Showing posts with label Zuwarski v. Texas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Zuwarski v. Texas. Show all posts

Monday, September 16, 2024

The People's Telluride / Toronto's People's Choice Award and TFF #51 / Early Oscar Picks from Experts-THR / New International Trailer for Anora / Reitman on Saturday Night / Behind the Scenes on Memoir of a Snail / Not a Blurb...But...

THE PEOPLE'S TELLURIDE




Well, here it is.  The 2024 edition of MTFB's People's Telluride Poll.  I'll address the parameters that guided the poll below but I suspect you want to get right to the results...

1) Zawurski v. Texas 4.64
2) Will and Harper 4.47
3) Anora 4.44
4) Conclave 4.34
5) Emilia Perez 4.30
6) A Real Pain 4.28
7) September 5 4.20
8) Memoir of a Snail 4.03
9) Saturday Night 4.02
10) The Outrun 3.74
11) Maria 3.68
12) The Apprentice 3.55
13) The Friend 3.51
14) Piece by Piece 3.40
15) The Piano Lesson 3.29
16) Nickel Boys 3.26
17) Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight 3.16
18) The End 2.52

TFF #51 had a record response with more votes from The People than ever before.  To make the list a film had to have been seen by at least 25% of the respondents to the poll.  A 1 to 5 scale was used.  I added all ratings up for each film and those that met the threshold then divided the total ratings points by the number of people who had responded with ratings for that film.  That provided the average rating for each film above on the 5 point scale.

For fun the top five most "seen" films among the folks who responded with votes for the poll where:

1) Saturday Night which was seen by 82.4% of respondents.  The rest of the top five were:
2) Conclave 74.3%
3) Anora 71.6%
4) September 5  and Nickel Boys at 50% 

I really thought as the numbers were coming in that Anora was going to take the top spot.

Zuwarski's 4.64 will move it to #6 on the all time list of The People's Telluride.  That will also keep Will & Harper from moving onto the top ten as its 4.47 average will just be outside the top ten behind The Two Popes and Poor Things tied for the 9-10 spots now with a 4.51 average.  Will & Harper's 4.47 ties them with Roma and Room now at the 11-13 spots.

And a personal note, I want to thank so many of you that offered thoughts in response to my Sept. 3rd post and the questions that it posed.  It was, as they say, affirming.  I mean really affirming.  Thanks TFF peeps!



TORONTO'S PEOPLE'S CHOICE AWARD AND TFF




Yesterday Mike Flanagan's The Life of Chuck surprisingly (at least to me) won the Toronto International Film Festival's People's Choice Award.  Runner-up Jacques Audiard's Emilia Perez which rated #3 on the TFF #51 Pro's Poll and #5 above for the People. 

Second Runner-up was Sean Baker's Anora which you can see from this post and my previous post topped this year's TFF Pro's poll and was third on the just published People's Poll.

Josh Greenbaum's documentary, which played really well at Telluride (again, as you can see above) finished second in the voting for TIFF's People's Choice of Docs.  Landing ahead of it was Tragically Hip: no Time for Rehearsal.



EARLY OSCAR PICKS FROM EXPERTS




The Hollywood Reporter's Awards executive Editor Scott Feinberg opens the 2024-25 Oscar season predicting these nominations for TFF #51 films (Scott is making predictions in the Big Eight categories as well as Animated, Documentary and International Features).

Emilia Perez (7): Best Picture, Direction, Actress (Gascon), Supporting Actress-2 (Saldana, Gomez), Original Screenplay, International Film.

Conclave (6): Best Picture, Direction, Actor (Fiennes), Supporting Actor (Tucci), Supporting Actress (Rossellini), Adapted Screenplay.

Anora (4): Best Picture, Direction, Actress (Madison), Original Screenplay.

September 5 (4): Best Picture, Actor (Sarsgaard), Supporting Actor (Magaro), Original Screenplay.

Saturday Night (2): Best Picture, Original Screenplay.

A Real Pain (2): Best Picture, Supporting Actor (Culkin).

Piece by Piece (2): Best Picture, Animated Feature.

The Seed of the Sacred Fig (2): Best Direction, International Feature.

The Apprentice (2): Best Actor (Stan), Supporting Actor (Strong).

The Piano Lesson (2): Best Actor (Washington), Supporting Actress (Deadwyler).

Maria (1): Best Actress (Jolie).

Nickel Boys (1) Best Adapted Screenplay.

No Other Land (1): Best Documentary.

Hollywood Gate (1) : Best Documentary (from TFF #50).

That's 36 projected nominations for TFF #51 films in theses 11 categories.



NEW  (INTERNATIONAL) TRAILER FOR ANORA

From YouTube:



REITMAN ON SATURDAY NIGHT




IndieWire's Kate Erbland talks to writer/director Jason Reitman about TFF #51 world premiering film Saturday Night.  Here's the link.



