Guest Directors (Plural) Announced / First Look at The Son

 GUEST DIRECTORS (PLURAL) ANNOUNCED

TFF has announced its Guest Directors for 2022 and as you can read, there are two this year.  Here's the press release from TFF:

Telluride Film Festival (TFF), presented by National Film Preserve LTD., is proud to announce dissident Russian filmmakers Kantemir Balagov and Kira Kovalenko as its 2022 Festival Guest Directors. The award-winning filmmakers are set to select a series of films to present at the 49th Telluride Film Festival running September 2 - 5, 2022. 

Festival organizers annually select the world’s great film enthusiasts to join them in the creation of the Festival’s program lineup. The Guest Directors serve as key collaborators in the Festival’s programming decisions, bringing new ideas and overlooked films to Telluride. In keeping with Telluride Film Festival tradition, Balagov’s and Kovalenko’s film selections, along with the rest of the Telluride lineup, will be kept secret until Opening Day.

Kantemir Balagov was born in 1991 in the city of Nalchik of the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic. He briefly left the city to study economics in Stavropol, but soon realized his interests were in the arts and returned to Nalchik to enroll in film school at Kabardino-Balkarian State University under the direction of Alexander Sokurov. Upon graduation he directed his first feature film, CLOSENESS, for which he received the FIPRESCI Prize Un Certain Regard at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival. His second feature, BEANPOLE, also won the FIPRESCI Prize Un Certain Regard and the Best Director Prize Un Certain Regard at Cannes in 2019 and was an Oscar shortlist. His next project, TV series THE LAST OF US, is set to premiere on HBO in 2023.

 “I was in Telluride for the first time in 2017 with my first film CLOSENESS,” says Balagov. “As a reclusive person, I always feel anxious about going to festivals, but on the first day of being in Telluride, I felt it was different. The festival cares about the uniqueness of the various authors’ statements, it provides love and vulnerability, and it makes you feel at home. Tom and Julie put so much heart and soul into it and have created an incredible community. No, community is the wrong word. They have created a family, and Kira and I are so honored to be a part of this family. We are thrilled to be the Guest Directors this year. We promise that we will passionately pick the films because we believe that movies are little miracles that we desperately need right now.” 

 Kira Kovalenko was born in 1989 in Nalchik, Russia and attended Kabardino-Balkarian State University’s film school under Alexander Sokurov’s direction. Her first feature film, SOFICHKA, was released in 2016. Her second feature, UNCLENCHING THE FISTS, premiered in 2021 to much acclaim, winning the Grand Prize Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival. 

 “2021 was my first time in America,” comments Kovalenko. “I was told that I would be going to the best place on earth. I was anxiously waiting and fantasizing. On the way to the festival, I opened the book that I carried with me. There was a photo. In the photo were Larisa Shepitko, Werner Herzog, and Ed Lachman. I went to where this photo was taken. This was my first Telluride experience. It is not only a place where cinema, fate, history, and the spirit of the place intertwine. To everyone who has been there once it becomes special. There is a secret in this. I think this is the secret of love. The secret of the love that Tom and Julie have for the cinema. Love for the place. And now I receive such a huge gift to be the Guest Director. I have a chance to become a part of this mystery and share movies that help me live, give me hope and remind me not to forget about miracles.”

 “One of the most special aspects of Telluride is the remarkable family of returning filmmakers that has formed over the years,” comments TFF executive director Julie Huntsinger. “These wildly talented people continue to create films of such high quality and regard, and we are thrilled to continue to discover and invite their new works again and again. There are threads of shared continuity between the filmmakers themselves as well. An unfailing humanism, a desire to be truthful and brave and tell stories that make us think and feel in profound ways. Our Guest Directors this year, Kantemir Balagov and Kira Kovalenko are not only two returning filmmakers with a distinct point of view, but they are also wonderful, young cinephiles (they met at film school) who will bring their brave and singular voices to a section we cannot wait to share with our wider audience in September.”

 Past Guest Directors include Barry Jenkins, Pico Iyer, Jonathan Lethem, Joshua Oppenheimer, Volker Schlöndorff, Rachel Kushner, Guy Maddin, Caetano Veloso, Michael Ondaatje, Alexander Payne, Salman Rushdie, Peter Bogdanovich, B. Ruby Rich, Phillip Lopate, Errol Morris, Bertrand Tavernier, John Boorman, John Simon, Buck Henry, Laurie Anderson, Stephen Sondheim, G. Cabrera Infante, Peter Sellars, Don DeLillo, J.P. Gorin, Edith Kramer and Slavoj Žižek.

 The Guest Director program is sponsored by Turner Classic Movies (TCM). Considered throughout the industry as one of the leading authorities on classic film, the network presents great films, uncut and commercial-free, highlighting the entire spectrum of film history. 

 For more information about Telluride Film Festival, visit www.telluridefilmfestival.org.

