AFI Fest in Full Swing-Features TFF #43 Films / Werner Herzog and His Volcanoes / Oscar Pundits Update

Welcome to Monday...

AFI IS IN FULL SWING AND FEATURES FILMS FROM TFF#43

The American Film Institutes's Film Festival began late last week and will continue through the 17th. The fest is the last festival to feature premieres of films that could find their way into the Oscar conversation before we start to hear from critic's groups.  Films such as Miss Sloane and Rules Don't Apply that have gotten a good deal of awards speculation will screen or have screened at AFI.

The National Board of Review announces their list of films in just over two weeks (Nov. 29) with the New York Critics announcing on Dec. 1 and LA critics on Dec. 4.  AFI will announce their top films on Dec. 8. Golden Globe nominations are announced on Dec. 12 and Screen Actors Guild nominations are announced Dec. 14.  The British Academy announces nominees on Jan. 10.

Other key guilds announce as follows:

Writer's Guild: Jan. 4
Directors Guild Jan. 12
Producers Guild: Jan. 10

Oscar voters begin voting for nominees on Jan. 5 and that closes Jan. 13.  Oscar nominees are announced Jan. 24.

Thanks to Sasha Stone's Awards Daily for the comprehensive calendar of awards dates.  You can find that complete list here.

At any rate, Telluride 2016 films are a significant presence at this year's AFI fest:  Included in the AFI schedule from TFF #43 are: La La Land, Bright Lights: Starring Debbie Reynolds, Fire at Sea, Toni Erdmann, Graduation, Neruda, Things to Come and Mifune: The Last Samurai.

Here's the link to the AFI Fest's lineup search function.  Also, coverage of the AFI Fest with 14 films highlighted (including Toni Erdmann) by Indiewire.



WERNER HERZOG AND HIS VOLCANOES

Werner Herzog, not surprisingly premiered his Volcano Around the World documentary, Into the Inferno, at Telluride.  Herzog's doc travels the globe and seeks to place volcanic natural phenomena into the contexts in which various cultures have interacted with them.

Indiewire's Anne Thompson reports here.

Additionally, here's the official trailer for the film:

Into the Inferno opened on Oct. 28 and is available to stream on Netflix.

OSCAR PUNDITS UPDATE

I've got a new FAC update coming for Thursday's post that will update the acting races but until then, here are the latest updated Oscar pics from two of the Oscar experts that are used for The FAC metric. 

Sasha Stone's weekly update on Friday has TFF #43 films La La Land, Manchester by the Sea, Moonlight and Arrival as the top four films contending for Best Picture.  She also has Sully at #9. Best Actor candidates include: Casey Affleck/Manchester and Tom Hanks/Sully.  Actress: Emma Stone/La La Land, Amy Adams/Arrival.  Supporting Actor: Mahershala Ali/Moonlight and Lucas Hedges/Manchester.  Supporting Actress: Naomie Harris/Moonlight and Michelle Williams/Manchester,  Best Director: Damien Chazelle/La La Land, Kenneth Lonergan/Manchester and Denis Villeneuve/Arrival.  Check the link above for the rest of Stone's updated predictions.

Meanwhile, The Playlist's Awards Campaign's Greg Ellwood also updated his picks:

Best Picture: La La Land, Sully, Manchester and Moonlight are his top four films.

Actor: Affleck/Manchester and Ryan Gosling/La La Land

Actress: Stone/La La Land

Supporting Actor:Ali/Moonlight

Supporting Actress: Harris/Moonlight and Williams/Manchester

Director: Chazelle/La La Land, Lonergan/Manchester and Barry Jenkins/Moonlight.

That's all I can muster for this Monday.  Return for more 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 itself.

Many a Trailer Come Our Way / Checking in with the Stars from TFF #43 / Oscar Biz Buzz

Good Monday Space Cadets...Hope your weekend was out of this world.


MANY A TRAILER COME OUR WAY

Over the end of the week and into the weekend we saw a bevy of new trailers released for films that played at this year's Telluride Film Festival.  Included in the onslaught were new views of Denis Villenueve's Arrival, Pablo Larrain's Foreign Language Oscar contender Neruda and Keif Davidson, Steven Okazaki's Mifune: The Last Samurai and Richard Ladkani's The Ivory Game.

