The First Ten Bets for TFF #45 / Awards Daily Critics' List / Burning Has a Home

Good Friday all!  Big post today!



THE FIRST TEN BETS FOR TFF #45

Here you have it.  My first official stab at guessing/predicting/projecting/hoping for films that will play at The SHOW in Telluride over Labor Day weekend.

The first set of predictions every June is fraught with uncertainty.  I look at a lot of factors:  Studios. distributors, TFF histories, especially with directors.  The buzz around films we know are coming in the fall and will almost assuredly play some if not all of the Telluride/Venice/Toronto triumvirate.  Oscar hopefuls, Cannes titles and a lot of the time, especially in early July...it's about intuition.

It all factors into my assessments.

Here's the history of success, or lack thereof, for each of the last seven years that I have been using the "Ten Bets" format:

2011: 8/10
2012: 5/10
2013: 6/10
2014: 7/10
2015: 4/10
2016: 3/10
2017: 7/10

As you can tell, last year was a bounce back after low years of 2015 and 2016.

Overall, I manage an average of  5.7 correct guesses with the initial Ten Bets of each season.

So...crossing fingers... here's the first Ten Bets for 2018 (in order of likelihood):

10) Beautiful Boy- I think Amazon Studios will land at Telluride with this, at least and maybe more.

9) The Front Runner- Jason Reitman was once a T-ride favorite.  My guess is that this film gets him back.

8) Burning- this was Cannes' unrewarded critical darling from a director who has played TFF before.   This was actually higher on my list until word broke yesterday that it had been grabbed for U.S. distribution by Well Go USA Entertainment.   See below.

7) Sunset- If its half as good as his first film (Son of Saul), Laszlo Nemes will return.

6) The Old Man and the Gun- This feels like Fox Searchlight's best play for Oscar season and thus its best chance at a Telluride berth...though they do have other possibles.

5) Cold War- Pawel Pawlikowski with a good shot to return to TFF.

4) Capernaum- Cannes Jury Prize winner and SPC's most likely shot for the schedule.

3) Peterloo- Mike Leigh's film about labour strife in Britain.

2) The Other Side of the Wind-Orson Welles "last film".  If this doesn't play Telluride I will be greatly surprised and, for that matter, upset.

1) If Beale Street Could Talk- It would a shock if Barry Jenkins' follow-up to his Oscar winning Moonlight does not make The SHOW's lineup.

Others on my "just under the Ten Bets" list: Boy Erased, The Sisters Brothers, The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, The Eyes of Orson Welles, Dogman, On the Basis of Sex, Girl, Happy as Lazzaro, Shoplifters, He Dreams of Giants, First Man, Widows,  A Star Is Born, Cheney (Backseat), Roma, At Eternity's Gate, Everybody Knows.

What do YOU think?  What films do YOU think might play?  What films do YOU WANT to play?

Drop me a note at any one of the contact methods listed below.

Looking at this list before I punch the button to publish, I'm saying to myself...naw...these can't all happen...but what if they did???

So, there you have it.  Let's see now how many of these films actually make the lineup.



AWARDS DAILY'S CRITICS' LIST

Jordan Ruimy, writing and compiling for Awards Daily has posted a "Best Of" critics assessment for the first half of 2018.

TFF #45 films pop up on the list with some frequency.  Included on the list are:

#31-Loveless
#24-Foxtrot
#13-Lean on Pete
#6-The Rider
#1-First Reformed

Pretty impressive for the films that played last year but weren't released until this year.  The complete list from Awards Daily is here.


BURNING HAS A HOME

As I mentioned above,  Lee Chang-dong's Cannes critical fave Burning has a distributor.  Variety reports that Well Go USA Entertainment has acquired the film and plans a limited release on Oct. 26th in NYC with expansion after that.

The film was right at the top of the critics' polls after its screening at Cannes but had languished without a distributor until yesterday.

As you see above, I still have it listed among my first Ten Bets list, albeit lower than I was thinking earlier this week, despite the fact that Well Go USA has essentially no Telluride history to speak of.

The complete story is linked here from Variety


That's your Friday MTFB.  Come back for more on Monday.


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

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The Fifth Telluride Film Festival-1978 / If I Had To / The Underground Railroad: More Details / And a Re-cap

Good Friday TFF followers...

THE FIFTH TELLURIDE FILM FESTIVAL

We're winding down the review of past Telluride Film Festivals (a process over a year in the making).  Today we look at TFF #5 that took place Sept. 1-4, 1978.


