Telluride 2018: World Premieres, Special Tributes, Oscar Dreams

by Nathaniel R

Kidman will be travelling a lot this week with Boy Erased and Destroyer both hitting Telluride and TIFF We don't attend Telluride and are morally opposed to it, in point of fact, since they actually charge the press (and not a cheap charge either) to glorify their name. Curiously the press happily oblige so it's the most elitist of all the festivals, essentially. Weirdly, though, it's not hated despite everybody being so up in arms about the elitism of Oscar season... remarkably some of the same folks who sing Telluride's praises also bitch at the Oscars for their elitism. Cognitive dissonance runs amok in today's world. 

Nevertheless Telluride have positioned themselves as an Oscar giant. Each year they convince filmmakers to forego glitzier world premieres at other major festivals like TIFF and Venice to play in the beautiful mountains to well-moneyed folk for a couple of days. The future Best Picture winner usually plays here even if it sometimes premieres elsewhere (often at Venice, if not here).

So here's their lineup this year with their world premieres in red, plus a note on curious omissions... 

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Venice is First. And Opens with "First Man"

by Nathaniel R

First Man star Ryan Gosling and living legend Vanessa Redgrave were the toasts of Venice at the opening of the 75th annual Venice Film Festival...

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60 Reasons Cinephiles Should Love Madonna

Happy 60th birthday to the coolest bitch in the world since 1958.

Because we are first and foremost a film site, here are 60 reasons you should love Madonna that are at connected to the cinema.

They're listed in no particular order, numbered only so we can keep count because when the subject is Madonna we tend to go on...

1. She makes a perfect animated character in the credits sequence of Who's That Girl  (1987)
2. She's been close friends forever with one of film & television's secret actress weapons, Debi Mazar
   
   
3. Dick Tracy (1990) is awesome.
4. As is Desperately Seeking Susan (1985).
5. She deserved a Best Original Song nomination for "Into the Groove" from Desperately Seeking Susan
6. She loves movies
7. "Greta Garbo, and Monroe..."

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Queer Roundup at GAZE International Film Festival

by Seán McGovern.

Last weekend I had the absolute pleasure of being invited to Dublin, Ireland to be on a jury of my queers at the 26th GAZE: International LGBT Film Festival. While it was fun to be back in MY HOME COUNTRY, it was even better to see such a diverse and compelling programme. After the jump a special spotlight on LGBT docs and the short film winners (and one spectacular narrative feature) which will be hopefully making it to a film festival near you soon. Don't forget to support queer cinema AND your local dive bar...

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Fantasia 2018: Cold Skin

by Jason Adams

The only child in me always dreams about and delights in films about people who've run away from the world of man to make a go of it by their lonesomes. They're duking it out with their own personal demons in the wilderness, of whatever sort, mano a mano. There's no greater fantasy of this sort than the Lighthouse Keeper. They wear thick-knit sweaters and write in their diaries and stare sadly into the distance at hella stormy seas - it's my fetish writ ten-fold. The old-timier the better - give me strange instruments and dials, knickers and elaborate mustaches, tweed piled to heaven, please and thank you.

Nobody tossed these fantasies into the abyss better than HP Lovecraft and Cold Skin, the new Lovecrafitan tale of terror from Frontier(s) and Hitman director Xavier Gens (it's actually based on a 2002 book by Albert Sanchez Pinol), is made of that same slippery stuff...

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