ReportWire

Tag: Telluride 2025

  • Telluride Awards Analysis: ‘Hamnet,’ ‘Sentimental Value’ Join ‘Sinners’ Atop List of Oscar Frontrunners

    The 52nd Telluride Film Festival is now in the books. Margot Robbie, Ryan Coogler, Oprah Winfrey, David Oyelowo, Rian Johnson, Janet Yang, Kathy Kennedy and Frank Marshall were among those who came just to watch movies. Screenings were introduced with a group meditation (Chloé Zhao), a song (Jesse Plemons) and a wave (man of few words Bruce Springsteen). Adam Sandler and Emma Stone posed for photos in the streets with ecstatic local schoolkids. And the Oscar race came into clearer focus.

    Below, you can read my biggest awards-related takeaways from the fest.

    Four high-profile films that already have U.S. distribution had their world premieres in Telluride: Ballad of a Small Player (Netflix), Bugonia (Focus), Hamnet (Focus) and Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere (20th Century). How did they go over?

    Focus has plenty of cause for celebration, as both Bugonia and Hamnet played like gangbusters and look almost certain to land Oscar noms for best picture and plenty else.

    Zhao’s Hamnet, an adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s best-selling 2020 novel of the same name, which centers on the Shakespeare family and its tragic loss that allegedly inspired the play Hamlet, garnered rave reviews (it’s at 100 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and 95 percent on Metacritic), including particularly strong notices for leading lady Jessie Buckley, who plays William’s wife Agnes. Some are already proclaiming it to be the best picture Oscar frontrunner. I certainly think it will be a big factor in the season. I would just caution that numerous Academy members quietly expressed to me their feeling that the film has tonal issues — some called it “trauma porn” — and that it has been so hyped by critics that other Academy members will inevitably feel disappointed when they catch up with it. We’ll see.

    As for Bugonia, which reunites filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos and actress/producer Stone in a dark comedy about people who “do their own research,” reactions have been nearly as enthusiastic. It played, for me, like a high-end Black Mirror episode — I mean that as a major compliment — and it also has been likened to a prior off-the-wall Lanthimos/Stone collab, Poor Things. Like that 2023 film, it could land multiple acting noms (Stone and Plemons are great), if less recognition for below-the-line work.

    Scott Cooper’s Springsteen, meanwhile, is not what a lot of people expected it to be — a jukebox musical in the vein of Bohemian Rhapsody, Rocketman or Elvis — but rather an examination of the causes and effects of a deep depression that engulfed The Boss (The Bear’s Jeremy Allen White) in the early 1980s and resulted in his iconoclastic 1982 album Nebraska. It remains to be seen if/how that will impact the film’s box office appeal, but reviews have been solid, and White and Jeremy Strong, who plays Springsteen’s manager, stand a real shot at lead and supporting actor Oscar noms, respectively.

    Then there’s Edward Berger’s Ballad of a Small Player, which comes a year after Conclave and three years after All Quiet on the Western Front, Berger films that were of a large scale and about matters of social import (and landed a bunch of Oscar noms, including best picture). Ballad is neither of those things — it’s about a gambling addict in present-day Macao who grows increasingly desperate as his luck runs out — and the no-holds-barred performance of its lead actor, Colin Farrell, is its best bet for a nom.

    Of films that came directly from world premiering in Venice to make their North American debut in the Rockies, did anything pop?

    Yes, La Grazia (Mubi) and Jay Kelly (Netflix). And it was striking to me how differently people reacted to those two films in Telluride versus in Venice.

    Ironically, La Grazia, the Italian film that opened both fests, was far better received in America. The seventh collab between filmmaker Paolo Sorrentino and actor Toni Servillo, it centers on an Italian president during the last six months of his term. (Maybe Americans were just happy to be reminded that dignified leaders still exist?) I suspect that Italy will eventually submit it for the best international feature Oscar, as it previously did two other Sorrentino films, 2013’s The Great Beauty (which won) and 2022’s The Hand of God, and also that Servillo could make a run at a long-overdue first Oscar nom.

    A similar thing happened with Noah Baumbach’s Jay Kelly, a film about a movie star (George Clooney) who experiences an existential crisis that forces him and his “team” to question their life choices. It was written off on the Lido, but rebounded in a major way — along with its Rotten Tomatoes score — in Telluride, where Baumbach was fêted with a career tribute, Billy Crudup’s big scene received mid-movie applause at each screening, Adam Sandler cemented his status as a frontrunner for the best supporting actor Oscar, and Clooney, who was absent due to illness, was talked up by his collaborators. I think the film is tailor-made for the Academy.

    The reverse sort of happened with Oscar winner Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein, which played through the roof in Venice — it got a 14-minute standing ovation — and then came to Telluride as a surprise late-night screening, and engendered a more muted response. It’s certainly well made, with a knockout score by the great Alexandre Desplat that the Academy’s music branch will surely nominate. But, even given how much people love del Toro, I think that the film’s bloated story and runtime (two-and-a-half hours, versus 70 minutes for the 1931 original) will make it hard for it to crack the top Oscar categories.

    What about films from earlier fests, including Sundance, Berlin and Cannes?

    In Telluride, as far as I could discern, only one film accumulated as many hardcore fans as Hamnet, and that was the Norwegian dramedy Sentimental Value (Neon), which reunites Oscar nominee The Worst Person in the World’s filmmaker Joachim Trier and actress Renate Reinsve, and which won Cannes’ Grand Prix (second-place award). Festival attendees ate it up, to the extent that I think it deserves to be grouped with Coogler’s Sinners (Warner Bros.) and Hamnet in the top tier of best picture contenders.

