Keep Those Ratings Coming / TFF Oscar Project Part One / Diego Maradona Trailer / Full Disclosure

Thursday...still exhausted...


KEEP THOSE RATINGS COMING

First of all a big thanks to all of you who have already sent me your ratings of the films that you saw in Telluride last weekend.  The numbers have been steadily coming in but we're still at about half the level of respondents that we had last year so, if you saw films and would like to contribute to the collective evaluation of the films that played TFF #46...the polls are still open and will be until next Tuesday evening at 9:00 EDT/5:00 PDT.

As a reminder, I include the collective rating for films that have received at least a level of 25% of the maximum possible of number of people that actually do participate which means that films that don't get rated by a sufficient number of respondents won't make it into the list.  My feeling is that the 25% threshold provides a large enough sample size to adequately compare ratings of film to film.

At this point it looks like some films already will have enough votes to make the list including:

The Aeronauts
The Climb
Ford v. Ferrari
Judy
Lyrebird
Marriage Story
Motherless Brooklyn
Parasite
The Report
The Two Popes
Uncut Gems
Waves

On the bubble:

A Hidden Life
Inside Bill's Brain
Pain and Glory

Other films may struggle to reach the necessary threshold to make the final list.

So keep those ratings coming in.  My plan is to publish The Peoples Telluride a week from today.

Meanwhile, the Professionals are about half way in.  When those ratings get published is a bit up in the air in as far as I'm waiting for a few of them to get their ratings into me.

As always, you can rate your films via any of the methods of contact listed at the bottom of this post.


TFF OSCAR PROJECT PART ONE

Not long ago I did a quick roundup of Oscar nominees in the eight main categories from Telluride films since 2005.  After that process, I started thinking that someone needed to do an entire history of Telluride films and the Oscar.

For the past three months or so, I have gone back to the beginning and researched all of the Oscar nominees and winners in the 21 feature categories that were screened at Telluride prior to their nominations.

As a result, beginning today and over the next month or so, I will be presenting the Oscar History of the Telluride Film Festival.  Eventually, after I get the whole history posted as a part of the dual weekly postings, I will post a new page dedicated to the one stop spot for that history.

So, I start today with the TFF Oscar Project Part One 1974-1985 (nominations for the films from a particular year's fest and wins are in parentheses):

1974 (3)
The Conversation- Picture, Original Screenplay, Sound

1981 (2)
Eight Minutes to Midnight- Documentary
Three Brothers-Foreign Language

1983 (5)
Carmen- Foreign Language
Entre Nous- Foreign Language
El Norte-Original Screenplay
Seeing Red- Documentary
Testament- Best Actress- Jane Alexander (first acting nomination from TFF)

1984 (2/1)
Camila- Foreign Language
The Times of Harvey Milk-Documentary-WON (first Oscar win from TFF)

1985 (2)
Colonel Redl- Foreign Language
The Journey of Natty Gann- Costumes


Stay tuned for the continuation of this series over the next few weeks.


DIEGO MARADONA TRAILER

Released just prior to the opening of TFF #46, the folks at HBO dropped this trailer for the documentary Diego Maradona...which examines the life and career of the world famous soccer player.

Here's that trailer from YouTube:

FULL DISCLOSURE

So, as it turns out, I was NOT perfect this year.  I misread the lineup when it was released a week ago.  My final list of 25 Bets included Hirokazu Kore-eda's The Truth.  Somehow I thought it WAS in the lineup announcement and it wasn't.  Consequently, rather than being 25 for 25 for TFF #46, MTFB was actually 24 of 25.

Over the last four years the final pre-SHOW predictions have been 93 of 95.

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The People's Telluride / Home Again / The Professionals Telluride

Tuesday...360 Days...

THE PEOPLE'S TELLURIDE

The time has come...to all of you with an interest, for you followers of this space to express your collective evaluation of the films that made an appearance at the Telluride Film Festival.  As most of you know, I'd like you to rate the films you saw this past weekend on a scale of 1 to 5 with 1 being "Not So Good"  and 5 being "Glorious!"

As a matter of fact, I have several that came in overnight.  The ratings are afoot!

You can deliver your ratings using any of the contact methods listed below.

The cutoff date for submission for The People's Telluride is one week from today...so get those ratings in by Tuesday, Sept. 10th.

HOME AGAIN

As has become my custom, I jetted out of Telluride right after stopping by TFF's Labor Day picnic.  The drive back home runs right at 10 hours with stops along the way for this and that.  We also add the hour back that we gained with the move from Central to Mountain time...so it was a long day and a late night.  I'm a little fried this early morning.

This year's fest was a little different for me.  Mt pass situation was different due to the change in media status.  I knew that would mean I'd get to fewer films and that was the case.  Most years I average 10-11 films, this year I got in eight (in the order I saw them):

The Aeronauts

The Climb

Uncut Gems

The Report

Waves

Motherless Brooklyn

Marriage Story

Parasite

Regrets that I didn't catch Ford v. Ferrari, The Two Popes or A Hidden Life but I'll get them in.

By the end of the weekend, it seemed to me that two films were dominating the buzz and it will interesting to see if The People's Telluride bears out what I was hearing.

Thanks to everyone who was kind enough to say a word or two to me in lines throughout the weekend.  It's always gratifying to hear that this thing is valued by TFF attendees.

