BONUS THURSDAY POST: TORONTO ANNOUNCES MANY TITLES- WE DETECT TELLURIDE FILMS

BONUS THURSDAY POST

For the past several years we've been able to get a bead on some Telluride titles based on announcements from the Toronto International Film Festival.  That seems to remain true today as TIFF announced a slew of titles and likely there are several more to come.  Based on the TIFF premiere status descriptions of their announced films up to today we think the following films will play at The SHOW over Labor Day: weekend:

Broker

Empire of Light

Holy Spider

One Fine Morning

The Wonder

Women Talking 

Good Night Oppy

Films I thought might have a shot at TFF #49 that TIFF announced this morning that will NOT be playing Telluride based on their premiere status designation:

The Son

Banshees of Inisherin

Causeway

Decision to Leave

The Eternal Daughter

The Good Nurse

Moonage Daydream

No Bears

Triangle of Sadness

The Whale

Chevalier

Big surprise not at T-ride: The Son

Big surprise in for T-ride: Empire of Light

Also, thanks to shout outs today from Awards Daily and World of Reel.

EMAIL:  mpgort@gmail.com

TWITTER @TheMTFB OR @Gort2 

MTFB's Facebook Page

MTFB is published on Mondays and Thursdays

Ten Bets #6 / Wild Tuesday-Part One / Wild Tuesday-Part Two / Toronto-An Evolving List / Some Random Thoughts

TEN BETS #6

We've got some shuffling of the players this week following the news from Venice announcing its lineup.  First here's your re-cap of last week's Ten Bets:

1) One Fine Morning/Hansen-Love

2) The Son/Zeller

3) Close/Dhont

4) Armageddon Time/Gray

5) Bardo/Inarritu

6) TAR/Fields

7) Women Talking/Polley

8) Aftersun/Wells

9) The Pale Blue Eye/Cooper

10) The Master Gardener/P. Schrader

Others Possibilities: Broker/Kore-eda, Showing Up/Reichardt, Tori and Lokita/Dardennes, Holy Spider/Abbasi,  The Forger/Peren, She Said/M. Schrader, Tuesday/Oniunas-Pusic, The Fire Within/Herzog, The U.S. and the Holocaust/Burns, The Wonder/Lelio, Blonde/Dominik

And here's this week's updated Ten Bets:

1) Bardo/Inarritu

2) TAR/Fields

3) Bones and All/Guadagnino

4) Armageddon Time/Gray

5) Close/Dhont

6) Aftersun/Wells

7) One Fine Morning/Hansen-Love

8) The Son/Zeller

9) She Said/M. Schrader

10) The Pale Blue Eye/Cooper

Others Possibilities: Master Gardener/P. Schrader, Women Talking/Polley, Broker/Kore-eda, Showing Up/Reichardt, Tori and Lokita/Dardennes, Holy Spider/Abbasi,  The Forger/Peren,Tuesday/Oniunas-Pusic, The Fire Within/Herzog, The U.S. and the Holocaust/Burns, The Wonder/Lelio, Blonde/Dominik, The Whale/Aronofsky, White Noise/Baumbach. Dreamin' Wild/Pohlad, March on Rome/Cousins

WILD TUESDAY-PART ONE

It was a wild Tuesday afternoon earlier this week as separate interviews with Venice Film Festival Artistic Director Alberto Barbera stirred the fall film fest pot by dropping some Telluride news.  First the confirmations (it would seem). 

In an interview with Variety's Nick Vivarelli, Barbera revealed that Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's Bardo, Todd Field's TAR and Luca Guadagnino's Bones and All will be making the jump from Venice to Telluride (hence those films jumping to the top of this week's Ten Bets above).

Here's the quote from the Varity interview:

"One that is going [to Telluride] is”Tar,” as are the Iñárritu and Guadagnino films."

In the same paragraph, Barbera says that there will not be as large a Venice/Telluride crossover as has been the case in past years:

"My impression is that there will be fewer films going from Venice to Telluride this year — not that there aren’t any... But in past years there were more, which has resulted in Venice being a bit less “top-heavy” this year."

So Barbera isn't saying that there aren't others in addition to Bardo, TAR and Bones but fewer.  I did a little digging and discovered that approximately 67 films have made the trek from Venice to Telluride over the past 10 years.  Peak years were 2021 and 2018 with nine films moving form Italy to Colorado.  Weak years were 2019, 2014 and 2012 with 4.  The average, as you can deduce, is 6-7 films each year.

So...likely there will be an addition or two beyond the three Barbera revealed.  

Prior to the Venice announcement there had been strong speculation that those films might include Baumbach's White Noise, Aronofsky's The Whale and Zeller's The Son.  In my Special Post from Tuesday morning with the Venice lineup, I indicated several other films that might be in line to make the trip from Venice to T-ride:

Argentina 1985

Athena

Blonde

A Couple

No Bears

Dreamin' Wild

Master Gardener

Freedom on Fire: Ukraine's Fight for Freedom

Il Viaggio

Best bets to also move from Venice to The SHOW:  White Noise, Master Gardener and The Son.

The complete Variety interview is here.

WILD TUESDAY-PART TWO

And if that wasn't enough...Barbera had an interview with Deadline.com that was posted Tuesday.  Matt Neglia of Next Best Picture screen captured the electrifying news and posted it to Twitter:

Making it easier to read:

"There was only one film we couldn't see, which was the Spielberg film [The Fabelmans].  They decided to go domestic with Telluride.  It was a film that all the fall festivals wanted to see but no one got to see it internationally other than Toronto."

Needless to say my Twitter feed lit up.

A few minutes later the story was re-posted with the sentence "They decided to go domestic with Telluride" edited out.

I saw both versions with my own eyes.

You can see the current version of the post from Deadline here.

Now, I will admit that I reached out to Deadline to confirm and/or clarify the sentence.  It was after that email that the edit occurred that eliminated the Telluride mention.

