The Distributors 2019: Amazon Studios / The Report Release / Just Off the "If I Had To"

Welcome back from your Father's Day weekend.  Twas also my dad's birthday weekend...he's 83!


THE DISTRIBUTORS 2019: AMAZON STUDIOS

Last Friday I talked about Netflix and it's no secret that streaming platforms have changed the landscape when it comes to film festivals, Oscar and T-ride.  Amazon Studios has also been a huge player in that transition and as such has become, over the last three years, an outfit to be noticed when trying to handicap The SHOW as well as the Oscar race.

Amazon had serious Oscar players last year with Cold War (Three Oscar nominations including Best Director) and in 2016 with Manchester by the Sea (which allowed Casey Affleck to win the Oscar for Best Actor and Kenneth Lonergan to win for Best Original Screenplay).

Amazon Studios Telluride resume is small but mighty:

2018: Peterloo, Cold War
2017: Wonderstruck
2016: Manchester by the Sea

And here were my numbers attempting to predict their chances at Telluride for 2018.  I posted the Amazon picks on June 21st last year.

Peterloo- 75%
Cold War- 50%
Beautiful Boy 40%
Photograph- 30%
Life Itself- 20%


And, as you can see, the high percentages for Peterloo and Cold War panned out.

Looking at this year, Amazon's potential for T-ride inclusion is substantial.  As of today, they have at least five films that are part of the conversation:

Against All Enemies/Andrews
The Goldfinch/Crowley
Les Miserables/Ly
Radioactive/Satrapi
The Report/Burns

Andrews, Crowley and Satrapi have all had films play at Telluride previously each with a single film:

Andrews: 2016: Una
Crowley: 2003: Intermission
Satrapi: 2007: Persepolis

On Friday last week, you may have noticed that I listed Crowley's The Goldfinch as one of my ten "If I Had To" list.  The Goldfinch is actually split between Amazon and Warner Bros.

Consequently, The Goldfinch leads the Amazon list in terms of chances to play T-ride in 2019 but each of the five films have a serious chance to make it.

The chances:

The Goldfinch 60%
Radioactive 50%
Les Miserables 40% (Cannes prize winner: Jury Prize)
Against All Enemies 40%
The Report 35% (played Sundance but so did Manchester by the Sea...see below)


Tomorrow, I'll take a stab at evaluating the lineup from Focus Features.



THE REPORT RELEASE

Adam Driver in The Report (via IMDb)

The Report was very well received at its original screening at Sundance in February (94% at Rotten Tomatoes) and since then I have been suggesting that it might be one of the films for which the programmers at Telluride might make an exception.

Telluride rarely...and I mean rarely...programs a film that has played previously at Sundance.  It happened a couple of years back with Manchester by the Sea which was produced by Amazon Studios.  The Report is being distributed this year by Amazon as well.

Not surprisingly, we found out over the weekend that The Report will have a theatrical release prior to its streaming debut on Sept. 27th.  Tom Bruggeman at Indiewire, among others, posted that on Thursday.  You can find more details in the Indiewire story linked here.

That date would certainly allow The Report to make the lineup at The SHOW as well as Toronto.   New York seems unlikely as that fest opens on the 27th as well.


JUST OFF THE "IF I HAD TO"

Friday I kind of did an unofficial list of films that I was spitballing as possible TFF #46 films.  If you missed them, that list again was:

Atlantics
The Climb
Country Music
Family Romance LLC
The Goldfinch
Nomadland
Parasite
Portrait of a Lady on Fire
Untitled Todd Haynes Project
Varda by Agnes

In addition to those ten films there are a few others that I feel like may also be semi-serious potentials:

Harriet, Motherless Brooklyn, Synonyms, Little Women, A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, The Truth.


More to come on Tuesday...

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

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COMMENT TO THE BLOG

Cannes’ Award Winners and Telluride 2019 / The Critical Final from Cannes

Welcome to today’s post Cannes MTFB...


CANNES AWARD WINNERS AND TELLURIDE 2019

The 72nd iteration of the Cannes Film Festival is in the books with the announcement of award winners Saturday night.  Taking the 2019 Palme d’Or was Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite.  The film was critically heralded and was considered among the favorites to win the top prize as the festival moved along.

Other Cannes awards presented by the competition jury led by this year’s president- Alejandro Inarritu- included:

Grand Prix: Atlantics
Jury Prize (tie): Les Miserables and Bacurau
Best Actress: Emily Beecham/Little Joe
Best Actor: Antonio Banderas/Pain and Glory
Best Director: Jean Pierre Dardennes and Luc Dardennes/Young Ahmed
Best Screenplay: Portrait of a Lady on Fire
Special Mention: It Must Be Heaven
Camera d’Or: Our Mothers

Honestly, my guess had been that Pedro Almodovar’s Pain and Glory would win the Palme.  Also, no glory for Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in...Hollywood which was a bit surprising given that it was probably the "biggest" film in the competition and also it was also the 25th anniversary of Pulp Fiction winning the Palme.

