The race for the Oscars has started… and it’s already getting dirty after Emma Stone’s sensational turn in Poor Things!

Let the game begin! The Oscars will be handed out on March 10 next year, but the campaign kicked off this week with a bang in Venice — and across the ocean at the Telluride Festival in Colorado at the same time.

It’s a four-dimensional and very expensive chess game in the best of times, with screenings, dinners, armies of publicists and carefully placed media stories at play as everyone tries to get their movie and actor on stage at the Dolby Theater.

But this year, with everyone raising their hackles at the actors and writers’ strikes, the signs are that it’s going to be a dirty battle.

Emma Stone’s sensational turn as the uninhibited Bella Baxter in the Yorgos Lanthimos film Poor Things – which premiered at both festivals – makes her an early favorite to win Best Actress for a second time (after La La Land in 2017). to be proclaimed.

Lanthimos, who co-directed The Favorite with Olivia Colman, is also expected to be nominated for his wildly original film – adapted from a book by Scottish author Alasdair Gray.

The photo contains over a dozen explicit sex scenes and a huge amount of foul language.

Lanthimos chuckled when I asked him about the sheer amount of sex and said, “Why isn’t there more sex in all the movies?”

Director Ed Berger, last year’s Oscar winner for All Quiet On The Western Front, said: ‘I’ve never seen anything like it before. It makes me crazy.’

But some have gritted their teeth over Emma Stone appearing in Telluride despite the actors’ strike.

She made sure not to attend promotional events, pointing out that she did so “at her own expense” for the modest purpose of watching new movies. . . but some believe it was inappropriate to do even that, while the negotiations are still deadlocked and heated.

Meanwhile, an anti-Poor Things whisper campaign has started, with some saying the use of the word “retard” in the beginning of the film is problematic – as is Stone’s portrayal of Bella in the early days, after having her brain switched with it. of her unborn baby. We’ll see if that controversy catches on.

Stone’s biggest contender for the Best Actress Oscar will likely be Annette Bening, 65, whose new movie Nyad premiered in Telluride. The film tells the story of marathon swimmer Diana Nyad, who swam from Cuba to Florida at the age of 64. Bening, four-time Oscar nominee but never winner, would be a sentimental favorite.

But wait for the counter reaction. . . or does that have to be a backsplash. On the day of the premiere, the LA Times published an investigation into Nyad which showed that she exaggerated her achievements, may have had help swimming, and even told untruths. The swimmer admitted to telling untruths to the newspaper and expressed her regret.

It was clinically timed. Spinners for the film say voters should separate the character’s shortcomings from the film’s accomplishments.

Meanwhile, German actress Sandra Huller is in the running for Zone Of Interest, a powerful film set in Auschwitz, and Anatomy Of A Fall, a stunning courtroom drama.

A complete unknown until now, I’ve heard that Huller is now being groomed by a Hollywood publicist – and she’s just made the cover of The Hollywood Reporter, which featured a long and flattering piece about her.

There was a blowout just before the ceremony last year when the Academy examined the campaign that earned the microfilm To Leslie a nomination for the role of the leading actor, British actress Andrea Riseborough.

I hope they are ready for a busy period between now and March.

Actor Bradley Cooper has been critically acclaimed for Maestro, the Netflix film about conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein, which premiered in Venice to critical acclaim, despite being nearly overshadowed by an argument over Cooper’s prosthetically enhanced nose.

Cooper (pictured) produced, wrote, directed and stars in the film, due out November 22 – and his talents don’t stop there. Yannick Nezet-Seguin, the Canadian conductor who served as a consultant on the film, praised the star’s conducting, saying that Cooper had learned to imitate Bernstein’s freestyle method of handling the baton.

Cooper actually played the piano in the movie. Bernstein’s daughter Jamie commented, “He’s quite a musician.”

One of the talking points in Venice was – so to speak – the return of the silent movie star. There were many glamorous stars in Venice for the film festival this year… but none of them wanted to say anything, fearing they had violated the actors’ strike, which had been going on since mid-July.

White Lotus and Euphoria star Sydney Sweeney and Stranger Things actress Sadie Sink both attended the big Armani fashion show and party – the most notable of the festival – and Sweeney was spotted grooving on a set of the UK’s DJ Mark Ronson.

