"Incendies". "Prisoners" and.../Larrain: From Berlin to Telluride?/Is a Ride in Panahi's "Taxi" in Your Futrure?

Good Thursday to All.

Today's installment looks at three directors who could have their next project land at Telluride beginning with Denis Villeneuve...




"INCENDIES", "PRISONERS" AND...

Villeneuve's "Sicario" is set for U.S. release on Sept. 18th which Ioncinema has speculated puts it in a window that is friendly to a Venice, Telluride, Toronto run.  "Sicario's" IMDb page is here:

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/berlin-review-jafar-panahis-enjoyable-act-of-dissidence-taxi-20150207


Perhaps the bigger news this week, however, was the announcement that Villeneuve would be helming the anticipated "Blade Runner" sequel.  Check that news below.

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/prisoners-enemy-director-denis-villeneuve-to-helm-blade-runner-sequel-harrison-ford-confirmed-to-return-20150226


LARRAIN FROM BERLIN TO TELLURIDE?


Pablo Larrain's "No" was a part of the program for Telluride's 40th anniversary five day blowout in 2013 and I won't be surprised if he's back this year with his latest film, "The Club".  The Playlist explores Larrain's thoughts about the project.

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/interview-pablo-larrain-on-catholicism-the-club-and-keeping-his-actors-in-the-dark-20150220


IS A RIDE IN PANAHI'S "TAXI" IN YOUR FUTURE?


Jafar Panahi's "Taxi" won Berlin's Golden Bear last month and there is s peculation that we could see it in the San Juans over Labor Day.  The Playlist took a look at the film recently and filed this:

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/berlin-review-jafar-panahis-enjoyable-act-of-dissidence-taxi-20150207



That's it for now.  More on Monday...

One Day to Oscar: The Shorts/Oscar Matters: More Final Predictions/No and Paperman

Hello on a Saturday.  You may not now this but the Academy Awards will be passed out tomorrow...

ONE DAY TO OSCAR: THE SHORTS

Among the toughest categories to predict, say the people who Oscar predict on a very serious level, are the "Shorts" categories.  There are three:  Live Action, Animated and Documentary.  Irrespective of the difficulty, I've crunched the numbers using the publicly posted predictions of the following:


Sasha Stone/Awards Daily
Scott Feinberg/The Feinberg Forecast-The Hollywood Reporter
Anne Thompson/Thompson on Hollywood-IndieWire
Peter Knegt/IndieWire
Clayton Davis/Awards Circuit
Alex Carlson/Film Misery

Telluride #39 films in Bold.

Here's what the combined wisdom says...

     +LIVE ACTION SHORT

1) Death of a Shadow (4)
2) Curfew (3)
3) Buzkashi Boys (2)
4) Asad (1)
5) Henry (5)

Comment:  With more data and more eyes actually on the nominees, this category is significantly different from its last posting.  That being said, it's a very tight category and any of the top four could walk away as the winner.

     +DOCUMENTARY SHORT

1) Inocente (1)
2) King's Point (3)
3) Mondays at Racine (4)
4) Open Heart (2)
5) Redemption (5)

Comment:  There's some volatility in this category as well, not as much as "Live Action" but certainly a good amount.  "Inocente" maintains its position as the favorite but the category is very tight top to bottom.

     +ANIMATED SHORT

1) Paperman (1)
2) Adam and Dog (3)
3) The Longest Daycare (2)
4) Head Over Heels (4)
5) Fresh Guacamole (5) (Special note: Friuend of MTFB/FAC, Patrick Pringle, reminds me that "Frash Guacamole" played at MountainFilm)

Comment: "Paperman's" lead is fairly strong and its your likely Oscar winner but it's not a 100% lock either.  "Adam and Dog" could take this Oscar.

OSCAR MATTERS: MORE FINAL PREDICTIONS

Any number of Oscar experts are making their final claims as we get down to a matter of hours before it's all over.  I've included some of them here:

Oliver Lyttelton at The Playlist: http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/oscars-our-final-predictions-for-the-2013-academy-awards-20130221

Brad Brevet at Rope of Silicon: http://www.ropeofsilicon.com/final-2013-oscar-predictions-argo-best-picture-you-vote/


NO AND PAPERMAN

Two TFF #39 films that we'll hear called as nominees tomorrow nigh (and in the case of "Paperman" perhaps as a winner) are profiled recently.  The New York Times talked to "No" director Pablo Larrain:

http://www.nytimes.com/video/2013/02/15/movies/100000002068369/pablo-larran-discusses-no.html

And Zach Laws of The Gold Derby talked to "Paperman" director John Kahrs: http://www.goldderby.com/news/4064/oscars-academy-awards-animated-short-paperman-john-kahrs-film-news-entertainment-13579086.html


Final Oscar Predictions from The Film Awards Clearinghouse tomorrow!

