Obsessing about the Telluride Film Festival and the film awards season since 2008!
"The best blog out there for predicting what will be going to Telluride."-Matt Neglia, Next Best Picture
"The Nostradamus of Telluride"
-Tim Appelo, Movies for Grownups
"But it's our job." - Anne Thompson, Indiewire
Thursday marks the return of MTFB for this week with an assessment of the chances of five films that are being distributed by Amazon Studios.
THE DISTRIBUTORS 2018: AMAZON STUDIOS
Amazon had Oscar nominee/winner Manchester by the Sea play in 2016.
Wonderstruck in 2017.
This year could see multiple entrants from Amazon Studios including Mike Leigh's Peterloo, Ritesh Batra's Photograph, Pawel Pawlikowski's Cold War. All of these directors have some TFF history, especially Leigh. In addition, we have to consider Felix Van Groeningen's Beautiful Boy and Dan Fogelman's Life Itself.
Chances in order of likelihood for TFF #45:
Peterloo- 75%
Cold War- 50%
Beautiful Boy 40%
Photograph- 30%
Life Itself- 20%
As a matter of fact, Peterloo will almost certainly be on the opening Top Ten List coming out in a week or two. Cold War could make that list as well.
I'll look at Netflix tomorrow.
THE FRONT RUNNER LOOKS AT AWARD SEASON
Sony has dated Jason Reitman's The Front Runner with a Nov. 7th limited release date putting it smack in the middle of the awards season. A wider release will occur the following week on Nov. 14th.
The Front Runner re-visits the real story of Gary Hart's ill-fated 1988 presidential run. Hugh Jackman stars as Hart.
We passed along Trailer Track's Anton Volkov's news earlier this week that a trailer would be released for Robert Zemeckis's Welcome to Marwen and that trailer dropped yesterday. Here it is via YouTube:
Further reporting on the film and its trailer release can be found at:
Reporting from the Czech Republic suggests that Terry Gilliam's The Man Who Killed Don Quixote will play at the Karlovy Vary Film Fest. The news was reported by both The Hollywood Reporter and Deadline.
That comes after the news reported here Monday that Gilliam had suffered a legal set back with a French court finding in favor of producer Paolo Blanco.
I wondered if that decision might nix the chances of Quixote playing T-ride.
Now, with this latest news that TMWKDQ will screen at Karlovy Vary despite the court ruling, I am again considering that the Gilliam passion project might still have a shot at the San Juans in a couple of months.
That's all for today. More tomorrow.
EMAIL: mpgort@gmail.com OR michael_speech@hotmail.com
Good Monday everyone. I hope you survived the weekend...
THE DISTRIBUTORS 2018: A24
I continue my breakdown of film distribution companies and their films with a look toward what seems the most likely players for TFF #45. Today we turn to relative newcomer A24. A24 Appeared on the Telluride scene just a few years ago but has made a substantial splash in a short time. Here's their TFF run:
2017: Lean on Pete, First Reformed, Lady Bird
2016: Moonlight
2015: Room
2014: No film
2013: Under the Skin
2012: Ginger and Rosa
Seven films in six years with three Best Picture Oscar nominations and the win in 2016 for Moonlight. So you have to think that A24 is a player for 2018 but it feels like their cupboard is a bit bare. Two films that we might take a look at, Native Son and The Lighthouse are dated, at least currently, for 2019.
Maybe the biggest shot for A24 this year is the Jonah Hill directed and written Mid 90's. The film purportedly went into post production in late July of last year and has had relatively good buzz.
I, however, am a tad leery about thinking a Jonah Hill debut is necessarily a likely event for T-ride. Still, this film seems like A24's best shot at the fall fests including Telluride. Maybe their only one. Or, perhaps this year is like 2014 and A24 doesn't play this year.
Mid 90's chances to make TFF #45: 30%.
Tomorrow Sundance Selects and IFC Films.