    Like Jay Kelly, Sentimental Value is about a filmmaker who neglected his family in order to focus on his career — a character played by the veteran Swedish thespian Stellan Skarsgård, who will probably duke it out with Sandler for the best supporting actor Oscar. Unlike Jay Kelly, Sentimental Value also devotes a significant amount of attention to the filmmaker’s children, played by Reinsve (who I see as neck and neck with Buckley for best actress at the moment) and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas. Elle Fanning also stars.

    Neon also had two other films — both political thrillers — that were celebrated at Cannes and then proved popular in Telluride, as well.

    Iranian dissident Jafar Panahi’s It Was Just an Accident, which underscores how the brutality of Iran’s current regime haunts the republic’s citizens, won Cannes’ Palme d’Or over Sentimental Value, and was widely admired here as well. (Panahi, visiting the U.S. for the first time in nearly 20 years, enlisted the audience at one screening to join him in recording a video singing “Happy Birthday” to his script consultant, Mehdi Mahmoudian, who is currently incarcerated in Iran, as Panahi himself was until recently.) Obviously, Iran will not submit It Was Just an Accident for the best international feature Oscar, but France, from which the film drew much of its financing, might. More on that in a moment.

    People also couldn’t stop raving about Wagner Moura, the Brazilian best known for TV’s Narcos, who was awarded Cannes’ best actor prize for his tour-de-force turn in Kleber Mendonça Filho’s The Secret Agent. Moura should not be underestimated in the best actor Oscar race, and Brazil, which won best international feature last year with I’m Still Here, might well make another run for it with this smart and funny epic.

    The film that is probably an even bet with It Was Just an Accident to be the French entry is Nouvelle Vague (Netflix), Richard Linklater’s black-and-white homage to the French New Wave. Cineastes loved it in Cannes — I was shocked that it wasn’t awarded a single prize there — and again in Telluride, ahead of which I discussed it with Linklater.

    Other titles that came to Telluride and held their own, even if they didn’t set the world on fire, were, via Cannes, The History of Sound (A24), The Mastermind (Mubi), A Private Life (Sony Classics), Pillion (A24) and Urchin (1-2 Special); via Berlin, Blue Moon (Sony Classics); and via Sundance, If I Had Legs I’d Kick You (A24).

    What about the sales titles?

    THR exclusively broke the news of the two deals that have come out of the fest thus far: Netflix bought Oscar nominee Joshua Seftel’s All the Empty Rooms, a powerful doc short about an effort to memorialize children killed in school shootings; and Amazon/MGM nabbed Oscar winner Morgan Neville’s energizing doc feature about Paul McCartney’s post-Beatles life, Man on the Run.

    Of the films that are still on the table, I’ve heard a lot of enthusiasm for Tuner, the narrative directorial debut of Navalny Oscar winner Daniel Roher, which stars Leo Woodall and Dustin Hoffman; one Academy member even likened it to Whiplash. Hamlet, Aneil Karia‘s reimagining of the Shakespeare play in present-day London, is all about Riz Ahmed’s compelling performance as the title character, and will probably find a buyer. And Philippa Lowthorpe’s H Is for Hawk features a committed turn by the great Claire Foy as a falconer, but is way too long at 130 minutes; I suspect that any potential partner will insist on tightening it up.

    Among the distributorless documentaries that played at the fest, the most talked about was surely Ivy Meeropol’s Ask E. Jean, a portrait of the former advice columnist E. Jean Carroll, who accused President Donald Trump of sexual assault and twice won legal judgments against him — but is any potential distributor willing to risk the wrath of Trump? I hope and suspect so.

    Mark Obenhaus and Citizenfour Oscar winner Laura Poitras’ Cover-Up profiles another muckraker, Seymour Hersh, and won a lot of admirers both in Venice, where it debuted, and in Telluride. I heard a lot of chatter about The White Helmets Oscar winner Orlando von Einsiedel’s tearjerker The Cycle of Love. And if the turnout of doc branch Academy members at screenings of Robb Moss’ The Bend in the River is any indication, it, too, will soon find a home.

    The bottom line

    Much of the awards-industrial complex, including yours truly, has just returned home from Telluride, and is laying low today and tomorrow before decamping to Canada for the 50th Toronto International Film Festival on Thursday. There, many titles that played in Telluride will resurface. A few that debuted in Venice but then skipped Telluride will have their North American premieres, including The Smashing Machine (A24) and The Testament of Ann Lee (still seeking U.S. distribution). And most excitingly, the Canadians will host the world premieres of a bunch of potential awards contenders, including Rental Family (Searchlight), The Lost Bus (Apple), Hedda (Amazon/MGM), Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery (Netflix), Roofman (Paramount) and Christy (still seeking U.S. distribution).

    There are 194 days, or six months and 13 days, between now and the 98th Academy Awards on Sunday, March 15, 2026. A lot can still happen. Stay tuned.

    Scott Feinberg

    Source link

  • Telluride: ‘Jay Kelly’ Team on Clooney and Stardom, Sandler’s Soulful Turn and Crudup’s Crazy Scene

    Due to illness, George Clooney couldn’t make it to this year’s Telluride Film Festival for the North American premiere of Jay Kelly, a film that centers on a movie star (Clooney) who experiences an existential crisis that prompts him to take a spur-of-the-moment trip to Europe to see his daughter and accept a career tribute from a film festival, and his “team,” who are expected to drop everything to support him. But a large coterie of Clooney’s collaborators on the film were in town — among them co-writer/director Noah Baumbach, actors Adam Sandler, Laura Dern, Billy Crudup and Patrick Wilson, and composer Nicholas Britell — and basked in the warm reception and awards chatter that greeted the Netflix title at its four festival screenings, two of which followed career tributes to Baumbach.

