premiere at this point seems the safest bet.  That would still seem to leave the door open for a screening at Telluride much in the way Netflix played Cuaron's Roma last year (and Searchlight did Shape of Water the year before).

My take is still some serious wariness.  Scorsese hasn't been at Telluride in decades.  I wouldn't be surprised if it played Venice and Venice alone or skipped fests all together. 

Still, Collider's Adam Chitwood suggests a run for the film through the Venice, Telluride, Toronto (maybe New York) gauntlet.


MALICK AT CANNES AND THEN...

And speaking of Cannes...there's a growing consensus that  Terrence Malick will return to Cannes in May with his latest film Radegund.  It's a film I have been stalking for quite some time mostly because it's Malick doing a film with a reportedly more traditionally narrative structure that tells the true story of an Austrian conscientious objector during World War II.

I'm hoping, that after a spate of films that haven't exactly been embraced (since Tree of Life) that this will be the path back to critical success for the auteur. 

Charles Barfield writing for The Playlist suggests that Cannes will screen the new film. That story is linked here.

Should that come to pass, the questions would be: does it play any other fests and which distributor picks it up?

I'll keep an eye on it.

SCHILLER TALKS TELLURIDE, FILM AND MORE?

Friend of the blog and multi-hyphenate Christopher Schiller was featured this week on The Weekend Take podcast with Shawn Schaffer.  Schiller runs down a number of topics including a love letter to the Telluride Film Festival.

You can find Schiller's guest stint and The Weekend Take podcast at iTunes at this link.



LUCY IN THE SKY TEASER


Here's the teaser from YouTube:

The Hollywood Reporter

First Showing

The Playlist

Indiewire




BURNS' COUNTRY MUSIC

The Asheville, NC  Citizen Times reports that Ken Burns is going to screen some moments of his new documentary on country music in Asheville next week (on April 2 on the UNC-Asheville campus).  It's yet another sign that, although the entire 16 hour doc may not be ready in its entirety, there's plenty of it to show to an audience.

This roll out in various parts in various places continues to make me think that a presentation of some of it over Labor Day weekend in T-ride  is a realistic possibility.

The Citizen Times article is linked here.



NEW PIC OF HANKS AS ROGERS

And to celebrate what would have been Fred Rogers 91st birthday, TriStar released a new photo from the set of A Beautiful Day in the neighborhood starring Tom Hanks as Rogers.

Here's the new photo:

The film is directed by Marielle Heller (Can You Ever Forgive Me?) and is set for U.S. release on Nov. 22nd.

That's your "Spring Break Is Over Return Issue" of MTFB.  I'll have more on Thursday.


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

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COMMENT TO THE BLOG

The People's and The Professionals Telluride/Stewart and Rosewater/Telluride Wrap Up/Oscars: Feinberg and Tapley/Music from Rudderless

Welcome to Friday everyone...

THE PEOPLE'S AND THE PROFESSIONALS' TELLURIDE

We're coming down to the last few days that I will still be collecting film ratings from last week's 41st edition of the Telluride Film Festival.  I expect that I will continue to accept ratings through the weekend.  My hope is to post The Professionals ratings on Monday and The People's on Thursday next week with a combination set of ratings to follow.  That's the plan, at least for the moment.  So get those ratings to me ASAP.  Send to via Twitter (@Gort2), email: michael_speech@hotmail.com or as a comment to this blog.  HURRY...time is running out.

STEWART AND ROSEWATER

(Getty Images)

Although I wasn't all that enamored of the film, I am enamored of Jon Stewart and it seems I'm not the only one.  Stewart seemed to be greeted with a hero's welcome all last weekend and I suspect that has as much to do with his career before becoming a film director as it did with the actual film he was in Telluride presenting.  That said, he's the subject of a couple of profiles as a result of "Rosewater's" premiere at T-ride last weekend and I have linked them here.  First a piece from The Hollywood Reporter and Scott Feinberg in which Scott interviews Stewart:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/jon-stewart-embracing-film-festival-729418

And also from the Los Angeles Times, this profile of the comedian turned director:

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/filmfestivals/la-et-mn-jon-stewart-rosewater-20140904-story.html


TELLURIDE WRAP UP

Friend of the blog, and I think I can safely say just "friend" without the added "of the blog" Christopher Schiller posted his thoughts of the festival weekend yesterday at ScriptMag.com.  Chris and I don't always agree (ex: he loved "Two Days, One Night"...me...not so much) but he's always got an interesting and well reasoned take.  Here's his review of what we experienced last week:'

http://www.scriptmag.com/festivals-2/telluride-film-festival-report

OSCARS: FEINBERG AND TAPLEY

The above mentioned Scott Feinberg takes a look at the post-Telluride awards alignment and offers his assessment of how things shook out after the four days in the San Juans:


http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/telluride-postmortem-some-contenders-climbed-729395

Meanwhile, Oscar expert Kristopher Tapley reports that the Best Actor race just including the performances from Telluride is already intense...and he's right:

http://www.hitfix.com/in-contention/best-actor-oscar-race-heats-up-in-telluride

I'm campaigning for Michael Keaton...it's my blog, I don't have to be impartial.