GUEST DIRECTOR NAMED
We found out who will guest direct the 2018 edition of the Telluride Film Festival. It's author Jonathan Lethem.
Here's the press release from the Fest:
BERKELEY, CA – Telluride Film Festival, presented by National Film Preserve LTD., is proud to announce its 2018 Guest Director, Jonathan Lethem. The award-winning novelist, essayist and short story writer is set to select a series of films to present at the 45th Telluride Film Festival running over Labor Day Weekend, August 31- September 3, 2018.
Festival organizers annually select one of the world’s groundbreaking artists to join them in the creation of the Festival’s program lineup. The Guest Director serves as a key collaborator in the Festival’s programming decisions, bringing new ideas and overlooked films to Telluride. In keeping with Telluride Film Festival tradition, Lethem’s film selections, along with the rest of the Telluride lineup, will be kept secret until Opening Day.
“Tom and I first met Jonathan through Criterion Collection,” said Telluride Film Festival executive director Julie Huntsinger. “Since then, we have forever been impressed with his knowledge of and enthusiasm for cinema. We are thrilled to have him join us for the 2018 Festival!”
One of America’s greatest contemporary writers, Jonathan Lethem was born in 1964 in Brooklyn, NYC to artist Richard Lethem and late political activist Judith Lethem. His impressive body of work spans 10 novels, five short story collections, a novella, two books of essays, a comic series and writings in The New Yorker, Rolling Stone and Mc Sweeny’s. Lethem’s first genre-defying novel, Gun with Occasional Music (1994) experimented with science fiction and crime and gained him a strong cult following. In 1999, Lethem’s fifth novel Motherless Brooklyn met with significant commercial and critical success winning the National Book Critics Circle Award, Macallan Gold Dagger for Crime Fiction, Salon Book Award and was named Esquire’s book of the year. The film adaptation of Motherless Brooklyn, directed by Edward Norton and starring Bruce Willis, Alec Baldwin, Willem Dafoe and Leslie Mann is currently in production and slated for a 2019 release. Lethem’s more recent novels include New York Times Bestseller The Fortress of Solitude (2003), You Don’t Love Me Yet (2007), Chronic City (2009), Dissident Gardens (2013) and A Gambler’s Anatomy (2016). In 2005, Jonathan Lethem was the recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship.
“From the very beginning for me, my love for literature and my love for film were splendidly mixed-up and inextricable,” said Lethem. “I always saw the two great 20th Century storytelling forms as speaking to and through one another. So, when by my great good luck I fell in with Tom Luddy and Julie Huntsinger, I immediately recognized them as being of my tribe; they feel the same resonance and have designed their wonderful festival in the mountains to reflect it. When I learned they’d involved writers I admire like Michael Ondaatje and Rachel Kushner and Geoff Dyer in the heart of the program, I was thrilled – and envious! I’m still pinching myself in disbelief that it’s my turn to play at programming the Dream Multiplex.”
Past Guest Directors include Joshua Oppenheimer, Volker Schlöndorff, Rachel Kushner, Guy Maddin, Caetano Veloso, Michael Ondaatje, Alexander Payne, Salman Rushdie, Peter Bogdanovich, B. Ruby Rich, Phillip Lopate, Errol Morris, Bertrand Tavernier, John Boorman, John Simon, Buck Henry, Laurie Anderson, Stephen Sondheim, G. Cabrera Infante, Peter Sellars, Don DeLillo, J.P. Gorin, Edith Kramer and Slavoj Žižek.
The Guest Director program is sponsored by FilmStruck, Turner’s subscription on-demand service that offers film aficionados a comprehensive and constantly refreshed library of films including an eclectic mix of contemporary arthouse, indie, foreign, cult and classic Hollywood films. FilmStruck is the exclusive streaming home to the Warner Bros. classic film library and the Criterion Collection. FilmStruck was developed by Turner Classic Movies (TCM) and is managed by TCM in partnership with Warner Bros. and the Criterion Collection.