TRIBUTES: Hal Roach, Sterling Hayden, The Czech New Wave: Jaromil Jires, Pavel Juracek, Jan Nemec and Ivan Passer.

SHOWS:

Always for Pleasure
American Friend
Camouflage
Case for a Rookie Hangman
China 9, Liberty 37
Cooley High
The Devil's Reporter
Diamonds of the Night
Doctoring
El Capitan
Hellgate
Intimate Lighting
Johnny Guitar
The Killing
Koko, The Talking Gorilla
Martyrs of Love
The Messiah
Miss Mend
My Love to the Swallows
North Avenue Irregulars
Of Mice and Men
On the Yard
Perils of the Yukon
Pinocchio
Roger Corman-Hollywood's Wild Angel
Siringo
The Star
Topper Takes a Trip
Valerie
Way Out West
The Wicker Man
Windjammer

GUESTS:

Carroll Ballard
Robert DeNiro
Milos Forman
Monte Hellman
Harvey Keitel
Robbie Robertson
Isabella Rossellini
Barbet Schroeder
Martin Scorsese
Joan Micklin Silver
Wim Wenders



IF I HAD TO

I'm still about three weeks away from the summer's first "Ten Bets" listing.  For those who may be new to the blog, the "Ten Bets" will become my weekly "official" guess as to what films are likely to make the TFF #45 lineup.  Those "Bets" will then continue right up until the actual lineup is announced on Aug. 30th.

That said, for hoots, I thought I'd slap together a list of ten or so films that feel like the best shots to make the TFF #45 program with three months to go.  Last year when I did this I hit six titles right.  Last year's "If I Had To" list (which I posted on June 5th) included these that I got right:

Wonderstruck
Downsizing
Loveless
A Fantastic Woman
Faces Places
Battle of the Sexes

What I missed on: The Florida Project, You Were Never Really Here, BPM and The Current War.

So, if you made me surrender ten titles today (in alpha order):

Beautiful Boy
Burning
Capernaum
Cold War
If Beale Street Could Talk
The Old Man and the Gun
The Other Side of the Wind
Peterloo
Roma
Sunset

Just outside: Boy Erased, Dogman, The Front Runner, Girl, On the Basis of Sex and The Sisters Brothers.

THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD: MORE DETAILS

Two weeks after the close of TFF #43 and the triumphant and ultimately award winning success of Barry Jenkins' Moonlight, we got word that Jenkins was set up to adapt Colson Whitehead's Pulitzer Prize winner The Underground Railroad.

We got more details this week about that project which looks to be the next thing Jenkins will be working on after the completion of If Beale Street Could Talk.

Indiewire's Steve Green reports that Jenkins will direct the full run of what will be an 11 part limited series for Amazon.

Here's the link to the complete story from Indiewire.

P.S.  Mr. Jenkins...will be glad to audition for any role at all...

AND A RE-CAP

Still from The Old Man and a Gun 

(and hoping I am sitting in a theater with Redford and Spacek on Labor Day)

It sure felt like a wave of Oscar-y and fall fest films made some noise this week with trailers for The Old Man and the Gun, A Star Is Born, Widows, White Boy Rick, Serenity, Kidding, stills from First Man.

There's some buzz that a First Man trailer might drop today or in days timed with Ryan Gosling's appearance tonight on Jimmy Kimmel's NBA Game Night prime time show.

And I have made my application for media accreditation again for this year's festival...fingers crossed.


That's a wrap for this Friday and this first week of June.  I'll have more on Monday.


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

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Venice Speculation and the Road to Telluride / Holland Could Return / Restorations for TFF #45?

Good Memorial Day to everyone...

VENICE SPECULATION AND THE ROAD TO TELLURIDE

Mike Leigh's Peterloo

The Hollywood Reporter's staff compiled a list of 15 films this week that they think have a shot at making the Venice lineup.  The scuttlebutt I've been reading is that the Venice lineup may be stronger this year (and have an even more pronounced crossover with Telluride than in past years) due to the films that passed on or were passed over for a Cannes slot.

Last year saw an uptick in films that made the trip between the two fests and that trend, at least for the moment seems like it is likely to continue this year.

Among the 15 films listed by THR here are your most likely TFF #45 prospects:

If Beale Street Could Talk
The Sisters Brothers
Peterloo
First Man
Non Fiction
Beautiful Boy
The Death and Life of John F. Donovan
Sunset
Work Without Author

The article also lists Terrence Malick's Radegund, which, frankly sounds like the most interesting Malick project since The Tree of Life.