INDIEWIRE LISTS 40 OSCAR POSSIBLES

A bit more than a week ago Indiewire posted their take on the coming Oscar season with a list of 40 films to being paying attention to.  As you might expect, there are a lot of titles listed that I am eyeballing as possible Labor Day weekend selections for Southwest Colorado.  Including:

Close

One Fine Morning

Armageddon Time

Till

Blonde

Stars at Noon

Moonage Daydream

Broker

Babylon

Showing Up

Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio

White Noise

Bardo

Chevalier

The Son

TAR

The complete Indiewire post is linked here.

***She Said...is on the Indiewire list and sort of seems like a Telluride natural but with Universal producing and distributing and not having had much of a presence historically at T-ride...I'm not really putting it on the list...but I am also not really ruling it out either.

FIRST LOOK AT THE SON

Awards Watch's Erik Anderson tweeted a first pic of Hugh Jackman from Florian Zeller's The Son.  The film has some strong Telluride vibes what with Zeller having had The Father selected among the films that would have screened at TFF in 2020 had Covid not changed the world.  In addition, other Telluride signifiers include the film's distribution by Sony Pictures Classics and it probably doesn't hurt that Laura Dern is in the cast.

Anyway, here's the pic from Anderson's Twitter feed:

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Shoplifters Arrives / Destroyer Clip / Deadline Interviews: Grant and Jackman / The Wrap Talks with Ali Abbasi

Happy Thanksgiving everyone...grateful to have you along for a look at what's in MTFB today.


SHOPLIFTERS ARRIVES

Hirokazu Kore-eda's Cannes Palme d'Or winner Shoplifters opens in the U.S. this holiday weekend.  The TFF #45 entrant has been a critical smash and has become one of the few films thought to be able to challenge for the foreign language Oscar against Alfonso Cuaron's Roma Pawel Pawlikowki's Cold War.

As you might expect, with its U.S. release, there has been, over the past few days, a glut of news and interviews surrounding the film.

Included in that is this David Ehrlich interview for Indiewire.

Awards Daily also provided the route to a new clip released for the film which is here from YouTube:

DESTROYER CLIP

Nicole Kidman makes a play for inclusion as Best Actress with her turn as a detective seeking redemption in Karyn Kusama's Destroyer.  The film is set to open on Dec. 25th.  Annapurna pictures previewed a new clip from the film this week via Indiewire.

The link to that story from Zach Sharf and clip is here.

Destroyer's official trailer is here from YouTube:

DEADLINE INTERVIEWS: GRANT AND JACKMAN

Deadline.com has a couple of interviews of recent vintage that focus on participants from TFF #45.

Joe Utichi talks to Richard E. Grant for Can You Ever Forgive Me?  That's linked here.

And Utichi also filed this interview with Hugh Jackman who plays Sen. Gary Hart in The Front Runner.  You can find that here.

AND THE WRAP TALKS WITH ALI ABBASI

Continuing the string of interviews with TFF #45 personal, here's an interview from this week conducted by Steve Pond of The Wrap with Ali Abbasi, the director and co-writer of Cannes Un Certain Regard winner Border.

That interview is accessed here.

That's your Turkey Day MTFB.  Have a great holiday and I'll have more on Monday including some new Oscar predictions/updates.

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COMMENT TO THE BLOG

William Goldman 1931-2018 / Independent Spirit Nominations and TFF #45 (and #44) / Multiple Interviews / New Gurus of Gold

Good Monday before Thanksgiving ya'll.  Still can't believe MTFB rolled over half a million views last Wednesday.


WILLIAM GOLDMAN 1931-2018

"I couldn't do that.  Could you do that?  How can they do that?  Who ARE those guys?"

It was announced Friday that screen writer and novelist William Goldman had died at the age of  87.  Like a lot of film fans, I was an avid reader of a good deal of what Goldman wrote and an admirer of his screenplays.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
All the President's Men

He won Oscars for those scripts

The Princess Bride
Marathon Man

Read both novels and loved both films.

And the books about the film business...insightful, incisive and funny as hell.  That's what I admired about Goldman's writing as much as anything...his ability to cut swiftly and cleanly with a turn of phrase.  Funny, funny and honest.

87 is a good long run...but, damn, the film world and, really the whole place, as I wrote yesterday, is colder without William Goldman in it.

Think I'm going to grab my copy of adventures in the Screen Trade right now and re-read it...again.

"Nobody knows anything."



INDEPENDENT SPIRIT NOMINATIONS AND TFF #45 (AND #44)

Film Independent dropped the announcement for their 2018 Independent Spirit Awards on Friday.  Here's how that played out concerning films that played Telluride in 2018- and in the case of First Reformed- 2017.

TFF #45 nominations went to Can You Ever Forgive Me? for Richard E. Grant as Supporting Male and for Nicole Holofcener for Best Screenplay.

Roma, The Favourite and Shoplifters were each nominated for Best International Film (which was the only Indy Spirit Award they were eligible for).

The big TFF winner was TFF #44 film First Reformed which enjoyed four nominations for Best Feature, Direction (Paul Schrader), Screenplay (Schrader) and Best Male Lead-Ethan Hawke.

Indiewire has the entire list of nominees linked here.