After winning the right to screen his more than 25 year-in-the-making passion project, The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, at Cannes, French courts have now decided that producer Paolo Branco owns the film's rights which almost certainly means the film's future is back to limbo status.
Soooo...for those of us that thought, we might see the film in Telluride in 10 weeks or so...looks very doubtful.
Reporting from a number of sources indicates that Branco's company is the sole owner of the film's rights and that he/they are ready to sue about anyone and everyone that was apart of the film's Cannes screening and French release.
Welcome back from your weekend...hope it was a good one...
THE AWARDS FROM THE 71ST CANNES FILM FESTIVAL
The Cannes Film Fest closed Saturday with the presentation of awards. The winners were:
Main Competition:
Palme d'Or: Shoplifters
Grand Prix: BlacKkKlansman
Jury Prize: Capharnaum
Director: Pawel Pawlikowski-Cold War
Screenplay: Happy as Lazzaro and Three Faces
Actress: Samal Yeslyamova-Ayka
Actor: Marcello Fonte-Dogman
Special Palme: The Image Book
Here's the trailer for the Palme d'Or winner from YouTube:
Un Certain Regard:
UCR Prize: Border
Screenplay: Sofia
Best Performance: Victor Polster-Girl
Director: Sergei Loznitsa-Donbass
Special Jury Prize: The Dead and the Others
From among the Palme winners, I suspect every film is a potential TFF player at this point with the exception of Spike Lee's BlacKkKlansman which Focus Features has set for release on Aug. 10th and I also have my doubts about Goddard's Image Book.
Another wrinkle is the acquisition of Happy as Lazzaro and Girl during the fest and, at this point, trying to divine what that will me for how those films get released and the implications for a possible Telluride play are difficult.
Netflix has been a presence at Telluride the past three years but that was prior to the brouhaha that played out in France this past few weeks that resulted in Netflix screening nothing in Cannes. How that factors into their plans heading to the fall and if it has a residual effect regarding TFF programmers...I don't know.
In addition to the Cannes acquisitions, Netflix also has Martin Scorsese's The Irishman which one would think would be a major player come awards season if it's done... and that's a BIG IF. And they also have Alfonso Cuaron's Roma and Orson Welles' The Other Side of the Wind (which I really believe will play TFF #45).
Stand by to hear what the Netflix plan is for releasing these acquisitions. Maybe that will give us some insight.
Regular readers of this space probably know from past posts that the Cannes/Telluride crossover averages between seven and eight films each year. Most of those titles come from the main competition and Un Certain Regard sections that. Occasionally titles will come from some part of the non-competition slate or even the Directors Fortnight presentations.
So, as I have said, the Cannes/Telluride crossover is strong and has a lengthy history but the connection to the Cannes prize winners is fairly tenuous. Over the past decade, only three Palme d'Or winners have made the journey to Telluride: The White Ribbon ('10), Amour ('12) and Blue Is the Warmest Colour ('13).
Actually, in the last ten years, the film that wins the Grand Prix (second place essentially) is more likely to make the trip to the San Juans: Gomorrah ('08), A Prophet ('09), Of Gods and Men ('10), Inside Llewyn Davis ('13), Son of Saul ('15).
The other modestly successful predictor, weirdly, is Best Actor: Biutiful ('10), The Artist ('11), The Hunt ('12), Nebraska ('13), Mr. Turner ('14).
Other Cannes prizes and their TFF crossovers the past ten years are:
Jury Prize (third place): Fish Tank ('09), Loveless ('17)
Director: Foxcatcher ('14), Graduation ('16)
Actress: The Past ('13), Carol ('15)
Screenplay: Poetry ('10), Footnote ('11), Leviathan ('14)
UCR Prize: Tulpan ('08), Rams ('16), A Man of Integrity ('17)
This history suggests that the most likely Cannes plays for TFF #45 would be BlacKkKlansman but we know it won't be as it will be released three weeks before the festival which points us toward the Best Actor winner-Dogman. That has a real shot.