Let' start with the final Arrival trailer (the film is set for release in the U.S. on Nov. 11):

The coverage for Arrival's final trailer was vast  Here are links to that coverage from:

Entertainment Weekly

The Hollywood Reporter

The Film Stage

The Playlist

First Showing

SlashFilm

The trailer for Pablo Larrain's Neruda is here:

Along with coverage from 

Indiewire

The Playlist

Here's the trailer for Mifune: The Last Samurai from YouTube:

The coverage is provided by:

Indiewire


And finally, the trailer for The Ivory Game is here:

With trailer release coverage from"

The Playlist

and Indiewire


CHECKING IN WITH THE FILM MAKERS OF TFF #43

Lots of interviews and profiles are flooding the internet as we move into prime release territory for films that playing at TFF in 2016.  Here's a sampling focused on the emerging indie hit (more about that below) Moonlight as well as the perceived Oscar frontrunner, Damien Chazelle's La La Land:

Moonlight...

Profiles and interviews with writer/director Barry Jenkins: from: Indiewire The Los Angeles Times and Awards Daily

Also this Indiewire interview with Naomie Harris  along with Entertainment Weekly's sit down with Mahershala Ali

And Entertainment Weekly introduces La La Land's Emma Stone and her "73 Questions" Vogue story.  Here's the video from Vogue:

OSCAR BIZ BUZZ

The Gotham Award nominations were announced on Thursday and TFF #43 films Manchester by the Sea and Moonlight were very much represented.  Manchester was nominated for four of the awards that are presented by the Independent Film Project.  Included in Manchester's haul: Best Feature, Best Actor (Casey Affleck), Best Screenplay and Best Breakthrough Performer (Lucas Hedges).

Moonlight was right behind with nominations for Best Feature, Best Screenplay and will receive a special cast award for its ensemble.

Other Best Feature nominees were: Paterson, Certain Women and Everybody Wants Some.

The Gothams will be handed out on Nov. 28.

Here's coverage of the nomination announcement from Variety. 

Meanwhile, Awards Daily founder Sasha Stone provided this analysis of the Gotham's effect here.

Also today in Oscar Biz Buzz, Moonlight made other waves over the weekend including a ridiculous monetary haul from just four theaters.  Indiewire reports on the stunning success of Moonlight on incredibly limited release.

The latest edition of the ScreenTalk podcast featuring Eric Kohn and Anne Thompson of Indiewire also focuses, in large measure, on Moonlight's burgeoning Oscar profile.  Here's your link to the story and the podcast.

In other Oscar Biz Buzz, there have been any number of reports yesterday that Viola Davis will be campaigned for Best Supporting Actress for the Screen Actor's Guild.  Although the Academy does not have to follow suit for the Oscars, that would become the more likely scenario.  The decision will open up an almost certain slot for the Best Actress race which many regard as the most competitive acting category (and maybe the most competitive Oscar category...period).  It would also make the Best Supporting Actress category (which has been seen to a three way race between Naomie Harris/Moonlight, Michelle Williams/Manchester and Nicole Kidman/Lion) a much tougher proposition.

Stories to that effect are here from Entertainment Weekly as well as The Playlist.


That's a wrap for this Monday.  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 itself.

The First FAC for Oscar 2016-17 / A Brutally Honest Assessment / A Look at Mifune

If it's Thursday this must be a new post from MTFB/FAC...


THE FIRST FILM AWARDS CLEARINGHOUSE OSCARS 16-17

Here's your first look at the Film Awards Clearinghouse view of the four most major of major Oscar categories.  Our first stab at checking the Oscar temperature for this season evaluates the races for Best Picture, Director, Actress and Actor with particular focus on the films that played as a part of the 43rd Telluride Film Festival.

For our first pass at these films I have used the publicly available Oscar predictions from the following pundits:

Erik Anderson/Awards Watch
Clayton Davis/Awards Circuit
Scott Feinberg/The Hollywood Reporter
Joey Magidson/Hollywood News
Nathaniel Rogers/Film Experience
Sasha Stone/Awards Daily
Kristopher Tapley/Variety-InContention
Anne Thompson/Indiewire

Other prognosticators may be added as the season progresses.

TFF #43 films are in Bold.

