MTFB Oscar Take: Latest "Above the Line" Oscar Predictions / Film Independent Spirit Awards / Guild Awards: Art Directors and Editors / More Cannes Spec / Interviews and Profiles

MTFB OSCAR TAKE: LATEST "ABOVE THE LINE" OSCAR PREDICTIONS

BEST PICTURE

1) The Power of the Dog

2) Belfast

3) CODA

4) West Side Story

5) King Richard

6) Dune

7) Licorice Pizza

8) Don't Look Up

9) Drive My Car

10) Nightmare Alley

Comment: With its Best Cast SAG win CODA moved from #7 to #3.

BEST DIRECTION

1) Jane Campion/The Power of the Dog

2) Kenneth Branagh/Belfast

3) Steven Spielberg/West Side Story

4) Licorice Pizza/Paul Thomas Anderson

5) Ryusuke Hamaguchi/Drive My Car

BEST ACTRESS

1) Jessica Chastain/The Eyes of Tammy Faye

2) Kristen Stewart/Spencer

3) Nicole Kidman/Being the Ricardos

4) Olivia Colman/The Lost Daughter

5) Penelope Cruz/Parallel Mothers

Comment: SAG win moves Chastain to the top.

BEST ACTOR

1) Will Smith/King Richard

2) Benedict Cumberbatch/The Power of the Dog

3) Andrew Garfield/tick, tick...BOOM

4) Denzel Washington/The Tragedy of Macbeth

5) Javier Bardem/Being the Ricardos

1) BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

1) Ariana DeBose/West Side Story

2) Kirsten Dunst/The Power of the Dog

3) Aunjanue Ellis/King Richard

4) Jesse Buckley/The Lost Daughter

5) Judi Dench/Belfast

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

1) Troy Kotsur/CODA

2) Kodi Smit-McPhee/The Power of the Dog

3) Ciaran Hinds/Belfast

4) Jesse Plemons/The Power of the Dog

5) J.K. Simmons/Being the Ricardos

Comment: Kotsur's SAG win propels him past Smit-McPhee.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

1) Belfast

2) Licorice Pizza

3) Don't Look Up

4) The Worst Person in the World

5) King Richard

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

1) The Power of the Dog

2) CODA

3) The Lost Daughter

4) Drive My Car

5) Dune

COW TRAILER

The header for this story is funny..."Cow Trailer".  Hahahahaha.  now then, Andrea Arnold's Cow has a trailer and here it is:

FILM INDEPENDENT SPIRIT AWARDS

The Film Independent Spirit Awards were handed out on Sunday.  Maggie Gyllenhaal's The Lost Daughter had an exceptional evening winning Best Feature, Director and Screenplay.  TFF #48 selection Red Rocket was also recognized for Best Actor with Simon Rex winning that award.  The complete listing of all Spirit Awards winners is linked here from The Hollywood Reporter.

GUILD AWARDS: ART DIRECTORS, ACE: EDDIES

The Art Directors Guild named their winners for 2021 films this past weekend.  No TFF #48 films made their lists.  Film winners were Nightmare Alley, No Time to Die, Dune and Encanto.

Coverage from Variety.

The American Cinema Editors (ACE) named TFF #48 film King Richard edited by Pamela Martin as the Best edited dramatic feature film of 2021.  Other winners included: tick, tcik...BOOM, Summer of Soul and Encanto.

Coverage from Nest Best Picture.

MORE CANNES SPEC

What will be the 5-8 films that will debut at Cannes and then make their first  North American appearance at TFF #49?  Obviously we won't know until Thursday, Sept. 1st but that can't stop us from thinking and predicting and hoping.  Variety's Elsa Keslassy was up last Thursday with a Cannes speculation/prediction piece and so let's parse that for titles that might be candidates for The SHOW.

