We further preview the Telluride, Venice, & London film fests, and review trailers for The Laundromat & The King (etc). We overview the Best International Film selections by country, and we also detail the Netflix & Amazon award slate release dates. BIG IMPORTANT ASSIGNMENT FOR YOU - 1:40 PREVIEWING THE TELLURIDE FILM FESTIVAL- 2:40 OSCAR TRAILER REVIEW: The Laundromat Trailer 1 - 9:02 The King Trailer 1- 12:06 Lucy in the Sky Trailer 2 - 15:55 Monos Trailer 1 - 18:56 Synonyms Trailer 1 - 21:20 MORE OSCARS NEWS: The Irishman Is Long and Not in Theaters - 23:05 Netflix Releases Dates of Contenders’ Debuts - 25:40 Dark Waters, Others, Get Release Dates - 27:54 What is Amazon Doing/The Aeronauts Trailer 1 - 29:28 Boots Riley Takes a Shot at QT; Banderas Defends - 32:10 MAKE THE CASE: Best Cinematography - 34:38 Best Actress - 36:02 FILM FESTIVAL NEWS: Venice FF Starts to Have Reactions - 38:11 London FF Gets Props From MMO - 40:17 INTERNATIONAL FEATURE CATEGORY RUNDOWN - 42:26 FUTURE OSCARS: WES ANDERSON GOING GRETA - 48:00 Your Homework/PLEASE LEAVE US 5*’S - 48:59 What’s Next From MMO/Words of Wisdom - 50:20 We begin with a quick preview of the Telluride Film Festival in Colorado, promising more coverage to come. But we have fun picking 3 sleepers each that might gain Oscar legs before discussing the obvious contenders. Then it’s Oscar Trailer time as we review The Laundromat, The King, Lucy in the Sky, Monos, Synonyms, & later, The Aeronauts. Netflix & Amazon confirmed some theatrical release & streaming dates, and we were very surprised to learn that they’re all on top of one another this fall. We break down this strategy for each of these new powers in Hollywood, and then we have our obligatory Tarantino segment, highlighting another controversy and a response to it. Also Mike makes the case for some fringe contenders like the cinematography in The Last Black Man In San Francisco and Jessie Buckley’s great performance in Wild Rose. Then we survey the rest of the film festival news from Venice, London, & Sarajevo, applauding some bold choices and lamenting others. There are also some early reactions to major contenders like Marriage Story & much maligned properties like Ad Astra, and we update our expectations. In the latter portion of the episode, we do a deep dive into the Best International Film category, highlighting many of the selected films, giving you brief snapshots of these potential contenders and dig into how this branch has operated in the past. There’s also a labyrinth of turtles to reckon with here. Finally, we cover an Oscars 2021 story about Wes Anderson’s next film, The French Dispatch with Ronan, Chalamet, & many of Anderson’s former collaborators. It’s another loaded Oscar Race Checkpoint episode as we break into this fall film festival viewing season. Stay tuned for our ongoing coverage of Telluride, Toronto, Venice, London, New York, etc. We hope to soon have some guest spots from experts attending these festivals, and we’ll certainly continue our Oscar Sprint Profile movie review series here stateside. This week’s film is Luce, which you’ll get this weekend. As always, let us know what you think. Are you believing all the buzz? What films seem like true contenders? Who are the lame pretenders? We wanna know. If you’re enjoying the show, do please leave us 5 stars on Apple Podcasts. Click on our show, scroll down a few seconds, and then you’ll be able to rate us. We’re at MMandOscar on Twitter, and we are on Instagram, Facebook, Reddit, and Gmail. You can subscribe / rate / review / like / share / & listen to us on iTunes, Soundcloud, Stitcher, Google Play, Tune In, Spotify, and just about wherever you listen to podcasts. When reality sucks, keep watching movies with us. We’re Mike, Mike, & Oscar!