Obsessing about the Telluride Film Festival and the film awards season since 2008!
"The best blog out there for predicting what will be going to Telluride."-Matt Neglia, Next Best Picture
"The Nostradamus of Telluride"
-Tim Appelo, Movies for Grownups
"But it's our job." - Anne Thompson, Indiewire
Results from today's voting by the New York Film Critics Circle: (Telluride #39 film(s) in Bold)
Best First Film: How to Survive a Plague
Best Documentary: The Central Park Five
Best Cinematography: Zero Dark Thirty
Best Supporting Actress: Sally Field/Lincoln
Best Supporting Actor: Mathew McConnaughey/Magic Mike and Bernie
Best Animated Film: Frankenweenie
Best Foreign Language Film: Amour
Best Actress: Rachel Weisz/The Deep Blue Sea
Best Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis/Lincoln
Best Screenplay: Tony Kushner/Lincoln
Best Direction: Kathryn Bigelow/Zero Dark Thirty
Best Picture: Zero Dark Thirty
Comments: Boosts for Oscar noms for ZDT, CP5, Field and McConnaughey...even Frankenweenie.
Field and McConnaughey choices are both a bit surprising. Most everyone thought Anne Hathaway was a shoe in this morning and for Oscar. Not many had McConnaughey on their radar for the NYFCC.
Pretty happy to see Bernie get some love...
I would have really liked to have seen the NYFCC peeps go with Rust and Bone in the Foreign category...
The Rachel Wiesz choice is a real surprise...maybe gets her into the Oscar conversation as well.
What was no surprise was the DDL choice for Best Actor. Indiewire reports this was DDL's fourth NYFCC Best Actor award. Mark Harris adds that he also has a Best Supporting Actor nod from NYFCC for A Room with a View/My Beautiful Launderette.
Bigelow's win is a bit of a surprise after the Lincoln log roll looked to be gathering steam.
With the news that Fox Searchlight is going to release "Hitchcock" (see below), Scott Feinberg of The Hollywood Reporter factors that into his latest Oscar predictions...I've looked at them. He thinks it will have some significant impact. Check it: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/oscars-scott-feinberg-forecast-371171
CANNES HAS A DATE
The Cannes Film Festival has released the date for the 66th Edition along with a peculiarly American take on their promotional poster:
The Independent Film Channel peeps have nabbed distribution for Telluride (and Toronto) hit from Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig, "Frances Ha". Reports below from The Movie City News, The Chicago Tribune and Movie Scope:
Denmark has chosen "A Royal Affair" which played at Telluride a few weeks back as a part of the Mads Mikkelsen tribute, as its official entry for the Foreign Language Oscar. It edged out Susan Bier's "Love is All You Need". Mikkelsen was very pleasant to talk to wen I caught him Sunday night of the festival at The New Sheridan Bar. He said he had been amazed at how friendly the entire atmosphere of the festival was.
Here's a post from The Hollywood Reporter about Denmark's announcement:
Metacritic.com posted a lengthy round-up of critical response to a number of films that have played the fest circuit (Telluride, Venice, Toronto) so I have provided that link here: I also included a link to their Cannes round-up from last May that includes a number of films that played at Telluride. You can see the films and links below:
"Amour"
"The Hunt"
"No"
"Paradise: Love"
"Rust and Bone"
"The Sapphires"
NEW OSCAR PLAYERS
There has always been some thought that Gus Van Sant's "Promised Land" might get a shot at an Oscar run and we now know hat is true. What was more surprising this past week was the announcement from Fox Searchlight that they're going to drop the Sacha Gervasi directed Anthony Hopkins starring "Hitchcock" in time for an Oscar run as well.
At some point this last summer I had mentioned both of these as possible Telluride programs depending on whether they were complete or not. Looks like it was close on both of them.
For the second consecutive year Stephen Spielberg will have a film concluding the AFI Film Fest. "Lincoln" has been announced for that spot. Here are links to that story via IndieWire and The Wrap:
Good Monday Everyone! I hope that everybody had a great weekend. Let's talk Oscar and Telluride!
NEW DIGS IN 2013?
There have been rumblings about it for more than a year. And again this year at the end of the SHOW I was hearing that the possibility of adding a new large venue for 2013 in Telluride was a serious possibility. Now we know that there is movement in that direction via this story from The Telluride Daily Planet: http://www.telluridenews.com/articles/2012/09/13/news/doc50510eb898413245239262.txt
Hockey rink into movie theater? It could happen and my understanding is that it would create another very large venue for the Fest to program. Think seating capacity in the Palm, Chuck, Galaxy area.
As you can see from the story, it all depends on money and time as well as balancing other interests. I'll keep an open ear for further developments on this front.
NEW PLAYER IN THE OSCAR RACE
Already regarded as something of a player, David O. Russell's "Silver Linings Playbook" got a major boost yesterday as it won the audience award at the Toronto International Film Festival. SLP beat out "Argo", "The Master" and others. "Slumdog Millionaire" in 2008 and "The King's Speech" in 2010 won the TIFF Audience Award before going on to win the Best Picture Oscar.
And in a side note that will blow your mind, Kris Tapley tweeted yesterday that "Silver Linings" nearly played TFF #39 with a Robert DeNiro tribute as a possibility...WOULD HAVE BEEN AWESOME!
