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]