So, what gives?  Seems like these are the possibilities:

Barbera got it wrong.

Deadline got it wrong.

Telluride screened it and decided not to invite it...thus preserving its World Premiere status for Toronto.

Telluride screened and Universal then decided not to go to T-ride after all.

Telluride does have it and TIFF's WP status is flawed.

It was pointed out to me that this could be a repeat of last year when TIFF announced Kenneth Branagh's Belfast as a World Premiere only to have it bow at Telluride first.  Could that be the case with The Fabelmans?

The icing on the cake was a Jordan Ruimy/World of Reel post late on Tuesday in which he says no Fabelmans at The SHOW per a TFF source:

"I’m here to tell you, let’s please stop the speculation. A Telluride source has confirmed to me that “The Fabelmans” is not going to that festival."

You can see that complete post here.

TORONTO-AN EVOLVING LIST

TIFF is using a drip-drip-drip method of announcing World Premieres that they haven't used before.  As that list grows, I will be posting so we know which films are at TIFF and won't be at TFF#49. Those announced to date are:

Green Onions: A Knives Out Mystery

Brother

Bros

On the Come Up

The Woman King

My Policeman

The Fabelmans (see above)

Catherine Called Birdy

The Swimmers

and Jordan Ruimy at World of Reel says The Greatest Beer Run Ever will also be a TIFF World Premiere. 

And there are reports that TIFF will announce some more titles today.

SOME RANDOM THOUGHTS

Teaser for Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio which was released earlier this week via YouTube

A list of films that haven't really been talked about for Telluride but...who knows?   Maybe?

The Good Nurse

GDT's Pinocchio

See How They Run

Raymond and Ray

Dreamin' Wild

Tuesday

Moonage Daydream

Spoiler Alert: He Dies at the End

EMAIL:  mpgort@gmail.com

TWITTER @TheMTFB OR @Gort2 

MTFB's Facebook Page

MTFB is published on Mondays and Thursdays

MTFB SPECIAL: VENICE ANNOUNCES

 Here are the announced films for the 2022 Venice Film Festival.  Films that I think could  be in contention for a Telluride play are indicated with ***

COMPETITION

"All The Beauty and The Bloodshed," Laura Poitras (U.S.)

"Argentina, 1985," Santiago Mitre (Argentina, U.S.)***

"Athena," Romain Gavras (France)***

"The Banshees of Inisherin," Martin McDonagh (U.K., U.S.)

​"Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths," Alejandro G. Iñárritu (Mexico)***

"Beyond The Wall," Vahid Jalilvand (Iran)

"Blonde," Andrew Dominik (U.S.)***

"Bones and All," Luca Guadagnino (U.S.)

"Chiara," Susanna Nicchiarelli (Italy)

"A Couple," Frederik Wiseman (U.S.)***

"The Eternal Daughter," Joanna Hogg (U.K.)

​"Il Signore Delle Formiche," Gianni Amelio (Italy)

"Love Life," Kôji Fukada (Japan, France)

"L’Immensità," Emanuele Crialese (Italy)

"Monica," Andrea Pallaoro (Italy)

"No Bears," Jafar Panahi (Iran)***

”On The Fringe,”

"Other People’s Children," Rebecca Zlotowski (France)

"Our Ties," Roschdy Zem (France)

"Saint Omer,' Alice Diop (France)

​"The Son," Florian Zeller (U.K.)***

"TÁR," Todd Field (U.S.)***

"The Whale," Darren Aronofsky (U.S.)***

"White Noise" - Noah Baumbach (U.S.) - OPENING FILM***

OUT OF COMPETITION - FICTION

"The Hanging Sun," Francesco Carrozzini (Italy) - CLOSING FILM

"Call Of God," Kim Ki-duk (Estonia, Kirighistan, Lettonia)

"Dead For a Dollar," Walter Hill (U.S.)

"Don’t Worry Darling," Olivia Wilde (U.S.)

"Dreamin’ Wild," Bill Pohlad (U.S.)***

"Living," Oliver Hermanus (U.K.)

"Master Gardener," Paul Schrader (U.S.)***

"Pearl," Ti West (U.S.)

"Siccitá," Paolo Virzì (Italy)

"When The Waves Are Gone," Lav Diaz (Philippines, France, Portugal, Denmark)

OUT OF COMPETITION - NON-FICTION

"A Compassionate Spy," Steve James (U.S.)

"Bobi Wine Ghetto President," Christopher Sharp, Moses Bwayo (Uganda, U.K., U.S.)

"Freedom on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight For Freedom," Evgeny Afineevsky (Ukraine, U.K., U.S.)***

"Gli Ultimi Giorni Dell’Umanità," Enrico Ghezzi, Alessandro Gagliardo (Italy)

"In Viaggio," Gianfranco Rosi (Italy)***

"The Kiev Trial," Sergei Loznitsa (The Netherlands, Ukraine)

"The Matchmaker," Benedetta Argentieri (Italy)

"Music For Black Pigeons," Jørgen Leth, Andreas Koefoed (Denmark)

"Nuclear," Oliver Stone (U.S.)