    On Sunday, following one of those screenings, I sat down with the aforementioned group for a wide-ranging Q&A. We discussed why Baumbach and Emily Mortimer wrote the part of Kelly with Clooney in mind, and why it was a gutsy decision for the A-lister to agree to take it on; what Sandler drew upon to formulate his portrayal of Kelly’s manager, Ron, for which the Sand-man is receiving some of the best reviews of his career and looks like a strong bet to land his first Oscar nom; how Crudup, who plays a former acting school classmate of Kelly’s, Timothy, prepared for his brief but complex scene in the film, which elicited mid-movie applause at every screening; plus more.

    A transcript of the conversation, lightly edited for clarity and brevity, appears below.

    * * *

    Noah, what was the root of the idea for this film, which you co-wrote with Emily Mortimer? Also, some might wonder: why center it on a famous movie star rather than, say, a famous writer-director who also occasionally receives career tributes of his own?

    BAUMBACH Well, we needed some barrier. [laughs] I don’t know, I found it compelling, this notion of a movie star who has some kind of crisis and goes on a journey — an actual journey into the world, and also a journey into himself. I had a bunch of ideas, and I didn’t know quite what to do with all of them, and I was talking to Emily about it. She asked all the right questions, and then, just on a whim, I was like, “Do you want to do this with me? If it goes south, we can always just stop.” But it was such a great collaboration. It was a year or so that we really just worked on and shaped the movie.

    My understanding is that you two wrote it with George in mind for the title role, which begs the question: what would you have done if George had said no? I can understand why he might have: Jay Kelly, like George, is an actor from Kentucky, often described as the last “real” movie star, and shares a number of other things in common with him — but Jay also has some attributes that aren’t great, and some people might assume that Jay is George.

    BAUMBACH Well, not to mention what he would have to do in the movie. I mean, it’s a character who’s running from himself, and he’s very good at deflecting and hiding, but as we see in the movie, these memories come at him. We described the memories as “headwinds.” The actor who was playing Jay Kelly had to then start to reveal more of himself, which requires vulnerability. But George said yes within 24 hours, and I knew immediately, when he said yes, that he was going to be amazing, because he knew what was in front of him and what he was going to have to do. To answer your other question, I don’t know [what we would have done if George had said no]. I think we wouldn’t have made the movie. The audience needed to have a history with the actor playing Jay Kelly, the same way the people in the movie have a relationship with Jay Kelly. What George does, as he starts to reveal more and more, is just beautiful to watch.

    There’s another actor in this film who we’ve known and loved for decades — actually several — and not all of this guy’s movies have gotten the critical respect that Jay Kelly is getting, but he’s brought a lot of people a lot of joy over a lot of years—

    SANDLER Patrick Wilson! [laughs]

    But I’m not sure that he has gotten the credit that he deserves for stretching himself as much as he has in films like Punch-Drunk Love, Spanglish, Reign Over Me, Noah’s film The Meyerowitz Stories, Uncut Gems and Hustle. Noah, for the part of Ron, why did you go back to Adam Sandler?

    BAUMBACH Adam and I fell in love with each other on The Meyerowitz Stories — we became very close; our families are close and love each other; and my son, Rohmer, who’s here, basically lives at Adam’s house half the year. The character of Ron, I wrote for Adam — even though you might think that Adam is more like Jay Kelly [because he’s a movie star] — because of the way Adam is in the world, with his heart and his generosity and his loyalty. The people who work with him have been with him since the beginning, and the way he is with his family is so beautiful. I felt like, “Well, that’s what Ron is like, and Adam, in a way, could play something that is close to him, but in disguise.” That was really exciting to me, and also a way to pay tribute to the Adam I know and love.

    SANDLER That’s beautiful. Thank you.

    Adam, I’d love to hear what your reaction was when you saw what Noah had written for you. But also, having been in the business for as long as you have, you’ve had an up-close view of the actor/manager relationship, with all of its friend/employee complexities, and I wondered if that particularly informed the way you approached this guy?

    SANDLER First of all, thank you to Noah for this part — Noah, you’re a great man, and all of us thank you. What a guy he is. He writes the most beautiful lines, and we get to say them, so thank you. Yes, over the years I’ve had a team, similar to Jay Kelly. I have a manager; I have a publicist; I have an agent; I have my makeup girl, Anne — she’s not here tonight, but imagine being her! Imagine every morning going, “What the fuck can I do?!” But I really loved being this guy who just loves his client and feels that they’re in it together — he feels the same successes, and when something goes wrong he feels the same pain. My team feels that way also. When things go wrong, they are definitely shook up. When we have a nice moment, they’re as excited as I am. So I connected with my guy, absolutely.

    Adam, as Noah alluded to, you’ve been exceptionally the opposite of Jay Kelly, in terms of casting people that you’ve known forever in your films and being very present with your family — I think your whole family was in Happy Gilmore 2 earlier this year! But even with that being the case, has being part of this movie, watching it and thinking about it, made you look at your role as a movie star, or movie stardom in general, any differently than you had before?

    SANDLER I think what the movie is saying is that not just movie stars, but anybody who wants to do their best, has to put time in to their work, and when you do that, you are away from your family, and you know your family’s still going on, and you want to get to them. I definitely have schlepped my family all over the world wherever I go, but there are times when they can’t come. Jay Kelly not getting to be with his family, and looking back and knowing how painful it was for them, is crushing. Even though I’m with my family a lot, I still have moments where it kills me being away. We all do.

    Another person who has some history with Noah — namely, the movie Marriage Story, for which she won an Academy Award — is Laura Dern. Laura, similar to Adam, you’ve been at the highest levels of this business for so many years. Has this film made you think differently about stardom?

    DERN What I love — and Adam spoke so eloquently to it — is the question of the cost of any of our journeys in life, what we might miss. So before Jay Kelly can get to, “I want another one,” there’s the cost for Ron, what he’s lost in life by being of service to Jay. And so my character [Kelly’s publicist] is helping Ron’s journey of getting to the place where he’s also willing to get off the train. And getting to stare into the eyes and work with the face that Anne gets to make up every day was the dream of my life!

