Ten (Plus) Bets #10 for TFF #50 / Looks at Nyad / No KOTFM at T-Ride / Awards Watch Talks Telluride/ The People's Telluride Is Back

TEN (PLUS) BETS #10 AT TFF #50

Time for your penultimate look at the best bets for films that will be announced by the Telluride Film Festival on Wednesday, August 30th.  I'll have a final set of bets on Monday and then, of course, I'll post the announced lineup on Wednesday next week.

Here's a review of last week's Bets:

1) The Holdovers

2) Nyad

3) The Zone of Interest

4) Anatomy of a Fall

5) Saltburn

6) Poor Things

7) The Royal Hotel

8) Rustin

9) Wildcat

10) Fingernails

11) All of Us Strangers 

12) The Bikeriders

13) Fallen Leaves

14) Perfect Days

15) El Conde

16) Janet Planet

17) The Promised Land

18) Orlando, My Political Biography

19) The Pigeon Tunnel

20) Without Blood

Other possibilities: Daddio, They Shot the Piano Player, The Settlers, The End, The American Buffalo, The Pot-au-Feu, Freud's Last Session, About Dry Grasses, La Chimera, The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar, Tuesday and All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt.

And here's the new Ten (Plus) Bets:

1) The Holdovers

2) Poor Things

3) Nyad

4) The Zone of Interest

5) Anatomy of a Fall

6) Saltburn

7) Rustin

8) The Royal Hotel

9) Wildcat

10) Fingernails

11) All of Us Strangers 

12) The Bikeriders

13) Fallen Leaves

14) Perfect Days

15) El Conde

16) Janet Planet

17) The Promised Land

18) Orlando, My Political Biography

19) The Pigeon Tunnel

20) Daddio

21) Occupied City

22) They Shot the Piano Player

23) The Taste of Things

24) The Settlers

25) La Chimera

Other possibilities: Without Blood, The American Buffalo, About Dry Grasses, The End, Freud's Last Session, Tuesday and All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt.

LOOKS AT NYAD

Vanity Fair had access to a slew of stills from Chin and Vasarhelyi's biopic about long distance swimmer Diana Nyad starring Annette Bening as Nyad and also starring Jodie Foster.

I have included a couple here but there are a bunch more at the link above.

NO KOTFM AT T-RIDE

World of Reel's Jordan Ruimy has lowered the boom on hopes that Martin Scorsese would be at Telluride next week with Killers of the Flower Moon.  Writing on his website on Tuesday:

"I posted my Telluride predictions and, in the process, also acknowledged the possibility that Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon” might show up. Well, scratch that off, it’s not going. It’s been confirmed by a knowledgeable source." 

There had been significant chatter that the Martin Scorsese film would be a part of Telluride's 50th edition but alas, that appears not to be the case.

Here's the link to Ruimy's complete post.

AWARDS WATCH TALKS TELLURIDE

Erik Anderson's Awards Watch has been very focused on The SHOW this week with it being the focus of a major post on Tuesday as well as the central topic on this week's Awards Watch podcast.

The post includes a lengthy list  of possible players for TFF #50 as well as some analysis (and a kind link to MTFB).

In the article Erik incudes a lot of what you'll see above in today's Ten (Plus) Bets.  He does include a few films worth noting/commenting on .

From his "World Premieres" list he includes:

*The Creator-see below

*Freud's Last Session-which I have dogged kept on as a "possibility" since the very first Ten Bets but about which we have heard almost nothing.

*A Difficult Year-Toronto lists it as an International Premiere and France is listed by TIFF as its nation of origin.  IMDb says it premiered in Nice, France back in May.

*Food Inc. 2- this makes a lot of sense as the original Food Inc. played Telluride in 2008.

Meanwhile, Ryan McQuade was joined  Anderson, Sophia Ciminello and Christina Juerling Birro on the Awards Watch podcast and the entire podcast is Telluride-centric.

Among the tidbits there:

The group agrees with my assessment that All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt might be that case of a Sundance film that plays The SHOW but the they also include Flora and Son and Fair Play as possibilities as well.

Also suggested as possible choices for TFF #50 are Food Inc. 2.  Also mentioned is Gareth Edwards' The Creator.  The Awards Watch crew does include on the basis of its "Texas Premiere" designation from Fantastic Fest but we learned just a couple of days ago that the film or portions of it will be screening at 10 IMAX theaters nationwide next week.  That might explain its "Texas Premiere" designation.