MUSIC FROM RUDDERLESS

My countdown to the release of William H. Macy's set in Oklahoma Sundance drama "Rudderless" continues.  It's set to release on Oct. 17th.  News came yesterday that music form the film...and it's cool music...will be available within the month.  One of the things that was said after the Oklahoma City screening of the film last June was how good the music was.  Now you'll soon have a chance to hear for yourself.  The Playlist posted the release story online and here's the link to that:

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/exclusive-listening-preview-songs-from-the-rudderless-soundtrack-performed-by-selena-gomez-eef-barzelay-ben-kweller-more-20140904


More tomorrow...

Follow me on Twitter @Gort2

Parsing Toronto's Announcement/Schiller Explains It All For You

PARSING TORONTO'S ANNOUNCEMENT

The Toronto International Film Festival announced the first wave of films for their lineup this morning.  It may tell us some things about Telluride...and Venice (which announces their big guns Thursday).

Before I attempt to take this apart, a couple of caveats...

1) We believe that Toronto is going to follow their own announced policy of labeling films "World" or "North American" premieres to the extent that those films will not play Telluride and/or Venice earlier.

2) That they have the information from the distrib/producer types in order to make that call.

That said, here's what we "know" from this morning's announcement:

Selected Toronto Galas and their premiere status:

"Foxcatcher" Canadian Premiere
"The Judge" World
"Riot Club" World
"Wild" International


Select Special Presentations and their premiere status:

"99 Homes" Canadian
"Coming Home" North American
"The Drop" World
"Eden" World
"Force Majeure" North American
"The Good Lie" World
"The Imitation Game" Canadian
"Love & Mercy" World
"Manglehorn" North American
"Maps to the Stars" North American
"Men, Women and Children" World
"Miss Julie" World
"Mr. Turner" Canadian
"Phoenix" World
"Rosewater" Canadian
"Theory of Everything" World
"While We're Young" World
"Wild Tales" Canadian


Takeaways:

Here's what seems to be your best guesses based on the announcement this morning about films that could be headed to Telluride:

"Foxcatcher", "Wild", ""99 Homes", "The Imitation Game", "Mr. Turner", "Rosewater" and "Wild Tales".

Films that surprised me by the "World Premiere" status: Bill Pohlad's "Love and Mercy" and Noah Baumbach's "While We're Young" (perhaps the "Untitled Public School Project" shows up at Telluride?)

Films of interest not mentioned at all this morning: "Birdman", "Fury", "Unbroken","Interstellar", "A Most Violent Year", "Macbeth", "Suite Francaise", "Carol", "Clouds of Sils Maria", "Two Days,One Night", "Every Thing Will Be Fine", "The Homesman", "St. Vincent", "Big Eyes", "Suffragette", and "Far from the Madding Crowd"

Also a surprise...no announcement of an opening film...very weird.

I'm personally very excited, if this pans out, for "Foxcatcher", "The Imitation Game" and "Rosewater".

Here's the complete breakdown of films and descriptions from The Playlist:

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/tiff-2014-lineup-includes-the-imitation-game-while-were-young-nightcrawler-men-women-children-more-20140722


SCHILLER EXPLAINS IT ALL FOR YOU

Friend of the blog Christopher Schiller, writing this morning for scriptmag.com posted a fascinating analysis of some of the legal ramifications that had to have played into this morning's announcement from Toronto.
Read it here:

http://www.scriptmag.com/features/legally-speaking-depends-film-festival-rules


More tomorrow...or as it becomes available...

Cannes 66 Lineup Revealed/Blood Ties Images/Enter Your Film/Screenplay Advice from a Real Attorney

Good Thursday everyone.

