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
"But it's our job." - Anne Thompson, Indiewire
To say that there has been only a slight relationship over the past few years between Focus Features and the Telluride Film Festival would be accurate. Since 2006 Focus has been repped at Telluride all of three times:
2006- Catch a Fire
2012- Hyde Park on Hudson
2015- Suffragette
In all three cases the directors involved had appeared with a film at TFF before. Phil Noyce who directed Catch a Fire had Rabbit Proof Fence there in 2002. Roger Michell who was the director of Hyde Park on Hudson had Venus in 2006 and Persuasion in 1995 and Suffragette was directed by Sarah Gavron who had been represented at Telluride in 2007 with Brick Lane, Losing Touch in 2000 and This Little Life in 2003. So, if you're looking to see if Focus might be back with a film in 2017, that could be a factor to look at and Focus has some films that might be on anyone's wish list.
Starting with the latest from Paul Thomas Anderson and Daniel Day Lewis, who suggests that he will retire from acting after this film. The film is currently called Phantom Thread and is scheduled for release on Dec. 25th.
PTA and DDL were in Telluride in 2007 for a tribute to Day Lewis but I fully expect that the film won't be finished in time for Labor Day. Chances: 0%.
Darkest Hour with what is said to be a star turn and Oscar play for Gary Oldman as Winston Churchill. Darkest Hour is directed by Jow Wright of Atonement fame. Wright has no T-ride connection that I can track down so despite a Nov. 22nd release date...Chances: 10%.
Victoria and Abdul starring Judi Dench as the British monarch and directed by Stephen Frears probably has the best shot as Frears has been at Telluride in the past with a tribute to him in 1987 that included Sammy and Rosie Get Laid as well as Walter and June and in 2010 with Tamara Drewe. Victoria and Abdul opens on Sept. 22nd. Chances: 35%.
FIRST PORTRAIT (TRAILER) FOR FIRST PORTRAIT
Outside contender for Telluride inclusion, Stanley Tucci's Final Portrait dropped a trailer yesterday. Here it is from YouTube:
Final Portrait stars Geoffrey Rush and Armie Hammer. It played Berlin back in February and is in Sony Pictures Classics stable. It currently has no U.S. release date.
Welcome to Friday everyone...leaving La La Land today to head back to Casa Patterson...
THE DISTRIBUTORS: SONY PICTURES CLASSICS
As I wrote yesterday, I'm beginning the annual summer assessment of film distribution companies as a way to try to read the Telluride tea leaves.
I tend to begin this each summer with Sony Pictures Classics because, certainly in my time as an attendee, no other distributor has had as strong and continuous presence at TFF than SPC. As I reminded everyone yesterday, here is the legacy of SPC over the past several years:
2016: The Eagle Huntress, Maudie, Norman, Toni Erdmann (4)
2015: Son of Saul (1)
2014: Foxcatcher, Leviathan, Red Army, Mr. Turner, Wild Tales, Salt of the Earth and Merchants of Doubt (7)
2013: The Invisible Woman, The Lunchbox, The Past, Tim's Vermeer and Jodorowsky's Dune (5)
2012: The Gatekeepers, At Any Price, Rust and Bone, No, Wadjda, Amour (6)
2011: A Dangerous Method, In Darkness, Footnote, A Separation (4)
2010: Incendies, Of Gods and Men, Tamara Drewe, Another Year, The Illusionist, Inside Job (6)
2009: The Last Station, The White Ribbon, Coco Before Chanel, A Prophet, An Education (5)
2008: Waltz with Bashir, I've Loved You So Long, O'Horten (3)
2007: Brick Lane, When Did You Last See Your Father, Persepolis, The Band's Visit, The Counterfeiters, Steep! (6)
2006: Jindabyne, The Lives of Others, Volver, The Italian (4)
2005: Breakfast on Pluto, Capote, Cache, The Child (4)
2004: Being Julia, House of Flying Daggers, Bad Education, Merchant of Venice, Up and Down, Yes (6)
2003: The Fog of War, My Life Without Me, The Triplets of Belleville, Young Adam (4)
SPC averages 4-5 films per year at the fest. Looking at the films that are listed as under the SPC umbrella at IMDb...here's a thought or two about those SPC films:
Initially, I'm not gong to assess films from SPC that played Sundance but are not yet in release (ex: Call Me By Your Name, Novitiate) due to Telluride's "first North American showing" policy but I will have a note about that below. That leaves eight films to evaluate.
In order of TFF likelihood (at least for right now):
1) Loveless/Zvyagnistev. The factors: Played Cannes were it won awards and was well reviewed (88 Metascore). Zvyagnistev played T-ride in '14 with Leviathan. Chances: 80%.
2) A Fantastic Woman/Lelio. The factors: Played Berlin where it won awards and was really well reviewed (96 Metascore). Lelio played T-ride in '13 with Gloria. Chances: 75%.
3) The Rider/Zhao. The factors: An SPC purchase at Cannes after a very good play in the Director's Fortnight (86 Metascore). Despite a young director and a cast of unprofessional actors, this is a film that I just have a gut instinct about in as far as TFF is concerned. Chances: 60%.
4) Happy End/Haneke. The factors: Despite some critical disgruntlement, the film has a respectable Metascore (78) and Haneke's history is very strong with TFF (Amour, The White Ribbon , Cache). Chances: 55%.
After those four, the SPC slate seems a bit murkier as far as predicting films with a possible Telluride fest play.