    SANDLER We had fun.

    DERN And being back with Noah was a dream because he creates a home, makes you feel the safest you’ve ever been, and gifts you with these people you get to dive right into, even if they’re the very people you’ve been surrounded by your whole life. I, too, have had the good fortune of being surrounded by publicists.

    Billy, it seems to me like your assignment must have fet very daunting: you have to come in and, in a relatively short amount of time, provide the motivation for Jay’s existential crisis. You crushed the Method acting scene. Can you share how you prepared for it, and if that process was any different from the process that you use when, as is often the case, you are the guy who’s at the center of a project?

    CRUDUP Well, thank you. What a gift it was to have Noah come to me with this composition. You have to understand, I’ve been in New York for over 30 years now, and Noah is a fixture of the independent cinema scene there, and every one of my friends has worked with him at some point or another. I was desperate to be in one of Noah’s movies — I was ready for anything — and then I read this and I was like, “Dude, that’s a very hard thing to do! Something I’m not exactly sure how to do. And it seems like the rest of your movie is predicated on that being successful.” [laughs] So, “Are you sure?” was really my question to him, and we had a lot of conversations. Most of my friends are actors, and result-oriented acting — where you just think, “Oh, this is the scene where my character cries” — is anathema to everything that we do. I thought, “That’s going to be a problem.” Noah was very considerate and understanding that I was desperate to work with him, but that I really did not know how to pull this off. I had a whole other version that I had written down to try, and Noah entertained me. Then, about two or three weeks before we were going to shoot this scene, I noticed that the scene hadn’t changed at all, and that I was going to have to figure out some solution. So I started doing research on Method acting, and sure enough, Noah had constructed this scene in such a way that the scene actually plays itself, it leads you in the right direction. That’s a great writer. I don’t know how many takes we did, but it was probably over 50 on both sides — and there wasn’t a second of it that I wasn’t in absolute heaven.

    Patrick, your character, Ben Alcock, another movie star and client of Ron’s, is the antithesis of Jay Kelly in a number of ways. I wonder if you can talk about that, and specifically about the very memorable scene that you shared with Mr. Sandler.

    WILSON I only have two scenes, and I knew nothing about the rest of the script — I mean nothing — until I saw the movie this morning. And Ben didn’t know anything, nor did he need to know anything, so that was an interesting exercise for me, but a glorious one, because the words that I had been given said everything that I needed to know. The scene with George on the side of the road said so much about Ben’s family, his values and how he views his own career. And the scene with Adam? Just working with Adam has been this crazy dream of mine, because I don’t live in the comedy space. It was a double-whammy for me to work with Adam and Noah, two people that I revere so much. It can make you feel uncomfortable when you’re only coming in for a couple of days, but I was given such support by Noah and the crew. And then Adam, you were just so glorious on that day, and made me feel so comfortable. We did 30 different versions with shit flying off the table, and I was looking across the table at this guy who was wiped out every single take. I knew I just had to react and be open. I’ve never had a scene like that. I did have to fire an agent once years ago, but it wasn’t like that! [laughs] Anyway, I just love your [Adam’s] work, and I love your work in this movie.

    We are going to close with the great composer Nicholas Britell, who everyone knows from the theme of Succession, the scores of Moonlight, If Beale Street Could Talk and Don’t Look Up, and so much else. Nick, I was fascinated to learn that on this project, perhaps unlike any other on which you’ve worked, your music was in place before some of the scenes were even shot.

    BRITELL It’s true. This was something that I’d never done before, getting involved in a project so early. Noah and I met over two years ago, and from the script stage he and I had amazing conversations, and I started trying to imagine the feeling that the movie might have. Then I wrote three of the four main themes of the movie, and Noah invited me to come to Tuscany, and we actually played the music on set for everybody. It was such a special thing for me to sort of absorb the atmosphere. And it was important, I think, for everybody, sort of like osmosis — you feel the world that you’re going to be a part of creating. I just had a blast from start to finish.

    Scott Feinberg

    Source link

  • ‘H Is for Hawk’ Review: Claire Foy and Her Bird Fly High in a Tender but Overlong Grief Drama

    Helen (Claire Foy) is not the kind of woman to wallow in her emotions. After her beloved father (Brendan Gleeson) passes, she insists she’s not moping (“Dad would hate any kind of moping”); when loved ones ask if she’s okay, she dismisses their concerns and tells them she’s just fine.

    But a grief as large as Helen’s does not simply disappear because it’s denied language or tears. It simply finds other methods of expression. A few months after her dad’s death, Helen adopts a goshawk, one of the birds of prey she and he so used to love spotting on their bird watching expeditions, and immediately makes it her whole world.

    H Is for Hawk

    The Bottom Line

    A sensitive but slow portrayal of grief.

    Venue: Telluride Film Festival
    Cast: Claire Foy, Brendan Gleeson, Denise Gough, Sam Spruell, Emma Cunniffe, Josh Dylan, Arty Froushan, Lindsay Duncan
    Director: Philippa Lowthorpe
    Screenwriters: Emma Donoghue and Philippa Lowthorpe, based on the book by Helen Macdonald

    2 hours 8 minutes

    H Is for Hawk, directed by Philippa Lowthorpe and co-written by Lowthorpe and Emma Donoghue based on Helen Macdonald’s memoir of the same title, is the tale of that rather unusual coping mechanism. As an appreciation of birds and our connection to them, it’s engrossing and endearing — a fresher take, certainly, than yet another weepie about dog or cat owners. But as an exploration of grief, it’s hindered by a 128-minute run time that spreads its emotional potency too thin.

