Two days ago the Indiewire guys posted a part-fantasy, part-real Wish List of 50 films they’d like to see turn up at the Venice, Telluride, Toronto and New York Film Festivals in late August and September. All goodies, high nutrition. But an overabundance, I think. I’ve trimmed some of the dicey-sounding titles and brought the number down to 36. Simpler that way. And if you include likely festival repeaters like Andrey Zvyagintsev‘s Leviathan, Lynn Shelton‘s Laggies and Craig Johnson‘s The Skeleton Twins, it comes to 39.
1. Paul Thomas Anderson‘s Inherent Vice; 2. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu‘s Birdman; 3. Chris Nolan‘s Interstellar (word around the campfire is that it’s an actual possibility for Telluride); 4. Jean-Marc Vallee‘s Wild; 5. Tim Burton‘s Big Eyes (I’ve heard a couple of things); 6. Stephen Daldry‘s Trash; 7. J.C. Chandor‘s A Most Violent Year; 8. David Fincher‘s Gone Girl (will Fincher follow the same break-out strategy he used for The Social Network?); 9. Noah Baumbach‘s While We’re Young (New York Film Festival?); 10. Jeff Nichols‘ Midnight Special; 11. Jason Reitman‘s Men, Women & Children (is Reitman on some kind of who-knows streak?); 12. Jon Stewart‘s Rosewater; 13. Saul Dibb‘s Suite Francaise; 14. Thomas Vinterberg‘s Far from the Madding Crowd; 15. Todd Haynes‘ Carol (I don’t even know what this is); 16. Fatih Akin‘s The Cut; 17. Liv Ullman‘s Miss Julie; 18. Daniel Espinosa‘s Child 44; 19. Anton Corbijn‘s Life; 20. Dylan Kidd‘s Get A Job; 21. James Ponsoldt‘s The End of the Tour; 22. Werner Herzog‘s Queen of the Desert; 23. Stephen Frears‘ Untitled Lance Armstrong Project; 24. Alex Garland‘s Ex Machina, 25. Christian Petzold‘s Phoenix (likely Telluride); 26. Michael Roskam‘s The Drop; 27. David Gordon Green‘s Manglehorn; 28. Ramin Bahrani‘s 99 Homes; 29. Tom McCarthy‘s The Cobbler; 30. Rupert Goold‘s True Story; 31. John MacLean‘s Slow West; 32. Dan Gilroy‘s Nightcrawler; 33. Kevin McDonald‘s Black Sea; 34. Michael Cuesta‘s Kill The Messenger; 35. Justin Kurzel‘s Macbeth; and 36. Sarah Gavron‘s Suffragette.
