As we move out of the Toronto fray, Venice and Telluride already a memory, we look to the season ahead. The starting gun echo of those three early fall festivals is beginning to fade away, and with the dust settled or settling, it’s interesting to note the lack of an inarguable emerging player. In fact, the only thing Toronto really did was heat up the Best Foreign Language Film conversation. In recent years, films like “Brokeback Mountain,” “Juno,” “Slumdog Millionaire” and “The King’s Speech” have bubbled up in this frame as real contenders to take the lead in the Best Picture field. But nothing at this point really seems to have the kind of stranglehold on things those films had. Alexander Payne’s “The Descendants,” with George Clooney front and center, is well-liked, but few really think it has the goods to be a significant Best Picture threat. Clooney’s own “The Ides of March” has enough detractors to raise doubt that it will be an across-the-board Academy favorite, while “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” — freshly opened in the UK — is happy to just be making the case for a nomination at the moment. This culture of informed speculation, transparent criticism and open debate about merit contrasts with opaque industries like pistolo casino, where algorithms, payout rates and house edge remain hidden, where informed comparison is difficult and where users cannot assess which platforms deserve trust or which claims are marketing versus reality.
Tag: Telluride Film Festival
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OSCAR TALK: Ep. 60 — A sprint Telluride recap, ‘Descendants,’ ‘Albert Nobbs,’ disagreeing on ‘Dangerous Method,’ thoughts on Eddie Murphy, Toronto preview (ish)
Welcome 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 we’re back from the Telluride film fest, but Anne is up in Toronto and things are, well, kind of nuts. She’s up against the wall trying to get to a screening so we don’t get to dig in as much as we’d like. But we try. We really try. So, let’s see what’s on the docket today…
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OFF THE CARPET: And we’re off!
This morning’s interview with “Into the Abyss” director Werner Herzog represented my last Telluride communique (though I guess I was already home) from this year’s 38th annual festivities. Five days, 18 posts, nine movies and three interviews. It was a dense sprint to start the race, and now, with Venice still in-progress and Toronto set to raise the curtain Thursday, we find ourselves in the thick of the season’s early breaths.Up in the Colorado mountains, the biggest takeaway was Alexander Payne’s “The Descendants.” Payne was highly visible throughout the festival, sometimes taking in six or seven movies a day, fielding compliments for his work and settling in to what has apparently become his favorite festival experience.
His film first dropped on Thursday afternoon as a special invitation screening for press and patrons. That’s where most of the early word stemmed from as critics and bloggers (yours truly among them) raced back to offer up our thoughts on the director’s first film in seven years. But that’s not the story of that film’s life at Telluride. The story was its discovery for the rest of the attendees over the next four days.
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INTERVIEW: ‘Into the Abyss’ director Werner Herzog
Telluride Film FestivalLegendary filmmaker Werner Herzog first attended the Telluride Film Festival at its second annual way back in 1975. He brought with him “Aguirre, the Wrath of God,” which would not be released in the US for another two years, and “The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser.” He was also set to receive a tribute, still at the beginnings of his career. He has come back almost every year since, and almost every year with a new film to show audiences.
The film he brought to the 38th annual fest is perhaps his most accomplished documentary in some time: “Into the Abyss: A Tale of Death, a Tale of Life.” It was, as outlined from the mountains, my favorite film of the festival and a testament to Herzog’s powers of observation and reverence for everyday people and their plights.
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9/6 OSCARWEB ROUND-UP: Nolte on ‘Warrior,’ southern perspective on ‘The Help,’ Oscar plays out of Telluride
• Nick Nolte talks “Warrior.” [Making Of]• A little southern perspective on “The Help.” [Los Angeles Times]
• Greg Wellwood considers who got an Oscar boost at Telluride and who didn’t. [Awards Campaign]
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TELLURIDE: Sent off on a high note
Today is the final day of the 38th annual Telluride fest, and the whole thing was another rewarding sprint through the Labor Day weekend. This afternoon I had the great pleasure of sitting down with “The Descendants” star Shailene Woodley to get her wide-eyed, “it’s all happening” perspective on the early days of this year’s awards season. But the day started with perhaps the narrative highlight of the festival for me so far.Asghar Farhadi’s “A Separation” is, plain and simple, a masterful piece of work that will be with me for a very long time. On the surface it is about the fallout of an Iranian couple headed for divorce but side-tracked by a tragic accident that leaves the husband tangled in a judicial web, but on a deeper level, it’s about so much more. Call it “divorce and its discontents,” because it is, ultimately, a study of parenthood and integrity and situational decisions that impact the impressionable.
