Oscar #91 in the Books: Telluride's Spell Is Broken / Oscar Odds and Ends / And Now We Turn the Page

Welcome back from Oscarland...

OSCAR #91 IN THE BOOKS: TELLURIDE'S SPELL IS BROKEN

Here are your winners from the 91st Academy Awards from Last Night:

Best Picture: Green Book)
Direction: Alfonso Cuaron/Roma
Actress: Olivia Colman/The Favourite)
Actor: Rami Malek/Bohemian Rhapsody
Supporting Actress: Regina King/If Beale Street Could Talk
Supporting Actor: Mahershala Ali/Green Book
Original Screenplay: Green Book
Adapted Screenplay: BlacKkKlansman
Animated Feature: Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse
Documentary Feature: Free Solo
Foreign Language Film: Roma
Original Song: Shallow/A Star Is Born
Original Score: Black Panther
Cinematography: Roma
Film Editing: Bohemian Rhapsody
Production Design: Black Panther
Costumes: Black Panther
Makeup/Hair: Vice
Visual Effects: First Man
Sound Editing: Bohemian Rhapsody
Sound Mixing: Bohemian Rhapsody
Animated Short: Bao
Documentary Short: Period. End of Sentence
Live Action Short: Skin


OSCAR ODDS AND ENDS

 
Telluride's streak of eight straight years of screening the eventual Best Picture winner ended last night with the win for Green Book.  It's the first non-TFF film to win since The Hurt Locker back in 2010.

TFF films did pick up six Oscars last night.  Roma had three: Direction, Foreign Language Film and Cinematography.  The Favourite's Olivia Colman won for Best Actress, Free Solo won Best Documentary and First Man won for Best Visual Effects.

Multiple Oscar winning films included:

Bohemian Rhapsody-4 Actor, Film Editing, Sound Editing and Sound Mixing
Green Book-3 Picture, Supporting Actor and Original Screenplay
Roma-3 Direction Foreign Language Film and Cinematography
Black Panther-3 Production Design, Costumes and Original Score

My personal prediction success rate was 19/24 or 79.2% .  I missed Picture, Actress, Film Editing, Production Design and Live Action Short.
 
I don't know that I would classify any of last night's awards as shockers.  Late wins by Colman and Green Book were mildly surprising but looking at the list I posted last Thursday, four of the five places where I missed, I had the actual winner listed as the "Could Be" candidate.

Why'd Green Book win?  I suspect a combination of factors mostly related to the baggage that Roma had going into the season: a foreign language film in black and white from Netflix.


AND NOW WE TURN THE PAGE

Though I have played around already with looking ahead to this year's potential TFF #46 lineup, now that this year's Oscar ceremony is in the books, it's time for this space to turn back to what was originally created to do.

Oscar's in the rear view and we turn our gaze ahead and aim toward Aug. 30th and the opening day of the 46th Telluride film Festival.


I'll have more for you on Thursday.


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Final Oscar Nomination Predictions / Predictions from Oscar Experts / Green Book Wins PGA / And Looking Ahead-Berlin

Welcome to MTFB.  It's the day before Oscar nominations are announced...less than 24 hours from now...


FINAL (PROBABLY) OSCAR NOMINATION PREDICTIONS

Well, it's that time.  Five months after the Telluride Film Festival, we're on the brink of knowing how The Academy has decided to honor the films of 2018...or at least, which films, performers and crafts people are still in the running for the film world's top honor.

What follows are my predictions in all 24 competitive Oscar categories.  A couple of notes before we dive in.  My success rate at nominations over the last few years has been between 75-80%.  Past that statistic, I find that the film/performance that I have listed at the #6 (in the categories with the traditional five nominees) makes it onto the list of nominees in about 75% of the cases where I have missed a nominee in a category.  In terms of sheer numbers, that means that if this year continues those trends , there are likely to be only 5-10 nominees across the 100+ total that I don't have predicted outright or as the first possibility after those five.

That said, it's such a weird, shifting year (Green Book wins PGA for example...see below) that the percentages could be way, way off.

