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
Today I am updating predictions in the categories of Best Original and Adapted Screenplay. These were last predicted on Oct. 17th. Past ranking is to the right of the performer in parentheses. Films from TFF #49 are in Bold.
BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
1) Women Talking (1)
2) Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2)
3) She Said (4)
4) The Whale (3)
5) White Noise (5)
6) Living (6)
7) Top Gun: Maverick (7)
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
1) Everything Everywhere All at Once (1)
2) The Banshees of Inisherin (2)
3) The Fabelmans (3)
4) TAR (4)
5) Triangle of Sadness (5)
6) Babylon (7)
7) Armageddon Time (6)
JOEY MAGIDSON'S OSCAR PREDICTIONS AND TFF #49
I am continuing my series wherein I check the Oscar predictions of a number of experts and how they have situated films that played at TFF #49. Previously I have passed along predictions from Variety's Clayton Davis, The Hollywood Reporter's Scott Feinberg and Awards Watch's Erik Anderson, Entertainment Weekly's Dave Karger, Next Best Picture's Matt Neglia and Nathaniel Rogers of The Film Experience.
Today I'm highlighting Joey Magidson who runs Awards Radar. Magidson has 17 of the 23 feature categories listed. Here's what Joey currently has predicted at his site for TFF #49 films (total predicited nominations in parentheses):
Women Talking (7): Best Picture, Direction (Polley), Supporting Actress (Buckley), Supporting Actress (Foy), Supporting Actor (Whishaw), Adapted Screenplay and Costumes.
TAR (7): Best Picture, Direction (Field), Actress (Blanchett), Original Screenplay, Cinematography, Editing and Original Score.
Armageddon Time (3): Supporting Actress (Hathaway), Supporting Actor (Hopkins) and Original Screenplay.
Empire of Light (1): Best Picture.
Living (1): Best Actor (Nighy).
Bardo (1): Best Cinematography
AND...from TFF #48: Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (1): Best Animated Feature.
So Magidson has 20 nominations going to TFF #49 films plus Marcel from TFF #48.
Here's your latest Oscar predictions for Screenplay writing from MTFB. These categories were last updated here on Oct. 14th. TFF #48 films are in Bold.
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
1) Belfast (1)
2) Licorice Pizza (2)
3) C'mon C'mon (4)
4) King Richard (3)
5) Don't Look Up (5)
Alternates: Mass and Spencer
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
1) The Power of the Dog (1)
2) Nightmare Alley (2)
3) The Lost Daughter (3)
4) CODA (4)
5) The Tragedy of Macbeth (5)
Alternates: Dune and West Side Story
INERNATIONAL FEATURE RACE: RUSSIA
The Hollywood Reporter, among others, revealed that Russia has chosen TFF #48 selection Unclenching the Fists from director Kira Kovalenko as its official submission for consideration in International Feature Oscar race.
Unclenching the Fists joins three other TTF #48 films that have been previously announced for consideration. Those films are Asghar Farhadi's A Hero from Iran, Paolo Sorrentino's The Hand of God from Italy and Jonas Poher Rasmussen's Flee from Denmark.
Just this week Jordan Ruimy at World of Reel posted a speculative list of films that could be released and make a splash in what he calls "a landmark year for movies.
I took a gander at the list and landed on a few that seem like possible TFF #49 selections largely based on the director and past associations with TFF. They include:
Damien Chazelle's Babylon
Noah Baumbach's White Noise
Kelly Reichardt's Owl
Alejandro Inarrito's Bardo
Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio
Florian Zeller's The Son
The Dardennes' Tori et Lokita
Other films are expected from directors that have made an appearance at Telluride at least once including: The Way of the Wind (Malick), Women Talking (Polley), Tar (Field), The Whale (Aronofsky), Crimes of the Future (Cronenberg), The Zone of Interest (Glazer), Poor Things (Lanthimos), Amsterdam (Russell), Asteroid City (W. Anderson), The Killer (Fincher and, of course, Killers of the Flower Moon (Scorsese)
BERKELEY, CA, October 2, 2019 – Telluride Film Festival (TFF), presented by National Film Preserve LTD., is pleased to announce the presentation of the inaugural Milos Stehlik Scholar award. The award was established by TFF before its 46th edition to honor the legacy of Facets Multimedia co-founder and former TFF Board President, Milos Stehlik, who passed away in July 2019. Milos’ longtime commitment to film exhibition and education, as well as to the Telluride Film Festival, made him a lifelong friend to students, cinephiles and filmmakers as a champion of cinema. Each year, one student who embodies Milos’ passion and humanist heart will be chosen from the incoming Student Symposium class to receive the award. This student will receive travel, lodging, a stipend and a student film pass. The Student Symposium, now in its 32nd year, is open to 50 currently enrolled college and university students from around the globe, no matter their major. The primary requirement is a love of film.
