Telluride Film Festival Showbiz and Celebrity Breaking News

As its short declarative title implies, Janet Tobias and John Hoffman’s documentary “Fauci” is single-minded in its pursuit of exploring and humanizing the now (in)famous director of the National Institutes of Health.

Explorer, inventor, activist, and oceanographic popularizer, Jacques-Yves Cousteau introduced millions to the glories of the ocean through his popular movies.

The problem with making a successful documentary – commercial success, critical raves, Academy Award – is eventually, you have to make another one. Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin’s “Free Solo” is one of the great non-fiction films of recent years, a nail-biting extreme sports chronicle with an intimate personality profile nestled firmly inside, Russian doll-style.

TELLURIDE – To say that Richard Williams was a controversial figure in the world of tennis would be something of an understatement. The father and coach of legendary players Venus and Serena Williams was known to bicker with reporters and tournament officials.

After the secondhand altitude sickness, the most intense vicarious response inspired by the rock-climbing documentary “Free Solo” is pity — in part for its subject Alex Honnold, a daredevil single-mindedly driven to defy death, but more so for his girlfriend. Amidst all the terrifying, enthralling footage of Honnold scaling sheer cliffs, the standout scene finds him and now-wife Sanni McCandless having a frank discussion about the strain his passion has put on their relationship.

Having already excavated his personal experiences to tell intimate, insightful, and emotionally translucent stories about fathers and sons (“Beginners”), matriarchs raising boys (“20th Century Women”), and the way we’re all amateurs fumbling through life, sensitively attuned writer/director Mike Mills turns his tender filmmaking gaze towards children and the adult/child relationship in his latest film, the sublime “Cmon Cmon.” It’s yet another perceptive, impeccably crafted winner in an informal

You could say writer/director/actor Kenneth Branagh has a facility easing between high and low art.

TELLURIDE – A good twist can be the hallmark of a compelling narrative. For instance, you may think the movie you’re watching or the novel you are reading is set in one genre or about a particular subject matter until, well, it’s not.

A thematically robust and surprisingly introspective look at one of America’s most cherished (and oft-forgotten) institutions, “The Automat” is much like the products of its eponymous subject: easily accessible, thoughtfully produced, and quickly consumed.

The logical conclusion of one man’s perpetual quest to make sure the world is never robbed of even one of his precious thoughts, “The Story of Looking” is little more than a polished vlog. Mixing (literal) naked introspection with his usual one-man-show movie philosophizing, director/narrator/subject/center of the universe, Mark Cousins, explores the concept of “looking” in both the physical and the spiritual sense.

It’s going to be a busy year for Benedict Cumberbatch. The actor has three big movies coming out this fall and winter: Jane Campion‘s “The Power Of The Dog,” “Spider-Man: No Way Home,” and set to make its world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival this week, “The Electrical Life Of Louis Wain.” READ MORE: Telluride 2021 Preview: 10 Must-See Films To Watch Cumberbatch stars as Wain, the London-based artist famous for his propensity for drawing large-eyed, anthropomorphic cats.

It’s that most wonderful, debilitating time of the year. The Fall Film Festival Season gives us myriad new films and ensures that some of us don’t go outdoors for about two weeks straight at the beginning of September.

It really is an embarrassment of riches when it comes to the fall film festival season. It would seem, with the announcement of each festival lineup, that these events are just completely jam-packed with high-profile films.

PASADENA – Sadly, the 2020 edition of the Telluride Film Festival was canceled in July, but a little slice of the annual cinephile retreat was brought back to life Friday night at the iconic Rose Bowl. The festival and Searchlight Pictures partnered for a drive-in screening of Chloe Zhao‘s acclaimed drama “Nomadland” which premiered earlier in the day at Venice and also screened virtually at the Toronto Film Festival.

Please Note: “Dear Mr. Brody” was selected as part of the canceled 2020 Telluride Film Festival program.

Unlike many of its fall film festival brethren, this year’s Telluride Film Festival was forced to cancel instead of hosting an in-person and/or digital event. Unfortunately, unlike Venice, TIFF, and others, Telluride finds itself in the unlucky position of happening in the United States, where COVID-19 is still a major issue and continues to spike all across the country.

The latest in an increasingly long line of film festivals getting canceled due to the ongoing pandemic is the Telluride Film Festival, which was going to kick off over Labor Day weekend. Though the festival may not go forward as planned, we do know some of the films that would have premiered at Telluride, such as Chloé Zhao‘s “Nomadland,” starring Frances McDormand.

Despite growing concerns about the global pandemic, an industry that’s still in lockdown, and festivals being canceled left and right, the 2020 edition of the Telluride Film Festival will still go on as planned over Labor Day weekend.