Enough disclaimers...here are your predicted Oscar nominees for 2018 (Telluride films are Bold):

BEST PICTURE

1) Roma
2) Green Book
3) A Star Is Born
4) BlacKkKlansman
5) Black Panther
6) Vice
7) Bohemian Rhapsody
8) First Man
9) The Favourite
10) If Beale Street Could Talk

Maybe: First Reformed, Cold War

BEST DIRECTION

1) Alfonso Cuaron/Roma
2) Bradley Cooper/A Star Is Born
3) Spike Lee/BlacKkKlansman
4) Adam McKay/Vice
5) Yorgos Lanthimos/The Favourite
6) Peter Farrelly/Green Book

Maybe: Pawel Pawlikowski/Cold War, Ryan Coogler/Black Panther

BEST ACTRESS

1) Glenn Close/The Wife
2) Olivia Colman/The Favourite
3) Lady Gaga/A Star Is Born
4) Melissa McCarthy/Can You Ever Forgive Me?
5) Yalitza Aparicio/Roma
6) Emily Blunt/Mary Poppins Returns

Maybe: Viola Davis/Widows, Joanna Kulig/Cold War

BEST ACTOR

1) Christian Bale/Vice
2) Rami Malek/Bohemian Rhapsody
3) Bradley Cooper/A Star Is Born
4) Viggo Mortensen/Green Book
5) John David Washington/BlacKkKlansman
6) Ethan Hawke/First Reformed

Maybe: Willem Dafoe/At Eternity's Gate, Ryan Gosling/First Man

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

1) Regina King/If Beale Street Could Talk
2) Rachel Weisz/The Favourite
3) Emma Stone/The Favourite
4) Amy Adams/Vice
5) Claire Foy/First Man
6) Margot Robbie/Mary, Queen of Scots

Maybe: Emily Blunt/A Quiet Place, Nicole Kidman/Boy Erased

BEST 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) Timothee Chalamet/Beautiful Boy
6) Sam Rockwell/Vice

Maybe: Michael B. Jordan/Black Panther


BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

1) Green Book
2) The Favourite
3) Roma
4) Vice
5) Eighth Grade
6) First Reformed

Maybe: Cold War, A Quiet Place

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

1) BlacKkKlansman
2) If Beale Street Could Talk
3) Can You Ever Forgive Me?
4) A Star Is Born
5) Leave No Trace
6) Black Panther

Maybe: The Death of Stalin, Crazy Rich Asians, First Man

ANIMATED FEATURE

1) Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse
2) Incredibles 2
3) Isle of Dogs
4) Marai
5) Ralph Breaks the Internet
6) Early Man

Maybe: The Grinch


DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

1) Won't You Be My Neighbor
2) RBG
3) Free Solo
4) Minding the Gap
5) Shirkers
6) Three Identical Strangers

Maybe: Hale County This Morning, This Evening

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

1) Roma
2) Cold War
3) Capernaum
4) Shoplifters
5) Never Look Away
6) Burning

Maybe: The Guilty

CINEMATOGRAPHY

1) Roma

2) A Star Is Born

3) First Man

4) Cold War

5) The Favourite

6) Black Panther

Maybe: If Beale Street Could Talk

COSTUMES

1) The Favourite

2) Mary Poppins Returns

3) Black Panther

4) Mary Queen of Scots

5) Bohemian Rhapsody

6) Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

Maybe: BlacKkKlansman Vice, If Beale Street Could Talk,  

FILM EDITING

1) A Star Is Born

2) Roma

3) Vice

4) BlacKkKlansman

5) First Man

6) The Favourite

Maybe: Bohemian Rhapsody, Black Panther

MAKEUP/HAIR

1) Vice

2) Black Panther

3) Mary Queen of Scots

4) Bohemian Rhapsody

Maybe: Border, Stan and Ollie, Suspiria

ORIGINAL SCORE

1) If Beale Street Could Talk

2) First Man

3) Mary Poppins Returns

4) Isle of Dogs

5) Black Panther

6) BlacKkKlansman

Maybe: A Quiet Place, The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

ORIGINAL SONG

1) Shallow/A Star Is Born

2) All the Stars/Black Panther

3) I'll Fight/RBG

4) Girl in the Movies/Dumplin'

5) Trip a Little Light Fantastic/Mary Poppins Returns

6) Where Lost Things Go/Mary Poppins Return

Maybe: Revelation/Boy Erased

PRODUCTION DESIGN

1) The Favourite

2) Mary Poppins Returns

3) First Man

4) Black Panther

5) Roma

6) Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

Maybe: BlacKkKlansman

SOUND EDITING

1) First Man

2) A Quiet Place

3) Black Panther

4) Roma

5) Mary Poppins Returns

6) Ready Player One

Possible: A Star Is Born, Bohemian Rhapsody, Annihilation

SOUND MIXING

1) A Star Is Born

2) First Man

3) Mary Poppins Returns

4) Roma

5) A Quiet Place

6) Black Panther

Maybe: Bohemian Rhapsody

VISUAL EFFECTS

1) First Man

2) Black Panther

3) Ready Player One

4) Avengers: Infinity War

5) Mary Poppins Returns

6) Solo: A Star Wars Story

Maybe: Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

ANIMATED SHORT

1) Bao

2) Age of Sail

3) Bird Karma

4) Late Afternoon

5) Animal Behavior

6) Weekends

Maybe: Bilby, Pepe Le Morse

DOCUMENTARY SHORT

1) Period. End of Sentence

2) End Game

3) Zion

4) My Dead Dad's Porno Tapes

5) Lifeboat

6) Women of the Gulag

Maybe: Black Sheep

LIVE ACTION SHORT

1) Caroline

2) Skin

3) Detainment

4) Fauve

5) Marguerite

6) Susotazs

Maybe: Mother

Sooooo...if I'm 100% accurate tomorrow morning (and as I said above, I should hit between 75-80%) that means the following:

Roma leads all films with 10 nominations and is the only film with double digit nominations.  Telluride films earn 37 total nominations...which in terms of what normally happens...the average is 27-28 nominations, would mark 2018 as a stunning year for the Oscar success for films from TFF.  

The nominations total is largely fueled by solid expectations for craft nominations especially for Roma, The Favourite and First Man.  Here's the TFF film breakdown:

Roma (10): Picture, Direction, Actress, Original Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Cinematography, Film Editing, Production Design, Sound Editing and Sound Mixing

The Favourite (9): Picture, Direction, Actress, Supporting Actress (2), Original Screenplay, Cinematography, Costumes, Production Design

First Man (9): Picture, Supporting Actress, Cinematography, Film Editing, Score, Production Design, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, Visual Effects (should First Man miss on the Best Picture nomination and hit eight total nominees, it will establish a new record for a film with most nominations without getting a Best Picture bid...Mary Poppins Returns could do the same thing)

Can You Ever Forgive Me? (3) Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay

Cold War (2): Foreign Language Film, Cinematography

And single nominations for:

Shoplifters: Foreign Language Film

Free Solo: Documentary Feature

Caroline: Live Action Short

Fauve: Live Action Short

Other non-Telluride big players:

A Star Is Born (9) Including Picture, Direction, Actress, Actor, Supporting Actor and Adapted Screenplay

Black Panther (8): Including Picture, Score and Song

Mary Poppins Returns (8): Including Actress, Score and Song

BlacKkKlansman (7): Including Picture, Direction, Actor, Supporting Actor and Adapted Screenplay

Vice (7): Including Picture, Direction, Actor, Supporting Actress and Original Screenplay

Green Book (4): Including Picture, Actor, Supporting Actor and Original Screenplay

If Beale Street Could Talk (4): Including Picture, Supporting Actress, Adapted Screenplay and Score

Bohemian Rhapsody (3): Including Picture, Actor and Costumes

BUT DON'T TAKE MY WORD FOR IT: PREDICTIONS FROM OSCAR EXPERTS

Kristopher Tapley/Variety-InContention

Sasha Stone/Awards Daily

Clayton Davis/Awards Circuit

Anne Thompson/Indiewire

Scott Feinberg/The Hollywood Reporter

Erik Anderson/Awards Watch

Nathaniel Rogers/The Film Experience

GREEN BOOK WINS PGA

Shaking things up as we get ready to have the Oscar nominees revealed to us tomorrow morning was Green Book's somewhat surprise win as Best Picture from The Producers Guild of America.  It seemed to me that most pundits thought it was a likely showdown between A Star Is Born and Roma.

Green Book's win caused quite the uproar on Film Twitter Saturday and Sunday and also resulted in a number of folks in the biz to proclaim that the Peter Farrelly film was now the new front runner for the Best Picture Oscar supplanting both ASIB and Roma.

I'm not there yet.  I still lean toward a Roma win on Feb. 24th but, as you know, that could change.

Oscar voters begin voting for the winners on Feb. 12th and runs through Feb. 19th.

AND LOOKING AHEAD-BERLIN

The Berlin International Film Festival is set to open on Feb. 7th and runs through the 17th.  Berlin almost always provides a film or two that make it onto the TFF lineup on Labor Day weekend.  Meanwhile, Sundance opens on Thursday and will almost certainly serve as an "excluder" in as far as potential Telluride film choices are concerned.  It almost always does.

Berlin's full lineup is linked here from The Hollywood Reporter

Looking at their announced films one might speculate about possible Telluride plays based on previous TFF appearances and expected release dates.  So...put on your list the following as possible TFF #46 selections:

Opening Night Film The Kindness of Strangers from director Lone Scherfig

Francois Ozon's By the Grace of God

Agnieszka Holland's Mr. Jones (last mentioned in this space under the title Gareth Jones)

Zhang Yimou's One Second

Fatih Akin's The Golden Glove

Agnes Varda's Varda by Agnes

That's your MTFB for today.  I'm planning to have a Special Post up tomorrow mid-morning after the Oscar nominations announcements with the list of nominees and some analysis about Telluride films and the Oscar race in general.  Should be a hoot.

