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
I wrote on Thursday that we'd have a busy Saturday night with guild awards being announced from Directors, Cinematographers, the Cinema Audio Society, the USC Scripter Award for adapted screenplay and the Annie Awards. TFF #46 was represented in the glut of news with Ford v Ferrari's win from the film's design from the Cinema Audio Society.
Other winners:
DGA: Sam Mendes/1917
USC Scripter: Greta Gerwig/Little Women
ASC (cinematography): Roger Deakins/1917
Annie: Klaus
The DGA win for Mendes has shifted the sentiment to 1917 to be the favorite for Mendes to win the Best Director Oscar and the film to win Best Picture. A number of number pros pointed out, however, that three of the last four years the DGA winner won the directing Oscar but the film did not win Best Picture:
2015: Alejandro Inarritu wins DGA and Oscar for The Revenant. Best Pic: Spotlight
2016: Damian Chazelle wins DGA and Oscar for La La Land. Best Pic: Moonlight
2017: Guillermo Del Toro wins DGA and Oscar and Shape of Water wins Best Pic.
2018: Alfonso Cuaron wins DGA and Oscar for Roma. Green Book wins Best Pic.
So the recent past suggests that 1917 winning Best Picture isn't a lock. Lots of folks are saying that perhaps Parasite pulls off the surprise a la Moonlight. My guess is that, should anything besides 1917 wins that it will actually be Tarantino's Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood.
The other results from Saturday's awards suggest good Oscar news for Gerwig and Deakins. The Annie award for Netflix's Klaus may be less predictive. I'm still expecting Toy Story 4 to take the Oscar statue in two weeks.
THE LAST BIG DOMINO...
The last big precursor is the Writers Guild Awards that will announced Saturday. Nominees are:
WGA Adapted Screenplay nominees:
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
The Irishman
Jojo Rabbit
Joker
Little Women
The Oscar nominees differ with the inclusion of The Two Popes and exclusion of A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.
WGA Original Screenplay nominees:
1917
Booksmart
Knives Out
Marriage Story
Parasite
The Oscar nominees differ with Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood in and Booksmart out.
MORE ANTICIPATION
I'm continuing to look at the various lists of "most anticipated" films for this and that source as I'm at the very start of trying to get a bead on which films might be in line for consideration of inclusion at TFF #47.
Today I'm looking at the list of 68 films from Vulture. Those films are listed by announced release date so it's easy to look at their list beginning with the films listed for September or later as well as films that are still listed with release dates to be announced.
That said, here's what Vulture is looking forward to that feels like a TFF #47 possible:
I'm Thinking of Ending Things (Charlie Kaufman)
Mank (David Fincher)
Dune (Denis Villenueve)
News of the World (Paul Greengrass)
Bergman Island (Mia Hansen Love)
The French Dispatch (Wes Anderson)
Nomadland (Chloe Zhao)
On the Rocks (Sophia Coppola)
The Directors Guild of America awarded Alfonso Cuaron their highest honor for feature film making on Saturday night naming him the 2018's outstanding director for Roma.
Some of the Oscarati (the Oscar punditry class...of which, by dint of my presence as a Movie City Guru of Gold, I guess I am now a member) are suggesting that the win points to Roma as the likely front runner for Oscar's Best Picture trophy.
I've had Roma at the top of my predix for about a month now and the DGA win makes me breathe a little easier...but not much. I still think the Best Picture race is incredibly fluid with Green Book, BlacKkKlansman, A Star Is Born and Black Panther...maybe even Bohemian Rhapsody as possible winners when the envelope gets opened on Feb. 24th.
At any rate, Cuaron wins his second DGA in five years (after winning for Gravity) and is very likely to win the directing Oscar now as well regardless of how the Best Picture race shakes out. It appears Roma could win Picture, Direction, Foreign Language Film and Cinematography. Should that happen, Cuaron might well walk off the stage with four trophies...
Here's my latest take on predicting Oscar winners in select categories...
