Oscar Update: Best Actor / IDA Nominations and TFF #47 / Dweck and Kershaw on The Truffle Hunters / Italy Chooses Notturno / THR's Favorites of the Decade

OSCAR UPDATE: BEST ACTOR

Here are my latest Oscar nomination predictions for Best Actor updated since I last posted this category on  Oct. 29th.  A performer's past position is indicated to the right in parentheses.  TFF #47 performers are indicated in Bold.

1) Chadwick Boseman/Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (2)

2) Anthony Hopkins/The Father (1)

3) Delroy Lindo/Da 5 Bloods/ (4)

4) Gary Oldman/Mank (3)

5) Riz Ahmed/Sound of Metal (6)

6) Tom Hanks/News of the World (5)

7) Steven Yeun/Minari (7)

8) Kingsley Ben-Adir/One Night in Miami (-)

9) Ben Affleck/The Way Back (8)

10) George Clooney/The Midnight Sky (-)

Others: Colin Firth/Supernova, Daniel Kaluuya or LaKeith Stanfield/Judas and the Black Messiah

Hot: Bosman, Ahmed, Ben-Adir, Clooney

Not: Firth

IDA NOMINATIONS AND TFF #47

The International Documentary Association announced nominations for this year's crop of docs and a couple of TFF #47 films were among the most nominated.  Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw's The Truffle Hunters and Sam Pollard's MLK/FBI were two of the most honored films as each film nabbed three nominations apiece.  

The Truffle Hunters (which admittedly has now become a bit of an obsession for me this awards season) was nominated for Best Feature Doc, Director(s) and Cinematography.  

Meanwhile, MLK/FBI was nominated for Best Doc Feature, Director an ABC Video Source Award and Director Sam Pollard was also cited for a career achievement.

Also from TFF #47, short docs The Lost Astronaut from director Ben Proudfoot was nominated as was Unforgivable from director Marlen Vinayo.

The complete list of IDA nominees is linked here from Next Best Picture.

DWECK AND KERSHAW ON THE TRUFFLE HUNTERS

A couple of big interviews this week with the directors of The Truffle Hunters.  Eric Kohn of Indiewire leads a 40ish minute video interview with Gregory Kershaw and Michael Dweck about the film as a part of the IDA Documentary Screening Series.  That is here from YouTube:

Additionally, Dweck and Kershaw also were interviewed by Pat Saperstein for Variety and that was posted yesterday.  That interview/profile is linked here.

ITALY CHOOSES NOTTURNO

Italy has anmed Gianfranco Rosi's documentary, Notturno as its official selection for competition for the Academy Awards Best International Feature category.  The film was a selection of TFF #47.  Notturno is described as:

"a new documentary is an immersive portrait of those trying to survive in the war-torn Middle East."

In addition to TFF #47, the film was also selected by Toronto, New York, London, IDFA and the AFI Fest among others.

Notturno was chosen over the Edoardo Ponti project The Life Ahead which features the first performance from legend Sophia Loren since Rob Marshall's Nine in 2009.

Variety has the story here.

THR'S FAVORITES OF THE DECADE

The Hollywood Reporter polled 3,500 "industry professionals" and asked them for their "favorite movies" of the decade.  The results of that poll were published Wednesday and TFF films did well.  Among the top 20 fave films of the decade that made an appearance at TFF:

#20 The King's Speech

#11 Birdman

#9 Argo

#6 La La Land

#2 12 Years a Slave

Lots of big budget actioners and superhero films made the list and Jordan Peele's Get Out was named the overall favorite of the decade.

The complete list of 20 films from THR can be found linked here.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVERYONE!

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Telluride News Coming This Week? / Venice Festival Dipsy-Do / 21st Century Films and Telluride

TELLURIDE NEWS COMING THIS WEEK?

Deadline's Andreas Wiseman wrote an article posted Tuesday that discusses the potential of five different fall film fests occurring in a Covid-19 world.  Telluride is one of the five fests that gets assessed.  The article drops this tantalizing bit of info:

"Telluride (September 4 – 7/8): A spokesperson for the picturesque and famously press-shy Telluride Film Festival has told us that they are “hoping to have some information this week” regarding the event’s status and planning in light of the Coronavirus. The Oscar-bellwether was expected to expand to five days this year after the Town Council approved an additional day earlier this month. Colorado has recorded close to 10,000 positive cases of COVID-19 and 422 deaths. The state garnered international headlines this week when healthcare workers blocked anti-lockdown protests."

The most intriguing part of that assessment is the "spokesperson's..."hoping to have some information this week".

Additionally, Deadline mentions the extra fifth day reportedly approved by the Telluride Town Council last week.

What's confusing?  The Deadline author lists the dates for the fest as Sept.4-7/8 meaning that their assumption is that Telluride is tacking the fifth day onto the end of the fest rather than, as I had assumed, the Thursday before the fest as TFF did in 2013 for its 40th iteration.

Further confusing the date situation is that the original reporting from the Telluride Watch/Daily Planet cites the added date as Sept. 1 which would be the Tuesday before the traditional and originally schedule Friday start.  From The Daily Planet last week:

Sooo....