OUT OF COMPETITION - SERIES

"Copenhagen Cowboy" (Episodes 1-6), Nicholas Winding Refn (Denmark)

"The Kingdom Exodus" (Episodes 1-5), Lars Von Trier (Denmark)

HORIZONS

​"Princess," Roberto De Paolis (Italy) - OPENING FILM

"A Man," Key Ishikawa (Japan)

"Autobiography," Makbul Mubarak (France, Germany, Qatar)

"Blanquita," Fernando Guzzoni (Chile, Mexico)

"Bread and Salt," Damian Kocur (Poland)

"The Bride," Sergio Trefaut (Portugal)

"For My Country," Rachid Hami (France, Taipei)

"The Happiest Man in the World," Teona Strugar Mitevska (Bosnia, Belgium, Denmark)

"Innocence," Guy Davidi (Denmark, Israel, Finland, Iceland) - Documentary

"Luxembourg, Luxembourg," Antonio Lukich (Ukraine)

"On The Fringe" ("En Los Márgenes"), Juan Diego Botto (Spain)

"The Sitting Duck," Jean-Paul Salomé (France)

"Ti Mangio il Cuore," Pippo Mezzapesa (Italy)

"To The North," Mihai Mincan (Romania, France, Greece, Bulgaria, Czech Republic)

"Trenque Lauquen," Laura Citarella (Argentina, Germany)

"Vera," Tizza Covi, Rainer Frimmel (Austria)

"Victim" ("Obet'"), Michal Blasko (Slovakia, Czech Republic, Germany)

"World War III," Houman Seyiedi (Iran)

​HORIZONS EXTRA

"Amanda," Carolina Cavalli

"Goliath," Adilkhan Yerzhanov

"Hanging Gardens," Ahmed Yassin Al Daradji

"Nezouh," Soudade Kaadan

"Notte Fantasma," Fulvio Risuleo

"Origin of Evil," Sébastien Marnier

"Red Shoes," Carlos Eichelmann Kaiser

"Valeria Is Getting Married," Michael Vinik

"Without Her," Arian Vazirdaftari

The next clues from Venice will come when they post the screening schedule.  Earlier scheduled films have the greatest likelihood of making the Venice/Telluride double play.  Although in an Indiewire story from Anne Thompson from a couple of days ago she suggested that some films might screen "simultaneously".  I'm not sure what that means.

More in my regular post on Thursday.

Ten Bets #4 / Paul Schrader: Another Honor / A New Film to Contemplate

TEN BETS #4

While we wait for some full-scale announcements from the Toronto International Film Festival which should give us some serious insight about the way the fall film slate is going to shake out...

Here's a re-cap of last week's Ten Bets:

1) One Fine Morning/Hansen-Love

2) The Son/Zeller

3) Close/Dhont

4) Women Talking/Polley

5) Aftersun/Wells

6) Bardo/Inarritu

7) TAR/Fields

8) Showing Up/Reichardt

9) Broker/Kore-eda

10) Armageddon Time/Gray

Others: The Pale Blue Eye/Cooper, The Master Gardener/P. Schrader, Tori and Lokita/Dardennes, Holy Spider/Abbasi,  The Forger/Peren, Babylon/Chazelle, She Said/M. Schrader

And here is your fresh Ten Bets:

1) One Fine Morning/Hansen-Love

2) The Son/Zeller

3) Close/Dhont

4) Women Talking/Polley

5) Aftersun/Wells

6) Bardo/Inarritu

7) TAR/Fields

8) Armageddon Time/Gray

9) The Pale Blue Eye/Cooper

10) The Master Gardener/P. Schrader

Others Possibilties: Broker/Kore-eda, Showing Up/Reichardt, Tori and Lokita/Dardennes, Holy Spider/Abbasi,  The Forger/Peren, Babylon/Chazelle, She Said/M. Schrader, Tuesday/Oniunas-Pusic, The Fire Within/Herzog, The U.S. and the Holocaust/Burns, The Wonder/Lelio

The top seven remain unchanged as Armageddon Time moves up The Master Gardener returns as a "Bet" and Scott Cooper's Pale Blue Eye moves onto he "Bets" for the first time this summer.

Broker and Showing Up have slipped into the "Other Possibilities" section.

PAUL SCHRADER: ANOTHER HONOR

News from Deadline that Paul Schrader will be honored in August at the Sarajevo Film Festival with the "Heart of Sarajevo".  That news comes after it was previously announced that Shrader will be honored for lifetime achievement at the Venice Film Festival.  

The Sarajevo announcement reveals that Schrader will be screening The Card Counter and doing a Masterclass as part of the Sarajevo program.  No mention of a screening of The Master Gardener which almost certainly will screen at Venice.

The Deadline story is linked here.

A NEW FILM TO CONTEMPLATE

News this week that Cannes' Jury prize-winner The Eight Mountains had been jointly acquired for distribution by Janus Films and Sideshow.  That bumps the film co-directed by Felix van Groeningen (Beautiful Boy and Broken Circle Breakdown) and Charlotte Vadermeersch squarely into the Telluride conversation.

Janus' past Telluride appearances have included: 

The Eyes of Orson Welles

Cameraperson

Le Havre

Janus also has distribution for a couple of other TFF #49 possibilities: Tori and Lokita and EO.  A TFF selection would be a first for Sideshow.

Details from Indiewire are here.

EMAIL:  mpgort@gmail.com

TWITTER @TheMTFB OR @Gort2 

MTFB's Facebook Page

MTFB is published on Mondays and Thursdays

Ten Bets #3-The Jostling Begins / Bouncing Around / Much More Marcel / She Is Done

 TEN BETS #3-THE JOSTLING BEGINS

After last week's largely unchanged Bets, this week is a different story.  Largely hinging on excellent reporting by Jordan Ruimy/World of Reel-that reporting is detailed below in the following summation of hos collection of posts dating back to Independence Day.

That said, here's a repeat of last week's Ten Bets and other possibilities

1) Bardo/Inarritu

2) One Fine Morning/Hansen-Love

3) The Son/Zeller

4) Close/Dhont

5) Women Talking/Polley

6) Aftersun/Wells

7) Showing Up/Reichardt

8) Broker/Kore-eda

9) White Noise/Baumbach

10) The Master Gardener/P. Schrader

Others: Tori and Lokita/Dardennes, Holy Spider/Abbasi, Blonde/Dominik, Next Goal Wins/Waititi, The Forger/Peren, Babylon/Chazelle, TAR/Fields, She Said/M. Schrader.

