Indiewire‘s Eric Kohn and Anne Thompson examine the Venice, Telluride and Toronto film festival offerings. They tapdance around certain topics (i.e., no mention of the all-but-locked Telluride slate). I have to say that my recent discussion with Jordan Ruimy about the same topics is more candid and revelatory in certain respects.

(1) Thompson thinks Yorgos Lanthimos‘ The Favourite may turn out to be a major Best Picture presence — Hollywood Elsewhere says “hold your horses…Lanthimos is a subversive, a dark stylist, a kind of arch surrealist…’Academy friendly’ isn’t in his natural wheelhouse…The Favourite looks like a Peter Greenaway film”; (2) Thompson thinks that for award-season strategists Telluride “has become a little bit like Cannes, which is that they’re afraid to take a movie there that might not be a strong and obvious Oscar contender…[strategists] want that easier, softer landing in Toronto more than they want that [possibly iffy] weekend in Telluride”; (3) Thompson says “it’s noteworthy that they didn’t take A Star Is Born to Telluride,” and Kohn says, “That’s actually a big one“; (4) Damien Chazelle‘s First Man is “intimate and epic at the same time…it’s not Apollo 13 but at the same time a next-level experience of travelling into space and landing on the moon”; (5) Everybody loves Roma — the buzz is great, very autobiographical, inspired by Cuaron’s own youth in Mexico City, 65mm black-and-white Alexa, etc..