More Venice Musings / Sundance Theory

MORE MUSINGS ON VENICE

We're still several weeks away from any announcement concerning the films which will be chosen for this year's Venice Film Festival but already there's some serious speculation about what those may be.

In my last post I started to look at that with an overview of World of Reel's first stab at figuring out the Venice lineup.  Today I look at a Variety article by Nick Vivarelli that was posted last Thursday.  among the films Vivarelli predicts there are five that feel like possibilities for TFF #51:

Maria/Pablo Larrain

Queer/Luca Guadagnino

In the Hands of Dante/Julian Schnabel

Hard Truths/Mike Leigh

I'm Still Here/Walter Salles

All five of these directors have had at least one film make a Telluride lineup in the past.  These five films also were included on the WOR list I posted last Thursday.

See the complete article from Variety here.

SUNDANCE THEORY

Seems like I do one of these every year now.  This is the post where I suggest that there might be a Sundance feature film that cracks the TFF lineup.  

Telluride history and commentary suggest that TFF has a standard that films that play Labor Day weekend must be either a World or North American premiere.  But there have been exceptions:

An Education in 2009

Manchester by the Sea in 2016

The Report in 2019

The Father (would have screened had TFF happened) in 2020

Living in 2022

There are others.

In some of these cases a TFF Tribute was involved:  Casey Affleck in 2016, Adam Driver in 2019 and Anthony Hopkins would have been a Tribute recipient in 2020.

Last year I was all over A Little Prayer doing the Sundance/Telluride thing.  As you know that didn't happen.  BUT...I have a candidate for this happening again in 2024!

Readers...I give you Nora Fingscheidt's The Outrun starring Saorise Ronan.

Here's the case.  Ronan was rumored to have been set to get a Tribute in 2017 with Lady Bird's screening put that purportedly fell through.  I have often thought that Telluride would look for a way to make a Ronan tribute happen.  This could be that opportunity especially if the fest invites Blitz, which also features Ronan.  Perhaps Ronan would pull double duty as Driver did in 2019 with both The Report and Marriage Story making the TFF #46 lineup.

How confident am I about this...not that much but, like I said, it's happened before.

For hoots, here's the trailer for The Outrun:

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Latest from The Gurus / DGA (and More) on Saturday / Improbable for TFF #47

LATEST FROM THE GURUS

The latest Gurus of Gold went up at Movie City News today .  You can took a good long look at the first real line from the Gurus regarding who/what we collectively think will win the Academy Award in the "Big Eight" categories in a couple of weeks.

The Latest Gurus is linked here.

My personal predictions looks as follows for these eight categories with TFF #46 films in Bold.

BEST PICTURE

1) Once Upon A Time...in Hollywood

2) 1917 

3) Parasite 

4) The Irishman 

5) Joker 

6) Jojo Rabbit 

7) Marriage Story 

8) Little Women  

9) Ford v Ferrari 

BEST DIRECTOR

1) Sam Mendes/1917 

2) Bong Joon-ho/Parasite

3) Quentin Tarantino/Once Upon A Time ... 

4) Martin Scorsese/The Irishman 

5) Todd Phillips/Joker 

BEST ACTRESS

1) Renee Zellweger/Judy 

2) Scarlett Johansson/Marriage Story

3) Charlize Theron/Bombshell

4) Cynthia Erivo/Harriet

5) Saoirse Ronan/Little Women

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

1) Laura Dern/Marriage Story

2) Scarlett Johansson/Jojo Rabbit

3) Kathy Bates/Richard Jewell

4) Margot Robbie/Bombshell

5) Florence Pugh/Little Women

BEST ACTOR

1) Joaquin Phoenix/Joker

2) Adam Driver/Marriage Story

3) Antonio Banderas/Pain and Glory

4) Leonardo DiCaprio/Once Upon a Time...

5) Jonathan Pryce/The Two Popes

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

1) Brad Pitt/Once Upon a Time...

2) Joe Pesci/The Irishman

3) Al Pacino/The Irishman

4) Tom Hanks/A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

5) Anthony Hopkins/The Two Popes

ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

1) Once Upon A Time ... 

2) Parasite 

3) Marriage Story 

4) Knives Out 

5) 1917 

ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

1) Little Women 

2) The Irishman

3) Jojo Rabbit 

4) The Two Popes 

5) Joker

DGA (AND MORE) ON SATURDAY

The next big Guild domino to fall prior to the Oscars is the Directors Guild of America which will announce its winners on Saturday.  Also announcing Saturday will be the USC Scripter Award for Adapted Screenplays as well as the American Society of Cinematographers and the Cinema Audio Society.

It'll be a big day of film awards news.

The DGA is likely a three way battle between Sam Mendes/1917, Bong Joon-ho/Parasite and Quentin Tarantino/Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood.

The ASC is likely going to award Roger Deakins for 1917.

The CAS is probably going to give their award for sound mixing to Ford v Ferrari especially since 1917 was not nominated by the organization.

The USC Scripter Award could land in the hands of Greta Gerwig for Little Women or perhaps Steve Zaillian for The Irishman.

We'll know on Saturday night and then assess if any of the awards were a surprise as well if any of the wins give us any more inkling about Oscar races.

IMPROBABLE FOR 47

As most MTFB know, TFF regularly schedules new films only if they will be appearing in North America for the first time.  There are exceptions here and there but they are rare. Recently Kenneth Lonergan's Manchester by the Sea and Scott Z. Burns' The Report played Sundance first and then TFF. 

So the films that are announced for the Sundance Film Fest are almost always relegated to "ain't gonna play Telluride" status.

So, with that notion in mind, here's a quick scan of some films that are very likely not going to be TFF #47 bound as they have been announced for Sundance:

Never, Rarely, Sometimes, Always
Zola
Downhill
Falling
Kajillionaire
The Glorias
The Last Thing He Wanted
Wendy
Worth

The complete Sundance program is here should want to explore.



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