The complete Deadline article is linked here.

VENICE FESTIVAL DIPSY-DO

Just a day after an interview with Venice Biennale President Roberto Cicutto (the film fest's parent organization) said that no collaboration with Cannes was planned, came another interview with festival's artistic director, Alberto Barbera that suggests just the opposite.  

The Hollywood Reporter's Scott Roxborough in a post that went up on Tuesday afternoon that Barbera had some strong thoughts about a Cannes partnership with Venice.  From the post:

"The Venice International Film Festival has "a concrete will" to collaborate with Cannes this year, in what Venice artistic director Alberto Barbera says would be a "sign of solidarity towards the cinema world" during the coronavirus crisis."

"ANSA quoted Barbera as saying he had not excluded the possibility of "a real collaboration with the Cannes Film Festival, which would be a sign of solidarity towards the cinema world, which is now more than ever in difficulty."  Barbera said he was in talks with Frémaux and that there was a "concrete will" on both sides to find a solution."


The story suggests that Venice, at least at this point, continues to stay the course on its planned dates of Sept. 2-12.

The full THR story is here.



21ST CENTURY FILMS AND TELLURIDE

I missed this back a few weeks ago when Empire Online published their list of the 100 Greatest Films of the 21st Century (so far).  Empire says in the introductory paragraphs that the list (originally published on Jan. 8th) that they combined the thoughts of their team with thousands of responses from their readers in compiling the list.

So, as you might expect...I had to see how many and at what spots within the 100 that Telluride films popped up.  Here's what I discovered...19 TFF films made the list.  Here they are presented with their position and the year that they screened at TFF:

95- A Prophet (09)
90- Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (00)
83- Frances Ha (12)
72- Birdman (14)
63- Under the Skin (13)
60- Carol (15)
54- Brokeback Mountain (05)
46- Inside Llewyn Davis (13)
44- Roma (18)
36- Lady Bird (17)
35- Arrival (16)
34- Zodiac (08)
31- Amelie (01)
24- La La Land (16)
23- City of God (02)
15- Spirited Away (02)
11- There Will Be Blood (scenes screened as part of Daniel Day Lewis tribute 07)
10- Lost in Translation (03)
5- Moonlight (16)

Notes: 
*The #1 film on the list: George Miller's Mad Max: Fury Road.

*You could make a case for 2016 being TFF's strongest year with three films making this list: #5 Moonlight, #24 La La Land and #35 Arrival.

* TFF 2002 landed two films on the list: #15 Spirited Away and #23 City of God.  TFF 2013 also has two films making the grade: #46 Inside Llewyn Davis and #63 Under the Skin.

*Ang Lee is the only director to land two TFF films on the list: #54 Brokeback Mountain and #90 Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.

*The Noah Baumbach/Greta Gerwig team scores with #83 Frances Ha (Baumbach directed and co-wrote with Gerwig who stars in it) and #36 Lady Bird (written and directed by Gerwig.  Baumbach gets a "Special Thanks" mention in the credits).


Check out the complete list of 100 films from Empire Online linked here.



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Oscar History and TFF Part Eight / More from Renee Zellweger / Portrait Is Not France's Choice / Motherless Opens Rome

OSCAR HISTORY AND TFF PART EIGHT

Here's the concluding installment of my review of the history of Oscar nominations for films that played as a part of the Telluride Film Festival from its 1974 inception to last year's Oscar ceremony.  Today's installment covers the years from 2015 to the present.  Numbers in parentheses following each year are total number of nominations from TFF films for that year followed by the number of Oscars won by TFF films.


2015 (23/4)

Spotlight- Picture-WON, Original Screenplay-WON, Director- Tom McCarthy, Supporting Actress- Rachel McAdams, Supporting Actor-Mark Ruffalo, Film Editing

Son of Saul-Foreign Language-WON

Room- Actress-Brie Larson-WON, Picture, Director-Lenny Abrahamson, Adapted Screenplay

Carol- Actress-Cate Blanchett, Supporting Actress-Rooney Mara, Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Score, Costume

Steve Jobs- Actor-Michael Fassbender, Supporting Actress-Kate Winslet

45 Years- Actress-Charlotte Rampling

Anomalisa- Animated

Winter on Fire- Documentary

The Look of Silence- Documentary


2016 (35/12)

Moonlight-Picture-WON, Supporting Actor-Mahershala Ali-WON, Adapted Screenplay-WON, Supporting Actress-Naomie Harris, Director-Barry Jenkins, Score, Cinematography, Film Editing

La La Land- Actress-Emma Stone-WON, Director-Damien Chazelle-WON, Score-WON, Original Song-WON, Production Design-WON, Cinematography-WON, Picture, Actor-Ryan Gosling, Original Song, Original Screenplay, Film Editing, Costume, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing

Manchester by the Sea- Actor-Casey Affleck-WON, Original Screenplay-WON, Picture, Director-Kenneth Lonergan, Supporting Actor-Lucas Hedges, Supporting Actress-Michelle Williams

