THE PROFESSIONALS' TELLURIDE
A week removed from the conclusion of the 48th Telluride Film festival I present to you this year's Professionals ratings for TFF #48 films.
A couple of notes by way of explanation. The Pros were asked to rate then films they saw on a scale of 1-5 with 1 being not-so-very-good and 5 being "fantastic". Additionally, a film had to be rated by more than half of this year's panel of pros to make the list.
I am, as always, indebted to all of the industry professionals who took time from their crazy busy schedules to provide me their feedback. I can't adequately express my appreciation. And this year's panel of pros (in alphabetical order) are:
Erik Anderson/Awards Watch
J. Don Birnam-Jorge T/SplashReport.com
Clayton Davis/Variety
Peter DeBruge/Variety
Scott Feinberg/The Hollywood Reporter
Marshall Flores/Awards Daily
Mark Johnson/Good as Gold
Dave Karger/TCM
Scott Menzel/We Live Entertainment
Matt Neglia/Next Best Picture
Eugene Novikov/Film Blather
Christopher Schiller/ScriptMag.com
Sasha Stone/Awards Daily
Anne Thompson/Indiewire
Anonymous
Here's the rundown of the Professionals ratings for each year since I started polling the Pros in 2012.
2019:
1) Parasite (4.75)
2) The Two Popes (4.42)
3) Marriage Story (4.40)
4) Waves (4.29)
5) A Hidden Life (4.20)
6) Portrait of a Lady on Fire (4.17)
7) Ford v. Ferrari (4.11)
8) The Report (3.87)
9) Pain and Glory (3.83)
10) Uncut Gems (3.78)
11) Motherless Brooklyn (3.58)
12) The Climb (3.50)
13) Judy (3.13)
14) The Aeronauts (3.08)
15) The Assistant (2.75)
2018:
1) Roma (4.73)
2) First Man (4.17)
3) Cold War (4.14-tie)
3) Free Solo (4.14-tie)
5) Can You Ever Forgive Me ? (4.11)
6) The Favourite (3.90)
7) Watergate (3.60)
8) Border (3.50)
9) Destroyer (3.25)
10) Boy Erased (3.20)
11) The Old Man and the Gun (3.17)
12) White Boy Rick (3.06)
13) The Front Runner (3.05)
2017:
1) The Shape of Water (4.5)
2) (Tie) Faces Places (4.25)
2) (Tie) Loveless (4.25)
2) (Tie) The Rider (4.25)
5) Lady Bird (4.20)
6) First Reformed (4.0)
7) Battle of the Sexes (3.95)
8) Darkest Hour (3.85)
9) Hostiles (3.79)
10) First They Killed My Father (3.78)
11) Loving Vincent (3.63)
12) Lean on Pete (3.50)
13) Wonderstruck (3.25)
14) Downsizing (3.10)
15) Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool (2.60)
2016:
1) Moonlight (4.82)
2) La La Land (4.58)
3) Things to Come (4.20)
4) Manchester by the Sea (3.95)
5) Into the Inferno (3.92)
6) Sully (3.89)
7) Arrival (3.88)
8) Toni Erdmann (3.85)
9) Maudie (3.60)
10) Una (3.44)
11) California Typewriter (3.25)
12) Neruda (3.00)
13) Bleed for This (2.71)
14) Wakefield (2.67)
15) Norman (2.67)
2015:
1) Son of Saul (4.44)
2) Anomalisa (4.42)
3) Spotlight (4.41)
4) Steve Jobs (4.31)
5) Beasts of No Nation (4.27)
6) Carol (4.11)
7) 45 Years (4.06)
8) Taxi (4.00)
9) Black Mass (3.85)
10) Time to Choose (3.57)
11) Room (3.50)
12) Suffragette (3.49)
13) He Named Me Malala (2.83)
2014:
1) Birdman (4.72)
2) Foxcatcher (4.63)
3) ’71 (4.25)