BEST PICTURE
1) Roma
2) BlacKkKlansman
3) Green Book
4) A Star Is Born
5) Black Panther
6) Bohemian Rhapsody
7) Vice
8) The Favourite
BEST DIRECTION
1) Alfonso Cuaron/Roma
2) Spike Lee/BlacKkKlansman
3) Adam McKay/Vice
4) Yorgos Lanthimos/The Favourite
5) Pawel Pawlikowski/Cold War
ACTRESS
1) Glenn Close/The Wife
2) Lady Gaga/A Star Is Born
3) Olivia Colman/The Favourite
4) Melissa McCarthy/Can You Ever Forgive Me
5) Yalitza Aparicio/Roma
SUPPORTING ACTRESS
1) Regina King/If Beale Street Could Talk
2) Amy Adams/Vice
3) Emma Stone/The Favourite
4) Rachel Weisz/The Favourite
5) Maris de Tavira/Roma
ACTOR
1) Christian Bale/Vice***
2) Rami Malek/Bohemian Rhapsody***
3) Bradley Cooper/A Star Is Born
4) Viggo Mortensen/Green Book
5) Willem Dafoe/At Etrenity's Gate
***although this feels squeaky close now
SUPPORTING ACTOR
1) Mahershala Ali/Green Book
2) Richard E. Grant/Can You Ever Forgive Me
3) Sam Elliott/A Star Is Born
4) Adam Driver/BlacKkKlansman
5) Sam Rockwell/Vice
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
1) Green Book
2) The Favourite
3) Roma
4) Vice
5) First Reformed
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
1) BlacKkKlansman
2) If Beale Street Could Talk
3) Can You Ever Forgive Me
4) A Star Is Born
5) The Ballad of Buster Scruggs
FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
1) Roma
2) Cold War
3) Shoplifters
4) Capernaum
5) Never Look Away
DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
1) RBG
2) Free Solo
3) Minding the Gap
4) Hale County This Evening-This Morning
5) Of Fathers and Sons
Final Oscar voting begins next week on Feb. 12th.
COUNTRY MUSIC IN TELLURIDE?
Photo via IMDb
Ken Burns latest multi-part documentary focuses on the history of country music in these United States. The venerable documentarian's eight part 16+ hour presentation is set to premiere on PBS on Sept. 15th.
That means, as many Telluride veterans will surmise, that some of the Burns doc (or, hell, maybe all of the Burns doc) could well shoe up at The SHOW.
I certainly would be less than stunned if that were the case. I could also foresee the possible inclusion of some of the individuals Burns includes in the doc as guests to the festival. Maybe even a concert or two.
The Los Angeles Times posted a lengthy story about the project on Friday that you can find linked here. Some folks that are reported to be included in the doc (and therefore fair game for TFF #46 speculation are: Vince Gill (who of late has been serving as a stand-in Eagle...but their current bookings only run to July 4th), Emmylou Harris (yes please) and Roseanne Cash.
RUMORS OF A NEW CANNES POLICY
Perhaps stung by last year's inability to strike a deal with Netflix to screen many of the films that the streaming giant had in its film pantry (such as, you know, Roma), The Playlist was reporting this weekend that the world's most famous film festival may have an offer for Netflix to consider in an attempt to lure some of its titles to the Croisette in May.
Charles Barfield wrote that a french journalist was tweeting...yes, I know, it sounds pretty shaky...that Cannes would offer to allow/invite Netflix titles to play in competition with the stipulation that should one of their films win an award that it would then be required to screen in French theaters.
The Playlist story does not suggest that the French law that requires a three year window between theatrical release and streaming would be altered in any way and that was the reported impasse in the past.
Why is this of interest to Telluride Film fans? Because of the longtime record of films that the two fests have shared over the decades. In the years since I've been attending (since 2006), the average overlap has been 7-8 films each year. That's the most significant statistical correlation with any film festival. So, what happens at Cannes almost always has some ripple effect regarding the TFF lineup for that year.
Since Monday's post a number of the guilds that make up workers in the film world have named their nominees for excellence in their areas of expertise. Here's a note about each of those beginning with the Director's Guild of America (DGA).
The DGA nominees included these TFF #45 films:
On Monday the DGA named their documentary nominees which included Elizabeth Chai Vasarheyli and Jimmy Chin for Free Solo.
The Writers Guild nominees included from Telluride:
Roma for Original Screenplay and Can You Forgive Me? for Adapted Screenplay.
Others nominated for Original Screenplay included: Eighth Grade, Green Book, A Quiet Place and Vice. Others nominated for Adapted Screenplay are: BlacKkKlansman, Black Panther, If Beale Street Could Talk and A Star Is Born.
The American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) named four TFF #45 films for their award for 2018: Roma, Cold War, The Favourite and First Man. The other nominee was A Star Is Born.
Additionally, Girl and TFF #44 film The Rider were named for the ASC Spotlight Award
The Art Directors Guild (ADG) named a number of TFF films for consideration for their awards in the Period Film Category TFF nominated films were: First Man, The Favourite and Roma.