Arrival- Sound Editing-WON, Picture, Director-Denis Villenueve, Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Film Editing, Production Design, Sound Mixing

Toni Erdmann-Foreign Language

Fire at Sea-Documentary

Sully-Sound Editing


2017 (29/6)

The Shape of Water- Picture-WON, Director-Guillermo Del Toro-WON, Score-WON, Production Design-WON, Actress-Sally Hawkins, Supporting Actor-Richard Jenkins, Supporting Actress-Octavia Spencer, Original Screenplay, Cinematography, Film Editing, Costume, Sound Mixing, Sound Editing

Darkest Hour- Actor-Gary Oldman-WON, Makeup-WON, Picture, Cinematography, Production Design, Costume

Lady Bird- Picture, Director-Greta Gerwig, Actress-Saoirse Ronan, Supporting Actress-Laurie Metcalf, Original Screenplay

A Fantastic Woman-Foreign Language

The Insult-Foreign Language

Loveless-Foreign Language

Loving Vincent-Animated

Faces Places-Documentary


2018 (33/6)

Roma- Director-Alfonso Cuaron-WON, Foreign Language-WON, Cinematography-WON, Picture, Actress-Yalitza Aparicio, Supporting Actress-Marina de Tavira, Original Screenplay, Production Design, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing

The Favourite- Actress-Olivia Colman-WON, Picture, Director-Yorgos Lanthimos, Supporting Actress-Emma Stone, Supporting Actress-Rachel Weisz, Original Screenplay, Cinematography, Film Editing, Production Design, Costume

First Man-Visual Effects-WON, Production Design, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing

Free Solo- Documentary-WON

Can You Ever Forgive Me?- Actress-Melissa McCarthy, Supporting Actor-Richard E. Grant, Adapted Screenplay

Cold War- Director- Pawel Pawlikowski, Foreign Language, Cinematography

Shoplifters- Foreign Language

Border- Makeup



What will  we add for 2019?



MORE FROM RENEE ZELLWEGER

Rupert Goold's Judy opened this past weekend to middling reviews except in the case of Renee Zellweger's performance in the role of the icon Judy Garland.  Since its bow in Telluride, Zellweger has become the established front runner (along with Marriage Story's Scarlett Johannson) to earn a Best Actress Oscar nomination and win the gold man in early February.

Zellweger continued to be highlighted through the end of the past week with profiles and interviews in a number of outlets.  I linked several of those last Wednesday/Thursday and am adding a couple of more of them today:

From Variety

Indiewire



PORTRAIT IS NOT FRANCE'S CHOICE

France announced its choice of film for consideration for the Best International Feature (formerly the Foreign Language Film category) for this year's Oscars and it was not Celine Sciamma's TFF featured Portrait of a Lady on Fire.  In what was thought to be a very tough decision, the French instead chose Ladj Ly's Les Miserable.  Alice Wincour's Proxima was also said to have received serious consideration.

Portrait was the recipient of the Best Screenplay award at Cannes whereas Les Miserables was a Jury Prize winner for that fest.

Complete details of the decision are covered in this story by Zack Sharf linked from Indiewire.


MOTHERLESS OPENS ROME

We also found out over the weekend that Edward Norton's Motherless Brooklyn has been chosen to open the Rome Film Festival.  That fest takes off on Oct. 17th.

The complete Rome Film Fest lineup is set to be revealed on Friday.

I have included this link to the announcement for Motherless Brooklyn from The Hollywood Reporter.



That's today's MTFB.  More on Thursday.

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

Welcome to Thursday on MTFB...



WONDERSTRUCK WILL STRIKE IN OCTOBER

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

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

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

Linked below is coverage of the release announcement from:

Variety

Indiewire

Awards Watch

The Playlist

The Wrap



FIRST LOOK AT HANEKE'S HAPPY END

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

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



REDOUBTABLE TEASER GETS META

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

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

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

THE FUTURE FOR PAST TELLURIDERS

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stay tuned.


AMAZON REWARDS MANCHESTER

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

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

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



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

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More Thoughts on the Cannes Lineup / Some Tidbits about Moonlight and La La Land / Big News from Film Land This Week

MORE THOUGHTS ON THE CANNES LINEUP

The Playlist published its 21 film Cannes wish list this week and. as you might expect, I'm parsing their expertise for hints, clues and desires as regards the films that could double up between Cannes and Telluride.

From their list:

Michael Haneke's Happy End
Todd Haynes' Wonderstruck
Lynne Ramsay's You Were Never Really Here
Andrew Haigh's Lean on Pete

From the concluding section of their article...what they label as "Honorable Mentions":

Andrey Zvyagnistev's Loveless
Lazlo Nemes' Sunset
Alexander Payne's Downsizing
Ari Folman's Where Is Anne Frank
Michel Hazanavicicus' Le Redoubtable
Matteo Garrone's Pinocchio
Wim Wenders" Submergence
George Clooney's Suburbicon
Stephen Frears' Victoria and Abdul
Xavier Beauvois' Le Gardiennes
Ziad Doueiri's L'Insulte


The complete post from The Playlist is here.


