Latest Take from Toronto Reveals / Anything From Sundance? / No Jack for Toni

Good Thursday TFF fans...

LATEST TAKE FROM TORONTO REVEALS

The Toronto International Film Festival rolled out a significant number of additional films that they were adding to the various slates that make up their festival.  Of course that announcement provided us with new information about films that are probably headed to Telluride and, just as importantly, which films are not.

Added to the list of probable films for Telluride are Joel Edgerton's Boy Erased and Cristina Gallego and Ciro Guerra's Birds of Passage.  Additionally, Mike Leigh's Peterloo is now all but confirmed for TFF #45 as well.

Boy Erased is listed by TIFF as an International Premiere suggesting that its first public screening will be at T-ride.  Both Birds of Passage and Peterloo are labeled Canadian Premieres.

Films that look to be removed from the Telluride possibilities list because they were categorized as World, North American or International Premieres that have already screened in their country of origin are (some of these were confirmations of deductions we'd already made:

Paul Greengrass' 22 July

Peter Farrelly's Green Book

David Mackenzie's Outlaw King

Sebastian Lelio's Gloria Bell

Thomas Vintenburg's Kursk

Jonah Hill's Mid 90s

Florian Henckel Von Donnersmarck's Never LookAway

Jafar Panahi's Three Faces

Jia Zhang-ke's  Ash Is the Purest White

Paolo Sorrentino's Loro

Jean Luc-Godard's The Image Book

Nuri Bilge Ceylan's The Wild Pear Tree

Christian Petzold's Transit

Sergei Loznitsa's Donbass

Luis Ortega's The Angel

Ali Abassi's Border-which I had thought might be bound for Telluride after that L.A. Fest classified it as a "California Premiere".  Looks like I was wrong.

I have to say that I am truly pleased that Boy Erased is going to make it to The SHOW.  It will be near the top pf my list of "must-sees" for Labor Day weekend.  Actually, that list is going to be too long to get in before the weekend is over.

Here's the TIFF rundown of Tuesday's additions from Indiewire.

ANYTHING FROM SUNDANCE?

I'm relatively confident that the normal practice of not programming films that played at Sundance will hold true this year.  I have also thought that the film most likely to make the very rare Sundance/Telluride double play that it would probably be Paul Dano's Wildlife.

However, I have overlooked the possibility that it could be Tamara Jenkins Private Life. 

Jenkins last film was 2007's Savages which was part of what I still regard as the strongest TFF lineup in the 12 years I've been going.  

So...I doubt that it plays, but if there is a Sundance/Telluride crossover, Private Life could be it.  Netflix produced the film and, as many of you know, Netflix is going to be a substantial presence at this year's fest.  Their recent decision to give the film a theatrical release on Oct. 5th might be an indicator that it could happen.

Private Life stars Paul Giamatti and Kathryn Hahn.  

NO JACK FOR TONI

One of the big hits of Cannes and Telluride in 2016 was Maren Ade's Toni Erdmann.  I, myself, was a bit lukewarm about it BUT...I remember telling somebody (might have been Award Circuit's Mark Johnson...maybe...maybe not) after the screening I saw that I'd be glad to sign on to write the script for the Americanized version because I was already that sure that such a thing would come to pass.

And it seemed to be so when it was announced that would happen with Lisa Cholodenko directing Kristen Wiig and Oscar winner and legend Jack Nicholson reprising the roles created by Sandra Huller and Peter Simonisheck.

However, that dream partially came apart yesterday as we discovered that Nicholson is out.  The 80+ year old actor will not be a part of the project after all.

Cholodenko and Wiig appear to still be on board and the search is reportedly on to cast a replacement for Jack.

Here's the story from The Wrap.

That's your MTFB for this Thursday.  More to come tomorrow including a new Ten (20) Bets for TFF #45.

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

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The Oscar Dust Settles / Looking Ahead to Oscar 2019 and Telluride

It's the Thursday after the Oscars....