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3 Days Until Oscar: Today A Look at the Looks/More No

Good Thursday to you!

I continue my week long countdown to Oscar night with a look today at where the Oscar races are for categories that have everything to do with how a film looks: Production Design, Costumes and Makeup and Hair.

But first up, here's an update of the Best Picture race...has "Argo" lost any steam over the past few days?

Our panel of Oscar experts includes the published predictions of the following:


Sasha Stone/Awards Daily
Scott Feinberg/The Feinberg Forecast-The Hollywood Reporter
Kristopher Tapley/InContention-HitFix
Anne Thompson/Thompson on Hollywood-IndieWire
Peter Knegt/IndieWire
Brad Brevet/Rope of Silicon
Clayton Davis/Awards Circuit
Alex Carlson/Film Misery


   
     +BEST PICTURE

1) Argo (1)

2) Lincoln (2)

3) Silver Linings Playbook (3)

4) Life of Pi (4)

5) Amour (5)

6) Zero Dark Thirty (6)

7) Beasts of the Southern Wild (8)

8) Les Miserables (7)

9) Django Unchained (9)

Comment:  Not a lot of change since Monday.  "Argo" remains the prohibitive favorite.  "Lincoln" and "Silver Linings Playbook" are essentially tied for the #2 spot and thus regarded equally as the possibilities for an "upset".  "beasts" and "Les Mis" trade spots near the bottom.  One last check for this category coming with the Big Final Roundup on Sunday.


     +BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN

1) Anna Karenina (1)
2) Life of Pi (3)
3) Lincoln (2)
4) Les Miserables (4)
5) The Hobbit (5)

Comment: "Anna Karenina's" lead is substantial but not sufficient to be called a "lock".  It would appear that there is a surge toward "Life of Pi" and it will be interesting to see, if in Sunday's post, "Pi" has closed the lead down any further.  "Lincoln" and "Les Miserables" aren't completely out of the conversation but, realistically, this looks like a showdown between "Anna" and "Pi".

     +BEST COSTUME DESIGN

1) Anna Karenina (1)
2) Lincoln (2)
3) Les Miserables (3)
4) Mirror Mirror (4)
5) Snow White and the Huntsman (5)

Comment:  This is a very stable category with "Anna Karenina" a prohibitive favorite.

     +BEST MAKEUP AND HAIR

1) The Hobbit (1)
2) Les Miserables (2)
3) Hitchcock (3)

Comment:  A race too close to call between "Hobbit" and "Les Mis".

FOCUS ON "NO"

Pablo Larrain's film "no" is Oscar nominated for Best Foreign Language Film and was on the program at TFF #39.  It's receiving a good amount of notice in  the press right now as a result of its nomination and the fact that its limited U.S. release this week.

Here are a couple of posts that appeared this week for "no":

From the New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/video/2013/02/15/movies/100000002068369/pablo-larran-discusses-no.html

And from Hugh Hart writing at Fastcocreate.com:

http://www.fastcocreate.com/1682356/oscar-nominated-no-salutes-the-ad-campaign-that-threw-out-a-dictator


More TOMORROW!

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5 Days to Oscar:The FAC: Foreign, Animated and Doc/Best Oscar Predictor? Telluride/Riva on the Rise

Good Tuesday morning and welcome to a special added post of The Film Awards Clearinghouse.  All this week, I'll be posting daily as we move closer to Sunday night and Oscar time.

First note: Oscar balloting closes today at 5:00PM PST.

Yesterday I posted the latest numbers on the Big 8 categories (Picture, Director, Actress, Actor, Supporting Actress and Actor and Adapted and Original Screenplay).  For the rest of the week, I'll  be posting updates on all of the remaining categories with an update for Best Picture on Thursday and  every category on Sunday morning.  It should be a lot of fun.

Today's FAC checks in on Best Animated Feature, Foreign Language Film and Documentary.  As always, these are the sources (using their publicly posted Oscar predictions) I use to arrive at the FAC charts:


Sasha Stone/Awards Daily
Scott Feinberg/The Feinberg Forecast-The Hollywood Reporter
Kristopher Tapley/InContention-HitFix
Anne Thompson/Thompson on Hollywood-IndieWire
Peter Knegt/IndieWire
Brad Brevet/Rope of Silicon
Clayton Davis/Awards Circuit
Alex Carlson/Film Misery

Telluride #39 films are indicated in Bold.

