At the start of a new Oscar season, two films lead the pack that could not be more different in every way.
Academy Award-winning filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón’s Venice prizewinner “Roma” was ripped from the director’s childhood memories, shot in beautiful black-and-white with a cast of unknowns and will be presented by Netflix, the biggest streaming company in the world. Bradley Cooper’s rousing debut crossover success “A Star Is Born,” meanwhile, builds on an 80-year-old Hollywood classic, is led by a global recording superstar and is distributed by Warner Bros., the only major Hollywood studio to win a best-picture Oscar in the last 16 years.
It’s an apt note on which to begin this year’s 91st annual proceedings, a time when a diverse range of themes is particularly prized: the foreign-born art-house delicacy from a veteran, versus the hit-soundtrack-accompanied box office smash from a movie-star-turned-director. And sure to make this season a lively one, gathering in the shadow of these early leaders is an exceptional slate of contenders — from the blockbusting superheroics of “Black Panther” and the populist pursuits of Toronto People’s Choice award-winner “Green Book,” to the auteur-driven peculiarity of “The Favourite” and the hushed grace of “If Beale Street Could Talk,” to name just a few.
As hard as it is to make any definitive statements about awards season from the vantage point of August, it’s safe to say that the fall festivals could launch a very crowded year for films vying for gold statuettes.
If nothing else, just look at the sheer quantity of Oscar-endorsed directors who will have films premiering at the Venice, Telluride and Toronto Film Festivals. The back-to-back-to-back fests will showcase dozens of contenders and pretenders, beginning with Venice’s launch on August 29 and continuing through the conclusion of Toronto on September 16.
Biopics will again pepper the landscape, with Universal’s “First Man” (astronaut Neil Armstrong), Focus Features’ “On the Basis of Sex” (Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg) and Fox Searchlight’s “Can You Ever Forgive Me?” (author Lee Israel) among those joining “Bohemian Rhapsody.” Some of the fact-based competitors are quite removed from the general template, such as the memoir-driven “Beautiful Boy” and “Boy Erased” or the watershed history presented in “The Front Runner” (politician Gary Hart). All eyes, meanwhile, are on Christian Bale in Adam McKay’s “Vice” (Dick Cheney), which is among the few contenders still to be revealed.
Clint Eastwood is also crashing the field late in the game, as he did with “Million Dollar Baby” and “Letters From Iwo Jima,” directing and starring for the first time in a decade in “The Mule.” His latest will tell the true story of Leo Sharp, an 80-year-old WWII veteran who became a drug courier for the Sinaloa Cartel.
Among other directors who’ve had recent films in the Oscar race, “Hell or High Water” director David Mackenzie returns with the Toronto opening-night period drama “Outlaw King.” So does “Call Me by Your Name” director Luca Guadagnino with his horror-movie remake “Suspiria,” “Captain Phillips” director Paul Greengrass with another fact-based story, “22 July,” and “Up in the Air” and “Juno” director Jason Reitman with his Gary Hart political drama, “The Front Runner.”
And if you look at international directors who’ve had films nominated for the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film recently, the festivals will bring a bumper crop that includes the directors of the last five winners in the category: Sebastian Lelio (who won with “A Fantastic Woman” and is back with “Gloria Bell”), Asghar Farhadi (won with “The Salesman,” back with “Everybody Knows”), Laszlo Nemes (won with “Son of Saul,” back with “Sunset”), Pawel Pawlikowski (won with “Ida,” back with “Cold War”) and Paolo Sorrentino (won with “The Great Beauty,” back with “Loro”).
(Excerpts) Read More at: Variety.com and TheWrap.com