They Shoot Oscar Prognosticators, Don't They?: Telluride Day One
By J. Don Birnam
September 3, 2016
BoxOfficeProphets.com
First: The Buzz Around Town
The two biggest films to make a splash in North America last night were La La Land and Sully. Only one of those is a serious Oscar contender, and I’m sure you know which one.
Though I’ve yet to see Damien Chazelle’s second film (I hope to after I finish writing this), the noise around town is of mid-screening standing ovations. Some people are calling it the best musical in a decade, and others have already crowned it the presumptive Best Picture front-runner (a label that, years of Oscar watching tells us, is worse than a scarlet A on your chest). I will reserve further judgment until I see it but let’s just say that that is the movie everyone is talking about.
People also gave warm welcomes to Tom Hanks and Clint Eastwood for the movie about the miraculous landing in the Hudson River in 2009. I just saw the film and enjoyed it, but despite the festival organizers’ protestations to the contrary, it is clear that they picked this out of their longtime relationship with the film’s producer Frank Marshall, and for no other reason. The movie is pretty good, by the way (most movies with either Eastwood or Hanks are, after all). Still, it is impossible not to note that the first logo you see on screen is not A24 or Film Four, but Warner Bros. This is just not the normal pick here. That’s fine as far as it goes - the movie is an ode to human cooperation and resilience, to the idea that together we can achieve outcomes (think The Martian) - but let’s not kid ourselves that even the snotty Telluride festival people are beyond the reach of celebrity.
Other movies have debuted to acclaim as well, including the moving Moonlight and Manchester by the Sea (more on that one below). I’ve been hearing mixed things about many others, such as the boxing drama Bleed for This, and Bryan Cranston’s new film Wakefield.
Initial Reactions to Screenings
Aside from my thoughts about Sully, I’ll share quick reactions to the other three I’ve seen so far. The least liked has been Rooney Mara’s new movie Una, about a woman who has a disturbing infatuation for a man who abused her as a 13-year old girl. Mara is pretty good (I didn’t find her as moving as others have, though), but the film is overall uneven. It’s clearly based on a play and the staging of it is choppy and contrived, and some of the situations appear unrealistic or silly. The Telluride crowd, moreover, did not react well to it, with several walkouts during my screening.
But the two movies I’ve seen that people will be talking about for a while are Moonlight and Manchester by the Sea. The first is about an African-American man as he grows from boyhood into teenage years and then adulthood, all the while grappling with his sexuality, his mother’s drug addiction, and other challenges of growing up in his community. It is a slow burn movie with great payoffs - the last lines are haunting and gripping, at least if you’ve ever experienced those mixed feelings growing up gay. Naomie Harris, the lead’s mother, deserves a Supporting Actress nod, and a more progressive Academy could shower it with praise. As it is, I think this will dominate the Indie Spirits but its Oscar future remains uncertain to me - which is of course to say that the movie is fantastic.
Meanwhile, after a tribute to Casey Affleck and his generous career, we saw the new Kenneth Lonergan movie about a man (Affleck) who is thrust into caring for his teenage nephew when his brother passes away. It is hard to distill to a few sentences such a complex and touching movie that is about many things and nothing at the same time. Superfluously it is about coping with loss, but deep down it’s about a lot more. It’s about what makes use human, what makes us family, what types of bonds connect us, and what ghosts we carry with us. The movie has a haunting score, Oscar-caliber performances from Affleck but also by Michelle Williams in a supporting role as his estranged wife, and even by Kyle Chandler, the deceased brother who appears in flashbacks.
Like Moonlight, this film is a slow burn movie. Not much happens; there is a lot of dialogue. It is not a movie for audiences used to explosions, and it is not a movie for AMPAS members used to being told what to think on a plate. It is a complex movie that will stay with you. At the very least, the screenplay and Affleck are headed for Oscar nods, but if there is taste left in that group, Best Picture, Director, Cinematography, Score, and Supporting Actress nods are not out of the question.
Still to come
Tonight, Arrival makes its awaited debut here, and we still have to look forward to Pablo Larrain’s poem about the famous Chilean poet, Neruda. I haven’t even gotten around to the more foreign films like Frantz, Toni Erdmann, or Romania’s Graduation. Some of these may have to wait for TIFF.
Still, I stood in line this morning waiting to get into to the Casey Affleck documentary next to the wife of the documentarian who has End of Eden at the festival, a movie about the discovery of the last Amazonian tribes to come into contact with Western Civilization. I will try to catch it, as reviews seem positive. Speaking of documentaries, the same goes for The Ivory Game, about the poaching of elephant tusks. Heck, I even met the producer behind the Disney short that Disney is pushing in that category this year - Inner Workings.
There is obviously much still to come, and the organizers have even hinted at a complete surprise showing sometime Monday.
Stay tuned.