The question everyone asks at Telluride: “What is the Friday Patron Screening?” They usually find out at Friday’s Patron Brunch, high in the mountains. The answer: Venice breakout and inevitable Oscar contender, “Wild Horse Nine” (Searchlight), written and directed by Martin McDonagh. Telluride tributee Sandra Hüller (Mubi’s “Rose” and “Fatherland”) attended, as well as Jesse Eisenberg, who on Saturday premieres “The Debut” (A24), starring Julianne Moore and Paul Giamatti.
At the annual brunch, the other question circulating was: What will Sunday’s TBA screening be? (We’re on it.) The jam-packed brunch brought many of the Labor Day weekend players together. McDonagh told me he started out with a father-son Easter Island story, but wound up twisting in threads of CIA misdeeds in South America with a similar older-man/younger-partner dynamic between two spies (John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell). The two actors are close; Rockwell, with the less showy supporting role, is generous to a fault with his 72-year-old co-star, who runs with the ball and could win the Best Actor Oscar. Malkovich praises Rockwell to the stars.
Andrew Scott is also earning advance raves for “Elsinore” (Focus), the true story of “Chariots of Fire” thespian Ian Charleson, who played his last role as Hamlet in 1990 while suffering from HIV/AIDS complications. “Elsinore” premieres Friday night.
Also on hand was Carrie Coon, who is nabbing some early buzz for her performance in Guy Nattiv’s true story “The Liberation” (Bleecker Street) as an unhappy banker and Holocaust survivor who falls under the spell of an all-female cult. Coon, who attended the brunch with her husband and co-star Tracy Letts, will see the film for the first time Friday night. Her family is being raised on the contents of Letts’ massive DVD collection, both old and new. She was too shy to go up to Hüller at the brunch. “I’m in awe,” she said.
Many likely international feature contenders are on display at Telluride, including Mubi’s “Rose,” “Fatherland,” and “Minotaur,” whose respective directors Markus Schleinzer, Pawel Pawlikowski, and Andrey Zvyagintsev posed for me on Colorado Avenue.
Friday brings another Venice arrival, Danny Boyle’s hugely entertaining “Ink” (Netflix), a Fleet Street two-hander starring Jack O’Connell as the editor of tabloid The Sun, and Guy Pearce as his mentor Rupert Murdoch. Together, they changed media history, and not for the better. The movie is getting a 30-day theatrical release.
Sofia Coppola hasn’t been to Telluride since “Lost in Translation.” She’s back with a documentary her mother, Eleanor, started and that she finished in the editing room: “Making Marie Antoinette.”
One fond memory of Telluride is once being trapped in a gondola with the often grumpy Mike Leigh. We did fine. He isn’t here to support “Tender Loving Care” (Bleecker Street), which might be his last film, but I snapped a shot of three of his remarkable actors: Paul Jesson, Alice Bailey Johnson, and Marion Bailey. See this one. It’s a heart-tugger.