There's also some fun speculation about who will get a tribute.

THE PEOPLE'S TELLURIDE IS BACK

For the 11th non-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".

Report your ratings to: mpgort@gmail.com 

The deadline for this year to turn in your ratings will be Sept. 15th.

I'll compile all of your responses and post those a few days after the festival.

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Bikeriders Riding into The 'Ride / And Maybe... / The Buzzing / Late Breaking from London

BIKERIDERS RIDING INTO THE 'RIDE

Jordan Ruimy at World of Reel reported on Friday that he has confirmed the buzz we'd been hearing the last couple of weeks that Jeff Nichols' The Bikeriders will debut at Telluride.  The film stars Tom Hardy, Austin Butler, Boyd Holbrook, Michael Shannon and Jodie Comer.

IMDb's synopsis goes like this:

"It follows the rise of a Midwestern motorcycle club through the lives of its members."

Nichols previous films include Loving, Midnight Special, Take Shelter and Mud.

For me, its another really great entry into the TFF #50 lineup...which, if what we think is going to Telluride shows at The SHOW, is rocking.

AND MAYBE...

In recent posts I've been mentioning the possibility of Angelina Jolie bringing her latest film-Without Blood-to TFF #50.  I'm still not quite all the way to the point where I'm predicting if for the lineup yet but I am getting closer.  There's a good deal of buzz that the Jolie follow-up to her 2017 First They Killed My Father which also played Telluride.  That previous appearance is one of the reasons that I think might make Without Blood a real possibility for TFF #50.  

THE BUZZING

We're getting to the time of the year where MTFB starts to pop up in other places.  This past week MTFB was referenced by Sasha Stone at Awards Daily in her Aug. 4th post about Oscar and the potential effects of the dual writers' and actors' strike.

Speaking of buzz, on the Awards Radar podcast this week Joey Magidson and his guests Mark Johnson and Ryan McQuade talked a good deal about Telluride and probably the most exciting speculation is about Killers of the Flower Moon and a possible tribute to Martin Scorsese.  They feel that's more not less likely.  I had been hearing a little of that speculation within the last week to ten days.  If you listen to the podcast that discussion occurs at 1:13:58.

If you've read this space before, you know that Flowers is my big hope for the year whether it plays T-ride or not and I have been very clear that I have not believed that it would.  Many of you know that I did a day of background on the film which makes me even more keen to actually see it as soon as possible.

I hate to get all worked up but...there is a little smoke...

On the other hand, another film that's high on my list to see is David Fincher's The Killer starring Michael Fassbender as a professional assassin who comes to a question what his choices have been.  

Like Flower Moon, I have thought The Killer to be an unlikely film for TFF #50 inclusion and now World of Reel suggests that outcome is probable.  WOR chief Jordan Ruimy writing this weekend:

"...not much else is known about Fincher’s upcoming 118-minute film. That’ll change when it premieres in September at the Venice Film Festival. So far, no other festivals have announced it, and I’m hearing it’s not going to Telluride or Toronto. Maybe NYFF is an option."

LATE BREAKING FROM LONDON

First image of Emerald Fennell's Saltburn via Screen Daily

Overnight the BFI London Film Festival announced that its opening night film will be Emerald Fennell's Saltburn.  The announcement added further evidence that the film will be bowing initially at Telluride.  Saltburn is listed by LFF as its International Premiere which adds to the comments from Venice Film Fest head Alberto Barbera from last week that Saltburn will play Telluride.  Additionally we can deduce from its International Premiere status that it will skip Toronto.

Here's a report of the announcement with further details from Screen Daily.

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Ten Bets #3 for TFF #50 / New Trailer for Killers of the Flower Moon / Fincher's The Killer and Venice? / 800,000

 TEN BETS #3 FOR TFF #50

Here's the third iteration of my "Ten Bets" for TFF #50.  As I post this morning we are just a couple of weeks away from the clarity that announcements from the Toronto International Film Festival can provide.  TIFF announces its first wave of Galas and Special Presentations along with their revealing "premiere status" on that day.  

TIFF announcement days are always exhilarating and heart breaking.  Exhilarating because it's often the first hard evidence of a film's disposition vis-a-vis Telluride and heartbreaking because inevitably films that I want to play Telluride are discovered on that day as World Premieres for TIFF and thus will not make the trip to southwest Colorado.