SOME TIDBITS ABOUT MOONLIGHT AND LA LA LAND

During each Oscar season in the rush to get material posted in the midst of the non-stop deluge of stories, posts, articles and releases, some things get shuffled to the bottom of the pile.  Not because they're inherently less informative or useful but mostly because of the limits of time and space.

With the horse race that Oscar #89 turned out to be between Berry Jenkins' Moonlight and Damian Chazelle's La La Land. the following stories stayed in my inbox but never made it into the blog.  So I'm correcting that here and now:  Here are a few posts regarding Moonlight:

Barry Jenkins other film festival from The Playlist

How I Write-Barry Jenkins' video from The New York Times

Jenkins' student short film Josephine via The Playlist.

Musical homages/references video in La La Land from Indiewire.


BIG NEWS FROM FILM LAND THIS WEEK

A couple of announcements that probably don't mean anything in terms of TFF #44 but were interesting to film lovers, I suspect.  Terry Gilliam has confirmed that filming has begun on his long gestating passion project The Man Who Killed Don Quixote.  He's been after this for years...and has begun filming in the past.  Here's hoping that he can get all the way to the end...and that it is more cohesive than many of his past efforts have been.

And...Stephen Spielberg has shelved  The Kidnapping of Edgardo Motara which was supposed to be his next project in favor of a quickly developing project titled The Post based on The Pentagon Papers case and how it was handles by The Washington Post in the early '70's.  Tom Hanks is set to play Post editor Ben Bradlee and Meryl Streep is on board to play Post owner/publisher Katherine Graham.  The word is that will begin filming in May and be released THIS YEAR...wow.

Terry Gilliam/Don Quixote story from The Playlist.

Speilberg Switches Projects from Awards Watch


That'll do for this Monday.  More on Thursday...


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Trailers for TFF #43 Films: Maudie and Norman / For Fun / And Speaking of La La Land

Hello on a Monday...



TRAILERS FOR TFF #43 FILMS

Within the last ten days or so, we got trailers for two films that made a splash at last year's Telluride Film Festival.  Some folks were talking animatedly about Sally Hawkins performance in Aisling Walsh's film.  The film is slated for release on June 16th.

MAUDIE

Here's the trailer from YouTube:

I have also linked coverage of the trailer from:

Indiewire

The Film Stage


NORMAN

Also making a recent appearance was a trailer for Joseph Cedar's Norman...which we saw at Telluride with the rather more lengthy title: Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer. Richard Gere stars.  Norman opens on April 14th.   Here's that trailer:

And coverage from:

FirstShowing.net


FOR FUN

And speaking of trailers, I couldn't resist linking readers to a couple of "trailers" that appeared within the last week just for fun.  The first comes from Late Night with Seth Meyers and is called "Oscar Bait".  As you might guess from the title, it lampoons a certain type of film...

Seth Meyers Oscar Bait

And, this mash up appeared last week as well.  It envisions Damian Chazelle's La La Land as if directed by David Lynch.  It's fantastic:

Davis Lynch's La La Land

AND SPEAKING OF LA LA LAND...

Winner of six Oscars including Best Direction, this video has been making the rounds and shows Chazelle doing the prep for that terrific opening number "Another Day of Sun":

La La Land Opening Number Rehearsals

Here are stories about that process from:

The Playlist

Flickreel

May I Have the Envelope Please...No, No, the Correct Envelope / Oscars Love Telluride's 2016 Lineup

Welcome to Monday


OSCARS LOVE TELLURIDE'S 2016 LINEUP


It was an insane night full of surprises large and small with the largest being the announcing of one Best Picture winner only to have that reversed in favor of a surprise upset winner.  Moonlight won Best Picture but only found out after La La Land had been announced and a number of thank you speeches had come from La La Land producers.

Here is that moment from ABC News and YouTube:

Here are your winners from the 89th Academy Awards:

Picture: Moonlight

Director: Damien Chazelle/La La Land
Actress: Emma Stone/La La Land

Actor: Casey Affleck/Manchester by the Sea
Supporting Actress: Viola Davis/Fences
Supporting Actor: Mahershala Ali/Moonlight
Original Screenplay: Manchester by the Sea
Adapted Screenplay: Moonlight
Film Editing: Hacksaw Ridge
Cinematography: La La Land

Original Score: La La Land
Original Song: City of Stars/La La Land
Animated Feature: Zootopia
Documentary: OJ: Made in America
Foreign Language Film: The Salesman
Production Design: La La Land
Costumes: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Makeup/Hair: Suicide Squad
Sound Mixing: Hacksaw Ridge

Sound Editing: Arrival
Visual Effects: The Jungle Book

Animated Short: Piper Pearl
Live Action Short: Sing
Documentary Short: The White Helmets



Moonlight wins three Oscars: Best Picture, Supporting Actor and Adapted Screenplay
La La Land wins six Oscars: Best Actress, Director, Score, Song, Cinematography and Production Design
Manchester by the Sea wins two Oscars: Best Actor and Original Screenplay

Other Telluride 2016 wins Arrival for Best Sound Editing and The White Helmets for Best Short Documentary.

