Y los nominados son...

Jose here. The nominations for the 25th Annual Goya Awards have been announced and leading the pack is none other than The Last Circus, Alex De La Iglesia's killer clown allegory which not only earned him a Best Director award at last year's Venice Film Festival but also picked up some of the worst reviews of any movie in any festival during 2010.

 

Best Film

• Buried (yes, the Ryan Reynolds coffin thriller)
  
• Even The Rain (Spain's Oscar Submission)
• The Last Circus
• Pa Negre

The bad reviews didn't seem to deter the Spanish Film Academy which showered the film with nods (a whopping 15! More than any other movie this year) including Breakthrough Actress for the appropriately named Carolin Bang and of course Best Picture and Best Director. Interestingly enough, de la Iglesia is also the Academy's president. But before we scream nepotism we have to take into consideration that Spain makes fewer movies than many countries with film awards and will, well, sometimes nominate anything.

Best Actor Nominees: Javi & Ryan

Speaking of which, Ryan Reynolds is nominated for Best Actor for his work in Buried (which was made by a Spaniard, Rodrigo Cortés, and is therefore eligible). It's not that Reynolds' work isn't good or maybe better than he had any right to be or better than anything anyone ever expected from him, but when you see he's nominated next to Javier Bardem (for Biutiful) things just seem odd, huh?

Best Actor

• Javier Bardem -Biutiful
• Ryan Reynolds -Buried
• Luis Tosar -Even the Rain
• Antonio de la Torre -The Last Circus

The lovely Elena Anaya (pictured left) is up for Best Actress for her work in Room in Rome (read my review here) we'll see her next in Pedro Almodóvar's new film! Rome also won nominations for Breakthrough Actress and Best Song (I wonder where its nomination for Best Use of Google Maps is...)

Best Actress

• Elena Anaya -Room in Rome
• Nora Navas -Pa Negre
  
• Belén Rueda -Julia's Eyes
• Emma Suárez -The Mosquito

The actress category looks unimpressive when you remember that last year the nominees were Lola Dueñas, Rachel Weisz, Maribel Verdú and Pe! 

Considering that most of the films selected for the Goyas rarely get release dates in our continent let's head over to see international categories.

Best Latin American Film

• Undertow - Perú (Oscar submission and TFE Honorable Mention)
• The Man Next Door - Argentina 
• Hell - Mexico 
• The Life of Fish - Chile (Oscar submission)

Best European Film

• The King's Speech - England
• The Ghost Writer - France (just discussed right here)
• The White Ribbon - Germany
• A Prophet - France (just discussed right here)

Don't you just hate when last year's releases compete with this year's releases for awards? Let's all dream of a day when EVERY movie will be released around the world at the same time. It would make for some exciting global unity sort of thing huh?

So, dear readers in Europe, you're probably more equated with these films: Anyone you're rooting for? Anything we should be looking forward to when it's released here?

[More categories at the Goya Awards Official Site]

Comments

[HenryK]

Carlos Areces is not nominated for best actor. Luis Tosar is.

I didn´t like "The last circus" (I actually think that it is the worst movie of Alex de la Iglesia) but I understand that the cast and crew made a wonderful job: the problem with the movie is the weak screenplay.

And I´m really happy for the nominations of "Pa negre", from the director of "In a glass cage"

[NATHANIEL R]

Henry -- that was my bad not Jose's (i added the list in. God that Goyas site is difficult. No straight up list of nominees. You have to scroll through dozens and dozens of names and look for the "finalist" ticket). Thanks for the correction.

also ... what does Pa Negre mean? I'm seeing it translated as Pan Black but I'm not sure what that means either even in English.

[Eneko Ruiz]

Pa Negre is catalonian for Black Bread (in spanish Pan Negro).

Balada Triste de Trompeta (Last Circus) is simply amazing, very personal but very spanish, so you are not going to understand it properly if you are neither from Spain (and you do not know our history) nor friend of Álex de la Iglesia style (masterful director of El Día de la Bestia, La Comunidad, Crimen Ferpecto and Muertos de Risa). You have to be able to bear with gore and a lot of crazyness, but at the end, the pic is just a mesmerizing result of the recent spanish history (post-civil war), divided by two very clear political sides and built in a dictatorship.

Shockingly out of the noms are Gael García Bernal (Even the Rain), Carlos Areces (The Last Circus) and small but critically embraced movies like Entre Lobos, Carne de Neón or Bon Appetit.

Speaking of nepotism, Iciar Bollaín (Even the Rain director) is the Academy Vice-President.

