European Film Producers / Film Stars is Officially SPC / Gathering the Forces of Light / UPDATED: New York Film Fest Announcement

Welcome to your Tuesday...23 days...

EUROPEAN PRODUCTION COMPANIES

I thought I'd take an abbreviated look at the four European production firms that seem to have had the most pronounced Telluride connection over the past decade: Film4, Canal+, France 3 Cinema and Cine+.

Here's the breakdown of what films they have aided in producing that played TFF and then a quick look at the films they have this year that are most likely to make the grade for The SHOW:

FILM4

2007: When Did You Last See Your Father?, Brick Lane
2008: Happy-Go-Lucky, Hunger, Slumdog Millionaire
2009
2010: Another Year, Never Let Me Go, 127 Hours
2011: Shame
2012
2013: Under the Skin, Starred Up, 12 Years a Slave
2014: Mr. Turner, '71
2015: Carol, Suffragette, Room, 45 Years
2016: Una

19 films in ten years.  1.9 per year.

Possibles: The Killing of a Sacred Dear, You Were Never Really Here, Lean on Pete, Mary Magdalene


CANAL+

2007: The Diving Bell and The Butterfly, Terror's Advocate, Jellyfish
2008: With a Little Help From Myself, I've Loved You So Long
2009: Farewell, Coco Before Chanel, A Prophet, The White Ribbon
2010: The Illusionist, Carlos, Of Gods and Men, The Princess of Montpensier
2011: Crazy Horse, Albert Nobbs, Goodbye First Love, The Kid with a Bike, The Artist, Le Havre
2012: Rust and Bone, Superstar, The Attack
2013: Blue is the Warmest Color", Le Maison de la Radio", "The Past"
2014: The Price of Fame, Two Days One Night, Diplomacy
2015: Marguerite
2016: Frantz, Lost in Paris, My Journey Through French Cinema, Things to Come

33 films in ten year.  3.3 films per year.

Possibles: L'amant Double, Happy End


FRANCE 3 CINEMA

2007: The Diving Bell and The Butterfly, Persepolis
2008: I've Loved You So Long
2009: The White Ribbon
2010: The Illusionist, The Princess of Montpensier, Of Gods and Men
2011: The Artist
2012: Superstar, Amour
2013: The Past

2014: The Gate, The Price of Fame, Mr. Turner
2015: Marguerite

No film in 2016.

15 films in ten years. 1.5 films per year

Possibles: Happy End, Redoubtable

CINE+

2007: The Diving Bell and The Butterfly
2008: With a Little Help from Myself
2009: Farewell, Coco Before Chanel, A Prophet, Inferno
2010: The Illusionist, The Princess of Montpensier, Of Gods and Men
2011: Goodbye First Love, The Kid with a Bike, Le Havre, The Artist
2012: Rust and Bone, Superstar, The Attack, Amour
2013: The Past, Blue is the Warmest Color, Le Maison de la Radio
2014: The Gate. The Price of Fame, Two Days One Night, Diplomacy
2015: Marguerite
2016: Frantz, Lost in Paris, My Journey Through French Cinema

28 films in ten years.  2.8 films per year.

Possibles: L'amant Double, Happy End


FILMS STARS IS OFFICIALLY SPC

We had heard a couple of weeks back that Sony Pictures Classics was close to a deal to acquire Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool.  That deal was announced as complete yesterday according to multiple reports including from Deadline.com, The Hollywood Reporter and Variety.

The film is on our Telluride list due to its status as a Canadian Premiere at Toronto.  I re-checked that status last night in light of the breaking news because the reports indicated that the film is "premiering" at Toronto.  I noticed, however, that the premiere status was not specifically identified.  So, for the moment, I still think it's playing TFF #44.

One other note about the film-I have made the point a few times that Annette Bening will be tied up with her Venice Jury President's duties which begs the question: Will any talent from the film accompany the film in addition to director Paul McGuigan?  The most likely suspect would be Bening's young co-star Jamie Bell but it could include Vanessa Redgrave and/or Julie Walters either of which should probably have been included in yesterday's "Let's Talk Tributes" section on this blog.

Redgrave please.

GATHERING THE FORCES OF LIGHT

It's never too early to start to remind readers that MTFB will again send out the call to rate the films that you see at TFF #44.

