Big Critics Groups and Oscar in 2018 / Cold War Dominates the EFA / Oscar Short Lists Land Today

It is a Monday!  Time for some MTFB...


BIG CRITICS GROUPS AND OSCAR IN 2018

I did this last year at the same time.  That is to say that I collated results about where films stand in critical eyes as we approach the end of the year.

I look at what we've been told by nominations or awards from The Golden Globes (GG), Critics Choice Awards (BFCA), National Board of Review (NBR), American Film Institute (AFI), New York Film Critics Circle (NY) and Los Angeles Film Critics Association (LA), Screen Actors Guild (SAG).

Last year the list looked like this:

10) The Disaster Artist (NBR, GG)
7) The Florida Project (NBR, BFCA, AFI)
7) The Big Sick (BFCA, AFI, SAG)
7) The Shape of Water (BFCA, GG, AFI)
4) The Post (NBR, BFCA, GG, AFI)
4) Dunkirk (NBR, BFCA, GG, AFI)
4) Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (BFCA, GG, SAG, AFI)
2) Call Me By Your Name (NBR, LA, BFCA, GG, AFI)
2) Get Out (NBR, BFCA, GG, SAG, AFI)
1) Lady Bird (NBR, NY, BFCA, GG, SAG, AFI)

So it included TFF #44 films Lady Bird, and The Shape of Water.  It also included eventual Oscar Best Picture winner, The Shape of Water. and nominees Lady Bird, Three Billboards, Dunkirk, The Post, Get Out, Call Me By Your Name and Dunkirk.  So, the top seven got in with the additions, of TFF #44 film Darkest Hour and also Phantom Thread.

With that in mind, here's what the data from the same seven groups tells us in 2018:

9) Six films tied here with two mentions each: Bohemian Rhapsody, Crazy Rich Asians, Eighth Grade, First Reformed, A Quiet Place and Vice.

7) Mary Poppins Returns (3): NBR, AFI, BFCA
7) The Favourite (3): GG, AFI, BFCA
4) If Beale Street Could Talk (4): NBR, GG, AFI, BFCA
4) Green Book (4): NBR (best picture), GG, AFI, BFCA
4) BlacKkKlansman (4): GG, AFI, SAG, BFCA
1) A Star Is Born (5): NBR, GG, AFI, SAG, BFCA
1) Roma (5): NBR, NY, LA, AFI (special citation), BFCA
1) Black Panther (5): NBR, GG, AFI, SAG, BFCA

With single mentions: The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, Can You Ever Forgive Me? and First Man.

Based on last year, if you're film is sitting at #7 or above, it's got a great chance to be Oscar nominated for Best Picture on the morning of Jan. 22nd.


COLD WAR DOMINATES THE EFA

The European Film Awards were passed out Saturday and TFF #45 film Pawel Pawlikowski's Cold War dominated the field picking up five wins including Best European Film.  The film's female lead, Joanna Kulig, was named Best Actress and Pawlikowski won for Best Direction and Screenwriting.  The film also won for Best Editing. 

In other TFF #45 EFA news, Matteo Garrone's Dogman did well too with wins for Best Actor (Marcello Fonte), Costume Design and Hair/Makeup.

Lukas Dhont's Girl was named winner for European Discovery and Ali Abassi's Border won the award for visual effects.

Linked here is the press release from the EFA.


SHORT LISTS LAND TODAY

Steve Pond of The Wrap reports that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announces all of their short lists for a variety of categories today.

That's a departure from the past when the categories that include the "short list" process have traditionally parcelled those announcements over a period of weeks but that won't be the process this year.

Pond tells us that will mean nine different categories will be trimmed to definitive lists by this afternoon. 

Here are those categories and the number that they will be trimmed to:

Foreign Language Film (9)
Documentary Feature (15)
Original Song (15)
Original Score (15)
Makeup/Hair (7...probably)
Visual Effects (10)
Documentary Short (10)
Animated Short (10)
Live Action Short (10)

Pond also takes a look at what he thinks are the most likely inclusions and exclusions in his article which you can find linked here.