Best Actor

1) Casey Affleck/Manchester by the Sea
2) Denzel Washington/Fences
3) Ryan Gosling/La La Land
4) Joel Edgerton/Loving
5) Tom Hanks/Sully

6) Andrew Garfield/Silence
7) Dev Patel/Lion
8) Michael Keaton/The Founder
9) Joe Alwyn/Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk
10) Joseph Gordon-Levitt/Snowden

Best Actress

1) Emma Stone/La La Land
2) Viola Davis/Fences
3) Natalie Portman/Jackie
4) Ruth Negga/Loving
5) Meryl Streep/Florence Foster Jenkins

6) Annette Bening/20th Century Women
7) Amy Adams/Arrival
8) Isabelle Huppert/Elle
9) Jessica Chastain/Miss Sloane
10) Emily Blunt/The Girl on the Train

Best Director

1) Damien Chazelle/La La Land
2) Ang Lee/Billy Lynn
3) Martin Scorsese/Silence
4) Kenneth Lonergan/Manchester by the Sea
5) Barry Jenkins/Moonlight

6) Denzel Washington/Fences
7) Jeff Nichols/Loving
8) Denis Villenueve/Arrival
9) Garth Davis/Lion
10) Pablo Larrain/Jackie

Best Picture

1) La La Land
2) Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk
3) Manchester by the Sea
4) Silence
5) Fences
6) Lion
7) Loving
8) Moonlight
9) Arrival
10) Jackie
11) Sully
12) Hidden Figures

If these predictions were 100% accurate (and they won't be...check below) then:

La La Land would be nominated for all four of these major awards.
Manchester by the Sea would have three nominations.
Moonlight would be twice nominated assuming at least eight films are nommed for Best Picture as has been the case for the past few years.
Arrival has a shot at three nominations.
Sully has a shot at two nominations.

Some observations:

Every Best Picture winner since I started doing The FAC has appeared somewhere on the First FAC. The last four years, the First FAC has had the BP winner start at the top spot (Spotlight, Birdman, 12 Years a Slave and Argo).  That bodes really well for La La Land.  The two years before that (2010, 2011), the film that was at #2 in the First FAC won BP (The Artist, The King's Speech) which bodes well for Billy Lynn.  In 2009, The Hurt Locker started at #6 on the First FAC and in 2008, Slumdog Millionaire was at #11 on my First FAC.

The First FAC, on average, includes 85% of the nominees for any of the four major categories.  Best Picture is the trickiest as the average there is 81%.  There are frequently one, two or sometimes three films that get a BP nomination that don't appear on the First FAC.  Last year, for example, neither The Big Short nor Mad Max:Fury Road were on the First FAC.  So expect a couple of films to sneak on as the season progresses that aren't already on the list.  Some possible suspects would be: Miss Sloane, Nocturnal Animals or Live by Night.

The First FAC is nominally better at getting the directors right.  That average is 83%.  The acting categories are better with the First FAC averaging naming 90% of Best Actress nominees and 88% of Best Actor nominees.

Last year the First FAC had 6 of 8 BP nominees, 3 of 5 directors (missed Adam McKay/The Big Short and Lenny Abrahamson/Room, and went 5 of 5 in both lead acting categories.

So look at the list above closely.  The history of The FAC suggests that a vast majority of the nominees are on the above lists as are the likely winners.  As a matter of fact, of the 32 winners in these four categories since the FAC started, 30 of them appeared somewhere on The First FAC for their year.  The two exceptions being Jeff Bridges and Sandra Bullock as Best Actor and Actress for 2009's Crazy Heart and The Blind Side respectively.  So 94% of the time, your winners are already on the First FAC of the season.

I'll have the second edition of The FAC next week and look at the Supporting Acting and Screenplay categories.


A BRUTALLY HONEST ASSESSMENT

Indiewire's (and MTFB TFF film rating Pro) Anne Thompson trains her analysis on the films that have been in the news the past three weeks from Telluride, Venice and Toronto and offers her insight about them and the way the land lays moving forward into Oscar season in this post from yesterday.

Take a look to see where your favorite film for TFF #43 stands in her view.

A LOOK AT MIFUNE

Mifune: The Last Samurai played as a part of the Telluride 2016  as a part of the Backlot program.  It wasn't a film that enough attendees saw to merit inclusion in this year's Peeps or Pros ratings but the people that did see it and report to MTFB seemed to truly enjoy it.  The Steve Ozazaki film has a trailer which is here from YouTube:

You can also take a look at Alex Billington's First Showing coverage here.

That's all for now.  More to come on Monday.  Have a great weekend.


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 itself.