So that's coming on July 19th.  I'll attempt a little social media coverage on the 19th as information becomes available and then have a full on report on my regular posting day on July 20th.

All that said to get to this week's Ten Bets.

As a reminder, here are last week's Ten Bets:

1) The Holdovers/Payne

2) May December/Haynes

3) Nyad/Chin and Vasarhelyi

4) Strangers/Haigh

5) Poor Things/Lanthimos

6) Monster/Kore-eda

7) Anatomy of a Fall/Triet

8) El Conde/Larrain

9) Saltburn/Fennell

10) The End/Oppenheimer

Other possibilities: The Zone of Interest/Glazer, Freud's Last Session/Brown, The Teachers' Lounge/Catak, The Royal Hotel/Green, Rustin/Wolfe, The American Buffalo/Burns, Priscilla/Coppola and Shirley/Ridley.

And here's the update, the third Ten Bets for TFF #50:

1) May December/Haynes

2) Poor Things/Lanthimos

3) Strangers/Haigh

4) The Holdovers/Payne

5) Monster/Kore-eda

6) Saltburn/Fennell

7) Nyad/ Chin and Vasarhelyi

8) Anatomy of a Fall/Triet

9) El Conde/Larrain

10) The Teachers' Lounge/Catak

Other possibilities: The Zone of Interest/Glazer, Fallen Leaves/Kaurismaki, The End/Oppenheimer, The Pot-au-Feu/Hung,  Freud's Last Session/Brown, The Royal Hotel/Green, Rustin/Wolfe, The American Buffalo/Burns, Priscilla/Coppola and Shirley/Ridley.

NEW TRAILER FOR KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON

Apple dropped a new trailer for my most anticipated film for 2023, Martin Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon.  The film is set for limited release on Oct. 6th and then opens wide on Oct. 20th. 

My guess, at this point is that Killers maybe plays the New York Film Festival prior to its release and bypasses both Telluride and Toronto.  I hope my assessment is way off.

As many know, I did a day of background work on the film. I can tell you that I'm not in either trailer.  Here's the new one:

 

FINCHER'S THE KILLER AND VENICE?

Michael Fassbender on the set of The Killer (via IMDb)

By and large I have discounted any possibility that David Fincher would return to Telluride this year with The Killer starring Michael Fassbender.  Up to now I have surmised that the film produced in part by Paramount and Plan B and distributed by Netflix likely wouldn't play any festival though its planned Nov. 10th release date would allow it to.

However, Jordan Ruimy's World of Reel reported on Sunday (7/2) that the door might still be open for the film to screen at Venice:

"On Friday, I was rather stunned by an Italian source telling me that Netflix is now thinking of bringing David Fincher’s “The Killer” to Venice. 

This source told me, “negotiations are underway, Barbera did see it and he wants it in competition. I’m not sure if he will be able to get it as the odds are 50/50 right now since Netflix would rather premiere it closer to the November release.”

Now, if the door is open for Venice, could it also be open for the jump to Telluride?  Fincher was the recipient of a Telluride tribute back in 2008 where Zodiac was screened in its entirety and scenes from The Curious Case of Benjamin Button were screened so he's been in the San Juans before.

Personally I'm still very skeptical that The Killer lands in Colorado and frankly I tend to buy the conventional wisdom that if The Killer plays a fest at all it will probably be New York.

But I'd like to be wrong.

800,000

Just passed another milestone in the history of MTFB last night as total views for the blog went beyond the 800,000 mark.  That means that each post of the 2,135 I have published since August 8th, 2008 has averaged 347.7 views.

Thanks for reading!

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More Venice Rumblings / Cannes Critics Respond / Ten Bets in a Month

MORE VENICE RUMBLINGS

Now that Cannes is well and truly underway...see the critical reactions so far in the next bloc...speculation about what films that might be playing Venice is heating up.  As Venice spec heats up, so does the speculation about which films will play Venice and Telluride.  As I have mentioned before, the two fests now commonly share 6-7 titles per year.

Variety's Nick Vivarelli posted on Thursday a piece titled:  Beyond Cannes: Are Zendaya, Emma Stone and Bradley Cooper Already Packing Their Bags for Venice Film Festival?  