I'll have a look at how the short lists all shake out vis-a-vis Telluride in Thursday's regularly scheduled post.


That's the Monday MTFB.  I'll be back with more on Thursday.

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

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New Oscar Predix: Foreign Language and Docs /The Front Runner's International Trailer / Interviews: Hugh Jackman (The Front Runner), Josh Singer (First Man) and Eva Melander (Border)

Welcome back from the weekend and Happy Impending Halloween to all who Trick or Treat...


NEW OSCAR PREDICTIONS: FOREIGN LANGUAGE AND DOCUMENTARIES

Almost every year there is a least one Oscar category that seems like every nominee might have played Telluride.  This year the Foreign Language category could go that way.

Honestly, Best Supporting Actress could as well but it's a bit more of a stretch in that category than Foreign Language.

So, here for the first time this Oscar season on MTFB is my set of opening prognostications for Best Foreign Language Film.  As is usual here the films that played TFF #45 are Bold.

1) Roma
2) Cold War
3) Capernaum
4) Shoplifters
5) Burning

As you can see, at the moment I am predicting three of the five will have played TFF #45: Roma, Cold War and Shoplifters.  There are a few other films that are just off this top five that could supplant some of these:  Girl, Never Look Away, Birds of Passage, Border and Sunset.


Meanwhile, in the wild Feature Documentary category, these are the films that I am guessing make the top five...at least for the time being:

1) The Notorious RBG
2) Won't You Be My Neighbor
3) The Identical Strangers
4) Free Solo
5) McQueen

Others: Minding the Gap, Dark Money, The Sentence, Reversing Roe, Filmworker, Quincy, Science Fair, Whitney.

And if you missed it last week, there are new predictions up at Movie City News' Gurus of Gold for Best Picture, Actress and Supporting Actress.  And, not to beat the proverbial dead horse, I'm acting as a "Guru" this year. 

I am thrilled to be included with friends: Sasha Stone/Awards Daily, Tomris Laffly/RogerEbert.com, and Mark Johnson/AwardsCircuit.  I'm also pleased to see Peter Howell of The Toronto Star (Peter and I have exchanged tweets and messages in the past few years about items related to the Toronto Film Fest) and Dave Karger who, among other things, appears from time to time on Turner Classic Movies, are also Gurus this year.

Go check them out by clicking here.


THE FRONT RUNNER'S INTERNATIONAL TRAILER

As we edge closer to its domestic release (Nov. 21), Sony/Columbia released an international version of the trailer for Jason Reitman's The Front Runner.

The film stars Hugh Jackman as U.S. Senator Gary Hart and follows the flame out of his 1988 Presidential bid.

Here's the new international trailer from YouTube:

The Front Runner is set to open in Sweden on Nov. 21.



INTERVIEWS: HUGH JACKMAN (THE FRONT RUNNER), JOSH SINGER (FIRST MAN) AND EVA MELANDER (BORDER)

Oscar nominee Hugh Jackman (for Les Miserables) could earn his second nomination for his work as Gary Hart in Jason Reitman's The Front Runner.  Jackman was profiled over the weekend by The Hollywood Reporter in an interview that was conducted by Katie Kilkenny.  That interview is linked here.

Oscar winner Josh Singer, who won the Oscar for co-writing Spotlight, and is the script writer for Damien Chazelle's First Man sat down with SlashFilm's Jack Giroux recently.  SlashFilm posted the interview on Thursday and you can catch it here.


First Man is in theaters now.

Meanwhile, Eva Melander who stars in the weird and(at least at Telluride) somewhat divisive foreign film Border shared about her experiences with that film this past week wit Erik Anderson of Awards Watch.

That interview is here.

Border is the official submission from Sweden for this year's Foreign Language Oscar.  The film opened this past weekend here in the United States.



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


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

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COMMENT TO THE BLOG

New Announcements Reveal Possibilities / Awards Daily's Comprehensive Review of Fests and Oscar Players / First Look at Nicole in Destroyer

Good Thursday everyone...we're just a week away from being on the road to Telluride. 


