TIFF Delivers an Oscar bound-surprise with "Green Book"

by Nathaniel R

Go figure. The winner of TIFF's "Grolsch's People's Choice Award" is a film that literally none of my TIFF airbnb troupe (Joe Reid, Chris Feil, Nick Davis and I) saw during our 10 day stretch in Ontario. Green Book by Peter Farrelly (yes, of Dumb and Dumber and There's Something About Mary fame) took TIFF's most coveted prize. (the runners up were Barry Jenkins' If Beale Street Could Talk and Alfonso Cuarón's Roma). So we'll have to add it to the Best Picture chart when we update this week (we're looking at probably Wednesday night for across the board updates to reflect all the festival madness).

In the entire 40 year history of this prize, stretching From Girlfriends (1978) through Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017), 16 of the winners went on to Best Picture nods at the Oscars. The 40 winners also include 7 future Best Picture winners, 6 future Best Foreign Language Film winners, and 2 future Best Documentary Feature winners. The Oscar correlation is getting stronger all the time, too...

Click to read more ...

'Roma' and 'The Favourite' win Venice

by Murtada Elfadl 

Cuaron with Lion

As expected Roma and The Favourite won the biggest prizes at this year’s Venice Film Festival main competition. The two films screened on the same day and were both raved and loved equally. Roma, a story that Alfonso Cuaron based on his memories growing up in 1970’s Mexico City, has been hailed as both personal and epic which bodes well for its awards success...

Click to read more ...

Willem Dafoe meets Julian Schnabel 'At Eternity's Gate'

by Murtada Elfadl

Willem Dafoe went 14 years between his first and second Oscar nominations, and 17 years between his second and third. But the star of Platoon (1986), Shadow of a Vampire (2000) and The Florida Project (2017) could immediately follow up that last nomination just a year later with his lead role as Vincent Van Gogh in Julian Schnabel’s At Eternity’s Gate...

Click to read more ...

Roma, A Star is Born, The Favourite... Will anything flop this festival season?

by Nathaniel R

So far so good for all the expected Oscar favorites. The First Man won (mostly) raves and the next three big premieres also did. Alfonso Cuaron's Spanish language black-and-white family epic Roma, Bradley Cooper's remake of A Star is Born with Lady Gaga, Yorgos Lanthimos' comedy The Favourite with three great actresses... everyone seems to love everything! Are they all suffering from "first!" blurb whore fever or will the next wave of critics (coming soon at Telluride, TIFF, and NYFF) also fall so hard for these same pictures?

I don't personally read reviews before I see a picture (though sometimes I skim them) but if you do, here's what people are saying about these Best Picture hopefuls...

Click to read more ...

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... 

Click to read more ...