Telluride's 43rd iteration hosted films with 13 Oscar wins out of 42 nominations.

For the seventh straight year (and eighth of the last nine years)  the Oscar Best Picture winner has "premiered" for the first time on the North American continent at the Telluride film festival.

The FAC had a lackluster night going 15 of 24.  In the other categories, the "upset" winner listed in Thursday's post won and in six categories the winner was off the FAC altogether on Thursday.

I'm really re-thinking how or even if The FAC is viable in its current incarnation.

Past FAC results:

2016: 15/24
2015: 20/24
2014: 22/24
2013: 18/24 (25 tie in Sound Editing)
2012: 18/24
2011: 17/24
2010: 14/24

So, there's that.

Finally another huge shout out to Barry Jenkins and the entire Moonlight crew.  In all the years I've been writing about Telluride and the Oscars there has never been a truer expression of TFF in terms of the Oscar Best Picture winner than this at a number of levels and Barry's a good guy to boot.  You can't ask for a better ending than that despite the weird way that it went down.

Congratulations Barry and Mahershala and Tarell.

Now, it's time to return to the first purpose of this space which is to begin to puzzle out the films that will make their way to the San Juans over Labor Day weekend in six months time.

More on Thursday.


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The (Probably) Final FAC Predictions for Oscar #89 / Final Oscar Calls from Experts (Updated) / Late Breaking: Toronto Down to Downsize

Good Thursday to you...


THE (PROBABLY) FINAL FAC FOR OSCAR #89

We are just days away from the Oscars -on Sunday night on ABC- and here are the (probably) final predictions from The Film Awards Clearinghouse.  Barring some weird movement or unforeseen circumstance, this will be the last post from MTFB/FAC until Monday's regularly scheduled post.  In that, I'll do some semblance of analysis based on the results of Sunday's ceremony.

Today's predictions include updated data for the eight categories that have seemed to have been the most contentious over the past few weeks since nominations were announced:  Actor, Original Screenplay,Sound Editing, Costumes, Makeup/Hair and the three Short Form categories: Live Action, Animated and Documentary.  I also did a quick update on Best Picture.

On Oscar night itself, I'll be semi-live-tweeting.  Also probably a good deal of re-tweeting.  Check out my Twitter account @Gort2.


As always, The FAC uses the published predictions of the following experts to derive its picks:

Erik Anderson/Awards Watch
Clayton Davis/Awards Circuit
Greg Ellwood/The Playlist-Awards Campaign
Scott Feinberg/The Hollywood Reporter
Joey Magidson/Hollywood News
Nathaniel Rogers/Film Experience
Sasha Stone/Awards Daily
Kristopher Tapley/Variety-InContention
Anne Thompson/Indiewire

TFF #43 films are in Bold.  Categories that were deemed "Toss Ups" are indicated with ***

***LIVE ACTION SHORT
Winner: Enemies Interiors
Upset: Timecode
Comment: Since last week, a big surge for  Ennemis Interieurs puts it on top, marginally over Timecode.

***DOCUMENTARY SHORT

Winner; Joe's Violin
Upset: The White Helmets
Comment:  Last week's two leaders switch places but the metric still makes this a squeaky tight race.

***ANIMATED SHORT
Winner: Piper
Upset: Pearl
Comment:  Piper's lead has increased substantially over the past week.  Still not a lock by any means.


SOUND MIXING:
Winner: La La Land
Upset: Hacksaw Ridge

***SOUND EDITING
Winner: Hacksaw Ridge
Upset: La La Land

VISUAL EFFECTS
Winner; The Jungle Book
Upset: Rogue One

***MAKEUP/HAIR
Winner: Star Trek Beyond
Upset: A Man Called Ove

***COSTUMES
Winner: Jackie
Upset: La La Land
Comment:  Jackie has opened up a slight, but real,  lead in this category.  La La Land could still sneak a win here, however.

PRODUCTION DESIGN

Winner: La La Land
Upset: Arrival or Fantastic Beasts

ORIGINAL SONG
Winner: City of Stars/La La Land
Upset: Could come from Moana or Trolls

ORIGINAL SCORE
Winner: La La Land
Upset: Moonlight or Lion

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
Winner: The Salesman
Upset: Toni Erdmann

ANIMATED FEATURE
Winner: Zootopia
Upset: Kubo and the Two Strings

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
Winner: OJ: Made in America
Upset: 13th or I Am Not Your Negro

CINEMATOGRAPHY

Winner: La La Land
Upset: Lion

FILM EDITING
Winner: La La Land
Upset: Arrival

***ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Winner: Manchester by the Sea
Upset: La La Land
Comment: Manchester has moved into a more secure position in the last week.

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
Winner: Moonlight
Upset: Arrival

SUPPORTING ACTOR

Winner: Mahershala Ali/Moonlight
Upset: Dev Patel/Lion

SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Winner: Viola Davis/Fences
Upset: Michelle Williams/Manchester by the Sea

***ACTOR
Winner: Denzel Washington/Fences
Upset: Casey Affleck/Manchester by the Sea
Comment: Still a whisker thin margin for Washington.