Early Wednesday morning the British Academy of Film and Television Arts announced their film nominees for 2018. TFF #45 hit The Favourite led the field with 12 nominations. Roma and First Man each had seven. Other TFF #45 films also made the grade for nominations. Here's the BAFTA/TFF #45 list:
The Favourite (12): Best Film, Best British Film, Direction, Original Screenplay, Actress, Supporting Actress (2), Cinematography, Film Editing, Production Design, Costume, Makeup/Hair.
Roma (7): Best Film, Best Film Not in the English Language, Direction, Original Screenplay, Cinematography, Film Editing, Production Design.
First Man (7): Adapted Screenplay, Supporting Actress, Cinematography, Film Editing, Production Design, Sound, Visual Effects.
Cold War (4): Best Film Not in the English Language, Direction, Original Screenplay, Cinematography.
Can You Ever Forgive Me? (3): Adapted Screenplay, Actress, Supporting Actress.
And four TFF #45 films that earned a single BAFTA nomination:
Dogman: Best Film Not in the English Language
Shoplifters: Best Film Not in the English Language
Free Solos: Best Documentary
The Field: Best British Short Film
TFF #45 films earned 37 BAFTA nominations in total.
Guillermo Del Toro's direction for 13 time Oscar nominee The Shape of Water was recognized as the best of 2017 on Saturday night by the Directors Guild of America. The win makes him the odds on favorite to win the Oscar for Direction and likely boosts Shape's chances to win Best Picture, though of late, it has become surprisingly common for Oscar to split the Directing and Best Picture prizes.
Del Toro joins the other two of the "Three Amigos" Alfonso Cuaron (2013's Gravity) and Alejandro Inarritu (2014's Birdman and 2015's The Revenant) as winners of the DGA Award. Both of those directors went on to win the Oscar as well.
Del Toro was named winner in a field that included Greta Gerwig/Lady Bird, Jordan Peele/Get Out (who did win for Best Debut Feature), Christopher Nolan/Dunkirk and Martin McDonagh/Three Billboards.
Analysis and complete winners in all the DGA categories are linked below from:
INDIEWIRE'S AWARDS SPOTLIGHT SERIES WITH GRETA AND SAOIRSE
Jude Dry writing for Indiewire sets the stage for the online film source to talk to Oscar nominees Greta Gerwig (Direction, Original Screenplay) and Saoirse Ronan (Best Actress) about the five time nominated film (including Best Picture) and TFF #44 favorite Lady Bird.
Sebastian Lelio's A Fantastic Woman was highlighted steadily this past week. The Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Language Film, and TFF #44 selection, was front and center in stories from Rolling Stone and Indiewire.
The British Academy of Film and Television Arts announced their nominees for excellence in 2017 earlier this week and TFF #44 films snagged 31 of them. Big TFF #44 players were The Shape of Water with 12, which topped all films and Darkest Hour with nine. The robust presence of Darkest Hour combined with Gary Oldman's Golden Globe win for Best Actor-Drama has given the Joe Wright film a boost at the opportune moment right in the middle of Oscar voting.
TFF #44 films and their nominations for BAFTA awards were:
The Shape of Water (12): Best Film, Direction, Original Screenplay, Sally Hawkins/Actress, Octavia Spencer/Supporting Actress, Original Music, Cinematography, Editing, Production Design, Sound, Visual Effects and Costumes.
Darkest Hour (9): Best Film, Best British Film, Gary Oldman/Actor, Kristen Scott Thomas/Supporting Actress. Original Music, Cinematography, Production Design, Makeup/Hair, Costumes.
Lady Bird (3): Original Screenplay, Saoirse Ronan/Actress, Laurie Metcalf/Supporting Actress.
Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool (3): Adapted Screenplay, Annette Bening/Actress, Jamie Bell/Actor
First They Killed My Father (1): Best Film not in the English Language
Loveless (1): Best Film not in the English Language
We have a precursor double whammy today with the announcement of the five directors nominated for excellence by the Directors Guild of America (DGA). I'm guessing: Del Toro, Nolan, Gerwig, McDonagh and Spielberg. Peele is also a real possibility.
Meanwhile, The Critic's Choice Awards are announced tonight. We'll find out which films and individuals the Broadcast Film Critics of America have determined are the best for 2017. The Critics Choice Awards broadcast will be at 8:00pm ET on The CW Network.
Oscar voting comes to a conclusion tomorrow and the nominees will be revealed early in the morning on Jan. 23rd.
THIS YEAR'S OSCAR POSTER
The poster for the 90th Academy Awards has been unleashed and features host Jimmy Kimmel and a reminder of the conclusion of last year's awards:
DGA DOCUMENTARY NOMINATIONS INCLUDE MORRIS, BURNS AND NOVICK
Although the Directors Guild names their nominees for feature films today, they have already named their five nominees for direction of feature length documentaries. Among the nominees were two films that played at Telluride last Labor Day.
