Turning the Page in Full/Tickets for Sale/Yearbook Photos

Welcome to Thursday...

TURNING THE PAGE IN FULL

Oscar #86  is in the rearview mirror and The FAC is retired for a half a year.  This goes back to being what it always has been MTFB focused on the potential films for the upcoming Telluride Film Festival.  This year will be its 41st iteration and the ninth for me and the Mrs.

If you've been reading along since the first of the year, you have already seen a couple of posts that have assessed various "Films to Look Forward to in 2014" or some variation of that title.  I'll be re-visiting those soon but we're in post Oscar territory and that means the focus for a few posts will be on those outlets that have already begun to try to read the tea leaves for Oscar #87...starting with this from Glenn Whip and The Los Angeles Times:

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/goldstandard/la-et-mn-next-years-oscars-predictions-angelina-jolie-20140303,0,4523470.story#axzz2uvTMj7cA

The story focuses on Angelina Jolie's "Unbroken" but also mentions a number of other films that could come into Oscar play including Bennett Miller's "Foxcatcher" which is on my Telluride watch list...again.

There will be more of these kinds of articles in the next few weeks...and trust me, I'll parse them within an inch of their lives.

Meanwhile...

Kristopher Tapley at HitFix/InContention posted on Tuesday an article entitled "On Telluride's New Found Place in the Season, and a Modest Glimpse Ahead."

Tapley talks about T-ride's growing effect on Oscar, the "Toronto Ultimatum" and some films that he thinks might end up in Telluride's venues on Labor Day weekend.

It's here:
http://www.hitfix.com/in-contention/on-tellurides-newfound-place-in-the-season-and-a-modest-glimpse-ahead

Tapley writes in the article, "I can only imagine that a year after the fest's 40th anniversary drove record sales and attendance, it will be even more on fire after its impact, perceived or otherwise, on this season. I also imagine a number of studios and filmmakers will be desperate for a big reveal on that stage."

Among the films that he suggests might be Telluride possible: The latest Noah Baumbach/Greta Gerwig collaboration, "Foxcatcher", "Birdman" and "Mr. Turner".  All of which you will have seen on posts already centered on TFF #41 possibilities in this space.

There is another film mentioned, but I hesitate to list it here.  Let's just say tat the title has the word "Vice" in it.

Check the whole post.

TICKETS FOR SALE


I got this email on Monday:

Dear Michael:

Join us for the 41st Telluride Film Festival this Labor Day Weekend Friday, August 29 through Monday, September 1st, 2014.

Our online Box Office opens Friday, March 7th, 2014 at 9AM PST. You will need a headshot for your pass at the time of purchase, but uploading photos is easier than ever with our redesigned order form. Take the time now to scan that special shot, or better yet take a selfie with your camera phone. Any picture that is a close-up of your face will do.

If online forms give you heart palpitations, use our downloadable form to complete your order. Available on our website, simply download the form, fill it out by hand and then mail your check and order form to Festival Headquarters. We'll still need those gorgeous photos.

If you have any questions on the best way to order your pass, or other general inquiries regarding the Festival, give us a call at 510.665.9494.

We are deeply grateful for your generosity and continuous support. Thank you, and see you at the SHOW!

So, it's on again for another year as tickets will go on sale tomorrow.  You might want to strike early as Tapley says in the article linked above, with the success of TFF #40, you can expect #41 to be a hot ticket.


YEARBOOK PHOTOS

In an occurrence of nearly cosmic significance, I received my TFF #40 Yearbook Monday, the day after the Oscars.  Cool huh?

As always, it sparked a million memories of the five day dream that was last years festival...and, for the first time, yours truly makes it into a picture in the yearbook...barely.

You might remember me posting this shot not too long ago.  It is primarily of novelists and past Telluride guest directors Michael Ondaatje and Salman Rushdie.  I'm the guy in blue standing in the background.

It's in the yearbook.  On a page with Don Delillo and Geoff Dyer.  It's a literary page.

Rudderless Rising/Cuaron Wins the DGA/Lupita Interview/TFF #41 and J.C. Chandor?/Making it in the Big Leagues

Welcome to Monday!

RUDDERLESS RISING

Standing ovation for William H. Macy's "Rudderless" at The Sundance Film Festival this past weekend.