James Gray's Armageddon Time/Focus Features

Florian Zeller's The Son/SPC

George Miller's Three Thousand Years of Longing UA/MGM

David Cronenberg's Crimes of the Future/NEON

Kelly Reichardt's Showing Up/A24

The Dardennes Brothers' Tori and Lokita/TBD

Hirokazu Kore-eda's Baby, Box, Broker/TBD

Ali Abassi's Hamlet/TBD

Meanwhile, Wes Anderson's latest, Asteroid City, is reportedly foregoing Cannes for Venice.  After last year's TFF "Sneak" of The French Dispatch, perhaps Anderson books a second straight film at TFF and they make the Venice to Colorado trek that has become very popular over the past several years.  Last year The Power of the Dog, The Lost Daughter, Spencer and The Card Counter and other films made that journey.

Here's that reporting from Jordan Ruimy's World of Reel.

INTERVIEWS AND PROFILES

Belfast writer/director Kenneth Branagh from Deadline's Oscar nominee series.

King Richard's Oscar nominee Aunjanue Ellis from Variety.

The Lost Daughter's writer/director Maggie Gyllenhaal from Gold Derby.

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

MTFB PREDICTS MORE OSCAR WINNERS

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

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

1) Summer of Soul

2) Flee

3) Attica

4) Ascension

5) Writing with Fire

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

1) Encanto

2) The Mitchells vs. the Machines

3) Luca

4) Flee

5) Raya and the Last Dragon

BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE

1) Drive My Car

2) The Worst Person in the World

3) The Hand of God

4) Flee

5) Luana: A Yak in the Classroom

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY

1) The Power of the Dog

2) Dune

3) The Tragedy of Macbeth

4) Nightmare Alley

5) West Side Story

BEST EDITING

1) Dune

2) The Power of the Dog

3) Don't Look Up

4) King Richard

5) tick, tick...BOOM

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN

1) Dune

2) Nightmare Alley

3) West Side Story

4) The Power of the Dog

5) The Tragedy of Macbeth

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

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

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

Belfast-Original Screenplay

King Richard- Actor

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

FOR THOSE WHO HAVE BEEN ASKING

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

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

INTERVIEWS AND PROFILES

Andrea Arnold on Cow with mubi.com

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

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MTFB Oscar Update: Best Picture, Direction and More / Directors from TFF #48 Films / Trailer for Cow

MTFB OSCAR UPDATE: BEST PICTURE, DIRECTION AND MORE

Here's the MTFB latest update on predictions for Academy Award nominations for Best Picture and Best Director, International Feature, Animated Feature and Documentary Feature.  These categories were last predicted here on Dec. 13th.  As always TFF #48 films are indicate in Bold and the film's previous position is indicated to the right in parentheses.

BEST PICTURE

1) Belfast (1)

2) The Power of the Dog (2)

3) West Side Story (3)

4) Dune (5)

5) Licorice Pizza (6)

6) King Richard (4)

7) CODA (8)

8) Don't Look Up (10)

9) tick, tick, BOOM (Alt.)

10) Being the Ricardos (9)

Alternates: Nightmare Alley and The Tragedy of Macbeth (Look out for Drive My Car)

BEST DIRECTION

1) Jane Campion/The Power of the Dog (1)

2) Kenneth Branagh/Belfast (2)

3) Denis Villenueve/Dune (3)

4) Steven Spielberg/West Side Story (5)

5) Paul Thomas Anderson/Licorice Pizza (4)

Alternates: Ryusuke Hamaguchi/Drive My Car and Guillermo Del Toro/Nightmare Alley

BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE

1) Drive My Car/Japan (3)

2) A Hero/Iran (1)

3) The Worst Person in the World/Norway (2)

4) Flee/Denmark (4)

5) The Hand of God/Italy (5)

Alternates: Compartment #6/Finland and I'm Your Man/Germany

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

1) Encanto (1)

2) Flee (3)

3) The Mitchells vs. The Machines (2)

4) Luca (4)

5) Raya and The Last Dragon (Alt.)