THE LAST ROUND-UP OF CRITICS FOR CANNES 2018
Here's the final critical assessment of films that played these last two weeks in Cannes beginning with the behemoth from Reini Urban:
Overall from all sections the top five films critically were:
1) Dead Souls
2) Burning
3) Thunder Road
4) Shoplifters
5) Happy as Lazarro
(Note: the short film Ultra Purple/Apocalypse After actually would sit at #4 but was scored by only five critics. Dead Souls was also only scored by 16 critics)
Top five from the Palme d'Or section:
1) Burning (8.10/10)
2) Shoplifters (7.67)
3) Happy as Lazarro (7.63)
4) The Wild Pear Tree (7.49)
5) Cold War (7.42)
Top three from the UCR section
1) Long Days Journey Into Night (7.40)
2) Girl (7.15)
3) The Dead and the Others (6.91)
From Ioncinema's ratings of the Palme d'Or competition:
1) Burning (3.8/5-TIE)
1) The Wild Pear Tree (3.8)
3) Cold War (3.7)
4) Shoplifters (3.6)
5) Ash Is the Purest White (3.3 TIE)
5) Leto (3.3)
5) Three Faces (3.3)
Terry Gilliam's The Man Who Killed Don Quixote has finally screened for live humans in a theater!!!
And now that it has...I can't say that I'm surprised that I have been seeing a number of reviews that have used words like "confused" and "missing a bit of soul". As I type (with a small number of reviews counted, RT has it at 57% and Metacritic has it at a 50.
It sounds like what I've come to expect from Gilliam...
Does that mean it's off the table for TFF #45? Can't say that yet.
Another note about the 71st Cannes: I was a little alarmed at how often I saw the phrase "slow burn" in takes about films that played...which I sometimes think is code for "it's slow but important".
Now that Cannes is in the books, I'll pay attention to acquisition news and release dates concerning these titles for additional TFF clues.
A FIRST LOOK AT BEAUTIFUL BOY
Felix Van Groeningen's Beautiful Boy will probably be on my first Ten Bets list (which is about six weeks away). From Amazon Studios, the film features Timothee Chalamet (Oscar nominated last year for Call Me By Your Name) and Steve Carell (Oscar nominated for Foxcatcher) as son and father dealing with the youngsters addiction to meth.
It's likely going to be a part of our conversations for the next several months.
That said, this week, we saw the first footage for the film via a 30 second teaser which is here from YouTube:
Additionally, here is coverage from Indiewire and The Playlist of the release of the teaser.
That's your MTFB for this Monday. Have a good week everyone...and more to come on Thursday.
EMAIL: mpgort@gmail.com OR michael_speech@hotmail.com
On our previous episode of "What Else Could Happen to The Man Who Killed Don Quixote" we were wondering how a French court would rule and if that would allow or prevent the film's screening as the closing night entertainment in Cannes...well...
Since Monday...Terry Gilliam had a "health episode" that was described as a possible stroke but was apparently not that...
Distributor Amazon Studios dropped plans to distribute the film and
The Court ruled and said, essentially, roll that film on May 19th.
It's been an eventful few days for the Don Quixote crew.
All of the sound and fury led one Twitter account to suggest that attending the screening on the 19th might be risky as it is likely to end in a disaster of biblical proportion. Such has been the beleaguered history of the film.
Here's what I want to know: Why did Amazon pull out? And...what the hell else could happen to this production in the next 10 days?
Here's a sampling of the coverage for this past three days worth of developments:
Asghar Farhadi's Everybody Knows opened the 71st Cannes Film Festival on Tuesday to mixed reviews (I'll start passing along links to various critics' compilation sites beginning with next Monday's blog post).