MULTIPLE INTERVIEWS

Over the past few days a multiplicity of interviews with people from a number of films that played at TFF #45 have appeared.  Here's a sample of those interviews and profiles:

High Jackman/The Front Runner with Variety's Tim Gray


Emma Stone/The Favourite with Business Insider's Jason Guerrasio


The Crew behind The Other Side of the Wind and The Wrap's Steve Pond


The cast of First Man and The Hollywood Reporter's Tara Bitran


Marielle Heller, director of Can You Ever Forgive Me? on Variety's Playback Podcast with Kristopher Tapley


Sissy Spacek of The Old Man and the Gun with Pete Hammond of Deadline.com on The Actor's Side


NEW GURUS OF GOLD UP AT MOVIE CITY NEWS

Those of us who acting as Gurus for this Oscar season for Movie City News got the call last week to update Best Picture predictions and take a stab at Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor.

That brand new Gurus chart is here.

Films and performers from Telluride that make the grade are:

Best Picture (through the top 12 spots): Roma, The Favourite, First Man, Can You Ever Forgive Me/ and Boy Erased.

Among the Best Actor picks Ryan Gosling/First Man sits at #5, Hugh Jackman/The Front Runner is at #8 and Robert Redford/The Old Man and the Gun is at #9.  TFF #44's Ethan Hawke for First Reformed is at #7.

Supporting Actor TFFers are Richard E. Grant/Can You Ever Forgive Me? at #3 and Russell Crowe at #10 for Boy Erased.



That's your Monday MTFB.  I'll have more on Thanksgiving morning!

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COMMENT TO THE BLOG

Oscar Predictions Update: Picture and Director / New Boy Erased Trailer Arrives / Netflix Sets Roma Release / More from Jason Reitman on The Front Runner

Good Thursday film fans...


OSCAR PREDICTIONS UPDATE: BEST PICTURE AND DIRECTOR

Time to update MTFB's Oscar predictions in the Best Picture and Direction categories.  Green Book is on the move!

BEST PICTURE

Here's the latest Best Picture predictions updating the previous round that I posted back on Oct. 15th.  Each film's previous position is listed in parentheses and TFF #45 films are Bold


1) A Star Is Born (1)
2) Roma (2)
3) Green Book (5)
4) The Favourite (3)
5) BlacKkKlansman (6)
6) First Man (3)
7) If Beale Street Could Talk (7)
8) Black Panther (8).
9) Can You Ever Forgive Me? (12)
10) Vice (10)

Others: Vice, Widows, Boy Erased

Green Book continues to pick up momentum while First Man continues to fall to earth.  Look out for Vice as well.  I think that it could make a real splash as we get closer to its screening.

BEST DIRECTION

1) Alfonso Cuaron/Roma (1)
2) Bradley Cooper/A Star Is Born (2)
3) Spike Lee/BlacKkKlansman (4)
4) Damien Chazelle/First Man (3)
5) Yorgos Lanthimos/The Favourite (5)

Others: Peter Farrelly/Green Book, Barry Jenkins/If Beale Street Could Talk, Ryan Coogler/Black Panther, Marielle Heller/Can You Ever Forgive Me?, Adam McKay/Vice

The category has remained essentially static these last two weeks.  For my money the top three spots feel like locks with a real battle royale for the #4 and #5 spots.

I'll update the lead acting races on Monday.


NEW BOY ERASED TRAILER ARRIVES


Focus Features has released a new trailer for Joel Edgerton's gay conversion therapy drama Boy Erased starring Lucas Hedges, Nicole Kidman and Russell Crowe.  The film is set to open tomorrow.

Here's the new trailer from YouTube:

NETFLIX SETS ROMA RELEASE

Indiewire's Anne Thompson reported last night that Netflix has arrived at its release strategy for Roma and other films for this year's Oscar season.  The streaming behemoth will release Roma theatrically in a limited fashion (NY and LA) on Nov. 21st.  It will be platformed with additional theaters added on Dec. 7th and Dec. 14th which is also the date that it will available for streaming.

Other films included in Thompson's story include the Coen Brothers' The Ballad of Buster Scruggs and Suzanne Bier's Bird Box.

The complete story from Indiewire is linked here.


MORE FROM JASON REITMAN ON THE FRONT RUNNER

Jason Reitman and Hugh Jackman at the Telluride Film Festival Q+A for The Front Runner

Jason Reitman sat down to talk to Awards Circuit's Joey Magidson recently about his upcoming The Front Runner.  Reitman directed and co-wrote the film starring Hugh Jackman as former Sen. Gary Hart.

Jackman's performance and the screenplay have received some attention in regards to possible Oscar consideration.

Here's the interview.


That's today's version of MTFB.  More to come on Monday.


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

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COMMENT TO THE BLOG

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

Updated Oscar Predictions: Best Actress and Actor / Can You Ever Forgive Me? Emerges / Destroyer Has a Trailer / The Favourite Categorized

Good Thursday Film Friends...


UPDATED OSCAR PREDICTIONS: BEST ACTRESS AND BEST ACTOR

Here are my latest thoughts for the Lead Acting categories.  Each individual's position in my last predictions is in parentheses.  Those from TFF #45 films are Bold.


