Update: I’ve just hit Telluride and I’ve learned that Ben Affleck‘s Argo is indeed playing here, albeit as a sneak preview.

Earlier: I got out the iPhone the instant my Phoenix-to-Durango plane landed (about 50 minutes ago) to review the final Telluride 2012 lineup…and I was soon feeling faint. The blood had drained from my cheeks. This?

Why isn’t David O. Russell‘s Silver Linings Playbook showing here? There’s a reason, of course, but I wanted that kind of film here and it’s not. What happened to the rumor about Trouble With The Curve and a possible Clint drop-by? People were tweeting “wait, wait…this is it?”

No Master, no Malick, no Clint, not even DePalma…no established power-hitters.

In recent years Telluride has become known as an elite, pre-Toronto, first-out-of-the-gate place to sample at least a smattering of award-season contenders. Well, not this year, pally! This year it’s Tom and Gary’s Cool Little Indie-Foreign Festival plus a sampling of Cannes Hand-Me-Downs and Sony Classics servings (Amour, No) and one or two fringies. Roger Michell‘s Hyde Park on Hudson will play here, but who knows what that is besides performances? I guess award season will start in Toronto this year, and Telluride will just be a nice cool place to hang and schmooze with maybe two or three pop-throughs…maybe.

2012 Telluride selections: The Act Of Killing, (d: Joshua Oppenheimer); Amour (d: Michael Haneke); At Any Price (d: Ramin Bahrani); The Attack (d: Ziad Doueiri); Barbara (d: Christian Petzold); The Central Park Five (d: Ken Burns, Sarah Burns, David McMahon); Everyday (d: Michael Winterbottom); Frances Ha (d: Noah Baumbach); The Gatekeepers (d: Dror Moreh); Ginger And Rosa (d: Sally Potter); The Hunt (d: Thomas Vinterberg); Hyde Park On Hudson (d: Roger Michell); The Iceman (d: Ariel Vromen); Love, Marilyn (d: Liz Garbus); Midnight’s Children (d: Deepa Mehta); No (d: Pablo Larraín); Paradise: Love, Austria, (d: Ulrich Seidl); Piazza Fontana (d: Marco Tullio Giordana); A Royal Affair (d: Nikolaj Arcel); Rust & Bone (d: Jacques Audiard); The Sapphires (d: Wayne Blair); Stories We Tell (d: Sarah Polley); Superstar (d: Xavier Giannoli); Wadjda (d: Haifaa Al-Mansour); What Is This Film Called Love? (d: Mark Cousins).