Despite the so-so nature of the critical reception, a reportedly significant battle ensued for U.S. distribution rights for the film among a number of players. Netflix had been reported earlier in the week as a likely bidder and reportedly they were but in the end were bested by Focus Features.
Focus was said to gain an advantage die its traditional theatrical release structure meaning that the film could be aimed at awards season.
Additionally, the win by Focus probably still keeps the film in the convo for Telluride although, as astute friend of MTFB Patrick Pringle noted via Twitter, the recent decision by the Trump administration to withdraw from the Iranian nuclear deal could create problems for screenings of the film.
As you might expect, the Cannes Film Fest will honoring the late Pierre Rissient, who died last weekend. The film "warrior" was an incredible part of the fabric of both Cannes and Telluride. I ran across this comment from former TFF co-director Gary Meyer in the comment section of the Eric Kohn/Indiewire story reporting Rissient's passing:
Thank you for this wonderful and personal look at Pierre Rissient who was truly unique. His passion for the films and talent he loved was infectious. He was demanding in a way that a first timer might not embrace until they realized that he was usually right and listening to him would reveal things we didn’t know about cinema of the past and turn us on to filmmaking on the horizon. The two films about him are a great start to understanding Pierre. I am honored to have been among the lucky ones to have spent time learning and being inspired by one of the art’s true believers.
Additionally, I have linked reportage of Cannes decision to honor Rissient here from:
And that;s a wrap for this Thursday. Please come back for more on Monday including the first collective looks of the films that will premiere at Cannes over the weekend.
EMAIL: mpgort@gmail.com OR michael_speech@hotmail.com
Amidst all the legal brouhaha over Terry Gilliam's The Man Who Killed Don Quixote and whether it will actually screen to close Cannes on May 19th, we have a second trailer for the film, which, for my money is better and more enticing than the first.
Here it is from YouTube:
CANNES SUPPORTS THE DON AND GILLIAM
The top brass at the Cannes International Film Festival released a statement of support this week for Terry Gilliam and his beleaguered film The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. The film has taken two decades to complete and continues to be mired in legal woes.
A hearing is set to take place in Paris on May 7th concerning the claims of one of the past producers of the film. The decision in that proceeding could determine whether Quixote actually screens as Cannes closing night feature on May 19th. It's also entirely possible that the ruling could bar the film's screening.
Original reporting on this particular legal claim suggested that the ultimate court finding might not occur until June.
All of that means that the film's Cannes future is uncertain and certainly that would continue to be true in the context of a potential play at Telluride.
AWARDS WATCH PREVIEWS FOREIGN LANGUAGE OSCAR HOPEFULS
Erik Anderson at Awards Watch posted a piece this week examining 16 films that will be playing the Cannes Fest that he thinks could be players in the Foreign Language Oscar race.
Among those 16 are several that I have my eye on as possible TFF #45 candidates:
Cold War
Everybody Knows
Dogman
Ash Is the Purest White
Burning
Three Faces
Ayka
Producer Frank Marshall tweeted a photo on Monday with the caption explaining that the sound mix for Orson Welles' final film The Other Side of the Wind was "a wrap". That moves the film one step closer to completion and potential screening.
Increasingly I am convinced that we're going to have the opportunity to catch a screening of the film over Labor Day weekend.
Additionally, I also think a screening of Mark Cousins' new Welles documentary, The Eyes of Orson Welles could show as a companion piece.
Here's the photo:
and the text of Marshall's tweet:
That's a wrap! An historic moment as we finish the sound mix for THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WIND, almost 50 years after Orson Welles began shooting his final picture. @OrsonWelles@netflix
EMAIL: mpgort@gmail.com OR michael_speech@hotmail.com
There is yet another snag in the ongoing drama concerning Terry Gilliam's The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. The film had been announced last week as the closing night presentation for the Cannes Film Festival on May 19th but is now again in Limbo.