This year’s recipient, Damani Brissett, is a student from State University of New York at Purchase. He will receive an internship with the Telluride Film Festival Education Programs in 2020 along with the experience of attending the 47th Festival.
Damani, born and raised in Brooklyn, was selected by faculty from the Student Symposium Class of 2019. He says, “As a child, I was taught many integrities of living, some of them being: understand self-respect, respect for community, empathy, and aim to empower those around you to do good, not only for themselves, but for others. These seeds of holistic approach to humanity were sown within me and my sister at an early age, quietly, in a little corner of Flatbush Brooklyn.”
He was raised by a single mother with a devotion to her family and community, stemming from her proud Jamaican lineage. Damani continues, “Currently, as we face global dissensions on politics, ethics & consciousness altogether, I tend to revisit my origins to ascertain bearing on how to move forward. How can I, one studying filmmaker at SUNY Purchase college, work in the service of the people, with the people, in hopes to redefine systemic confines? I say, where there’s a will there’s a way, for that ‘I’ once took the form of Dr. King’s ‘Dream’, and that ‘I’ is sometimes all there needs to be, simply... a start somewhere.”
The Telluride Film Festival is honored that Damani will return next year to work with the TFF Education Programs and is proud to honor Milos’ legacy annually through the Milos Stehlik Scholar award. Milos co-founded Facets Multimedia in 1975. It is a hub for cinephiles to access hard-to-find independent and international films from around the globe. He was also a pioneer of the Chicago International Children’s Film Festival, the oldest, biggest kid’s film festival in North America. As an educator, a journalist on WBEZ, and a vocal champion of film, Milos has helped introduce generations to the awesome power of film.
For more information on Telluride Film Festival and its Student programs, please visit www.telluridefilmfestival.org.
For more information on Milos and Facets Multimedia, please visit https://www.facets.org.
OSCAR PREDICTIONS 2019: SCREENPLAYS
Here's my Early(ish) Bird take on Oscar's Screenplay categories after the big fall fests-well almost, New York is wrapping up. All TFF films predicted are indicated with Bold.
ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
1) The Two Popes
2) JoJo Rabbit
3) The Irishman
4) A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
5) Joker
Other Possibles: Little Women, Judy, Ford v. Ferrari, Just Mercy
ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
1) Marriage Story
2) Once Upon a Time in...Hollywood 3) Parasite
4) The Farewell
5) Knives Out
Other Possibles: 1917, Pain and Glory, Booksmart, Bombshell
As of today's post, here's the breakdown of my predictions for Telluride 2019 films in the eight topline categories:
Marriage Story: Six nominations and one possible: Picture, Director/Baumbach, Actress/Johannson, Actor/Driver, Supporting Actress/Dern, Original Screenplay/Baumbach. Possible: Supporting Actor/Alda...and a parenthetical note here...MTFB is campaigning for a Julie Hagerty nomination for Supporting Actress...someone with some actual juice needs to get on this STAT.
The Two Popes: Four nominations and one possible: Picture, Actor/Pryce, Supporting Actor/Hopkins, Adapted Screenplay/McCarten. Possible: Director/Meirelles.
Parasite: Three nominations: Picture, Director/Bong, Original Screenplay/Bong, Han.
Ford v. Ferrari: One nomination and three possibles: Picture. Other possibles: Supporting Actor/Bale, Director/Mangold, Adapted Screenplay/Butterworth, Butterworth, Keller.
Judy: One nomination and two possibles: Actress/Zellweger, Other Possibles: Picture, Adapted Screenplay/Edge, Quilter.
Pain and Glory: One nomination and one possible: Actor/Banderas, Possible: Original Screenplay/Almodovar.
The Report: One nomination: Supporting Actress/Bening.
Waves: Three possibles: Picture, Supporting Actress/Russell, Supporting Actor/Brown.