ACTRESS
Winner: Emma Stone/La La Land
Upset: Isabelle Huppert/Elle

DIRECTOR

Winner: Damien Chazelle / La La Land
Upset: Barry Jenkins/Moonlight

BEST PICTURE

Winner: La La Land
Upset: Moonlight
Comment: Other possible upset players: Hidden Figures, Manchester by the Sea and Lion

Expected win totals:

La La Land 9
Moonlight 2
Fences 2
 No other film with more than a single win.

TFF #43 films with 13 wins.

A last thought.  I'm feeling a bit of  an intuition that La La Land might actually upset in both Original Screenplay and Costumes.


 FINAL OSCAR CALLS FROM THE EXPERTS (UPDATED)

Here the FINAL OSCAR PREDICTIONS from various experts.  I WILL BE UPDATING this section through Sunday:

Kristopher Tapley/Variety

Scott Feinberg/The Hollywood Reporter

Clayton Davis (and Friends)/Awards Circuit

Awards Daily

Film School Rejects

Awards Watch Podcast

Gold Derby

Metacritic

Movie City News Gurus of Gold

Anne Thompson/Indiewire

Indiewire Critics Survey

Nathaniel Rogers/The Film Experience

Jason Osiason/Fantastic Film Fans




LATE BREAKING: TORONTO TO DOWNSIZE

There are multiple reports that the Torotno International Film Festival is going to shrink its feature film lineup by about 20% or from approximately 300 films down to 240ish.

Here's that story from:

The Hollywood Reporter

Indiewire

The Playlist



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A Look at "Interesting Categories" / Writers Guild Honors Telluride Film Time Two / Berlin Analysis / 300,000

Glad you're back from the weekend...hope it was painless...and sorry that today's post is a little later than usual...


A LOOK AT "INTERESTING CATEGORIES"

I the last post here, I divided the 24 Oscar categories into roughly thirds...roughly, and I labeled them Locks, Interesting and Toss Ups.  I'm updating those in the "Interesting" category today to see of there has been any movement into either of the categories or if they've remained "interesting".  On Thursday, I'll post The (Probably) Final FAC that will include updates of entire group of 24 categories with extra emphasis on puzzling out any movement in the Toss Up categories.

The nine "Interesting" categories are: Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Foreign Language Film, Documentary Feature, Animated Feature, Original Song, Film Editing, Cinematography and Production Design.  Here's the latest updated skinny on them.

Supporting Actor-Despite Dev Patel's win at BAFTA last week, the experts still have Mahershala Ali comfortably in the lead for his role in Moonlight.

Adapted Screenplay- Barry Jenkins and  Tarell Alvin McCraney's Moonlight script looks like it hasn't suffered any loss of momentum. Though the script for Lion has moved from the bottom spot in the experts ranking to a second place spot just in front of Arrival.

Foreign Language Film- The turn in this category because of the travel ban coming from the Trump administration continues to influence how the experts say Oscar voters are going to go in this category.  The Salesman maintains a recent solid lead with Toni Erdmann trailing off even a bit more over the past week and a bit of a surge for A Man Called Ove.

Documentary Feature- O.J.: Made in America maintains a solid lead with a bit of a surge for I am Not Your Negro.

Animated Feature- Kubo's BAFTA win has only eaten marginally into Zootopia's perceived dominance.

Original Song-  Apparently everyone clucks about vote splitting between the two nominated songs from La La Land and no one thinks that it's actually going to happen.  Exactly one of the nine experts I use says How Far I'll Go/Moana wins (Anne Thompson/Indiewire) and the rest say City of Stars/La La Land.

Film Editing- Hacksaw Ridge has moved into a more competitive position after its BAFTA win but every one of the Oscarologists listed above thinks La La Land wins this Sunday night.

Cinematography- Lion's ASC win doesn't seem to have this category very much.  Still very solid for La La Land.

Production Design- Fantastic Beasts' win at BAFTA has boosted it to the #2 spot in The FAC but a large majority of FAC experts still say La La Land.

So...

Despite my listing these nine categories as interesting and allowing for a week of contemplation, The FAC seems relatively confident that La La Land will win: Film Editing, Cinematography, Original Song and Production Design among these nine categories which, when added to what we think are already "Locked" wins: Picture, Director, Actress, Score and Sound Mixing put it at nine Oscars.

That means that one win in the Toss Up categories gets it to double digit wins, two ties the all time record and three sets a new record of 12 wins.  La La Land is in four Toss Up races: Best Actor, Original Screenplay, Costumes and Sound Editing.  Its chances of winning any of those in order of likelihood are: Original Screenplay, Costumes. Sound Editing and Actor is least likely.

Moonlight looks good for two Oscars for Ali as Supporting Actor and Jenkins and McCraney.

Again, fully a fully updated FAC is coming your way Thursday with the (probably) final predictions for the 89th Oscars.