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

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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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Add Werner to The SHOW / Awards Watch Looks at Oscar and Fests / Redford Restates: It's My Last / My Nomination for an Episodic Selection / Four of Eight / The Poster Remains a Mystery

Good Tuesday friends...


ADD WERNER TO THE SHOW

Composer Nicholas Singer (nominated for an Emmy in 2014 for his work on the music for Night Must Fall) tweeted yesterday that the documentary he has been working on will premiere at Telluride.  What makes the claim credible is that he says the film was made with Werner Herzog.  The film is titled Meeting Gorbachev.

Though IMDb does not list the film in Singer's or Herzog's credits, it exists as Singer also tweeted a link to this RealScreen.com story that confirms its existence and that it will European premiere at the Leipzig Fest.  The film is reported to be the opening night film on Oct. 29th.

As the tweet also says that the film will play Toronto, we can expect to see that in their announcements today or next week.

The film is described in the RealScreen story as a "portrait of Mikhail Gorbachev".



AWARDS WATCH LOOKS AT OSCAR AND FESTS

Erik Anderson of Awards Watch posted a longish piece over the weekend in which he takes a look at what he believes are the biggest Oscar contenders and where we know or where he thinks films are going to play as we move into the next few weeks.

The piece is interesting and notable because he adds some spicy choices to the list of films that he thinks are likely for Telluride.  Films that either haven't been announced anywhere as yet or, in the case of A Star Is Born, have been announced but for which Anderson expresses a contrarian view.

What I mean is, I have certainly bagged the chances of seeing  A Star Is Born at T-ride as Toronto announced it as a North American premiere.  That designation has been rock solid as an indicator that a film will NOT play at Telluride since Toronto began the policy of requiring that films that they program reveal whether they're going to Telluride or not.  To my knowledge there has been only one exception and that came in the first year of TIFF's "honest premiere status" policy and that was Escobar: Paradise Lost.

I'd like to be wrong, though.

In as far as other morsels of interest...

Anderson has a bunch of what have become the consensus Telluride players based on previous announcements from other fests: Cold War, Dogman, Roma, The Favourite, First Man, The Other Side of the Wind, Peterloo, The Old Man and the Gun, White Boy Rick.

Of more interest are films that have not been announced that he thinks probably/possibly be at Telluride: Boy Erased, Green Book, Mary Queen of Scots and Mid 90s make that list.

The entire post is linked here.


REDFORD RESTATES: IT'S MY LAST

Entertainment Weekly posted an interview with Robert Redford yesterday in which the Oscar winning director of Ordinary People re-confirmed that The Old Man and the Gun will be his last acting gig.

Redford had said the same thing previously but seems to really put an exclamation mark to the notion with this story.

Redford's last film acting is expected to screen (for the first time for a public audience...call it a world premiere if you want to) in Telluride in three-ish weeks.

Here's the Entertainment Weekly interview.


MY NOMINATION FOR AN EPISODIC SELECTION

I've been interested in Maniac sense I learned that it was going to exist.  The combination of Cary Joji Fukunaga (directing all 10 episodes) and Emma Stone was more than enough to get my attention.

Now, with the decision to turn the Coen Brothers Ballad of Buster Scruggs from a six part limited series into a feature film, I humbly submit that TFF should program Maniac as an episodic presentation (like Wormwood from last year).

The Netflix release date is Sept. 21 so it would fit nicely...

The notion also crossed my mind yesterday as a new trailer was released...and it's goooood...

From YouTube:

FOUR OF EIGHT

Variety's Kristopher Tapley cryptically tweeted a list of nine films last week.  One assumes it is his first take on nine films that will ultimately end up being nominated for Best Picture.

Here's the list:

The reason for my excitement...half of Tapley's list is probable for T-ride-The Favourite, First Man, The Front Runner and Roma.  BlacKkKlansman and Black Panther have or will have already been released before Telluride and A Star Is Born will not be playing there as revealed by its North American Premiere status for Toronto.  The only film left on the list is tha Adam McKay film about Dick Cheney which could conceivably still make the Telluride lineup but I have seen/heard some scuttlebutt that McKay prefers to wait for its release later indicating that, perhaps an AFI berth is possible or no Fest play at all.

Still, I'm excited that so much appears on Tapley's list that we're probably going to see in the San Juans in three and a half weeks.

THE POSTER REMAINS A MYSTERY

It's August 6th and we still have seen no release of the 45th TFF official poster.  Last year was also a late reveal.  Even then, though, it was released on July 13th and that was the latest poster release in the last seven years.

Now we're behind that by three weeks.

Depending on the news we get today from other fests, I may post an update a little later today and as always...More to come on Thursday.

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