MTFB Oscar Update: The Penultimate Middle Eight Predictions / The Satellite Awards and TFF / The Bikeriders Has a New Trailer / Pass Saga / Interviews and Profiles

 MTFB OSCAR UPDATE: PENULTIMATE THE MIDDLE EIGHT PREDICTIONS

 BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE

1) The Zone of Interest/United Kingdom (1)

2) Society of the Snow/Spain (2)

3) The Teachers' Lounge/Germany (3)

4) Perfect Days/Japan (4)

5) Io Capitano/Italy (5)

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

1) 20 Days in Mariupol (1)

2) Bobi Wine: The People's President (2)

3) Four Daughters (3)

4) The Eternal Memory (4)

5) To Kill a Tiger (5)

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

1) Spiderman: Across the Spider-Verse (1)

2) The Boy and the Heron (2)

3) Elemental (3)

4) Nimona (4)

5) Robot Dreams (5)

BEST ORIGINAL SONG

1) What Was I Made For?/Barbie (1)

2) I'm Just Ken/Barbie (2)

3) Whazhazhe/Killers of the Flower Moon (4)

4) It Never Went Away/American Symphony (3)

5) The Fire Inside/Flamin' Hot (5)

ORIGINAL SCORE

1) Oppenheimer (1)

2) Killers of the Flower Moon (2)

3) Poor Things (3)

4) American Fiction (4)

5) Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (5)

CINEMATOGRAPHY

1) Oppenheimer (1)

2) Poor Things (3)

3) Killers of the Flower Moon (2)

4) Maestro (4)

5) El Conde (5)

EDITING

1) Oppenheimer (1)

2) Killers of the Flower Moon (2)

3) Anatomy of a Fall (3)

4) Poor Things (4)

5) The Holdovers (5)

PRODUCTION DESIGN

1) Poor Things (2)

2) Barbie (1)

3) Oppenheimer (3)

4) Killers of the Flower Moon (4)

5) Napoleon (5)

Comment:  Seven of the eight categories seem locked and have been consistent throughout the post-nomination period.  Production Design is the only one of these eight that remains competitive.  It's super-tight between Poor Things and Barbie.  I've moved Poor Things to the top of the PD chart based on its BAFTA win but this category could go either way and is definitely one of a handful that will determine Oscar pool winners/losers.

THE SATELLITE AWARDS AND TFF

The International Press Academy's Satellite Awards were revealed Sunday night.  Three TFF films earned wins:

The Holdovers (4): Best Film (Comedy or Musical), Best Actor (Comedy or Musical, Best Supporting Actress and Best Film Editing.

Poor Things (2): Best Actress (Comedy or Musical), Best Supporting Actor (Ruffalo).

The Zone of Interest (1): Best International Feature.

The complete list of winners can be found here.

THE BIKERIDERS HAS A NEW TRAILER

Focus Features released a second official trailer for Jeff Nichol's The Bikeriders.  The film received mixed reviews out of TFF but I was rather enthusiastic about it.  It stars Tom Hardy, Austin Butler and Jodie Comer who steals the movie.  The film will be released on June 21st.

Here's the new trailer from YouTube:

PASS SAGA

503 Error Codes that popped up even before the passes for TFF #51 went up for sale and then a torturous process for actually getting the info to actually purchase passes resulted in the first ever situation where the Patterson's don't have passes for a TFF since the second year we attended (2007).  And I know anecdotally that we weren't the only folks that experienced the same issue.

I have communicated with the pass team and have another couple of angles I am exploring.  We're not giving up yet, but Friday was massively frustrating and disheartening.

I do want to pass along a big "thank you" to any number of MTFB readers who offered their services or suggestions in the effort to get the deed done on Friday as well as post-failure suggestions about resolving the situation.

We have our lodging secured and will keep pursuing passes by other means for a bit anyway.  

INTERVIEWS AND PROFILES

Composer Jerskin Fendrix on Poor Things from A.Frame.

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MTFB Oscar Update: The Middle Eight / Daddio Has a Trailer / Interviews and Profiles

MTFB OSCAR UPDATE: THE MIDDLE EIGHT

 BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE

1) The Zone of Interest/United Kingdom (1)

2) Society of the Snow/Spain (2)

3) The Teachers' Lounge/Germany (3)

4) Perfect Days/Japan (4)

5) Io Capitano/Italy (5)

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE

1) 20 Days in Mariupol (1)

2) Bobi Wine: The People's President (2)

3) Four Daughters (3)

4) The Eternal Memory (4)

5) To Kill a Tiger (5)

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE

1) Spiderman: Across the Spider-Verse (1)

2) The Boy and the Heron (2)

3) Elemental (3)

4) Nimona (4)

5) Robot Dreams (5)

BEST ORIGINAL SONG

1) What Was I Made For?/Barbie (1)

2) I'm Just Ken/Barbie (2)

3) It Never Went Away/American Symphony (3)