His claim is that there are a number of films already lined up for Venice.  Of the films mentioned in the article, a good number of them could be reasonable candidates to double-dip at Venice and T-ride including:

Poor Things/Lanthimos

Challengers/Guadagnino

Priscilla/S. Coppola

The Captain/Garrone

Maestro/Cooper

Nyad/Chin and Vasarhelyi

Saltburn/Fennell

The Book of Clarence/Samuels

The complete article is linked here.

CANNES CRITICS RESPOND

As Cannes is essentially at its midway point, here's a look at the critical response thus far with an eye toward what seem to be contenders for the Palme d'Or as well as a few other films a few other films of interest.

First, among the Palme d'Or competition films that have jumped to the fore in as far as the general critical reaction, at the top is Jonathan Glazer's The Zone of Interest.

Reini Urban's Critics compilation has Zone with an 8.22 average (on a 10 point scale) and the top comp film with more than 10 reviews averaged.  Hirokazu Kore-eda's Monster is second meeting that same criteria with a 7.69 average.  Regular readers will know that I have been tracking both of those films as TFF #50 possibilities for some time.  Also making some noise according to the Urban metric are Nuri Bilge Ceylan's About Dry Grasses (7.65),  Justine Triet's Anatomy of a Fall (7.50) and Todd Haynes' May/December (also on the MTFB TFF #50) watch list.

Among other films that I am watching that also meet the above criteria are the ecstatic reactions for Martin Scorsese's Killers of the flower Moon (8.57)

Michel Gondry's The Book of Solutions 7.48

Steve McQueen's Occupied City 6.45

Wim Wenders Anselm 6.41

Other films from Cannes that are on my TFF radar but that haven't screened yet or have fewer than 10 reviews as yet:

Perfect Days (Wenders)

The Old Oak (Loach)

La Chimera (Rohrwacher)

Strange Way of Life (Almodovar)

I have my eye on a couple of other critical compilations that focus exclusively on Palme contenders.  Those are from Ioncinema and the International Cinephile Society.  Ioncinema uses a four point scale while ICS uses a five points scale.

The top five on the Ioncinema list thus far:

1) The Zone of Interest (Glazer) 3.9

2) About Dry Grasses (Ceylan) 3.4

3) May/December (Haynes) 3.3

3) Anatomy of a Fall (Triet) 3.3

5) Monster (Kore-eda) 3.2

5) Youth (Bing) 3.2

The top five on the ICS chart are:

1) The Zone of Interest (Glazer) 4.18

2) Anatomy of a Fall (Triet) 3.67

3) May/December (Haynes) 3.50

4) About Dry Grasses (Ceylan) 3.46

5) Youth (Bing) 3.33

And finally from Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes

Killers of the Flower Moon  Meta: 91  RT: 97

The Zone of Interest  Meta: 99  RT: 100

May/December  Meta: 82  RT: 93

Anatomy of a Fall  Meta: 90  RT: 100

Monster  Meta: 79  RT: 100

TEN BETS IN A MONTH

Mark it on your calendars...MTFB's first Ten bets for the 50th edition of the Telluride Film Festival is headed your way on June 22nd.  What might you expect?  Mid-level prediction success!  I looked back over the last 11 years (leaving out the Covid year of 2020) and here is my accuracy for each of the first time "Ten Bets" since I began formatting my predictions this way in 2011:

2011: 8/10
2012: 5/10
2013: 6/10
2014: 7/10
2015: 4/10
2016: 3/10
2017: 7/10
2018: 5/10

2019: 4/10

2020: No Fest

2021: 8/10

2022: 6/10

My average over the 11 years of "Betting" is 5.7 correct films from the first Ten Bets each year.  Not bad but also not burning the house down either.

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All About Cannes and Telluride: The Critics / The Palme d'Or and Telluride / Killers Trailer!!!

ALL ABOUT CANNES AND TELLURIDE

THE CRITICS

As the 76th Cannes Film Festival ramps up (it opened on Tuesday) I thought I'd focus a bit on things I look at to gauge a film's chances at playing T-ride after debuting in France.  As I have written before, there are, on average, 7-8 films that premiere at Cannes and then have their North American Premiere in the San Juans over Labor day weekend.