    Initially, Helen seems to be handling the death of her father, the photojournalist Alisdair Macdonald, as well as might reasonably be expected of anyone who’s just lost what she calls “the only person in the world who truly understood me.” She carries on with her teaching fellowship at Cambridge University, and makes plans to apply for a prestigious new job. She hangs out with her best friend, Christina (Denise Gough, here as likable as her Andor character is despicable). She even starts dating a handsome art dealer, Amar (Arty Froushan), whom she’s met on Twitter. (H Is for Hawk takes place in 2007, making them very early adopters.)

    But once Amar leaves, she falls apart, though the breakup seems less the cause of her breakdown than the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. It’s at this point that she decides to buy Mabel, the goshawk, and falls head over heels in love at first sight. To Helen, Mabel is no mere distraction, nor a pet, nor a hobby — Mabel is her hunting partner, as she’ll snap to anyone who dares invoke any of those other words.

    Especially at first, H Is for Hawk might seem a strong argument for taking up falconry. Mabel, or rather the trained bird actors who play her, is a delightfully magnetic presence on camera, with her wide alert eyes, her handsome feathers and her fascinatingly inhuman movements. DP Charlotte Bruus Christensen captures both Mabel herself and the gorgeousness of the forests and fields that she takes as her hunting grounds with a real sense of reverence. If anything, it’s harder to understand why others — like Stu (Sam Spruell), a friend and fellow falconer — had warned Helen against getting a goshawk in the first place, given that Mabel seems generally well-behaved for a wild predator.

    But the grief seeps through. The script, by Lowthorpe and Donoghue, is particularly well-observed when it comes to the almost comical oddness of mourning. In one scene, Helen tells a restaurant server her father has just died, and he returns with a plate piled high with desserts as if unsure what else to do. In another, Helen and her brother, James (Josh Dylan), choke back giggles over the funeral director’s somber question of whether they might want a “themed” coffin decorated in ridiculously tacky nature designs.

    Foy, who previously worked with Lowthorpe on Netflix’s The Crown, does an excellent job of capturing Helen’s stiff-upper-lip repression, with gestures as small as the way she brushes away the tears that occasionally leak through — as if they’re mere physical annoyances rather than reflections of inner turmoil.

    The more Helen becomes fixated on Mabel, the more she seems to dim in every other aspect of her life. She flakes on her job, ignores questions about her future, distances herself from her friends and family. On rare occasions when she’s forced to leave the house for non-Mabel reasons, she might bring Mabel with her — leading to the funny-sad sight of partygoers giving this woman with a bird a very wide berth — or else grit her teeth through an unbearable cacophony of mindless chatter and grating music.

    It’s a sensitive portrayal of a person’s slide into depression. The issue is that H Is for Hawk mistakes “gradual” for “slow.” The film feels baggy with a few too many repetitions of scenes or ideas we’ve seen already, making it hard for the film’s emotions to pick up the momentum they need; a tighter edit might have distilled those feelings down to a more powerful form.

    But then, the patience required is in keeping with Helen and her father’s favorite hobby. “Watch carefully so you remember what you’ve seen,” he tells her as they search the skies with their binoculars for interesting birds. Flashbacks to their happier days are interspersed throughout the film, triggered by details as small as the scrape on his arm that never had time to heal, or the seating arrangement in a car she’s inherited from him. Helen’s adoration for her dad casts him in a nearly angelic glow, frequently backlit by a bright white sun that might be beaming from the gates of Heaven themselves. But Gleeson’s relaxed performance nevertheless ensures he feels like a human being, rather than some sentimental symbol of parental perfection.

    The symbolism, instead, is left up to the bird. Mabel might be Helen’s dad, or Helen’s grief, or Helen herself; she’s a reminder that death comes for us all, or that nature is full of beautiful and awe-inspiring things. I found myself wondering what Mabel herself would make of all this messy human emotion. Then I caught myself, realizing I too was probably projecting too much of myself onto a bird who never asked to be here.

    Angie Han

    Source link

  • ‘Everywhere Man: The Lives and Times of Peter Asher’ Review: Documentary Traces a Remarkable Under-the-Radar Musical Legacy

    I love when a project has a title that seems just a little off but offers a purposeful piece of wordplay. 

    It doesn’t have to be distractingly askew. 

    Everywhere Man: The Lives and Times of Peter Asher

    The Bottom Line

    Overlong and uneven, but filled with musical magic.

    Venue: Telluride Film Festival 
    Directors: Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine

    1 hour 57 minutes

    Take, for example, Everywhere Man: The Lives and Times of Peter Asher, the new documentary by Dan Geller and Dayna Goldfine (Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song). It’s a title you could skim a dozen times without stopping and going, “Wait, isn’t the idiom ‘life and times’?” 

    It takes very little time into Geller and Goldfine’s slightly overstuffed and slightly imbalanced documentary to recognize what they’re doing. 

    Peter Asher is one of several figures who served as the Forrest Gump or Zelig or Chance the Gardener of the counterculture — people who pop up in the background of seemingly every photograph taken across several decades, whose names grace the liner notes of every significant album, whose accomplishments merit acknowledgment in countless award show speeches.

    If you’re a devotee of Swinging London of the ’60s or the Sunset Strip folk rock scene of the ’70s, he’s already an icon. But even if you’re not, his integrality to countless pop culture narratives beggars belief, because he has, indeed, lived many lives both in the spotlight and immediately adjacent. The pleasure of Everywhere Man is that every time you think you’ve seen the wildest piece of Peter Asher adjacency, the next chapter proves you wrong. Kinda.

    The problem of having multiple lives, though, is that not all lives are created equal. At 117 minutes, Everywhere Man is a sprawling film, one that goes from exciting and unpredictable to the stuff of countless rock-n-roll biopics, but the directors treat everything equally — or else lack the material to make the second half of the documentary anywhere near as engaging as the first.

    The bold-type version of Asher’s career is that he went from one-half of the British Invasion duo Peter & Gordon — you’ll recognize “World Without Love” — to the legendary producer who steered artists like James Taylor and Linda Ronstadt to the biggest hits of their careers. He has called himself one of the inspirations for Austin Powers, and his list of celebrity friends includes … everybody.