BEST ACTRESS

1) Glenn Close/The Wife (1)
2) Lady Gaga/A Star Is Born (2)
3) Melissa McCarthy/Can You Ever Forgive Me? (3)
4) Olivia Colman/The Favourite (4)
5) Viola Davis/Widows (-)

Others: Yalitza Aparicio/Roma, Julia Roberts/Ben Is Back, Toni Collette/Hereditary, Nicole Kidman/Destroyer


BEST ACTOR

1) Bradley Cooper/A Star Is Born (1)
2) Viggo Mortensen/Green Book (2)
3) Ryan Gosling/First Man (3)
4) Christian Bale/Vice (-)
5) Lucas Hedges/Boy Erased (4)

Others: Hugh Jackman/The Front Runner, Rami Malek/Bohemian Rhapsody, Ethan Hawke/First Reformed***, Lucas Hedges/Ben Is Back, John David Washington/BlacKkKlansman

***Played TFF #44

And, by the by, you might look for the a new Gurus of Gold at Movie City News tomorrow.  It will be my second contribution as a "Guru".


CAN YOU EVER FORGIVE ME? EMERGES

The fantastic Can You Ever Forgive Me? gets its U.S. release tomorrow.  The film was well received at TFF #45 finishing as the #5 film in The Composite Ratings for MTFB.  It was #5 among the Pros and #8 in The People's Telluride.

With the film's release, as you'd expect, has been a focus in media circles this week on it and its star Melissa McCarthy.

I have linked a couple of the profiles that have her appeared about her this week from:

The Hollywood Reporter

Indiewire

I am currently predicting McCarthy to earn her second Oscar nomination for her work in the film as real life forger Lee Daniels.  I also think the film will be nominated for Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay and Richard E. Grant getting a nomination for Best Supporting Actor.

Here's the trailer for it from YouTube:

DESTROYER HAS A TRAILER

Annapurna Pictures has released a trailer for Karyn Kusama's gritty detective drama Destroyer starring a nearly unrecognizable Nicole Kidman who is likely to be a part of the Best Actress conversation for the role.

Here's the trailer from YouTube:

Destroyer is currently slated to open domestically on Dec. 25th.

THE FAVOURITE CATEGORIZED

 After a good deal of consternation and speculation Scott Feinberg of The Hollywood Reporter tells us this week that the acting categorization for Awards consideration for the three ladies of Yorgos Lanthimos' The Favourite have been determined.

Feinberg reports that Olivia Colman, who plays England's Queen Anne in the film, will be the lone consideration for the Lead Actress category with both Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz competing in the Best Supporting Actress Category.

Feinberg also reports on a number of other categorization decisions that have been made as we get ready to swing into the full awards season melee.

Feinberg's article can be found here.


That's MTFB for this Thursday.  I'll have another post on Monday in which I will update Oscar predictions for the supporting acting categories.  And don't forget to take a peek at Movie City News and the new Gurus of Gold post tomorrow.


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TFF #45 Comes to a Close / The People's Telluride Reminder-It Is Time!

TFF #45 COMES TO A CLOSE

Here's a brief post from the road as I return from Film Heaven to the real world.

Final film tally: 10 (in no specific order)

The Old Man and the Gun
First Man
Destroyer
Boy Erased
The Favourite
The Front Runner
Can You Ever Forgive Me?
Roma
Cold War
White Boy Rick

For me it's a fest that ends up in the middle of the pack as far as the 13 I have attended (2007 still sets the bar).  Personal favorites from the weekend were First Man, Boy Erased,  Can You Ever Forgive Me? and The Front Runner.

Highlights included talking with Melissa McCarthy and Richard E. Grant about their marvelous performances in Can You Ever Forgive Me?  Comforting Laura Dern after Boy Erased (yes, that really happened).  Getting the chance to congratulate Jason Reitman and co-screen writer Jay Carson for their work on The Front Runner.  Walking out of The Zog next to the luminous Nicole Kidman and meeting or re-acquainting with so many fine folks that seem to take the time to read the space.

Sincerely, I am stunned when I meet readers and they are so kind.

Got to see/hear Robert Redford, Sissy Spacek, Casey Affleck, Nicole Kidman, Joel Edgerton, Emma Stone, Hugh Jackman, Matthew McConaughey, Alfonso Cuaron, Jason Reitman, Karyn Kusama and Yann Demange talk about their films.

Also caught sight of Ralph Fiennes, Damien Chazelle, Kathleen Kennedy, Jay Carson, Matt Bai, David Grann, Jimmy Chin, Ken Burns and, of course, Werner Herzog

I say it every year...this doesn't happen anywhere else on the planet.

Telluride Film Festival...I love you!


THE PEOPLE'S TELLURIDE REMINDER- IT IS TIME!

For the seventh consecutive year MTFB is soliciting your input for The People's Telluride.  All you have to do is report to me your assessment of each film on a 1-5 scale with 1 being "UGH!" and 5 being "GREAT".

Send those ratings to me in any of the following ways listed as contact info for me listed below.