I had thought with last week's announcement that the last legal hurdle had been cleared or at least that accommodations had been reached that would allow the film to play in France. That doesn't seem to be the case at this point as Screen Daily reported that one time producer Paulo Branco has sought a "writ" to prohibit the screening from a court in Paris.
It appears from the Melanie Goodfellow reporting that there will be a hearing about the matter on May 7th which could result with the film being barred from screening.
Gilliam's saga continues and it seems that we will have to wait for the court proceeding to find out if the film will, in fact, close Cannes.
WELLES DOC TO PLAY CANNES
Orson Welles may not be represented at Cannes with The Other Side of the Wind due to the feud between the fest and Netflix but that doesn't mean that you won't have the opportunity to get your Orson fix. The fest has announced that the documentary The Eyes of Orson Welles will play in the Cannes Classics section. The film is directed by Mark Cousins who historically has had quite a connection to Telluride, though not recently.
Cousins has played TFF with films such as The Story of Film, What Is This Film Called Love and The Story of Children and Film which was his last Telluride visit in 2013.
Also of potential interest in the Cannes Classics selections is Magarethe Von Trotta's documentary Searching for Ingmar Bergman which I could see making the grade for TFF #45.
Coverage of the Cannes announcement of additional films is linked here:
With the release a few days back of Chloe Zhao's The Rider came a flurry of P.R. materials including this interview with the writer/director with Gregory Ellwood at The Playlist.
The film played very well at TFF last year ending up tied for the #2 spot on my collection of film ratings from film Pros.
Ed Lachman and Todd Haynes in Telluride last year (pic from Scott Foundas)
As I am getting ready to post this morning word is coming form France that TFF #44 tribute recipient Ed Lachman will be honored next month by the Cannes Film Fest for his contributions as a cinematographer. Lachman will receive the Pierre Angenieux ExcelLens award. The award began in 2013 and past winners include Vilmos Zsigmond and Roger Deakins.
Lachman was honored last September in Telluride for his career. That tribute included screenings of Todd Haynes' Wonderstruck.
Lachman's credits also include Far From Heaven, Carol and The Virgin Suicides.
That's a wrap for this Thursday. I'll have more on Monday.
EMAIL: mpgort@gmail.com OR michael_speech@hotmail.com
Followers of the Cannes Film Fest know that the Palme d'Or lineup is probably not complete. It has been common in recent years that films have been added to the competition and other sections of the fest after the main announcement and I expect that to be the case again this year.
First, the Netflix/Cannes stand off...which includes Alfonso Cuaron's Roma and Orson Welles' now completed The Other Side of the Wind.
Those doors where thought to be closed with last Thursday's announcement as Netflix withdrew any films from consideration for any section of the festival. The conflict centers on the Netflix distribution model and Cannes' insistence that competition films must have a French theatrical release.
Honestly, I don't have a good sense of how this will eventually shake out. My best guess is that the standoff remains in place and both Roma and Wind don't get added and may, instead screen at Venice and/or Telluride but I wouldn't wager any money on that.
Again, if I were forced to guess, I wouldn't count on Gilliam's film making it to the Croisette. Its past history suggests that. Actually, it's past history suggests that it's chances at T-ride, Venice, New York and/or Toronto are all dicey at best.
MILOS FORMAN 1932-2018
Milos Forman has died at 86. His body of work as a director was smallish. IMDb lists 20 features with Forman directing but the list of 20 is formidable and includes two Best Direction Oscar wins for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Amadeus (both of which also won Best Picture). In addition to those two classics Forman also directed Man in the Moon, Ragtime, The People vs. Larry Flynt and Hair.
Forman was in Telluride for the festival in 2001 with the re-release of Amadeus that screened that year.
Several of you probably know that I have occasionally said that Cuckoo's Nest is my favorite film (though that claim shifts from time to time).
Forman was notable for directing all manner never getting stuck in a particular genre or format. His versatility was remarkable.