Sweeney is no shrinking violet and also appeared this week squirming on the back of a car for a music video by the Rolling Stones.

Actress Jessica Chastain was also present at the Armani bash, who promotes the film Memory in Venice. The film has an interim deal that allows actors to get relief from the strike. It premieres tonight. Sources indicate that she flipped until the last minute.

Penelope Cruz was due to come this week to beat the drum for Ferrari, but then cited personal reasons for staying away. Actor Adam Driver was one of the few to make the trip to the Lido.

Adam Driver has annoyed some Italian actors by winning the role of Maurizio Gucci in House Of Gucci in 2021, followed by Enzo Ferrari in the upcoming movie Ferrari (pictured).

Actor Pierfrancesco Favino joked, “The Guccis had a New Jersey accent, didn’t you know?” He added: “There is an idea of ​​cultural appropriation. I don’t understand how actors like Toni Servillo, Adriano Giannini and Valerio Mastandrea are not cast in these roles. Instead, they go to non-Italian actors who use these exotic accents. Why can an American play an Italian?’

Actor Bradley Cooper has been critically acclaimed for Maestro, the Netflix film about conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein, which premiered in Venice to critical acclaim, despite being nearly overshadowed by an argument over Cooper’s prosthetically enhanced nose.

Cooper (pictured) produced, wrote, directed and stars in the film, due out November 22 – and his talents don’t stop there. Yannick Nezet-Seguin, the Canadian conductor who served as a consultant on the film, praised the star’s conducting, saying that Cooper had learned to imitate Bernstein’s freestyle method of handling the baton.

Cooper actually played the piano in the movie. Bernstein’s daughter Jamie commented, “He’s quite a musician.”

Director Wes Anderson has almost become part of the Dahl family. He said this week that he met Roald’s widow Liccy, as well as his children and grandchildren, during the making of the 2009 film Fantastic Mr Fox – and those relationships served him well as he developed his film based on Dahl’s short story The Wonderful. Story Of Henry Sugar, out September 20.

“I’ve known Luke (Dahl, Roald’s grandson) since he was a little boy. He kept the Henry Sugar story for me for years because I loved it.”

By the time the movie was made — starring Ralph Fiennes as Roald Dahl and Benedict Cumberbatch as Henry Sugar — the author’s works had been sold to Netflix, but Anderson (pictured in Venice) still let Luke know about the project. “He was excited when I told him Ralph was going to be Dahl,” Anderson said.

The 38-minute film focuses on Dahl’s language, and Anderson filmed three more short stories: The Swan, Poison, and The Rat Catcher.

In director Woody Allen’s new film, Coup de Chance, there are a number of scenes in which the villain of the play – an unjust husband – plays with a huge train set in his Paris apartment. The model railway takes up an entire room in the flat.

It’s an unusual motif and may cause some discomfort, as Allen’s adopted daughter Dylan accused him of molesting her when she was seven years old. . . while playing with a train set in the attic of Mia Farrow’s home in Connecticut.

Why Allen, 87, might choose to seemingly, even superficially, refer to the allegations that have created such a storm – and which he has always vehemently denied – is a mystery.

In 1991, his relationship with actress Mia Farrow was broken after he was revealed to have had a sexual relationship with Soon-Yi Previn, Mia’s 21-year-old adopted daughter.

A vicious custody battle ensued, in which Mia won custody of the three children she shared with Woody: Satchel (now going by his middle name Ronan), Moses (a boy), and Dylan (a girl).

Allen married Soon-Yi (pictured with him in Venice) in 1997 and they have adopted two daughters, Bechet and Manzie, who have accompanied him on the red carpet.

Caleb Landry Jones, Banshee in X-Men: First Class, surprised many by speaking with a Scottish accent in Venice, even though he’s from Texas.

Landry Jones, who is promoting Luc Besson’s Dogman idiosyncrasy, said he is preparing for a new movie and he “doesn’t want to break character.”

The Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos did not feel at home north of the border. He referred to Willem Dafoe’s accent in Poor Things as ‘Glasgowan’ and when told the correct term was ‘Glaswegian’ he sputtered, ‘What! Damn it?!’