One data point I pay attention to is Reini Urban's collection of the critical response to Cannes' films.  Urban has been doing this annually since 2010.  So, to get a sense of what those critical composite ratings can tell us, I ran down the results of the last ten years (excluding the Covid year of 2020).  Turns out that an average of four films from the Cannes critical top 25 make the trek to Telluride.  The Cannes/Telluride connection from this top 25 each year ranged from a high of seven films in 2013 to a low of two in 2012 and 2016.  Here's the breakdown with a film's position in the ratings:

2012:

1) Amour

6) No

2013:

1) Blue Is the Warmest Colour

4) Inside Llewyn Davis

5) The Missing Picture

11) All Is Lost

15) The Lunchbox

20) The Past

25) Nebraska

2014:

9) Two Days, One Night

15) Red Army

23) Leviathan

24) Mr. Turner

2015:

3) Carol

14) Son of Saul

15) Hitchcock/Truffaut

2016: 

1) Toni Erdmann

11) Graduation

2017:

5) Faces/Places

8) Tesnota

24) The Rider

2018:

4) Shoplifters

7) Cold War

9) Girl

19) Birds of Passage

20) Border

2019:

1) Parasite

3) Pain and Glory

5) Portrait of a Lady on Fire

23) A Hidden Life

2021:

13) Red Rocket

15) A Hero

19) The French Dispatch

21) Bergman Island

2022:

1) La Pupille

2) Aftersun

6) Close

11) Broker

15) Godland

18) One Fine Day

So, I'll be keeping an eye on Urban's composite critical response.  As a matter of fact, the collection has already started even this early in the fest with some critics already having benefited from pre-fest access.  

Early, early films that I have on my T-ride watch list that are in the top 25 (with only 6-10 critics collected thus far) include: May/December, La Chimera, The Book of Solutions, The New Boy, The Old Oak and Club Zero.

Stay tuned.

THE PALME D'OR AND TELLURIDE

Someone usually asks me every year about the odds of Cannes' Palme d'Or winning film making the Telluride lineup and that answer is about half the time.  Since 2003, here are the Palme winners that have crossed the Atlantic and screened in the mountains of southwest Colorado:

2003: Elephant

2005: L'enfant

2007: 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days

2009: The White Ribbon

2012: Amour

2013: Blue Is the Warmest Colour

2018: Shoplifters

2019: Parasite

So, by this metric, it would seem that this year's Palme winner might be a film to keep an eye on for Telluride since we haven't had that occur since 2019.

KILLERS TRAILER!!!

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Cannes Opening Imminent - Top Possibilities / WOR and the Best of the '60's -Part Two / Looks At: Poor Things and Cobweb

CANNES OPENING IMMINENT-TOP POSSIBILITIES

Set photo from Jonathan Glazer's The Zone of Interest

The 76th Cannes Film Festival is just hours away from its opening and MTFB continues to monitor the pre-fest buzz for films that could make the trans-Atlantic crossing from France to southwestern Colorado on Labor Day weekend.

As frequent readers know, traditionally many films make the Cannes/Telluride Two-Step each year.  On average (based on the last 12 years) there are 7-8 films that make that double-play.  Last year nine films made the trip including Aftersun, Armageddon Time, Broker, Close, Holy Spider and The Pupils.

As we near the start of this year's fest on The Croisette, Indiewire has published their list of "Most Anticipated" titles.  Looking at that, here's another stab from that list at what might SHOW up at T-ride:

La Chimera/Rohrwacher

Fallen Leaves/Kaurismaki

Killer of the Flower Moon/Scorsese

May/December/Haynes

Monster/Kore-eda

Strange Way of Life/Almodovar

The Zone of Interest/Glazer

The complete Indiewire story and list are linked here.

As always, I'll be keeping track of the critical reaction from Cannes as that can sometimes point to the viability of films moving forward. Here are the dates that some of the films of interest will be having their initial public screening:

In Palme competition:

Monster 5/17

The Zone of Interest 5/19

May/December 5/20

Perfect Days 5/25

La Chimera 5/26

The Old Oak 5/26

Others not in Palme Competition:

Occupied City 5/17

Strange Way of Life 5/17

Anselm 5/17

The New Boy 5/19

Killers of the Flower Moon 5/20

Cobweb 5/25

Closing night ceremonies will take place on May 27th.

WOR AND THE BEST OF THE 60'S -PART TWO

Last Thursday I wrote about participating in World of Reel's poll of the greatest films of the 1960's.  Since that post WOR head man Jordan Ruimy has published the individual ballots of all 130+ people who participated.  That let me see how my list of ten great films of the 60's stacked up with everyone else.

