Steve McQueen's Blitz-Off the Table? / Screen Daily and the Venice Lineup / Bikeriders Riding Into Theaters Next Week

STEVE MC QUEEN'S BLITZ-OFF THE TABLE?

I wrote in the MTFB May 30th post:

"I'd reallllly...love for Blitz to get to TFF and McQueen has a solid past with the fest, but...given the story is about the blitz of London by the Nazis in WWII, I can see McQueen wanting to hold the World Premiere as a part of the London Film Fest in October."

Now, we're hearing that Blitz may not be in play for TFF or Venice adding some credence to the possibility of my theory.

Jordan Ruimy writing for his website Word of Reel has been following this Blitz situation this past week posting on June 10th an article headlined: Where Is Steve McQueen's Blitz?

Then yesterday Ruimy had more to say in an article titled: Blitz Not Submitted to Venice or Telluride.  In that piece Ruimy writes:

"...until I hear anything different, it looks like “Blitz” might not premiere on the Lido. Same with Telluride, which is said to still be in hot pursuit of the film."

A couple of takeaways here.  First, if Ruimy is correct then Blitz is seemingly off the TFF table.  BUT...that last sentence suggests that T-ride is still on the hunt to land the film.

Here's where I am.  Unless we find out more between now and next Thursday when my first "Ten Bets" for Telluride will be posted, Blitz will not be on that list.  But, I'm keeping the door open the slimmest of cracks on the basis that Ruimy's correct and the fest is still trying to get it.

SCREEN DAILY'S VENICE SPECULATION

Screen Daily posted their speculative piece about the films that could be at The Venice Film Festival on Monday.

I've been through the article trying to pick out films that might make their initial bow in Italy and then do the quick turnaround to come to Colorado.  From their list, here are the films that I think have the best shot at that (in the order they appear on the article):

Luca Guadagnino's Queer

Pablo Larrain's Maria

Edward Berger's Conclave

Julian Schnabel's In the Hand of Dante

Walter Salles' I'm Still Here

Mike Leigh's Hard Truths

Joshua Oppenheimer's The End

Malcolm Washington's The Piano Lesson

As a side note, Screen Daily included Steve McQueen's Blitz as a Venice possibility but see the above story.

BIKERIDERS RIDING INTO THEATERS NEXT WEEK

I've made no secret of the fact that I really enjoyed Jeff Nichols' The Bikeriders last year at TFF #50 but, admittedly, that feeling wasn't universal.  In my polls post-fest, my group of industry pros ended with it ranked 9th of the 12 films that had enough eyeballs on it. The People's Telluride poll had it at 10th of 16 and the Composite poll landed it at #8 out the 10 films that met the criteria for making that field.  

It seems, however that critics have embraced it a bit better.  Metacritic has it it with a respectable 73 and its Rotten Tomatoes score is a better than respectable 84.

At any rate, the film opens next week in theaters and consequently we're seeing a lot of P.R. about it ahead of that.  Here's a taste:

Director Jeff Nichols with The Hollywood Reporter.

Austin Butler via TheBikeriders X account.

Austin Butler and Jodie Comer from IGN.

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Screen Daily Looks at Cannes Possibilities / Dune: Part Two

SCREEN DAILY LOOKS AT CANNES POSSIBILITIES

We're growing closer to the actual announcement of films that will be a part of this year's Cannes Film Fest's various sections.  Then we can look at them for clues as to possible Telluride choices for TFF #50.  In this interim, now down to 10 days, looking at informed speculation is the best game in town.  Among the best each year at sussing out probable Cannes selections is Screen Daily and that's where we look today to gauge what might happen.

Screen Daily, rather uniquely, divides their picks geographically, so we'll organize that way as well.  Here are what I feel like are the most viable T-ride potentials from the Screen Daily list:

France: 

The Book of Solutions/Gondry

Daaaaaali!/Depieux

North America:

Killers of the Flower Moon/Scorsese

May/December/Haynes

UK:

The Old Oak/Loach

Italy:

La Chimera/Rohrwacher

Io Capitano/Garrone

Other Europe:

Poor Things/Lanthimos

AND/Lanthimos

Fallen Leaves/Kaurismaki

The Bastard/Arcel

Asia and Australia:

Monster/Kore-eda

Cobweb/Kang-ho

The New Boy/Thornton

The entire Screen Daily article is linked here.

