AFI Fest closes this week, marking the end of the Fall Festival season that began with a bang with the August/September triple-feature that is Venice, Telluride and Toronto, at which the vast majority of major Oscar hopefuls were unveiled. Which is not to say there weren't a few films from the first eight months of…

If this 45th edition of the Telluride Film Festival can be said to be about anybody, way up at the front of that line is Nicole Kidman who is here seen on screens showing the huge range and fearlessness she has done for years in this business. We are seeing two distinct sides of that talent in World Premieres of both…

If you ask me Melissa McCarthy just put herself squarely in the Oscar race for Best Actress, and may just bring a cat named Towne along with her.  Better acting from an actor – or a cat – I did not see in Telluride this weekend. McCarthy’s film Can You Ever Forgive Me?  from director Marielle Heller  and a wonderful…

There are plenty of films on display here at the Telluride Film Festival this weekend with strong political connections such as documentaries like Charles Ferguson’s multi-part Watergate – Or How We Learned To Stop An Out-of-Control President (any similarity to present-day is clearly intentional); Ed Zwick’s Trial By F…

The movie portion of the 45th Telluride Film Festival got underway in style with this afternoon’s Patrons screening (a “sneak preview” for those who paid $4,900 for a pass) of Fox Searchlight’s The Old Man and the Gun. Star Robert Redford says it will be his last as an actor — but not as a director, which seems to be…

EXCLUSIVE: Among the high-profile awards-hopeful premieres at this year’s Telluride Film Festival, from The Old Man and the Gun to The Front Runner to First Man — all coming here for many reasons, including to get a boost in the Oscar race — one new movie from an Oscar-winning producer-director has something more…

Fresh off setting its world premiere slot at the Tellruide Film Festival this weekend that will launch it into awards season comes the official trailer for The Front Runner, the Hugh Jackman and Jason Reitman team-up about Colorado Sen Gary Hart’s 1988 Presidential run. Jackman plays Hart, the presumed Democratic…

It will be a star-studded Telluride Film Festival this year as awards hopefuls Robert Redford, Matthew McConaughey, Hugh Jackman, Nicole Kidman, Russell Crowe, Emma Stone, Melissa McCarthy and Ryan Gosling make the trek to the Colorado Rockies for the 45th edition of the Labor Day weekend fest that has increasingly…

Last year at this time, strong and obvious Best Picture Oscar contenders had emerged from the so-called Fall trifecta of film festivals at Venice, Telluride and Toronto. Movies like La La Land and Moonlight, Hidden Figures, Hacksaw Ridge and Arrival all staked their claim to a spot with their debuts and key fest…

EXCLUSIVE: Sundance Selects has acquired North American rights to Eating Animals, the feature-length documentary from Christopher Quinn based on Jonathan Safran Foer’s book about the perils of factory farming. The author also produced the pic with Natalie Portman, who narrated, and it had its world premiere this month…

The passport of award-winning A Man of Integrity and Manuscripts Don’t Burn filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof has been confiscated by officials in Tehran. The incident occurred upon Rasoulof’s return to Iran on Friday evening, international film critics’ association FIPRESCI said in a statement posted to its website. Kaveh…

“Lady Bird — is that your given name?” “Yeah.” “Why is it in quotes?” “I gave it to myself. It’s given to me by me.” Makes perfect sense. Welcome to the first trailer for Lady Bird, writer-helmer Greta Gerwig’s directing debut that lit up Telluride with its premiere Friday. Ah, the epic and timeless struggle between…