Golden Globes And TFF / Producers Guild Names Nominees / Gurus o' Gold / ACE Nominates for Eddies / New Video (Old Man and the Gun) and Trailer (Cold War) / Tapley's New Predix for Oscar

Week Two of the New Year begins today...hope it's working out for you.  OSCAR voting starts TODAY! Editors (see below) Cinematographers, Sound Editors, Writers and Directors Guilds all announce their 2018 nominees today.

GOLDEN GLOBES

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association handed out its annual Golden Globe awards for excellence in film and television last night.  TFF films are Bold.

Best Film/Drama: Bohemian Rhapsody

Best Film Comedy/Musical: Green Book

Best Actress/Drama: Glenn Close/The Wife

Best Actress Comedy/Musical: Olivia Colman/The Favourite

Best Actor/Drama: Rami Malek/Bohemian Rhapsody

Best Actor Musical/Drama: Christian Bale/Vice

Best Supporting Actress: Regina King/If Beale Street Could Talk

Best Supporting Actor: Mahershala Ali/Green Book

Best Direction: Alfonso Cuaron/Roma

Best Screenplay: Green Book

Best Foreign Film: Roma

Best Animated Film: Spiderman; Into the Spider verse

Best Score: First Man

Best Song: Shallow from A Star Is Born

Overall, Telluride films scored a total of four Globes: Roma (2-Foreign Language Film and Direction), The Favourite (1-Best ACtress/Musical-Comedy) and First Man (1-Best Score).  Green Book had three and Bohemian Rhapsody had two and they were big awards for Best Film/Drama and Best Actor Drama.

A Star Is Born was shut out of wins in the four main categories it was nominated for (Picture/Daram, Actress/Drama, Supporting Actor and Direction winning only Best Song.  That was something of a stunner as the Gurus o' Gold had the film as a unanimous favorite to win Best Picture/Drama.

PRODUCERS GUILD NAMES NOMINEES

Friday the Producers Guild of America (PGA) named their nominees for a variety of Film and Television categories.  Their 10 film list for Best of 2018:

Black Panther

BlacKkKlansman

Bohemian Rhapsody
Crazy Rich Asians
The Favourite
Green Book
A Quiet Place
Roma
A Star Is Born
Vice

The documentaries nominated by the PGA were (previously announced on Nov. 20th):

The Dawn Wall
Free Solo
Hal
Into the Okavango
RBG
Three Identical Strangers
Won't You Be My Neighbor

Animated Features nominated:

Dr. Seuss' The Grinch
Incredibles 2
Isle of Dogs
Ralph Breaks the Internet
Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse

Three TFF #45 films made the PGA cut: The Favourite and Roma among theatrical films and Free Solo among documentaries.

Complete nominees coverage is linked here from Indiewire.


GURUS O' GOLD

The latest Movie City News' Gurus o' Gold went up on Saturday and included predictions for the two Best Picture Golden Globes categories.  Those, of course, are now known.  Also included is the latest snapshot of the Oscar Best Picture race.

Take a gander at the most recent Gurus guesses here.



ACE NOMINATES FOR EDDIES

The American Cinema Editors named their nominees fro excellence in film editing for film and television this morning.  TFF #45 films nominated included: Roma and First Man in the Film/Drama category, The Favourite in the Film/Comedy category, Free Solo in the Documentary category and in the Non-theatrical film category: A Final Cut for Orson: 40 Years in the Making, a short documentary about the recovery of Orson Welles The Other Side of the Wind.

The complete list of nominees is linked here from The Wrap.


NEW VIDEO AND TRAILER

Fox Searchlight released nine and a half minutes or so of David Lowery's The Old Man and the Gun on Friday.  Here that is from YouTube:

The film is now available to stream.

Meanwhile, Amazon Studios dropped a new trailer for Pawel Pawlikowski's Cold War this weekend as well.  Here it is:

TAPLEYS' NEW PREDICTIONS FOR OSCAR

Variety's InContention Awards expert, Kristopher Tapley had updated Oscar predictions Saturday ahead of the Golden Globes.

Telluride films included in his predictions include:

Roma (8): Picture, Direction, Original Screenplay, Cinematography, Production Design, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, Foreign Language Film

The Favourite (7): Picture, Actress, Supporting Actress (both Stone and Weisz), Original Screenplay, Costumes, Production Design

First Man (6): Cinematography, Film Editing, Score, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, Visual Effects

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

Cold War (3): Direction, Cinematography, Foreign Language Film

First Reformed (2): Actor, Original Screenplay***TFF #44

Shoplifters (1): Foreign Language Film

Free Solo (1): Documentary

Border (1); Makeup/Hair

A couple of notes...