 Here's my list of ten and where they landed within the top 40 that Ruimy posted last week:

2001: A Space Odyssey (1)

The Apartment (9)

Cool Hand Luke

Dr. Strangelove (3)

The Graduate (5)

The Hustler 

Lawrence of Arabia (4)

Midnight Cowboy (17)

To Kill a Mockingbird

They Shoot Horses Don't They

As to the films that I listed that did not make the Top 40, here's the number of ballots they had with this note, it took 7 ballots to make the Top 40.:

Cool Hand Luke-5

The Hustler-5

To Kill a Mockingbird- 6

They Shoot Horses Don't They-3

The complete list of individual ballots is here.

LOOKS AT: POOR THINGS, COBWEB AND  ANSLEM

POOR THINGS TEASER

I will admit that I am fascinated by what this Yorgos Lanthimos film might be.  Additionally, I'm a big fan of Emma Stone  The IMDb description:

"The incredible tale and fantastical evolution of Bella Baxter (Stone), a young woman brought back to life by the brilliant and unorthodox scientist Dr. Godwin Baxter (Dafoe)."

Here's the teaser from YouTube that was released by Searchlight on May 11th:

Here's The Hollywood Reporter on the film.

COBWEB

I have Director Kin Jee-woon's Cobweb as an outside shot to make the lineup for TFF #50.  It play's in an Out-of-Competition slot.

The IMDb Desription:

"an experimental and genre-defying drama shot entirely on sound stages in support of a film-within-a-film narrative."

Here's the trailer with subtitles from YouTube:

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I'm Back / Trailers: Next Goal Wins, Strange Way of Life, Desperate Souls / Photos: Flower Moon, Poor Things, New Boy / News of Drive-Away Dolls

 I'M BACK

Well hello.  I've been away for awhile.  

Actually, the last three weeks I've been away has been the longest that NTFB has been dormant at any one time since I started writing the thing back in August of 2008.  What was up?  The wife and I went on a quick tour of  Europe.  But we're back now...as of Tuesday evening... and I'm here to crank MTFB up as we stare down the barrel of the Cannes Film Fest (starting in 11 days!)  We'll see what the results there, both critically and in terms of award winners, tell us about clues to films we could see in the San Juans on Labor day weekend.

TRAILERS

Over the past three weeks we have seen trailers released for two films that could show up on the TFF #50 playlist and one from TFF #49.  Looking ahead to the potential TFF #50 titles:

NEXT GOAL WINS

 

And STRANGE WAY OF LIFE from Pedro Almodovar (his short film that will be opening the Cannes fest in a few days):

And from TFF #49 the trailer for the documentary Desperate Souls: Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy:

PHOTOS

New stills have been released from three films that I have on my TFF #50 watch/wish list.  Take a look:

KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON (Scorsese)

POOR THINGS (Lanthimos)

THE NEW BOY (Thornton)

NEWS OF DRIVE-AWAY DOLLS

Ethan Coen (of Coen Brothers fame) has been quietly working on his first solo feature film, Drive-Away Dolls and now we know when it will be leased and some other interesting tidbits from a number of outlets.  The film has been set to release on Sept. 22nd which means it's possible for Telluride as well as Venice and Toronto. The 9/22 date means that it will not play NYFF as it doesn't open until Sept. 29th.  The film is distributed by focus Features.

The film stars Margaret Qualley, Geraldine Viswanathan, Matt Damon, Pedro Pascal, Colman Domingo and Bill Camp.

IMDb Pro describes it as follows:

"Jamie regrets his breakup with his girlfriend while Marian needs to relax. In search of a fresh start they embark on an unexpected road trip to Tallahassee, but things quickly go awry when they cross paths with a group of inept criminals."

Articles from Ioncinema and The Film Stage have speculated that TFF is a possible landing spot for the film.  Coen was part of a three-headed tribute along with his brother Joel and music man T. Bone Burnett at the 40th Telluride Film Festival in 2013.  It would be a nice return to TFF for its 50th fest this year.

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Cannes: What's In and What's Out / Hiatus Time Starts Today

CANNES: WHAT'S IN AND WHAT'S OUT

The Cannes Film Festival has announced their lineup across several different categories and generally speaking the various outlets that have been speculating what will play have been spot on.