And here are the latest Ten Bets:

1) One Fine Morning/Hansen-Love

2) The Son/Zeller

3) Close/Dhont

4) Women Talking/Polley

5) Aftersun/Wells

6) Bardo/Inarritu

7) TAR/Fields

8) Showing Up/Reichardt

9) Broker/Kore-eda

10) Armageddon Time/Gray

Others: The Pale Blue Eye/Cooper, The Master Gardener/P. Schrader, Tori and Lokita/Dardennes, Holy Spider/Abbasi,  The Forger/Peren, Babylon/Chazelle, She Said/M. Schrader.

BOUNCING AROUND

As mentioned above, there is some jumbling of the Ten Bets for this week owing to reporting from Jordan Ruimy.  If you compare last week's Ten Bets with this week's you'll see that some films have disappeared, some jumped on and Bardo is still on the list, but moved from the top spot down to #6.

All of that comes as a result of Jordan's reporting at World of Reel.

Specifically two posts from the last week.  Ruimy posted a piece on July 4th indicating that sources had told him that Bardo would NOT being playing fall fests and that Blonde and White Noise would NOT be at Telluride.  Including for T-ride, according to his reporting, will be: Armageddon Time (Gray), Women Talking (Polley), The Pale Blue Eye (Cooper) and TAR (Fields).

I was devastated as my personal hope for list included Bardo and Blonde (in addition to Babylon-which is hanging onto the "maybe: list by the slimmest of threads.

Then on Wednesday, Ruimy was back with a different spin on Bardo.  Ruimy indicated that a new source was telling him that Bardo would be ready for screening at fall fests.  Ruimy writes:

"I had it confirmed this late afternoon that Inarittu and Netflix are hopeful “Bardo” will be done on time for the fall fests." 

Sooo...Bardo stays on the Ten Bets but takes a 5 position demotion.  Shaky!  My belief had been that Bardo would play Venice and then make the trans-Atlantic jump to southwestern Colorado.  We'll see...

As you can see, I have linked both of Ruimy's posts.

MUCH MORE MARCEL

As Marcel the Shell with Shoes On continues its rollout nationwide, there continue to be stories that pop up highlighting the film about the plucky mollusk.  I have some of those here from this week"

From Variety

ScriptMag.com

MovieWeb

SHE SAID IS DONE -IT TESTED

Again reporting from Jordan Ruimy tells us that Maria Schrader's She Said (the film about the Harvey Weinstein affair) has screen tested and seems to have done well.

I think there some possibility that it screens in the San Juans on Labor Day weekend.

The WOR story is here.

EMAIL:  mpgort@gmail.com

TWITTER @TheMTFB OR @Gort2 

MTFB's Facebook Page

MTFB is published on Mondays and Thursdays

Ten Bets #2 / 700,000+ / Hope Springs / NEON's Shine / Two Off the Table ?/ My Marcel Dance Continues

TEN BETS #2

Here's the second edition of MTFB's Ten Bets for TFF #49.  It's my weekly assessment that will update each week through the summer with my best assessment of the films that I think could make the TFF #49 lineup.  Last week the initial Ten Bets were:

1) Bardo/Inarritu

2) One Fine Morning/Hansen-Love

3) The Son/Zeller

4) Close/Dhont

5) Women Talking/Polley

6) Aftersun/Wells

7) Showing Up/Reichardt

8) White Noise/Baumbach

9) Broker/Kore-eda

10) She Said/M. Schrader

Plus some other possibilities: Tori and Lokita/Dardennes, Holy Spider/Abdasi, Blonde/Dominik, The Master Gardener/P. Schrader, Next Goal Wins/Waititi, The Forger/Peren, Babylon/Chazelle, TAR/Fields

Not much jostling this week...  Here's the new Ten Bets:

1) Bardo/Inarritu

2) One Fine Morning/Hansen-Love

3) The Son/Zeller

4) Close/Dhont

5) Women Talking/Polley

6) Aftersun/Wells

7) Showing Up/Reichardt

8) Broker/Kore-eda

9) White Noise/Baumbach

10) The Master Gardener/P. Schrader

Others: Tori and Lokita/Dardennes, Holy Spider/Abdasi, Blonde/Dominik, The Master Gardener/P. Schrader, Next Goal Wins/Waititi, The Forger/Peren, Babylon/Chazelle, TAR/Fields, She Said/M. Schrader

700,000+

Since I posted on Monday MTFB crossed it 700,000th view since I first started the thing back in 2008.  Over that time I have posted 2023 times for a per post average of 346+ views per post.  Biggest post historically for the blog was Jan. 4, 2018 that focused on the upcoming Oscar nominations for that year.  It also included a focus on Greta Gerwig's Lady Bird.  The largest readership for a non-Oscar related post was for last fall's Professional's Telluride poll that has Marcel the Shell with Shoes On as the highest rated film for TFF #48.  That post created quite a stir and was refenced by Variety, Awards Daily, Awards Watch and Indiewire as well as from the film's director, writer and Marcel co-creator Dean Fleischer-Camp.

Marcel opened in limited release this past week and had a ridiculously good per theater average.  The film is currently at 100% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Marcel will continue to expand into other markets in the coming weeks.

HOPE SPRINGS

Now make no mistake, I don't think (at least at the moment) that we'll see either Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon or Fincher's The Killer at TFF #49 BUT...Jordan Ruimy's World of Reel reported this week that both of the films might get a 2022 release.  Both films had been rumored to be floating into 2023 for release but Ruimy's  reportage suggests that there is some hope for both before the end of the year. 

Jordan writes about Flower Moon saying:

"After embarking on additional shooting, and rumors appearing that it might get delayed to 2023, Apple is now pretty confident that Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon” will be released later this year, most likely in December."

That story was published last Sunday.

Then, later on Sunday Jordan posted this:

“The Killer” started production in November 2021 and wrapped shorting this past March. Fincher has 9 months to edit, but we all know he takes an obsessively lengthy time in the editing room. My bet is that the film get released in December. That’s just a hunch."