    +BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

1) Brave (2)

2) Wreck It Ralph (1)

3) Frankenweenie (3)

4) ParaNorman (4)

5) Pirates: Band of Misfits (5)

Comment:  "Brave" has taken an incredibly slight lead in one of this year's most competitive categories.

     +BEST DOCUMENTARY

1) Searching for Sugarman (1)

2) The Gatekeepers (2)

3) How to Survive a Plague (3)

4) The Invisible War (4)

5) 5 Broken Cameras (5)

Comment: Put this category into the "locked" division.

     +BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM

1) Amour (1)

2) A Royal Affair (2)

3) Kon Tiki (5)

4) No (3)

5) War Witch (4)

Comment: Another category wherein the winner is locked.



BEST OSCAR PREDICTOR?  IT'S TELLURIDE (despite itself).

John Horn of the Los Angeles Times posted a story yesterday with the claim that the best predictor of Oscar success may be the Telluride Film Festival...which bums me out, because I've been working on a similar article for publication here for after the Oscars (which I'll almost certainly do anyway).  Nevertheless, here's the link to Horn's post:

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/moviesnow/la-et-mn-oscars-2013-telluride-festival-emerges-as-best-picture-predictor-20130218,0,3533282.story

 

Fair warning...I had been planning a big post for after The Oscars on somewhat the same topic.  After reading the Horn story...I'll still be doing that.

 EMMANUELLE RIVA ON THE RISE

As we have gotten closer to Oscar, "Amour's" Emmanuelle Riva has emerged as a serious contender for the Best Actress award.  Jennifer Lawrence of "Silver Lining's Playbook" has been the perceived front runner for some time, but Riva's rise has been impressive and a number of very smart people think she's going to become the oldest Oscar acting winner ever.  This week, she talked with Anne Thompson and Scott Feinberg about the film, her role and other topics:

Here's the link to the Thompson interview:

http://blogs.indiewire.com/thompsononhollywood/oscar-q-a-emmanuelle-riva-talks-her-surprise-late-life-role-in-amour

And to Feinberg's:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/amour-star-emmanuelle-riva-brink-422047

More on Wednesday...

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The Latest on TFF #39 Films: Amour/No/Argo/Frances Ha/Coming Attractions

Happy Valentines Day Everyone!

I'm in Liberal, Kansas awaiting the birth of grandchild #5...as of press time...no idea on gender and the name is still in question...

With Oscar now just 10 days away from an appearance, here is a smattering of posts and articles around 3 of Telluride's films from this year's festival that are in Oscar contention and some news from another film that was a real crowd pleaser at the SHOW:


AMOUR

http://www.thewrap.com/awards/column-post/oscars-oldest-nominee-emmanuelle-riva-amour-its-gift-last-stage-my-life-77236

http://awardsline.com/2013/02/12/qa-michael-haneke-on-amour/

https://twitter.com/sonyclassics/status/301043411161591808/photo/1


NO




http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/interview-director-pablo-larrain-on-the-unique-aesthetic-of-no-working-with-star-gael-garcia-bernal-20130212

http://www.interviewmagazine.com/film/gael-garcia-bernal-no#/_


ARGO

   

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/ben-affleck-reflects-once-a-419938


FRANCES HA

Released this week are a clip and poster for the Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig collaboration.

Clip and Poster:

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/first-poster-clip-from-noah-baumbachs-frances-ha-starring-greta-gerwig-20130211

http://www.ropeofsilicon.com/greta-gerwig-in-clip-and-poster-for-noah-baumbachs-frances-ha/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=greta-gerwig-in-clip-and-poster-for-noah-baumbachs-frances-ha


COMING ATTRACTIONS

Ralph Fiennes as Charles Dickens in "The invisible Woman"
SPC Acquires distribution for "The Invisible Woman":

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/sony-classics-nabs-ralph-fiennes-420013

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/ralph-fiennes-will-star-as-charles-dickens-in-the-invisible-woman-after-all-kristin-scott-thomas-joins-cast

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1700845/?ref_=sr_3







More on Thursday...

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The FAC: The Close Races/The Brits Have Spoken/Oscar Matters/Riva and Arkin/ No and Gatekeepers News

Good Monday to All...

THE FAC: THE CLOSE RACES

I'm taking a look on this Monday at the Oscar categories that look to be closely contested at least at this point with two weeks to go and the Oscar voting actually ongoing.  In addition to the weekly look at Best Picture I have included a review of these categories: Actress, Supporting Actor, Original Screenplay, Animated Feature, Film Editing, Original Score and Production Design.  I also take a quick look at the "Shorts" categories...