Also, a shutout for Terrence Malick’s generally well-received A Hidden Life was a bit of a surprise.
So, what are the TFF #46 chances for some of the winners?

First a reminder that winning the Palme itself is no guarantee that a film lands at Telluride.  Another reminder is that Cannes and T-ride share, on average, 7-8 titles each year but those titles can and do come from across all of the different sections of the Cannes fest.

Last year’s Palme winner, Shoplifters did play TFF but before that you have to go back to 2013’s Blue Is the Warmest Colour.

Other recent Palme winners that have played Telluride include:

Amour in 2012
The White Ribbon in 2009
4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days in 2007
The Child in 2005
That's six Palme winners in the last 14 years...

So, history suggests that Parasite’s Palme win doesn’t mean a TFF berth and seems to imply it may be less likely to be programmed.  Additionally, as Bong hasn’t been a presence at T-ride before, that also diminished its chances.

Boosting its TFF profile, however, is its very positive critical reception (see below) and its U.S. distributor: Neon which has been a recent presence at TFF with Border and The Biggest Little Farm screening last year.

I also feel like the directing win for the Dardennes (and their past with T-ride) probably boosted the chances for Young Ahmed.  I suspect Portrait of a Lady on Fire and Les Miserables might have a Telluride future as a result of the attention they received in France.

From other sections perhaps The Lighthouse and The Climb will make the Telluride program.

Here are some links to coverage of this year’s Cannes winners:

Variety

The Hollywood Reporter

Indiewire

The Playlist



THE CRITICAL FINAL FROM CANNES

As I have done for many years now, I've been tracking the critical consensus for films screening as a part of the 72nd Cannes Film Fest through the work of Reini Urban who compiles an incredibly exhaustive list of the critics' takes on films that play throughout every part of the of the French fest.

Now that Cannes #72 is in the rear view mirror here is some of what his work reveals...

First that the top critics' choice won the top prize (and I don't recall that happening before).  Bong Joon-ho's Parasite won the Palme this past weekend and lead all films in all sections in the combined critical summation with an 8.77 rating on a scale of 10 (with over 400 reviews counted).  That's mind blowing.

The runner-up?  Robert Eggers' The Lighthouse which won the FIPRESCI critics' award.  It had an 8.63 combined raring.  Third was Pedro Almodovar's Pain and Glory.

The complete listing of Urban's critical compilation is linked here.



I'll have more on Thursday.

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

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COMMENT TO THE BLOG

More Major Spec/Trailers from Ebert/Trailers for London

Good Morning...back in the Oklahoma Panhandle...

MORE MAJOR SPECULATION

If you looked in on this space Saturday you saw this tidbit repeated from a Pete Hammond post from Deadline.com:

“The Telluride Film Festival threw a party at the London Hotel on Sunset the night before the LAFF launch to tout their upcoming Labor Day weekend 39th edition of a fest that grows in importance every year as a key start to awards season. Fest directors Gary Meyer, Tom Luddy and Julie Huntsinger are still putting the program together and, as is the custom, won’t announce it in advance.  But it’s clear this fest which draws Oscar-hopefuls from the likes of SPC, Searchlight, The Weinstein Company, Focus  and others has also attracted the attention of the major studios with eyes on Oscar this year.  At least one of them was busy showing their wares to the Telluride honchos this week in hopes of making the cut. “

Which has kept my mind whirling for the last 48 hours...which studios? what films?  Certainly it seems that Hammond is implying more than one.  

Consequently, during the course of this week, I'll take a look at the "major" studio offerings that are expected as we move to the end of the year that most think want to be Oscar contenders and at least see if we can discern what the field of possibilities looks like.

Today we start with Universal Pictures which looks to be distributing two "Oscar-y" films: Tom Hooper's "Les Miserables" and Kathryn Bigelow's "Zero Dark Thirty" (the Osama Bin Laden/Seal Team 6 film).

The Bigelow film seems more "Telluride-ish" (as I thought "The Hurt Locker" might be back in 2008) but Tom Hooper had a great deal of success out of Telluride for "The King's Speech" in 2010..so both films seem plausible Telluride contenders if Universal has decided to make that play and T-ride's heads deem them acceptable.

Other connections..."Les Miz's" production company Working Title had a production connection to Telluride 2006 "sneak" "Catch a Fire".