Alternates: Belle and The Summit of the Gods

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

1) Flee (2)

2) The Rescue (1)

3) Summer of Soul (3)

4) Attica (Alt.)

5) Procession (4)

Alternates: Ascension and The First Wave

DIRECTORS FROM TFF #48 FILMS 

Asghar Farhadi/A Hero from The Hollywood Reporter and also from the National Board of Review.

Jane Campion/The Power of the Dog (with Guillermo Del Toro) from Variety.

Joe Wright/Cyrano from Awards Daily.

TRAILER FOR ANDREA ARNOLD'S DOCUMENTARY: COW

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MTFB Oscar Take Updated: Lead Acting / New Categories: Cinematography, Editing and Production Design / BIFA Nominations and TFF #48 / Profiles: Cumberbatch and Branagh /

 MTFB OSCAR TAKE UPDATED

Here's an update for my predictions of  the lead acting categories for the 94th Academy Awards.  As always, TFF #48 performers are in Bold. The performers' last position in these predictions is indicated to the right in parentheses.  These categories were last predicted on Oct. 21st.

LEAD ACTING

BEST ACTRESS

1) Kristen Stewart/Spencer (1)

2) Jessica Chastain/The Eyes of Tammy Faye (2)

3) Lady Gaga/House of Gucci (5)

4) Olivia Colman/The Lost Daughter (4)

5) Frances McDormand/The Tragedy of Macbeth (3)

Alternates: Penelope Cruz/Parallel Mothers and Jodie Comer/The Last Duel

BEST ACTOR

1) Will Smith/King Richard (1)

2) Denzel Washington/The Tragedy of Macbeth (2)

3) Benedict Cumberbatch/The Power of the Dog (3)

4) Pere Dinklage/Cyrano (4)

5) Andrew Garfield/tick, tick...BOOM (5)

Alternates: Joaquin Phoenix/C'mon C'mon and Clifton Collns/Jockey

NEW CATEGORIES: 

CINEMATOGRAPHY

1) Dune

2) The Tragedy of Macbeth

3) Belfast

4) The Power of the Dog

5) West Side Story

Alternates: Nightmare Alley and Spencer

EDITING

1) Belfast

2) Dune

3) King Richard

4) The Power of the Dog

5) Nightmare Alley

Alternates: West Side Story and Licorice Pizza

PRODUCTION DESIGN

1) Dune

2) Nightmare Alley

3) The French Dispatch

4) West Side Story

5) The Tragedy of Macbeth

Alternates: The Power of the Dog and Belfast

BIFA NOMINATIONS AND TFF #48

The British Independent Film Awards announced nominees for its  2021 edition and Kenneth Branagh's Belfast (and TFF #48 selection) co-lead the haul with 11 total nominations.  Boiling Point also had 11 nominations.  Other TFF #48 films picking up BIFA noms included: Encounter, The Electrical Life of Louis Wain, Cow, Flee, Petite Maman and TFF #47 selection First Cow.  TFF films had a total of  26 nominations.

Here's the breakdown by film:

Belfast (11): Actress (Balfe), Supporting Actress (Dench), Supporting Actor (Hinds), Breakthrough Performer (Hill), Casting, Cinematography, Costumes, Music, Editing, Makeup/Hair and Production Design.

Encounter (4): Actor (Ahmed), Supporting Actor (Chauhan), Music and Sound.

The Electrical Life of Louis Wain (4): Costume, Effects, Makeup/Hair and Production Design.

Cow (4): Documentary, Cinematography, Editing and Sound.

Flee (1): International Independent Film.

Petite Maman (1): International Independent Film.

First Cow (1) (TFF #47): International Independent Feature.

  

Here's the complete rundown of BIFA nominations from Variety.

PROFILES: CUMBERBATCH AND BRANAGH

Indiewire's crew this past week has profiled actor Benedict Cumberbatch (The Power of the Dog and The Electrical Life of Louis Wain) and multi-hypenate Kenneth Branagh (Belfast).  Passing those along to you with the following links:

Eric Kohn on Cumberbatch.

Anne Thompson on Branagh.

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Indiewire's Cannes Analysis Intrigues / Exploring Amazon / Images from Cannes Films / The Greatest at T-ride?

 INDIEWIRE'S CANNES ANALYSIS INTRIGUES

As I do each year, once the dust had settled from the announcement of the Cannes lineup last Thursday, I began looking at what industry focused websites were saying about the films chosen and not chosen trying to glom onto some nuggets that could point the way to possible Telluride titles.  The most intriguing, to me at any rate, was Eric Kohn's piece for Indiewire.  Here are some nuggets of interest from that article for those of us who are Telluride junkies.

1) The French Dispatch news...If you've been reading here the last couple of years, you've likely picked up on the notion that I'm hot to see this film play T-ride.  Wes Anderson snuck Rushmore into Telluride in 1998 and hasn't been back since.  I have been thinking that there was a chance that Anderson might return to Telluride last year and then again this year with the film and Kohn adds some fuel to that fire as he writes:

"Cannes held the door open for... titles that wanted to wait. “The French Dispatch,” Wes Anderson’s imaginary vision of 20th-century journalists, has been one of Searchlight’s most promising new titles for some time. The movie was set for a Cannes premiere last year and would have later played Telluride"

Yes indeed, Kohn reports that "Dispatch" would have played TFF #47 had it happened.  To me that suggests the possibility that last year's plan could become this year's reality.  Other factors suggesting that it might play: From Searchlight, already announced fall release date post-Telluride (Oct. 22) and no suggestion of its premiere status re: its announced play at the New York Film Fest.

2) Films NOT in Cannes (barring something still to be announced-and there are other films that are still to be announced):

Dune

Soggy Bottom

The Power of the Dog

The Card Counter

Spencer

All or none of which might land a slot at Venice and then???

3) A couple of docs to keep an on: Kohn mentions a few documentaries that we maybe should keep an eye on moving toward Labor Day weekend.

The Val Kilmer doc "Val" is one.  Andrea Arnold's Cow, Todd Haynes The Velvet Underground and Oliver Stone's JFK Revisited: Through the Looking Glass all seem like possibilities.

The complete Indiewire story is linked here.

EXPLORING AMAZON

My look at film distributors that have had a significant presence at Telluride over the past five years continues today with Amazon Studios.

Here's their complete past at TFF:

2016: Manchester by the Sea

2017: Wonderstruck

2018: Cold War. Peterloo

2019: The Aeronauts, The Report

2020: All In; The Fight for Democracy

Best shots at TFF #48:

The Electrical Life of Louis Wain

Being the Ricardos (if it's done)

Val (see above)

AND...if the MGM deal is done and Amazon has control of the MGM inventory???  In play could be:

The Untitled Paul Thomas Anderson project (Soggy Bottom)

Ridley Scott's House of Gucci

George Miller's Three Thousand Years of Longing

Joe Wright's Cyrano

IMAGES FROM CANNES FILMS

The Film Stage has put together a collection of images from a number of the films that were announced for Cannes last week including some for films that might make the cut for TFF #48.

Examples: The French Dispatch:

And Andrea Arnold's Cow:

Check out some of the other images at The Film Stage linked here.

THE GREATEST AT T-RIDE?

Over the weekend I saw that PBS had dropped a teaser for the latest documentary from Ken Burns; Florentine Films: Muhammad Ali.

The teaser reveals that the doc will land on Sept. 19th which suggests that we could have a shot a seeing it in the San Juans over Labor Day weekend.