Well, I'm back. Didn't plan to take last week off from the blog but that's what happened. As i posted on Thursday...my apologies.
EVERYBODY KNOWS OPENS CANNES
While I was away this week it was announced that Asghar Farhadi's Everybody Knows will open the Cannes Film Festival next month.
Farhadi's Spanish language film stars Penelope Cruz (TFF Tributee in 2006) and Javier Bardem.
I've had Everybody Knows on the Cannes/Telluride watch list for months now due to Farhadi's past screenings of A Separation and The Past at TFF.
Two things I would note, however, are that Farhadi's last film (The Salesman) did not play TFF and it's relatively rare that a Cannes opener makes the crossover to lay Telluride as well. The last time I can find that happening was in 2004 with Pedro Almodovar's Bad Education so...it's been a long time.
Further details of the selection of the film for Cannes is here from:
The Pre-Cannes trailer for Everybody Knows from YouTube
ON THE OTHER CANNES
The release this week of a trailer and poster for Terry Gilliam's The Man Who Killed Don Quixote all but assures that the film's title will be announced for some spot in Cannes on Thursday. The multi-decade-in-the-making film has also been on my Cannes/TFF crossover possibility list for a long while.
The news this week that Alfonso Cuaron is now under the Netflix banner means that, as of now, Cuaron's film will not be playing in competition in France next month.
Cannes director Thierry Fremaux has made it clear that under the current Netflix release strategies, Netflix films will not be in the main competition.
For its part, Netflix, according to Vanity Fair and Indiewire is now threatening to exclude Roma and four other films from the festival including the highly anticipated Orson Welles "last film" The Other Side of the Wind.
And, of course, I have no good idea what this set of circumstances might do regarding TFF #44.
That's the bounceback MTFB for this Monday.
EMAIL: mpgort@gmail.com OR michael_speech@hotmail.com
If you read Tuesday's blog post, you know that I included a segment about the fact that we haven't seen an announcement concerning this year's poster or poster artist. The point I was making was that, normally, over the past few years, we have seen that announcement by now.
Well...
In response, I received an email from blog fan/reader Amanda Gessert who reported that she had been in Telluride last weekend and happened to spy, in the window of The Nugget Theater, what appears to be this year's poster. No kidding...
Here are her photos:
Admittedly, the window glare makes it difficult to really make out all the details but you can get a pretty good sense of what the TFF #44 poster looks like.
My thanks to Amanda for the pics.
MORE QUIXOTE VIEWS
In light of the news from earlier this week that Terry Gilliam had wrapped principal photography, I thought I'd link an Indiewire story that includes ten photos of the project from the very beginning right up to the present day.
Well...the filming is complete for Terry Gilliam's 17 year long gestating The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. Now it's time for it to move to post-production.
The film has achieved legendary status as an exercise in frustration and perservernce as Gilliam has been trying to get the film made for 17+ years. The film was featured as a part of a documentary that played Telluride back in 2002 (TFF #29). The doc was entitled Lost in La Mancha and Gilliam attended the fest as a part of that.
The Telluride program description for Lost in La Mancha sounds like it could have been written right up until this last year:
Amazon Studios was the principle factor in Gilliam securing the funding to get the project filmed and that makes me think that we could see the film as a part of the TFF #45 lineup. I don't think a Cannes 2018 spot is outside the realm of possibility either.
I'm a little surprised that we haven't seen a poster release for TFF #44 as yet. I checked back over the last six years and the fest usually has announced the poster by this time. 2012 was an anomaly as the poster artist and poster weren't announced until July 9th. But each of the other years back to 2011, we've known who and what by this time.
Here's a quick trip down poster memory lane:
2016:
2015:
2014:
2013:
2012:
2011:
More to come on Thursday...
EMAIL: mpgort@gmail.com OR michael_speech@hotmail.com
The Playlist published its 21 film Cannes wish list this week and. as you might expect, I'm parsing their expertise for hints, clues and desires as regards the films that could double up between Cannes and Telluride.