The complete THR article is linked here.


HOLLAND COULD RETURN

Gareth Jones still from Variety

Agnieszka Holland has been a past TFF participant (1986, 1995, 2001, 2011, 2013) and her new project, Gareth Jones, seems like it could mark the return to Telluride for the director of Burning Bush and In Darkness.

Gareth Jones tells the true story of a a reporter trying to cover the story of a man made famine in Russia in the 1930s.

This week, Variety posted an interview with actor James Norton who plays Gareth Jones, the welsh journalist who tried to shine a light on that story.

The interview from Variety is here.


RESTORATIONS FOR TFF #45?

Serge Bromberg 

News this week of a  restoration project that I think could find its way to the San Juans for Labor Day weekend.   A new Serge Bromberg presentation  has been announced, that, owing to Bromberg's lengthy track record with Telluride,  has to be seriously considered as a part of this year's lineup.

The Film Society of Lincoln Center reported this week that Bromberg will present  a program of recent restoration treasures in New York on June 20.  That program will include films from Georges Melies and the Lumiere Brothers.

The press release for that presentation is here.

It wouldn't be all that surprising to see Bromberg back in Telluride this year.


That's your T-ride film news for Memorial Day 2018.  More to come on Thursday...


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

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Deadline's Take on Cannes Possibilities / Beautiful Boy First Look / And For Fun

Good Monday to all...


DEADLINE'S TAKE ON CANNES POSSIBILITIES

The attempt to sift through informed Cannes speculation continues as a way of trying to suss out possible titles for The SHOW.  Today I am looking at Deadline's post from Mar. 22nd.

The first interesting note is an early paragraph that suggests that a number of films are off the table that have been mentioned in other previous Cannes speculation pieces.  Most notably (from a T-ride perspective):

First Man
The Sisters Brothers
Loro
and perhaps The Death and Life of John F. Donovan.

Other films that the article implies are ready and in the mix for Cannes (and then potentially Telluride):

Roma
Everybody Knows
Kursk
Non Fiction
The Man Who Killed Don Quixote
Peterloo

Shot from Mike Leigh's Peterloo

Sunset
Cold War
Ash Is the Purest White
Burning
Long Day's Journey Into Night
Photograph

And then there's The Other Side of the Wind.  The newly minted "last" film from Orson Welles is a Netflix production which means, at least according to the latest edict from Cannes head Thierry Fremaux, no competition slot.  However, the Deadline post suggests that the film could play in some other section of the French fest.  So, for the time being, let's keep it on our TFF #45 watch list.

The complete Deadline article is here.

The Hollywood Report has the Netflix ban story here.


BEAUTIFUL BOY FIRST LOOK


A number of media outlets posted a still from Felix Van Groeningen's upcoming Beautiful Boy starring the red hot Timothee Chalamet and Steve Carell.  Here's the still:

Indiewire;s accompanying story suggests that the film will probably skip Cannes and premiere at either Telluride or Toronto.  The film is being handled by Amazon Studios and produced, in part, by Brad Pitt's Plan B.  Both of those facts certainly don't hurt its Telluride chances.

AND FOR FUN

Telluride and MFTB friend Andy Brodie spotted this and posted it via Twitter and was kind enough to @ me so that I'd see it.

Forget all that stuff about the last eight best picture winners and nine of the last ten playing at Telluride.  Here's how you know you've really topped the mountain...you're the answer to a Jeopardy question (a $2000 Double Jeopardy question no less):

Thanks Andy.  Made me smile.

More on Thursday.

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Cannes Speculation Begins in Earnest / New Trailer for The Rider / Tapley Muses on Telluride's Popularity

Welcome to the Jungle...on this Thursday...


CANNES SPECULATION BEGINS IN EARNEST

The 71st Cannes Film Festival is less than two months away (it runs May 8-19) and Screen Daily has posted what I believe to be the first large Cannes speculation piece that I have come across.

As many Telluride attendees know, the Cannes-Telluride crossover is usually quite significant from year to year.  It's not at all uncommon for 25% or more of the features that screen at Telluride to have played at Cannes previously.  So, a discerning assessment of what may make the Cannes lineup also serves as a window on some possible TFF selections.

Last year, for example, the first Cannes piece here went up on March 9th and included Wonderstruck, Downsizing and Loveless.The Mar. 13th post added Lean on Pete and The Insult.

