In Contention

Tag: Telluride Film Festival

  • TELLURIDE: ‘The Artist,’ ‘Pina’

    Today began, as already conveyed, with the first-ever screening of Alexander Payne’s “The Descendants.” I managed two more films, one of them capsuled here. I’ll get to “Albert Nobbs” separately, but just to clean my plate a little…

    Hazanavicius’s ‘Artist’ doesn’t quite reach the hype

    There is very little doubt in my mind that we’ll all be talking about Michel Hazanavicius’s Cannes sensation “The Artist” over the next six months. The film will generate a lot of respect from Academy members who understand that getting a silent film made in this day and age, let alone a popular one, is an amazing feat. As is well-documented, the film speaks to the industry’s history with reverence and passion, is impeccably crafted (which will generate support across the branches) and features a lead performance that is easy to root for.

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  • TELLURIDE: Payne’s ‘Descendants’ plays, but doesn’t quite reach the bar he’s set for himself

    Over the years Alexander Payne has been invited to Telluride to debut various films, but conflicts with other festivals have always kept that from becoming a reality. He finally attended his first SHOW here two years ago as a Guest Director for the festival. And today, he finally brought a film with him, debuting “The Descendants” to the first audience ever as part of the press and patrons special screening at the Chuck Jones Cinema.

    “It’s funny how long it can sometimes take to realize your destiny, to be a part of this festival,” he told the audience while introducing the film. And indeed, Payne fits right in here with the cineastes.

    The film, however, I found to be a bit Payne-lite. There’s a wonderful subtlety to the effort that certainly isn’t present in his past work. There’s an effortlessness here, where something akin to straining would frequently pop up in his breed of dramedy. And the level of cynicism in most of his work, including his still-best “Sideways,” was refreshingly absent here. But it doesn’t have the density of his past work, and I missed that.

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  • TELLURIDE: Herzog’s latest lands at Sundance Selects, ‘Rum Diary’ looks like a go for the SHOW (or does it?)

    Still no screenings yet here at Telluride. Most are up at the Patron Brunch smooching George Clooney’s rear at the moment. I’ve been on the porch of my B&B enjoying the crisp mountain air and doing a little work. Alejandro González Iñárritu popped in here with his family. He was here last year with “Biutiful” and maybe it sucked him in.

    On a quick stroll around town I popped into a local bookstore and noticed a display featuring festival highlights: Kaui Hart Hemmings’s “The Descendants,” John Kerr’s “A Most Dangerous Method”… and Hunter S. Thompson’s “The Rum Diary.” So chalk the latter up as surely one of the festival’s surprise “TBAs.” And, indeed, Johnny Depp is in town. (UPDATE: Anne Thompson is reporting the festival didn’t screen the film, so…who knows what’s going on with that.)

    Meanwhile, Werner Herzog’s documentary “Into the Abyss: A Tale of Death, a Tale of Life” announced distribution yesterday and I’m just now seeing it. Last year “The Way Back” held its Newmarket acquisition announcement for the first day of the fest. Herzog’s latest is definitely on my list. I hope I can get around to seeing it.

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  • OSCAR TALK: Ep. 59 — Venice thoughts from Guy Lodge, debating ‘The Artist’, Telluride musings and Soderbergh’s stripped-down ‘Contagion’

    Oscar TalkWelcome to Oscar Talk.

    In case you’re new to the site and/or the podcast, Oscar Talk is a weekly kudocast, your one-stop awards chat shop between yours truly and Anne Thompson of Thompson on Hollywood. The podcast is weekly, every Friday throughout the season, charting the ups and downs of contenders along the way. Plenty of things change en route to Oscar’s stage and we’re here to address it all as it unfolds.

    Today Anne and I are both in the Colorado Rockies for the 38th annual Telluride Film Festival. We’re joined today by Guy Lodge, who has been filing from the Venice Film Festival and has plenty to say about what he’s seen so far. Let’s see what’s on the docket today…

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  • TELLURIDE: Settling in for the 38th annual

    So here I sit in Telluride, a nice view of the mountainside gondolas out the window, a swift flight and gorgeous shuttle ride later. As always, we were greeted with the festival program upon boarding the charter this morning, which also carried filmmakers Werner Herzog and Alexander Payne, actress Tilda Swinton, etc., their presence at the airport already hinting at what was likely to be inside.