A FEW MINUTES WITH FEINBERG
Here's the link to this week's installment of a few minutes with The Hollywood Reporter's Oscar Guru Scott Feinberg:
The first episode of the "Oscar Talk" podcast featuring Anne Thompson of Thompson on Hollywood and Kris Tapley of InContention/HitFix is up and running. Among other topics Kris and Anne tackle the subject of why Paul Thomas Anderson's "The Master" wasn't at Telluride with each expressing one of the two versions that emerged two weeks ago: "The fest didn't want it" versus "PTA wouldn't let it play since he couldn't (?) be there". Check it here:
One of the places that I usually include as a part of the list of bloggers and writers that concern themselves with the film awards season is The Awards Circuit. They're up with their first set of Oscar prognostications and I have linked them here: http://www.awardscircuit.com/
AC says that this is where Telluride films stand in their estimation in the Best Picture race:
#3 is "Argo"
#4 is "Amour"
#23 is "Hyde Park on Hudson"
#27 is "Frances Ha"
#32 is "Rust and Bone"
#36 is "A Royal Affair"
I'm thinking I may make my first stab at collating Oscar experts later this week. Stay tuned.
Say what you will, but I personally think that Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln" is going to be a monster player in this year's Oscar race. I'm taking a possible stratospheric number of nominations...12, 13, 14...that kind of thing. And now we have a trailer. And I don't think it hurts its chances at all... Look for yourself:
I think it looks phenomenal...
More on Thursday...
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Clint Eastwood, Amy Adams and Justin Timberlake star in Robert Lorenz's "Trouble with the Curve" The first trailer is out and linked below from YouTube:
The fine people at IndieWire posted a "wish list"/prediction piece yesterday about what they hope and expect will play as part of the fall festival lineups (i.e. Telluride, Toronto and Venice.) It's fun to look at and drool over.
They specify Telluride in the case of these films:
"A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III" from Roman Coppola and...
"The Place Beyond the Pines" from Derek Cianfrance (and this becomes the second time in a week that someone has tried to connect "Pines" to T-ride...
Among the 48 other films listed that have the most Telluride "potential" (in my view):
[Trailer from "Hyde Park on Hudson"]
"Anna Karenina" (d. Joe Wright)
"Argo" (d. Ben Affleck)
"Gambit" (d. Michael Hoffman)
"Hyde Park on Hudson" (d. Roger Michell)
"Life of Pi" (d. Ang Lee)
"Love is All You Need" (d. Susanne Bier)
"The Master" (d. Paul Thomas Anderson)
"Quartet" (d. Dustin Hoffman)
"The Silver Linings Playbook" (d. David O. Russell)
"Something in the Air" (d. Olivier Assayas)
"Song for Marion" (d. Paul Andrew Williams)
I think that 3 of the above are really solid guesses...check back on Monday for my first "Ten Bets" of the season to see which 3.
All week long I have been trying to parse the meaning of Pete Hammond's post at Deadline.com from last week in which he describes at least one :major" studio plying Telluride film programmers with their "wares" trying to entice T-ride into a programming choice. That original Hammond post is here:
This week I have looked at Universal, Paramount, Warner Brothers, and 20th Century Fox and what films they are either producing and/or distributing that look like they're also positioned for an Oscar run.
Re-capping... Universal is distributing has "Les Miserables" and "Zero Dark Thirty" (This with Columbia). Paramount: "Flight" Fox: "Life of Pi", "Won't Back Down" and "Lincoln" (with Dreamworks and Amblin, obviously) Warners: "Argo", "Cloud Atlas", "The Great Gatsby", "Trouble with the Curve" and "Gangster Squad".
["Argo" trailer]
Going to go BOLD here...
I lean toward Warners or Fox and here's why...
Warners...If I'm the Eastwood people and I really want Clint to be in play for a Best Actor Oscar I can't ignore the recent past concerning that trophy and Telluride.
2011: Jean Dujardin/The Artist (and a near miss for George Clooney for "The Descendants")
2010: Colin Firth/The King's Speech
2009: Another near miss by Geroge Clooney for "Up in the Air"
2007: Daniel Day Lewis for "There Will Be Blood"
2006:Forest Whitaker for "The Last King of Scotland"
2005: Philip Seymour Hoffman for "Capote" (also near miss for Heath Ledger for "Brokeback Mountain").
I don't think it's a coincidence...
So if you're looking at what is likely Clint's last shot at Best Actor...don't you play in Telluride?
And there is some Eastwood/Telluride history. He's been there before...and I always default to believing that almost everyone that comes once wouldn't mind coming back.
Fox... same logic applied to Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln" and Best Picture. Again, look at the last few year's of BP winners from Telluride:
2011: "The Artist"
2010: "The King's Speech"
2008: "Slumdog Millionaire"
2007: No winner but "Juno" and There Will Be Blood" nominated
2006: "Babel" nominated
2005: "Brokeback" and "Capote" nominated
3 of the last 4 BPs got a huge boost from Telluride.
If you're he Spielberg people aren't you tired of the near miss status of the last few years? "War Horse", "Munich", "Saving Private Ryan". Plus the films that didn't even get a nomination for BP. And then there is the Marshall/Kennedy connection to Telluride.
So there you are...
As always, I could be totally, completely, 100% wrong...and probably am.
COMING ATTRACTIONS
[Darren Aronofsky via movieline.com]
Where I feature a film in production that could be a Telluride palyer in 2013 or even 2014. Today: Darren Aronofsky's "Noah"
Aronofsky brought "Black Swan" in 2010 and ended up with multiple Oscar nominations and a win for Natalie Portman as Best Actress. So could he bring this epic about the Great Flood to the San Juans? Here are a variety of links concerning casting and filming of the project...we believe it's scheduled to begin rolling next month.
