QUICK COMMENTS ON WILD, IMITATION GAME AND ROSEWATER
Wild: Reese Witherspoon is rather good and Laura Dern is also fine in a story/film that lacks from dramatic tension. 3 of 5
Imitation Game: Morten Tyldum with a winner here. Solid work and a great script. Benedict Cumberbatch delivers a sterling performance. Also exceptional work from Matthew Goode, Mark Strong and Charles Dance in support and a stunning debut for Alex Lawther as the young Alan Turing. This is a true story that needs to be seen! 4.5 of 5
Rosewater: A film I admire more than love. First time director Jon Stewart makes fully reasonable choices for a film that never really engages. 3 of 5.
Saturday for me will include an early Foxcatcher and a late Birdman...in between...still figuring it out...Red Army looks like a real possibility.
And someone please tell me that Michael Keaton is going to put in a surprise appearance!
SATURDAY'S TBA'S AND SNEAKS
From the www.telluridefilmfestival.org website:
Saturday TBAs
1:30PM - DIPLOMACY - Masons
3:30PM - WILD TALES - Masons
4:00PM - THE IMITATION GAME - Palm
5:00PM - Great Expectations - Le Pierre
8:45PM - WHERE EAGLES DARE - Masons
10:45PM - (SNEAK) ESCOBAR: PARADISE LOST- Palm
SNEAK PREVIEW ESCOBAR: PARADISE LOST Masons/Sat 10:45P
Nick (Josh Hutcherson) and Dylan (Brady Corbet), two Canadian brothers, discover an idyllic surfing beach on the coast of Colombia, where Nick eyes Maria (Claudia Traisac), an idealistic local girl who works with the poor. But this love story has a dark side: Maria’s wealthy, very protective uncle is Pablo Escobar (Benicio Del Toro), the country’s biggest narco-trafficker, and one of the most dangerous men alive. Writer-director Andrea Di Stefano ingeniously mixes fact and fiction in this disturbing thriller, with Hutcherson (Jennifer Lawrence’s love interest in the Hunger Games movies) giving a touching performance as an ordinary guy stumbling headlong into terror and violence, holding his own opposite one of the most charismatic actors alive. And Del Toro, with his mixture of avuncular sweetness, self-mythologizing grandiosity and cobra-like cruelty, may well have been born to play Escobar. (France-Spain-Belgium, 2014, 120m) In person: Andrea Di Stefano
Second screening: CJC/Sun 12:15P Q&A
SNEAK THE CLARITY OF PEACE Herzog/Monday 9:15a Q&A
Errol Morris is best known for his interrogations of humanity's dark complexity, including portrayals of two American engineers of war, Robert McNamara, in THE FOG OF WAR (TFF 30) and Donald Rumsfeld, in THE UNKNOWN KNOWN (TFF 40). Here, Morris turns his camera 180 degrees, creating three inspiring portraits of courageous figures who dare to confront the worst Goliaths of our times. In THE DREAM, the Nobel Peace Prize winner Leymah Gbowee recounts the coalition of Liberian women whom, without brandishing a weapon or uttering a word of disrespect, stopped one of the longest, most vicious wars in modern history. THE SHIPYARD shows how Lech Walesa, a Polish electrician and Nobel Laureate, rallied workers to challenge the repressive Soviet Union, succeeding where 30-plus years of Cold War aggression failed. And in THE MOMENT, rockstar Bob Geldof tells how he transformed his commitment and some guilt (along with a phenomenal Rolodex) into an ongoing, 30-year struggle to eradicate hunger in Africa. Morris, one of cinema’s most insightful, inquisitive and expressionistic artists, reminds us of his deep, heartful comprehension of the indomitable human spirit. He created these films in conjunction with the New York Times’ Op-Docs series (U.S., 2014, 49m total). In person: Errol Morris
Seminar Elks Park/Saturday Noon
THE FORTY-YEAR PENDULUM: HOW DOES TODAY'S CINEMA REFLECT THE LEGACY OF THE 1970s?
With Francis Coppola, Werner Herzog, Walter Murch, Volker Schlöndorff, Wim Wenders, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Ethan Hawke
Moderated by Annette Insdorf