"Zero Dark Thirty's" IMDb page is here:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1790885/

"Les Miserables" IMDb page is here:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1707386/

We'll look at Paramount tomorrow.

TRAILERS FROM EBERT

Roger Ebert has posted a collection of what he terms "out of the mainstream" trailers.  They include both "The Master's" teaser featuring Joaquin Phoenix and "Hyde Park on Hudson" both of which I have linked to in earlier posts and have at least some Telluride potential.  There are also many other films linked here.  Take a look:

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/beyond-the-mainstream-ebert-cl.html

TRAILERS FROM LONDON

And this from our Danny Boyle/London Olympics file...a trailer for four short films about the London Games from different director's including Telluride featured directors Mike Leigh and Lynne Ramsay from The Playlist:

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/watch-trailer-for-new-olympic-short-films-from-mike-leigh-lynne-ramsay-asif-kapadia-20120618

More later...

Follow me on Twitter @Gort2

Cannes Post Mortem & Crtitics Poll #3/The Master to Venice?/The Hunt/Les Miz Teaser

Good Morning!

Summer blogging begins in earnest today as MTFB/FAC begins its 6 times a week posting schedule.  The serious countdown to the 39th Telluride Film Festival begins today.  Three months from today (Aug. 31) the festival opens...as always, I can't wait.

CANNES POST MORTEM AND THIRD CRITIC'S POLL

Cannes #65 is in the books with Michel Haneke's "Amour" taking the top prize.  I started the fest thinking that six films were the most likely for repeating in Colorado: "Amour", "Beyond the Hills", "Rust and Bone", "Reality", "On the Road"' and "Cosmopolis".  At the end of the festival, I feel as strongly, maybe even more strongly, that we'll see "Amour", "Hills" and "Rust".  "Reality" seems like a 50/50 proposition and I think that "Road" and "Cosmopolis" may have lost some steam for Telluride.

I think"Holy Motors", "The Hunt", You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet", "Like Someone in Love", and "Mud" may have put themselves into some Telluride conversations.  In addition, I have some suspicions that non-competition films "No" and "The Sapphires" will make it into the Telluride program.

Also, CriticWire at IndieWire posted a third critic's poll of Cannes films here:

http://blogs.indiewire.com/criticwire/criticwire-at-cannes-the-top-films-and-performances-poll?page=1#

"Amour" and "Holy Motors" were at the top mirroring the critical response measured by Screen Daily and Ioncinema.

THE MASTER AND VENICE

In the midst of announcements from the new director of the Venice Film Festival, Alberto Barbera,this week came his claim that Venice would probably program Paul Thomas Anderson's "The Master".  PT Anderson fan site Cigarettes and RedVines reported the story here:

http://cigsandredvines.blogspot.com/2012/05/master-could-be-headed-to-venice-film.html

As we have noted in this space previously, double booking Venice and Telluride does happen...but it's fairly rare.  "Shame" and "A Dangerous Method" did it last year...so it doesn't kill chances that we'll see the film in Colorado but it probably reduces the odds some.

Of course, Barbera could just be expressing wishful thinking.  He also mentioned new films from Malick and DePalma as "likely candidates".  Which isn't exactly a flat out statement that he's got those films programmed.

And, further, I almost always approach this guessing game with the assumption that previous Telluride guests had a really pleasant experience and prefer to return.  I believe Anderson enjoyed his time in Telluride in 2007 when he was in town for the Daniel Day-Lewis tribute and the presentation of 20 minutes of "There Will Be Blood". 

I often kick myself  that I didn't take the opportunity to introduce myself when I sat the row behind him later that weekend as we caught Noah Baumbach's "Margot at the Wedding".  But he seemed to be enjoying the experience. 

So, I'm not giving up hope just yet.  I've always thought "The Master" was a long shot for Telluride...but I'd love to be wrong.

THE HUNT

Magnolia Pictures has grabbed the U.S. rights to Thomas Vintenberg's "The Hunt" which won its lead Mads Mikkelsen the Best Actor prize at Cannes last week.  The Hollywood Reporter has the story here:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/magnolia-picks-up-cannes-winner-the-hunt-330909

"The Hunt's" success at Cannes has raised its Telluride profile.

LES MISERABLES TEASER

Les Miz's chance of bowing at Telluride: about 3% ( director Tom Hooper's "King's Speech" was in T-ride in 2010 and production company Working Title had "Catch a Fire" showed as a sneak in 2006).  Nevertheless, it has its first teaser out and I couldn't resist re-linking it from The Hollywood Reporter:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/les-miserables-trailer-anne-hathaway-330941



More later...

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