THE OSCAR DUST SETTLES

Let it be said that I personally enjoyed Oscar Night 2018.  Largely for these reasons:

1) The Telluride Film Festival Streak of screening the Best Picture winner clicked over to eight straight years in a row  and nine of the last ten.   That's cool.  More about that a little later.

2) I had a big night in the prediction department going 21 of 24 (and 20 of 21 in the non-shorts categories.  The only feature category that I whiffed on: Visual Effects where I had War for the Planet of the Apes and Blade Runner 2049 won.  In a side note: I did list BR 2049 as a possible player in the category.

3) I loved seeing Guillermo Del Toro win.  Such a warm and kind fellow human.  Needless to say, I plastered the pic he took of himself with me and my wife all over Twitter and Facebook...again.  And here it is:

This was taken at the Fox Searchlight party at the New Sheridan Bar.

Notes on the season...

As mentioned in Monday's post, Telluride films picked up seven Oscars:

The Shape of Water had four: Best Picture, Direction, Production Design and Original Score

Darkest Hour had two: Best Actor and Makeup and Hair

A Fantastic Woman was Best Foreign Language Film

In addition to TFF #44 continuing the Best Picture string, I'm going to note that the People's,  Pro's and Composite Telluride rankings featured here every year after the fest have become surprisingly predictive.

For example, I've done The People's Telluride Ratings and The Professionals Ratings (or some version of them) here now since 2012 and the Composite of the two since 2013.

Up until last year, and Moonlight's win, the film that finished as the second highest rated film in the People's Ratings won the Best Picture Oscar.  Moonlight broke that string when the 2016 T-ride crowd rated it #1.  This year...the #2 spot was golden again as that's where The Shape pf Water finished (2nd to Lady Bird).

However, the Composite ratings have been five straight years of invincible with the composite top rated film in each year since I started it in 2013 winning Oscar's top prize.

Of the three metrics, the Pros are a bit more all over the place:

2012- Argo was #2 to The Central Park Five

2013- 12 Years a Slave was #1

2014-  Birdman was #1

2015- Spotlight was #3 behind Son of Saul and Anomalisa

2016- Moonlight was #1

2017- The Shape of Water was #1

So...if you're looking to wager next fall after TFF #45 concludes, check the #1 Composite rated film in this space about two weeks after the fest.

LOOKING AHEAD TO OSCAR 2019

The Oscar season never really ends.  Any number of Oscar Prognosticators have already started the running tote board for next year's awards.  That. as you know, can offer us clues about what films might be on the Telluride SHOW list in six months.  So...because this is what it is...I'll be looking at some of the "year-out" predictions for clues for possible films make The SHOW lineup starting with this article from Awards Circuit's Clayton Davis.

Among Davis' Best Picture predictions are some that have a real chance to be at Telluride:

Backstreet (the Adam McKay Dick Cheney movie with last year's TFF Tribute recipient Christian Bale as Cheney)

If Beale Street Could Talk (Telluride favorite Barry Jenkins follow-up to a little film called Moonlight...maybe you've heard of it)

Martin Scorsese's The Irishman. I can see Netflix wanting to play this at Telluride.

Boy Erased.  Joel Edgerton's drama about gay conversion therapy.

At Eternity's Gate-could Julian Schnabel return to Telluride with this story of Vincent Van Gogh starring Willem Dafoe?

Mary Queen of Scots with Saoirse Ronan and Margot Robbie and from Focus Features (which had a very nice Telluride 2017 with Darkest Hour.

On the Basis if Sex-Mimi Leder's Ruth Bader Ginsburg pic starring Felicity Jones and also from Focus Features.

Private Life-Tamara Jenkins first feature since 2007's The Savages, which was great and played Telluride.  Paul Giamatti stars.

Widows-Steve McQueen.  He's played Telluride with Hunger, Shame, 12 Years a Slave.  

Roma-Alfonso Cuaron.  After Gravity's success at T-ride and the great run that he and his amigos -Inarritu and now Del Toro have also had a TFF play wouldn't surprise.

That's all for today.  More to come on Monday!

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

TWITTER @Gort2 (and follow me there as well)

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