Links Don't Apply

• Cartoon Brew the effects work in The Shape of Water
• Coming Soon The Lady Gaga / Bradley Cooper version of A Star is Born gets pushed back to October. Does this mean they think it has Oscar potential or just that it wouldn't be competitive in its previous May slot?
• The Awardist I Tonya's breakout star (the parakeet) tattle-tales on Allison Janney
• The Guardian on Jessica Chastain's emergence as a outspoken activist this year
• THR We forgot to share the news that SAG was having all female presenters this year!
• THR Their first ever "live roundtable"... honestly there are so many roundtables now I have literally not watched a one this year. Can't keep up!

• Variety MoviePass has passed the 1 million mark in subscribers
• Deadline Remember Warren Beatty's short-lived but long gestating Rules Don't Apply? It's now got legal trouble
• Deadline Sufjan Stevens was originally going to do more than just sing for Call Me By Your Name but narrate it too. (We love Sufjan but sooo glad the movie opted out of narration)
• EW Annette Bening on why she's no longer doing American Crime Story: Katrina

LIST-MANIA
• Film School Rejects best under-the-radar films you probably missed this year
• Variety top ten shots of the year via Kris Tapley
• Out R Kurt Osenlund's top films of the year including Saturday Church, Girls Trip, Atomic Blonde
• IMDb ten most popular movie pages for 2017: Blade Runner 2049, Split, Wonder Woman, etc
• The Playlist worst movies of the year. I was furious with them for putting the excellent Atomic Blonde on the list but this bit on Emoji Movie made me lol

Is it shooting fish in a barrel to put “The Emoji Movie,” a film for children that had no aspirations at any point in its creation other than to milk money out of those children’s parents, so high on this list? Perhaps. But in this case, the fish in the barrel are savage fucking piranhas that would devour everything you loved if they remain un-shot. 

100 Biggest Foreign Language Hits of 2017

Our year in review party begins. A different list each day. Here's Nathaniel R...

In the Fade didnt risk release in 2017 after all, hoping for Oscar favor to buoy its release in 2018Time for an annual look back at subtitled fare in cinemas. As with last year's list India, China, Mexico, and South Korea dominate with a smattering of other countries faring much less well in the American marketplace. Much of that is due, we think, to dedicated distributors focusing specifically on one market like FIP, China Lion and WellGo. Some of the movies we though might be big deals this year like Chile's Oscar nominee A Fantastic Woman opted for Oscar qualifying release only and Germany's Oscar finalist In the Fade starring Diane Kruger (pictured left) opted to sneak out at the last second to qualify for all Oscars though it did not receive nominations, buried in that post Christmas glut of tiny releases.

For the purposes of this list we skipped documentaries and animated films to keep the list more focused (and avoid arguments about dubbed versions or whatnot) but please to know that had we kept them in the wonderful Turkish street cat documentary Kedi would be in the top ten right here. This list is otherwise, as carefully as we could manage, accurate though we're happy to take corrections should we have missed something.

TOP 100 FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILMS FOR 2017
Listed By US Box Office Gross only  - FINAL TOTALS | Title links to reviews

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Soundtracking: "Love Actually"

Chris's weekly look at music in movies gets festive for Love Actually!

Love Actually is so loaded with musical sequences you could almost call it a quasi-musical. That said, it is light on holiday music even though it is set at Christmas time. However, you can easily forgive Love Actually if you want it to be loaded on melodic holiday cheer because it uses the Christmas song of the past few decades: Mariah Carey’s All I Want for Christmas is You”.

Like Spider-Man and multiple lobsters’ participation in this Christmas pageant, Love Actually throws everything it can into its insane mix but is nevertheless a delight because of the reliable charms of genre hallmarks. “All I Want for Christmas is You” is about as indispensable as they come and a guaranteed bop. How many times have you already heard it this holiday season and how many more times will you hear it again before it’s over? Despite its ubiquity, the answer to both questions is “probably not enough”.

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Contest: mother!

Yes, yes, we know. We talk about mother! a lot. (We've never felt so close to Norman Bates). So herewith a contest just for TFE readers. We're giving away two prizes courtesy of Paramount. The big prize is a combo of the Blu-ray of mother! and a book on the making of. The runner up prize is just the movie itself.

The mother! Blu-ray combo pack (new this week) includes access to a Digital HD copy of the film as well as the feature film in high definition and bonus content like "mother! The Downward Spiral" and "The Makeup FX of mother!" as well as the DVD in standard definition. The book is described like so: 

 Equal parts visual chronicle and artful scene study, mother! The Making of the Fever Dream recounts Darren Aronofsky’s spellbinding second half of mother!, and how it was constructed, with corresponding screen grabs, behind-the-scenes photography, script cues, and the annotated maps of his shot list.

TO ENTER
Simply e-mail The Film Experience with your name, shipping address, and a sentence on your favorite thing about mother! --  if you haven't seen it yet, guess.
BONUS ENTRY
If you want a better chance to win, we'll give you five entries if you instagram, facebook, or tweet out a picture of yourself with your sink (or some other visual shout out to the movie) and the hashtags #thesinksnotbracedyet and #MotherBluRay. Got it?

7 Makeup & Hairstyling Finalists. Where is _____ ?

by Nathaniel R

We can't be constrained by the now! Yesterday the Academy announced the 7 finalists hoping to nab one of the 3 nomination spots for Best Makeup and Hairstyling but we were too busy listing the past 35 (no 37) winners of this category to mention it. So here we are a day late without a stitch of makeup on to share / discuss and grouse about the exclusions. Join us after the jump won't you?

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