4) Whazhazhe/Killers of the Flower Moon (4)

5) The Fire Inside/Flamin' Hot (5)

ORIGINAL SCORE

1) Oppenheimer (1)

2) Killers of the Flower Moon (2)

3) Poor Things (3)

4) American Fiction (4)

5) Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (5)

CINEMATOGRAPHY

1) Oppenheimer (1)

2) Poor Things (3)

3) Killers of the Flower Moon (2)

4) Maestro (4)

5) El Conde (5)

EDITING

1) Oppenheimer (1)

2) Killers of the Flower Moon (2)

3) Anatomy of a Fall (3)

4) Poor Things (4)

5) The Holdovers (5)

PRODUCTION DESIGN

1) Barbie (1)

2) Poor Things (2)

3) Oppenheimer (3)

4) Killers of the Flower Moon (4)

5) Napoleon (5)

Comment: All eight of these categories remain virtually unchanged over the past couple of weeks.  Among them only one seems to be truly competitive and that's Production Design.  I wonder if Poor Things win at the BAFTAs on Sunday will move it ahead of Barbie when I predict these categories again on March 4th.  

DADDIO HAS A TEASER

One of the more obscure films I saw at TFF #50 was Daddio starring Dakota Johnson and Sean Penn.  I quite enjoyed the well-acted two hander.  Now Sony Pictures Classics has dropped a teaser for the film.  Here that is from YouTube:

INTERVIEWS AND PROFILES

Sandra Huller and Justine Triet for Anatomy of a Fall from Awards Radar.

Mark Ruffalo for Poor Things from AFrame.

Screenwriter Tony McNamara for Poor Things from Gold Derby.

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MTFB Final Oscar Nomination Update / Notes on Oscar #96 /The Oscar Experts Final Predictions

MTFB FINAL OSCAR NOMINATION UPDATE

Welp. here there are my final Oscar nomination predictions before tomorrow morning's announcement..  General notes:  Oppenheimer is the favorite to win and win big on Oscar night.  The Holdovers and Saltburn seem to surging.  May December seems to have faded and The Color Purple and Origin never seemed to catch fire.

I'll have a special post up tomorrow after the nominations are announced with the full list and probably a comment or two.

BEST PICTURE

1) Oppenheimer (1)

2) The Holdovers (5)

3) Barbie (2)

4) Killers of the Flower Moon (3)

5) Poor Things (4)

6) American Fiction (6)

7) Maestro (7)

8) Anatomy of a Fall (9)

8) Past Lives (8)

10) The Zone of Interest (10)

Alternates:  Saltburn, The Color Purple, All of Us Strangers.

BEST DIRECTION

1) Christopher Nolan/Oppenheimer (1)

2) Martin Scorsese/Killer of the Flower Moon (2)

3) Greta Gerwig /Barbie (4)

4) Alexander Payne/The Holdovers (-)

5) Yorgos Lanthimos/Poor Things (3)

Alternates: Jonathan Glazer/The Zone of Interest, Justine Triet/Anatomy of a Fall and Bradley Cooper/Maestro.

BEST ACTRESS

1) Emma Stone/Poor Things (2)

2) Lily Gladstone/Killers of the Flower of Moon (1)

3) Carey Mulligan/Maestro (3)

4) Sandra Huller/Anatomy of a Fall (4)

5) Margot Robbie/Barbie (5)

Alternates: Annette Bening/Nyad, Greta Lee/Past Lives and Fantasia Barrino/The Color Purple.

BEST ACTOR

1) Paul Giamatti/The Holdovers (2)

2) Cillian Murphy/Oppenheimer (3)

3) Bradley Cooper/Maestro (1)

4) Jeffrey Wright/American Fiction (4)

5) Colman Domingo/Rustin (-)

Alternates: Leonardo DiCaprio/Killers of the Flower Moon, Andrew Scott/All of Us Strangers and Barry Keoghan/Saltburn.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

1) Da'Vine Joy Randolph/The Holdovers (1)

2) Emily Blunt/Oppenheimer (3)

3) Danielle Brooks/The Color Purple (2)

4) Jodie Foster/Nyad (4)

5) Penelope Cruz/Ferrari (-)

Alternates: Julianne Moore/May December, Sandra Huller/The Zone of Interest, America Ferrera/Barbie and Rosamund Pike/Saltburn.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

1) Robert Downey, Jr./Oppenheimer (2)

2) Ryan Gosling (1)

3) Robert DeNiro/Killers of the Flower Moon (4)

4) Willem Dafoe/Poor Things (-)

5) Mark Ruffalo/Poor Things (3)

Alternates: Dominic Sessa/The Holdovers, Sterling K. Brown/American Fiction and Charles Melton/May December.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

1) The Holdovers (1)

2) Past Lives (2)

3) Anatomy of a Fall (3)

4) May December (4)

5) Maestro (5)

Alternates: Saltburn, Air and The Boy and the Heron. 

