Cannes Has Begun / Four Films on the Edge: Blue Moon, Anemone, Bucking Fastard and Welcome to Lynchland

CANNES HAS BEGUN

The 78th Cannes Film Festival opened last Tuesday and will run though May 24th.  TFF watchers know that it's likely that anywhere from 6-10 films screening there the next few days will probably end up in Telluride over Labor Day.  That's been the trend for some time.  One of the things I'll be doing over the next few posts is checking to see how critics respond.  Several film outlets will be posting composite critical responses and I traditionally keep track some of those and report them but the Big Daddy of all Cannes compilations comes from cannes-ratings.org.  

So this week I took a moment to try to calibrate what that compilation has told us over the years.  What I did was to look for the lowest rated film that played at Cannes that also played Telluride.  My thought was that perhaps by doing that we might establish some critical baseline for where the cutoff is below which it's unlikely a film will be selected for Telluride inclusion.

Thus here are the lowest rated films from Cannes for each year (going back to 2011) that made it to TFF.  Cannes-ratings uses a 1-10 scale.

2024-Santosh-5.97

2023-Strange way of Life-5.58

2022-Tori and Lokita-6.11

2021-Unclenching the Fist-6.08

2019-Family Romance LLC-5.68

2018-The Eyes of Orson Welles-6.11

2017-An Inconvenient Sequel-5.75

2016-Neruda-6.58

2015-Rams-5.10

2014-Wild Tales-5.41

2013-Jororowsky's Dune-5.55

2012-Paradise:Love-5.03

2011-Bonsai-5.00

As you can see, the outliers are Neruda at the top and Bonsai and Paradise: Love at the bottom.  The average rating to claim the last Cannes to T-ride spot is at 5.69.  So, if you want to check what the critical reception at Cannes, that might be a spot to think that anything below that has a lesser chance to get to Telluride.

One other point, since it's still so early in the Cannes fest most of the films only have a very few reviews as yet. As Cannes rolls on those films will gather more and more critical responses and you can get a better idea for where a film may end up.  For example, the film at the top of the list right now is Love Me Tender with a 9.12 cumulative rating but it's only been reviewed by four critics...so grain of salt.

Monday's MTFB will have my first real look.

FOUR FILMS ON THE EDGE:

Four films on the periphery of my analysis of what goes to Telluride had moments this week that, at the very least, didn't hurt their chances of playing Telluride.

Richard Linklater's Blue Moon- The film's release dates were announced this week.  It will have a limited release on Oct. 17th followed by a wider release on Oct. 24th.  Linklater has never been to TFF as far as I can discern which works against the notion that it will play Telluride.  However, it does have some things working in its favor.  These release dates for one.  Also, a good critical response from Berlin where it also picked up for Andrew Scott for Best Supporting Performance. It's from Sony Pictures Classics and it stars Ethan Hawke who is often a TFF attendee.

Ronan Day-Lewis's Anemone- Like Blue Moon, Anemone's release dates were also announced this week and leave open the possibility for T-ride.  Anemone will open limited on Oct. 3rd and wide on Oct. 10th.  The film stars past TFF tribute recipient Daniel Day-Lewis who also co-wrote the screenplay.  Day-Lewis first attended TFF in 1989 with My Left Foot and returned for his tribute in 2007 with some scenes from There Will Be Blood.  He won Best Actor Oscars for both of those performance.  Another factor working in favor of a TFF play is that the distributor is Focus Features which has been a reliable Telluride player for years.

Werner Herzog's Bucking Fastard-  Herzog has possibly been the most screened driector at Telluride over the years and The Playlist reports:

So it may be ready for a San Juan screening.

Stephane Ghez's Welcome to Lynchland-Played Yesterday at the Cannes Fest with David Lynch's son, Riley introducing it.  The documentary about Lynch's career and films feels like it could be right down TFF's alley given Lynch's stature and his early participation with TFF.

More on Monday.