    But it’s the little details and not the broad strokes that inspired Asher to write and perform the one-man show — or “musical memoir” — that Geller and Goldfine use as the spine of the documentary. 

    To hint at only a few of the head-scratching biographical oddities of Asher’s lives: His father was the physician responsible for identifying and naming Munchausen syndrome. He and his ginger siblings had acting careers promoted with the unlikely headshot promo “All Have Red Hair.” He contributed, directly or indirectly, to the relationships between Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithfull and John Lennon and Yoko Ono. He helped introduce Taylor to Carole King and helped convince Carole King to perform as a solo artist. 

    The first half of the documentary is a delightful and thoroughly unlikely progression through one of the most colorful artistic moments in recent history, steered by Asher’s own memories and appearances by friends including Twiggy, Eric Idle and many more. The music is wonderful and the archival footage a blast. 

    I compared Asher to Zelig and Forrest Gump and Chance the Gardener, but that’s reductive. Some parts of his rise were absolutely based on happenstance and circumstance: His sister was dating Paul McCartney (interviewed here in audio only), who allowed Peter & Gordon to record “World Without Love,” a Lennon-McCartney composition that Lennon hated. But however self-deprecating Asher often is, it’s clear that he was more than just in the right place at the right time. He was talented, and there were bigger-picture societal trends that he helped bring together. 

    Interestingly, as the documentary goes from the parts of Asher’s biography that might be interpreted as luck-driven to the chapters in which his genius is most obvious, it becomes less entertaining, albeit never unentertaining. 

    Taylor is a guarded, but appreciative interview subject, and if you’re interested in his growth from the first artist signed to the Beatles’ fledgling Apple label into one of the most significant figures in the ’70s folk movement, this is good stuff. Is it better than the 2022 documentary (Carole King & James Taylor: Just Call Out My Name)that gives Taylor and King full focus? Probably not.

    Ronstadt is a guarded, but appreciative interview subject, and if you’re interested in her growth from eclectic vocalist with a reputation for being “difficult” to one of the most versatile and beloved stars of the ’70s and ’80s, this is good stuff. Is it better than the 2019 documentary that gives Ronstadt full focus? Probably not. 

    The stories of his production innovations and inspirations are nerdy and cool, especially the talk of Asher being one of the first producers to insist on giving back-of-the-album credit to the individual musicians assisting bigger solo artists. But the stories of wild tours, drug use and the like are strictly old hat. Asher’s eagerness to talk about the good times and his immediate reticence to engage on the disintegration of his first marriage (the topic of a James Taylor song, “Her Town Too”) made me wonder what else was being left out.

    It’s also odd that after all of the depth given to Asher’s personal relationships with the Beatles and Taylor and Ronstadt, we reach the ’80s and ’90s and the documentary is pretty much, “And then he worked with Diana Ross and Cher and Neil Diamond and Billy Joel,” who are all absent from the documentary.

    Everywhere Man simply falls victim to Asher living such a conventionally impressive life after having already lived several unconventionally remarkable lives. What a pity!

    Daniel Fienberg

    Source link

  • Telluride: Jafar Panahi on Hand, George Clooney Not, as Fest Kicks Off with Patrons Brunch and ‘La Grazia’ Preview

    The 52nd Telluride Film Festival kicked off on Friday with the annual Patrons Brunch, which brings together filmmakers, journalists and the fest’s highest-spending passholders for bacon, eggs and mingling at a private residence high above the center of town.

    Among those present were Jafar Panahi, the Iranian dissident whose It Was Just an Accident (Neon) won Cannes’ Palme d’Or in May, and who this festival helped to bring to the U.S. for the first time in 20 years; E. Jean Carroll, the former advice columnist who later won legal judgments against Pres. Donald Trump, who took a train from New York to attend the world premiere of the documentary feature Ask E. Jean (still seeking U.S. distribution); and two Skarsgårds, Stellan, here with Sentimental Value (Neon), and Alexander, here with Pillion (A24), who told me they will be seeing each other’s movies for the first time here at the fest.

    Topics of conversation ranged widely. There was speculation about what Friday afternoon’s Patrons Preview screening would be (it turned out to be the North American premiere of Paolo Sorrentino’s La Grazia, which played very well in the Werner Herzog Theater, led by a great Tony Servillo turn); whether or not Jay Kelly star George Clooney would make it to the fest even though a severe sinus infection caused him to miss festivities earlier this week at the Venice Film Festival (unfortunately he won’t, we have learned); and whether or not Bruce Springsteen, the inspiration for Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere (Searchlight), would be at the fest in support of that film (the festival confirms: he will!).

    Elsewhere, Ballad of a Small Player (Netflix) star Colin Farrell charmed all comers; Fingernails costars Riz Ahmed, here with Hamlet (still seeking U.S. distribution), and Jessie Buckley, here with Hamnet (Focus), caught up; producer Teddy Schwarzman talked up the two movies he has at the fest, Train Dreams (Netflix) and Tuner (still seeking U.S. distribution); and the trio of Sentimental Value actresses, Elle Fanning, Renate Reinsve and Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas, all first-time attendees of the fest, hung out together. Fanning said she would later attend the Merle Haggard documentary Highway 99 A Double Album (still seeking U.S. distribution), which her boyfriend worked on as a producer.

    Meanwhile, two people on polar-opposite sides of the political spectrum chatted beside each other — longtime New Yorker editor David Remnick, who is featured in The New Yorker at 100 (Netflix), and CNBC’s Squawk Box host Joe Kernen, who attends the fest each year with his family. And Annette Insdorf, the Columbia University professor and author who has been attending the fest since 1979, told me that this year, for the first time, she has a film of her own in the fest — indeed, she served as a producer of the documentary Elie Wiesel: Soul on Fire (Panorama).