    The three most expected films are here: Payne’s “The Descendants,” David Cronenberg’s “A Dangerous Method” and Steve McQueen’s “Shame.” Those will be at the top of my list this weekend. Rodrigo Garcia’s “Albert Nobbs” is, along with Payne’s film, the big first-look get for the festival. Though we’ll get looks at McQueen’s flick ahead of Venice, it appears. Also of interest to me are Cannes carry-overs “We Need to Talk About Kevin,” “Le Havre,” “The Kid with a Bike” and “Footnote.” And on the documentary front, there is Matin Scorsese’s “George Harrison: Living in the Material World” (centered on Beatle George Harrison) and Herzog’s latest, “Into the Abyss: A Tale of Death, a Tale of Life.”

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  • AMPAS underwrites Telluride Guest Director program

    I’ll be hopping on a plane in a matter of hours on my way to the Rockies and another Telluride Film Festival. I can’t wait to get there. The schedule will hit while I’m in the air, but check back later for thoughts on what’s to come this weekend. For now, the Academy has once again announced a grant for the fest’s Guest Director program. The press release, in part:

    The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has awarded a $50,000 grant to underwrite the 2011 Telluride Film Festival’s Guest Director program, this year featuring musician Caetano Veloso. Veloso has over 100 film and television credits, but may be best known to moviegoers for his performance of “Cucurrucucú Paloma” (“Cucurrucucu Dove”) in Pedro Almodóvar’s Academy Award®-winning film, “Talk to Her.”

    This is the fourth consecutive year that the Academy has funded the program. In 2010 the festival’s guest director was writer Michael Ondaatje; in 2009, it was Alexander Payne, the director and Oscar®-winning screenwriter of “Sideways;” and in 2008, it was Slavoj Zizek, the Slovenian political philosopher and cultural critic.

    More of Guy’s thoughts from Venice, including reactions to Roman Polanski’s “Carnage” and Madonna’s “W.E.” coming shortly.

  • McCarthy on Telluride and why a secret line-up works

    This morning’s festival preview Off the Carpet column offered up a cross-section of films taking bows in the next few weeks. But a number of them can’t exactly be confirmed for Telluride, because, as always, the line-up is kept secret. It’s a unique strategy that has served the fest well over the years, and over at The Hollywood Reporter, Todd McCarthy pays tribute to the tactic.

    McCarthy is a very well-versed Telluride vet, so he knows what he’s talking about here. He charts the course of Oscar’s dance with the early fall fest, which first proved to be a launching pad for such a campaign back in 1992 when Neil Jordan’s “The Crying Game” waltzed unassumingly into the mountain village. But it was 2005, McCarthy notes, with the bows of soon-to-be Oscar big guns “Brokeback Mountain,” “Capote” and “Walk the Line” that studios really started to get serious about taking their products there for an early peek.

    Naturally, McCarthy eventually gets around to spit-balling potential films on the program, everything from the generally-expected “The Descendants” to Martin Scorsese’s set-for-Toronto documentary “George Harrison: Living in the Material World.” But the true virtue, again, is the sense of being surprised.

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  • OFF THE CARPET: Fall fests look to boost early Oscar hopes

    On a warm Saturday afternoon in Telluride last year, I sat in the crowded Chuck Jones Cinema and felt the warmth in the room as Tom Hooper’s “The King’s Speech” screened for its first audience of the year. Six months later, at the end of a road with plenty of twists and turns, the film’s producers held aloft the Oscar for Best Picture.

    In 2008, Danny Boyle’s “Slumdog Millionaire,” after previewing in Telluride, screened on the very same day as Kathryn Bigelow’s “The Hurt Locker” at the Toronto International Film Festival. Six and 18 months later respectfully, same results. In 2007, Joel and Ethan Coen’s “No Country for Old Men” started its victory march at Cannes before moving into autumn fests. In 2004, Paul Haggis’s “Crash” bowed for Toronto audiences before a summer 2005 release and an eventual Oscar win.

    The obvious connection here is the festival circuit, particularly the fall festival circuit, which has become a significant launching ground for awards contenders in the last half-decade. And starting in two days with Guy’s Venice coverage, the 2011 fall festival season — and the awards potential it is sure to bring with it — officially kicks off around these parts.

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  • OSCAR TALK: Ep. 58 — Wrapping up the summer, fall festival preview, ‘Warrior’ and ‘50/50’

    Oscar TalkWelcome to Oscar Talk.