The system is simple.  Contact me with a rating of 0-5 for each film you see.  You can send those to me via any of the methods listed at the bottom of this blog.

MTFB will, again this year, also be collecting ratings from a number of the professional film critics and bloggers who will be in town.  Many fine folks have agreed to participate again this year including Indiwire's Eric Kohn, Anne Thompson and David Ehrlich, Awards Daily's Sasha Stone and The Hollywood Reporter's Scott Feinberg among others.

At the conclusion of the fest I'll publish the results from the Pros, The People and a combination rating.  It's kind of interesting and can even be illuminating.

Last year, Moonlight broke a trend that had been going for a number of years in that the Oscar Best Picture winner had finished in the #2 spot in The People's Ratings.  Moonlight broke that after finishing in the top spot.

Still, for five straight years now, The People's Telluride has been very predictive bout where the BP Oscar would go.


LATE BREAKING: NEW YORK FILM FEST ANNOUNCEMENT (AND FANTASTIC FEST)

The New York Film Fest announcement dropped at 11am (EDT) and here's the quick takeaway as far as Telluride is concerned:

Apparently headed to Telluride that we didn't already think:

Agnes Varda's Visages/Villages
Aki Kaurismaki's The Other Side of Hope
and it would seem Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Before We Vanish

What appears to be conformed among films we were already fairly sure about:

Wonderstruck
Lady Bird
The Rider

Off our list for TFF #44

The Florida Project
The Meyerowitz Stories
Spoor

Fantastic Fest also released their first wave of titles which included the U.S. Premiere of  Yorgos Lanthimos' The Killing of  A Sacred Deer which means no Telluride for it.  Of interest also, the U.S. Premieres of Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri and for Cannes Palme d'Or winner The Square.

More to come on Thursday.

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The Distributors: Sony Pictures Classics / Trailer for Goodbye Christopher Robin

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:

Indiewire

The Playlist

The Film Stage

FirstShowing


Come back on Monday...


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Telluride and The New York Times 25 Best Films of the 21st Century / Oscar's Foreign Language Race and Labor Day

Welcome back from the weekend...

TELLURIDE AND THE NEW YORK TIMES 25 BEST FILMS OF THE 21ST CENTURY

The New York Times got social media going over the last few days as they posted a list of what A.O. Scott and Manohla Dargis have determined are the 25 best films that have been released since the calendar rolled over to the new century.  

It will likely not surprise you that a good number of those films had ties to TFF.  For example, their too choice is Paul Thomas Anderson's masterpiece There Will Be Blood as the top film.  As many TFFers will recall, TWBB scenes were screened in 2007 as a part of the tribute that year to Daniel Day Lewis.

Other films that make the NYT list with Telluride histories include:

#2 Spirited Away played Telluride in 2002.

#6 Yi Yi 2000

#11 Inside Llewyn Davis 2013

#14 L'enfant 2005

#17 Three Times 2005

#20 Moonlight 2016

#22 I'm Not There 2007

So better than a third of the list (8/25) made a stop in the San Juans in their journey to the NYT list (if you include TWBB, which I do).

The complete NYT list of 25 with commentary from Scott and Dargis is linked here.

OSCARS FOREIGN LANGUAGE RACE, FESTS AND LABOR DAY

Shane Slater at Awards Circuit posted an interesting article over the weekend with some thoughts about the major fests that have already come and gone and the impact that they might have on the foreign language Oscar race.

As a result, we can look at some of those as potential titles for TFF.  

Slater mentions films from Sundance, Berlin, Tribeca and Cannes.

From those films he mentions these probably have the best T-ride shot:

The Other Side of Hope 

Spoor

Loveless

120 BPM

The Square

Happy End

Check out the entire post from Awards Circuit here.

That's Monday...

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Cannes Is in Full Swing: The Critics Are Speaking / Inarritu Makes a Splash with V.R. at Cannes / Haneke's Happy End: More Clips

Good Monday to all,,,

CANNES IS IN FULL SWING: THE CRITICS ARE SPEAKING

The 70th Cannes Film Fest has roared into life and we begin the process of parsing critical responses as a method of gauging the possible Telluride fortunes of the films that make up the variety of programs.  Of course, it' still early.  As I type this on Monday morning, less than half of the Palme competition films have played.  With that noted, here's what the critical consensus is to this point (and only mentioning films that have publicly screened)

First, looking at Reini Urban's massive and constantly updated compilation of critical response among Palme d'Or competition films at the top is Robin Campillo's 120 Battements par Minute with a 7.10 composite rating on a 10 point scale.

