Oscar Winners Predix #4: Lead Acting, Score, Song and Sound / DGA Awards Some Telluride Players / Speaking of Directors / BAFTA Winners

 OSCAR PREDIX #4: LEADING ACTOR, SCORE, SONG AND SOUND

I'm back predicting the winners of this year's Oscars with less than two weeks left until the awards are passed out.  Today I am updating the lead acting categories as well as predicting the winners for Score, Song and Sound for the first time since nominations were announced.  As always TFF #47 film are in Bold.

BEST ACTRESS

1) Carey Mulligan/Promising Young Woman

2) Viola Davis/Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

3) Frances McDormand/Nomadland

4) Andra Day/The United States vs. Billie Holiday

5) Vanessa Kirby/Pieces of a Woman

Note: This race is really tight, so it seems, with Viola Davis and Carey Mulligan neck and neck and just a hair in front of Frances McDormand and Andra Day.  I have Mulligan in the top spot but that could change by Oscar morning when I will be posting my final predictions in all 23 categories.

BEST ACTOR

1) Chadwick Boseman/Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

2) Anthony Hopkins/The Father

3) Riz Ahmed/Sound of Metal

4) Steven Yeun/Minari

5) Gary Oldman/Mank

Note: Boseman stills seems to be the easy choice here but Hopkins BAFTA win yesterday does give one a little bit of a pause.

BEST SCORE

1) Soul

2) Mank

3) Minari

4) News of the World

5) Da 5 Bloods

Note: Soul is a prohibitive favorite.

BEST SONG

1) Speak Now/One Night in Miami

2) Io Si (Seen)/The Life Ahead

3) Fight for You/Judas and the Black Messiah

4) Husavik/Eurovision 

5) Hear My Voice/The Trial of the Chicago 7

Note: A fairly competitive category with Speak Now and Io Si (Seen) very close and a win for either Fight for You not out of the question.

BEST SOUND

1) Sound of Metal

2) News of the World

3) Mank

4) Soul

5) Greyhound

Note: Sound of Metal is a prohibitive favorite.

THE DIRECTORS GUILD AWARDS SOME TELLURIDE PLAYERS

The Directors Guild of America named their winners for excellence for 2020/21 and a couple of the big awards went to directors who would have been in Telluride last September had the fest been able to occur.

Chloe Zhao was named Best Director for a feature film for Nomadland and Michael and Gregory Kershaw were named Best Director for The Truffle Hunters.  Both films were listed by the Telluride Film Festival as films that would have played at the 47th edition.

The complete list of winners can be found here at the DGA website.

SPEAKING OF DIRECTORS

Jane Campion (via Variety)

As I was writing about the DGA results, I saw that Variety's Clayton Davis had re-posted an article named "Directors Whose Work We're Excited to See in 2021".  So, here's the f=directors from that list that have been to Telluride before and the projects that we expect to appear before the end of the year:

Andrea Arnold/Cow

Jane Campion/The Power of the Dog

Joel Coen/The Tragedy of MacBeth

Guillermo Del Toro/Nightmare Alley

Tom McCarthy/Stillwater

Denis Villenueve/Dune

Chloe Zhao/The Eternals

The complete list and more is linked here.

BAFTA WINNERS

Nomadland had a really fine night last night at the awards ceremony for the British Academy of Television Arts and Sciences winning four of the organizations Golden Masks.

Chloe Zhao's examination of the wanderers that make up a large community of R.V. dwellers in the American west won Best Picture as well Zhao for Best Director, Frances McDormand for Best Actress and Best Cinematography.

Florian Zeller's The Father also pulled off a major upset and a minor upset.  Anthony Hopkins upset Chadwick Boseman in the Best Actor category while Zeller and Christopher Hampton won Best Adapted Screenplay over Zhao for her Nomadland screenplay.

You can find the complete listing of BAFTA winners here from The Hollywood Reporter.

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Toronto Announces First Titles / Film Fests Reacting to Oscar Date Change / The Distribs: Focus Features

TORONTO ANNOUNCES FIRST TITLES

The Toronto International Film Festival announced a number of titles yesterday that they are planning to include as a part of a pared back TIFF.  Numerous reports yesterday indicate that TIFF will program approximately 50 films this year.  That contrasts with the common inclusion of 275-300 titles that are customarily a part of the TIFF lineup.

AMong titles announced yesterday were Francis Lee's Ammonite, Thomas Vinterberg's Another Round and Naomi Kawase's True Mothers-three films which I have had on the TFF #47 list of possibles for some time (I've been particularly high on chances that Ammonite might be a TFF choice).

While major publications have not labeled the World Premieres, a couple of the films have been referenced that way.  Indiewire tweeted that Idris Elba starrer Concrete Cowboys will be World Premiering at TIFF and The Danish Film Institute said the same about Another Round.  If that is the case, then that all but removes those titles from TFF #47 consideration.  Further, it implies that entire list of films announced by TIFF are probably World Premieres as well. Halle Berry's directing debut Bruised is also on the list of announced TIFF films.

