Hammond: AFI Closes The Long Fall Fest Oscar Circuit Whos On Top, Who Flopped?

Withlast night’s conclusion of the annual AFI Fest in Hollywood the curtain finally fell on the 2011 Fall Film Festivals. So the question remains, has an Oscar frontrunner emerged after two months on this circuit? AFI used to be held in the spring but smartly repositioned itself to November several years ago. The significant side benefit of that is the Fest has a shot at having an impact on awards season, not to mention AFI gets the pick of the litter in terms of prolific contenders. That strategy has worked again this year, at least in terms of the world premiere opening film, Clint EastwoodsJ. Edgar and even for the closing night selection, Steven Spielbergs CGI animation contender,The Adventures of Tintin which also made its North American premiere last nightat AFI. Neither of these directors is necessarily known for putting his films widely on the fest circuit but you cant deny that hitting the fests can be a good strategy. The last four Best Picture winners -No Country For Old Men, Slumdog Millionaire, The Hurt Locker, The King’s Speech were all major festival players, finding their footing on the circuit and then sailing smoothly into Oscars heart. This year, likely best pic possibilities that began at one fest or another include The Artist, Moneyball, The Descendants, The Ides of March, Midnight In Paris and now, J. Edgar. But there is an even larger number than usual of those skipping the circuit and trying other strategies to get the Academys attention. That list includes The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, War Horse, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Young Adult, The Help, The Iron Lady andInThe Land of Blood and Honey. Stuck somewhere in the middle is Martin Scorseses Hugo, which tried to catch the fest wave at the NY Film Festival by showcasing a work in progress. The ultimate results of the gambit were mixed opinions toward the film, at least in that form. Then, when the film was completed, Paramount skipped the opportunity to show it at AFI and decided to go another direction (at the same time the Fest was going on across town) by unveiling it almost simultaneously to L.A.-based critics, bloggers and members of the Academy. Reaction was upbeat and the film, which opens Nov. 23rd, is now being talked about as a Best Picture contender, something that didnt happen after its in progress NY screening. For AFI, despite its opener and closer, the rest of the lineup was mostly dj vu from what bleary-eyed festival goers have been seeing over the course of the last two months, much of it even imported from last Mays Cannes Film Festival which produced its own sizeable number of contenders, most notably Midnight In Paris, The Tree of Life, The Skin I Live In andcountless other foreign language titles. Whether any of AFIs non-premiere titles actually have an impact on awards season is a question mark but it did give them a high profile opportunity in the town where most voters live. The Festival itself, though, tries to rival Toronto and Cannes in some waysfor the biggest and most consistent number of red carpet galas. Those galas consist of movies that seemingly havent met a film festival they didnt like including the Weinstein CompanysThe Artist (which hit fests big and small since Cannes, winning several audience awards along the way), Oscilloscopes We Need To Talk About Kevin, Lars von TriersMelancholia and the current king of the circuit, Steve McQueens controversial Shame starring Michael Fassbender. If any film has benefitted from a dedicated fest strategy this season it may be that one. Starting in Venice in early September, it took those critics by storm and won a Best Actor prize for Fassbender, causing a sensation that made it a must-see by the time it hit Telluride and Toronto a few days later. Thats where Fox Searchlight took serious notice and picked up the film despite the certainty of an NC-17 rating. Or maybe because of it. Controversy rarely hurt and Shame, due to its graphic nudity and sexual nature, has brilliantly ridden the wave. It is anybodys guess though how this will play outside the cocoon of the festival trail when it finally opens in early December. This can be said about a lot of this years films hoping to translate their festival successes into boxoffice and Oscar gold. There is no question that Michel Hazanavicius charmer, The Artist, has been a smash at every fest it has played, but outside of this rarefied world will Harvey Weinstein be able to convince regular moviegoers who arent caught up in the intoxicating festival atmosphere to go see it at the multiplex? Its a black and white silent movie. Festgoers are used to the types of films that inspired it; regular Joes not so much.Certainly everyone realizes the value of fests for launching movies but what plays on the Croisette, the canals of Venice, the dusty streets of Telluride or the cosmopolitan cities of Toronto, NY and Los Angeles isnt always going to ride to glory in the end. Perhaps that is why Paramount, which got stung sending Jason ReitmansUp In The Air on the circuit two years ago only to see its September glow dim by the time it was finally released in December (although it did receive major Academy Award nominations including Best Picture), has been trying to find new ways to show off some of its contenders. ReitmansYoung Adult with Charlize Theron might have seemed primed for fests. After all, Reitmans movies notablyJuno andThank You For Smoking had wildly successful fest berths before going on to even bigger commercial success. But Par purposely keptThe Fighter and even the CoensTrue Grit off that path last year and both thrived at Oscar time with Best Picture and numerous other noms, and in the case ofThe Fighter two supporting acting Academy Awards. When shock rang out in blogdom about the non-fest strategy for Young Adult, a consultant told me they were going to be doing other fun things, even if this no-fest approach was something different for Jason. For the past month Paramount has been doing pop up screenings, secret showings around the country that generate immediate twitter buzz. It seems to be the new thing this awards season. When it made a stop at the New Beverly Cinema in L.A. at the beginning of November, influential awards bloggers were invited, liked what they saw and started shouting Oscar, something Paramount has not been doing in any overt way to date. Disney and DreamWorks have been doing the same thing for Spielbergs War Horse, creating their own secret fest circuit in tiny towns mostly in the Midwest or places like Bellevue, Washington. Its certainly one way of staying in the conversation without having to do the sometimes-grueling festival route. In the case of both films, it had the desired effect of getting attendees to pass the good word, much like they do in the streets of a film fest right after a screening of some hot title. The big downside of doing fests of course is if you pick the wrong venue. Venice, as it turns out, may not have been the best place for Madonnas W.E., which has been trying to recover ever since, has been tweaked in editing and is ready to emerge again for itsOscar qualifyingrunin December and regular runs Feb 4. Similarly, Carnage, Roman Polanskis adaptation of the Tony winning play, God of Carnage, might have been better off skipping the Italian city and heading straight to NY where it more successfully played as the opener of the NYFF. The thing is, Sony Pictures Classics, which is releasing it, has had heavy rotation as usual in all the festivals and is a big believer in using them to promote its brand of movies. It was difficult to find a Fall Festival without the presence of SPCs lineup of A Dangerous Method, Footnote, Where Do We Go Now?, In Darkness, The Skin I Live In, A Separation and Carnage (although the latter did skip Telluride and Toronto). The one undeniable thing about festivals is their free publicity value. Its a way to gather so many media in one place and get a tsunami of talk going. It also helps when you have a star as ready, willing and eager as say, George Clooney, who hit Venice withThe Ides of March on the fests opening night and has been everywhere with that film. Hes also toured around withThe Descendants in which he stars; a title that is perhaps the strongest contender to come out of this years fest circuit. You cant buy that kind of coverage. But will Oscar voters be swayed or is there a better way awards strategists will continue to explore?