NEW ANNOUNCEMENTS REVEAL POSSIBILITIES

Since Tuesday's post we have seen new announcements from Fantastic Fest (its second wave), the New York Film Fest  and the last of Toronto's announcements.  Each has given us a few more tidbits to chew on.

New York's documentary announcements give us the most information of interest.  The NYFF announces with some films having NO premiere designation.  Those appear to be films that have had their U.S. premiere somewhere prior to New York's dates.  Three documentaries fit that criteria that also do not have any credited U.S. screening that I can find up to this point:  Angels Are Made of Light...which almost assuredly confirms it for Telluride after its earlier announcement for Toronto as a Canadian Premiere.

The other two are The Waldheim Waltz and Watergate.  Waldheim is from film maker Ruth Beckermann while Watergate is from Oscar winner (Inside Job) Charles Ferguson.  Ferguson has played Telluride in 2010.  Seems like Ferguson could well be returning to The SHOW.

Meanwhile, Toronto's last announcement left us with a couple of items of interest.  We know that Brady Corbet's Vox Lux starring Natalie Portman won't make the trip from Venice as TIFF lists it as a North American Premiere.  However, Lukas Dhont's Girl, which made a splash at Cannes in the Un Certain Regard section, is all but confirmed for TFF #45 with its Canadian Premiere designation.

And Fantastic Fest announced Ali Abassi's Border as a Texas Premiere.  I had some confusion a couple of weeks back when the L.A. Film Fest announced it (prior to its inclusion later by Toronto) as a "California Premiere" rather than a U.S. Premiere and thought that made the film a pretty decent bet for T-ride.  Seems I was wrong.

I'll have all of this figured into tomorrow's post with a brand new Ten Bets that will probably be 20 films. 

Here are links to the latest news from the New York Film Festival (via Variety)

The Toronto International Film Festival

Fantastic Fest (from ComingSoon.net)




AWARDS DAILY'S COMPREHENSIVE REVIEW OF FESTS AND OSCAR PLAYERS

Yesterday my friend Sasha Stone of Awards Daily posted a substantial piece detailing what film festivals have what films and which seem to be playing that are probable Oscar contenders.  The piece is quite informative and, to blow my own horn here, the Telluride section includes a fairly significant chunk of MTFB.

Here's the link.

And my thanks to Sasha for including my work on her website.


FIRST LOOK AT NICOLE IN DESTROYER


You probably saw it all over the web the last day or so.  I'm taking the photo of Nicole Kidman in character for her film Destroyer which we are relatively certain will be a part of the TFF #45 lineup when it's officially announced a week from today.  If you haven't seen it, take a gander:

Here's a woman going full Charlize Theron in Monster.

Kidman plays a former cop that attempts to correct a part of her past.  

Could this be the role that nets her a third Oscar?  Maybe.

Vanity Fair published the photo with an interview of the film's director Karyn Kusawa which you can find here.

That's your Thursday MTFB.  More tomorrow including the next to last Ten Bets for 2018.  The SHOW draws near!


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

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COMMENT TO THE BLOG

Ten (Plus) Bets #6 for TFF #45 / L.A. Fest Reveals Another Possible Film / Girl Has a Trailer /And Speaking of Trailers

It's the first Friday in August!  In four weeks the 45th Telluride Film Festival will begin.

TEN (PLUS) BETS #6 FOR TFF #45

Not much changing among the top ten bets but I am expanding this week to 15 titles plus films that are still potential players.

Last week's Ten Bets:

1) Roma
2) First Man
3) The Old Man and the Gun
4) Cold War
5) The Front Runner
6) Dogman
7) Shoplifters
8) Can You Ever Forgive Me?
9) Non Fiction
10) The Favourite


This week's Ten (Plus) Bets

1) First Man
2) Roma
3) The Old Man and the Gun
4) The Front Runner
5) Cold War
6) Dogman
7) Shoplifters
8) Can You Ever Forgive Me?
9) Non Fiction
10) The Favourite
11) Peterloo
12) White Boy Rick
13) The Other Side of the Wind
14) Border
15) Girl



The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, The Eyes of Orson Welles, On the Basis of Sex, Happy as Lazzaro,  He Dreams of Giants, Cheney (Backseat), Nothing Like a Dame, Mid 90s, Mary Queen of Scots, Boy Erased, American Dharma, 22 July

We definitely should gain more insight next week with additional announcements from Toronto plus New York's lineup and a schedule from Venice.