Other interesting notes:  TIFF will have an initial five days of on-site socially distanced presentations and past that will largely be online.  Other titles will be announced as the summer progresses.

Coverage is here from Variety and Indiewire.




FALL FILM FESTS REACTING TO OSCAR DATE CHANGE

Last week Anne Thompson wrote a piece for Indiewire with her take on how the fall film fests are reacting to the recent announcement that the Oscars ceremony will take place in late April of 2021, a full two months later than their originally announced date.

Among the items of interest mentioned in the piece are:

Telluride is said to be releasing practical plans by mid-July.  Additionally, there are still hurdles for the fest to get through between now and Labor Day.  Thompson writes:

"The Telluride Film Festival is proceeding as though the festival is happening, with practical plans to be revealed by mid-July. But the festival will be dependent on whether the state of Colorado allows theaters to open in time. If not, the county will need to obtain a variance from the state to show films in theaters."

A side note of interest is that Thompson reports that the Toronto International Film Fest is supposed to announce some of their plans within the next few days:

"September’s Toronto festival, which is determined to meet any eventuality and will announce its plans before the end of June."

The third interesting tidbit is in regards to Sony Pictures Classics as they make plans within a shifting landscape.  From the article:

“We kind of plan and prepare,” said Tom Bernard, co-president of Sony Pictures Classics, who is juggling his release schedule and waiting to see who shows up for “Tenet” on July 31. “And be ready to tonally change the plan if more variables show up. We’ll send our films everywhere we can. We don’t know.”

Which sounds to me like we can probably plan on seeing some SPC projects at Telluride in some form.  I took a look at the current SPC slate in my post on June11th.


Here's Thompson's Indiewire story



THE DISTRIBS: FOCUS FEATURES

Today's look at distributors and what they might submit for TFF #47 focuses on Focus Features.  I have some confidence that Focus has some interest in submitting films for Telluride this year even amidst the pandemic.

So that begs the question...what would they bring?  Their two biggest current projects are Tom McCarthy's Stillwater and Edgar Wright's Last Night in Soho.  Stillwater's still set for release on Nov. 6th while Soho has been set for release on April 23rd.  Those release dates suggest that Stillwater is much more likely as a Focus entry for TFF #47 than Soho.  Adding to our calculation is the fact that McCarthy's Spotlight began its run to Oscar glory in 2015 at Venice followed immediately by an appearance at TFF # 42.

Focus has three other films that I believe have at least some limited possibility of making a play at Telluride: Marilyn Agrelo's Sesame Street documentary Street Gang, Emmy, Golden Globe and SAG Award nominated actress Robin Wright's feature directorial debut-Land (I think I remember Wright being at TFF in 2007) and Eddie Huang's Boogie.


Chances:

Stillwater  50%
Land 35%
Street Gang 25%
Boogie 15%
Last Night in Soho 5%

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More Spotlight on "Spotlight" / Joan Allen and "Room" / "Rams" Trailer / Oscar Matters: InContention's Latest Predictions

Welcome back to the week after the weekend...It's Monday people!


MORE SPOTLIGHT ON "SPOTLIGHT"


Tom McCarthy's "Spotlight' continues to be one of the most talked about films that screened this year at Telluride and those conversations picked up over this past weekend owing to its opening in a limited release to generally solid numbers.  The film will expand now and try to keep its momentum building as a probable Best Picture nominee and a possible BP winner.

Because of its opening, there was a good deal of press for the film on the interwebs this weekend.  I have included interviews here from Michael Keaton, Tom McCarthy and co-writer Josh Singer from The New York Times, HitFix, Entertainment Weekly and Awards Daily.

"Spotlight" television spot via YouTube

Keaton:


http://www.nytimes.com/video/movies/100000004021657/michael-keaton-discusses-spotlight.html

http://www.hitfix.com/in-contention/michael-keatons-love-of-journalism-the-paper-live-from-baghdad-spotlight


McCarthy:

http://www.ew.com/article/2015/11/06/tom-mccarthy-spotlight


Singer:

http://www.awardsdaily.com/2015/11/07/interview-spotlight-writer-josh-singer/




JOAN ALLEN AND "ROOM"

Criminally underused actress Joan Allen is making a splash in Lenny Abrahamson's "Room" to the point that she is getting some fairly serious Oscar buzz for her role as Brie Larson's mother in the small film that has been making big noise since Telluride.  Larson may well be the favorite to win Best Actress and young Jacob Tremblay is a serious player for a Best Supporting Actor nomination.

"Room" also looks good for a number of other possible Oscar bids Picture, Director and Adapted Screenplay come to mind.

Allen , who has been previously nominated for Best Actress for "The Contender" and Supporting Actress for "The Crucible" and "Nixon" is interviewed here for Thompson on Hollywood:

http://blogs.indiewire.com/thompsononhollywood/watch-room-star-joan-allen-in-featurette-exclusive-video-20151104




"RAMS" U.S. TRAILER

Official U.S. trailer for "Rams" via YouTube

Iceland's entrant for the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film is "Rams" which seemed to be well liked by The People in my annual survey of the films that play TFF.  It finished in the bottom half of the poll but was ahead of "Steve Jobs" and "Suffragette".

