New Oscar Chart ~ Foreign Hopefuls Part 1

We won't start hearing about "official submissions" for Oscar's Foreign Language Film race until September but until then, it's speculation time! The first chart is up looking at countries from Afghanistan through Ethiopia.

The most high profile film from this batch, other than possibly another Austrian submission from Michael Haneke (Happy End), is Chile's A Fantastic Woman. It's a trans drama that took three prizes at Berlinale. If it's as good as director Sebastian Lelio's previous Oscar submission (Gloria) we'll have to riot if he's passed over again. 

Other intriguing prospects include the well reviewed black and white fairy tale November from Estonia and possibly another submission from Oscar winner Jan Sverak of the Czech Republic. Sverak won the foreign film Oscar for his art house sleeper hit Kolya  (1996) about a stepfather and his little boy and his latest called Barefoot is another childhood tale set in the countryside during World War II.

Check out the chart and report back

First & Last: News Flash

Resurrecting an old game we used to play. Here are the first and last images from a motion picture...

Can you guess the movie?

Will "Bright" be a Netflix Blockbuster? And how do you even define that?

By Ben Miller

If you haven’t heard already, Netflix will continue their quest for world domination with a tentpole feature film, Bright, in December.  Directed by David Ayer (End of Watch, Fury), the film stars Will Smith as a Los Angeles police officer who is teamed up with an orc cop (Joel Edgerton) to fight crime and try to make sense of whatever the hell is happening in the trailer.  There are fairies, magic wands, elves, swords, Noomi Rapace, and all sorts of other fantastical elements involved.

Let’s talk money.  Bright cost $90 million for Netflix to pick up.  Half of that cost went in to the film to shoot, while the other half goes to the talent (mostly Smith, Ayer and screenwriter Max Landis).  These days, $90 million seems pretty reasonable for a fantasy film starring an A-List “Movie Star”.  Suicide Squad, the most recent Smith-Ayer fantasy foray, cost $175 million. [More...]

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Justice Link

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AV Club Raising Arizona was on the cover of a Serbian biology textbook!
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A Detour to the Stage
Playbill in an upcoming revival of Stephen Sondheim's masterpiece (well, one of them) Company, the genders will be reversed
Playbill Kathleen Turner's speaking voice is, of course, legendary but now comes word that she's going to sing on stage!!! What? She's debuting a cabaret show "Finding My Voice" in Philadelphia
Broadway Blog Mandy Patinkin is taking over the lead male role in Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 on Broadway for 3 weeks only. MANDY PATINKIN.
Theater Mania Frozen is deep in rehearsals now - Instagram pics of the cast

Quick Take: Gore Vidal on Film

Variety recently announced that Kevin Spacey is to bring Gore Vidal to our screens in a Netflix original film. Directed by Michael Hoffman (dir. The Last Station), Spacey might be the most perfect casting, and judging by some coded, jovial remarks at the Tony Awards this year, may relish a role like this.

Vidal's life has previously been on screen in documentaries: Gore Vidal: United States of Amnesia and Best of Enemies, about his combative relationship with William F. Buckley.

Vidal: Writer, bon vivant, public intellectual and unapologetic homosexual has a rich, albeit chequered history in cinema. Screenwriter for the frenzied Suddenly, Last Summer, debauched bloodbath Caligula and his own notorious novel Myra Breckinridge was adapted into X-rated 1970 film.

And as uncredited writer of Ben-Hur, he was responsible for those lingering glances between Stephen Boyd and Charlton Heston - not that Heston ever knew that...