DUNE: PART TWO

I haven't given any thought to a possibility that Dune Part Two might play TFF #50.  After the first film opted not to play at Telluride my assumption has been that there was no chance that the sequel would play The SHOW.  That despite the fact that director and co-writer Denis Villenueve has had a substantial history with TFF including screenings of  Arrival (2016), Prisoners (2013), Incendies (2010) and August 32nd on earth (1998).

All that said to get almost certain confirmation from a story by Andreas Wiseman for Variety that posted last week.  In it Variety reports that the film will not be ready for a Venice premiere.  Since T-ride and Venice run side-by-side, we know that a TFF #50 screening would also be out of the question.

the article does tease that a later film festival might be in play for the film which has a scheduled release date of Nov. 3rd.  New York maybe?

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Screen Daily's Festival Temptations (Continued) / SAG Awards Handed Out Last Night / Ralph Fiennes' The White Crow Has a Trailer / Interviews / Michel LeGrand 1932-2019

Good Monday everyone.  Welcome back from your weekend...


SCREEN DAILY'S FESTIVAL TEMPTATIONS (CONTINUED)

In my last post I began looking at Screen Daily's series about films "to tempt festival directors".  That post focused on their take on Irish and UK films that might be chosen for film festivals from Cannes all the way to Venice, Toronto and of course Telluride as well as others.

Today we look at their lists for both the U.S., Canada and Latin America and then European selections.

Among the films from U.S., Canada and Latin America that seem like TFF #46 possibilities are:

Coming Home Again dir: Wayne Wang
The Irishman dir: Martin Scorsese (probably more a wish than a possibility)
The Last Thing He Wanted dir: Dee Rees
Little Women dir: Greta Gerwig
Ema dir: Pablo Larrain


The complete post for U.S., Canada and Latin America is linked here.


Here's are films from the Screen Daily European list of tempting titles that seem Telluride friendly:

Ahmed dir: The Dardennes Brothers
Bergman Island dir: Mia Hansen-Love
The County dir: Grimur Hakonarson
Pinocchio dir: Matteo Garrone

The complete article for Europe is linked here.


SAG AWARDS HANDED OUT LAST NIGHT

Winners from last night's Screen Actors Guild from last night:

Best Cast: Black Panther
Actress: Glenn Close/The Wife
Actor: Rami Malek/Bohemian Rhapsody
Supporting Actress: Emily Blunt/A Quiet Place
Supporting Actor: Mahershala Ali/Green Book
Stunt Cast: Black Panther

Five performances from TFF #45 films were nominated but none came away with a trophy: Colman, Stone and Weisz for The Favourite and McCarthy and Grant for Can You Ever Forgive Me?


RALPH FIENNES' THE WHITE CROW HAS A TRAILER

Here's a trailer for director Ralph Fiennes under seen TFF #45 entrant The White Crow which tells the story of ballet dancer supreme Rudolf Nuryev:

Trailer posted via YouTube.

I have also linked an accompanying story from Deadline.com here.

The White Crow currently has no U.S. release announced. Sony Pictures Classics has the film for U.S. distribution.

INTERVIEWS

Linked here is an Entertainment Weekly interview with Oscar nominee Melissa McCarthy (who was lovely when I talked to her in Telluride) for her role in Marielle Heller's Can You Ever Forgive Me?  The interview was conducted by Joey Nolfi.

Here's that link.

Additionally, here's a link to Kris Tapley's Variety/Playback podcast with writer/director Jason Reitman (The Front Runner) who is making a lot of news in the last week as it was announced that Reitman will direct the next iteration of the Ghostbusters franchise.

Here's the link to that podcast.

 MICHEL LEGRAND 1932-2019

I felt I needed to write a quick note on the passing of musician/composer Michel Legrand.  Legrand was a Tribute recipient in 2007.  He won three Oscars for his musical additions to Yentl, The Thomas Crown Affair and The Summer of 42.  He was nominated an additional six times.