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

1) Oppenheimer (1)

2) Barbie (4)

3) American Fiction (3)

4) Poor Things (2)

5) Killers of the Flower Moon (5)

Alternates: All of Us Strangers, The Zone of Interest, and Origin. 

BEST DOCUMENTARY 

1) American Symphony (1)

2) 20 Days in Mariupol (2)

3) Beyond Utopia (3)

4) Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie (4)

5) Four Daughters (5)

Alternates: The Eternal Memory, 32 Sounds and Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy.

BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE

1) The Zone of Interest (1)

2) Society of the Snow (2)

3) The Taste of Things (3)

4) The Teachers' Lounge (4)

5) 20 Days in Mariupol (-)

Alternates: Fallen Leaves, Perfect Days and Totem.

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM

1) Spiderman: Across the Spider-Verse (1)

2) The Boy and the Heron (2)

3) Elemental (3)

4) Nimona (4)

5) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem (5)

Alternates: Suzume, Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget and Wish.

CINEMATOGRAPHY

1) Oppenheimer (1)

2) Killers of the Flower Moon (2)

3) Poor Things (3)

4) Maestro (4)

5) The Zone of Interest (5)

Alternates: Saltburn, El Conde and Barbie.

FILM EDITING

1) Oppenheimer (1)

2) Killers of the Flower Moon (3)

3) Poor Things (2)

4) Barbie (4)

5) The Holdovers (5)

Alternates: Anatomy of a Fall, Maestro and The Zone of Interest.

BEST ORIGINAL SONG

1) What Was I Made For/Barbie (1)

2) I'm Just Ken/Barbie (2)

3) Road to Freedom/Rustin (3)

4) The Fire Inside/Flamin' Hot (4)

5) It Never Went Away/American Symphony (5)

Dance the Night Away/Barbie, Can't Catch me Now/The Hunger Games and Superpower (I)/The Color Purple.

BEST SCORE

1) Oppenheimer (1)

2) Killers of the Flower Moon (2)

3) Poor Things (3)

4) Spiderman: Across the Spider-Verse (4)

5) The Zone of Interest (5)

Alternates: Society of the Snow, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and The Boy and the Heron.

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN

1) Barbie (1)

2) Poor Things (2)

3) Oppenheimer (3)

4) Killers of the Flower Moon (4)

5) Maestro (5)

Alternates: Asteroid City, Napoleon and The Zone of Interest.

VISUAL EFFECTS

1) The Creator (1)

2) Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 3 (3)

3) Poor Things (2)

4) Society of the Snow (5)

5) Godzilla Minus One (4)

Alternates: Spiderman Across the Spider-Verse, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning.

SOUND

1) Oppenheimer (1)

2) Maestro (2)

3) Ferrari (3)

4) The Zone of Interest (4)

5) Barbie (-)

Alternates: Killers of the Flower Moon, Napoleon and The Killer.

COSTUMES 

1) Barbie (1)

2) Poor Things (2)

3) Killers of the Flower Moon (3)

4) Oppenheimer (5)

5) Napoleon (-)

Alternates: Maestro, the Little Mermaid and Ferrari.

MAKEUP AND HAIR

1) Maestro (1)

2) Poor Things (2)

3) Oppenheimer (3)

4) Golda (4)

5) Killers of the Flower Moon (5)

Alternates: Society of the Snow, Napoleon and Ferrari.

ANIMATED SHORT

1) Once Upon a Studio (1)

2) Letter to a Pig (4)

3) War Is Over Inspired by the Music of John and Yoko (2)

4) Ninety-Five Senses (-)

5) Humo (-)

Alternates: Koerkerter, Pete, Eeva.

LIVE ACTION SHORT

1) The Wonderful Life of Henry Sugar (1)

2) The Anne Frank Gift Shop (2)

3) The After (5)

4) Strange Way of Life (4)

5) Red, White and Blue (-)

Alternates: Knight of Fortune, Yellow and Good Boy.

DOCUMENTARY SHORT

1) The Last Repair Shop (1)

2) The ABCs of Book Banning (2)

3) Deciding Vote (3)

4) Last Song from Kabul (4)

5) The Barber of Little Rock (5)

Alternates: Camp Courage, Black Girls Play: The Story of Hand Games and Oasis.

NOTES ON OSCAR #96

If  I'm 100% accurate, these are the nominations on Tuesday for TFF films:

Poor Things (13- tied with Oppenheimer for the most nominations): Best Picture, Direction, Actress, Supporting Actor x 2, Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Editing, Score, Production Design, Costumes, Makeup/Hair and Visual Effects.

The Holdovers (6): Best Picture, Direction, Actor, Supporting Actress, Original Screenplay and Editing.  Also, a possible shot at Supporting Actor.  If this lands Payne, and Sessa and the Editing nomination...lookout Oppy.

The Zone of Interest (5): Best Picture, International Feature, Cinematography, Score and Sound.  Plus it could be a factor in five other categories: Direction, Supporting Actress, Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography and Production Design.  Imagine a world in which Zone has nominations tomorrow morning.