These are the films that seem the most likely to make the crossover between Cannes and Telluride from each of the various sections:

Competition:

The Zone of Interest/Glazer

Fallen Leaves/Kaurismaki

Monster/Kore-eda

La Chimera/Rohrwacher

May/December/Haynes

Perfect Days/Wenders

Un Certain Regard:

The New Boy/Thornton

Out of Competition:

Killers of the Flower Moon/Scorsese

Cobweb/Jee-woon

Special Screenings:

Occupied City/McQueen

Anselm/Wenders

Short Films:

Strange Way of Life/Almodovar

As has often been the case with Cannes,  Festival Director Thierry Fremaux revealed that there will be other films added in the coming days.  I'll be eagerly watching for those additions to see if the added films might also smell like they could be Telluride bound.

Here's the complete lineup from Variety.

HIATUS TIME STARTS TODAY

MTFB will be on Hiatus for the next three weeks.  I'll still be keeping an eye on the buzz from Cannes and other possible sources of intell re: TFF #50.  

Should anything vital emerge over the next three weeks I'll post that on my Twitter account @Gort2 and/or MTFB's Facebook page.

MTFB will return on May 4th. 

EMAIL:  mpgort@gmail.com

TWITTER @TheMTFB OR @Gort2 

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Let's Talk Big Picture: Part Two / THR's Best 50 Movies of the 21st Century and Telluride / One More Guess at Cannes

 LET'S TALK BIG PICTURE: PART TWO

In this second look at where we are regarding possible TFF #50 players I've collected a list of all of the titles that I have posted as possibilities based upon ten different articles from over the past few months.  The articles focus on one of four areas: "Most Anticipated Films" for 2023, "Early Oscar Predictions", "Cannes Speculation" and "Venice Speculation".

The ten articles/posts are:

The Playlist's Most Anticipated

The Film Stage's Most Anticipated

Variety's Early Oscar Predictions

Next Best Picture's Early Oscar Predictions

A.V. Club's Early Oscar Predictions

Ioncinema's Cannes Spec

Indiewire's Cannes Spec

Screen Daily's Cannes Spec

World of Reel's Cannes Spec

World of Reel's Venice Spec

And from all that, here are 57 films that could play Telluride:

The Actor/Johnson

AND*/Lanthimos

The Bastard/Arcel

Blitz*/McQueen

The Book of Clarence/Samuel

The Book of Solutions*/Gondry

Butterfly Jam/Balagov

The Captain (Io Capitano)*/Garrone

Caste/DuVernay

Challengers/Guadagnino

Cobweb/Bodin

The Color Purple*/Bazawule

Daaaaaali!/Dupieux

Die My Love/Ramsay

El Conde/Larrian

Emilia Perez/Audiard

The End/Oppenheimer

Fallen Leaves*/Kaurismaki

Fingernails/Nikou

Flint Strong/Morrison

Foe/Davis

Freud's Last Session/Brown

The Holdovers*/Payne

How Do You Live?*/Miyazaki

The Island/Pawlikowski

The Killer*+/Fincher

Killers of the Flower Moon*+/Scorsese

La Chimera/Rohrwacher

Lee/Kuras

A Little Prayer/MacLachlan

Longlegs/Perkins

Love Lies Bleeding/Glass

Maestro*+/Cooper

May/December*/Haynes

Monster*/Kore-eda

Mother's' Instinct/Delhomme

My Crime (The Crime Is Mine)/Ozon

Napoleon/Scott

The New Boy/Thornton

Next Goal Wins*/Waititi

Nightbitch/Heller

Nyad/Chin and Vasarhelyi

The Old Oak/Loach

Orwell/Peck

Poor Things*/Lanthimos

Priscilla*/Coppola

The Royal Hotel*/Green

Rustin*/Wolfe

Saltburn/Fennell

Shirley/Ridley

Strangers*/Haigh

Tokyo Toilet/Wenders

Untitled Bob Marley Biopic/Green

Untitled Sean Baker Film/Baker

The Way of the Wind/Malick

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar/Anderson

The Zone of Interest*/Glazer

*Film that I have included on three or more previous lists

+Film that's more a wish than a prediction

My first Ten Bets are coming in ten weeks (unless I get restless and pop them early).

THR'S BEST 50 MOVIES OF THE 21ST CENTURY

The Hollywood Reporter's gaggle of critics published their list of the 50 best films of the 2000's late last week and, to no one's surprise...there was some disagreement.  I, for one, was mystified that Paul Thomas Anderson's There will Be Blood merited only an honorable mention and The Master was nowhere to be found.  Also, the Coen Brothers' No Country for Old Men...not a peep.  Still, looking at the 50 films plus the honorable mention, TFF has been a launching pad for a bunch of THR's choices.