BEHIND THE SCENES OF MEMOIR OF A SNAIL




MTFB friend Alex Billington at his site FirstShowing.net has linked five mini-behind-the scenes featurettes from Adam Elliots' delightful and moving Memoir of a Snail.  Variety has it currently #3 on its Animated Feature Oscar nominations predictions and The Hollywood Reporter has it a #10.



NOT A BLURB...BUT...

I have long dreamed of the day when my publicly posted response to a film gets blurbed in a trailer or a TV ad...and, of course that hasn't happened...yet.

Back in 2011 I freelanced for The Playlist and reviewed three films at TFF #38 and filed reviews for The Descendants, Albert Nobbs and Butter.  I had nice things to say about The Descendants and Albert Nobbs (Butter not so much) and thought that might be the moment.  It was not.

Since then I know it's unlikely as to tag a blurb with "of Michael's Telluride Film Blog" seems smallish.  But you know...maybe someday.  I've certainly been highlighted by other sites and blogs regarding that meat and bones of what the blog does.

But I did get a little closer as I found with Gold Derby's roundup of Jason Retiman's Saturday Night I find myself included as "more reactions".  Evidence below:



Sooooo...inching closer?


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Thursday, September 5, 2024

The People's Telluride / Statistical Re-hash / What I Saw / Now What?

THE PEOPLE'S TELLURIDE




Well Friends...

It is time.  If you haven't already sent in your ratings for TFF #51 films that you saw, now's the time.  A reminder about the process.  Email me a list of the films you saw and rate each on a 1 to 5 scale.  1 means it was very bad, 5 means you thought it was terrific.  Decimals are fine.

The DUE DATE for ratings is SEPT. 13TH.

EMAIL YOUR RATINGS TO: mpgort@gmail.com

I'm planning on posting The People's  results on Monday, Sept.16.


STATISTICAL RE-HASH




TFF 2024 was a reasonably good year for MTFB.  From the final "bets" that were posted on Wednesday last week, after the addition of The Apprentice as a sneak, MTFB was 25 of 25 for films playing TFF #51.  Additionally, five of the films listed as "other possibilities" made the lineup as well.

From the original "Ten Bets" posted back on June 20th, seven films made the lineup: Anora, The Seed of the Sacred Fig, Emilia Perez, Bird, Maria, The End and Conclave.  Also from the list of "Other Possibilities" in that post were: The Piano Lesson and Nickel Boys.

Also, MTFB wasn't too bad at the Tribute speculation.  I'd been talking about the Saoirse Ronan/Outrun possibility for months.  Managed to guess the Thelma Schoonmaker notion based on the pre-fest screening of After Hours at Elk's Park and Jacques Audiard had been on my really short list of possible directors that could be tributed.

WHAT I SAW




Ultimately I saw seven films.  It's an uncommonly small number for me at the fest but long "standing in line" times were necessary to avoid the risk of being shutout.  I was commonly in line three hours before the posted screening time.  As I result I made all seven I chose to see but that drastically reduced the number of films I could see.

If anything rivaled line conversation about the films it was the convo about accessibility.

My films in the order I saw them:

Conclave:  Liked it quite a bit  Good performances across the board. 3.75/5

Nickel Boys: I have been seeing the critics responding enthusiastically...me...not so much.  I respect the notion of inventive film making but, for me, Ross's choices often got in the way rather than enhancing the story he was telling. 3/5

Zuwarski v. Texas: This was the pick of the fest for me.  Powerful.  Seek it out. 5/5

Saturday Night:  Jason Reitman hits it out of the park.  Funny and Frenetic. 4.5/5

Emilia Perez: Terrific;  Super performances from the lead cast.  Inventive in a way that worked from my perspective. 4/5

September 5:  Excellent telling of the sports reporters at the 1972 Munich Olympics who had to turn into news reporters. 4/5

Memoir of a Snail:  Also outstanding. 4/5

What I missed that I would have liked to gotten in:

Anora
Carville: Winning Is Everything, Stupid
Casa Bonita Mi Amor
The End
Maria
The Outrun
The Piano Lesson
Piece by Piece
The Seed of the Sacred Fig
Will & Harper


NOW WHAT?




Well, collate the ratings from The People and The Pros and report back on those.  Also, collate both sets of ratings into The Composite Telluride.  I'll have all of that done and posted over the 10-14 days.

I'll also turn the attention of MTFB to the Oscar/Awards prospects of the films that played this past weekend.  As a part of that I'll soon begin posting my own predictions for Oscar glory.  Oscar nominations will be announced on Jan. 17th and the ceremony itself will be Mar. 2nd.




EMAIL:  mpgort@gmail.com

X (Twitter) @TheMTFB OR @Gort2 

Bluesky: @gort2.bsky.social

MTFB's Facebook Page

MTFB is published on Mondays and Thursdays

If you would like to be added to the MTFB e-mail list send an email to mpgort@gmail.com