Anatomy of a Fall (3): Best Picture, Actress and Original Screenplay.  Plus possible shots at Direction and Editing.

Rustin (2): Best Actor and Original Song.

American Symphony (2): Best Doc Feature and Original Song.

Single nominations for:

Nyad: Best Supporting Actress and a possible Best Actress nom.

Beyond Utopia: Doc Feature.

The Taste of Things: Best International Feature.

The Teachers' Lounge: Best International Feature

TFF films that I'm not predicting with any nominations but could pop up:

Saltburn has a shot in five categories: Best Picture, Actor, Supporting Actress, Original Screenplay and Cinematography.

All of Us Strangers maybe in three places: Best Picture, Actor and Adapted Screenplay.

Single "maybes" include:

Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy-Doc Feature

Fallen Leaves: International Feature

Perfect Days: International Feature

Totem: International Feature

El Conde: Cinematography

Strange Way of Life: Live Action Short

The Last Repair Shop: Doc Short

Last Sing from Kabul: Doc Short

So I'm predicting 38 nominations with another 22 possibly in play.

Non-TFF films that'll have big nomination totals tomorrow:

Oppenheimer (13): Best Picture, Direction, Actor, Supporting Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Editing, Score, Production Design, Sound, Costumes and Makeup/Hair.

Barbie (11): Best Picture, Direction, Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Editing, Original Song x 2, Production Design, Sound and Costumes.  Barbie could get to 13 with possible nominations for Supporting actress and Cinematography.

Killers of the Flower Moon (11): Best Picture, Direction, Actress, Supporting Actor, Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Editing, Score, Production Design, Costumes and Makeup/Hair.  If Leo sneaks into Best Actor, KOTFM could get a 12th nomination.

Maestro (8): Best Picture, Actress, Actor, Original Screenplay, Cinematography, Production Design, Sound and Makeup.  Maestro has a chance to get to double digit nominations if it could also land Direction, Editing and Costumes.

As a side note, my track record for nomination predictions over the last five years has averaged a 76.5% success rate.

2023: 93 0f 120-77.5%

2022: 87 of 120-72.5%

2021: 87 of 118-73.7%

2020: 100 of 124-80.6%

2019: 95 of 122-77.9%

Total 462 of 604-76.5%

Additionally, in about 25% of the categories where I miss one nomination, my first alternate gets in.

THE OSCAR EXPERTS FINAL PREDICTIONS

Here are links to several Final Predictions from Oscar Experts:

Clayton Davis/Variety

Scott Feinberg/The Hollywood Reporter

Sasha Stone/Awards Daily

Erik Anderson Awards Watch

Matt Neglia/Next Best Picture

Anne Thompson/Indiewire

Joey Magidson/Awards Radar

Mark Johnson/Good as Gold

Gregory Ellwood/The Playlist

Kyle Buchanan/The New York Times

Glenn Whipp/The Los Angeles Times

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MTFB Oscar Update: Screenplays, International and Documentary Features, Cinematography and Editing / Interviews and Profiles: Dafoe, Mescal. Pike, Randolph and More

MTFB OSCAR UPDATE: SCREENPLAYS, INTERNATIONAL AND DOCUMENTARY FEATURES, CINEMATOGRAPHY AND EDITING.

Here's the latest MTFB Oscar Update.  As we move to less than a month before nomination announcements I am consolidating categories for each post. Today I'm updating the Screenplay, International Feature, Documentary Feature, Cinematography and Editing categories.  As usual TFF #50 films are in Bold.  A film's previous position on the MTFB Oscar chart is listed in parentheses.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY

1) The Holdovers (1)

2) Barbie (2)

3) Past Lives (3)

4) Anatomy of a Fall (4)

5) May December (-)

Alternates: Maestro, Air, Saltburn.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY

1) Oppenheimer (1)

2) American Fiction (2)

3) Poor Things (3)

4) Killers of the Flower Moon (4)

5) All of Us Strangers (5)

Alternates: The Zone of Interest,  Spiderman  Across the Spider-Verse and Are You There God, It's Me Margaret. 

BEST DOCUMENTARY 

1) American Symphony (1)

2) 20 Days in Mariupol (2)

3) Beyond Utopia (4)

4) Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie (3)

5) Four Daughters (5)

Alternates: The Eternal Memory, Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project and Stamped from the Beginning.

BEST INTERNATIONAL FEATURE

1) The Zone of Interest (1)

2) The Taste of Things (2)

3) Society of the Snow (5)

4) The Teachers' Lounge (3)

5) Fallen Leaves (-)

Alternates: Perfect Days, 20 Days in Mariupol and Totem.

CINEMATOGRAPHY

1) Oppenheimer (1)

2) Killers of the Flower Moon (2)

3) Poor Things (3)

4) Maestro (4)

5) The Zone of Interest (5)

Alternates: Saltburn, Barbie and The Color Purple.