L.A. FILM FEST REVEALS ANOTHER POSSIBLE FILM

Within the last week we had announcements from the Los Angeles Film Fest, which has a new date as well as the first wave announcement from Fantastic Fest.  I can't divine any real addition or elimination from the FF announcement but it appears that Cannes Un Certain Regard winner Border is probable for Telluride.

The LAFF list tells us that Border will be a "California" Premiere leading me to believe that it will have played somewhere in the U.S. prior to its screening in L.A. 2-3 weeks after T-ride.  Thusly, Telluride seems like a good bet to screen the film from director Ali Abassi.  Neon is distributing the film in the U.S.  Neon distributed Errol Morris' The B Side: Elsa Dorfman's Portrait Photography in 2016 which played TFF #43.

Here's coverage of the Los Angeles announcement from Deadline and Variety.


GIRL HAS A TRAILER

Netflix has released the first international trailer for Lukas Dhont's Girl.  The film was very well received as a part of Cannes' Un Certain Regard section and won a series of awards related to that screening including UCR Best Actor for lead Victor Polster.

Here's the video from YouTube:

Netflix hasn't announced a date for release in the U.S. as yet.

I have linked coverage of  the trailer release from FirstShowing.


AND SPEAKING OF TRAILERS


I know.  I know.  Barry Jenkins' If Beale Street Could Talk is destined to screen for the first time in Toronto but when I saw this tweet this morning:

Well, I just had to take a look and if you're so inclined as well...

Trailer via YouTube

Makes me sad all over again that TFF #45 won't be screening this.

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

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

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Widows Pics and Trailer / Indiewire Scans Foreign Language Oscar Players

Welcome to the first Monday in June and the start of the MTFB grind to TFF #45.

I start the summer posting protocol with the expansion of posts.  Normally, I post on Monday and Thursday mornings but starting this week, I'll be adding posts on Tuesday and Friday as we move our way closer and closer to TFF #45 scheduled for this year from Aug. 31-Sept. 3.

Hope you enjoy and find the next three months of goo...useful.


WIDOWS PICS AND TRAILER

Any number of sources reported over the weekend that Steve McQueen's Widows had dropped stills and would be dropping a trailer today.  I have included a couple of stills from The Film Stage here and will include the trailer in tomorrow's post.

I'm about 50/50 on Widows' chances of making the TFF #45 lineup.  Working in its favor is the strong presence that McQueen has had at the fest over the years with screenings of Hunger ('08), Shame ('11) and 12 Years a Slave ('13) and personally, Shame and 12 Years are two of the best films that I have seen at Telluride.  So that kind of track record suggests TFF #45 could happen.

Countering that are two factors.  Widows, from all descriptions, sounds like a genre film which none of McQueen's previous Telluride films could be called and it's housed at 20th Century Fox, which has certainly had plenty of play at Telluride via its indie arm-Fox Searchlight, but 20th Century Fox itself...not so much.

So that's why Widows is a 50/50 prediction for TFF #45 at this point.

Trailer tomorrow here on the blog.


INDIEWIRE SCANS FOREIGN LANGUAGE OSCAR PLAYERS

Anne Thompson posted a speculative piece on Indiewire Friday looking at films that she feels have the best inside track for a Foreign Language Oscar nomination as the summer begins.  All five of what Anne lists as front-runners are films that played at Cannes and are all possible Telluride players.

They are:

Capernaum
Cold War
Everybody Knows
Happy as Lazarro
Shoplifters

Among other films listed as contenders that I feel, at least at this point, like T-ride players are: Ayka and Girl.