WRITERS GUILD HONORS TELLURIDE FILMS TIMES TWO

It appears that TFF #43 was a good fest to be a writer that was a part of the lineup as the WGA named Moonlight by Barry Jenkins and Tarell Alvin McCraney the Best Original Script of the Years (it's in the Adapted category for Sunday night's Oscars) and Eric Heisserer's Arrival the Best Adapted Screenplay of the year in ceremonies held last night in both New York and Los Angeles.

Because of Moonlight's opposite categorization for Oscar, the WGA results likely don't tell us very much about what's going to happen Sunday night in the close, close, close Original category.  Had Manchester by the Sea or La La Land prevailed last night, we might have a had a clue but what we did find out is that Moonlight, as we have suspected, seems like a very good bet to win the Adapted category on Sunday night.

WGA  stories and analysis are here:

from Awards Daily.

from Variety.

from The Hollywood Reporter.


BERLIN ANALYSIS

Welp...The Berlinale is over with awards passed and critical notice taken.  Which should lead serious Telluride watchers to ponder what films from Berlin will appear on the TFF #44 program when it is announced on Aug. 31?

That there will be one, two or even three Berlin titles at TFF #43 seems very likely as that has been a trend for awhile.  Take note...

Berlin's presence in Telluride's recent programs:

2016: Fire at Sea (Golden Bear winner), Things to Come
2015: Taxi (Golden Bear winner), 45 Years, Ixcanul
2014: 50 Year Argument, '71, The Decent One, Diplomacy
2013: Gloria, Fifi Howls from Happiness, Le Maison de la Radio, Slow Food Story, On Death Row
2012: Barbara, A Royal Affair
2011: Forgiveness of Blood, Mondo Lux, Pina, A Separation (Golden Bear winner), Target, The Turin Horse
2010: Daniel Schmid, If I Want to Whistle I Whistle, The Illusionist
2009: Gigante, London River
2008: Happy-Go-Lucky, I've Lover You So Long
2007: The Counterfeiters

So what made waves at Berlin that we might think make the T-ride lineup?  Start with the Golden Bear winner Ildiko Enyedi's On Body and Soul.  The last two Golden Bear winners have played Telluride (Fire at Sea and Taxi) but On Body and Soul has no current U.S. distribution and we may be in a more common year where the Golden Bear does not play Telluride.

So what else?  Angneiska Holland's Spoor won the Silver Bear and Holland has been a Telluride participant before: Burning Bush, In Darkness.  So that seems like a real possibility.

Sebastian Lelio's A Fantastic Woman won the Screenplay prize and Lelio has a recent T-ride profile with Gloria in 2013.

Three other competition films to keep an eye out for are Volker Schlondorff's Return to Montauk,
Sally Potter's The Party and Aki Kaurismaki's The Other Side of Hope which win the prize for Best Direction.

I'll be keeping an eye on these five films (and perhaps one or two others) in terms of U.S. distribution and announced release dates here in the states.


300,000

Michael's Telluride Film Blog/The Film Awards Clearinghouse blew through its 300,000th view over the weekend.  Thanks to everyone for reading.  It's difficult for me to believe the overall number and that MTFB/FAC went from the 250,000 mark to 300,000 in less than six months (we hit 250,000 on Sept. 1. 2015).

Unbelievable.



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The FAC's Oscar Predix for Six Categories / BAFTA Names Its Winners

Monday...Monday...take that as you will...



THE FAC'S OSCAR PREDIX FOR SIX CATEGORIES

We're coming down to the home stretch of Oscar Season.  The BAFTA's were handed out in London last night (see below) and that's the last piece of evidence pointing us in any direction for what might happen on Oscar night itself.

Oscar final voting begins today and runs to Feb. 21.  Of course, the envelopes are opened on Feb. 26. with today's installment of The FAC I'll have completed a set of predictions for all 24 categories in the last week.  I'll update categories as we move through the next two weeks and have a final posting update in the Thursday, Feb. 23 posting.  That said...

Here are the Oscar winner predictions for the last six categories that The FAC hasn't addressed in this last week: Cinematography, Costumes, Makeup/Hair and the Shorts: Animated, Documentary and Live Action.

As always The FAC uses the published predictions of the following experts to derive its picks:

Erik Anderson/Awards Watch
Clayton Davis/Awards Circuit
Greg Ellwood/The Playlist-Awards Campaign
Scott Feinberg/The Hollywood Reporter
Joey Magidson/Hollywood News
Nathaniel Rogers/Film Experience
Sasha Stone/Awards Daily
Kristopher Tapley/Variety-InContention
Anne Thompson/Indiewire

TFF #43 films are in Bold.

CINEMATOGRAPHY

1) La La Land
2) Lion
3) Moonlight
4) Arrival
5) Silence

Comment: Despite Lion's ASC win last week, La La Land seems fairly secure for the win here.


COSTUMES

1) La La Land
2) Jackie
3) Florence Foster Jenkins
4) Fantastic Beasts
5) Allied

Comment: La La leads here but it's a tight race with Jackie.  This is one of about three or four categories (the others are probably Original Screenplay, Sound Editing and Cinematography) that will determine whether La La Land gets double-digit wins, ties for most Oscars won of all time (11) or, conceivably, breaks the record.



