O'TOOLE BIDS FAREWELL
News yesterday via an announcement that I believe originally appeared at Playbill.com that legendary actor Peter O'Toole has chosen to retire from the profession. O'Toole was a 2002 Tributee at Telluride and the last of his 8 Oscar nominations was for "Venus" which appeared in 2006 at TFF #33. O'Toole's 8 nominations without a win is reportedly the longest streak of acting noms without a win in the history f the Academy.
O'Toole was also nominated for:
1983: My Favorite Year
1981: The Stunt Man
1973: The Ruling Class
1970: Goodbye Mr. Chips
1969: The Lion in Winter
1965: Becket
1963: Lawrence of Arabia
O'Toole was interviewed by Roger Ebert in Telluride in 2002 as a part of the Tribute ceremony and Ebert tweeted the link to that story yesterday. Here it is:
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20020915/FILMFESTIVALS03/99010308
O'Toole's IMDb page is here:
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000564/
Personally, I am partial to his performances in "My Favorite Year" and "The Lion in Winter".
SUNDANCE SELECTS
This week I'm wrapping up my stroll through film production/distribution companies that have been a part of Telluride's film festival recently. Today's specimen is a relative newcomer: Sundance Selects. Sundance Selects is listed at IMDb as having been created in 2008 so they are very young and have a short timeline to assess...but it has been a list of distributed films with many TFF films in the last two years. TFF films from Sundance Selects include:
2011: Into the Abyss, Goodbye First Love, The Kid with a Bike, The Forgiveness of Blood, Pina
2010: Tabloid, The Princess of Montpensier
Sundance had a bare presence in 2010 (and with two TFF stalwarts at that: Errol Morris and Bertrand Tavernier) and then exploded in 2011 with 5 films. So what's in their stable for the rest of 2012?
Christian Mungiu's "Beyond the Hills"
Brandon Cronenberg's (David's son) "Antiviral"
Abbas Kiarostami's "Like Someone in Love"
Ken Loach's "The Angel's Share"
Ben Wheatley's "Sightseers"
Walter Salles' "On the Road"
All of which played in some program at Cannes in May.
From this list come three pretty good suspects: "On the Road" ( Salles history with Telluride: 1998, 2004) "Beyond the Hills" (Mungiu in Telluride in 2007) and "Like Someone in Love" (Kiarostami in Telluride in 1997).
You'll see that "Road" and "Hills" are both on this week's "Ten Bets" list and "Like Someone in Love" on this year's program wouldn't surprise me either.
Of the other three Ken Loach's "The Angel's Share" is the most likely fourth possibility. Its critical reception at Cannes wasn't flashy but it was respectable. As to "Antiviral" and "Sightseers"; their lukewarm/negative critical response leaves me thinking that they're not likely to be seen at The Chuck or anywhere else on Labor Day weekend in the San Juans.
Tomorrow we'll end the series of company profiles with some odds and ends from both America and Europe.
NEW ANNA POSTER
Rope of Silicon linked us to the new poster for Joe Wright's "Anna Karenina". Here's the poster:
And here's the link to the ROS story:
AND OUR FRIENDS IN TORONTO
The Toronto International Film Festival is set this year for Sept. 6-16. Unlike the Venice Fest, which usually has a small overlap of films with Telluride, Toronto (because of its massive size, geographic location and where it is on the calendar) has had a significant overlap with Telluride. If you don't believe me...look at their new festival trailer and you'll see recent Telluride guests featured prominently as they also ended up in Canada...
Did you notice Mr. Clooney, Ms. Close,Ms. Wilde, Ms. Garner, Ms. Knightley, Mr. Cronenberg, Mr. Mortensen, Mr. Hazanavicius, Mr. Fassbender?
Repsectively that's; "The Descendants" (well Ides of March too), "Albert Nobbs", "Butter", "A Dangerous Method", "The Artist" and "Shame" all touted by Toronto's trailer and all having appeared in Telluride beforehand last year.
And it's a cool trailer.
More later...
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