Afta the BAFTA / Trailer for The Rider Lands

Good Presidents Day to all...

AFTA THE BAFTA

The British Academy of Film and Television Arts presented the Brit equivalent of the Oscar and Martin McDonagh's Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri was the big winner taking Best Picture, Best British Film, Best Actress (Frances McDormand), Best Supporting Actor (Sam Rockwell) and Best Original Screenplay.

Guillermo Del Toro won Best Director for The Shape of Water.  Shape also won Best Production Design and Best Original Score. 

Gary Oldman won as Best Actor for Darkest Hour.  That film also won Best Makeup and Hair.  Those two films were the TFF #44 haul for the BAFTAs for 2018 as Greta Gerwig's Lady Bird and Paul McGuigan's Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool both got shut out.


The BAFTAS are the last stop on the pre-Oscar road and as such, is the last chance for films to get a little boost.  It's also our last peek at something that could point to what will happen on Oscar night. 

Oscar voting opens tomorrow and closes on Feb. 27th.  The Oscar ceremony is set for Mar. 4th.

Last year TFF #43 films won eight BAFTAS.  La La Land won five including Best Picture, Manchester by the Sea won two and Arrival won one.

Linked coverage of the BAFTAs is here from:

Variety

The Hollywood Reporter 

Indiewire


The BAFTA results have Oscar predictors all over the map on Best Picture.  It seems like a Three Billboards vs. Shape of Water race but their are still voices whispering Get Out and Dunkirk. 

My Lady Bird theory looks weak now.  The notion that it could win on a preferential ballot was intriguing but you also have to figure that it needed one big guild win or a BAFTA mention or two for that theory to make the grade.

And, of course, if Shape of Water, Lady Bird or Darkest Hour don't win Best Picture, that would break the Telluride string of having every Best Picture play the fest since 2010.  At this point, I think it's about 2 to 1 that the string ends on March 4.

Finally, the acting awards all look locked up: McDormand, Oldman, Janney (who won the Supporting Actress BAFTA for I, Tonya) and Rockwell have swept the precursors and all look like your Oscar winners in a couple of weeks.  I'll have a new set of Oscar predictions on Thursday.


TRAILER FOR THE RIDER

Critical favorite from Cannes and then Telluride, Chloe Zhao's The Rider had a trailer release this week.  The film is nominated for four Independent Spirit Awards including Best Feature and is set for U.S. release on April 13th.

The Rider finished tied for #2 in the TFF #44 MTFB Professionals ratings and #6 in the Composite ratings.

Here's Alex Billington/FirstShowing.net's article that accompanied the release of the trailer from earlier this week.

That's today's MTFB.  More on Thursday...

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TFF #44 Ten Bets #3 / The Playlist Has 50 Films They Want to See / The Darkest Hour Trailer

It's finally Friday...


TFF #44 TEN BETS #3

And so because it's Friday, it's time for the third iteration of MTFB's Ten Bets for Telluride.  It's my weekly attempt to guess what will play at this year's fest ranked in order of what I believe their likelihood to be.

Last week's Ten Bets looked like this:

1) Wonderstruck

2) Loveless

3) Visages/Villages

4) Battle of the Sexes

5) Downsizing

6) The Florida Project

7) A Fantastic Woman

8) The Other Side of Hope

9) 120 BPM

10) You Were Never Really Here

This week's Ten Bets...

1) Wonderstruck

2) Visages/Villages

3) Loveless

4) The Florida Project

5) A Fantastic Woman

6) Battle of the Sexes

7) 120 BPM

8) The Other Side of Hope

9) You Were Never Really Here

10) Downsizing

Others to consider: The Shape of Water, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri, Our Souls at Night, The Rider, Lean on Pete, Loving Vincent.

THE PLAYLIST HAS 50 FILMS THEY WANT TO SEE

Earlier this week The Playlist put up their annual "50 Films We Want to See" at fall film fests.  As a part of that listing the crew there make some predictions about where they think films are likely to appear/premiere.

They specifically mention Telluride in the context of six films (seven if you count a reference from their "other" films beyond the 50 they highlight.  They are:

Battle of the Sexes

The Current War

The Death of Stalin (MTFB comment...yes, please)

Mary Magdalene

mother!

Under the Silver Lake

and Breathe which is mentioned outside their 50

Among others of their 50 films that I have been following as potential T-ride players, here is that list and The Playback's notes regarding where they think the film will screen and/or premiere (and even in the case of these films, a play at any of the fests that are listed doesn't mean that the film would not also play at Telluride):

Blade Runner 2049-Venice (you might remember my comment yesterday about BR2049 maybe not playing any fest)

The Darkest Hour-Venice/TIFF (see below)

Disobedience From the director of A Fantastic Woman (which I think is likely for T-ride)-Venice/TIFF

Downsizing-all they say is that a "fall premiere...is a lock" which would almost certainly be Telluride I would think but there is still buzz concerning whether it will be ready.

Hostiles-AFI

Lady Bird-TIFF

Lean on Pete-Venice/TIFF

Molly's Game-AFI

Roman Israel, Esq-TIFF/AFI

The Shape of Water-TIFF

The Snowman-Venice

Stronger-Venice

Suburbicon-The Playlist says' We hear this already has a major festival slot lined up" but they don't speculate about which one.  They do say to expect an announcement sooner rather than later which would mean that whatever it is, it's not Telluride.  That doesn't preclude a T-ride play, however.