MAKEUP/HAIR

1) Star Trek Beyond
2) A Man Called Ove
3) Suicide Squad

Comment: A moderately close contest between Star Trek and Ove with the Treksters having a sight edge.


ANIMATED SHORT

1) Piper
2) Pearl
3) Borrowed Time
4) Blind Vaysha
5) Pear Cider and Cigarettes

Comment: This is perceived as a tight two horse race between Piper and Pearl.  Off The FAC metric...I wouldn't be stunned by a win from either or even Borrowed Time.

DOCUMENTARY SHORT

1) The White Helmets
2) Joe's Violin
3) 4.1 Miles
4) Extremis
5) Watani: My Homeland

Comment: A dead heat between The White Helmets and Joe's Violin and that's no exaggeration.  The two films were tied in The FAC metric with the tie broken in The White Helmets favor as it had one more pick at the top from The FAC professionals.  This Oscar could easily swing to either film.


LIVE ACTION SHORT

1) Silent Nights
2) Sing
3) Timecode
4) Ennemis Interieurs
5) Le Femme et le TVG

Comment: The predictions in this category are all over the place.  Any of the five could win.

Should The FAC be 100% accurate, La La Land would win another two trophies and added to the previous FAC predictions over this past week would give it a total of 10 trophies on Oscar night: Picture, Director, Actress, Film Editing, Cinematography, Original Score, Original Song (City of Stars), Costumes, Production Design and Sound Mixing.

La La would miss, according to the FAC, in Original Screenplay, Sound Editing, Best Actor and its other Original Song nomination.  The loss to itself for Best Song means that 13 Oscars are the ceiling for La La and the loss of Ryan Gosling in the Best Actor category seems all but certain (to either Denzel Washington or Casey Affleck).  That means that La La Land has to run the table of every one of its remaining nominations to set the all time record which seems a tall order.

I've been saying for a long while that I think La La Land ends the night with nine Oscars.  A great night, but not record setting.  Still, it would be the most since 2003's Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.

Currently The FAC has La La Land winning 10 Oscars.

Moonlight wins two.
Fences wins two.

Single Oscar winning films look to be:

Manchester by the Sea
Zootopia
O.J.: Made in America
The Salesman
Hacksaw Ridge
The Jungle Book
Star Trek Beyond

And the Shorts: Piper, The White Helmets and Silent Nights.

Total Oscars going to TFF #43 films: 14.


BAFTA NAMES ITS WINNERS

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (sometimes referenced as the British Oscars) awarded their accolades for the 2016 film year last night (which was late afternoon here in the states).

Damien Chazelle's La La Land did well but it wasn't the blowout that the Golden Globes night was for the film.  La La Land picked up five of the 11 BAFTA's it was nominated for.  Of course, the five wins did include the biggest prize of the night: Best Picture.  La La Land also won for Chazelle's direction and Emma Stone won Best Actress.  It also won for Score and Cinematography.

Kenneth Lonergan's Manchester by the Sea won two honors for Original Screenplay and for Casey Affleck as Best Actor.

Denis Villeneuve's Arrival won the award for Best Sound (a trophy that many thought La La Land might well pick up.

Barry Jenkins' Moonlight surprisingly went home empty-handed.  The film had been nominated for four BAFTAs.

Lion was the other surprise of the night winning two awards for Dev Patel as Best Supporting Actor and also winning for Adapted Screenplay.

Major (Oscar analogous categories) winners here with TFF #43 films in Bold.

Picture: La La Land
Director: Damien Chazelle/La La Land
Actress: Emma Stone/La La Land
Actor: Casey Affleck/Manchester by the Sea
Supporting Actress: Viola Davis/Fences
Supporting Actor: Dev Patel/Lion
Adapted Screenplay: Lion
Original Screenplay: Manchester by the Sea
Documentary: 13th
Foreign Language: Son of Saul (TFF #42)
Animated Feature: Kubo and the Two Strings
Original Music: La La Land
Cinematography: La La Land
Editing: Hacksaw Ridge
Production Design: Fantastic Beasts
Costumes: Jackie
Makeup/Hair: Florence Foster Jenkins
Sound: Arrival
Visual Effects; The Jungle Book


What does any of this mean for Oscar night?
Does it mean that La La Land is likely to fall short in film editing, production, design, costume or film editing?
Does Moonlight get shut out on Feb. 26th?

Most of the pundits seem to think that the BAFTA results might show a smallish trend away from the La La Land avalanche but that it's still solid for a number of wins including picture and director.  It does seem less likely that it will tie or break the record of winning 11 trophies.

BAFTA coverage is here:

from Kristopher Tapley/Variety-In Contention

from Anne Thompson/Indiewire

from Pete Hammond/Deadline

from Paul Sheehan/Gold Derby

from Oliver Lyttleton/The Playlist

from Nathaniel Rogers/The Film Experience



That's a wrap for Monday.  More to come on Thursday...


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