Obsessing about the Telluride Film Festival and the film awards season since 2008!
"The best blog out there for predicting what will be going to Telluride."-Matt Neglia, Next Best Picture
"The Nostradamus of Telluride"
-Tim Appelo, Movies for Grownups
"But it's our job." - Anne Thompson, Indiewire
The 72nd Cannes Film Festival has essentially reached its halfway mark with the Palme d’Or and other awards set to be handed out this weekend.
In its first week the critics have given big boosts to Pedro Almodovar's Pain and Glory, Bong Joon-ho's Parasite and Xavier Dolan's Matthias and Maxime among others. Early critical reaction has also very favorable for Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
Lots of interviews from people that either have films out or coming out that played TFF #45 or are involved with the current edition of Cannes:
WERNER HERZOG/FAMILY ROMANCE LLC
Scott Roxborough for The Hollywood Reporter talks to Werner Herzog whose film Family Romance LLC is playing as a part of the Cannes Fest as a special screening.
Katie Kilkenny does an interview for The Hollywood Reporter with Oscar nominee Laura Dern talking about her new film that played at TFF #45. That's ed Zwick's Trial by Fire which also stars Jack O'Connell.
Joshua Encinias writing for The Film Stage talks with John Chester for of Big Little Farm. The documentary played at TFF #45 and made a big impression on everyone who I talked to who had seen it.
Good Monday and welcome to the start of another week in April 2019...
THE TFF PROGRAM AND DEDICATIONS
With the passing of film legend Agnes Varda a few days back, MTFB has spent some time re-visiting her career.
I wondered last week in this space if Varda might be honored by TFF with a dedication in the 2019 program. I mentioned that the festival has done that before and cited 2018's program dedication to Pierre Rissient.
And that got me to thinking...how often has the fest dedicated the program? When and to whom? It seemed to me to be a natural extension to seek some answers to those questions especially since I have spent some time trying to put together some of the festival's past and preserve it here. Sooo...
I have gone to the programs themselves to see what the record shows and here's what I have discovered from the past decade's programs...the following dedications:
#45 2018- Pierre Rissient
#44 2017- Sam Shepard
#43 2016- Paul Cox and Abbas Kiarostami
#42 2015- Peter von Bagh
#41 2014- Stanley Kauffmann and Peter O'Toole
#40 2013- Les Blank, Roger Ebert, George Gund, Donald Richie
#39 2012- Bingham Ray and Jan Sharp
#38 2011- Richard Leacock and Arthur Penn
#37 2010- Max Palevsky
#36 2009- Horton Foote and Budd Schulberg
I'll keep going back to older programs and continue this search for the next couple of posts.
TRIAL BY FIRE TRAILER AND RELEASE DATE
Ed Zwick's Trial by Fire which was one of two films that played in Telluride last Labor Day inspired by articles written by David Grann (the other was The Old Man and the Gun) has a trailer and a release date-May 17th. That according to both trailer-track.com and FirstShowing.net.
Here is the trailer linked from YouTube:
Trial by Fire stars Jack O'Connell and Laura Dern.
FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA ANNOUNCES MEGALOPOLIS
Photo via Rob Latour/Shutterstock and Deadline
Over the weekend the film interweb was abuzz with the announcement from Francis Ford Coppola that he will begin filming a long gestating dream project entitled (at least at the moment) Megalopolis. The film is characterized in reporting from Deadline.com's Mike Fleming Jr. as "a sprawling film as ambitious as Apocalypse Now.
Coppola is reported as saying the filming will begin this year.
With Coppola's fairly recent return to Telluride (with Apocalypse Now Redux and The Cotton Club) you have to wonder if a TFF screening of the new film might be something that could be a part of a future fest lineup.
Clayton Davis is all over it as he and his website, Awards Circuit, are already up with, what I believe is, the first serious pass at predicting Oscar nominees for Best Picture for next year.
Davis has a really good record of sniffing out Oscar potential this early and as such, gives us some hints about films that might have the pedigree necessary to be considered as possible TFF #46 selections.
Davis runs down a fairly substantial list of films and ends the article with a "pre-season" top ten of possible Best Picture nominees. Without giving away the entire list of ten films, here are those included that, at first blush, feel like they have the most Telluride prospects:
Marielle Heller's Mr. Rogers biopic starring Tom Hanks as Fred Rogers: A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.
John Crowley's The Goldfinch based on the Pulitzer Prize winning book starring Nicole Kidman.
Kasi Lemmon's Harriet based on the life of Underground Railroad pioneer Harriet Tubman starring Cynthia Erivo.
And...just because I think Netflix might try to follow the path they used with Roma, Martin Scorsese's The Irishman (see below). The story of a mob hitman who may have killed Jimmy Hoffa. For Scorsese, the old gang came back together as the film stars Robert DeNiro, Harvey Keitel and Joe Pesci with the addition of Al Pacino.
Among the other films that Davis discusses that didn't make it to his initial top ten list are these which also seem to make some sense for TFF:
Greta Gerwig's Little Women
Joe Wright's The Woman in the Window
Hirokazu Koreeda's The Truth
Scott Cooper's Antlers
Bill Condon's The Good Liar
Additionally, Davis makes predictions for each of the other 23 categories.
Perhaps this is Martin Scorsese' Great White Whale. It's reportedly in post-production and there are rumors that it could well be headed to Cannes (if Cannes and Netflix can reach some sort of arrangement) or maybe Venice.
As I mentioned above, I think we have to at least consider the chance that the film makes its way to Telluride so I'll continue to keep an eye on it.
Consequently, if you didn't notice earlier this week, The Irishman and Netflix dropped a teaser. Here it is via YouTube:
I also linked some of the coverage the came out with the teaser's release from:
Speaking of Cannes...the prestigious film festival announced this week that four time Oscar winning director/writer Alejandro Inarritu will preside over this year's Palme d'Or jury. Inarritu has, over the years, been a staple of the Cannes' lineup in various sections and with multiple films.
Inarritu has also been a frequent presence at Telluride both in the capacity as presenting one of his own films but also as a fan and supporter of his fellow amigos Guillermo Del Toro and Alfonso Cuaron.
Inarritu was first represented at Cannes in 2000 with his first feature Amores Perros.
Roadside Attractions has acquired TFF #45 entrant Trial by Fire from director Ed Zwick. The film stars Laura Dern and Jack O'Connell and is based on an article from author David Grann. Trial by Fire was one of two films at last year's fest that was based on material written by Grann. The other was David Lowery's The Old Man and the Gun starring Robert Redford and Sissy Spacek.
Coverage of the acquisition and plans to release the film this spring are addressed in the following:
