Re-Post Sunday Done Day / Monday TBAs / Remember The People's Telluride

SUNDAY DONE DAY


Really great day at TFF #45 on Sunday.

Jason Reitman and Hugh Jackman at The Front Runner Q and A

Started the day with Jason Reitman's The Front Runner which moves to the #2 spot for the weekend.  I loved it.  Hits all my politics geek buttons and history and film making.  Hugh Jackman as Gary Hart, Vera Farmiga as his wife Lee and J.K. Simmons as campaign manager Bill Dixon are all in fine form.  Reitman is back, my friends!

Then did the Netflix Doc brunch which was lovely and also allowed me to grab Front Runner co-screen-writer Jay Carson as well as Reitman and express my enthusiasm for their film.

Then Joel Edgerton's Boy Erased.  SUbtle and understated with a subject (gay conversion therapy) that could easily have provided any number of histrionics.  Praise to Edgerton and his cast of Lucas Hedges, Nicole Kidman, Russell Crowe and Edgerton himself.  Beautifully realized and emotionally honest.

Matthew McConnaughey during The White Boy Rick Q and A

The day ended with White Boy Rick which is an entertaining film featuring nice work from Matthew McConaughey and non-actor Richie Merritt...who is fantastic as WBR.  McConnaughey in greta form in the Q and A that followed.



MONDAY TBAs

Palm

7:00 PM, FREE SOLO, Program 23, Cinephile

Galaxy

9:00 AM, COLD WAR, 35, Cinephile

3:00 PM, NON FICTION, 6, Cinephile

Herzog
7:00 PM, THE FAVOURITE, 7a, Cinephile

Sheridan Opera House

3:30 PM, SHOPLIFTERS, 32, Cinephile

8:00 PM, DOGMAN, 36, Cinephile

Nugget

1:00 PM, GHOST FLEET, 29, Cinephile

7:00 PM, THE WHITE CROW, 30, Cinephile

Masons

1:00 PM, THEY’LL LOVE ME WHEN I’M DEAD, 12, Cinephile

3:15 PM, FISTFUL OF DIRT, 17, Cinephile

5:30 PM, THE GHOST OF PETER SELLERS, B, Cinephile (This is not a free show.)

7:45 PM, GIRL, 25, Cinephile

Le Pierre

2:30 PM, HUGH HEFNER’S AFTER DARK: SPEAKING OUT IN AMERICA, D, Cinephile (This is not a free show.)

4:45 PM, THE TARNISHED ANGELS, 39, Cinephile (This is not a free show.)

7:00 PM, BORDER, 14, Cinephile

Backlot (all programs always free)

9:00 AM, IT MUST SCHWING! THE BLUE NOTE STORY, E

1:15 PM, WHAT SHE SAID: THE ART OF PAULINE KAEL, F

3:30 PM, HAL, C

6:15 PM, IT MUST SCHWING! THE BLUE NOTE STORY, E

Noon Seminar, Town Park FREE

Sponsored by Participant Media

Moderated by Annette Insdorf

How do filmmakers find a formal distance when dramatizing family stories?

With Joel Edgerton, Markus Imhoof, Alfonso Cuaron.

THE PEOPLE'S TELLURIDE

For the seventh consecutive year MTFB is soliciting your input for The People's Telluride.  All you have to do is watch films during the fest and then, when it's all over, report to me your assessment of each film on a 1-5 scale with 1 being "UGH!" and 5 being "GREAT".

When the time comes, you can send those ratings to me in any of the following ways listed as contact info for me listed below.

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

TWITTER @Gort2 (and follow me there as well)

FACEBOOK Message me on FB MTFB's Facebook Page

COMMENT TO THE BLOG

Spitballing Tributes / ScreenTalk Talks Fests / TIFF Second Wave Tomorrow

Welcome to Tuesday...running late today for a variety of reasons...

