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...

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Aug 30th - All Oscar Charts Updated!

by Nathaniel R

We've been needing to update all the Oscar charts and we've just about waited too long since Venice and Telluride have begun and soon things will be changing daily. But let it suffice to say that these are hunches just before the festival explosion. Team Experience is off to TIFF next week when we'll be seeing a lot of the contenders and consensus will begin to form around half of the titles, too. Some key November/December films will remain a mystery until just before their release, though.

The freshly revamped charts...

PREDICTION INDEX |  PICTURE | DIRECTOR | ACTOR  | ACTRESS | SUPPORTING ACTOR | SUPPORTING ACTRESS | SCREENPLAYS | FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM | VISUALS | SOUNDS | ANIMATED FEATURES

And about that 'Popular Achievement Oscar' Thingamabob... 

We haven't yet added a chart since Oscar has released no details about what they plan -- have they planned any details?  -- but I've added a list of 8 films I predict could compete for it at the bottom of the Best Picture chart. Naturally half of them are already on the Best Picture chart, since we hardly need such a category.

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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Four More Foreign Film Oscar Submissions

by Nathaniel R

Four more official entries to the Foreign Language Film Oscar race.

• Birds of Passage -Colombia
  This is from the director Ciro Guerra (who has a co-director this time) the man behind Colombia's only Oscar nominee and TFE favorite Embrace of the Serpent.  The new film is a crime/family drama.
  Opening in the US in February. Orchard distributing
• Border -Sweden
  Un Certain Regard winner at Cannes this year. It's based on a novella by the author of Let the Right One In (!) and is a reportedly strange tale of a woman with the ability to sense and smell how people feel.
  Opening in the US October 26th. Neon distributing.
• Donbass -Ukraine
  From the acclaimed Sergey Loznitsa (My Joy, A Gentle Creature). This one is a cheerful tale (he said sarcastically given Loznitsa's filmography) about the degradation of Ukranian society in our post-truth world
• La Familia -Venezuela
  A father son drama about a violent neighborhood.
  Played in the US earlier this month. Film Movement distributing. 

UPDATE HOURS LATER - TWO MORE ENTRIES

• Never Look Away - Germany
  From Florian Henckel von Donnersmarch (The Lives of Others) comes this story of a romance between two art students (Tom Schilling and Paula Beer) and her father (Sebastian Koch) who fights against the relationship
• Ghost Hunting - Palestine
  A documentary about a former interrogation center in which the inmates reenact their interrogations inside a replica of the center built to scale

Related:
Updated Oscar charts for foreign film
First 10 official contenders for foreign film
49 suggested European Film Awards contenders
Spain's Finalists
Israel's Finalists