    Scott Feinberg

    Source link

  • Telluride: Richard Linklater on ‘Nouvelle Vague,’ Selling It to Netflix and France’s Oscar Choice

    With the 52nd Telluride Film Festival set to kick off in the Rockies on Friday, The Hollywood Reporter caught up with Richard Linklater, the veteran filmmaker who is the only director with multiple films in this year’s lineup: Nouvelle Vague, a black-and-white homage to the French New Wave, which Netflix will release in theaters Oct. 31 and on its platform Nov. 14; and Blue Moon, a portrait of Lorenz Hart on the opening night of Oklahoma!, the musical co-composed by his former collaborator, Richard Rodgers, which Sony Classics will release in theaters Oct. 17. The wide-ranging conversation appears transcribed below, lightly edited for clarity and brevity.

    * * *

    Can you recall when you discovered the French New Wave and what it meant to you?

    I think I saw Breathless for the first time in 1982. That was one of the first official Nouvelle Vague films that I saw. Then I read a book on the New Wave. And I really loved the spirit of it all. I think I internalized that, the spirit of that time. To me, the Nouvelle Vague will always be about personal films and freedom of expression — in other words, you can make a film about anything. [François] Truffaut wrote wonderfully about this in the mid-’50s, when he was still a critic making shorts. He was like, “The film of the future will be an act of love. You can make it about a love affair or your childhood.” He was really predicting his own future. And that was true to all of them. They made very different films, but the inspiration was similar. Like, “Hey, we’re going to do what interests us. We’ll do twists on genres and filmmakers we love and all that.”

    You’ve said that it was 13 years between having the idea for Nouvelle Vague and finishing the film. What sparked the idea, and why did it take 13 years?

    Vince and Holly Palmo, my longtime friends and cinephile collaborators, said, “Hey, we’re working on this thing about the French New Wave, about the making of Breathless.” I’m like, “Really? Well, shit, let me read that.” And then I saw what they were trying to do. This is a very well-documented era. You have a lot of photos, a lot of documentaries, a lot of memoirs — and, once we got closer to production, we had camera reports, so I could tell you how many takes they did of everything. But yeah, it really starts with that script, and then we played with it over the years, and honed it into what it could be. It seemed like a really difficult film to ever get made. I tried to get it made about 10 years ago. I sent it out a little bit, and it didn’t seem like the time was right. I was doing other things, too.

    Well, that’s interesting, because I was going to ask you if you would have made this film if Godard was still alive — and 10 years ago, he was. He died in 2022. So it sounds like the answer is yes?

    Yeah. I was trying to, before he passed away. I remember I was in New Orleans doing Hit Man when he died. I was like, “I’ve been dreading this day for many, many years.” But then it kind of re-energized the project in a way. I think it helped get me financing in France. It was like, “Oh, yeah. Now that he’s gone, it’s time to pay tribute.” And by that point they were all gone. Jacques Rozier died in 2023, and I think he was the last one. Everyone in the movie’s gone except the assistant editor. If it was 10 years ago, a lot of them would’ve been alive still, but there has been a big attrition rate.

    Would it have been exciting or daunting for you if they had been able to see what you were up to?

    I flatter myself to think they would have been on set with a smile on their face. I think they would’ve thought it was pretty funny. Like, “Who’s this American?!” But I don’t know. When we made it, I worked to earn everybody’s respect. Everyone liked the script so much. They were like, “Oh, it’s really accurate.” I’m like, “Hell, yeah. We’re not messing around.”

    Another thing the original New Wavers would have been blown away by, I think, is how much the actors who you cast resembled the real people. For instance, I assumed that the actor who you cast as Belmondo, Aubry Dullin, was his grandson or something, because he looks so much like him.

    You know it when you meet them, and it’s exciting. Here’s a funny story: Belmondo’s grandson [Victor Belmondo], who’s a wonderful French actor, came in [to audition]. I was like, “Oh, yeah. Good actor.” But there was this other guy who had an easier smile, so I was like, “Sorry, Belmondo, but you’re not Belmondo enough.” Aubry was just perfect. He had that quick smile, an ease about him, he’s just a charming guy. Nothing got to him. He was Mr. Cool Cat. He was Belmondo. And Guillaume [Marbeck, who plays Jean-Luc Godard], was really smart, a little edgy, a little unusual. His brain operates at a different rate. It was like, “Oh, you are Godard.” And he had the jawline, he had everything. So each one was its own little fun project. And Zoey [Deutch, who plays Jean Seberg] I knew from 10 years ago [she starred in Linklater’s 2016 film Everybody Wants Some!!]. I was like [all those years ago], “Zoey, you’ve got to play Seberg.” Because I just looked at the contour of her face and jaw, and I was like, “You’re Seberg.” She was like, “Huh?” So I was so happy to be able to say [many years later], “Hey, Zoey, the movie’s happening! Get going on your French!”

    A lot of people would visit the set — I mean, people who were as close as you could be to Godard, who worked with him — and they would hear Guillaume before they even saw him, and they were like, “Oh, it’s him! Oh, my God!” This one was like a séance. It was very moving. I’d never had this experience before and I probably won’t again because what we were doing was so specific historically. But, like, the Cahiers du Cinéma scene when they’re all together? My script supervisor came over to me with tears in her eyes and was like, “Why am I so emotional?” I go, “Me too.” I was sitting there like, “Wow, they’re all here. And they’re happy to be together. This was the great time in their life. It’s ’59. The future’s ahead of them. Cinema’s ahead of them. It’s being reinvented.”

    Can you explain how, using the research that you’d gathered, you were actually able to make Nouvelle Vague look so much like a French New Wave film?