One of the most electrifying musical moments I ever saw on television was a duet with Legrand and Ray Charles on some talk show probably in the 70's sometime.  It was breathtaking to watch the two master from very different backgrounds and approaches play off one another.  Thrilling.

Legrand was 86.

Here is his obituary from The Guardian.

That's the MTFB for Monday, Jan. 28, 2019.  I'll have more on Thursday... (expecting a link to a new Gurus of Gold that will turn to predicting this year's Oscar winners)

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COMMENT TO THE BLOG

Oscar Nomination Analysis / Experts Predict Oscar Winners / Film Fest Spec from Screen Daily

Good Thursday.  Here's your latest from MTFB


OSCAR NOMINATION ANALYSIS

Total nominations for TFF #45 films-34 which exceeds the average of 27-28 since I started tracking TFF Oscar nominations.

Plus one from TFF #44...the Original Screenplay nomination for Paul Schrader for First Reformed.

For the record I finished the morning at 78% accuracy...which is right at my normal average.

For Best Pic I was 8 of 8 (because I had 10 picked).

Other perfect categories for me this year: Best Actress, Animated Feature, Foreign Language Film and Production Design.  My worst category this year-Film Editing where I was a measly 2 of 5.  Overall I was 95/122 for the 78%.  In eight categories the film I had pegged as the #6 film ended up in the nominees...so, you know, close.

Biggest shockers to me...

No Bradley Cooper for Directing A Star Is Born.  
No Won't You Be My Neighbor for Documentary.  
No Score nomination for First Man.  
Marina de Tavira getting in Supporting Actress for Roma.  
The love for Buster Scruggs which I'm not sure anyone saw coming. 
No Film Editing noms for Roma, Star or First Man

A couple of added points here that I didn't touch on Tuesday's special post...

The max number of total Oscars that TFF films could win is 18 as there are at least one TFF film nominated in 18 of the 24 categories.  Six categories have no TFF film nominated at all and thus cannot produce a TFF winner.  They are Best Actor, Animated Feature, Original Score, Original Song, Animated Short and Documentary Short.

Of course, that total is unlikely.  Below I have linked to some of the early predictions about possible winners in each category and what that suggests might be the total trophy take on Oscar night, Feb. 24th.

EXPERTS PREDICT OSCAR WINNERS

I have linked here the early Oscar winner predictions from experts with their view of which TFF films win what Oscars on Feb. 24th

Scott Feinberg/The Hollywood Reporter

Scott's predicted TFF winners include:

Roma (4): Best Picture, Direction, Foreign Language Film, Cinematography

First Man (1): Visual Effects

For a total of five wins.  Scott foresees The Favourite not winning from any of its field leading (tied with Roma) 10 nominations.

Sasha Stone/Awards Daily

Sasha's home page right hand column seems to point the way to here early Oscar thinking and it has the following stabs at TFF winners:

Roma (3): Direction, Cinematography, Foreign Language Film

First Reformed (TFF #44-1) Original Screenplay

First Man (2): Sound Editing, Visual Effects

Total of six wins.

Gold Derby's Odds

Roma (4): Best Picture (odds are tied with A Star Is Born), Direction, Cinematography, Foreign Language Film

The Favourite (3): Original Screenplay, Costumes, Production Design

First Man (1): Sound Editing

Total of eight wins.

FILM FEST SPEC FROM SCREEN DAILY

Renee Zellweger in Judy via IMDb

I have been tracking a series of articles from Screen Daily that they have labeled "Films to Tempt Festival Directors" in an attempt to get an early line on some titles that might be on the TFF #46 lineup.

The latest installment focuses on films from the UK and Ireland.  It's a list of 13 films and among them, these are the titles that standout to me as potential players at Telluride:

Untitled Girls Film directed by Sarah Gavron

Greed directed by Michael Winterbottom

Judy directed by  Rupert Goold

Radioactive directed by Marjane Satrapi

Sorry We Missed You directed by Ken Loach

The complete post from Screen Daily is linked here.

That's your MTFB for this Thursday.  I'll have more on Monday.  Have a great weekend.