Fingers crossed that both highly anticipated films as a part of a 2022 release strategy and...if they just so happened to screen at Telluride, so much the better.

NEON SHINES

I'm continuing my preview of possible TFF #49 selections from distribution companies that have been prominently involved at the fest over recent years.  Today's subject is NEON,  Their profile at T-ride isn't as lengthy as an SPC or Searchlight but it has shown brightly over the past five years including the Best Picture Oscar winner for 2019, Bong Joon Ho's Parasite.  Here are the NEON films that

2021: Petite Maman, Spencer (Oscar nominated for Best Actress-Kristen Stewart) , Flee (Oscar nominated for Best Animated Film, Best International Film and Best Documentary)

2020: Ammonite

2019: Parasite (nominated for six Academy Awards and won four including Best Picture and Director). Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Amazing Grace

2018: Border (Oscar nominated for Best Makeup and Hair), The Biggest Little Farm

2017: The B-Side: Elsa Dorfman's Portrait Photography

Best chances for this year are three films that all played at Cannes earlier this year:

Hirokazu Kore-eda's Broker (won Best Actor and Ecumenical Jury prize at Cannes)

Rueben Ostlund's Palme d'Or winner Triangle of Sadness 

Brett Morgen's David Bowie doc Moonage Daydream

These films are listed from top to bottom in the probability of a TFF appearance.  I put Broker at 55% and Triangle of Sadness and Moonage Daydream at 25% each in probability of being selected for TFF #49.

TWO OFF THE TABLE

(via Netflix)

Not that I have ever really thought they were likely ever on the Telluride table...

Toronto's International Film Fest has moved one film off the chess board with their announcement on Wednesday that Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery will World Premiere there.  

The Hollywood Reporter, among others, reported the TIFF announcement.  The story is linked here.

Meanwhile, if you had the musical version of Roald Dahl's Matilda on your list as a Telluride consideration, erase it now.  The BFI London Film Fest has announced the film as its World Premiere Opening Night Gala.  

Here is that news from The British Film Institute.

  

Both films are from Netflix.

MY MARCEL DANCE CONTINUES

Friend of MTFB, Mark Johnson of Awards Daily, attended the just completed Nantucket Film Festival.  His last screening was the TFF #49 favorite Marcel the Shell with Shoes On.  Mark had missed seeing last September.

He was kind enough to reference MTFB's The Professionals Telluride Poll as a part of his very positive review for the film.

You can see Mark's review and even hit the link and re-visit MTFB's Pros Poll.  The link for the review is here.

EMAIL:  mpgort@gmail.com

TWITTER @TheMTFB OR @Gort2 

MTFB's Facebook Page

MTFB is published on Mondays and Thursdays

My First Ten Bets for 2022 / A Look at Blonde / World of Reel's List of Films for Fests / To Babylon or not to Babylon / GDT's Pinocchio?

MY FIRST TEN BETS FOR 2022

Normally my first list of predicting 10 possible Telluride films comes a little later in June but the news that Toronto will announce some titles this week has made it imperative that I launch the first TFF #49 Ten Bets a bit earlier.  So, to that end, here are Ten Bets for TFF #49 (in order of my feeling that they make the list):

1) Bardo/Inarritu

2) One Fine Morning/Hansen-Love

3) The Son/Zeller

4) Close/Dhont

5) Women Talking/Polley

6) Aftersun/Wells

7) Showing Up/Reichardt

8) White Noise/Baumbach

9) Broker/Kore-eda

10) She Said/M. Schrader

Others: Tori and Lokita/Dardennes, Holy Spider/Abdasi, Blonde/Dominik, The Master Gardener/P. Schrader, Next Goal Wins/Waititi, The Forger/Peren, Babylon/Chazelle, TAR/Fields

A LOOK AT BLONDE

I have been reticent to include Andrew Dominik’s Blonde as a serious contender for screening at this year’s Telluride Film Festival.  The NC-17 rating, the rumors about some of the content and the additionally rumored clash between Dominik and Netflix over that content have all been reasons that I have been hesitant to conclude that it could be at TFF #49.

But… the release this week of what I think is a killer teaser, the reveal that Netflix is releasing the film on Sept. 23rd plus persistent buzz that the film is likely premiering at Venice and the good relationship over that last few years between TFF and Netflix have me re-thinking my position.  

At this point I think there is some chance that Blonde makes an appearance in the San Juans.  

As many readers are aware, I have been following the film for some time now with the notion that it could land at Telluride at some point.  It has been and remains one of my most anticipated films of the year.

Here's the teaser from Netflix (which I bet a lot of you have already seen) via YouTube:

Here are the details directly from Netflix.

WORLD OF REEL'S LIST FOR FESTS

Jordan Ruimy posted a list of 70 films that he believes are likely to play at least part of the festival gauntlet this fall.  That generally means the quartet of fests: Telluride, Venice, Toronto and New York.  Venice is actually the kickoff each season with Telluride taking off before Venice ends.  Toronto follows quickly thereafter and New York then happens in October.

Jordan breaks it down into various categories starting with what he calls "The Hot 20".  Taking a look at those, for fun, I have repeated Jordan's list but placed the films in the order of what I think right now is the likeliest to make the TFF #49 lineup.  So...from most to least likely:

1) Bardo (Inarritu)

2) White Noise (Baumbach)

3) Women Talking (Polley)

4) The Son (Zeller)

5) The Master Gardener (P. Schrader)

6) TAR (Field)

7) The Wonder (Lelio)

8) The Pale Blue Eye (Cooper)

9) She Said (M. Schrader)

10) Bones and All (Guadagnino)

11) Blonde (Dominik)

12) The Whale (Aronofsky)

13) Next Goal Wins (Waititi)

14) The Good Nurse (Linholm)

15) Passages (Sachs)

16) Red, White and Water (Neigebauer)

17) The Banshees of Inisherin (McDonagh)

18) Don't Worry Darling (Wilde)

19) Eileen (Oldroyd)

20) The Eternal Daughter (Hogg)

Ruimy then adds "The Next 20" and from that list the films that seems most possible are:

The Lost King (Frears)

Marlowe (Jordan)

Ticket to Paradise (Parker)

Then among the 30 other films that Ruimy includes:

Chevalier (Williams)

No Bears (Panahi)

Persuasion (Cracknell)

We'll see what happens and may have some early news this week as Toronto is reportedly going to name some of their lineup this week.

