Fantasia, North America's largest genre film festival, is back and bigger than ever for its 14th edition, which kicks off in Montreal on July 8th with the Canadian premiere of Disney's The Sorceror's Apprentice and bows out a full three weeks later with another Canadian premiere, the Sundance and SXSW hit Tucker & Dale Vs Evil, a horror film satire that has had audiences spilling their guts with laughter.
Much in the same way Summit took The Brothers Bloom off the AFM table just prior to the fest/market unfolding, they've made an important pre-buy, grabbing the Cannes-selected title from Doug Liman before it has a chance to play-out to the studios and remaining indie divisions looking for an easy political drama grab. Along with Jodie Foster's The Beaver, Fair Game would probably be set in the Fall-Holiday season - many, including this site, see the title with award seasons glitter.
Before I get into my prediction picks and second best choices for Best Original Screenplay, here are some titles that are worth mentioning and that I think are on the outsides looking in. Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's Biutiful (how will he do without Guillermo Arriaga as his wingman?), Mark Heyman and Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan (I think the Academy will find the title too risque)...
One of the keys to the look of the movie was that Zak used some old camera lenses that he’d picked up in the flea market, and they just give it this dreamy quality, totally not what you expect from HD!
The rags-to-riches, come from behind boxing ring narrative has been overdone, and while nothing has come close to stealing the title away from the Jake La Motta biopic (Million Dollar Baby was crap folks), if the performances are spot on, if Russell gives this biography a different tapestry (apparently he shrunk the timeline from 30 to 3 years) then we'll gain more insight in why this originally attracted the Darren Aronofskys and the Brad Pitts).