[Anna]

Mm intriguied by this Even The Rain, love Bernal.

[Dan]

Off-topic (sorta), but the killer clown in the picture kinda reminds me of Pee Wee's adversary in Pee Wee's Big Adventure (Mark Holton is his name).

[Deivith Coast]

I feel that I need to say that, although in Spain there are obviously, much less movies made than in America per year (I don´t think we made less movies than, for example Italy and they have their David de Donatello awards), there are lots of Spanish movies to have an Academy Award, and especially this year 2010 there have been lots of great Spanish movies. To me, the Best Picture lineup is a very good one, I particularly love Pa Negre (Black Bread), in all of its darkness and symbolism, it reminds me to Lorca´s literature, it has fantastic performances by all its cast, it´s a very auteur movie, as Balada Triste de Trompeta: to me is amazing, I think the screenplay is very good, it´s built on a very powerful and tragic metaphor. También la lluvia, although maybe too educative is a great example of good narrative, and it´s told with so much sensibility. The whole cast is great, to me Tosar is the best in that movie. I think it will be a great Oscar nominee as best foreign film though it may have not many chances.

The problem with Goya Awards is that they forget to nominee lots of films and as a result the nominations are incredibly boring and repetitive, they go to five or six films they have liked and they nominee those films in everything, and the nominations are always incredibly unfair and again, boring. I think Spanish academics don´t see many Spanish cinema. That´s why there are films with fifteen, fourteen nominations which is excessive. But the reason isn´t that there aren´t enough good Spanish movies to nominee. To me Bon Appétit is better than all the nominees, and Habitación en Roma too. And there have been lots of very good movies such as Rabia, Todo lo que tú quieras, María y yo, La Isla Interior...

Finally maybe for foreigners the best actress cathegory is unimpressive, but it is actually great, much better than last year´s with so so performances such as Lola Dueñas´and Verdú´s. Maybe Nora Navas or Emma Suarez means nothing to you, but they are, in fact great actresses and their performances are amazing. And Elena Anaya is heartbreaking and unforgettable in Habitación en Roma (heartbreaking film, by the way). To me in the best actor lineup is where there have been more snubs, though the final four are very good, lots of great performances have been ignored.

If ther´s someone interested, I analyze the nominations in my blog, which I have started with that analysis. It´s in Spanish though, as you see, I don´t write very well in English. It´s coastpresents.blogspot.com

[Glenn]

"Buried" isn't just directed by a Spaniard though, right? I thought it was a Spanish production (or, at least, co-production like "The Others" in 2001). I remember the credits of that film were filled to the brim with Spanish names in every behind the scenes spot.

[Alfonso]

I agree with Jose remaks about the lack of variety in these nominations. I personally would have liked to see Todo lo que tú quieras, Nacidas para sufrir and La isla interior, three daring pictures with solid scripts and great performances.

[Mirko]

Quite a boring year for GOYAS...hope to find Helena Anaya also next year with THE SKIN I'M LIVING IN, the new Almodovar "joint"...I know Goyas are not very warm with spanish most celebrated director, but I'm sure that LA PIEL QUE HABITO could make the nominations less boring, definitely

[iggy]

Ha! I think this is the first time I hear about the Goya nominations here first. Interesting choices and analysis. I do think the nominations for Buried are deserved -as the kind of nominations tha basically mean that we let you know the effort it takes to do international productions with big stars- and are balanced with the more art house stuff.

Nepotism? Isnt' that refereed only to family members? Anyway, it's a small industry, even if spite of the reviews you couldn't have snubbed Room in Rome ( I must confess, I was a big Medem fan, back in the day but I didn't get it this one, and I'm tired of having to analyse every single thing he does, more clealy cinematic langiuage would help, imo) and the Venice festival double award winner. I read somewhere Alex de la Iglesia said he'd have resigned if that meant the movie could get nominated. But you've gotta love an academy that gives a supporting actress award to the most prototypical suffering wife possible (not even a showy or three dimentional part), a pregnant one that dies, just because she was the current girlfriend of the Best actor winner last year. So, i'm sure they'll be delighted if Reynolds attemds the ceremony. Pity there's no more Johanson for red carpet pictures.

[Peggy Sue]

You're right Nathaniel! The site is a mess...

I think the Academy did pretty good considering it was a weak year. "The Last Circus" is amazing and "Black Bread" is a solid drama.

PS "Nacidas para sufrir" and "La isla interior" were ineligible this year.