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

TWITTER @Gort2 (and follow me there as well)

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COMMENT TO THE BLOG

Re-Post Sunday Done Day / Monday TBAs / Remember The People's Telluride

SUNDAY DONE DAY


Really great day at TFF #45 on Sunday.

Jason Reitman and Hugh Jackman at The Front Runner Q and A

Started the day with Jason Reitman's The Front Runner which moves to the #2 spot for the weekend.  I loved it.  Hits all my politics geek buttons and history and film making.  Hugh Jackman as Gary Hart, Vera Farmiga as his wife Lee and J.K. Simmons as campaign manager Bill Dixon are all in fine form.  Reitman is back, my friends!

Then did the Netflix Doc brunch which was lovely and also allowed me to grab Front Runner co-screen-writer Jay Carson as well as Reitman and express my enthusiasm for their film.

Then Joel Edgerton's Boy Erased.  SUbtle and understated with a subject (gay conversion therapy) that could easily have provided any number of histrionics.  Praise to Edgerton and his cast of Lucas Hedges, Nicole Kidman, Russell Crowe and Edgerton himself.  Beautifully realized and emotionally honest.

Matthew McConnaughey during The White Boy Rick Q and A

The day ended with White Boy Rick which is an entertaining film featuring nice work from Matthew McConaughey and non-actor Richie Merritt...who is fantastic as WBR.  McConnaughey in greta form in the Q and A that followed.



MONDAY TBAs

Palm

7:00 PM, FREE SOLO, Program 23, Cinephile

Galaxy

9:00 AM, COLD WAR, 35, Cinephile

3:00 PM, NON FICTION, 6, Cinephile

Herzog
7:00 PM, THE FAVOURITE, 7a, Cinephile

Sheridan Opera House

3:30 PM, SHOPLIFTERS, 32, Cinephile

8:00 PM, DOGMAN, 36, Cinephile

Nugget

1:00 PM, GHOST FLEET, 29, Cinephile

7:00 PM, THE WHITE CROW, 30, Cinephile

Masons

1:00 PM, THEY’LL LOVE ME WHEN I’M DEAD, 12, Cinephile

3:15 PM, FISTFUL OF DIRT, 17, Cinephile

5:30 PM, THE GHOST OF PETER SELLERS, B, Cinephile (This is not a free show.)

7:45 PM, GIRL, 25, Cinephile

Le Pierre

2:30 PM, HUGH HEFNER’S AFTER DARK: SPEAKING OUT IN AMERICA, D, Cinephile (This is not a free show.)

4:45 PM, THE TARNISHED ANGELS, 39, Cinephile (This is not a free show.)

7:00 PM, BORDER, 14, Cinephile

Backlot (all programs always free)

9:00 AM, IT MUST SCHWING! THE BLUE NOTE STORY, E

1:15 PM, WHAT SHE SAID: THE ART OF PAULINE KAEL, F

3:30 PM, HAL, C

6:15 PM, IT MUST SCHWING! THE BLUE NOTE STORY, E

Noon Seminar, Town Park FREE

Sponsored by Participant Media

Moderated by Annette Insdorf

How do filmmakers find a formal distance when dramatizing family stories?

With Joel Edgerton, Markus Imhoof, Alfonso Cuaron.

THE PEOPLE'S TELLURIDE

For the seventh consecutive year MTFB is soliciting your input for The People's Telluride.  All you have to do is watch films during the fest and then, when it's all over, report to me your assessment of each film on a 1-5 scale with 1 being "UGH!" and 5 being "GREAT".

When the time comes, you can send those ratings to me in any of the following ways listed as contact info for me listed below.

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

TWITTER @Gort2 (and follow me there as well)

FACEBOOK Message me on FB MTFB's Facebook Page

COMMENT TO THE BLOG

The First Telluride Film Festival-1974 / Tribute Odds / Indiewire's Fall Movie Preview / The People's Telluride

Good Tuesday everyone... Ten Days until the 45th Telluride Film Festival...



THE FIRST TELLURIDE FILM FESTIVAL-1974

The long developing TFF history project comes to a way station today with a review of the first Telluride Film Festival which occurred in Telluride on Aug. 30-Sept. 2, 1974.

I started this with a post on April 13, 2017 with a look at the 32nd TFF.  That was the starting point as you can still access programs for the festival beginning with the one from 2006 on the official Telluride Film Festival website.

I plan to add this style of history for each of those years soon.  Ultimately, I plan to add pages to the History section of this space by permanently placing all of my synopses there in full.  My goal is to have a one stop spot where anyone can access a somewhat expanded history of the fest.  That's going to drop next week just prior to the beginning of this year's fest.

So, though today is a milestone, it's still not the completion of the project.

That said, here's the review of TFF #1:

Tributes: Francis Ford Coppola, Gloria Swanson, Leni Riefenstahl

SHOWS:

BBC Interview with Leni Riefenstahl
The Blue Light
The Chinese in Paris
The Conversation
Das Stahltier
Don't Touch the White Woman
Finian's Rainbow
Olympia
Peau Danne
Queen Kelly
The Rain People
Rivers of Sand
Sadie Thompson
Solaris
Stage Struck
Sunset Boulevard
Sweet Movie
The Thief of Baghdad
Triumph of the Will
White Hell of Pitz Palu
Why Change Your Wife
You're a Big Boy Now

In addition to the tribute recipients, British actress Julie Christie was reported to have attended the festival.