Three Billboards-Venice/TIFF

Wonder Wheel-Venice/NYFF

Wondershock-Venice/TIFF

Again, the entire post is here.

THE DARKEST HOUR TRAILER 

We saw yesterday that we would get a trailer for Joe Wright's Darkest Hour.  The big buzz has been about Gary Oldman's performance as Winston Churchill.  Here's the newly released trailer:

The film is being distributed by Focus Features and is set to be released on Nov. 22nd.  

Here are a couple of stories about the film and its trailer release from:

Indiewire

Deadline

Awards Daily

SlashFilm

There's your MTFB for Friday, July 14th.  More to come next Monday.

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

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The Distributors: Cohen Media Group / Circuit Breaker Fall Film Guesses #2 / Telluride History: TFF #23

THE DISTRIBUTORS: COHEN MEDIA GROUP

One of the recent hard chargers at Telluride in terms of distribution firms that have made a splash is the Cohen Media Group.

CMG's history at Telluride:

2012-The Attack
2014-Magician
2015-Hitchcock/Truffaut, Marguerite, Rams
2016-Journey Through French Cinema

And CMG has a number of possible players for the 2017 edition of the Telluride Film Festival:

Francois Ozon's L'amant Double
Michel Hazanavicius' Redoubtable
Christian Carion's Mon Garcon
and even Pappi Corsicato's Julian Schnabel: A Private Portrait.

Of the four, the chances for L'amant Double and Redoubtable are virtually indistinguishable.  Both played Cannes with modset-to-good reviews.  Redoubtable's metascore-67, L'amant Double's 64.  Both directors have made a splash at previuos Tellurides.  Hazanavicius being more notable with Oscar Best Picture winner The Artist in 2011.  Ozon was at Telluride last year with Frantz.

I'm givng Redoubtable a slight edge with a 50% chance to SHOW.  L'Amant Double goes in at 45%.

As to Carion's Mon Garcon, I include it here as CMG is calling it a 2017 release and Carion's 2009 TFF film, Farewell, is enough to make me think it should be considered.  Give it a 30% chance.

FInally, despite the fact that Cosicato's Julian Schnabel documentary has played in the U.S. at Tribeca, it might end up at Telluride anyway.  The inclusion of Tribeca films in the T-ride lineup isn't frequent  but has happened more than once: Peggy Guggenheim in 2015, Keep On Keepin' On in 2014 and My Dior in 2013.

Schnabel's poster for TFF #29

Additionally, Schnabel has had a TFF history as poster artist in 2002 and presenting his fantastic The Diving Bell and the Butterfly in 2007.  So I wouldn't rule this film out even though it played Tribeca.




CIRCUIT BREAKER FALL FILM GUESSES #2

A week ago (June 19) I posted the link to Awards Circuit's Circuit Breaker podcast because they included a rundown of some guesses about where films might be headed to film festivals.

This week;s podcast includes another segment about the same topic.  The nearly half hour segment includes mentions of a couple of dozen films and those that are mentioned as having some possibility for Telluride (by at least one of the participants) are:

The Darkest Hour
Suburbicon
Downsizing
Battle of the Sexes
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
The Snowman
Stronger

The complete podcast can be heard here.  The discussion of fall film fest plays begins approximately at the 47:20 mark.


TELLURIDE HISTORY: TFF #23

Here's another installment of my on-going and fairly sporadic review of the history of the Telluride Film Festival.  Today a look at #23 which occurred  from Aug.30-Sept. 2, 1996.

Guest Director: B. Ruby Rich

Tributes: Shirley MacLaine, Mike Leigh, Alain Cavalier

SHOWS:

Actress
Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life
Beautiful Thing
Ben Johnson: Third Cowboy on the Right

Breaking the Waves
Cardiogram
Carmen's Pure Love
The Cloud Capped Star
Daisies
Drifting Clouds
Fly Away Home
Forgotten Silver
Gabbeh

Irma Vep
Kolya
La Recontre
Le Ciel est a Vous
Le Samuorai
Le Trou
Lillian's Story
Message to Love
Microcosmos
Riot
Secrets and Lies
Self Made Hero

Sling Blade
Swingers
Therese
Twelfth Night
Two Eyes, Twelve Hands
The Unknown

Guests:

Olivier Assasyas
Jacques Audiard
Carroll Ballard
Harry Carey, Jr.
Maggie Cheung
Jon Favreau
Don Hertzfeldt
Werner Herzog
Mike Leigh
Doug Liman
Leonard Maltin
Shirley MacLaine
Trevor Nunn
John Ritter
Stellan Skarsgaard
Billy Bob Thornton
Warwick Thornton
Vince Vaughn
Emily Watson


Of particular note were the short films from Warwick Thornton (Payback, now called From Sand to Celluloid: Payback) and Julie Delpy (Blah Blah Blah) both making their directing debuts and Don Hertzfeldt with his second short (Genre).

That's your Thursday from MTFB.

Come back tomorrow for 2017's first Ten Bets.

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

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