If Tapley is 100% accurate, TFF #45 feature films earn 30 Oscar nominations.  TFF #44 (First Reformed) gets 2.

Tapley has no picks in the Shorts categories in this latest set of predictions and TFF #45 could snag an additional nomination or two there.

First Man now looks like it will be the most nominated film that doesn't get a Best Picture nomination.  I am dismayed.

I'm also a little surprised that both Can You Ever Forgive Me with a probable two acting nominations and a screenplay nod isn't more in the Best Picture conversation.  Same for First Reformed for the same reasons.

Tapley's inclusion of Pawlikowski for his direction of Cold War is a bold choice but I'd be stunned if that actually happens.

Here's Tapley's complete set of Oscar predictions.

And speaking of Tapley, Kris has kept up an annual tradition by posting his selections for the ten best individual shots from 2018 films at Variety.  That list with commentary went up on the Variety.com site in late December.

Among the films/shots included were TFF #45 and TFF #44 films (photos from Tapley's Variety.com post):

At #10-First Man:

At #8- First Reformed (from TFF #44):

At #7- Cold War:

At #3- Roma

The top shot in Tapley's list came from the horror film Hereditary.

The complete post is here.


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

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

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SAG Nominees / Critics' Choice Nominees / Newest Gurus Assesses Golden Globe Chances / Variety's Directors on Directors / Mr. Tapley's Two Cents

It's a Thursday and here's your latest installment of MTFB.

SAG NOMINEES

SAG/AFTRA announced their nominees for acting superlatives for 2018 yesterday.  TFF #45 films were represented as follows:

Best Actress: Olivia Colman/The Favourite, Melissa McCarthy/Can You Ever Forgive Me?
Supporting Male: Richard E. Grant/Can You Ever Forgive Me?
Supporting Female: Emma Stone/The Favourite, Rachel Weisz/The Favourite.

Despite three individual acting nominations, The Favourite did not crack the Best Cast nominee list.  Also, somewhat surprising was the absence of Ethan Hawke for TFF #44's First Reformed.

Indiewire has the complete rundown of all the nominees linked here.




CRITICS' CHOICE NOMINEES

TFF #45 favorite Yorgos Lanthimos' The Favourite led all films in Monday's announcement of nominees for the Critics Choice Awards from the Broadcast Film Critics Association with 14 nominations.  Ryan Coogler's Black Panther was the second most nominated film with a dozen.  Damien Chazelle's First Man was next with 10 nominations.  Alfonso Cuaron's Roma had eight.

Best Picture nominations went to Black Panther, BlacKkKlansman, The Favourite, First Man, Green Book, If Beale Street Could Talk, Mary Poppins Returns, Roma, A Star Is Born and Vice.

Here's how the nominations broke down for TFF #45 films:

The Favourite (14): Picture, Direction, Actress (Colman), Supporting Actress (Stone and Weisz), Ensemble, Original Screenplay, Cinematography, Production Design, Costumes, Film Editing, Hair/Makeup, Comedy Film and Comedy Actress,

First Man (10): Picture, Direction, Actor (Gosling), Supporting Actress (Foy), Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Production Design, Film Editing, Score and Visual Effects.

Roma (8): Picture, Direction, Actress (Aparicio), Original Screenplay, Cinematography, Production Design, Film Editing, Foreign Language Film

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

Boy Erased (1): Supporting Actress (Kidman)

Cold War (1): Foreign Language Film

Shoplifters (1): Foreign Language Film

Additionally, First Reformed from TFF #44 had two nominations: Best Actor (Hawke) and Original Screenplay.

The complete list of all nominees with some commentary from Anne Thompson is linked here from Indiewire.

The Critics Choice Awards will be handed out on Jan. 13, 2019.


NEWEST GURUS O' GOLD ASSESSES GOLDEN GLOBES CHANCES

Those of us comprising this season's Gurus of Gold were asked this past week to take a stab at predicting winners for the Golden Globes in three categories now that we know the nominees.  We were tasked with evaluating Best Motion Picture Drama, Musical or Comedy and Director.

My ballot was topped by A Star Is Born (Drama), The Favourite (Musical or Comedy) and I named Alfonso Cuaron as the likely Best Directing winner.

As you might expect, not all the individual Gurus agreed with my assessment.

Check out the latest Gurus o' Gold linked here.