TRIBUTE ODDS

As the picture continues to get clearer about probable films that will part of the TFF #45 program, I thought it might be time to return to the contemplation of who might be tribute recipients this year.

I touched on this topic in a post on July 31st and since then, we've added some more film titles that are probable for Telluride...most notably Destroyer with Nicole Kidman starring.

So...here are ten people would could be tributed and what I guessing their odds are:

1) Nicole Kidman/Destroyer and Boy Erased Odds-2 to 1.
2) Sissy Spacek/The Old Man and the Gun Odds 3 to 1.
3) Alfonso Cuaron/Roma Odds- 3 to 1
4) Juliette Binoche/Non-Fiction Odds - 4 to 1
5) Hugh Jackman/The Front Runner Odds-5 to 1
6) Matthew McConaughey/White Boy Rick Odds-5 to 1
7) Ryan Gosling/First Man Odds- 10 to 1
8) Hirokazu Kore-eda/Sholifters Odds- 15 to 1
9) Rachel Wiesz/The Favourite Odds-20 to 1
10) Guillaume Canet/Non-Fiction Odds 25 to 1

Runner-up-Olivier Assayas/Non-Fiction Odds 30 to 1


INDIEWIRE'S FALL MOVIE PREVIEW

The staff at Indiewire have put together their "awards contenders" list of 25 films for the fall film season and listed them chronologically by release date.

If the latest Ten Bets list from last Friday is accurate (and I think it's pretty accurate) then nine TFF #45 films made their list:

White Boy Rick- Sept. 21
The Old Man and the Gun- Sept. 28
First Man- Oct. 12
Boy Erased- Nov. 2
The Other Side of the Wind- Nov.2
Peterloo- Nov. 9
The Favourite- Nov. 23
Cold War- Dec. 21
Roma- undated but likely a December release

On the list of the Indiewire films that could still land at Telluride: Mary Queen of Scots (Dec. 7), Welcome to Marwen (Dec. 21), Adam McKay's untitled Dick Cheney film (Dec. 21), Ad Astra (Dec. 21) and On the Basis of Sex (Dec. 25)

Check out the entire list at Indiewire.


THE PEOPLE'S TELLURIDE

For the seventh consecutive year MTFB is soliciting your input for The People's Telluride.  All you have to do is watch films during the fest and then, when it's all over, report to me your assessment of each film on a 1-5 scale with 1 being "UGH!" and 5 being "GREAT".

When the time comes, you can send those ratings to me in any of the following ways listed as contact info for me listed below.

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

TWITTER @Gort2 (and follow me there as well)

FACEBOOK Message me on FB MTFB's Facebook Page

COMMENT TO THE BLOG

Spitballing Tributes / ScreenTalk Talks Fests / TIFF Second Wave Tomorrow

Welcome to Tuesday...running late today for a variety of reasons...

SPITBALLING TRIBUTES

2017 TFF Tributee Christian Bale

Although it's a little early, I thought we might take a quick stab today at considering who (or in some years it's been what) might be in line for a tribute at this year's TFF.  As a starting point, let's consider the films from latest Ten Bets-since I'm pretty confident about those titles making The SHOW lineup:

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

I also feel strongly about these making the lineup as well:

The Other Side of the Wind, White Boy Rick, Peterloo.

This group of 13 films gives us a rich list of potential tribute candidates.

Actors from the above films that could get the tribute treatment:

Ryan Gosling/First Man
Sissy Spacek/The Old Man and the Gun
Hugh Jackman/The Front Runner
Rachel Weisz/The Favourite
Emma Stone/The Favourite
Juliette Binoche/Non Fiction
Guillaume Canet/Non Fiction
Matthew McConaughey/White Boy Rick


Directors that could be feted:

Matteo Garrone/Dogman
Olivier Assasyas/Non Fiction
Alfonso Cuaron/Roma
David Lowery/The Old Man and the Gun
Hirokazu Kore-eda/Shoplifters


What do you think?


SCREENTALK TALKS FESTS

Anne Thompson and Eric Kohn of Indiewire sat down after last week's Toronto and Venice announcements to record their ScreenTalk podcast. 

The discussion was far-ranging and included specific mention of films they are willing to tag as Telluride films: The Favourite, Roma, First Man, White Boy Rick.  They also mention Can You Ever Forgive Me? and Peterloo though not in the context of Telluride.  They also spend some time talking about a theory that some distributors are now wary of Telluride suggesting that the four day weekend puts too much pressure on a film.

Could this explain the (at least so far) absence of any mention of films from Focus Features?  Boy Erased, Mary Queen of Scots and On the Basis if Sex?

Last weekend's ScreenTalk is here.


TORONTO'S SECOND WAVE TOMORROW

The Toronto International Film Festival will announce their second wave of films tomorrow morning.  It will be Canadian-centric, though they do sometimes make some other announcements in this wave, they are few. 