SPITBALLING TRIBUTES

2017 TFF Tributee Christian Bale

Although it's a little early, I thought we might take a quick stab today at considering who (or in some years it's been what) might be in line for a tribute at this year's TFF.  As a starting point, let's consider the films from latest Ten Bets-since I'm pretty confident about those titles making The SHOW lineup:

1) Roma
2) First Man
3) The Old Man and the Gun
4) Cold War
5) The Front Runner
6) Dogman
7) Shoplifters
8) Can You Ever Forgive Me?
9) Non Fiction
10) The Favourite

I also feel strongly about these making the lineup as well:

The Other Side of the Wind, White Boy Rick, Peterloo.

This group of 13 films gives us a rich list of potential tribute candidates.

Actors from the above films that could get the tribute treatment:

Ryan Gosling/First Man
Sissy Spacek/The Old Man and the Gun
Hugh Jackman/The Front Runner
Rachel Weisz/The Favourite
Emma Stone/The Favourite
Juliette Binoche/Non Fiction
Guillaume Canet/Non Fiction
Matthew McConaughey/White Boy Rick


Directors that could be feted:

Matteo Garrone/Dogman
Olivier Assasyas/Non Fiction
Alfonso Cuaron/Roma
David Lowery/The Old Man and the Gun
Hirokazu Kore-eda/Shoplifters


What do you think?


SCREENTALK TALKS FESTS

Anne Thompson and Eric Kohn of Indiewire sat down after last week's Toronto and Venice announcements to record their ScreenTalk podcast. 

The discussion was far-ranging and included specific mention of films they are willing to tag as Telluride films: The Favourite, Roma, First Man, White Boy Rick.  They also mention Can You Ever Forgive Me? and Peterloo though not in the context of Telluride.  They also spend some time talking about a theory that some distributors are now wary of Telluride suggesting that the four day weekend puts too much pressure on a film.

Could this explain the (at least so far) absence of any mention of films from Focus Features?  Boy Erased, Mary Queen of Scots and On the Basis if Sex?

Last weekend's ScreenTalk is here.


TORONTO'S SECOND WAVE TOMORROW

The Toronto International Film Festival will announce their second wave of films tomorrow morning.  It will be Canadian-centric, though they do sometimes make some other announcements in this wave, they are few. 

Last year I wasn't able to glean any truly useful Telluride info from their second announcement.  In 2016, I was able to eliminate Xavier Dolan's It's Only the End of the World because of TIFF's second wave so there is a occasionally some knowledge that can be gotten.  Perhaps we'll discover the status of Dolan's new film The Death and Life of John F. Donovan.


That's today's MTFB.  More will be forthcoming on Thursday!

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

TWITTER @Gort2 (and follow me there as well)

FACEBOOK Message me on FB MTFB's Facebook Page

COMMENT TO THE BLOG

Widows Trailer Arrives / White Boy Rick Trailer...Could This Play Telluride?

Good Tuesday...MTFB's summer posting schedule is in full force!


WIDOWS TRAILER ARRIVES

As promised in yesterday's post, here's the first trailer for Steve McQueen's Widows which is set to be released Nov. 16th and, as I wrote, has a 50/50 chance of making the TFF #45 lineup.  Here's the trailer via YouTube:

I have linked coverage for the trailer release and the film here from

Variety

The Film Stage

World of Reel

Trailer Track

Awards Watch

WHITE BOY RICK TRAILER...COULD THIS PLAY TELLURIDE ?

The short answer is yes it could...but...  

Primary factors in its favor is that director Yann Demange's last feature played T-ride- '71- in 2014 to very good response.  IMDb reports that the film has a release date of Sept. 21st which is a tight but not impossible window (see Sully).  

Despite that date, though, I can't find on IMDb who has domestic distribution of the film.  Universal, Sony and Disney all have a piece of foreign distribution but were not involved in producing the film.  The Playlist says that Sony will be releasing the film...

So...maybe?

Here's the trailer via YouTube:

Coverage for the trailer drop is here from:

The Playlist

Indiewire

Trailer Track

USA Today

More to come on Thursday...

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

TWITTER @Gort2 (and follow me there as well)

FACEBOOK Message me on FB MTFB's Facebook Page

COMMENT TO THE BLOG

In Praise of James Garner/Toronto Musings/Interstellar Rumors...Not So Fast/The Return of Serge?