Sundance's closing premiere, "Rudderless" premiered for Sundance audiences Friday night to a standing ovation.  The film was screened a second time on Sunday morning...also a standing ovation.  I have read half a dozen reviews of the film and five of the six range from good to ecstatic.  Variety is the one review that wasn't impressed with the film written by Casey Twenter and Jeff Robison and shot in Oklahoma last spring.

I am including links to reviews from The Hollywood Reporter, /Film, HitFix, The Playlist and WeLiveFilm:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/rudderless-sundance-review-674066

http://www.slashfilm.com/william-h-macys-directorial-debut-rudderless-is-a-tale-of-two-half-notes-sundance-14-review/

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/sundance-review-rudderless-is-a-remarkable-directorial-debut-from-william-h-macy-20140124

http://welivefilm.com/sundance-2014-rudderless-review-moviemanmenzel/

There are plenty of blurb-worthy quotes to chose from and that you can expect to see in future marketing for the film.  As to The Variety review, I'm an unrepentant fan of the film...so you can google it yourself if you want to read it.

If you have seen other reviews of the film, please drop me a note via the comments and I'll post those as well.

In other Sundance news, the biggest prize winner in the competition section was for "Whiplash" which opened the festival.  The film stars Miles Teller and J.K. Simmons and was written and directed by Damien Chazelle and focuses on the world of music...in this case drumming.  "Whiplash" won the top dramatic prize and the audience award both on Saturday night.


CUARON WINS THE DGA

Also on Saturday night...late Saturday night, the Directors Guild of America named Alfonso Cuaron the best feature film director of the year for "Gravity".  That solidifies the thinking that he will likely win the Oscar for the same feat and also boosts the chance that "Gravity" wins Best Picture on Oscar night.

It will be interesting to see how much the DGA win moves the tone of the Oscar pundits.  Over the last week the very strong popular narrative has been that "12 Years a Slave" would win Best Picture and tat Cuaron would win Best Director.  After the PGA tie between the two films last week, there was also a lot of discussion about what effect the DGA winner might have.

Though a split between Best Picture and Best Director is rare, it does happen.  It happened last year when Ang Lee won directing for "Life of Pi" and "Argo" won Best Picture.

Lost i the shuffle, at least a little bit over the past week has been "American Hustle" which looked like a house on fire after the SAG and Golden Globes and also after nomination morning when it co-lead the field (along with "Gravity") with 10 nominations.  I personally don't think you can completely write off its chances of winning Best Picture as it seems to have a lot of love from actors and that's the largest branch, by far, of the Academy's membership.

I also have to say that a real left field surprise could happen too.  I can see these three top films splitting #1 votes enough to allow a "compromise" candidate to emerge victorious.  Some of the Oscar elite think that could be "Philomena".  My "surprise" winner is "Dallas Buyers Club".  It's likely winning at least statues on Oscar night for Best Actor and Supporting Actor (McConaughey and Leto).  In addition to Best Picture, it has two other important nominations: Best Original Screenplay and Best Film Editing.  It also has a nomination for Makeup/Hair.  It also appears to be adored by the actors.  I'm telling you that if had scored a Best Direction nomination, it would be a serious part of the conversation.

The other "surprise" possibility: Alexander Payne's "Nebraska".  It even has a Best Directing nomination.  It's weakness is that it will likely not win a single Oscar that it's nominated for.  In addition to Best Picture and Direction; it's nominated for Actor (Bruce Dern), Supporting Actress (June Squibb), Original Screenplay and Cinematography.  I think that had it picked up an Editing nomination, it might be a bigger topic of conversation as well.

Bottom line...I'm still of a mind that "12 Years" wins Best Picture but I have to accede to the dominant thinking at this point.   Up until Saturday night, I had still thought that Steve McQueen would win Best Director come Oscar night (and that could still happen...DGA and Oscar don't always agree on Direction) but too much points to Cuaron winning Best Director.  It seems the split is likely or even that "Gravity" may have a near "Titanic"/"Lord of the Rings; Return of the King" type night.

LUPITA INTERVIEW

Oscar nominated for "12 Years a Slave" (and perhaps a slight front runner), Lupita N'yong'o, spoke recently to The Carpetbagger/The New York Times.  Here's that interview:

http://carpetbagger.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/23/video-lupita-nyongo/

TFF #41 AND J.C. CHANDOR?