    I was like, “We’re going to make it. It’s going to be a black-and-white French film, subtitled. And it’s going to feel like a Nouvelle Vague film, but not necessarily a Godard film.” I just wanted it to look of that period. There’s only one À Bout de Souffle and one Godard. The idea of jump cuts [which were omnipresent in Breathless]? Our film doesn’t have a lot of that. If you really study the films, it’s like, “Oh, yeah, they don’t have any money. They didn’t have cranes. No dollies. It’s handheld on a thing.” So it’s like, “Well, you shoot off balconies. That’s how you get above. You don’t have a crane doing a zoom.” “Oh, car mounts.” So it was just about using the same kind of tools and syntax that they used and achieve it however you can, the look and the feel and all that. It’s a miracle of a film [Breathless], the way he made it, everything about it, and I give a lot of credit to Belmondo and Seberg for that.

    The tools of filmmaking had obviously evolved by the time you came on the scene, but I imagine that you acquired a pretty good understanding of what these guys were up against when you came on the scene in the early ’90s. You didn’t have any money to make Slacker, right?

    Oh, hell no. I did a Super 8 feature before I did Slacker, but my corollary here was Slacker, the no-budget — or low-budget — first film I made working with a lot of people. Yeah, it was kind of tricky.

    I was at the world premiere of Nouvelle Vague in Cannes, and the response in the Palais was awesome. Quentin [Tarantino] was there and flipping out about it, and everybody seemed to really respond to it. Then, just a few days later, you guys sold the film’s U.S. distribution rights to Netflix, which caused some people to freak out. They were offended that a film about cinema would end up with a streamer. What did you make of that reaction? And why did you go with Netflix?

    It’s such a lame argument. I got this on Hit Man [which Netflix also distributed] too. It’s like [addressing those who raised objections], “Well, if you want to have a theatrical thing, then those distributors need to step up and commit.” They look at it and they’re like, “Oh, black-and-white? It ruins our TV deal. So we can only offer this.” I have French producers who were out a few million dollars. The other offers were kind of…whatever. But Netflix really liked it. They’re really passionate about it. Ted Sarandos loved the movie. What are you going to say? And it is going to be in theaters. So all the people lamenting that [it went to Netflix], just get in your car, go to a theater and watch it in a theater, please. It means a lot to me. It’ll mean a lot to you. Take your friends.

    OK, quick question: when was the last time a black-and-white French film stayed in a U.S. theater for more than a week or two? The Artist? How many years ago was that? [14.] It’s been a while. You can’t really count on that. I’m not so puristy. There are going to be 35[mm] prints showing everywhere. You’re going to get your chance [to see it on a big screen]. So go do it. And the good thing about Netflix is that even when you can watch it on Netflix, it still can play in theaters [as is currently happening with KPop Demon Hunters], you know? If there’s a big audience, they’ll keep it in theaters.

    Your film is eligible to be the French submission for the best international feature Oscar race. It would be uncommon, though certainly not unprecedented, for a country to enter a film made by someone from outside its borders. But at the same time, it seems to me that apart from you and Zoey, just about everything about it — the financing, the locations, the language, the cast and crew, and the subject matter — is French. What would it mean to you if France submitted it?

    Oh, it’s such a French film. I’d be thrilled if France put it forward. It’s my love letter to France and to that cultural moment, and I think they accept it as such.

    Obviously there has been tariffs-related turbulence in the global economy since Pres. Trump took office again, and he has even threatened a 100 percent tariff on films made outside of America. Do you think that could have any impact on Nouvelle Vague?

    Is that still on? I remember there were grumblings about that during Cannes, but I always thought that was just one of his blustery moments. Has that been followed up on? I don’t think they’re going to do that. I haven’t heard anything.

    Nouvelle Vague is not the only film you’re bringing to Telluride. There’s also Blue Moon, for which you and Ethan Hawke, with whom you collaborated on the Before trilogy and Boyhood, reunited for the first time in 10 years.

    The two films are complementary in a weird sort of way. They’re both about artists. One [Nouvelle Vague] is about the beginning of an artistic career, and all the energy and optimism of that. And the other one [Blue Moon] is about the end of a career, which is more poignant, obviously. You can live through your own extinction, in a way, where you’re not allowed to make your art, or you feel the times passing you by. There’s something really sad about it. With a pro athlete, time retires you, and you know that. But an artist is never told, “You’re only going to have a 20-year career.” We all think we’re going to do it forever. Why wouldn’t we?

    Well, except Quentin. What do you make of Quentin’s attitude about stopping after 10 films?

    I’ve known Quentin a long time, obviously — 33 or 34 years — and we have never once talked about that. I know that’s put out there, and maybe I’ll ask him about it sometime, but I don’t really believe it. Quentin loves it.

    You’ve implied that you plan to keep making films until they have to cart you away, right?

    Yeah. I’m more in that mode. Even when I was just getting started, I saw myself as a much older filmmaker, making films that I still was passionate about. I’m inspired by the Hustons, Bressons and Altmans [who kept working well into old age]. Currently we have quite a few elderly filmmakers — people pushing 80 and above. There’s a ton of filmmakers in that category that are inspiring to me.

    Well, if anyone doubts your intention to keep working, they don’t know about the adaptation of Merrily We Roll Along that you are making, which you’ve said is intended to take 20 years from start to finish. One of your collaborators on that, Paul Mescal, will also be in Telluride. Out of curiosity, how is that project coming along?

    It’s chugging along. Material-wise, we’re one-third of the way through. Time-wise, we’re probably closer to a quarter of the way through. But it’s exhilarating. Every time we get back together and do it, it’s kind of like, “Woah.” It’s kind of wild. And I went from the set of 1959 New York [Merrily We Roll Along] to 1959 Paris [Nouvelle Vague]. We shoot Merrily in just a couple days, three days, and then, boom, I was in prep in Paris. I was in a 1959 state of mind.

    Scott Feinberg

    Source link