Nevertheless, I expect it to likely be one of the five Foreign Language finalists next January.  The film had its U.S. trailer drop since my last post and you can see that above.  Additionally, I have linked stories about the film and its trailer release from FirstShowing.net and The Film Stage:

http://www.firstshowing.net/2015/official-us-trailer-for-the-dark-comedy-rams-icelands-oscar-entry/

http://thefilmstage.com/trailer/u-s-trailer-for-icelands-oscar-entry-rams-showcases-acclaimed-dark-comedy/

OSCAR MATTERS; INCONTENTION'S LATEST PREDICTIONS

Oscar expert Kristopher Tapley has his latest iteration of Oscar prognostication up at Variety's InContention.  Here's what happens regarding Telluride #42 films on nomination morning if Tapley is 100% accurate:

"Spotlight": Best Picture, Supporting Actor (twice), Original Screenplay, Direction, Film Editing and Original Score.  Total noms-7.

"Black Mass": Best Picture, Actor, Makeup/Hair.  Total noms-3

"Room": Picture, Director, Actress, Adapted Screenplay.  Total noms-4

"Steve Jobs": Best Picture, Actor, Supporting Actress, Adapted Screenplay, Film Editing.  Total noms-5

"Carol": Best Actress, Supporting Actress, Costume.  Total noms-3

"Anomalisa": Best Animated Feature.  Total noms-1

Best Foreign Language Film: "Son of Saul", "Rams", "Viva"  Total noms-3

Total TFF #42 nominations: 26 (which is about average).

Best Doc Feature: "The Look if Silence" (from TFF #41)

Frankly, I think "carol" will get more attention.  Maybe "Room" will as well.   I wouldn't be surprised if "Anomalisa" gets a Screenplay nomination.  I could also see "Son of Saul" breaking into other categories in addition to Foreign Language.

That's a wrap for Monday...More to come on Thursday...


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More Directors Talk: "Anomalisa", "Spotlight" and "Son of Saul"/ Oscar Matters: Updates from The Feinberg Forecast and The Awards Circuit / Composing for "Steve Jobs"

Welcome to Monday at MTFB/FAC...hope it was a good weekend.

First, hey, I'm sorry.  In the midst of what was a busy week last week, I really didn't realize that I had posted the regular Thursday edition of MTFB/FAC on Wednesday until that cat had been out of the bag for a good long while, so I just let it stand.  Maybe, I'll get this put together a little more like normal this week.  Anyway, sorry for the 24 hour early post this last week.


MORE DIRECTORS TALK: 'ANOMALISA", "SPOTLIGHT" AND "SON OF SAUL"

Charlie Kaufman, co-director and co-writer of the stop motion animated Telluride sensation "Anomalisa" had a couple of prominent interviews pop up this week for The New York Times and The Playlist (Indiewire) and I have included their links here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/01/movies/charlie-kaufman-discusses-anomalisa-his-existential-stop-motion-movie.html?_r=0

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/watch-15-minute-anomalisa-q-a-with-charlie-kaufman-plus-new-poster-and-image-for-the-film-20151029

Additionally, National Public Radio talked to "Spotlight" director and co-writer Tom McCarthy.
That's here:

http://www.npr.org/2015/10/29/452805058/film-shines-a-spotlight-on-bostons-clergy-sex-abuse-scandal

And, friend of MTFB, Alex Billington/FirstShowing.net interviewed first time director, Laszlo Nemes, whose "Son of Saul" was red hot at Cannes and Telluride and has to be considered the favorite for the Best Foreign Language Oscar.  That interview is linked here:

http://www.firstshowing.net/2015/interview-son-of-saul-writerdirector-laszlo-nemes-on-great-cinema/


OSCAR MATTERS: UP DATES FROM THE FEINBERG FORECAST AND THE AWARDS CIRCUIT

The amorphous Oscar race continues and I have linked the latest analysis and predictions from The Hollywood Reporter's Scott Feinberg and The Awards Circuit's Joey Magidson.  The race continues to change...

Feinberg:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/awards/predictions/awards/predictions/oscars/2015/academy-awards-101615/

Magidson:

http://www.awardscircuit.com/2015/10/31/sizing-best-picture-2015/



COMPOSING FOR "STEVE JOBS"

Kiko Martinez talks to composer Daniel Pemberton about his work for Danny Boyle's "Steve Jobs" for the Tribeca Film Festival.  Take a look at that interview here:

https://tribecafilm.com/stories/steve-jobs-composer-daniel-pemberton-danny-boyle-michael-fassbender-kate-winslet-seth-rogen-apple-mac


That's Monday's MTFB/FAC.  More to come on Thursday...I promise, it will actually be on Thursday this week.

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