All films are listed in their current position with their last reported position on The FAC in parenthesis.  Also, for this post, I limited the Oscar predictors that I referenced.  One hasn't updated predictions since Jan.3 and another is only listing the nominees alphabetically.  Consequently, neither of them is particularly useful in gauging where the races are at this point.

The FAC reviews the Oscar predictions of the following to arrive at its "predictions":

Sasha Stone/Awards Daily

Scott Feinberg/The Feinberg Forecast-The Hollywood Reporter

Kristopher Tapley/InContention-HitFix

Anne Thompson/Thompson on Hollywood-IndieWire

Peter Knegt/IndieWire

Brad Brevet/Rope of Silicon

Clayton Davis/Awards Circuit

Nathaniel Rogers/Film Experience

Alex Carlson/Film Misery

Telluride #39 films are indicated in Bold.

BEST PICTURE

1) Argo (1)

2) Lincoln (2)

3) Silver Linings Playbook (3)

4) Life of Pi (4)

5) Les Miserables (5)

6) Amour (7)

7) Zero Dark Thirty (6)

8) Beasts of the Southern Wild (8)

9) Django Unchained (9)

Comment:  The "Argo" wave got wider in the last week and may well increase by next week as I crunched these numbers prior to the weekend's announcement of "Argo" wins for Adapted Screenplay at the USC Scripter awards and BAFTA wins for Best Picture, Director and Editing.  Look at the BAFTA story below for a link to complete details.

The reality now is that "Argo" has become the favorite once again...and by an increasingly comfortable margin.  I think the questions now are...who wins the Oscar for Direction since it can't be Affleck.  Spielberg?  Russell?  Lee?

Other questions...Does "Argo" win any of the categories it IS nominated for?  Editing seems pretty likely now (despite the fact that I have included it as a "close" category for this post).  

Among its other nominations Adapted Screenplay looks to be a possibility and that's interesting because when I put this piece together, it looked like a lock as recently as Friday for Tony Kushner and Lincoln.  Now, with the Scripter award in Chris Terrio's pocket AND David O. Russell's win for this category at Sunday's BAFTAs..it may be much more wide open.  It'll be entertaining to see where the WGA comes down on this on Sunday.

Maybe "Argo" has a shot at Original Score...but Sound editing and Mixing as well as Alan Arkin's Best Supporting Actor chances seem to be too long to overcome even with the freight train that "Argo" is becoming.

So you could have a night where the Best Picture winner walks away with that single Oscar...really.  It could happen.  And that is very rare indeed.  Or maybe 2.  Editing is the most likely second Oscar with Adapted Screenplay and then Score in that order.  The Sound Mixing and Editing would be next with Arkin the least likely.

BEST ACTRESS

1) Jennifer Lawrence/Silver Linings (1)

2) Emanuelle Riva/Amour (2)

3) Jessica Chastain/Zero Dark Thirty (3)

4) Quvenzhane Wallis/Beasts (4)

5) Naomi Watts/The Impossible (5)

Comment: No real movement in this category this week but again, this came prior to Riva's BAFTA win.  Frankly, I feel that the 85 year old actress is gaining some traction and expect this race to look closer next week.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

1) Tommy Lee Jones/Lincoln (1)

2) Philip Seymour Hoffman/The Master (2)

3) Robert DeNiro/Silver Linings (4)

4) Christoph Waltz/Django (3)

5) Alan Arkin/Argo (5)

Comment: This is till a fairy competitive category and it will be fascinating to see if Waltz gets a bump after his BAFTA win last night.  DeNiro had a little boost this week.  It's a real race between the top four.

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

1) Wreck It Ralph (3)

2) Brave (1)

3) Frankenweenie (2)

4) ParaNorman (4)

5) Pirates: Band of Misfits

Comment:  Big move by "Ralph" to the top after winning the Annie for Best Feature.  But it's still very, very close among the top three and "Brave" may benefit from its BAFTA win.

BEST FILM EDITING

1) Argo (1)

2) Zero Dark Thirty (2)

3) Life of Pi (4)

4) Lincoln (3)

5) Silver Linings Playbook (5)

Comment:  This race has been tight, but became less so over the past few weeks as "Argo" now has opened a substantial lead among our Oscar prognosticators.  Increasingly this looks like a win for William Goldenberg working solo as opposed to the Oscar he'd have to share with Dylan Tichenor should "Zero Dark Thirty" win this category.

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE

1) Life of Pi (1)

2) Lincoln (2)

3) Argo (4)

4) Anna Karenina (3)

5) Skyfall (5)

Comment: "Pi's" lead is smallish and "Lincoln" and "Argo" appear to be real challengers with "Argo's" Alexander Desplat moving up this past couple of weeks.

