Foreign Oscar Race Begins: Australia, Brazil, Croatia, Cuba, Denmark

Over the next couple of months we'll be hearing the names of the 70ish films that will be competing for Oscar's coveted shortlist as Best Foreign Language Film. So far nine countries have selected their films and other countries have begun the winnowing to get to their top choice.

Our charts are now in progress with posters, info, and links to official sites and such as well as links back to highlights from last year's global class. 

The Companion forces a boxer and a soldier with AIDS to spend lots of time together

Chart 1 Afghanistan to Finland

Denmark and Brazil have narrowed it down to three films each with Brazil's choice already embroiled in a lot of controversy due to political fighting in regards to Aquarius (starring Sonia Braga which hits TIFF & NYFF shortly and which was very well received at Cannes) though I have to admit it's hard to make sense of the turmoil from an outsider's perspective given the Google translate limitations. Thank to Jon in the comments for alerting us to this brewing controversy but if someone can sum it up for us in brief that would be appreciated. But on our first chart we have three official submissions

CUBA - THE COMPANION
Cuba's submission is about a boxer accused of doping who is forced to become a companion to a soldier who has contracted AIDS. Cuba has only been nominated for the LGBT drama Strawberry & Chocolate (1994) in the past but I maintain that Behavior (2014), their most recent submission, would have been a worthy nominee. Here's the new film's trailer with subtitles:

CROATIA - ON THE OTHER SIDE
There is a trailer available but not subtitled. It's about a mother who's kept a secret for a very long time.

AUSTRALIA - TANNA
Australia's entry takes place on a remote island and is performed by the Yakel tribe. This one opens in New York City and Los Angeles in September so cross your fingers that it wins further expansion. Here's the official site and the trailer. Our own Glenn Dunks wrote about it for Paradise magazine. It won two prizes at Venice last year and it looks potentially exciting...

Tanna - Trailer - All parts performed by the people of Yakel from Lightyear Entertainment on Vimeo.

Oscar Hopeful Trailers Galore

Chris here. As the upcoming fall festival and Oscar season looms, get ready for a steady stream of incoming footage for this year's hopefuls to start cropping up in the coming weeks. Today we have some peeks at a few weepies ready to work your tear ducts on their path to awards: Manchester By The Sea, A United Kingdom, and Lion. Take a look at the trailers (and a few quick thoughts) below:

Manchester By The Sea

• Kenneth Lonergan is definitely returning to You Can Count On Me territory after the intellectual meanderings of Margaret, with already raved about results.
• Isn't Kyle Chandler in this? Obviously new star Lucas Hedges will be the supporting Oscar play here, but when will the always strong Chandler finally get his due?
• I've read Michelle Williams performance compared to Beatrice Straight in Network several times. Looks like we'll have a brief spellbinder of a performance.
• A common complaint for trailers such as this, but that cliche uplifting rock tune seems extra tacked on here. Lonergan would never.

A United Kingdom

• This and Loving will no doubt face cheap comparisons to one another in the coming season. Kingdom looks to be playing to more broad, rousing emotions on a larger scale.
• The gorgeous coupling of Rosamund Pike and David Oyelowo sends my heart all aflutter. That's a lot of pretty.
• While it doesn't look like the historical drama mold won't be broken here, the two stars ferocity might be what gives it some life.
• After Belle, this is an excited sep up in scale for director Amma Asante, who seems poised to give us a moving crowdpleaser.

Lion

• The trailer works just as hard to sell the plot as it does to establish Rooney Mara as Silent Supportive Girlfriend. She has more caring glances in the trailer than actual words.
• Dev Patel is charismatic if not always great, so his understated emoting here should at least shed some of his "aw shucks" persona.
• So little Nicole to be seen here that she's eclipsed by her unfortunate wig.
• Will the Weinstein Company financial woes hold this one back in the awards race? They have this and The Founder this year, and Michael Keaton might be the one Harvey throws his weight behind.

What are your thoughts on Manchester By The Sea, A United Kingdom, and Lion?

One Week Left to Watch ___________

It's a massacre of available older streaming titles this month although there aren't very many major titles among them. [Disclaimer: Netflix hasn't announced yet so all of these titles are Amazon Prime but bear in mind that the Amazon Prime titles are not "official". They don't ever publish that list much to the frustration of their customers! So this info gathered from users about expiration notices they've seen on their personal watch lists. Sometimes it changes abruptly.

Let's play our game where we freeze frame them at very random places and see what pops up. Okay? Okay.

Mrs Doyle: I'd like to see that file.
Police Inspector: I'd be very happy to show it to you. 

Crime of Passion (1957)
My god Barbara Stanwyck's voice. It gets me every time. Everything sounds so subliminally erotic. In this one she's married to a detective but bored into ambitious dangerous action.