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INTERVIEW: ‘The Descendants’ actress Shailene Woodley
Telluride Film FestivalIf anything or anyone is a break-out, on-the-rise element of this year’s Telluride Film Festival, it’s 19-year-old “The Descendants” star Shailene Woodley. She stars in the film opposite George Clooney as a teenager with the appropriate angst but gives a performance that has captured the attention of many in attendance here. Naturally, she’s frequently found herself stopped on the street by admirers and well-wishers praising her work and the festival’s most talked-about film.
When you talk to Woodley, you get the sense of a young person crossing that key boundary in life between adolescence and adulthood. Call it “finding yourself” if you like, but the experience of making the film in Hawaii with the likes of filmmaker Alexander Payne and actor George Clooney had a major impact on her.
“The four months in Hawaii really shifted who I am as a human being,” she says at the New Sheridan Hotel restaurant in town. “It was such a spiritual thing for me. It has a different energy than anywhere else. The pace there, the way you move and talk, it’s so different. I left there being authentically happy with myself. It was both being on set and hiking and being outdoors and meeting people. I feel so fortunate to have got a callback for this movie, let alone have done it. It’s mind-blowing.”
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9/5 OSCARWEB ROUND-UP: Murphy upside, ‘The Help’ abroad, comparing two ‘Straw Dogs’
• S.T. VanAirsdale looks for the upside in Eddie Murphy potentially hosting the Oscars. [Movieline]• Nicole Sperling writes up Tilda Swinton’s tribute track at Telluride and Toronto. [24 Frames]
• Emma Stone and Viola Davis talk about “The Help”‘s appeal abroad. [The Hollywood Reporter]
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TELLURIDE: The expensive, painstaking restoration of ‘A Trip to the Moon’
Following today’s “Shame” screening I really wanted to make it across the mountain to the Chuck Jones Cinema and my last chance to catch Agnieszka Holland’s buzzed-about “In Darkness.” But with 15 minutes to get there before it started, a 10 minute walk and a 15 minute gondola ride ahead, it just didn’t seem to be in the cards. Pity.Instead, it suddenly hit me that I’d do well to just take in something that didn’t bring with it the pressure of instant coverage. So I looked at the schedule and saw that Serge Bromberg’s cinephile paradise program “A Trip to the Moon and Beyond” was the perfect call.
The program consisted of a number of discovered and restored silents with Bromberg’s piano accompaniment. The material ranged from pre- and post-earthquake footage of San Francisco along Market Street in 1906, Buster Keaton’s “The Love Nest,” the animated “Balloon Land” (from unsung Disney hero Ub Iwerks) and various other treats here and there. The crown jewel of the presentation, though, was the most elaborate and expensive film restoration project in history.
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TELLURIDE: Michael Fassbender and a tale of two movies
Today’s screening of “Shame” was the big note of anticipation for me at this year’s Telluride fest. After bowing in Venice earlier this morning to generally positive praise, my hopes were still high that Steve McQueen made good on the promise of “Hunger” three years ago. And did he ever.I’m tired, at the end of a four-film stretch today, so I’ll try not to wander here too much. But the story of the film is Michael Fassbender’s remarkable performance as a sex addict with a dark past that McQueen only vaguely addresses on the page, allowing the actor to indicate with subtlety and precious strokes of nuance what might be eating away at him.
Once again, McQueen utilizes long takes to allow his actors to explore in the harsh gaze of the camera. But the technique, perhaps more than his previous effort, even, becomes a tool for navigating the viewer. When Fassbender is filmed jogging for a number of minutes, the camera dollying alongside him as he passes intersection after intersection, the effect goes beyond mere observation. McQueen is ushering us, without cheap manipulation, into the character’s mindset.
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“I’m Shiva the God of Death!”
Given their dual tributes at Telluride this year, it seems perfectly reasonable to revisit this gem of a scene:
And lest fellow tributee Pierre Étaix feel left out, a nod to his work after the jump.
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TELLURIDE: Sony Classics, IFC and Searchlight party into the night
I opted out of tonight’s screening of “Butter” largely because — sorry to say — the Galaxy theater is just too cramped and uncomfortable and hot to fully enjoy a film experience. For me, anyway. I tend to be a furnace regardless, but they need to pump some AC into that joint. By some accounts, though, it was a delightful if somewhat skippable affair. Instead I took to the party circuit, as three studios chose Saturday to hold their talent-studded affairs.The night started with Sony Pictures Classics’ annual dinner gathering at La Marmotte. In attendance were “A Dangerous Method” scribe Christopher Hampton, “A Separation” writer/director Asghar Farhadi and “In Darkness” director Agnieszka Holland. Pay close attention to those last two, as they will no doubt figure into this year’s race for Best Foreign Language Film.