Urban' current top three:

1) 120 Battements par Minute (7.10)
2) Okja (6.41)
3) The Square (6.38)

Among all films in all categories with sufficient critical response to give  a reasonable indication of how it's playing the top film so far has been Agnes Varda's Villages, Visages with a 7.57 score.

The complete Urban list is here.

The Todas Criticas compilation has 120 BPM on top of the Palme films with a 6.63 rating.  Todd Haynes Wonderstruck is right behind at 6.6.

Todas Criticas is here.

Loveless leads the Screen Daily critical collective with a 3.2 composite (out of 4).  Screen Daily's grid is here.

Ioncinema's group of critics have Loveless and 120 BPM locked together with a 3.5 average rating (out of 5).  The Ioncinema chart is here.


INARRITU MAKES A SPLASH WITH VIRTUAL REALITY AT CANNES

We've be following the reports from France concerning Alejandro Inarritu's V.R. installation Carne y Arena.  Reportedly lasting about six minutes and focused on immersing the "viewer" in the world of the current refugee crisis.  Reports also indicate that it can experienced by one person at a time and is established in a warehouse.

The experience is said to be headed for Los Angeles this summer.

In as far as Telluride is concerned, I'm still dubious about our chances but...

Details about the V.R. experience can be found here from Indiewire as well as here from The Hollywood Reporter.


HANEKE'S HAPPY END: MORE CLIPS

I had a link in my last post to a single clip from Michael Haneke's Happy End.  That has expended to three clips that are now accessible from this story at The Film Stage.

Haneke's first film since Amour is set to bow at Cannes in Palme competition today.  As a matter of fact, depending on when you're reading this, it may have already have happened.


That's it for now.  More on Thursday...


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Battle of the Sexes First Trailer / Orson Welles in 2018 / Cannes Teasers and Clips Continued / More Acquisition News from France / New Films to Watch for TFF #44 / Telluride Rewind-TFF #28

Good Thursday Friends...Cannes is full swing which means that MTFB is busy!



BATTLE OF THE SEXES FIRST TRAILER

From Awards Daily

From Awards Watch

From The Playlist

ORSON WELLES  AND ALFONSO CUARON IN 2018

from The Film Stage

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 Indiewire story is here with further details.

CANNES TRAILERS AND CLIPS CONTINUED

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:

Clips from You Were Never Really Here and The Meyerowitz Stories and more from Playwire and The Film Stage.

Happy End clip from Playwire and The Film Stage

Loveless trailer from Playwire and The Film Stage

MORE ACQUISITION NEWS FROM FRANCE

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.

Loveless details are here from Deadline,  Variety and The Hollywood Reporter.

Details of the deal for L'amant Double are here from Variety.

NEW FILMS TO WATCH FOR TFF #44

Geoffrey Rush and Armie Hammer in Final Portrait

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.

Further details are here from Variety as well as here from The Wrap.

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.

Details are here from Indiewire.

TELLURIDE RE-WIND: A LOOK BACK AT TFF #28

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...

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Cannes Opens This Week / Cannes Trailers, Teasers and Clips: Wonderstruck, L'amant Double and Ismael's Ghost / Lost in Paris Trailer

Welcome back from your weekend.  May is half over...beware the Ides of...May?


CANNES OPENS THIS WEEK

I've been focused on this week for some months now as the 70th Cannes Film Festival opens Wednesday with the screening of Arnaud Desplechin's Ismael's Ghosts starring Marion Cotillard, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Mathieu Almaric.

As regular readers know, we'll almost certainly hear about films that will end up playing Telluride after their bow at Cannes.  That crossover usually averages 7-8 films per year.  The tough part is trying to figure out what those films will be.  In addition to looking at directors and distributors with a Telluride history,  during Cannes it's usually a good idea to pay attention to the critical response as well as the films that ultimately win prizes at the end of the fest.