THE PROFESSIONALS TELLURIDE

Coming soon.  The Pros have already started sending me their ratings so be looking for their collective response soon.  Additionally, as I've been doing for some time now, the third part of the TFF ratings triad will come with The Composite Telluride when I combine the ratings for both groups.

That'll do for this early Tuesday...more on Thursday!

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Gone Like the Wind / Roma and the Oscars

Good Monday morning...


GONE LIKE THE WIND

I grabbed this photo of the festival website on Friday morning at about 1:45 Central time (11:45 Pacific)


Almost the classic movie title but more descriptive about what happened on Friday morning when passes went on sale for the 46th Telluride Film Festival (Aug. 30-Sept. 2).  Over the past few years the window for getting passes before the sale ran out of them had gotten smaller and smaller.

Hearsay suggested that passes were gone in a week in 2017 and that it took a mere two days last year.  I watched the website in real time on Friday after getting mine secured in a sweat inducing, gut wrenching, nerve stressing 10 minute window as soon as the sale went live.  and, by my estimation, all level of passes were gone in under three hours.  Acme passes were gone first, then the Festival, then the Festival level and finally the Cinephile pass.

Patron Passes were done in a separate sale that occurred in December and, though I wasn't tracking it, seemed to also happen very, very quickly.

So, I have to suspect that, again this year, many past pass holders may have been shut out and I wonder if the fest will consider changes in structures and policies between now and next year when passes go on sale.  I contemplated the same thing last year but am not aware that any changes were made for this year's sale.

One thing is certain, the festival has become insanely popular.  I was messaging a Telluride friend about this and that including the rapidity of the sellout and he suggested that the fest has gotten "too popular". 


ROMA AND THE OSCARS

Indiewire's Anne Thompson undertakes to deconstruct Roma's Best Picture loss to Green Book in the context of the film being under the wing of streaming giant Netflix in an article over this weekend.

That article is here.

Personally, I think that was one of many of the factors that people mentioned and my guess, and it's only a guess, is that it was more a perfect storm of factors:

1) People really liked Green Book

2) Yup...there's a bias against Netflix...witness the news that no less a light than Steven Spielberg appears to be spear-heading an effort to have the Academy change rules that would make Netflix change some of its practices if it wants to continue to compete for Oscars.

But don't discount these other factors...

3) The foreign language bias.  No foreign language film has ever won the big prize and "It's got its own category" goes some thinking.

4) The black and white factor...maybe not a large consideration, but I don't think you can dismiss it.

5) The style and tone.  It's slow (especially the first half) and contemplative and very, very personal. 

Maybe it was all about the top two reasons above but maybe there were other factors as well.



That's your MTFB for this Monday...more on Thursday.


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Oscar #91 in the Books: Telluride's Spell Is Broken / Oscar Odds and Ends / And Now We Turn the Page

Welcome back from Oscarland...

OSCAR #91 IN THE BOOKS: TELLURIDE'S SPELL IS BROKEN

Here are your winners from the 91st Academy Awards from Last Night:

Best Picture: Green Book)
Direction: Alfonso Cuaron/Roma
Actress: Olivia Colman/The Favourite)
Actor: Rami Malek/Bohemian Rhapsody
Supporting Actress: Regina King/If Beale Street Could Talk
Supporting Actor: Mahershala Ali/Green Book
Original Screenplay: Green Book
Adapted Screenplay: BlacKkKlansman
Animated Feature: Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse
Documentary Feature: Free Solo
Foreign Language Film: Roma
Original Song: Shallow/A Star Is Born
Original Score: Black Panther
Cinematography: Roma
Film Editing: Bohemian Rhapsody
Production Design: Black Panther
Costumes: Black Panther
Makeup/Hair: Vice
Visual Effects: First Man
Sound Editing: Bohemian Rhapsody
Sound Mixing: Bohemian Rhapsody
Animated Short: Bao
Documentary Short: Period. End of Sentence
Live Action Short: Skin


OSCAR ODDS AND ENDS

 
Telluride's streak of eight straight years of screening the eventual Best Picture winner ended last night with the win for Green Book.  It's the first non-TFF film to win since The Hurt Locker back in 2010.

TFF films did pick up six Oscars last night.  Roma had three: Direction, Foreign Language Film and Cinematography.  The Favourite's Olivia Colman won for Best Actress, Free Solo won Best Documentary and First Man won for Best Visual Effects.

Multiple Oscar winning films included:

Bohemian Rhapsody-4 Actor, Film Editing, Sound Editing and Sound Mixing
Green Book-3 Picture, Supporting Actor and Original Screenplay
Roma-3 Direction Foreign Language Film and Cinematography
Black Panther-3 Production Design, Costumes and Original Score

My personal prediction success rate was 19/24 or 79.2% .  I missed Picture, Actress, Film Editing, Production Design and Live Action Short.
 
I don't know that I would classify any of last night's awards as shockers.  Late wins by Colman and Green Book were mildly surprising but looking at the list I posted last Thursday, four of the five places where I missed, I had the actual winner listed as the "Could Be" candidate.

Why'd Green Book win?  I suspect a combination of factors mostly related to the baggage that Roma had going into the season: a foreign language film in black and white from Netflix.


AND NOW WE TURN THE PAGE

Though I have played around already with looking ahead to this year's potential TFF #46 lineup, now that this year's Oscar ceremony is in the books, it's time for this space to turn back to what was originally created to do.

Oscar's in the rear view and we turn our gaze ahead and aim toward Aug. 30th and the opening day of the 46th Telluride film Festival.


I'll have more for you on Thursday.


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

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