Animated Feature Contenders: "Primal"

By Tim

A record-setting 32 films were submitted in 2019 for the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. Of these, the biggest outlier is the clumsily-titled Genndy Tartakovsky's Primal: Tales of Savagery, which only barely deserves to be called a film at all. It's a feature-length repackaging of of the first five episodes of the television limited series Primal, which aired on Adult Swim in October (with another five coming sometime in 2020), and which was never at any point intended to be seen in any other form than as discrete 22-minute episodes. The condensed feature-length version existed solely to have something that could be put into theaters in Los Angeles for a week to qualify for the Oscars, and there are no plans for it to ever see the light of day again.

Ordinarily, that would be the kind of rule-bending chicanery that we disapprove of here at the Film Experience, but I'm content to overlook it in this case. First, because it's extremely unlikely to pay off in the form of a nomination on Monday morning. Second, if Adult Swim hadn't played this cheap trick, I'd have no excuse to talk to all of you about Primal, which in any medium is clearly one of the major works of animation from 2019...

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International Contenders: "Those Who Remained"

by Abe Fried-Tanzer

There are many films that have been made about the Holocaust, which to some may feel repetitive but ultimately represents a positive testament to the millions of people who lost their lives and whose fates, while assumed, may still not be entirely known. Invented characters can be useful to convey the experiences of the nameless within an enormous population that did not live to see its own story told. Hungary last won the Oscar for Best Foreign Film for the Holocaust movie Son of Saul (2015), and now it could be in the running again for a smaller-scale Holocaust film Those Who Remained, which unexpectedly made the shortlist of ten films that are vying for the five nominations on Monday.

In this quiet, intimate drama, Klára (Abigél Szõke) clings to the hope that her parents may still be alive as she tries to conduct a normal life with her remaining local relative, Olgi (Mari Nagy), in the aftermath of the Holocaust...

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Awards Season (and TFE) Calendar - The Final Stretch

It's the final month+ of awards mania and we'll have final Oscar nom predictions up shortly. But what a busy weekend it already is... 

Globe Drama winner / Oscar hopeful 1917 just expanded into wide release, France's Oscar finalist Les Miserables opened in limited release (banking on a nomination Monday, no doubt). For home viewing Best Picture hopeful Joker and Oscar longshot-in-a-couple-of-categories The Lighthouse both just hit Blu-Ray. New to streaming is the Florence Pugh showcase horror film MidSommar on Amazon Prime, while action spectacle John Wick Parabellum (mysteriously not nominatd for stunts at SAG) arrives on HBO. But here's what's still to come this season... 

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International Contenders: Estonia's "Truth and Justice"

by Abe Fried-Tanzer

When someone is young, the future can be full of hope. There is endless time to truly build something, and, if it’s difficult to get a dream off the ground right away, there may be other opportunities and options down the road. Working toward a goal, however, requires some sort of anchoring to the present so that a person doesn’t become too bogged down in the lack of progress and isn’t ever able to appreciate what it is they have on the way there. If eyes are only on the future, those who have spent every moment working may feel as if they’ve missed their entire lives once they actually stop to take it all in.

In Truth or Justice, Estonia’s finalist for Best International Feature this year, Andres (Priit Loog) buys a large farm and moves there with his wife Krõõt (Maiken Schmidt). He soon meets his neighbor Pearu (Priit Võigemast), an alcoholic who has already driven away two previous owners with his dishonest tactics...

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30 days till Oscar

Which actor turning 30 in 2020 will be the first to win an Oscar? (Or in the case of Jennifer Lawrence win a second Oscar). Here's a list of key working actors of the moment (with their current Oscar stats). If they've appeared in a film nominated for Best Picture (or expected to be Monday) that film is mentioned after their name...

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