In an interesting twist, Anne does not include Lee Chang-dong's Burning.  The film was the undeniable critical champ at Cannes but also received no prizes in the official competition.

I have it on my T-ride watch list because it scored so well with critics and because Chang-dong has played Telluride previously with Secret Sunshine and Poetry.

The complete article is linked here.


More tomorrow including, I hope, the Widows trailer.

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

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COMMENT TO THE BLOG

The Awards From the 71st Cannes Film Festival / Analyzing the Cannes Awards History for TFF Clues / The Last Round of Critics for Cannes 2018 / A Couple of Other Cannes Notes / A First Look at Beautiful Boy

Welcome back from your weekend...hope it was a good one...


THE AWARDS FROM THE 71ST CANNES FILM FESTIVAL

The Cannes Film Fest closed Saturday with the presentation of awards.  The winners were:

Main Competition:

Palme d'Or: Shoplifters
Grand Prix: BlacKkKlansman
Jury Prize: Capharnaum
Director: Pawel Pawlikowski-Cold War
Screenplay: Happy as Lazzaro and Three Faces
Actress: Samal Yeslyamova-Ayka
Actor: Marcello Fonte-Dogman
Special Palme: The Image Book

Here's the trailer for the Palme d'Or winner from YouTube:

Un Certain Regard:

UCR Prize: Border
Screenplay: Sofia
Best Performance: Victor Polster-Girl
Director: Sergei Loznitsa-Donbass
Special Jury Prize: The Dead and the Others

From among the Palme winners, I suspect every film is a potential TFF player at this point with the exception of Spike Lee's BlacKkKlansman which Focus Features has set for release on Aug. 10th and I also have my doubts about Goddard's Image Book.

Another wrinkle is the acquisition of Happy as Lazzaro and Girl during the fest and, at this point, trying to divine what that will me for how those films get released and the implications for a possible Telluride play are difficult.

Netflix has been a presence at Telluride the past three years but that was prior to the brouhaha that played out in France this past few weeks that resulted in Netflix screening nothing in Cannes.  How that factors into their plans heading to the fall and if it has a residual effect regarding TFF programmers...I don't know.

In addition to the Cannes acquisitions, Netflix also has Martin Scorsese's The Irishman which one would think would be a major player come awards season if it's done... and that's a BIG IF.  And they also have Alfonso Cuaron's Roma and Orson Welles' The Other Side of the Wind (which I really believe will play TFF #45).

Stand by to hear what the Netflix plan is for releasing these acquisitions.  Maybe that will give us some insight.

Here is the official list of winners from Cannes.



ANALYZING THE CANNES AWARDS HISTORY FOR TFF CLUES

Regular readers of this space probably know from past posts that the Cannes/Telluride crossover averages between seven and eight films each year.  Most of those titles come from the main competition and Un Certain Regard sections that.  Occasionally titles will come from some part of the non-competition slate or even the Directors Fortnight presentations.

So, as I have said, the Cannes/Telluride crossover is strong and has a lengthy history but the connection to the Cannes prize winners is fairly tenuous.  Over the past decade, only three Palme d'Or winners have made the journey to Telluride: The White Ribbon ('10), Amour ('12) and Blue Is the Warmest Colour ('13).

Actually, in the last ten years, the film that wins the Grand Prix (second place essentially) is more likely to make the trip to the San Juans: Gomorrah ('08), A Prophet ('09), Of Gods and Men ('10), Inside Llewyn Davis ('13), Son of Saul ('15).

The other modestly successful predictor, weirdly, is Best Actor: Biutiful ('10), The Artist ('11), The Hunt ('12), Nebraska ('13), Mr. Turner ('14).

Other Cannes prizes and their TFF crossovers the past ten years are:

Jury Prize (third place): Fish Tank ('09), Loveless ('17)
Director: Foxcatcher ('14), Graduation ('16)
Actress: The Past ('13), Carol ('15)
Screenplay: Poetry ('10), Footnote ('11), Leviathan ('14)
UCR Prize: Tulpan ('08), Rams ('16), A Man of Integrity ('17)

This history suggests that the most likely Cannes plays for TFF #45 would be BlacKkKlansman but we know it won't be as it will be released three weeks before the festival which points us toward the Best Actor winner-Dogman.  That has a real shot.