FILM EDITING

1) Oppenheimer (1)

2) Killers of the Flower Moon (2)

3) Poor Things (3)

4) Barbie (4)

5) Maestro (5)

Alternates: The Holdovers, Anatomy of a Fall and Air.

In all from 13 TFF films are represented in these categories with a predicted overall total of 13 nominations with another seven possibilities.  Here's the inventory from these six categories of nominations or possible nominations involving TFF films:

Poor Things with three nominations: Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography and Editing.

The Zone of Interest with two nominations: International Feature and Cinematography with another possible nomination for Adapted Screenplay.

The Holdovers with one nomination for Original Screenplay and another possible in Editing.

Anatomy of a Fall with one nomination for Original Screenplay and another possible for Editing.

Single predicted nominations for:

All of Us Strangers: Adapted Screenplay

American Symphony: Documentary 

Beyond Utopia: Documentary

The Taste of Things: International Feature

The Teachers' Lounge: International Feature

Fallen Leaves: International Feature

Films just outside the predicted nominations but still possible:

Saltburn with two possibilities: Original Screenplay and Cinematography.

Perfect Days could sneak into International Feature.

Totem could also slide into International Feature.

MTFB's Oscar Update will look at Animated Feature, Score, Song, Production Design, Visual Effects and Sound in the next post on New Year's day.

INTERVIEWS AND PROFILES: DAFOE, MESCAL, PIKE, RANDOLPH AND MORE

FOR ALL OF US STRANGERS:

Andrew Scott from Awards Watch.

Paul Mescal from Awards Watch.

Claire Foy from Awards Watch.

Jamie Bell from Awards Watch.

Jamie Bell and Claire Foy from Awards Daily.

Andrew Haigh from Wmagazine.com.

Claire Foy from The Playlist.

FOR POOR THINGS

Willem Dafoe from The Playlist.

Willem Dafoe from Awards Watch.

FOR THE HOLDOVERS

Da'Vine Joy Randolph from The Film Stage.

FOR FALLEN LEAVES

Alma Poysti from Awards Watch.

Alma Poysti from The Film Stage.

FOR THE ZONE OF INTEREST

Jonathan Glazer from Rolling Stone.

Sandra Huller from Backstage.com (also includes some talk of Anatomy of a Fall)

FOR SALTBURN

Rosamund Pike from Awards Watch.

Rosamund Pike from The Hollywood Reporter.

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An Experiment / BIFA Awards Nominations / Writers Guild Moves Awards / Interviews and Profiles: Herzog, Nikou and Hemingson

AN EXPERIMENT

For a long while I have been fascinated by what happens to TFF films after they screen at Telluride.  I've watched, over the last several years, announcements from other fests concerning their lineups and where TFF films landed.  So I decided this year to actually survey what the pedigrees became for films that played The SHOW.

To keep the project from becoming ridiculously large I limited the assessment to two fests that precede Telluride that always screen films that then play at Telluride-Cannes and Venice. I included four major post-Telluride fests-Toronto, New York, London and AFI and then I included what are often referred as Regional fests.  I asked a number of journalist friends which fests fit that description and landed on: Mill Valley, Middleburg, Savannah and The Hamptons.  There is a fifth fest that fits the profile and that's Palm Springs which doesn't happen until Jan. 4-15, 2024.

39 TFF #50 films played at least one other festival in addition to its Telluride screening.

So which films play the most of these 10 festivals (it'll be 11 after Palm Springs)?  Any film that plays as many as possible would have a total of nine as Cannes and Venice screenings are mutually exclusive.  The only film to have made that happen is Wim Winders Perfect Days.

Three films made appearances at eight of these fests:

Aki Kaurismaki's Fallen Leaves which only missed Savannah.

Alice Rohrwacher's La Chimera which didn't play London.

Jonathan Glazer's The Zone of Interest. It isn't scheduled to play at the AFI Fest which just got under way this past Sunday.

A single film will have made seven stops in addition to TFF and that is Tran Ahn Hung's The Taste of Things.

Six films will score six fest screenings beyond Telluride: Anatomy of a Fall, The Promised Land, All of Us Strangers, Fingernails, The Holdovers and The Teachers' Lounge.

Films with five screenings: The Pigeon Tunnel, Rustin and Totem.

Films that would seem to be likely Oscar possibilities that each have four are Poor Things, The Bikeriders and Nyad.

So, does this little exercise mean anything?  

At a minimum it may give us a bit of insight into the International Feature Oscar race.  Eight films that were submitted for the International Oscar played TFF #50: Fallen Leaves, The Taste of Things, Perfect Days, The Zone of Interest, The Promised Land, The Monk and the Gun, The Teacher's Lounge and Totem.  The only one of those eight that will have screened at less than five of these fests is Bhutan's selection The monk and the Gun.

The other thing I think this may show us is the perhaps hidden strength of Anatomy of a Fall and The Zone of Interest and their chances of making the final field of ten films nominated for best Picture.  

I'll check back as we move through awards season to assess if this exercise had anything to reveal.

BIFA AWARDS NOMINATIONS

Overnight the British Independent Film Awards announced its nominees.  Six TFF films earned a total of  21 nominations lead by 14 for Andrew Haigh's All of Us Strangers.  Here's the breakdown:

All of Us Strangers: Best British Independent Film, Direction, Lead Performance-Andrew Scott, Supporting Performance-Paul Mescal, Jamie Bell and Claire Foy, Screenplay, Casting, Cinematography, Editing, Music Supervision, Makeup and Hair, Production Design and Sound.

Bobi Wine: The People's President (from TFF #49): Best Documentary Feature, Best Debut Direction of a Documentary Feature and Documentary Editing.

Anatomy of a Fall: Best International Independent Film.

Fallen Leaves: Beat International Independent Film.

Occupied City: Best Feature Documentary.

High and Low: John Galliano: Best Editing.

Complete coverage of the nominations is here from The Hollywood Reporter.

WRITERS' GUILD MOVES AWARDS

The writers' strike continues to alter the film landscape with the announcement yesterday from the WGA that they will hand out their awards on April 14th.  The WGA will announce their nominees on Feb. 21st, one day before final Oscar voting begins.  Variety reported that the WGA issued a statement which said, in part:

“This year’s Writers Guild Awards are being held in April to allow for a full awards submissions process to occur after the strike."

So at least one major Guild precursor is set to occur after the Oscar nominations are announced on Jan. 23rd.

One wonders if other Guilds might re-visit their plans with the Actors' strike still on-going.

INTERVIEWS AND PROFILES: HERZOG, NIKOU AND HEMINGSON

Werner Herzog on the Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend Podcast. (Shout out to MTFB friend Patrick Pringle who alerted me to this)

Director Christos Nikou on Fingernails from Awards Radar.

Screenwriter David Hemingson on The Holdovers from The Playlist.

Oscar Update: Supporting Acting / Trailers: Werner Herzog-Radical Dreamer / Interviews and Profiles: Payne, Haigh and More

OSCAR UPDATE: SUPPORTING ACTING

Here's MTFB's first Oscar Update for the Supporting Acting categories since the original set of predictions On Sept. 25th.  As usual TFF #50 films are in Bold.  A film's previous position on the MTFB Oscar chart is listed in parentheses.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS

1) Da'Vine Joy Randoplh/The Holdovers (1)

2) Emily Blunt/Oppenheimer (2)

3) Jodie Foster/Nyad (3)

4) Danielle Brooks/The Color Purple (5)

5) Julianne Moore/May December (4)

Alternates: America Ferrera/Barbie, Rosamund Pike/Saltburn, Viola Davis/Air and Taraji P. Henson/The Color Purple

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR

1) Robert Downey, Jr./Oppenheimer (1)

2) Ryan Gosling/Barbie (3)

3) Robert DeNiro/Killers of the Flower Moon (4)

4) Mark Ruffalo/Poor Things (2)

5) Willem Dafoe/Poor Things (5)

Alternates: Charles Melton/May December, Dominic Sessa/The Holdovers, Sterling K. Brown/American Fiction.

 

I'll update the screenplay categories next week.

TRAILERS: WERNER HERZOG-RADICAL DREAMER

From Shout Studios we have the U.S. trailer for TFF #49 entrant Werner Herzog-Radical Dreamer.  The documentary is set for release on Dec. 5th.  Here's the trailer from YouTube:  

INTERVIEWS AND PROFILES: PAYNE, HAIGH AND MORE

Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi on the set of Free Solo

Alexander Payne on The Holdovers from The Los Angeles Times.

Alexander Payne on The Holdovers from Uproxx.

Andrew Haigh on All of Us Strangers from Indiewire.

Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin on Nyad from Indiewire.

Ilker Catak on The Teachers' Lounge from Awards Radar.

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Fingernails Trailer / Denmark Chooses The Promised Land / Speaking of International Films

FINGERNAILS TRAILER

Apple has dropped an official trailer for Christos Nikou's Fingernails which had its World Premiere at the 50th edition of the Telluride Film Festival. Here that is from YouTube:

Fi

DENMARK CHOOSES THE PROMISED LAND

Deadline, among other outlets reported earlier this week that Denmark has chosen to submit The Promised Land for the International film Academy Award.  

The Promised Land is being distributed domestically by Magnolia Pictures and is set for U.S. release on Feb. 2, 2024.

SPEAKING OF INTERNATIONAL FILMS

Indiewire's Anne Thompson's current handicapping of the Oscar race for Best International Film has a huge TFF #50 flavor.  

Thompson lists six films as "Frontrunners" all of which were playing at Telluride four weeks ago.  They are:

“The Monk and the Gun” (Pawo Choyning Dorji, Bhutan)

“Perfect Days” (Wim Wenders, Japan)

“The Promised Land” (Nikolaj Arcel, Denmark)

“The Taste of Things” (Tràn Anh Hùng, France)

“The Teachers’ Lounge” (İlker Çatak, Germany)

“The Zone of Interest” (Jonathan Glazer, United Kingdom)

Additionally Thompson includes a couple of contenders including TFF films:

"Fallen Leaves" (Aki Kaurismaki, Finland)

"Godland” (Hlynur Pálmason, Iceland-TFF #49

Could this be the year where all nominees in a category screened over Labor Day at The SHOW?

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900,000 / Continuing to Look at Oscar Experts / Saltburn Trailer / International Affairs/ The People's Telluride-Votes Are Due

900,000

If you're reading this you are someone who has recorded somewhere north of the 900,000th view of MTFB.  We blew through that number yesterday.  I'm stunned.

MTFB has been posted 2,160 times meaning that each post has averaged 417 views.

Hope you'll keep reading.  Om to a million!

CONTINUING TO LOOK AT OSCAR EXPERTS

In the afterglow of TFF #50, I'm continuing to examine the early post-fest Oscar predictions from a number of Oscarologists in terms of how they have TFF #50 titles fairing when Oscar nominations are announced on Jan. 23rd.  I'm currently assessing the eight "above-the-line-categories: Best Picture, Direction, all four acting categories and the two screenplay categories.  

In my last post I shared predictions from Variety's top Oscar analyst Clayton Davis.  Today my focus moves to The Hollywood Reporter's Scott Feinberg.

Feinberg, as did Davis, has Yorgos Lanthimos' Poor Things leading the T-ride pack with 5 predicted nominations and one other possibility:

Poor Things: Best Picture, Direction, Actress, Supporting Actor (Ruffalo) and Adapted Screenplay.  The other possibility is a Supporting Actor nomination for Willem Dafoe.

Here's the rest of Feinberg's predictions for Telluride films:

***The Zone of Interest (four nominations and one possibility): Best Picture, Direction, Supporting Actress (Huller), Adapted Screenplay.  The additional possibility is a Best Actor nomination for Christian Freidel.

***Nyad (Three nominations and three other possibilities): Best Picture, Actress (Bening), Supporting Actress (Foster).  Also possible are noms for Direction, Supporting Actor (Ifans) and Adapted Screenplay.

***The Holdovers (Three nominations and two possibilities): Best Picture, Actor (Giamatti) and Original Screenplay.  Possibilities are Direction and Supporting Actress (Randolph).

***Anatomy of a Fall (Three nominations and one added possibility): Best Picture, Actress (Huller) and Original Screenplay.  Also possible: Direction.

***Saltburn (One nomination and two possibles): Best Supporting Actress (Pike) and the possibles are Best Actor (Keoghan) and Original Screenplay.

***Rustin (One nomination and one possibility): Best Actor (Domingo) and a possible for Original Screenplay.

***The Teachers' Lounge (One nomination and one possibility): Original Screenplay with a possible nod for Best Actress (Benesch).

Films with possible shots at nominations but that Feinberg does not have predicted to receive any actual nominations:

***All of Us Strangers with potential nominations for Best Picture, Direction, Actor (Scott) and Adapted Screenplay.

***The Taste of Things with a possible nomination for Best Actress (Binoche).

***The Bikeriders with a possible nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay.

SALTBURN TRAILER

In all the frenzy as this year's fest was going on, I neglected to post an official trailer for Emerald Fennell's Saltburn.  Here it is from YouTube and MGM:

INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

It's that time of year when countries are beginning to submit their choices for consideration for the Best International Film Oscar.  

France announced yesterday that their official shortlist includes Justine Triet's Palme d'Or winner Anatomy of a Fall and The Taste of Things both of which screened at TFF #50. Variety, among others reported that.

Also yesterday, Screen Daily revealed that Finland has selected Aki Kaurismaki's Fallen Leaves as its candidate for International Oscar contention.  Fallen Leaves also was a choice of TFF #50.

Earlier this week Iceland chose TFF #49 entry Godland as its selection.  Several nations have already made their submissions which, to no one's surprise, has included some TFF titles including:

The Monk and the Gun (Bhutan)

Perfect Days (Japan)

The Teachers' Lounge (Germany)

Here's a link to an updating list of submissions from Screen Daily.

THE PEOPLE'S TELLURIDE-VOTES ARE DUE

LAST CALL...the clock runs out on your chance to be a part of this year's People's poll of TFF #50 films TOMORROW!

All you have to do is rate the films you saw  and then report to me your assessment of each film on a 1-5 scale with 1 being "TERRIBLE" and 5 being "FANTASTIC".

Report your ratings to: mpgort@gmail.com 

The deadline for this year to turn in your ratings is tomorrow, Sept. 15th at 5:00pm PDT.

The results of The People's Telluride polling will be revealed in Monday's (9/18) post.

