Sasha Stone's Pre-Thanksgiving Oscar Picks / Studi Talks Hostiles / Wormwood: Academy Says It's Not Eligible / The Making of the Beast

Good Monday movie fans...


SASHA STONE'S PRE-THANKSGIVING OSCAR PICKS

Each Friday, Sasha Stone, founder of Awards Daily, updates her latest Oscar forecast.  As we approach the Thanksgiving holiday, I thought I'd take a quick peek at what she thinks are likely nominations regarding TFF #44 films.

Sasha is currently picking 11 major categories and she has both Darkest Hour and The Shape of Water with eight nominations from those categories:

The Shape of Water: Picture, Direction, Actress, Supporting Actor, Original Screenplay, Editing, Cinematography and Production Design.


Darkest Hour: Picture, Direction, Actor, Supporting Actor, Original Screenplay, Editing, Cinematography, Production Design.

Lady Bird: borderline Best Picture, Actress, Supporting Actress.

Wonderstruck: Adapted Screenplay

Stone's complete "Predictions Friday" column is here.


STUDI TALKS HOSTILES

Oklahoma native Native American actor Wes Studi spoke recently with Jazz Tangcay of Awards Daily about his experiences making Scott Cooper's western.

The film is set for release on Dec. 22nd and is drawing some serious discussion about Christian Bale's performance as a potential Best Actor nominee.

That interview is here.



WORMWOOD: ACADEMY SAYS IT'S NOT AN ELIGIBLE DOCUMENTARY

Errol Morris' Wormwood which was often a topic of conversation in lines at this year's TFF, will not be eligible for the Best Documentary Feature Oscar according to Indiewire's Anne Thompson.

It appears that Wormwood runs afoul of Academy rules that have been recently adopted to exclude the kind of episodic format that Wormwood is in.

Wormwood is set to bow on Netflix on Dec. 15th

Thompson's story is here.



THE MAKING OF THE BEAST

Recently The Shape of Water's writer/director Guillermo Del Toro shred extensive notes about the creation of the creature at the center of his love story that was brought to life by actor Doug Jones.

SlashFilm gathered all of that together and this past week put together a story that delineates that process.

The SlashFilm story is here.

The Shape of Water opens in the U.S. on Dec. 8th.


I'll have more on Thanksgiving morning including the latest Best Picture and Best Direction Oscar predictions from The Film Awards Clearinghouse.

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New Toronto Titles Reveal Little / First They Killed Trailer / Early Oscar and TFF #44

It's Thursday, Aug. 4, 2017...TFF #44 begins four weeks from tomorrow!

NEW TORONTO TITLES REVEAL LITTLE

The Toronto International Film Fest announced its slate of Documentaries, Midnight Madness and Short Cuts Tuesday and none of those announcements added as single title to TFF #44.  They did, however, take a player off the TFF #44 table after we were under the impression that Frederick Wiseman's Ex Libris: The New York Public Library.  We had that impression due to this Ioncinema story:

But despite what seemed to be a claim that Ex Libris would do the same path that Human Flow is looking like it will do, the TIFF announcement lists Ex Libris as a North American Premiere.  Ex Libris is currently listed as opening in NYC on Sept. 13.

This likely means that the film isn't playing T-ride but there is still enough to be a bit tentative about making a definitive call.  The most probable explanation is that it will premiere at TIFF sometime before its NYC bow on Sept. 13.

In terms of other news from the TIFF reveal Tuesday was that every film announced was a World or North American Premiere except for one and that was a seven minute film from the Midnight Madness section named Great Choice which was listed as a Canadian Premiere.  Investigation revealed that the film bowed in February at the Borscht Film Fest in Miami.

JUST BREAKING: TIFF'S PLATFORM SELECTIONS

It might be noted that Moonlight played the Platform section last year and was the only Platform selection that was shared by both TFF and TIFF and this year that will NOT be replicated as no film in the section will play both fests.

The TIFF announcement lists all twelve films as either a World or North American Premiere which means that none of them will have played TFF the week before.

While we can infer no additions to the Telluride lineup, we can glean films that won't make the trip to the San Juans.

Among the films announced this morning that I thought had a shpt at T-ride:

The Death of Stalin

Brad's Status 

Sweet Country

I am particularly disappointed that The Death of Stalin won't be playing Telluride.  It was relatively high on my wish list.

FIRST THEY KILLED TRAILER

In all the hubbub the last week or so about the casting methods used or not used for Angelina Jolie's First They Killed My Father, which we believe will play TFF #44 owing to its listing for Toronto as a Canadian Premiere, came the release yesterday of the first trailer for the film:

(trailer via YouTube)

I have also linked coverage of the film and the trailer's release here from:

Variety

Indiewire


HOSTILES CONFIRMED

After playing this game for awhile, I can tell you none of this prediction stuff is ever 100% certain. That goes as well for trying to read the TIFF tea leaves.  I'm pretty sure about those claims but as you can see above in the case of Ex Libris, sometimes things are confused or mis-labeled or just wrong.

That's why I continue to look for information that validates what we think we know and I had a fine example of how that works since my last post on Tuesday.

Combing through social media on Tuesday night I came across this reference on Twitter:

That's Native American actor and activist Wes Studi (a fellow Oklahoman by the way).  So naturally, I followed up:

Looks good to me.  Hostiles will be making the trip along with Mr. Studi.




EARLY OSCAR AND TFF #44

The big Oscar prognosticators seem to be getting their ducks lined up prior to the start of the fall film fest Trifecta (and now after lineup announcements from TIFF and Venice).

Tuesday we included Sasha Stone's assessment of the Picture, Director and Lead Acting fields. Today, here is the link to her view of the screenplay races.

Stone mentions probable Telluride players The Shape of Water, Downsizing, Battle of the Sexes and Wonderstruck as screenplay possibilities.

Meanwhile, Clayton Davis and his crew at Awards Circuit are up with another edition of their podcast: Circuit Breaker that surveys the field as well as a number of other items including some talk about TFF #44 that might well feature a massive reference to a certain Telluride Film Fest blog.  That happens at the 18 minute mark.  Take a listen.


That's your Thursday.

A reminder, I will update this post today should we find out anything of interest regarding TFF #44 from Toronto and don't forget, tomorrow...a new Ten Bets list...

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

TWITTER @Gort2 (and follow me there as well)

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