Here's the link to the teaser imbedded in a Tweet from PBS:

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Cannes Spec heats Up /A Look at SPC

 CANNES SPEC HEATS UP

With the official announcement of the Cannes Film Festival lineup now just two weeks away (June 3), the guessing game about what films make the list is warming up.  As always here, a reminder that, historically, Cannes and Telluride have had a substantial overlap of films in their official selections.

Now, does that continue in this year where we still have Covid concerns, that traditional sharing of titles may be lessened, increased, skewed...

But I'm going to run for awhile on the assumption that there will be that connection between the two fests that has been true for quite some time and that's an average of about 8 or so films that play both.

Just this past week I ran across big "Cannes lists" from Indiewire, Screen Daily and World of Reel and put together a list of TFF possibilities that popped up.

All three publications included: Jacques Audiard's Paris 13th District and Wes Anderson's The French Dispatch.  However, Screen Daily reports that Searchlight has not yet committed to premiering on the Croisette and is still gaming out what it feels would be the best release strategy for the highly anticipated film.

Many films that I feel have a shot at TFF #48's lineup are listed in two of the publications including:

Asghar Farhadi's A Hero (IND, WOR)

Andrea Arnold's Cow (IND, SD)

Michelangelo Frammartino's The Hole (IND, SD)

Eva Husson's Mothering Sunday (IND, SD)

Joel Coen's The Tragedy of Macbeth (IND, WOR)

Todd Haynes' The Velvet Underground (IND, SD)

Ari Folman's Where Is Anne Frank (IND, WOR)

Mia Hansen Love's Bergman Island (WOR, SD)

Francois Ozon's Everything Went Fine (WOR, SD)

Sean Penn's Flag Day (WOR, SD)

{IND= Indiewire  WOR = World of Reel  SD= Screen Daily}

The complete articles from each publication are linked below:

Indiewire

Screen Daily

World of Reel

Check them out and see what other titles you think might screen at Cannes before coming to Colorado on Labor Day weekend.

A LOOK AT SPC 

Today we continue our stroll through film distributors that have had strong presences over the last five years at Telluride,.  Last Monday I got that started with a look at Netflix which has had 16 (maybe 17) films play at TFF in that time span.  Matching it (or nearly matching it ) has been Sony Pictures Classics with 16 films in five years.  

Beyond the five year limitation I placed on looking at recent TFFs and distributors, SPC and Telluride's relationship has been much longer than that.  So, unless the world stops spinning, you can expect to see some SPC titles this year as in many others.

SPC is coming off a very successful one-two punch with last year's The Father picking up two Oscars among six nominations (Anthony Hopkins for Best Actor and Florian Zeller and Christopher Hampton for Best Adapted Screenplay) and The Truffle Hunters, which didn't make the Oscar final list of five nominated documentary feature films but won a number of critics' awards and was universally beloved.

Currently in SPC's hands and with what seems to be Telluride potential:

Clint Bentley's Jockey

Ty Roberts 12 Mighty Orphans

Andreas Koefoed's The Lost Leonardo

Julie Cohen and Betsy West's Julia

Eva Husson's Mothering Sunday 

Benjamin Millepied's Carmen

And then there's a couple of real wild cards:

Zachary Fuhrer's John Prine: Hello in There which I really thought was going to play TFF #47 last year and then it was not on the announced list.  I swear I saw someplace that it was going to be released or pop-up at some other fest virtually...but I can't find any evidence that happened. SPC acquired the doc in February of 2019.  So???

And then there's Pedro Almodovar's latest Madres Paralelas (Parallel Mothers).  Its IMDb Pro entry says it's a 2022 release and that it's "filming" as of March 10th.  But after Almodovar's triumphant return to Telluride screenings with Pain and Glory at TFF #46...who knows?  OK, it's much more likely that it screens at next year's Cannes and then maybe TFF #49.

At this point I have no strong intell or intuitions about any of these SPC films.   If you made me I might point at Julia, Mothering Sunday and Jockey and I'd likely throw in the Prine doc because I'm stubborn.

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