Middleburg Day 2: James Ivory & Various Fantastic Women

See Day 1 ICYMI

Friday. Another day in Virginia's horse country, two more fine films, and meeting a lifelong personal idol...

James Ivory speaking at the Salamander Resort in Middleburg, VA

James Ivory Legacy Award
The morning began with a moderated interview with four time Oscar nominee James Ivory. He was in Middleburg to receive this year's "Legacy" award. Speaking of legacy... when will the Academy come around to acknowledging that he's one of the most deserving artists out there for their annual Honorary Oscar pickings?

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The Epic and Crowded "Mudbound"

by Murtada

About halfway into Mudbound, the new film from Dee Rees (Pariah), the matriarch of a family of landowners in the Mississippi Delta Laura Mcallan (Carey Mulligan) offers a maid job to Florence (Mary J Blige), whose family are land tenants of Laura's husband Henry (Jason Clarke). The offer comes after Florence had been forced to leave her own family for a few days to help Laura with her sick young daughters. It is a startling offer that comes out of nowhere and Florence isn't given an option to accept or refuse, but rather told it’s been decided to hire her.

However before the audience can process the audacity of Laura’s offer and Florence’s resignation, we are immediately pulled into a combat battle in WWII where Henry’s brother (Garrett Hedlund) and Florence’s oldest son (Jason Mitchell) have enlisted. Herein lies Mudbound's dilemma...

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Podcast: Festival Goodies Opening Very Soon

Nathaniel, Nick, Joe and Chris (who all attended TIFF together) discuss highlights from this past month of festivals, some of which are just opening in theaters.

Index (42 minutes)
00:01 Florida Project, Professor Marston...
07:00 Mudbound, First They Killed... and BPM
14:50 Under the radar beauties like Disappearance and A Fantastic Woman (and the joy of festivalling with Nick Davis)
27:00 Hoping to see again: Lady Bird, On Body and Soul, Three Billboards
34:00 We JUST saw: Mr Gay Syria, Spoor, and Wonderstruck
41:00 Byeeee

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the conversations in the comments, won't you? 

Related Reading
Three Billboards (Chris's review)
Downsizing (Nathaniel's first impression)
First They Killed My Father (Joe's review)

Festival Fun. Coming Soon

Dee Rees on 'Mudbound'

by Murtada

Mudbound is having a moment this week. On the eve of its TIFF premiere, the trailer drops and Dee Rees, Carey Mulligan and Mary J Blige get the cover at Variety. Rees talks about how difficult it was to find a distributor at Sundance in the year after The Birth of a Nation debacle:

I feel like we were in the shadow of other films. This film is certainly on the level of — if not better than — that. To burden our film with that was unfair. That’s the hard thing about Hollywood; you realize it’s not fair. It’s not a meritocracy. It’s like, Come on.

More from Rees plus the movie's trailer after the jump..

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Picture, Director, Screenplays ~ April Foolish Oscar Predix

by Nathaniel R

I've been rubbing my crystal ball vigorously backstage to bring you the new Oscar charts. Everything is up but the acting now Let's discuss our way too early April guesswork in these categories: PICTURE and DIRECTOR and SCREENPLAYS. Thoughts? Objections? Applause?

Which 2017 releases will Oscar voters fall hard for?

Perfect on paper
Looks right on paper for major Oscar love doesn't always translate to the real thing but I've fallen for the chances of this year's World War II dramas from Chris Nolan (Dunkirk) and Joe Wright (Darkest Hour). Curiously, though both men have helmed Best Picture nominees in the past, neither have been nominated for Best Director yet. So strange but I'm predicting both of them to get in. I'm also predicting Get Out to score a Best Picture, Best Screenplay and Best Film Editing nods. That might sound crazy but I don't think it is. As I've often said genre pictures need time with awards bodies to cement their worth. Jump in your time machine and I'll bet you people are still talking in glowing terms about Get Out in December and everyone starts rooting for its Oscar nomination because they've accepted that it's special...

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