And Now...From the 71st Cannes Film Festival / San Fran Film Fest Ongoing

Good Thursday friends...  It's Cannes time...


AND NOW...FROM THE 71ST CANNES FILM FESTIVAL

Now we know the Cannes lineup.  Main Competition, Un Certain Regard, Special Screenings...

And of the films that have been announced, historically five to ten are probably headed to Telluride in four and a half months.

Of course it's all guess work of the most speculative at this point.  I'll wait to see and hear what happens when these films screen in a month in France.  I'll be looking at critical reaction and the apportionment of prizes as well as pedigree and distribution.  All of that, and also some good old fashioned intuition to try to formulate a list of films that will make an appearance both on the Croisette and on Colorado Ave.

At first glance, the Cannes lineup offers a smaller list of obvious Telluride candidates than most years.

That said, here are what start out as the best chances for films that we now know are playing Cannes that might also play TFF #44:

In competition:

Dogman
Ash Is the Purest White
Burning
Three Faces
Cold War

From Un Certain Regard:

Long Day's Journey Into Night
Manto

And among Special Screenings: Pope Francis: A Man of His Word

Still a possibility is the opening night film: Asghar Farhadi's Everybody Knows.

Perhaps the most surprising omission, at least to me, is Mike Leigh's Peterloo.

As is often the case, Cannes Fest head Thierry Fremaux said other films could still be added to the lineup.

Fremaux also suggested that both The Other Side of the Wind and The Man Who Killed Don Quixote where serious contenders for selection but that the Netflix/Cannes feud had nixed the Welles film and another legal issue blocked the selection of Gilliam's film.

Both American films named in the Palme d'Or competition will open in the U.S. prior to Labor Day weekend meaning that they are off the table for Telluride: Spike Lee's BlacKkKlansman (opens Aug. 10) and David Robert Mitchell's Under the Silver Lake (opens June 22).

Coverage of this morning's announcement is here from:

Indiewire

Variety

The Hollywood Reporter




SAN FRAN FILM FEST ONGOING

Gary Meyer's Eat, Drink, Film website reports that the San Francisco Film Fest or SFFILM is off to a roaring start.  Meyer's first report is here.

Looking at Gary's story makes me yearn to be both in San Fran and at a film festival...what a great pairing of place and purpose.

Gary says he has a couple of other posts from SFFILM in the pipeline so stay tuned.


That's your MTFB this Thursday.  More on Monday.

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

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Deadline's Take on Cannes Possibilities / Beautiful Boy First Look / And For Fun

Good Monday to all...


DEADLINE'S TAKE ON CANNES POSSIBILITIES

The attempt to sift through informed Cannes speculation continues as a way of trying to suss out possible titles for The SHOW.  Today I am looking at Deadline's post from Mar. 22nd.

The first interesting note is an early paragraph that suggests that a number of films are off the table that have been mentioned in other previous Cannes speculation pieces.  Most notably (from a T-ride perspective):

First Man
The Sisters Brothers
Loro
and perhaps The Death and Life of John F. Donovan.

Other films that the article implies are ready and in the mix for Cannes (and then potentially Telluride):

Roma
Everybody Knows
Kursk
Non Fiction
The Man Who Killed Don Quixote
Peterloo

Shot from Mike Leigh's Peterloo

Sunset
Cold War
Ash Is the Purest White
Burning
Long Day's Journey Into Night
Photograph

And then there's The Other Side of the Wind.  The newly minted "last" film from Orson Welles is a Netflix production which means, at least according to the latest edict from Cannes head Thierry Fremaux, no competition slot.  However, the Deadline post suggests that the film could play in some other section of the French fest.  So, for the time being, let's keep it on our TFF #45 watch list.

The complete Deadline article is here.

The Hollywood Report has the Netflix ban story here.


BEAUTIFUL BOY FIRST LOOK


A number of media outlets posted a still from Felix Van Groeningen's upcoming Beautiful Boy starring the red hot Timothee Chalamet and Steve Carell.  Here's the still:

Indiewire;s accompanying story suggests that the film will probably skip Cannes and premiere at either Telluride or Toronto.  The film is being handled by Amazon Studios and produced, in part, by Brad Pitt's Plan B.  Both of those facts certainly don't hurt its Telluride chances.

AND FOR FUN

Telluride and MFTB friend Andy Brodie spotted this and posted it via Twitter and was kind enough to @ me so that I'd see it.

Forget all that stuff about the last eight best picture winners and nine of the last ten playing at Telluride.  Here's how you know you've really topped the mountain...you're the answer to a Jeopardy question (a $2000 Double Jeopardy question no less):

Thanks Andy.  Made me smile.

More on Thursday.

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

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Another Cannes Speculation / Oscar Predictions from Awards Watch / The Other Side Gets Music

Welcome to Thursday...Mar. 22nd.  Spring happened since my last post!


ANOTHER CANNES SPECULATION

Indiewire posted its "wish list" for Cannes this week.  The list of 37 films is sort of a combination of films that their team think have a reasonable chance of making the cut for films which will be announced on April 12th (just three weeks away) and films that the authors would like to see make the list...some wishful thinking in some quarters, I suspect.


Among the 37 titles, the films that seem to me to make the most sense of playing both in Cannes and then in Telluride three and a half months later are:

Ash Is the Purest White
Beautiful Boy
Burning
Cold War
The Death and Life of John F. Donovan
Everybody Knows
If Beale Street Could Talk (will this really be ready for Cannes?)
The Little Stranger
Loro
The Man Who Killed Don Quixote
Non Fiction
The Other Side of the Wind
Peterloo
Radegund (yea, I know, it's been on some earlier Cannes lists...and Malick hasn't shown any inclination to come to Telluride -that I know of- since a 1998 inclusion as a producer of Endurance...but...)
Sunset
 

The Indiewire complete list and post is here.