THE LAST ROUND-UP OF CRITICS FOR CANNES 2018

Here's the final critical assessment of films that played these last two weeks in Cannes beginning with the behemoth from Reini Urban:

Overall from all sections the top five films critically were:

1) Dead Souls
2) Burning
3) Thunder Road
4) Shoplifters
5) Happy as Lazarro

(Note: the short film Ultra Purple/Apocalypse After actually would sit at #4 but was scored by only five critics.  Dead Souls was also only scored by 16 critics)


Top five from the Palme d'Or section:

1) Burning (8.10/10)
2) Shoplifters (7.67)
3) Happy as Lazarro (7.63)
4) The Wild Pear Tree (7.49)
5) Cold War (7.42)

Top three from the UCR section

1) Long Days Journey Into Night (7.40)
2) Girl (7.15)
3) The Dead and the Others (6.91)

Complete Reini Urban compilation of critics is linked here.


Todas Criticas...

Top Five from the Palme section:

1) Happy as Lazarro (8.31/10)
2) Burning (8.16)
3) The Image Book (8.13)
4) The Wild Pear Tree (7.44)
5) Ash Is The Purest White (7.23)

Top three in UCR:

1) Long Days Journey Into Night (7.98)
2) The Dead and the Others (7.17)
3) Girl (6.69)


The complete Todas Criticas board is here.


From Ioncinema's ratings of the Palme d'Or competition:

1) Burning (3.8/5-TIE)
1) The Wild Pear Tree (3.8)
3) Cold War (3.7)
4) Shoplifters (3.6)
5) Ash Is the Purest White (3.3 TIE)
5) Leto (3.3)
5) Three Faces (3.3)


The Ioncinema chart is here.


Screen Daily's grid at the completion of the Palme films:

1) Burning (3.8/4)
2) Shoplifters (3.2)
3) The Image Book (3.0)
4) Cold War (2.9 TIE)
4) Ash Is the Purest White (2.9)
4) Happy as Lazarro (2.9)

The Screen Daily grid is here.


The International Cinephile Society's ratings

Top five from the Palme d'Or comp:

1) Burning (4.50/5)
2) The Image Book (4.28)
3) Ash Is the Purest White (4.08)
4) Shoplifters (4.03)
5) Cold War (3.74)


The ICS critics' grid is here.


A COUPLE OF OTHER CANNES NOTES...

Terry Gilliam's The Man Who Killed Don Quixote has finally screened for live humans in a theater!!!

And now that it has...I can't say that I'm surprised that I have been seeing a number of reviews that have used words like "confused" and "missing a bit of soul".  As I type (with a small number of reviews counted, RT has it at 57% and Metacritic has it at a 50.

It sounds like what I've come to expect from Gilliam...

Does that mean it's off the table for TFF #45?  Can't say that yet.

Another note about the 71st Cannes:  I was a little alarmed at how often I saw the phrase "slow burn" in takes about films that played...which I sometimes think is code for "it's slow but important".

Now that Cannes is in the books, I'll pay attention to acquisition news and release dates concerning these titles for additional TFF clues.


 A FIRST LOOK AT BEAUTIFUL BOY

Felix Van Groeningen's Beautiful Boy will probably be on my first Ten Bets list (which is about six weeks away).  From Amazon Studios, the film features Timothee Chalamet (Oscar nominated last year for Call Me By Your Name) and Steve Carell (Oscar nominated for Foxcatcher) as son and father dealing with the youngsters addiction to meth.

It's likely going to be a part of our conversations for the next several months.

That said, this week, we saw the first footage for the film via a 30 second teaser which is here from YouTube:

Additionally, here is coverage from Indiewire and The Playlist of the release of the teaser.


That's your MTFB for this Monday.  Have a good week everyone...and more to come on Thursday.

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

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