Errol Morris was nominated for Wormwood and Ken Burns and Lynn Novick were nominated for The Vietnam War. Other directors were nominated for Icarus, City of Ghosts and Abacus: Small Enough to Jail.
THE FAC UPDATES FOR BEST PICTURE, DIRECTOR AND SCREENPLAYS
Now it's essentially all over but the waiting and the actual announcement of nominees on Jan. 24th. All of the major precursors have weighed in. Critics, Guilds, Globes and BAFTA. We're down to a week to go. As you will see in the four categories that I have listed for this post, these late breaking group announcements do move the needle when it comes to the predictions made by the Oscar experts. For example, BAFTA's love for Nocturnal Animals (which hasn't been scoring much during the past couple of months) gave it a boost and Lion and its director, Garth Davis, has clearly benefited from the nominations from the Producers and Directors Guilds.
Check the latest updates...
I have used the publicly available Oscar predictions from the following pundits:
Erik Anderson/Awards Watch
Clayton Davis/Awards Circuit
Greg Ellwood/The Playlist-Awards Campaign
Scott Feinberg/The Hollywood Reporter
Joey Magidson/Hollywood News
Nathaniel Rogers/Film Experience
Sasha Stone/Awards Daily
Kristopher Tapley/Variety-InContention
Anne Thompson/Indiewire
TFF #43 films are in Bold. The film's previous position follows its title in parentheses (with trailers for the leaders in each category via YouTube).
BEST PICTURE
1) La La Land (1)
2) Moonlight (2)
3) Manchester by the Sea (3)
4) Arrival (6)
5) Hell or High Water (4)
6) Lion (7)
7) Hacksaw Ridge (9)
8) Hidden Figures 8)
9) Fences (5)
10) Nocturnal Animals (NR)
11) Silence (10)
12) Loving (NR)
Hot: Arrival, Hacksaw Ridge, Nocturnal Animals
Not: Fences, Jackie, Sully
On the Cusp: Jackie
Comment: Fences looks to be in real danger of missing a BP nomination. Of course, the Academy could nominate nine or ten films, but seems to be the groove that we've settled into over the past couple of years.
Arrival has gone from a film that looked shaky for a BP nom into a very solid contender.
La La Land's choice for the top spot scored one point short of its highest possible score.
BEST DIRECTION
1) Damein Chazelle/La La Land (1)
2) Barry Jenkins/Moonlight (2)
3) Kenneth Lonergan/Manchester
4) Denis Villeneuve/Arrival (5)
5) Garth Davis/Lion (9)
6) Mel Gibson/Hacksaw Ridge (7)
7) David Mackenzie/Hell or High Water (8)
8) Martin Scorsese/Silence (4)
9) Denzel Washington/Fences (6)
10) Pablo Larrain/Jackie (10)
Hot: Davis
Not: Scorsese, Washington
On the Cusp: Ken Loach/I, Daniel Blake
Comment:This category illustrates starkly the effect of the announcements from the PGA and DGA. Garth Davis jumps into the #5 spot, up four places while Scorsese and Washington drop precipitously.
Personally, I think the 4-5 spots are likely still a giant arm-wrestling match between Davis, Gibson and Mackenzie. I'm still pulling for Villenueve and Mackenzie to snag those spots rather than Davis and Gibson.
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
1) Moonlight (1)
2) Arrival (3)
3) Fences (2)
4) Lion (4)
5) Hidden Figures (6)
6) Nocturnal Animals (10)
7) Loving (7)
8) Hacksaw Ridge (9)
9) Silence (5)
10) Deadpool (NR)
Hot: Nocturnal and Deadpool
Not: Silence and Sully
On the Cusp: Sully
Comment: I haven't talked about the ascendance of Deadpool yet. It's Writers Guild and Producers Guild nominations as well as a nom for Tim Miller as a first time director from the DGA plus an editing nom from that guild has made the film a serious part of the conversation for nominations including...are you sitting down?...Best Picture (where, if I extended my chart, it would sit at #15). Additionally, another category that shows the rise of Nocturnal Animals and the diminishing chances of Silence.
The Moonlight lead is substantial in this category.
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
1) Manchester by the Sea (1)
2) La La Land (2)
3) Hell or High Water (3)
4) The Lobster (4)
5) 20th Century Women (5)
6) Captain Fantastic (6)
7) Jackie (7)
8) Zootopia (8)
9) I, Daniel Blake (NR)
10) Florence Foster Jenkins (10)
Hot: I, Daniel Blake
Not: Miss Sloane
On the Cusp: Toni Erdmann
Comment: The battle for the last spot seems intense between: the films in the five through eight spots.