OSCAR HISTORY AND TFF PART NINE
After spending the past few weeks doling out the history between Telluride and The Academy Awards by each year, I'm turning now to a breakdown of the history as related to each of the feature categories as far as TFF is concerned beginning with the list of films that played at Telluride and then subsequently earned Best Picture nominations:
1974-The Conversation
1989- My Left Foot
1992- The Crying Game
1993- The Piano
1996- Secrets and Lies
2000- Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon
2003- Lost in Translation
2005- Brokeback Mountain, Capote
2006- Babel
2007- Juno, There Will Be Blood (scenes screened at TFF)
2008- Slumdog Millionaire-WINNER, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (scenes screened)
2009- Up in the Air, An Education
2010- The King's Speech-WINNER, 127 Hours, Black Swan
2011- The Artist-WINNER, The Descendants
2012- Argo-WINNER, Amour
2013- 12 Years a Slave-WINNER, Gravity, Nebraska
2014- Birdman-WINNER, The Imitation Game
2015- Spotlight-WINNER, Room
2016- Moonlight-WINNER, La La Land, Arrival, Manchester by the Sea
2017- The Shape of Water-WINNER, Darkest Hour, Lady Bird
2018- Roma, The Favourite
In all, 39 films that have come through Telluride have been nominated for Best Film of the Year come Oscar time, 29 of those since 2007. Of the 39, 9 have won the honor with all of those wins coming since 2008.
I'll have the Best Director nominees from TFF films up in Monday's post.
NEW TRAILER FOR PARASITE
Neon has a hot item on its plate with Cannes' Palme d'Or winner Parasite. The film has been critically lauded for months now on the film festival circuit-it has a 92 on Metacritic- and audiences seem to have embraced it as well- our Telluride People's ratings gave it a 4.36 average rating (out of 5) which was good enough for it to land the second place spot in this year's People's Telluride.
Now Neon has dropped a new trailer for the film and here it is from YouTube:
Parasite opens domestically on Oct. 11th.
TRAILER FOR THE KINGMAKER
One of the best received documentaries at the 2019 edition of The SHOW was Laura Greenfield's look at the powerful former Philippine first lady Imelda Marcos.
That doc now has a trailer and here it is from YouTube:
The Kingmaker seems to be in the conversation for the Best Doc Oscar.
Interestingly, at least to me, is the connection to this film of one of our local physicians here in my small Oklahoma Panhandle town. The doctor and his brother are both involved in Philippino politics.
BERKELEY, CA, July 22, 2019 – 46th Telluride Film Festival presented by National Film Preserve LTD., proudly announces artist Edwina White as its 2019 poster artist. Telluride Film Festival’s prestigious annual gathering for film industry insiders, cinema enthusiasts, filmmakers and critics takes place every Labor Day weekend in the picturesque town of Telluride, Colorado. The 46th edition of TFF will run August 30-September 2, 2019.
Born and raised in Sydney, Australia, Edwina White now works variously as an illustrator, fine artist and animator from her post in Brooklyn. Her editorial illustrations have appeared worldwide in the New York Times, WSJ, Vanity Fair, Harpers Bazaar and featured in Print and Taschen’s top 100 Illustrators. White’s solo gallery shows in New York and Sydney have been based on playing cards, kites, crosswords and, this spring, automatic abstract paintings influenced by old science charts and the internal world. She was commissioned by director Jason Silverman to create the animations for his film Sembene!, an African documentary about Senegalese writer/director, Ousmane Sembene. The early stages were shot by Jay-Z for Life +Times, and the film premiered at the 2015 Sundance, Cannes and Telluride Film Festivals. Her original artwork is included amongst collections of Ballroom Marfa, Angela Missoni and Sting.
“When Julie Huntsinger asked me to make a poster for Telluride film festival, I was preparing for a show of abstract paintings,” said White. “I relished the prospect of celebrating filmmaking by incorporating it’s own visual language. So I made my own painting with light. A stenciled camera form cuts out of the darkness. Blooming in RGB with a pianola score. It’s meant to reflect the order of filmmaking: from capturing a frame and lighting it; to recording it on reels; to the editing, sound and color-correction; to playing out in a theatre.
“I am over the moon to make this artwork for the 46th Telluride Film Festival. I feel so very honored to be asked to dance in the shadows of truly great artists, and feel charged by the collective warmth of the Festival team.”
"Edwina's style is singular, fresh and captivating,” said executive director Julie Huntsinger. “Her charm is as obvious in her art as it is in her person. We’re thrilled with the poster she has created for us.”