Welcome to Monday...

IN PRAISE OF JAMES GARNER

Photo from IMDb

Movie and television star James Garner (real last name was Baumgarner...so he changed it for Hollywood, but not by much) died this weekend.  He was 86.  Garner's career was long, varied and included more than his fair share of great stuff.  Two classic television series : "The Rockford Files" and "Maverick" as well as some notable film work: "Murphy's Romance" which earned him his singular Oscar nomination, (he won a couple of Emmys and a couple of Golden Globes along the way) "The Great Escape", the "Support Your Local..." films ( a couple of my personal favorites and a character that seemed like it was a lot pf Jim Garner and not very much "acting"), "Victor, Victoria", "Sunset" and many more.

I was always ridiculously proud that he was from Oklahoma (born in Norman in 1928).  I also liked the fact that he often stood up for actors and wasn't willing to just roll over and do what he was told.  He reportedly walked away from more than one project/situation in which he felt he was being taken advantage of.

 He really was one of a kind and we're lucky to have so much of his career saved for us to continue to enjoy.

James Garner's IMDb page:

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001258/?ref_=nmawd_awd_nm


TORONTO MUSINGS

The Toronto International Film Festival is supposed to announce some of their lineup tomorrow.  In the past this announcement has included most of the Galas and Special Presentations as well as a designation as to the films presumed status: World or North American premiere.

But with Toronto's new "guidelines" in place, that a film must be committed to Toronto for that designation for it to play the opening weekend, one wonders how much they will tell us.  Will they name as m any films?  Will they indicate a film's premiere status?  Will they reveal what films have been designated for the first four days?

The answers to those questions open up a number of avenues of speculation for Telluride's fest and I expect I'll spend a good chunk of tomorrow after the announcement trying to sort it out.

I expect that I will post a truncated MTFB report in the morning and then after we learn whatever we learn, I am anticipating a Toronto-centric second post later in the day.  Circumstances could change that but it's what I'm planning at the moment.

Come back...take a look...

INTERSTELLAR RUMORS...NOT SO FAST

I've mentioned over the last two weeks or so that there has been a somewhat persistent rumor that Christopher Nolan's much anticipated "Interstellar" starring Oscar winner Matthew McConaughey, Jessica Chastain, Oscar winner Anne Hathaway and a slew of others might play Telluride.  That fire was most recently fanned last week by Jeff Wells/Hollywood Elsewhere and Pete Hammond/Deadline.

Now Wells is throwing some water on the flames, reporting over the weekend that he's hearing countering stories that Nolan is recalcitrant to show the film to programmers to some unnamed festival, though Wells thinks it could only be Telluride or New York.


So, dial back your "Interstellar" anticipation.  I don't think it's completely off the books yet but I'd still count it as a surprise if it shows at The SHOW...

Here's the link to this weekend's Wells/HE post:

http://www.hollywood-elsewhere.com/2014/07/nolans-alleged-reluctance/


THE RETURN OF SERGE

There were some people that I was surprised did NOT make it to last year's 40th anniversary edition of TFF.  I was surprised that my "girlfriend" Laura Linney was not there.  Was surprised that Peter Sellars was no where to be seen.  And I was also surprised that Serge Bromberg wasn't around.


Bromberg, who has appeared with some frequency in this decade at TFF with his specialty being rare film and animation, may well be returning this year.

I spent some time this weekend tracking down some Twitter chatter (unwitting thanks to Andy Brodie) that points to a possible presentation by Bromberg of rare and, in filmic terms, ancient footage.  Bromberg's Lobster Films has a apparently been working with an Iowa based collector to form hundreds of hours of lost film into a documentary.

Check this story from the Des Moines Register about the Iowa collector whose work may bring him and Bromberg to the San Juans in six weeks:

http://archive.desmoinesregister.com/article/20131221/NEWS/312210047/Iowan-s-collection-old-films-reveals-cinematic-history

That sounds like something right down Telluride's programming alley...based on past Fests.


More tomorrow...especially about, you know, Toronto...