In my look at the corresponding Screen Daily article from a year ago, I included Wonderstruck, Lean on Pete and Loveless.  That SD article also included The Insult and Foxtrot.

That said, here are the films that Screen Daily suggests for Cannes that could also be Telluride players in my estimation:

From North America: The Death and Life of John F. Donovan, Beautiful Boy, Boy Erased, At Eternity's Gate.

From UK/Ireland: Peterloo, The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, The Eyes of Orson Welles.

From France: The Sisters Brothers, Non Fiction.

From Italy: Dogman.

From Central and Eastern Europe: Sunset and Cold War.

From Spain: Everybody Knows.

From Latin America: Roma.

From Asia: Ash Is Purest White, Long Day's Journey Into Night, Shadow.

The complete Screen Daily article is here.


NEW TRAILER FOR THE RIDER

A new trailer has been released from SPC for Chloe Zhao's The Rider.  Here it is from YouTube:

The Rider opens April 13th.  Here's Alex Billington's/FirstShowing.net article that accompanied the trailer's release.

TAPLEY MUSES ON TELLURIDE'S POPULARITY

If you haven't heard, 2018 passes for TFF #45 are sold out.  Every level...sold out. Depending who your read , that happened in 2-4 days.  Kristopher Tapley, co-editor at Variety and long time Telluride attendee tweeted his astonishment this week:

Here's Tapley's article from two years ago that he linked in the tweet.

That's all for this Thursday.  More to come on Monday.  Enjoy your weekend.

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

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Tapley Taps in / Variety's Anticipation / U.S. Trailer for Foxtrot / Jenkins On The Shape of Water

Hello to all on this last Thursday in December and 2017.


TAPLEY TAPS IN

Kristopher Tapley of Variety/In Contention has been a big presence in this space over the past several years as one of the best and best known Oscar prognosticators in the business.  Since I began the practice of following Telluride films through the awards season, Tapley's take on the Oscar scene is one that I have referenced religiously for many years.  But this year, Tapley has been quiet.

Variety has him running their podcast interviews and that seems to have become his central responsibility there.  At any rate and forever reasons, Tapley hasn't had any set of published predictions yet this season...until this week.

Tapley's InContention went up on Tuesday with a full set of predictions in all 24 Oscar categories.

In terms of films from TFF #44...here's what Mr. T predicts:

The Shape of Water gets 12 nominations: Best Picture, Direction, Actress, Supporting Actor (Richard Jenkins-yeah!), Original Screenplay, Cinematography, Costumes, Film Editing, Score, Production Design, Sound Editing and Sound Mixing.

Darkest Hour gets 5: Actor, Cinematography, Makeup. Score and Production Design

Lady Bird gets 4: Best Picture, Actress, Supporting Actress and Original Screenplay

And one nomination each for:
Downsizing: Supporting Actress
Loving Vincent: Animated Feature
The Insult: Foreign Language Film
A Fantastic Woman: Foreign Language Film
Loveless: Foreign Language Film
Faces/Places: Documentary Feature
Heroin(e): Documentary Short

A total of 28 nominations for TFF #44 films  if Kris is 100% accurate which is right at the Telluride Oscar average over the past several years.

Other films Tapley names for Best Picture and their predicted total nominations are: Dunkirk-7, Call Me By Your Name-5, The Florida Project-3, Get Out-3, The Post-6 and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri-6.

Tapley's complete set of predictions is here.



VARIETY'S ANTICIPATION

Also this week, Variety's critics gazed into their collective crystal ball and published a list of 20 films they are most excited to see in 2018.  Their list gives us a chance to ponder possible TFF #45 titles.

So, here are the films from Variety's 2018 most anticipated that feel like they have some T-ride potential:

Boy Erased-directed by Joel Edgerton
Burning -director Lee Chang-dong's last film was Poetry in 2010 which played Telluride
Everybody Knows- could be the film that gets Asghar Farhadi back to TFF
First Man- director Damien Chazelle's follow up to La La Land
The Man Who Killed Don Quixote- does Terry Gilliam return to TFF?
Roma-Alfonso Cuaron has been working on this since Gravity
The Sisters Brothers-Another possible return to TFF from Jacques Audiard
Sunset-director Laszlo Nemes first feature since his stunning Son of Saul

The complete listing of 20 films with commentary from Variety is linked here.



U.S. TRAILER FOR FOXTROT

Sony Pictures Classics Foreign Language Film Oscar contender Foxtrot from director and writer Samuel Maoz has its U.S. trailer which was released this week.