TO BABYLON OR NOT TO BABYLON?

We've seen reports that Paramount is unsure whether to take Damien Chazelle's Babylon to fall fests.  The above mentioned post from World of Reel suggests both possibilities.  Jordan writes both that "Chazelle...is skipping the fall fests" and then in the next paragraph Jordan writes:

 "A few surprises could (probably will) sneak in. I’m thinking maybe Chazelle’s “Babylon” ultimately decides to go the way of fall festivals."

We know that the film is more or less ready as reports of test screenings were coming in late March.  I've reminded readers that Chazelle has played both La La Land and First Man at Telluride but that history might cut both ways.  La La Land's ultimate Best Picture loss and First Man's inability to ignite much Oscar love (save for its win for Visual Effects and three other tech nominations) might make a difference in the choice of whether to offer the film to T-ride.

I'd like to believe that it makes the TFF #49 list.  Just like Blonde...Babylon is high on my list of most anticipated.

GDT'S PINOCCHIO?

Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio screened a new trailer and other footage at the Annecy Animation Festival this week.  Del Toro told audience members that the film was:

“10 minutes from being finished', and that crews are currently working on 60 different sets at once to get the film done in time."  according to Screen Daily.

GDT has been beloved at Telluride.  The fest screened his Oscar Best Picture winner The Shape of Water in 2017 and last year TFF collaborated for a special screening of Nightmare Alley on Dec. 1st 2021.  So you have to think that if Pinocchio is ready, it could be a Telluride selection.

Here's the teaser that appeared back in January from YouTube:

Here's the article from Screen Daily.

EMAIL:  mpgort@gmail.com

TWITTER @TheMTFB OR @Gort2 

MTFB's Facebook Page

MTFB is published on Mondays and Thursday

Guest Directors (Plural) Announced / First Look at The Son

 GUEST DIRECTORS (PLURAL) ANNOUNCED

TFF has announced its Guest Directors for 2022 and as you can read, there are two this year.  Here's the press release from TFF:

Telluride Film Festival (TFF), presented by National Film Preserve LTD., is proud to announce dissident Russian filmmakers Kantemir Balagov and Kira Kovalenko as its 2022 Festival Guest Directors. The award-winning filmmakers are set to select a series of films to present at the 49th Telluride Film Festival running September 2 - 5, 2022. 

Festival organizers annually select the world’s great film enthusiasts to join them in the creation of the Festival’s program lineup. The Guest Directors serve as key collaborators in the Festival’s programming decisions, bringing new ideas and overlooked films to Telluride. In keeping with Telluride Film Festival tradition, Balagov’s and Kovalenko’s film selections, along with the rest of the Telluride lineup, will be kept secret until Opening Day.

Kantemir Balagov was born in 1991 in the city of Nalchik of the Kabardino-Balkarian Republic. He briefly left the city to study economics in Stavropol, but soon realized his interests were in the arts and returned to Nalchik to enroll in film school at Kabardino-Balkarian State University under the direction of Alexander Sokurov. Upon graduation he directed his first feature film, CLOSENESS, for which he received the FIPRESCI Prize Un Certain Regard at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival. His second feature, BEANPOLE, also won the FIPRESCI Prize Un Certain Regard and the Best Director Prize Un Certain Regard at Cannes in 2019 and was an Oscar shortlist. His next project, TV series THE LAST OF US, is set to premiere on HBO in 2023.

 “I was in Telluride for the first time in 2017 with my first film CLOSENESS,” says Balagov. “As a reclusive person, I always feel anxious about going to festivals, but on the first day of being in Telluride, I felt it was different. The festival cares about the uniqueness of the various authors’ statements, it provides love and vulnerability, and it makes you feel at home. Tom and Julie put so much heart and soul into it and have created an incredible community. No, community is the wrong word. They have created a family, and Kira and I are so honored to be a part of this family. We are thrilled to be the Guest Directors this year. We promise that we will passionately pick the films because we believe that movies are little miracles that we desperately need right now.” 

 Kira Kovalenko was born in 1989 in Nalchik, Russia and attended Kabardino-Balkarian State University’s film school under Alexander Sokurov’s direction. Her first feature film, SOFICHKA, was released in 2016. Her second feature, UNCLENCHING THE FISTS, premiered in 2021 to much acclaim, winning the Grand Prize Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival. 

 “2021 was my first time in America,” comments Kovalenko. “I was told that I would be going to the best place on earth. I was anxiously waiting and fantasizing. On the way to the festival, I opened the book that I carried with me. There was a photo. In the photo were Larisa Shepitko, Werner Herzog, and Ed Lachman. I went to where this photo was taken. This was my first Telluride experience. It is not only a place where cinema, fate, history, and the spirit of the place intertwine. To everyone who has been there once it becomes special. There is a secret in this. I think this is the secret of love. The secret of the love that Tom and Julie have for the cinema. Love for the place. And now I receive such a huge gift to be the Guest Director. I have a chance to become a part of this mystery and share movies that help me live, give me hope and remind me not to forget about miracles.”