4) Wild Tales (4.20)
5) Leviathan (4.17)
6) Mr. Turner (4.10)
7) The Imitation Game (4.06)
8) Mommy (3.92)
9) Two Days, One Night (3.90)
10) The Homesman (3.80)
11) Red Army (3.67)
12) Madame Bovary (3.30)
13) Wild (3.21)
14) Rosewater (3.06)
2013:
1) 12 Years a Slave (4.7)
2) Blue is the Warmest Color (4.4)
3) Gravity (4.35)
4) Tim's Vermeer (4.3)
5) Nebraska (4.3)
6) All is Lost (4.2)
7) Inside Llewyn Davis (4.1)
8) Starred Up (4.0)
9) The Past (3.9)
10) Labor Day (3.6)
11) Bethlehem (3.6)
12) Prisoners (3.5)
13) The Lunchbox (3.5)
14) Salinger (3.3)
15) The Unknown Known (3.3)
16) Palo Alto (3.2)
17) Tracks (3.2)
18) Under the Skin (3.1)
18) (tie) The Wind Rises (3.1)
20) The Invisible Woman (3.0)
2012:
1) Central Park Five-4.7
2) Argo-4.5
3) Stories We Tell- 4.3
4) The Sapphires 4.25
5) (Tie) Frances Ha and The Attack- 4.2
7) Rust and Bone- 4.0
8) The Iceman- 3.8
9) At Any Price- 3.7
10) (Tie) Amour and Baraka- 3.5
12) No- 3.4
14) (Tie) Hyde Park on Hudson and The Gatekeepers 3.0
15) Everyday- 2.8
The Professionals' All Time Top Ten through 2019:
1) Moonlight (4.87) (16)
2) Parasite (4.75) (19)
3) Roma (4.73) (18)
4) Birdman (4.72) (14)
5) 12 Years a Slave (4.70-tie) (13)
6) Central Park Five (4.70-tie) (12)
7) Foxcatcher (4.63) (14)
8) La La Land (4.58) (16)
9) Argo (4.50-tie) (12)
9) The Shape of Water (4.50-tie) (17)
10) Son of Saul (4.44) (15)
And finally...because MTFB is about to change its focus to the Oscar prospects for this year's crop of films from TFF... Here's where Oscar nominees for Best Picture from TFF have landed each year according to The Professionals:
2012: Argo-4.50 (Winner) #2, Amour-3.50 #10
2013: 12 Years a Slave-4.70 #1 (Winner), Gravity-4.35 #3, Nebraska-4.30 #5
2014: Birdman-4.72 (Winner) #1, The Imitation Game-4.06 #7
2015: Spotlight-4.41 (Winner) #3, Room-3.50 #11
2016: Moonlight-4.82 #1 (Winner), La La Land 4.48 #2, Manchester by the Sea-3.95 #4, Arrival-3.88 #7
2017: The Shape of Water-4.50 #1 (Winner), Lady Bird-4.20 #5, Darkest Hour-3.85 #8
2018: Roma-4.74 #1, The Favourite-3.90 #6
2019: Parasite- 4.75 (Winner) #1, Marriage Story (4.40) #3, Ford v. Ferrari (4.11) #7
So, finally...here are the results of this year's MTFB Professionals film ratings for TFF #48 (with the cumulative average in parentheses). For a film to be counted for this year's listing, seven of the 15 respondents had to have rated it. 13films earned enough responses to be counted.
1) Marcel the Shell with Shoes On (4.44)
2) The Power of the Dog (4.32)
3) Belfast (4.30)
4) Spencer (4.27)
5) Red Rocket (4.22)
6) The Rescue (3.93)
7) King Richard (3.92)
8) Bergman Island (3.79)
9) C'mon C'mon (3.65)
10) The Lost Daughter (3.48)
11) Cyrano (3.46)
12) The French Dispatch (3.05)
13) Encounter (2.71)
Three films had responses from six Pros and so just missed making the list: A Hero, Julia and Petite Maman. The films with the most responses were: Belfast (15/15), The Power of the Dog (14/15), Cyrano, King Richard and The Lost Daughter (13/15).