    In case you’re new to the site and/or the podcast, Oscar Talk is a weekly kudocast, your one-stop awards chat shop between yours truly and Anne Thompson of Thompson on Hollywood. The podcast is weekly, every Friday throughout the season, charting the ups and downs of contenders along the way. Plenty of things change en route to Oscar’s stage and we’re here to address it all as it unfolds.

    After months of sporadic special edition updates, we’re back to the weekly grind today. So check back here every Friday from here on out for our musings on the Oscar season, which is right around the corner with the start of the fall festival circuit. We go on for quite a while today. Let’s jump in and see what’s on the docket…

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  • Telluride guessing game

    (UPDATED: 8/29)

    Now that the Toronto and Venice line-ups have been unveiled (though we have a few more Toronto announcements to come), I figured I’d take a few stabs at sussing out the Telluride crop this year. I haven’t been a good journalist and called around or anything. Just spinning my wheels.

    One studio that always has a big presence at Telluride is Sony Pictures Classics, and this year, honchos Michael Barker and Tom Bernard have a full plate once again. Of that stable, David Cronenberg’s “A Dangerous Method” is hitting both Venice and Toronto. It’s very possible, then, that it will kick things off in the Rockies.

    Roman Polanski’s “Carnage,” meanwhile, was announced as a Venice play this morning. It would be easy enough for the team to bring the film there and not worry about getting the filmmaker in town (seeing as he can’t legally step foot in the country), saving his press run for Venice. (7/28 UPDATE: The film has been set for New York fest, so it seems unlikely we’ll see it in Telluride.)

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  • OSCAR TALK: Ep. 31 – Searchlight’s busy season, ‘The Way Back’ and a not so brave new world for similar filmmaking, Toronto anticipations

    Oscar TalkWelcome to Oscar Talk.

    In case you’re new to the site and/or the podcast, Oscar Talk is a weekly kudocast, a one-stop awards chat shop between yours truly and Anne Thompson of Thompson on Hollywood. The podcast is weekly, every Friday throughout the season, charting the ups and downs of contenders along the way. Plenty of things change on route to Oscar’s stage and we’re here to address it all as it unfolds.

    Today Anne is calling from Toronto after a long journey from the Venice film festival, while I’m back home in LA following a great Telluride fest last weekend. We’re both able to talk from a more informed perspective on a number of the season’s hotly anticipated films, so let’s see what’s on the docket today…

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  • TELLURIDE: That’s a wrap on the “Show”

    If you’ve been keeping up with the Telluride coverage then you know my thoughts on the 10 films I was able to catch over that four-day spread.  So I’m not going to bore you with a tedious recap here.  Instead, now that I’m back and relaxed in LA, not looking at the clock and rushing to make this or that event, I think I’ll just take a moment to reflect in general.

    On the way to yesterday afternoon’s Labor Day picnic, as I crossed over the San Miguel River on a quaint wooden bridge, I was struck with the disappointment that has been rotting at the back of my mind during the entire festival: God I wish I could take the time to smell the roses there.

    Telluride is a beautiful place to launch a film festival and its tranquility is reflected in festival-goers’ sensibilities.  There aren’t mobs of people out to see stars.  There aren’t flashbulbs popping off around every other corner.  Everyone is very much here for the movies and the chance to discover something new.  I don’t think it has been tainted, or at the very least, programmers and directors have gone a long way to keep that face out in front.

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  • INTERVIEW: Peter Weir

    Telluride Film Festival

    For director Peter Weir, the pacing of his output has become almost as measured as his brand of cinema. The Australian has built a career around art house grandeur, but his work has slowed to a handful of films per decade, in stark contrast to the frequency of the 1970s and 1980s.

    That could be reflective of a professional desire to take his time from project to project, but another hypothesis could be the fact that the general movie-going audience has shown a reluctance to the product Weir and those like him provide. The industry is changing around him, and for his part, the director appears to be a mighty oak in the storm.

    “I’ve sensed this profound change that’s occurring in the industry that’s not purely locked to the Wall Street crisis,” he says in a modest hotel room here at the Telluride Film Festival, where his film, “The Way Back,” saw its world premiere. “That’s obviously a significant part of it, but what I thought was there is a change in taste amongst a growing audience that really likes sequels and likes their films very, very simple and in the area of pure spectacle. They’re not interested in structural character, and I think the studios and others have reacted to that.”

    However, Weir says he thinks it’s all “a bit of baby out with the bath water because they then more or less said, ‘That’s it, that’s the change.’ Well people and audiences don’t change overnight. And I think there’s a large audience left high and dry, the type of people who appreciate a program like here around the world who are saying, ‘What happened? There’s nothing on.’ Everything does change but I think there’s been an over-reaction on the part of distributors and there’s been a kind of deep conservatism that has come in which has led them back to what we call the genres.”