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN

1) Anna Karenina (1)

2) Lincoln (2)

3) Life of Pi (4)

4) Les Miserables (3)

5) The Hobbit (5)

Comment:  A close category has stopped being that over the past month as "Anna Karenina" has moved into a dominating position.

SHORTS...

First, a disclaimer...of the nine people/websites that I check to form the basis of The FAC only 3 are currently predicting for these "Shorts" categories...so...grain of salt...

     +ANIMATED SHORT

1) Paperman

2) Maggie Simpson: The Longest Daycare

3) Adam and Dog

4) Head Over Heels

5) Fresh Guacamole

Comment:  "Paperman" was a late addition to the Animated Shorts presentation from Serge Bromberg at this year's SHOW and is delightful.

     +LIVE ACTION SHORT

1) Asad 

2) Buzkashi Boys

3) Curfew

4) Death of a Shadow

5) Henry

Comment: "Asad" was also a TFF #39 film.

     +DOCUMENTARY

1) Inocente

2) Open Heart

3) King's Point

4) Mondays at Racine

5) Redemption

THE BRITS HAVE SPOKEN

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts announced their winners yesterday.  "Argo" won Best Picture, Best Director and Editing.  "Les Miserables" led all films with 4 wins.  Emanuelle Riva and Christoph Waltz both probably got boosts in their Oscar campaigns with their wins.  Here's the complete list of BAFTA winners from Entertainment Weekly:

Best Film Argo
Best Director Ben Affleck, Argo
Best Actor Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln
Best Actress Emmanuelle Riva, Amour
Best Supporting Actor Christoph Waltz, Django Unchained
Best Supporting Actress Anne Hathaway, Les Misérables
Best Original Screenplay Django Unchained
Best Adapted Screenplay Silver Linings Playbook
Best British Film Skyfall
Best Film Not in the English Language Amour
Best Animated Film Brave
Best Documentary Searching for Sugar Man
Best Editing William Goldenberg, Argo
Best Costume Design Jacqueline Durran, Anna Karenina
Best Cinematography Claudio Miranda, Life of Pi
Best Original Music Thomas Newman, Skyfall
Best Make-Up & Hair Lisa Wescott, Les Misérables
Best Visual Effects Bill Westenhofer, Guillaume Rocheron, Erik-Jan De Boer, Donald R. Elliott, Life of Pi
Best Production Design Eve Stewart, Anna Lynch-Robinson, Les Misérables
Best Sound Simon Hayes, Andy Nelson, Mark Paterson, Jonathan Allen, Lee Walpole, John Warhurst, Les Misérables
Best British Debut Bart Layton and Dimitri Doganis, The Imposter
Orange Rising Star Award Juno Temple
Best Animated Short The Making of Longbird
Best Live-Action Short Swimmer

And so, why does this matter?  The Brits have a small, but significant number of members in the Academy and the conventional wisdom is that they really will vote.  SO the BAFTAs can, perhaps, give us an inkling of which way the wind is blowing for a significant voting bloc.

OSCAR MATTERS

     +OSCAR TALK with Kris Tapley and Anne Thompson

http://blogs.indiewire.com/thompsononhollywood/oscar-talk-argo-wins-dga

http://www.hitfix.com/in-contention/oscar-talk-ep-105-affleck-wins-another-and-the-nominees-do-lunch

     +THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTERS

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/oscars-2013-hollywood-reporters-ep-419785

     +FEINBERG FORECAST

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/feinberg-forecast-updated-projections-3-417300

     +OSCAR PODCAST with Sasha Stone

http://www.awardsdaily.com/podcasts/oscarpodcast/episode19.mp3

RIVA AND ARKIN

Interviews with two "seasoned" Oscar nominees from different sources.  First The Guardian talks to BAFTA Best Actress winner Emanuelle Riva here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2013/feb/10/emmanuelle-riva-actress-amour-oscars

And Pete Hammond of Deadline.com talks to Arkin here:

http://www.deadline.com/2013/02/oscars-qa-alan-arkin-on-argo/

NO AND GATEKEEPERS NEWS

"No" the Chilean film from Pablo Larrain that is Oscar nominated is kicking up some dust back in its home country as reported by The New York Times here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/movies/oscar-nominated-no-stirring-debate-in-chile.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1360559639-Rn3fWzbc3yigT5FsyOhwrQ

And Dror Moreh's Oscar nominated Documentary "The Gatekeepers" wins an award at the Berlin Film Festival this week:

http://www.timesofisrael.com/oscar-hopeful-gatekeepers-takes-berlin-award/

More on Thursday...

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