Last year I wasn't able to glean any truly useful Telluride info from their second announcement.  In 2016, I was able to eliminate Xavier Dolan's It's Only the End of the World because of TIFF's second wave so there is a occasionally some knowledge that can be gotten.  Perhaps we'll discover the status of Dolan's new film The Death and Life of John F. Donovan.


That's today's MTFB.  More will be forthcoming on Thursday!

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

TWITTER @Gort2 (and follow me there as well)

FACEBOOK Message me on FB MTFB's Facebook Page

COMMENT TO THE BLOG

Day One of the 38th/Then Day Two/Sneak #1/The Descendants Reviewed

Day One...short on film, long on hobbing and nobbing.

Telluride fireworks on July 4, 2011 (Larry Mallard)

First, A Big Thank You to everyone who came to "The Guide to the Ride, The Flow of the SHOW" at The River Club yesterday evening.  It was a lot of fun to get to chat with everyone about the festival,  film and the blog.  I t was truly a "hoot."  I was humbled by the kindness of strangers...paraphrasing Tennessee Williams and Blanche DuBois. 

Also a shout out to Eugene Novikov of FilmBlather.com who was kind enough to drop by and participate in the discussion.

And immense gratitude to my hosts (and former students) who so graciously make it possible for me to play this game every year: Mitzi and Larry Mallard of The River Club...you have no idea!

Really enjoyed getting re-acquainted yesterday with Alexandra and Mark Helfrich...very nice, kind and funny people...


And...Tilda Swinton sighted!

DAY TWO...

The plan as of 7:15 this morning:

Albert Nobbs
The Artist
A Dangerous Method
Sneak Preview (see below) or Clooney Tribute
Maybe Goodbye First Love


SNEAK

All signs point to "Butter" starring Jennnifer Garner, Hugh Jackman and Olivia Wilde as the first "sneak preview" and likely tonight.  Ms. Garner (Mrs. Affleck) has been reportedly sighted in and around town.  Looking forward to it.

As to the other "sneak"  I have no strong indicators...though...I still wouldn't be 100% surprised if it turned out to be Clooney's "The Ides of March" which TFF officials completely deny...
Or "Marilyn"
Or "Miss Bala"
Or...really...a lot of things...

SNEAK PREVIEW


• Butter G/ Sat 8:15 PM • C/ Sat 10:45 PM
In person: Jennifer Garner, Jim Field Smith, Ty Burrell
• 21 The Kid With a Bike L/ Sat 3:45 PM
• 2 Le Havre L/ Sat 10:45 PM
G = Galaxy
C= Chuck Jones
L= Le Pierre




THE DESCENDANTS REVIEWED...

Yes...I spoke with George Clooney.  He laughed at me (not with me...at  me) and Alexander Payne...(he said "thanks"

Kristy, my wife, has the much better Clooney and Payne stories...see her...ask her...they are cool stories...

Here's my review...(pssst...I liked it):

“The Descendants” premiered Friday afternoon at the 38th Telluride Film Festival where it was greeted by vigorous applause at its conclusion.

To tell the tale, Payne needs a strong male lead that is capable of accessing intense vulnerability. In “About Schmidt” (2002) he needed the same abilities and found it in Jack Nicholson’s Oscar nominated performance. Two years earlier, in his sublime “Sideways” (for which he shared the Oscar for Best Screenplay with Jim Taylor) he split those duties in performances from Paul Giamatti and Oscar nominated Thomas Haden Church. In “The Descendants” Payne casts George Clooney who takes on the role and succeeds at every level.

Payne opens the film with a shot of a woman in a speedboat screaming across a bay with Hawaiian mountains as the backdrop. She appears to be very nearly at the verge of ecstasy. Fade to black. We then discover that she is Elizabeth King and moments after the fade out of the opening scene she has experienced a catastrophic accident that has left her in a coma. Her husband, Matt (Clooney) soon learns that her condition is irreversible and that her advanced directive leaves no room for doubt as to the course of action she desires…no heroic measures, pull the plug.

Matt is left to pass that news to friends and family including the two daughters for whom he admits he is the “backup” parent. In the process of breaking the news, Matt finds out that his wife has had a secret of her own and that secret propels the story forward.

All of this occurs against the backdrop of a potential sale of 25,000 acres of pristine Hawaiian countryside over which Matt is the trustee on behalf of the extended King family. His decision alone determines the fate of the land and the millions of dollars it is worth.

Alexander Payne hasn’t directed a feature film since 2004 (About Schmidt). He’s been away too long. Payne has created a moving, effective observation on family relationships and how they are tested, torn and re-structured in the face of sudden challenges in his latest film, “The Descendants” based on the novel by Kaui Hart Hemmings (Payne co-wrote the screenplay with Nat Faxon and Jim Rash).

It is Clooney’s picture to carry and he masters the challenges at every turn. He was lauded in 2009 for stretching his acting chops in “Up in the Air” and has clearly continued to look for ways to explore his abilities with this role. Clooney’s willingness to allow us to see Matt’s naked vulnerability and the character’s struggles to make choices that he can live with form the spine of the film’s narrative. Payne and Clooney were on hand following the film’s presentation and in the course of the Q and A Payne insisted that Clooney had provided him with the best acting collaboration of any of his films.