That doesn't mean that the Palme d'Or winner always makes it to southwest Colorado.  As a matter of fact, the Palme winner is a hot or miss T-ride proposition.  The last Palme winner to play Telluride was 2013's Blue is the Warmest Color.  Amour followed the same path the year before.  So it's best to pay attention to awards at all levels in the main competition category as well as in the other sections of the fest.

As I have for the past few years, I'll be keeping an eye on and posting the critical assessment as the fest progresses.

If you want to know when films are screening, here is the link to the official schedule from the Cannes website.

Additionally, I have linked more pre-Cannes analysis.  Here's Guy Lodge's assessment of the films playing Cannes that he did for Variety.

I also have included this overview of the fest from Indiewire which highlights 22 films that they "want to see" including Happy End, Ismael's Ghosts, Loveless, The Meyerowitz Stories, You Were Never Really Here and Wonderstruck.



CANNES TRAILERS, TEASERS AND CLIPS


The onslaught of media about Cannes films has picked, as you might expect, as we get closer to the festival.  As a result, we continue to get looks at some of the films that seem the best bets, at least at this point to make the trans-Atlantic journey from France to the San Juans.

Perhaps the Cannes film I am most excited about that also seems to me to be an  excellent T-ride prospect is Todd Haynes' Wonderstruck which made a substantial splash this week with a clip from the film which is here via YouTube:

We also saw our first look at a poster for the film:

There was a good deal of coverage of the Wonderstruck images and I have linked a sample of that here from:

Indiewire

Deadline

Awards Daily

The Playlist

The Film Stage

Collider

Awards Circuit

The Wrap

We were also treated to a trailer for Francios Ozon's L'amant Double.  Here it is from YouTube:

In addition, we have a look at the poster for that film as well:

 And coverage for the releases from The Film Stage.

And finally, here we have a couple of clips from the opening night film, Ismael's Ghosts that you can peruse. Here's clip #1 from Facebook.

and here's clip #2 from Facebook as well.

And the story from The Playlist.




LOST IN PARIS TRAILER

Some films that everyone seems to have at the end of each festival are those that you had on a list that, for whatever reason, you didn't get to.  For most of us, it's simply a matter of running out of time before you have to head back to the real world.

One of those films for me this last year was Lost in Paris and now that I've seen the trailer, I really wished I had traded it off for maybe a couple of films I did see.  Hindsight and 20/20.

And maybe the film isn't as entertaining as the trailer makes it seem but the trailer is promising.  Here it is via YouTube:

The film has no U.S. release date as yet but has played a number of other U.S. film festivals in addition to Telluride.  Oscilloscope is the film's distributor.


That's your MTFB for Monday, May 15, 2017.  Check back for more on Thursday.


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The Playlist's 20 Most Anticipated Cannes Titles / Wild Trailer for Wondershock: Could It Play The SHOW? / Images from Wonderstruck and Meyerowitz

Good Thursday to you and yours.


THE PLAYLIST'S 20 MOST ANTICIPATED CANNES TITLES

The 70th Cannes Film Festival opens one week from yesterday.  Now that the lineups are known the attention turns (in certain circles) to what films are the most anticipated as  likely to be the critical darlings and challengers for the Palme d'Or and other awards.  The Playlist has a first pass at 20 films that they collectively are excited about.

Among their list of 20 are a half dozen that are on my TFF #44 watch list:

Loveless (A. Zvyagintsev)
Wonderstruck (T. Haynes)
The Meyerowitz Stories (N. Baumbach)
You Were Never Really Here (L. Ramsay)
Happy End (M. Haneke)
The Square (R. Ostlund)

Check out the other 14 films plus a lengthy list of runners-up:

The complete list of 20 films is here.



WILD TRAILER FOR WONDERSHOCK: COULD IT PLAY THE SHOW?

Distributor A24 might be the hottest game in the biz after the Oscar run for Moonlight last year as well as the success of Room the year before so anything they have in the hopper that looks like it might be anywhere close to a Telluride play has to be taken with some seriousness.  So when they dropped a trailer for Woodshock this week along with news that it would open on Sept.15....made me wonder...

Here's the trailer from YouTube:

Details are here from Awards Daily

and from FirstShowing.net


IMAGES FROM WONDERSTRUCK AND MEYEROWITZ


The Film Stage has treated us to new stills from Todd Haynes Wonderstruck and NOah Baumbach's The Meyerowitz stories.  Both films have potential to make the 2017 Telluride lineup after playing in the Cannes lineup.