5) Final Portrait/Tucci. The factors: The biopic about artist Alberto Giacometti stars Geoffrey Rush (who was in T-ride in '10 with The King's Speech). Stanley Tucci wrote and directed the film which played Berlin. That plus a good Metascore (76) give it the #5 spot. Chances: 40%.
6) The Silent Man/Landesman. The factors: Liam Neeson stars as Mark Felt, the Deep Throat of Watergate fame. It hasn't played festivals to this point. If TFF is looking to program a film that "feels" reflective of the current environment in Washington; this could be a way to do that. Chances: 25%
7) The Leisure Seeker/Virzi. The factors: Like Silent Man, The Leisure Seeker has not played at a fest as yet. It stars Helen Mirren (The Last Station '09) and Donald Sutherland. Chances: 20%
Note about The Silent Man and The Leisure Seeker. Though neither has played a festival, neither did SPC films Norman nor Maudie last year...so don't count either film out.
8) Based on a True Story/Polanski. The factors: The film was not reviewed well following its Cannes play (Metascore 43) and Polanski's inability to accompany the film to the U.S. makes it the least likely of the eight SPC films listed here. Chances: 5%.
One final note: Although I doubt that Telluride plays another Sundance film this year, it's not impossible. Last year both Manchester by the Sea and The Eagle Huntress played Sundance first and there was a lot of buzz that Birth of a Nation might make the same journey until the film got mired in director Nate Parker's controversy. Sooo...2% chances for Call Me By Your Name and Novitiate.
Monday's look will be The Weinstein Company.
TRAILER FOR GOODBYE CHRISTOPHER ROBIN
If you didn't see it yesterday, Fox Searchlight dropped a trailer for Simon Curtis' Goodbye Christopher Robin starring Domnhall Gleeson as Winnie the Pooh creator A.A. Milne. Margot Robbie co-stars as his wife.
Here's the trailer from YouTube:
The scenes look lovely and obviously, Fox Searchlight, which has dated the film for an Oct. 13th release, thinks it has an awards player on its hands.
Could it play Telluride? I'll be assessing its chances as I look at the FS slate next week.
Here's additional coverage of the releases of the trailer from:
Meanwhile we also learned this week that Alfonso Cuaron's Roma will also be targeting a 2018 release taking it off the Telluride possibilities list. Indiewire reported the news and also included a "sneak peek" of the film. That "peek" is here via YouTube:
The parade of first-look teasers and clips continues from films that are playing in France over the next few days as a part of the Cannes film festival. I have provided links to a number of those which have been released in platforms other than YouTube below:
Two announcements yesterday from Cannes grabbed my attention as the players involved probably boost the notion that the films involved have Telluride potential.
Sony Pictures Classics bought Andrey Zvyganistev's Loveless while The Cohen Media Group nabbed L'amant Double. Both of those films had already been on my TFF #44 watch list and SPC's and Cohen's previous plays at Telluride, at the very least, don't reduce those films chances of making the T-ride lineup.
Pre-Cannes acquisitions and announcements this week put two new films on my TFF #44 watch list.
First, Sony Pictures Classics announced that they had acquired Stanley Tucci's Final Portrait. Final Portrait played at the Berlin Film Festival back in February.
Final Portrait stars Geoffrey Rush (T-ride attendee in 2010 with The King's Speech) and Armie Hammer.
Additionally, we discovered yesterday that documentarian Michael Moore has a Trump documentary in the works and that film has been bought by The Weinstein Company. Moore was last at Telluride for the 2013 40th anniversary celebration.
The greater likelihood is that Moore's new doc will play in late July as part of the Traverse City Film Festival (that he founded) and that will probably mean no play at T-ride but never say never.
The doc is titled Fahrenheit 11/9 playing off of Moore's most successful film, the Iraq war documentary Fahrenheit 9-11.
Today I continue my expended history of the Telluride Film Festival. If you haven't been following along, I have undertaken to expend the "Selected History" section of this blog. Working backward from the 2005 fest which is most recent one for which a program is not linked on the official TFF website.
So I have been working in reverse chronological order and posting the details of past fests. Today we go back to TFF #28 whcih ran from Aug. 31-Sept 3, 2001.
Guest Director: Salman Rushdie
Tributes: Ken Russell, Om Puri and Catherine Breillat
SHOWS:
Amadeus
Amelie
Band of Brothers
The Cat's Meow
Dear Fidel
The Devil's Backbone
Drive-In Movie Memories
The Fast Runner
The Fat Girl
The Golden Fortress
Grateful Dawg
Italian for Beginners
Killer Me
La Cienega
Lantana
Late Marriage
Lovely and Amazing
Mark Twain
Metropolis
Mulholland Drive
The Mystic Masseur
Nine Queens
Orphan of Anyang
Ravi Shankar
Revolution #9
Shot in the Heart
Solaris
Song for Martin
To End All Wars
Turn of the Century
Walt
The Young and the Dead
Partial Guest List:
Bille August
Peter Bogdanovich
Ken Burns
Guillermo Del Toro
Faye Dunaway
Kirsten Dunst
Roger Ebert
Milos Forman
Edward Herrmann
Agnieszka Holland
Nicole Holofcener
Tom Hulce
James Ivory
Catherine Keener
Elias Koestas
Anthony La Paglia
Tobey Maguire
Leonard Maltin
Ismail Merchant
Giovanni Ribisi
Lone Scherfig
Peter Sellars
Kiefer Sutherland
I was particularly pleased an surprised that Del Toro has been to Telluride.
That's it for Thursday...more on Monday...
EMAIL: mpgort@gmail.com OR michael_speech@hotmail.com