A24 films have acquired the rights to writer/director J.C. Chandor's third feature: "A Most Violent Year". The film stars Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain.  I think it has a real chance to play at Telluirde #41 this Labor Day.  Reasons:  I spoke briefly last to both Chandor and Isaac at last year's festival, and both men seem to be having a great time.  Additionally, A24 has emerged as an occasional presence at Telluride with films playing as a part of the program in 2012 with "Ginger and Rosa' and last year with "Under the Skin".

Biggest reason that it might not play TFF #41...it hasn't started shooting yet.


MAKING IT IN THE BIG LEAGUES

This is completely unnecessary, but...

As you might expect, The Telluride Film Festival has official photographers and videographers.  I have to admit that I've always hoped that somehow, Kris and I might find ourselves in one of their shots someday.   You know, sort of as tangible proof to the rest of the world (and maybe even to ourselves) that we were actually there. The Fest puts out an annual Yearbook, there are certainly a ton of pictures from the fest as it's going on but it's never happened.  Until this year.

I was perusing the Fest's website recently and trolling through the official photos when I found this one from the Patron's Brunch:

Ostensibly this is a photo of past Guest directors Michal Ondaatje (author of "The English Patient") and Salman Rushdie author of "The Satanic Verses").  If you look at the background, to the left of Rushdie, you can see me standing (dressed in blue)  and looking out over the crowd.  Kris is blocked by the very nice woman in the salmon shirt (not Salman-ha!).  She's the artist who makes the medallions each years for the tributees.

Yes, that's really me behind Ondaatje and Rushdie...and I'm looking at a crowd that included Robert Redford, Francis Ford Coppola, Bruce Dern, The Coen Brothers, T.Bone Burnett and others. 

Objective photographic evidence my friends...I guess it really did happen.

More on Thursday...

Uncle Boonmee...Maybe Not

Another pic from "Uncle Boonmee." He can remember his past lives, but he may not know how to get to Telluride!

In Contention.Com reports that Strand Releasing has picked up the distribution for Cannes Palme D'Or winner "Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives". That actually may portend a decrease in the chances that it will unspool in Telluride in 8 weeks.

It's not absolute, but the last Strand film I saw listed at a TFF was 2005's Lemming.

And Telluride doesn't always program the Palme winner. Cannes winner from 2008, "The Class" didn't play...sooo...maybe no Boonmee in the San Juans.

In other news...SPC has picked up "Life, Above All" which created a good deal of stir at Cannes. It was generally well received critically (earning a collective "B" average). This probably increases its chance of being a part of TFF #37. SPC also has "Inside Job" and "Of Gods and Men" making them prime suspects for Telluride inclusion.

Lots of quiet surrounding the following: "True Grit," "The Tempest, " "Love and Other Drugs," "Miral," "Biutiful," "The Social Network," "The Descendants," "Eagle of the Ninth," "Conviction," "Brighton Rock," Howl, " and "127 Hours." So keep them hanging around in the "maybe" column.

Also, not much recently about Malick's "Tree of Life." There had been a good deal of back and forth about its readiness prior to a speculated appearance as a part of the Venice Film Fest...included in that has been some spirited disagreement as to whether Venice is the target or not. As we have said here before, Venice inclusion doesn't automatically mean that a film won't play Telluride ("Life During Wartime" and "The Road" did both last year)...it's just that the overlap between these two festivals is very small.

Ondaatje Part Deux

Jay Fernandez and The Hollywood Reporter add some detail to what we reported yesterday, that author Michael Ondaatje (The English Patient) will be this year's guest director for TFF #37. Here's the link:

http://riskybusiness.hollywoodreporter.com/2010/06/30/telluride-film-festival-taps-michael-ondaatje-as-2010-guest-director/

The TFF #37 Guest Director Is....

Author Michael Ondaatje has been selected to Guest Direct the 37th Telluride Film Festival according to Kris Tapley at In Contention.


Ondaatje is best known as the author of "The English Patient" which won the Booker Prize and, of course, became the film of the same name that won 9 Academy Awards including Best Picture. Ondaatje shared the USC scripter award that year with Director/Screenwriter Anthony Minghella.

Ondaatje was born in Sri Lanka in 1943...but moved to England in 1954 and then to Canada in 1962. He's lived there ever since. He was primarily a poet in his early writing career.

Interesting tidbit: He authored a book in 2002 about Walter Murch and editing. Murch was a Telluride tributee in 2006.

It will be interesting to see what the author of "The English Patient" programs as his selections in this year's festival.

You can check out Ondaatje's "Contemporary Writers" page at:
http://www.contemporarywriters.com/authors/?p=auth205