VARIETY'S DIRECTORS ON DIRECTORS

Variety posted a very cool article on Wednesday with lauded directors writing a few words about 17 of this year's films thought to be contenders during this awards season.  Among those 17 films are six that screened as apart of TFF #45.  They are:

Guillermo Del Toro on Alfonso Cuaron's Roma
Ron Howard on The Front Runner
Haiffa al-Mansour on Marielle Heller's Can You Ever Forgive Me?
Christopher Nolan on Damien Chazelle's First Man
Alexander Payne on Pawel Pawlikowski's Cold War
Josh Safdie on Yorgos Lanthimos' The Favourite

The complete article is linked here.


MR. TAPLEY'S TWO CENTS

Logo via Variety

And finally on this Thursday...Variety's awards expert Kristopher Tapley has weighed in with his first run at predicting Oscar nominees.  Tapley gives his best insight to the 21 feature categories with TFF #45 films pegged for 32 nominations (which would be a little above the Telluride average for the past decade or so).  He also has a TFF #44 film in play for a couple of nominations.

Here's the breakdown with total predicted nominations in parentheses:

Roma (8): Best Picture, Direction, Foreign Language Film, Original Screenplay, Cinematography, Production Design, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing.

The Favourite (7): Best Picture, Actress (Colman), Supporting Actress (Stone and Weisz), Original Screenplay, Costumes, Production Design.

First Man (7): Best Picture, Cinematography, Film Editing, Score, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, Visual Effects.

Cold War (3): Best Direction, Foreign Language Film, Cinematography.

Can You Ever Forgive Me? (3): Best Actress (McCarthy), Supporting Actor (Grant), Adapted Screenplay

Border (2): Foreign Language Film, Makeup/Hair

Shoplifters (1): Foreign Language Film

Free Solo (1): Documentary Feature

AND...from TFF #44: First Reformed (2): Best Actor (Hawke), Original Screenplay.

Tapley's complete set of predictions are linked here.



More on Monday!

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

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

Good Tuesday friends...


ADD WERNER TO THE SHOW

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

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

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

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



AWARDS WATCH LOOKS AT OSCAR AND FESTS

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

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

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

I'd like to be wrong, though.

In as far as other morsels of interest...

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

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

The entire post is linked here.


REDFORD RESTATES: IT'S MY LAST

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

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

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

Here's the Entertainment Weekly interview.


MY NOMINATION FOR AN EPISODIC SELECTION

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

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

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

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

From YouTube:

FOUR OF EIGHT

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

Here's the list:

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

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

THE POSTER REMAINS A MYSTERY

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

Now we're behind that by three weeks.

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

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

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Cannes Speculation Begins in Earnest / New Trailer for The Rider / Tapley Muses on Telluride's Popularity

Welcome to the Jungle...on this Thursday...


CANNES SPECULATION BEGINS IN EARNEST

The 71st Cannes Film Festival is less than two months away (it runs May 8-19) and Screen Daily has posted what I believe to be the first large Cannes speculation piece that I have come across.

As many Telluride attendees know, the Cannes-Telluride crossover is usually quite significant from year to year.  It's not at all uncommon for 25% or more of the features that screen at Telluride to have played at Cannes previously.  So, a discerning assessment of what may make the Cannes lineup also serves as a window on some possible TFF selections.

Last year, for example, the first Cannes piece here went up on March 9th and included Wonderstruck, Downsizing and Loveless.The Mar. 13th post added Lean on Pete and The Insult.

In my look at the corresponding Screen Daily article from a year ago, I included Wonderstruck, Lean on Pete and Loveless.  That SD article also included The Insult and Foxtrot.

That said, here are the films that Screen Daily suggests for Cannes that could also be Telluride players in my estimation:

From North America: The Death and Life of John F. Donovan, Beautiful Boy, Boy Erased, At Eternity's Gate.

From UK/Ireland: Peterloo, The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, The Eyes of Orson Welles.

From France: The Sisters Brothers, Non Fiction.

From Italy: Dogman.

From Central and Eastern Europe: Sunset and Cold War.

From Spain: Everybody Knows.

From Latin America: Roma.

From Asia: Ash Is Purest White, Long Day's Journey Into Night, Shadow.

The complete Screen Daily article is here.


NEW TRAILER FOR THE RIDER

A new trailer has been released from SPC for Chloe Zhao's The Rider.  Here it is from YouTube:

The Rider opens April 13th.  Here's Alex Billington's/FirstShowing.net article that accompanied the trailer's release.

TAPLEY MUSES ON TELLURIDE'S POPULARITY

If you haven't heard, 2018 passes for TFF #45 are sold out.  Every level...sold out. Depending who your read , that happened in 2-4 days.  Kristopher Tapley, co-editor at Variety and long time Telluride attendee tweeted his astonishment this week:

Here's Tapley's article from two years ago that he linked in the tweet.

That's all for this Thursday.  More to come on Monday.  Enjoy your weekend.

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

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