White joins a prestigious list of artists who have shared their talents with Telluride Film Festival. Past poster artists include Lance Rutter, Yann Legendre, Laurent Durieux, Christian Marclay, Dean Tavoularis, Ed Ruscha, John Mansfield, Julian Schnabel, Dottie Attie, Doug and Mike Starn, David Lance Goines, Chuck Jones, David Salle, Alexis Smith, Jim Dine, Seymour Chwast, Frederic Amat, Francesco Clemente, Dave McKean, Gary Larson, Chip Kidd, John Canemaker, Mark Stock, Laurie Anderson, William Wegman, Ralph Eggleston, Maira Kalman and Dave Eggers.
46th Telluride Film Festival posters will be available for purchase throughout the four-day Festival, or purchase now by visiting the TFF website at www.telluridefilmfestival.org.
TORONTO NEWS
The Toronto International Film Festival has announced their first wave of films and it looks as if theses films are likely headed to Telluride:
Ford vs. Ferrari
Judy
Marriage Story
Motherless Brooklyn
Pain and Glory
Parasite
Portrait of a Lady on Fire
The Two Popes
Uncut Gems
NOT playing Telluride:
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
Bad Education
Dolemite Is My Name
Greed
Harriet
Jojo Rabbit
Just Mercy
Knives Out
Radioactive
The Goldfinch
The Personal History of David Copperfield
Ema
Joker
The Laundromat
The Lighthouse
More from Toronto's announcement in Thursday's MTFB
TELLURIDE AND OSCAR: BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Here's the last of the analysis of the connection between the Telluride Film Festival and Oscar's "Big Eight" categories with today's topic being Best Original Screenplay.
I've been reviewing the Oscar nominees for the last 14 years in those eight categories and here is the history for Original Screenplay with winners indicated with ***.
2005: No nominees
2006: Babel
2007: Juno***, The Savages
2008: Happy-Go-Lucky
2009: No nominees
2010: The King's Speech***, Another Year
2011: The Artist, A Separation
2012: Amour
2013: Nebraska
2014: Birdman***, Foxcatcher
2015: Spotlight***
2016: Manchester by the Sea***, La La Land
2017: The Shape of Water, Lady Bird
2018: The Favourite, Roma
Notes: 19 nominations and five wins for TFF films for Original Screenplay.
To the best of my research abilities, it seems that the first TFF film nominated for Best Original Screenplay was El Norte in 1984.
On Thursday, I'll wrap all of this up with an "exit interview".
My Telluride Film Festival history project continues today with a look at the 16th Fest that occurred on Sept. 1-4, 1989.
Guest Director: Errol Morris
Tributes: Dennis Potter, Peter Greenaway, Shohei Imamura
Shows:
The Big Bang
Black Rain
Blue Remembered Hills
Born to Kill
China My Sorrow
The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover
The Entertainer
The Good, The Bad and the Ugly
Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer
Herdsmen of the Sun
I Went to the Dance
The Icicle Thief
La Salle de Bain
Land of Liberty
My 20th Century
My Left Foot
Mystery Train
Nuovo Cinema Paradiso
Penn and Teller Get Killed
Pennies from Heaven
Roger and Me
Solovki Power
Strapless
Super Chief: The Life and Legacy of Earl Warren
Testament
There's Always Tomorrow
The Trip to Tilsit
Trop Belle Pour Toi
Twin Peaks
Water and Power
When the Clouds Roll By
The Yellow Curse
Guests:
Mark Frost
David Hare
Screamin' Jay Hawkins
Werner Herzog
Jim Jarmusch
Penn Jillette
Chuck Jones
Daniel Day Lewis
John McNaughton
Michael Moore
Michael Ontkean
Arthur Penn
Michael Rooker
Teller
THE FAC: UPDATING THE SCREENPLAY CATEGORIES
The last Adapted Screenplay predictions from Oct. 19th:
1) Call Me By Your Name
2) Mudbound
3) Molly's Game
4) Last Flag Flying 5) Wonderstruck
Others in contention: Stronger, The Disaster Artist, First They Killed My Father Here's the latest FAC assessment of the category:
1) Call Me By Your Name
2) Mudbound
3) Molly's Game
4) The Disaster Artist
5) Last Flag Flying
Others: Wonderstruck, Stronger, Wonder Woman
The last Original Screenplay predictions:
1) Three Billboards 2) The Shape of Water 3) Darkest Hour
4) Get Out 5) Lady Bird
Other in contention: The Post, The Big Sick, I Tonya
Here are your updated Original Screenplay predictions:
1) Three Billboards 2) The Shape of Water
3) Get Out 4) Lady Bird 5) Darkest Hour
Others: The Post. The Big Sick, I, Tonya
MORE FROM GRETA GERWIG AND THE LADY BIRD CREW
Esther Zuckerman posted for The Rolling Stone this week about Greta Gerwig's Lady Bird which is tearing it up on the specialty circuit.
