The summer movie season is officially over and cinematic mindset quickly shifts over to a different kind of bloodbath. The superheroes and their ilk will return next year, as they always do, and game turns, not so much to quality as we might be persuaded into thinking, but into eventual awards possibilities. It's September, so really, nobody knows anything quite yet, but the fall festival season in full gear and the yesterday's concluding of the Telluride Film Festival raises hopes, piques interest and cements points to bludgeon our senses for the next few months. Forget about the revolution being televised, it's being tweeted, as critics, journalists and bloggers headed to Colorado-- others are in Venice, which is ongoing and Toronto, which starts shortly. All in hopes of being the first the tout this years "one." The king of the castle and the bragging rights that those entail. Oy the hyperbole.
It's not for nothing-- Telluride, with its idyllic mountain-side surroundings, has played a hand in playing host to a plethora of recent Best Picture winners-- including, but not limited to last years king
Argo. But let's not forget that the narrative from Telluride to box office hit to Oscar winner was an especially bumpy one for Ben Affleck's baby last year, and not without its own bloodshed.
This year, a bunch of titles appear to very much be in play, but Musings and Stuff is always leery when it comes to festival reviews. Here are some of notables to be screened so far:
12 Year a Slave- The hyperbole went into hyper drive after a special Telluride sneak preview of Steve McQueen's latest-- the tale of Solomon Northup, a free black man whose sold into slavery in the height of the Civil War-- and the the buzz was deafening. Scary so, for fans of McQueen's past work (
Hunger,
Shame) as the level of expectation morphed into overdrive for those unlucky to be glimpsing the film for the first time-- it even trended on Twitter, a crazy accomplishment for a violent art film about slavery. Chiwetel Ejiofor, a radiant talent who needs better roles, was instantly signaled as an Oscar frontrunner. Variety said, "This epic account of an unbreakable soul makes even Scarlett O'Hara's struggles seem petty by comparison." The film will next try to replicate it's wow factor in Toronto before heading to theaters this October.