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Checking the Distributors: Sony Pictures Classics / Journalistic Clarity / New Trailer for Poor Things

 My apologoes as MTFB is 24 hours late for its regular Thursday posting.  Here it is!

CHECKING THE DISTRIBUTORS: SONY PICTURES CLASSICS

Last Monday I started the annual MTFB tradition of running down the distribution companies that are usually significantly present at Telluride each year.   We began with Netflix which, since its first appearance at T-ride in 2015, has screened more features than any other distributor.

The next biggest over that same time period has been Sony Pictures Classics with 20 films over the seven years I'm counting (leaving out the Covid-displaced fest of 2020).  That works our to just shy of three films per year from SPC.  But SPC has a much longer history with The SHOW dating back many, many years.  It's entirely likely that in the entire 50 year history of The SHOW, SPC has likely placed more features and/or documentaries in the lineup than anyone else. 

With that in mind, here's my assessment of what SPC has that could play and the chances that they will play.

Currently, as far as I can tell, SPC has ten films that haven't set U.S. release dates but seem finished.  None of them seem to be slam dunks.  The best SPC bets appear to be:

Ilker Catak's The Teachers' Lounge which played Berlin and won a couple of awards and scored really well among critics.  Chances: 50%.

Freund's Last Session from director Matt Brown starring Anthony Hopkins in the title role.  It has a Dec. 7th released date listed at IMDb for Russia.  40%.

After those two films, everything I can find for SPC doesn't seem very likely.

A few weeks back I floated the notion that SPC might be able to get A Little Prayer starring David Stratharin into the TFF lineup despite having played Sundance much like they would have done with Anthony Hopkins and The Father in 2020 (if it had happened) and what they did do with Bill Nighy and Living last year.  However, since then the film has also screened at Santa Barbara and Nantucket thus killing my scenario.

There's the animated They Shot the Piano Player which comes from the creative team that had Carlos and Rita at Telluride in 2010.  However, the film played the 2022 Annecy Animation Fest which begs the question "why didn't TFF schedule it last year?"  25%.

Also floating around is Pedro Almodovar's short film (31 min.) Strange Way of Life starring Ethan Hawke and Pedro Pascal.  Almodovar means we have to pay attention.  Luke warm critical reaction to the film from Cannes takes some of the shine from it. 25%.

Then there's the John Prine: Hello In There documentary that's listed as being in post since Feb. of 2019... Does it even exist?

In addition to A Little Prayer having played Sundance, other SPC films that did that include: The Persian Version, Shadya and Shortcomings.  Tribeca has The Miracle Club (another SPC film I thought might see the light of day at TFF #50), Carlos and Downtown Owl.

SPC does have a couple of animated films that IMDb lists as "filming" in 2022.  maybe they will be in play.  Sylvain Chomet's The Magnificent Life of Marcel Pagnol.  Chomet has had a presence at TFF in the past with The Illusionist and The Triplets of Belleville.   The other is A Winter's Journey from Alex Helfrecht.

JOURNALISTIC CLARITY

Well, I rolled the dice this year on my application for press credentials at TFF #50.  I did all the required steps.  Included the required documentation.  I also included a fairly passionate "letter" arguing the merits of MTFB being accredited.  As a part of that I concluded with:

"I would argue that the blog benefits the fest much more than any

issues that may annoy festival organizers.  MTFB is nothing if not a

love letter to TFF.

Ultimately, if MTFB is never to be accredited again, I’d prefer that

you just tell me that now so that I can quit wasting your time with my

application each year."

Well, I got my response on Monday...and mind you, the deadline to apply doesn't land until June 30th.  Here is the reply:

"Hi Michael,

Thank you for applying for media accreditation. Festival organizers have concluded that accreditation is unnecessary for the type of festival coverage produced on your blog. This applies to this year and future festivals. Your Festival-level pass will provide you with all the access you need to cover the event. We have many journalists and bloggers who attend and successfully cover Telluride without accreditation. We look forward to seeing you at the 50th Telluride Film Festival."

So, there you have it.  Never going to happen again.  Worthy of accreditation from 2012-2019.  Forever not from 2020 on.

NEW TRAILER FOR POOR THINGS

Yorgos Lanthimos' Poor Things is a very likely Venice Fest selection.  The film has also been on my radar for some time as a possible TFF #50 selection.  Lanthimos last film, The Favourite, played very well at The SHOW back in 2018.  The Favourite was distributed by Searchlight and so is Poor Things which also bodes well for a possible TFF screening.  Finally, the film is set for release in the U.S. on Sept. 8th.  That allows for the possibility of screenings at both Venice and Telluride.  It's also just inside the window for Toronto which opens on Sept. 7th though that seems very unlikely.  

I posted the first teaser for the film back on May 15th.  Now, we have a new full trailer that was released by Searchlight yesterday.  Here it is:

The more I see of this the more intrigued I am.  Hope it makes it to TFF #50.

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