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  • 9/7 Oscarweb Round-up

    • The Gurus o’ Gold step up to the plate of a fresh season, each of us picking 15 unranked bets for Best Picture likelihood pre-Toronto. [Movie City News]

    • Jeffrey Wells begs to differ on the notion that Gemma Arterton has a shot at awards success in “Tamara Drewe,” which he calls “the most loathsome film of Stephen Frears’ long and distinguished career.” [Hollywood Elsewhere]

    • “Waiting for Superman” turns up the publicity heat and fuels the public education debate with a big ole’ spread. [New York Magazine]

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  • TELLURIDE: ‘The Illusionist,’ ‘Another Year’

    The final trio of films I caught at this year’s Telluride fest, which is slowly winding down this holiday, were a bit of Cannes catch-up.  The first, Alejandro González Iñárritu’s “Biutiful,” I responded to yesterday.  The other two come from Sony Pictures Classics, which has a whopping five films in play here, and will have nine at Toronto later in the week.

    Before getting to those reactions, though, I have to say that this year’s program has been absolutely wonderful.  I’m only on my second year, but long-timers seem to concur that festival directors Tom Luddy, Gary Meyer and Julie Huntsinger really outdid themselves this time.

    I’ll talk more in the way of wrapping things up sometime later tonight or tomorrow.  For now, I have just enough time to offer up these capsules, update the predictions sidebar and contenders section, hopefully make it to an interview with Darren Aronofsky (which may have to wait until post-fest) and prepare for a 3:30 departure.  The latest Off the Carpet column will come later.

    Let’s get on with it…

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  • 9/6 Oscarweb Round-up

    • Jeffrey Wells attempts to sum up the season’s beginnings with his own nuggets of insight regarding Venice and Telluride. [Hollywood Elsewhere]

    • Kelly Reichardt compares “Meek’s Cutoff” to the Iraq War. [The Hollywood Reporter]

    • Reports of paramedics assisting folks stricken by the intensity of “127 Hours.” (Though I’ve heard it was just altitude sickness.) [Thompson on Hollywood]

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  • TELLURIDE: ‘Black Swan,’ ‘Biutiful’

    Today was a long one here at Telluride.  Three screenings (which has been my consistency throughout the fest), an interview, transcribing, etc., etc.  The night mercifully brought little that interested me, so I’ve finally found some time to work.

    This afternoon started with a screening of one of Guy’s favorite films of the year, “The Illusionist.” I wasn’t as enthusiastic as he was, but I kind of want to hold off on putting my thoughts down while I let it marinate a bit.  It’s not a difficult film or anything, it’s just a visual feast that should be turned over a few times before settling on a view point, I think.

    After that it was off to the Venice hit, Darren Aronofsky’s “Black Swan.” Hundreds of people were turned away at the door and this, without a doubt, has been the festival’s hottest ticket.  The Lido can take a bow on that one.  Actually, Aronofsky’s twisted thriller seems the best place to start, so…

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  • Don’t be afraid of ‘The Way Back’

    As I write this, I can hear Peter Weir’s “The Way Back” playing at the Abel Gance outdoor cinema screen a block away.  As I passed the massive crowd that turned out for tonight’s screening, it got me thinking about Eugene Novikov’s Cinematical review of the film, which was unfortunately picked up at many outlets following Friday night’s debut.  Unfortunate because it completely misrepresents the film.

    Starting with the first line, Novikov says Weir’s film is “sadistically intent on making you feel as much of its subjects’ physical agony as possible” It’s a struggle, to be sure. This isn’t a happy time in these people’s lives. But there’s nothing here defying convention when it comes to a survival film, so why the hyperbole? And “sadistic” is an unfortunate adjective because it assumes a twisted sort of intention, which isn’t true at all. If Weir is being “sadistic,” then I’d love to hear what Novikov thinks Danny Boyle is doing in “127 Hours.”

    He goes on to say the film is “too straight up harrowing” to get awards traction. Novikov might think the film could have a tough road ahead Oscar wise, but it certainly won’t be because the film is “too harrowing.” There’s nothing here that we haven’t seen a thousand times in a thousand Oscar contenders, and that’s not to say it’s derivative (it isn’t). It simply doesn’t depict the gruesome journey Novikov projects.

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