Anyone have Marcel the Shell as their bet to take the top spot? It's 4.44 rating is enough to move it into a tie for the 10th spot on the all time Professionals' list with Son of Saul.
The PEOPLE"S TELLURIDE ratings will be posted on Monday, Sept. 20th.
BEGINNING TO THINK ABOUT THE OSCARS
Now that TFF #48 has come and gone, it's time to do the annual transition of MTFB and think about how the films of this year's fest will be a part of the narrative of the 2021-22 Oscar season.
As usual, I'll be posting soon my own predictions about the Academy Awards, but I'll also be tracking the thoughts of some of the best awards prognosticators in the business.
To that end, we start today with a glance at Clayton Davis who is the Oscar brain at Variety. In the coming weeks and months I'll also be tracking Oscar geniuses Sasha Stone/Awards Daily, Mark Johnson/Good as Gold (which is housed at Awards Daily), Matt Neglia/Next Best Picture, Erik Anderson/Awards Watch. Anne Thompson/Indiewire and others.
Soooo....here we go.
Clayton Davis currently has post-Telluride predictions in eight categories at Variety: Picture, Director, all four acting categories and the two screenplay categories. His crystal ball suggests that TFF #48 films with Oscar nominations in those categories would be:
Belfast: Picture, Director/Branagh, Supporting Actress/Balfe and Dench, Supporting Actor/Hinds, Original Screenplay
The Power of the Dog: Picture, Director/Campion, Actor/Cumberbatch, Supporting Actress/Dunst, Adapted Screenplay
King Richard: Picture, Actor/Smith
C'mon C'mon: Picture, Original Screenplay
The Lost Daughter: Best Actress/Colman, Adapted Screenplay
Cyrano: Actor/Dinklage
Spencer: Actress/Stewart
The French Dispatch: Supporting Actor/Wright
That's a total of 20 predicted nominations in the "above-the-line' categories.
Other films/performers that are "next in line" as Davis puts it are:
Best Picture: Flee, Cyrano, The Lost Daughter, A Hero and Spencer
Best Director: Mike Mills/C'mon C'mon
Best Actress: Davis has Caitirona Balfe listed here depending on what category she lands in.
Best Actor: Joaquin Phoenix/C'mon C'mon
Best Supporting Actress: Aunjanue Ellis/King Richard, Jesse Buckley/The Lost Daughter, Gaby Hoffman/C'mon C'mon
Best Supporting Actor: Kodi Smit-McPhee/The Power of the Dog, Woody Nomrna/C'mon C'mon
Best Original Screenplay: King Richard, A Hero
A NEW PAGE FOR MTFB
Someone asked me during this year's festival if I had collected all of The Professionals and People's film ratings dating back to the first year I did it in 2012. My answer was "Um...no".
Then I thought that sounded like a good idea. So as we roll into the next week or so where I reveal the results of this years Pros, Peeps and Composite ratings, I have added a new page as of this morning that records all of the results from each poll from 2012 to the present. You'll find it on a page listed as "Film Ratings from Past Fests".
I hope you find it fun and useful.
AWARDS FROM VENICE
No TFF film won the Golden Lion. That top award went to Audrey Diwan's Happening. But TFF #48 films did not go unrewarded in Venice.
Jane Campion won the Silver Award for Best Direction for The Power of the Dog. Paolo Sorrentino's The Hand of God won the Silver Lion Special Jury Prize. Maggie Gyllenhaal won the award for Best Screenplay for The Lost Daughter and Filippo Scotti was named Best Young Actor for his role in The Hand of God.
EMAIL: mpgort@gmail.com
TWITTER @TheMTFB OR @Gort2
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