From their list:
Michael Haneke's Happy End
Todd Haynes' Wonderstruck
Lynne Ramsay's You Were Never Really Here
Andrew Haigh's Lean on Pete
From the concluding section of their article...what they label as "Honorable Mentions":
Andrey Zvyagnistev's Loveless
Lazlo Nemes' Sunset
Alexander Payne's Downsizing
Ari Folman's Where Is Anne Frank
Michel Hazanavicicus' Le Redoubtable
Matteo Garrone's Pinocchio
Wim Wenders" Submergence
George Clooney's Suburbicon
Stephen Frears' Victoria and Abdul
Xavier Beauvois' Le Gardiennes
Ziad Doueiri's L'Insulte
During each Oscar season in the rush to get material posted in the midst of the non-stop deluge of stories, posts, articles and releases, some things get shuffled to the bottom of the pile. Not because they're inherently less informative or useful but mostly because of the limits of time and space.
With the horse race that Oscar #89 turned out to be between Berry Jenkins' Moonlight and Damian Chazelle's La La Land. the following stories stayed in my inbox but never made it into the blog. So I'm correcting that here and now: Here are a few posts regarding Moonlight:
A couple of announcements that probably don't mean anything in terms of TFF #44 but were interesting to film lovers, I suspect. Terry Gilliam has confirmed that filming has begun on his long gestating passion project The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. He's been after this for years...and has begun filming in the past. Here's hoping that he can get all the way to the end...and that it is more cohesive than many of his past efforts have been.
And...Stephen Spielberg has shelved The Kidnapping of Edgardo Motara which was supposed to be his next project in favor of a quickly developing project titled The Post based on The Pentagon Papers case and how it was handles by The Washington Post in the early '70's. Tom Hanks is set to play Post editor Ben Bradlee and Meryl Streep is on board to play Post owner/publisher Katherine Graham. The word is that will begin filming in May and be released THIS YEAR...wow.
Good Monday from Kansas City, KS. and the National Speech and Debate Tournament...I'm here all week...literally.
BOY AND THE WORLD
Picture via HitFix
The Brazilian animated feature "Boy and the World" made a splash at last week's Annecy Animation Fest after also performing well at earlier fests. GKIDS has the distribution and I think it has become a serious possibility for the Telluride 2014 lineup. HitFix reports on the film:
VIEWS OF GILLIAM'S LATEST (AND NEWS OF DON QUIXOTE)
A new trailer is out for Terry Gilliam's "The Zero Theorem" which we had marked down as a TFF #40 possibility. It's appearance at Austin's Fantastic Fest last fall has all been ended the chances that we'll see it at T-ride this year. Nevertheless, a new trailer was dropped this weekend and The Playlist had that story:
The post also says that Gilliam's long time project "The Man Who Killed Don Quixote" will not begin shooting until 2015.
TEN TFF FILMS NOT SEEN AT TFF
I'm doing a quick little project in this week's posts. I'm taking a quick look at ten great films that played at Telluride that I didn't actually didn't see there. I didn't start going until 2006 so all of those films that they screened from the beginning fit the bill. Then, of course, there are the films that I COULD have seen from '06 on, but for one reason or another, didn't until later. This list is a mix of both.
In chronological order, here are the first two of ten great TFF films that I didn't see at TFF:
1986- David Lynch's "Blue Velvet". Lynch's best film that both adheres to and parodies the "small town with big secrets" film. Dennis Hopper was never better and the film laid the groundwork for Lynch's television masterpiece "Twin Peaks".
1994-"Ed Wood". Tim Burton's best film with Johnny Depp in great form as the title character (creator of what are universally regarded as some of the worst films ever made) and Martin Landau delivery of a master class level performance as Bela Lugosi.
Two more from this list coming in tomorrow's post...
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