Foreign Oscar Watch: Does "Xuan Zang" Complete the Submission List?

As we've noted many times the Official Foreign Film Submission List generally contains at least one surprise when Oscar announces it -either a switcheroo from a country who had second thoughts about their submitted film or a disqualification or a film we hadn't yet heard of.  We don't know the date but it's any time in the next week or so. At the moment the list is 86 wide (a record if it holds!) thanks to the last few films we know of to announce including Costa Rica's romantic dramedy About Us, Malaysia's autism drama Redha, and the biopic Xuan Zang from China which is about a famous monk during the Tang Dynasty. That one sure looks pretty.

If you haven't looked at the Oscar charts in a while take a gander. We'll obviously break it down in several fun ways when the official list is announced.

What You Can Watch
If you are eager to see the selections please note that Sweden's A Man Called Ove, UK's Under the Shadow, South Korea's Age of Shadows, and Israel's Sand Storm are now in select cities and Mexico's Desierto hits next Friday. The only three available to watch online right now in the US that we know of are Palestine's The Idol (for rental on Amazon), Venezuela's From Afar and Greece's Chevalier (which are both streaming on Netflix). If you know of legal options in your country to view these please let others know in the comments.

86 Submissions for 2016
Afghanistan to Finland - 27 films
France to The Netherlands - 29 films
New Zealand to Vietnam - 30 films

14 Submission Reviews Thus Far
Death in Sarajevo - Bosnia & Herzegovina
Neruda - Chile
Mother - Estonia
Elle - France
Toni Erdmann - Germany
Chevalier - Greece
Sand Storm - Israel
Fire at Sea - Italy
A Flickering Truth - New Zealand
Apprentice - Singapore
Julieta - Spain
My Life as a Courgette - Switzerland
As I Open My Eyes - Tunisia
From Afar - Venezuela 

Review: Denial

by Eric Blume

It’s kind of surprising how good Denial isn’t.  The new film is about a Holocaust historian (Rachel Weisz) who has libel charges thrown against her by a racist Holocaust denier (Timothy Spall). The basic story is absorbing and filled with potentially interesting ideas but it's executed in the most perfunctory manner. It’s as if the actors, director, and crew showed up every morning and said, “okay we know the scene we need to shoot today -- maybe let’s try cameras here and turn on some of these lights we have sitting around. Let’s do this!”.  

Director Mick Jackson has previously won an Emmy for the lovely Temple Grandin for HBO, and previously made L.A. Story and Live from Baghdad; he's not without talent.  But Denial proves shapeless, not only in the shot construction, but all of the beats, and even in our feelings towards the main character.  We’re kept at a visual and emotional distance from Weisz’s Deborah Lipstadt. This is not unlike what happened with Jack O’Connell’s character and performance in Angelina Jolie’s Unbroken: the protagonist is front and center but doesn't do anything --  things are done to them...

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Michelle Williams' Oscar Moment might be in Manchester

by Murtada

Williams this week at NYFF

There was a time - say early 2012 - when Michelle Williams could do no wrong with Oscar. Basking in her third overall nomination for My Week with Marilyn (2011), the second in as many years as she was nominated the year before for Blue Valentine (2010), she had the heat, she had the momentum. She also had the critical and cinephile love with acclaimed performances behind her in Take this Waltz (2011), Meek’s Cutoff (2010) and Wendy and Lucy (2008).

The win was definitely coming and soon. How times change.

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NYFF: Uncle Howard & Brillo Box (3 ¢ off)

Here's Jason reporting from NYFF on two docs that deal with a younger generation being affected and influenced by the art dealings of their elders.

It seems like every other gay person that I meet has a gay aunt or uncle who informed their childhood in some way - I never did; the closest I got was a friend of my mother's who was whispered about as a weird bachelor type, but he was out of her life before I was born. But you remember such things, small weird whispers as they are, when they're your singular life-line to a big world actually existing out there where you can figure your own stuff out. 

I don't know or care if director Aaron Brookner is gay himself but you get the same sensation from watching Uncle Howard, his new documentary on his uncle, a film-maker who died at the age of 34 from AIDS - the thirst to eat up all he can about this fabulous person who lived a fabulous life in the margins of his own, and what that was like for him... 

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Isabelle Huppert Lands AFI Fest Tribute

by Daniel Crooke

Isabelle Huppert is having a pretty great year. Which is saying something, because it's hard to imagine her having a bad one. Between her raves for Mia Hansen-Løve’s Things to Come and Paul Verhoeven’s instantly infamous Elle, a sexual assault thriller that’s accrued steady word of mouth since its Cannes debut earlier this year, Huppert continues to sit pretty upon her throne of breathtaking unconventionalism. But while her oeuvre of compelling, challenging performances has garnered her a red-hot reputation across the globe as one of the best and bravest actresses of her generation, her domain of awards acclaim has rested largely in her home country of France. She holds the record for the most César nominations by an actress and yet Oscar has never paid her mind. With the news that AFI Fest plans to fête Huppert with a Tribute and matching Gala screening of Elle this November, perhaps she’ll push her way into the hearts and minds of Angeleno Academy voters in attendance before ballots go out.

If Huppert’s awards record of European cries and American crickets sounds familiar in this Oscar race, you’d be forgiven: we’ve already had a similar discussion a couple times this decade about under recognized actresses from the other side of the Atlantic. Last year, AFI Fest hosted a similar Tribute for Charlotte Rampling with a screening of 45 Years and then a scant few months later, Rampling was back in LA for the Oscars as a first-time Best Actress nominee. Emmanuelle Riva – iconic in Hiroshima, Mon Amour but mostly unknown to mainstream American audiences – found herself in the thick of the Best Actress race for Amour and became the oldest nominee in history for the prize. For my money, she should’ve been the oldest winner too. Couple this with the statistic that a European actress from a foreign language title has landed a Best Actress nomination three of the past five Oscar ceremonies (the third being Marion Cotillard for the Dardennes’ Two Days, One Night) and a precedent emerges that may give hope for Huppert landing that first Oscar nomination this year.

Although, as has been oft discussed in the infancy of this season, this is an usually competitive year in Best Actress. Do you think Huppert will make the cut, or it simply too tight a year for a performance in such a provocative film to squeeze in?