 “One of the most special aspects of Telluride is the remarkable family of returning filmmakers that has formed over the years,” comments TFF executive director Julie Huntsinger. “These wildly talented people continue to create films of such high quality and regard, and we are thrilled to continue to discover and invite their new works again and again. There are threads of shared continuity between the filmmakers themselves as well. An unfailing humanism, a desire to be truthful and brave and tell stories that make us think and feel in profound ways. Our Guest Directors this year, Kantemir Balagov and Kira Kovalenko are not only two returning filmmakers with a distinct point of view, but they are also wonderful, young cinephiles (they met at film school) who will bring their brave and singular voices to a section we cannot wait to share with our wider audience in September.”

 Past Guest Directors include Barry Jenkins, Pico Iyer, Jonathan Lethem, 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 Turner Classic Movies (TCM). Considered throughout the industry as one of the leading authorities on classic film, the network presents great films, uncut and commercial-free, highlighting the entire spectrum of film history. 

 For more information about Telluride Film Festival, visit www.telluridefilmfestival.org.

INDIEWIRE LISTS 40 OSCAR POSSIBLES

A bit more than a week ago Indiewire posted their take on the coming Oscar season with a list of 40 films to being paying attention to.  As you might expect, there are a lot of titles listed that I am eyeballing as possible Labor Day weekend selections for Southwest Colorado.  Including:

Close

One Fine Morning

Armageddon Time

Till

Blonde

Stars at Noon

Moonage Daydream

Broker

Babylon

Showing Up

Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio

White Noise

Bardo

Chevalier

The Son

TAR

The complete Indiewire post is linked here.

***She Said...is on the Indiewire list and sort of seems like a Telluride natural but with Universal producing and distributing and not having had much of a presence historically at T-ride...I'm not really putting it on the list...but I am also not really ruling it out either.

FIRST LOOK AT THE SON

Awards Watch's Erik Anderson tweeted a first pic of Hugh Jackman from Florian Zeller's The Son.  The film has some strong Telluride vibes what with Zeller having had The Father selected among the films that would have screened at TFF in 2020 had Covid not changed the world.  In addition, other Telluride signifiers include the film's distribution by Sony Pictures Classics and it probably doesn't hurt that Laura Dern is in the cast.

Anyway, here's the pic from Anderson's Twitter feed:

EMAIL:  mpgort@gmail.com

TWITTER @TheMTFB OR @Gort2 

MTFB's Facebook Page

MTFB is published on Mondays and Thursday

Variety's Look at Venice Hopefuls...Clues for Telluride? / Searching SPC

 VARIETY'S LOOK AT VENICE HOPEFULS...CLUES FOR TFF ?

Yesterday Variety's Nick Vivarelli posted an examination of possible/probable Venice Fest choices.  It's interesting in light of the Venice/Telluride trail that has grown up in the last few years.  There are lots of possibilities to chew on in the article and I'll get to those...but...

One of the more intriguing sections of the post is a list of  seven films which have won the Best Director Oscar (and were Best Picture nominated with three winning that honor as well) that premiered in Venice:

2013: Gravity

2014: Birdman*

2016: La La Land

2017: The Shape of Water*

2018: Roma

2020: Nomadland*

2022: The Power of the Dog

(* indicates Best Picture winner)

Of note to TFF fans is that they all made the run from Venice to the San Juans. 

A big part of the post is focused on Netflix films that he reports are "in the Venice mix".  They include Alejandro Inarritu's Bardo, Noah Baumbach's White Noise, Andrew Dominik's Blonde and Romain Gavras' Athena.

From that list Bardo seems most likely to do the Venice/Telluride Shuffle with White Nose close behind.  Blonde has stirred controversy but I could still see it as a TFF #49 possibility.  The Gavras film is new to the conversation.

Other films that Vivarelli mentions that I feel like could be on flights from Italy to Colorado include:

Florian Zeller's The Son, Luca Guadagnino's Bones and All and Todd Fields: TAR.

The complete piece from Variety is linked here.

SEARCHING SPC

The second distributor to look at as we get closer to TFF #49 is Sony Pictures Classics.  SPC has a long tradition at Telluride and has averaged four titles per fest since I started attending in 2006.  Last year SPC had The Duke and Julia at TFF #48.

SPC's most likely title for TFF is Florian Zeller's The Son.  There are several reasons.  Zeller's The Father was a selection for the "Fest That Wasn't" in 2020.  Anthony Hopkins won his second Best Actor Oscar for it and Zeller won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay.  An additional reason could be that Telluride regular Laura Dern is a cast member (along with Hugh Jackman who was a T-ride guest in 2018 with The Front Runner).

Also very likely for Telluride from SPC is Mia Hansen Love's One Fine Morning which SPC picked up at Cannes.  Hansen-Love also has a good track record with TFF.  One Fine Morning stars the currently red hot Lea Seydoux who could return to T-ride for the first time since 2013's Blue Is the Warmest Color.

One other possibility from SPC is the modern day re-telling of the opera Carmen.

EMAIL:  mpgort@gmail.com

TWITTER @TheMTFB OR @Gort2 

MTFB's Facebook Page

MTFB is published on Mondays and Thursday

Two 2023 Oscar Lists: Indiewire and World of Reel / Coming Soon to a Theater Near You

TWO OSCAR 2023 LISTS

Both Indiewire and World of Reel posted lengthy Oscar Best Picture lists for 2023 this past week.  Indiwire's list had 35 titles while World of Reel had a list of 23.  Between the two list there were 11 films that made both lists (in no particular order):

Baz Lurman's Elvis

Martin Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon 

Steven Spielberg's The Fablemans

Maria Schrader's She Said

Damien Chazelle's Babylon

Kasi Lemmons' I Wanna Dance with Somebody

Kelly Reicharadt's Showing Up

Martin McDaonagh's The Banshees of Inisherin

Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's Bardo

Florian Zeller's The Son

Todd Field's TAR

Your five best Telluride bets from this combined list: Bardo, Showing Up, The Son, Babylon and TAR.

You can take a look at the complete lists and  analysis for each outlet.  

The Indiewire post is here.