(PARENTHETICAL NOTE: Good God, look at the dominance of films that played TFF #43 in these four categories...top four films in the Best Pic and Directing categories and top two films in each screenwriting category...)
DIRECTORS GUILD LOVES TELLURIDE
The Directors Guild of America (DGA) announced its nominees for excellence in direction on Thursday and four TFF #43 directors and their films were named:
Damien Chazelle/La La Land
Barry Jenkins/Moonlight
Kenneth Lonergan/Manchester by the Sea
Denis Villenueve/Arrival
Villeneuve's nomination was a minor surprise.
The fifth nominee was Garth Davis for Lion. Davis was also nominated for Best Direction of a First Film. Davis' nomination was a bit of a surprise and knocked out Mel Gibson/Hacksaw Ridge, Martin Scorsese/Silence and David Mackenzie/Hell or High Water who were all thought to be serious candidates for the nomination.
The DGA is one of the best predictors (along with the PGA) among the guilds of future Oscar success, though it doesn't necessarily mean that it will predict the directing category with 100% accuracy. There's a very good chance that there will be a single divergence between the DGA list and the directors that will be announced on Jan. 24th (and more about the Academy's decision to change how that announcement is made below).
The Academy Awards nomination announcement will come a week from tomorrow but it's going to be a bit different than what we have been accustomed to over the years. AMPAS will not announce to a live group of publicists, consultants and others this year but will, instead, produce an online reveal on Oscar.com and Oscar.org as well as the network television reveal on Good Morning America on ABC.
The announcement will still come down at 8:30am ET/5:30am PT.
HANDICAPPING BEST PICTURE THROUGH GUILDS AND CRITICS
Those of you that have read this space over the years when we get to the post-Telluride six month run to the Oscars may recall that I pay more attention to some guilds and critics groups than others. For example, just this past week or so guilds for cinematographers and costumers have weighed in with their nominees and I haven't mentioned them here. It's not that I think that their contributions are less important or that their guild kudos have no predictive qualities but guild success in other areas seems to be more predictive of Oscar success.
In terms of guilds I look at the producers, directors, actors, writers and editors. I also look at the major New York and Los Angeles critics groups. In addition, I pay attention to the American Film Institutes's top film list as well the National Board of Review. Also, I pay attention to Golden Globe nominees and, when we reach this point, winners.
Throw all that in the metaphorical blender and here's what that set of data says are the most likely Best Picture Oscar nominees:
1) Moonlight- Golden Globe/Best Picture (Drama), PGA, DGA, WGA, SAG Ensemble, ACE, AFI, NBR, LA critics winner
2) La La Land- Golden Globe/Best Picture (Comedy or Musical), PGA, DGA, WGA, ACE, AFI, NBR, New York Critics winner, (also LA Critic's runner-up)
3) Manchester by the Sea PGA, DGA, WGA, ACE, AFI, NBR
4) Arrival- PGA, DGA, WGA, ACE, AFI, NBR
5) Hell or High Water- PGA, WGA, ACE, AFI, NBR
6) Fences- PGA, WGA, SAG Ensemble, AFI
7) Hidden Figures- PGA, WGA, SAG Ensemble, NBR
8) Hacksaw Ridge- PGA, ACE, AFI, NBR
You could make a pretty good argument that these eight films will be the likely Best Picture Oscar nominees.
Moonlight and La La Land are so tight as to be virtually deadlocked. I think Moonlight gets the edge for the top spot here due to its SAG ensemble nomination.
Lurking as spoilers are these films which have two of the precursors I listed above:
Lion- PGA, DGA
Silence- NBR, AFI
Sully- NBR, AFI
Hail, Caesar- ACE, NBR
No other possible Best Picture players have more than one of the precursors I am focused on including Nocturnal Animals, Patriot's Day and Loving.
As you look at The FAC from above, it seems that Lion may well bump one of these films out of the expected eight nominations. Fences? Hacksaw? Hidden Figures?
SPEAKING OF GUILDS: CINEMATOGRAPHY
The American Society of Cinematographers named their top films last week with nominations announced on Wednesday. Three films that played the 2016 Telluride Film Festival made the field of five: La LA :and, Moonlight and Arrival. The five cinematographers and their films were:
Greig Fraser/Lion
James Laxton/Moonlight
Rodrigo Pietro/Silence
Linus Sandgren/La La land
Bradford Young/Arrival