I said earlier this week in a Twitter conversation that it could be the sleeper in this year's Best Picture Oscar race:
I'm not the only one out there that is beginning to think it could happen as well. Here and there are Oscar experts who are beginning to think that it's a real possibility.
I think that it's going to benefit from a preferential ballot. I can see it rounding up a bunch of #1 votes but also being on a lot of Academy member's ballots in a #2 or #3 spot.
It's Monday after Thanksgiving...hope you survived the ritualistic overeating.
THE FAC AND SCREENPLAYS
The Film Awards Clearinghouse has not assessed the Oscar race for Screenplays since Oct. 20th so I thought it would be a good idea to do that as the landscape has shifted in both the Adapted and Original Screenplay races in the last five weeks as you shall see below.
I have used the publicly available Oscar predictions from the following pundits:
Erik Anderson/Awards Watch
Clayton Davis/Awards Circuit
Greg Ellwood/The Playlist-Awards Campaign
Scott Feinberg/The Hollywood Reporter
Joey Magidson/Hollywood News
Nathaniel Rogers/Film Experience
Sasha Stone/Awards Daily
Kristopher Tapley/Variety-InContention
Anne Thompson/Indiewire
TFF #43 films are inBold. The film's previous position follows its title in parentheses.
6) Hidden Figures (6)
7) Love and Friendship (7)
8) Nocturnal Animals (10)
9) Elle (NR)
10) Live by Night (10)
Hot: Arrival, Sully and Elle
Not: Live by Night and Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk (which drops off the top ten completely)
On the Cusp: Hacksaw Ridge
Comment: Billy Lynn completes the precipitous fall that had begun when we last looked these categories on 10/20. Arrival and Sully (both TFF #43 films) both got some significant boosts in the last five weeks. I expect Silence to reassert itself as it's first trailer dropped this week to a strongly positive reception. Fences still seems like the script to beat, though the charge by Arrival puts it close to Fences in support among the Oscar experts.
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
1) Manchester by the Sea (1) 2) Moonlight (3) 3) La La Land (2)
4) Hell or High Water (7)
5) Jackie (6)
6) 20th Century Women (4)
7) Loving (5)
8) The Lobster (8)
9) Captain Fantastic (9)
10) Florence Foster Jenkins (10)
Hot: Hell or High Water
Not: 20th Century Women and Loving
On the Cusp: The Founder
Comment: No additions or subtractions among the top ten in this category in the last five weeks and that seems a bit remarkable.
LOOKING AT LA LA LAND
Indiewire and Awards Daily both posted a piece this past weekend that highlighted a "behind the scenes" featurette about Damien Chazelle's perceived Oscar front runner La La Land, It runs just shy of four and a half minutes and features Chazzelle as well as Emma Stone, Ryan Gosling, John Legend and a number of others. You can peruse it here via YouTube:
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced the ten film shortlist for each of the short film categories and, as you might expect, there are a number of films that played as a part of Telluride's 2016 program.
Doc Shorts were announced last month (10/26) while Animated and Live Shorts were named this week.
On the list for Doc Shorts were three TFF #43 films: 4.1 Miles, Extremis and The White Helmets.
TFF #43 also had one film each on the two lists announced this week. Inner Workings was on the Animated list and Nocturne in Black was on the Live Action list.
The complete list of ten for each category can be found from the Academy's press releases:
As you probably noted above, Eric Heisserer's screenplay for Denis Villenueve's Arrival has gained a good deal of traction in the Oscar race for Adapted Script since I last posted The FAC for that category back in October. In the last week, the screenwriter has also been the focus of a large number of profile and interview pieces.
Heisserer is being lauded for adapting a story (by Ted Chiang) that was largely thought to be unadaptable. Is an Oscar nomination on the offing for the scripter who has also penned Lights Out and The Thing (reboot in 2011).
Check out a number of the stories with these links:
That's all for this Monday. More happening on Thursday although I am likely to post a brief addition regarding the announcement of the National Board of Review's choices for the year's best films that are due to be announce tomorrow.
EMAIL: mpgort@gmail.com OR michael_speech@hotmail.com