Clooney is ably assisted with strong performances from Shailene Woodley as his eldest daughter and Judy Greer and Matthew Lillard as couple whose lives become intertwined with Matt’s. Also very effective is veteran actor Robert Forster as Matt’s father-in-law. Forster’s character is oblivious to reality, blinded by his love for his daughter.

Payne has opted to follow the same structure cinematically that he has used before in both “Schmidt” and “Sideways.” Payne uses a quiet first act that slowly pulls the viewer into the orbit of the characters but maintains an almost astringent stand-offishness and then, before you realize it, he’s managed to engage you emotionally. It’s subtle and effective as Payne balances universal moments, (the loss of a loved one, the love for a child, and the emotional pull of familial obligations) with the quirkiness that viewers have come to expect from an Alexander Payne film.

Thematically “The Descendants” asks to contemplate what we owe to those who came before us, what we owe to those who come after us and what we owe ourselves and how we assess those debts in terms of the choices that we make. One of the magical truths of the film is that those choices will differ depending on the lense from which they are viewed.

Gorgeously shot on location in Hawaii, Payne doesn’t shirk from contrasting the visual paradise and harmony of Hawaii with the disharmony and dysfunction that occurs in the King family after Elizabeth’s accident. The film is knock-out beautiful to look at.

Ultimately “The Descendants” is a family dramedy at its core and bolstered by Clooney’s solid performance, it’s a film very, very worth seeing. [A-]

Pictures, Pictures, Pictures/50/50 Trailer/Gosling Speaks

Good Morning All,

What if they really did make me an offer I couldn't refuse?

PICTURES...

A good number of films that are on my Telluride watch list have released stills in the last day or two and so I thought I'd pass some along and link to some others today.

One film with its first official still out this week that has a good deal of Oscar buzz (but realistically much less Telluride buzz) is Stephen Daldry's "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" based on the best selling novel by Jonathan Safran Foer.  It stars Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock and is scheduled for limited release on  Christmas Day.

 Here's the single official photo thanks to SlashFilm:

Here's the kink to the SlashFilm post:
http://www.slashfilm.com/tom-hanks-thomas-horn-extremely-loud-incredibly-close/

And Extremely Loud's IMDb page:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0477302/

How about pix from 3 other Telluride possibilities?  The Playlist at IndieWire is up with posts focused on a number of T-ride possibilities.  For example Fernando Mierelles "360" starring the very busy Rachel Weisz, Jude Law, Ben Foster and Anthony Hopkins.  Speaking of Mr. Hopkins, a still of him from the film:

A number of other stills and the article about "360" can be found here:
http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/archives/new_looks_at_rachel_weisz_jude_law_anthony_hopkins_ben_foster_in_fernando_m/


Another Playlist article about photos from a film that I think has some shot at bowing at Telluride is the Jennifer Garner, Olivia Wilde, Hugh Jackman starrer "Butter."  I get a real "Juno" like vibe for this film.  Here's a teaser of the photos:

A good number of other stills are with The Playlist story here:
http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/archives/first_look_at_jennifer_garner_in_butter/

Butter's IMDb page:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1349451/

Finally, The Playlist has posted a number of stills for Michael Winterbottom's adaptation and re-imagining of Thomas Hardy's "Tess of the D'Ubervilles."  It's entitled "Trishna" and starts Freida Pinto (Slumdog Millionaire, Miral).  Again, I think there is at least some chance that it could be programmed at Telluride.

Here's a look:

 Again, access to the other stills and The Playlist story is here:
http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/archives/first_look_at_freida_pinto_in_michael_winterbottoms_trishna/

Trishna's IMDb page:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1836987/


50/50 TRAILER

I have been back and forth about mentioning "50/50" starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Seth Rogen as a Telluride possible. The distributor is Summit Entertainment which has had, at best, a limited relationship with Telluride in the recent past.  And I'm just not a Seth Rogen fan...

Despite these misgivings, I have to admit that it's a least a tenuous possibility and so I have included this week's link to its new trailer from a post from FirstShowing.net:
http://www.firstshowing.net/2011/must-watch-second-trailer-for-5050-with-joseph-gordon-levitt/

50/50's IMDb page:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1306980/


GOSLING SPEAKS

Actor Ryan Gosling is a busy dude.  "Crazy, Stupid Love" is in theaters now.  "Drive" and "The Ides of March" are due during the next few months as we head into awards season and both films might make an
appearance at Telluride's SHOW.

Despite his hectic schedule, Anne Thompson of Thompson on Hollywood (IndieWire) has passed along his interview with Esquire magazine.  Thompson excerpts that and provides the link to the full interview here:
http://blogs.indiewire.com/thompsononhollywood/2011/08/11/ryan_gosling_is_cooler_than_you_and_too_cool_to_answer_esquires_questions

Drive's IMDb page:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0780504/

Ides' IMDb page:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1124035/


More tomorrow, mi compadres!