OSCAR PREDICTIONS FROM AWARDS WATCH

Erik Anderson of Awards Watch posted his first list of potential Oscar films for the coming year earlier this week.  As you might expect, a veritable plethora of films are included that have legitimate shots at TFF #45 consideration.  Among the top ten films he lists as Best Picture possibilities are these that might be worth thinking about as TFF titles:

Black Klansman
First Man
Widows
Backseat
If Beale Street Could Talk
Can You Ever Forgive Me
Mary Queen of Scots

Among the films Anderson lists as "Other Contenders" that also seem to have some T-ride potential:

Beautiful Boy
Boy Erased
Everybody Knows
The Front Runner
Gloria (could Sebastian Lelio return to Telluride with the English language remake of the film that he had at TFF in 2013?)
Kursk
Loro
The Man Who Killed Don Quixote
Mid 90s
Old Man and the Gun
On the Basis of Sex
Peterloo
Roma
The Sisters Brothers
The Women of Marwen

The complete article from Anderson is here.


THE OTHER SIDE GETS MUSIC

Composer Michel Legrand via Wellesnet.com

Orson Welles last film gets closer and closer to being finished.  In addition to speculation that it will play Cannes, this week also had reports that music legend Michel Legrand has composed the music for the film. 

Wellesnet.com and Variety both reported that story earlier this week.

Other news culled from Twitter indicates that the recording of that orchestration has been occurring this week as well.

All of that contributes to the notion that the film will play in France in may and that we may well see it in the San Juans come Labor Day weekend.

Another note: Legrand was a 2007 TFF tribute recipient.



That's your MTFB for this Thursday.  I'll have more on Monday.

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

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Tapley Taps in / Variety's Anticipation / U.S. Trailer for Foxtrot / Jenkins On The Shape of Water

Hello to all on this last Thursday in December and 2017.


TAPLEY TAPS IN

Kristopher Tapley of Variety/In Contention has been a big presence in this space over the past several years as one of the best and best known Oscar prognosticators in the business.  Since I began the practice of following Telluride films through the awards season, Tapley's take on the Oscar scene is one that I have referenced religiously for many years.  But this year, Tapley has been quiet.

Variety has him running their podcast interviews and that seems to have become his central responsibility there.  At any rate and forever reasons, Tapley hasn't had any set of published predictions yet this season...until this week.

Tapley's InContention went up on Tuesday with a full set of predictions in all 24 Oscar categories.

In terms of films from TFF #44...here's what Mr. T predicts:

The Shape of Water gets 12 nominations: Best Picture, Direction, Actress, Supporting Actor (Richard Jenkins-yeah!), Original Screenplay, Cinematography, Costumes, Film Editing, Score, Production Design, Sound Editing and Sound Mixing.

Darkest Hour gets 5: Actor, Cinematography, Makeup. Score and Production Design

Lady Bird gets 4: Best Picture, Actress, Supporting Actress and Original Screenplay

And one nomination each for:
Downsizing: Supporting Actress
Loving Vincent: Animated Feature
The Insult: Foreign Language Film
A Fantastic Woman: Foreign Language Film
Loveless: Foreign Language Film
Faces/Places: Documentary Feature
Heroin(e): Documentary Short

A total of 28 nominations for TFF #44 films  if Kris is 100% accurate which is right at the Telluride Oscar average over the past several years.

Other films Tapley names for Best Picture and their predicted total nominations are: Dunkirk-7, Call Me By Your Name-5, The Florida Project-3, Get Out-3, The Post-6 and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri-6.

Tapley's complete set of predictions is here.



VARIETY'S ANTICIPATION

Also this week, Variety's critics gazed into their collective crystal ball and published a list of 20 films they are most excited to see in 2018.  Their list gives us a chance to ponder possible TFF #45 titles.

So, here are the films from Variety's 2018 most anticipated that feel like they have some T-ride potential:

Boy Erased-directed by Joel Edgerton
Burning -director Lee Chang-dong's last film was Poetry in 2010 which played Telluride
Everybody Knows- could be the film that gets Asghar Farhadi back to TFF
First Man- director Damien Chazelle's follow up to La La Land
The Man Who Killed Don Quixote- does Terry Gilliam return to TFF?
Roma-Alfonso Cuaron has been working on this since Gravity
The Sisters Brothers-Another possible return to TFF from Jacques Audiard
Sunset-director Laszlo Nemes first feature since his stunning Son of Saul

The complete listing of 20 films with commentary from Variety is linked here.



U.S. TRAILER FOR FOXTROT

Sony Pictures Classics Foreign Language Film Oscar contender Foxtrot from director and writer Samuel Maoz has its U.S. trailer which was released this week.

You can access it here from FirstShowing.net.



JENKINS ON THE SHAPE OF WATER

And finally today a link to a new interview from Deadline's Pete Hammond with Best Supporting Actor contender Richard Jenkins from Guillermo Del Toro's The Shape of Water.  As many of you know, Jenkins has been  a favorite of mine for Oscar consideration for this role since seeing the film.

That interview is here.


That's your last MTFB for 2017 friends.  I'll have 2018's first post (of some sort) up on Monday, Jan. 1, 2018.  Happy New Year and thanks for spending some of your 2017 reading these ramblings...


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

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