Five more after the jump...

Click to read more ...

1984: The Sexiness of "Romancing the Stone"

We're celebrating the cinematic year of 1984 this month. Here's Chris Feil on Romancing the Stone...

One of 1984's biggest hits was Romancing the Stone, a quippy twist on a harlequin romance dressed up as a jungle adventure. The film was the first big box office success for director Robert Zemeckis, though he only ever fleetingly matched Stone's glee for the sexy - it's almost odd that this film comes from a director who's film are often mostly crotchless.

But more importantly, Stone gifted us with the first cinematic gold pairing of Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas. The duo is perfectly matched for their complimentary wits and evident sex appeal, resulting in both sequel The Jewel of the Nile and The War of the Rose before the decade's end. They may have had more overt steaminess elsewhere (see: Body Heat and Fatal Attraction, et al.), but even this film's PG rating can't contain their fireworks together.

The blend of grand adventure, slapstick humor, and loin-grabbing passion begs the question "Why does sex at the movies always have to be so damn serious?" So in honor of the Stone's hot fun:

TEN OF THE SEXIEST MOMENTS...

Click to read more ...

Links: Best Picture Field, Highest Paid Actresses, The Departed on TV?

It's link time which also doubles as news catch up! (Yes, Oscar Chart updates are currently in progress. So more on that and the foreign submissions very soon)

Think Pieces, List Mania, Celebrity
• Movie City News launches another "Gurus of Gold" season where all of us have named our current top 20 "general field" predictions. Yes, I'm updating my charts over the next three days! Manchester by the Sea and Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk are expected leaders
• Gawker Rich Juzwiack says goodbye to one identity through a George Michael lens. It's wonderful
• MNPP Paul Bettany is vacationing in Ibiza
• NYT talks to Kirsten Dunst about life after Fargo and her Emmy nomination
• Mind of a Suspicious Kind Martin Scorsese's Silence is supposedly his longest ever (over 3 hours) but is it actually coming out this year?

• Cinema Enthusiast polled film twitter on their favorite films of 1982. The results are interesting but weird. The Thing at #1? Erm, okay. Star Trek II above Victor/Victoria? NO. I have to admit that I'm quite spotty on early 80s cinema though because I couldn't drive myself to the cinema back then.
• Forbes on the easy-to-predict failure of the new Ben-Hur and how it's a fitting end to this particular summer
• Little White Lies wonders if there still a place for eroticism in cinema while watching shorts in Montreal 
• i09 what went wrong with this summer's blockbusters
• AV Club talks to Clea DuVall about past roles on the eve of her directorial debut with The Intervention
• MNPP Dagmara Dominczyck's Patrick Wilson appreciation social media game
• ...TFE we interviewed her once and she is stunningly gorgeous herself
• Slate that nude Trump statue hitting various cities is not amusing to everyone  
• ...EW including actress/author Amber Tamblyn 

News & Miscellania
• The Guardian more trouble for Birth of a Nation. AFI cancelled screenings and Q&A
• ... icymi TFE previous handwringing about this scandal and film
• Forbes Jennnifer Lawrence & Melissa McCarthy top the annual highest paid actresses list this year. Two actresses outside of Hollywood made the list this year: Deepika Padukone (India) and Fan Bingbing (China). Figures include not just films but endorsement deals and such. The Zeéeeee apparently banked a lot for returning to her signature role in Bridget Jones's Baby since she almost made the list.

• /Film Blade Runner 2 adds Jared Leto to the cast and Jóhan Jóhannsson as composer
• Theater Mania Jennifer Holliday joining the cast of the Broadway revival of Color Purple. I guess they've decided to make Shug Avery the short-term award-winning star draw (they've already been through Jennifer Hudson and Heather Hedley) 
• Screen Daily undervalued British actor Andrew Scott has a lead role. He'll star in the thriller Steel Country 
• Kotaku Ghost in the Shell  supporting cast photos leaked
• Towleroad on Frank Oceans new video Nikes 
• Coming Soon Amazon developing a TV series based on The Departed. Hmmm. Isn't that an odd fit for long term storytelling. It would imply we can never move past the double crossing discovered stage
• Playbill Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher documentary will premiere at the NYFF 
• Film Stage the first image from Euphoria with Alicia Vikander & Eva Green 

Madonna Mania - It's Around This Summer For Some Reason (not complaning)
• Boy Culture on a star studded Truth or Dare screening in NYC...
• People ...Madonna even showed up super briefly!
• Village Voice Michael Musto recalls his up and down relationship to the material girl through their very long contemporaneous careers 

And I'll leave you with the new La La Land trailer. (If you missed our discussion of the first trailer, that's here.) This movie can't open soon enough!