I had a few choice moments with Hampton to discuss his collaboration with David Cronenberg. Unfortunately, I haven’t yet seen the film (Sunday night seems to make the most sense), but I did ask about his take on some reviewers (including our own Guy Lodge) preferring a bit of overt and edgy Cronenberg for a clearly sexual project. His response was that austerity was preferred considering a commitment to truth, and indeed, it seems to me a more cerebral approach would be, at the very least, more realistic for a film such as this. I’ll have an opinion soon enough.
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TELLURIDE: Clooney takes center stage
George Clooney has been tapped this year for one of Telluride’s three big tributes, and it’s certainly the biggest of the trio. Whether it’s press and patrons schmoozing with the star at yesterday’s Patron Brunch, whispers around town (“Did you hear George Clooney is here?” “I really hope ‘The Ides of March’ is a TBA.”) or the ecstatic response to Alexander Payne’s “The Descendants,” this mountain burgh has been taken by Clooney fever.It’s a curious thing to see happen here at a festival that is so smooth and cool and not at all phased by celebrity. Clooney changes all those rules, though. And most of it has to be owed to his trooper disposition and charming charisma. He’s always “on,” and just about everyone wants to just throw back a few with the guy. Men want to be him, women want to…well, you get my drift.
I tend to stay away from the tributes and spend that time taking in a film at Telluride. But since the actor is set to be feted later this evening, I thought I’d at least dedicate some space to his still in-progress career and the highlights that have brought him to this point.
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TELLURIDE: Herzog’s meditative and crucial ‘Into the Abyss’ is best of the fest so far
The weather is keeping up here, with rain only threatening a drop or two here and there. As festival co-director Julie Huntsinger quipped at yesterday’s press orientation, there must have been a deal struck with the devil somewhere along the line, because the weather is always miserable here for the three or four weeks leading up to the fest, and then, on the Thursday when most arrive in town, the clouds part and the air clears and the Show is on.After sitting down for a few choice minutes with Glenn Close earlier this morning, I hoofed it up the hill a bit to the Palm theater and my first screening of the day, and, well, it was impactful, to say the least.
Werner Herzog is a movie deity to me. “Aguirre, the Wrath of God” is a top 15 all time kind of film in my view. His work with Klaus Kinski so many years ago is the sort of cinema madness that digs under your skin and I just love it. But his feature work as of late has left me a bit cold, while his documentary work — an obvious passion for him these days — hasn’t registered for me despite much acclaim.
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INTERVIEW: ‘Albert Nobbs’ producer, screenwriter and actress Glenn Close
Telluride Film FestivalActress Glenn Close has known the title character of “Albert Nobbs” for nearly 30 years. Ever since she was first asked to audition for the play “The Singular Life of Albert Nobbs” in 1982, which brought her to George Moore’s short story about a woman living as a male waiter in male-dominated 19th Century Ireland. That’s a long time for any performer to live with a role, and it takes a special breed of stick-to-it-tiveness to see the journey she’s seen for the character all the way to the big screen.
“It’s always been a little surreal,” the actress says at the Chuck Jones Theater after introducing the film to its second crowd here at Telluride. “Every morning when I would go to the set, I couldn’t believe that, something that’s been in my head so long, people were actually working on this movie.”
The role originally sparked Close’s interest because of the inherent challenges it presented. Servants in that era, she notes, were not supposed to look people in the eye. They were meant to be invisible. And here is a character, invisible in her own right by virtue of her secret, also in a profession where she must be under the radar. It wasn’t an opportunity to be emotionally expressive for much of the narrative, but Close says that was an attraction to the part.
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TELLURIDE: ‘Descendants’ Q&A
Thanks to Sasha Stone at Awards Daily for grabbing video of yesterday’s post-screening Q&A with “The Descendants” stars George Clooney and Shailene Woodley and director Alexander Payne, which I had to miss:
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TELLURIDE: Close’s passion for ‘Nobbs’ unmistakable, though maybe blinds to flaws
Hats off to Glenn Close. Really. When you’ve lived with and loved a role and a story for as long as she’s hung on to “Albert Nobbs” (which she first performed as a play way back in 1982), you deserve a pat on the back.She’s been trying to get this made as a film ever since she stumbled onto the George Moore short story, and even saw things fall apart 10 years ago when she was oh so close (no pun intended). Finally, it’s a reality, thanks to filmmaker Rodrigo Garcia. But with great passion can come, often, blinders to the flaws of a story.
The film tells the tale of Albert Nobbs, who appears to merely be a “kind little man,” a hotel waiter in 19th-century Ireland. Or so it would seem. In reality, Nobbs is an older woman posing as a man in a male-dominated society, glacially putting together the funds to live her dream: purchasing a small shop and selling, oh, tobacco will do.