Here's a new still from each:

Julianne Moore in Wonderstruck

Noah Baumbach directs Dustin Hoffman's cap in this still from The Meyerowitz Stories

More images can be found here from The Film Stage.



That's your Thursday edition of MTFB.  More on Monday...


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Wonderstruck Will Strike in October / First Look at Haneke's Happy End / Redoutable Teaser Gets Meta / The Future for Past Telluriders / Amazon Rewards Manchester

Welcome to Thursday on MTFB...



WONDERSTRUCK WILL STRIKE IN OCTOBER

The case for Todd Haynes being a Telluride contender got another supportive piece of evidence yesterday as the peeps at Amazon and Roadside Attractions, who have paired to distribute the film, have announced a limited release date of October 20th.   The film will then proceed to be opened wider in November.

It wasn't long yesterday before journos pointed out that that time frame has served as the launchpad for four of the last five Oscar BP winners: Argo 10/12/12, 12 Years a Slave 10/18/13, Birdman 10/17/14, and Moonlight 10/21/16.  Only Spotlight has broken that pattern opening on 11/6/15.  Of course, all of those films played Telluride on their way to the Best Picture prize.

Honestly, when I get serious about posting a rough first guess at what will make the T-ride 2017 lineup, Wonderstruck might be the film on the top of that list.

Linked below is coverage of the release announcement from:

Variety

Indiewire

Awards Watch

The Playlist

The Wrap



FIRST LOOK AT HANEKE'S HAPPY END

Another film that will be in the hunt for the Cannes' Palme d'Or in a couple of weeks (and it could be an unprecedented third for its director...lots of predictors think that's a very real possibility) is Michael Haneke's Happy End.  Haneke hasn't made a film since his last Palme winner in 2012.  Amour also won the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar.

We got our first photo from the secretive film yesterday as you see above.  The still shows, among others Isabelle Huppert, Jean-Louis Trintignant and Toby Jones.  Further coverage of the image and the film is here from Indiwire and here from The Playlist.



REDOUBTABLE TEASER GETS META

This week we got a new glimpse of Michel Hazanavicius' newest film, Redoubtable, which is set to debut at Cannes this month in the Palme d'Or competition.  The teaser includes some references to the festival that should elicit a chuckle or two.  Check the teaser below (from YouTube):

Redoubtable is based on the life of film pioneer Jean-Luc Godard.

More on the teaser release for Redoubtable is here from Entertainment Weekly as well as here from The Playlist.

THE FUTURE FOR PAST TELLURIDERS

I've mentioned with some frequency the next project for Moonlight's Barry Jenkins which is the multi-part adaptation of Colson Whitehead's National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize winning
Underground Railroad for Amazon Studios.

In the last few days we have seen the plans of two other notable and recent past Telluriders come into focus.

Indiewire reports that Oscar winning director Damien Chazelle is lining up another musically oriented project.  The story was originally reported by The Hollywood Reporter.

Titled The Eddy, the story centers around a Paris music club.  As with Jenkins, the project is being set up as an episodic project and is being shopped around to streaming services and networks.  Reports suggest that Chazelle would direct his next feature film project, First Man starring Ryan Reynolds as Neil Armstrong, and then get to work on The Eddy.

The other news of note regarding a new project involving a recent Tellurider and Oscar winner was news yesterday that Laszlo Nemes is set to begin filming Sunset.  Nemes made a huge splash in 2015 with his debut film Son of Saul which played Cannes (winning Nemes the Grand Prix award) and then Telluride.  Son of Saul went on to win the Oscar for Best Foreign Film.

The Playlist reports  that Sunset will begin filming next month and that the plan is that it would play Cannes which would make it a prime TFF #45 possibility.

Stay tuned.


AMAZON REWARDS MANCHESTER

How do you say thank you to a community that serves as the backdrop and title of your Oscar award winning film (and TFF #43 selection)?

Amazon Studios has gifted the citizens of Manchester, Massachusetts a year's worth of free Amazon Prime memberships.  They even threw in the popcorn.

Amazon announced the gift this week according to The Hollywood Reporter.



And that will do it for this Thursday.  Have a good weekend and come back here Monday for more...

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