You can access it here from FirstShowing.net.



JENKINS ON THE SHAPE OF WATER

And finally today a link to a new interview from Deadline's Pete Hammond with Best Supporting Actor contender Richard Jenkins from Guillermo Del Toro's The Shape of Water.  As many of you know, Jenkins has been  a favorite of mine for Oscar consideration for this role since seeing the film.

That interview is here.


That's your last MTFB for 2017 friends.  I'll have 2018's first post (of some sort) up on Monday, Jan. 1, 2018.  Happy New Year and thanks for spending some of your 2017 reading these ramblings...


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Wonderstruck Will Strike in October / First Look at Haneke's Happy End / Redoutable Teaser Gets Meta / The Future for Past Telluriders / Amazon Rewards Manchester

Welcome to Thursday on MTFB...



WONDERSTRUCK WILL STRIKE IN OCTOBER

The case for Todd Haynes being a Telluride contender got another supportive piece of evidence yesterday as the peeps at Amazon and Roadside Attractions, who have paired to distribute the film, have announced a limited release date of October 20th.   The film will then proceed to be opened wider in November.

It wasn't long yesterday before journos pointed out that that time frame has served as the launchpad for four of the last five Oscar BP winners: Argo 10/12/12, 12 Years a Slave 10/18/13, Birdman 10/17/14, and Moonlight 10/21/16.  Only Spotlight has broken that pattern opening on 11/6/15.  Of course, all of those films played Telluride on their way to the Best Picture prize.

Honestly, when I get serious about posting a rough first guess at what will make the T-ride 2017 lineup, Wonderstruck might be the film on the top of that list.

Linked below is coverage of the release announcement from:

Variety

Indiewire

Awards Watch

The Playlist

The Wrap



FIRST LOOK AT HANEKE'S HAPPY END

Another film that will be in the hunt for the Cannes' Palme d'Or in a couple of weeks (and it could be an unprecedented third for its director...lots of predictors think that's a very real possibility) is Michael Haneke's Happy End.  Haneke hasn't made a film since his last Palme winner in 2012.  Amour also won the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar.

We got our first photo from the secretive film yesterday as you see above.  The still shows, among others Isabelle Huppert, Jean-Louis Trintignant and Toby Jones.  Further coverage of the image and the film is here from Indiwire and here from The Playlist.



REDOUBTABLE TEASER GETS META

This week we got a new glimpse of Michel Hazanavicius' newest film, Redoubtable, which is set to debut at Cannes this month in the Palme d'Or competition.  The teaser includes some references to the festival that should elicit a chuckle or two.  Check the teaser below (from YouTube):

Redoubtable is based on the life of film pioneer Jean-Luc Godard.

More on the teaser release for Redoubtable is here from Entertainment Weekly as well as here from The Playlist.

THE FUTURE FOR PAST TELLURIDERS

I've mentioned with some frequency the next project for Moonlight's Barry Jenkins which is the multi-part adaptation of Colson Whitehead's National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize winning
Underground Railroad for Amazon Studios.

In the last few days we have seen the plans of two other notable and recent past Telluriders come into focus.

Indiewire reports that Oscar winning director Damien Chazelle is lining up another musically oriented project.  The story was originally reported by The Hollywood Reporter.

Titled The Eddy, the story centers around a Paris music club.  As with Jenkins, the project is being set up as an episodic project and is being shopped around to streaming services and networks.  Reports suggest that Chazelle would direct his next feature film project, First Man starring Ryan Reynolds as Neil Armstrong, and then get to work on The Eddy.

The other news of note regarding a new project involving a recent Tellurider and Oscar winner was news yesterday that Laszlo Nemes is set to begin filming Sunset.  Nemes made a huge splash in 2015 with his debut film Son of Saul which played Cannes (winning Nemes the Grand Prix award) and then Telluride.  Son of Saul went on to win the Oscar for Best Foreign Film.

The Playlist reports  that Sunset will begin filming next month and that the plan is that it would play Cannes which would make it a prime TFF #45 possibility.

Stay tuned.


AMAZON REWARDS MANCHESTER

How do you say thank you to a community that serves as the backdrop and title of your Oscar award winning film (and TFF #43 selection)?

Amazon Studios has gifted the citizens of Manchester, Massachusetts a year's worth of free Amazon Prime memberships.  They even threw in the popcorn.

Amazon announced the gift this week according to The Hollywood Reporter.



And that will do it for this Thursday.  Have a good weekend and come back here Monday for more...

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

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