Among honorable mentions from TFF: Cache, L'Enfant, Under the Skin and Waltz with Bashir.

TFF films in the list of 50:

47-Bright Star

44-Things to Come

35-The Favourite

33-Portrait of a Lady on Fire

31-Manchester by the Sea

21-Parasite

20-Far from Heaven

18-Shoplifters

17-Talk to Her

15-The Power of the Dog

12-Moonlight

9-4 Months, Three Weeks and Two Days

7-Brokeback Mountain

6-Spirited Away

5-Mulholland Drive

4-Zodiac

2-Inside Llewyn Davis

1-Yi Yi

The complete post is linked here.

ONE MORE GUESS AT CANNES

Cineuropa has a post up as of last Thursday with an extensive list of potential titles at Cannes.  Many of  what not seem to be the usual suspects are there which also provides many of the same titles that I am eyeballing as possible Cannes/Telluride crossover films.  Among them:

Monster/Kore-eda

Fallen Leaves/Kaurismaki

Poor Things/Lanthimos

The Holdovers/Payne

May/December/Haynes

The New Boy/Thornton

The Bikeriders/Nichols

The Captain/Garrone

Daaaaaali!/Dupieux

Ricardo et la Peinture/Schroeder

The complete and extensive set of guesses is linked here.

Will have actual Cannes titles for my next post on April 13th.

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Let's Talk Big Picture: Part One / Napoleon?

LET'S TALK BIG PICTURE: PART ONE

Every year I have been writing this thing devoted to the Telluride Film Festival we reach a new starting point for serious speculation about what might play beginning in December. 

I currently have two big lists that I'm working from.  The first is from a file I constantly add to called "Future Telluride".  I work from a number of sources anything that seems to indicate a film project that might tempt programmers from The SHOW.  Guidelines for making the list include directors with a Telluride title on their credits, distributors with same and general intuition.

I clean up that list from time to time by culling film projects that debut without playing Telluride and those that do.  I still have a couple of potential projects in the list from as far back as 2014 (It's a Steve McQueen project that was announced in November of that year).

That's the Big Picture I'll be sharing today.

Big Picture Part Two will come on Monday.

So, here's what's been in the "Future Telluride" file of films that I have been keeping an eye on chronologically listed beginning with films listed first in 2018:

2018

The Zone of Interest/Glazer

Killers of the Flower Moon/Scorsese

2019

Occupied City/McQueen

Flint Strong/Morrison

Next Goal Wins/Waititi

Maestro/Cooper

The Way of the Wind or The Last Planet/Malick

2020

Nightbitch

2021

The Killer/Fincher

Tuesday/Oniunas-Pusic

Poor Things/Lanthimos

Foe/Davis

May/December/Haynes

Shirley/Ridley

2022

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar/Anderson

Nyad/Chin and Vasarhelyi

The New Boy/Thonton

Untitled Ethan Coen Film/Coen

The Royal Hotel/Green

Mother's Instinct/Delhomme

The Book of Solutions/Gondry

The Bastard/Arcel

Blitz/McQueen

Fallen Leaves/Kaurismaki

Strangers/Haigh

Strange Way of Life/Almodovar

The Bikeriders/Nichols

The Holdovers/Payne

The End We Start From/Belo

AND/Lanthimos

Freud's Last Session/Brown

Challengers/Guadagnino

Monster/Kore-eda

2023

The American Buffalo/Burns

The Miracle Club/O'Sullivan

There you have 34 potential TFF #50 selections.

Monday's list has nearly 60 possible titles.  Many of the above are on that list as well.

NAPOLEON?

Still from Napoleon via Apple

Ridley Scott's Napoleon has a release date.  Apple announced this week that the film will be released theatrically on Nov. 22nd.  That puts it in position to play Telluride, Venice, Toronto, New York and/or London in any combination.  Or other fests as well.

I think its chances for Telluride, at least at the moment, are smallish.  over the years there have been a number of Scott films that I thought had some potential to play Telluride including: The Counselor, The Martian, All the Money in the World and The Last Duel.  Of course, none of those happened.

But...you never know...

Here's Variety on the announced release date.

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