CANNES REVEALED TODAY

The lineup (or the majority of it) of the 66th Cannes Film Festival was announced early this morning.  Here it is via Eugene Hernandez and The Film Society of Lincoln Center:

Competition
Behind The Candelabra, directed by Steven Soderbergh
Borgman, directed by Alex Van Warmerdam
Un Château En Italie, directed by Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi
La Grande Belleza (The Great Beauty), directed by Paolo Sorrentino
Grisgris, directed by Mahamat-Saleh Haroun
Heli, directed by Amat Escalante
The Immigrant, directed by James Gray
Inside Llewyn Davis, directed by Ethan Coen, Joel Coen
Jeune Et Jolie, directed by Francois Ozon
Jimmy P. (Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian), directed by Arnaud Desplechin
Michael Kohlhass, directed by Arnaud Despallieres
Nebraska, directed by Alexander Payne
Only God Forgives, directed by Nicolas Winding Refn
Le Passe (The Past), directed by Asghar Farhadi
Soshite Chichi Ni Naru (Like Father, Like Son), directed by Kore-eda Hirokazu
Tian Zhu Ding (A Touch of Sin), directed by Jia Zhangke
La Venus a La Fourrure, directed by Roman Polanski
La Vie D'Adele, directed by Abdellatif Kechiche
Wara No Tate (Shield of Straw), directed by Takashi Miike

Out of Competition
All Is Lost, directed by J.C. Chandor
Blood Ties, directed by Guillaume Canet
The Great Gatsby, directed by Baz Luhrmann (opening night)
Zulu, directed by Jérôme Salle (closing night)

Special Screenings
Muhammad Ali's Greatest Fight, directed by Stephen Frears
Otdat Konci, directed by Taisia Igumentseva
Seduced and Abandoned, directed by James Toback
Stop the Pounding Heart, directed by Roberto Minervini
Week End of a Champion, directed by Roman Polanski

Un Certain Regard:
Anonymous, directed by Mohammad Rasoulof
As I Lay Dying, directed by James Franco
Bends, directed by Flora Lau
The Bling Ring, directed by Sofia Coppola (opening film)
Death March, directed by Adolfo Alix Jr.
Fruitvale Station, directed by Ryan Coogler
Grand Central, directed by Rebecca Zlotowski
L'Image Manquante, directed by Rithy Panh
L'Inconnu du Lac, directed by Alain Guiraudie
La Jaula de Oro, directed by Diego Quemada-Diez
Miele, directed by Valeria Golino
Norte, Hangganan Ng Kasaysayan, directed by Lav Diaz
Omar, directed by Hany Abu-Assad
Les Salauds, directed by Claire Denis
Sarah Prefere La Course, directed by Chloé Robichaud

Midnight Movies
Monsoon Shootout, directed by Amit Kumar
Blind Detective, directed by Johnnie To

Quick notes: I'm assuming "The Immigrant" is now the title for what we have been referring to as "Lowlife" and occasionally as "The Nightingale".

Further word this morning is that Ari Folman's "The Congress" will be added to the lineup.

Films that seem to draw immediate Telluride attention include both "The Immigrant" and "The Congress" as well as Alexander Payne's "Nebraska" and Asghar Farhadi's "The Past".  I also get a vibe for, as I mentioned Monday, that "Blood Ties" and "Arnuad Desplechin's "Jimmy P."

I have included one final Cannes spec piece this morning from The Movie City News' (and friend of MTFB) Jake Howell.  Jake had some interesting insights.  Check the post here and see how close he was:

http://moviecitynews.com/2013/04/divining-cannes-2013-the-aggregating/



BLOOD TIES IMAGES

Marion Cotiilard on the "Blood Ties" set (Just Jared)

Included as an out of competition film this morning is "Blood Ties".  French actor Guillaume Canet has stepped behind the camera to remake an English language version of a French thriller that he originally starred in.

I've been thinking recently that it might have a Telluride ride on Labor Day.  I don't have any tangible reason...no production company ties to past festivals...no U.S. distributor yet...just a vibe.

Here's a look at first images from the film posted via The Playlist:


http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/first-images-of-clive-owen-mila-kunis-matthias-schoenaerts-more-in-guillaume-canets-blood-ties-20130414

CALL FOR ENTRY

Monday I posted a link to a story about Telluride opening the process for film submissions for this year's fest.  Here's the actual lowdown from TFF's actual website:

http://telluridefilmfestival.com/film_entry

SCHILLER TALKS SCRIPTS



Friend of the blog and Telluride regular Christopher Schiller is up with an article/post at scriptmag.com focusing on the ins and outs of intellectual property ownership in the screenwriting biz.  Check out his article here:


http://www.scriptmag.com/features/legally-speaking-it-depends-stolen-movie-ideas