The World of Reel post is here.

COMNG SOON TO A THEATER NEAR YOU

The Film Stage posted a list of 40+ films with release dates this summer which is revelatory in two ways in as far as Telluride film fans are concerned.  First, the list lets us know what films are OFF the list for TFF consideration i.e. David Cronenberg's Crimes of the Future.  The list also tells us when films that have screened (or would have screened at Telluride in one case) will be released.

According to the article these TFF films are pout as follows:

TFF #47 announced film Apples on June 24th.

From TFF #48:

Marcel the Shell with Shoes On on June 24th

Bitterbrush on June 24th 

Three Minutes: A Lengthening on August 19th

The complete Film Stage post is linked here.

EMAIL:  mpgort@gmail.com

TWITTER @TheMTFB OR @Gort2 

MTFB's Facebook Page

MTFB is published on Mondays and Thursdays

Lynch at Cannes? / A Couple of More Cannes Predictions

 LYNCH AT CANNES?

Lots of speculation within the last month or so, that David Lynch might launch a new film in May.  Jordan Ruimy at World of Reel (among others) has been among those that have suggested that a "surprise" inclusion will be a Lynch film.

Ruimy has posted a couple of times about the possibility.  Here's his March 10th post.  He wrote about it again last week.  Here's his April 8th post on the matter.

Over the years there has been a strong relationship between Cannes and Telluride with many films having premiered at the French festival and then screening three and half months later in southwest Colorado.

Which, of course, raises the question: Does Lynch return to Telluride?  Lynch has a history at the fest with Blue Velvet in 1986, a 1989 presentation of Twin Peaks and a Tribute to him in 1999 with a screening of The Straight Story.

We could know on Thursday if the film even exists and if it play Cannes when the the bulk of its lineup is announced.  which leads to...

 A COUPLE OF MORE CANNES PREDICTIONS 

From Ioncinema and Screen Daily come these titles that could be announced Thursday that seem to me to have potential as films that also might then screen as a part of The SHOW:

Armageddon Time

Asteroid City

Bardo

Bones and All

Broker

Crimes of the Future

R.M.N.

Showing Up

The Son

Tori and Lokita

The Whale

Women Talking

Look at the complete lists from both outlets at these links:

Ioncinema

Screen Daily

EMAIL:  mpgort@gmail.com

TWITTER @TheMTFB OR @Gort2 

MTFB's Facebook Page

MTFB is published on Mondays and Thursdays

Beginning the New Cycle / Petite Maman Has a Trailer for the U.S./ More Killers for Ya / World of Reel Survey: The Best of the '70's

BEGINNING THE NEW CYCLE

Oscars #94 are in the book and so it's time to get serious about potential titles for TFF# 49.  To that end, I'm parsing this week's post from Indiewire that names their 50 hoped for films for the Cannes Film Fest, which as many MTFB readers know, is often the starting line for films that make The SHOW.  So...here are films from the Indiewire list that seem to me to be Telluride potentials:

Armageddon Time/James Gray

Broker/Hirokazu Kore-eda

Close/Lukas Dhont

Crimes of the Future/David Cronenberg

Holy Spider/Ali Abbasi

One Fine Morning/Mia Hansen-Love

RMN/Cristian Mungiu

She Said/Maria Schrader

Showing Up/Kelly Reichardt

The Son/Florian Zeller

Sparta/Ulrich Seidel

Tori and Lokita/The Dardennes Brothers

The Way of the Wind/Terrence Malick

The Whale/Darren Aronofsky

Women Talking/Sarah Polley

The complete list from Indiewire is linked here.

PETITE MAMAN HAS A TRAILER FOR THE U.S.

Celine Sciamma's critically acclaimed Petite Maman, which was a part of the TFF #48 lineup, has a U.S. trailer as of this week.  The film's poster can be seen above and the film drops in the U.S. on April 22nd.

Here's the trailer:

MORE KILLERS FOR YA

Word from The Tulsa World (after a heads up from Jordan Ruimy's World of Reel) that Martin Scorsese will be returning to Oklahoma in May to shoot additional footage for Killers of the Flower Moon.

As close readers of MTFB know, I was a background player for KOTFM in August.  Reading between the lines of the Tulsa World story, it doesn't seem likely that I'll be called back for the new scenes.

Here's the link to the story from The Tulsa World.

Of course it is my great hope that Killers plays Telluride this year.  I will volunteer to be present as a "cast member" for each of its screenings at The SHOW.  A friend of mine who also worked the film gifted me with a cast/crew baseball cap this week.  You might see me sporting it on Labor Day weekend.

WORLD OF REEL SURVEY THE BEST OF THE 70'S

Speaking of Ruimy's World of Reel, he posted a survey of folk about the best films of the 1970's on Mar. 31.  

Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather topped the list.

 Somewhat unbelievably, I was included in the survey.  Others that were also counted included:

David Ansen/Newsweek

Peter DeBruge/Variety

Scott Feinberg/The Hollywood Reporter

Peter Howell/The Toronto Star

Larry Karaszewski/Screenwriter, The People vs. Larry Flynt

Dave Karger/Turner Classic Movies

Eric Kohn/Indiewire

Todd McCarthy/Deadline

Daniel Waters/Screenwriter, Heathers

The 15 films I submitted (and where they ended up in the overall)

Taxi Driver (3)
The Godfather (1)
The Godfather Part II (4)
Apocalypse Now (6)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (24)
Nashville (7)
Jaws (5)
The Last Picture Show (25)
Deliverance (-)
American Graffiti (34)
Chinatown (2)
Dog Day Afternoon (15)
Network (10)
All the Presidents Men (9)
All That Jazz (28)

Check out Jordan's complete rundown here.

EMAIL:  mpgort@gmail.com

TWITTER @TheMTFB OR @Gort2 

MTFB's Facebook Page

MTFB is published on Mondays and Thursdays