Golden Horse Awards for 2022 go to "Coo-Coo 043" and "Limbo"

by Nathaniel R

Sylvia Chang wins her fourth Golden Horse. img via Golden Horse instagram

Whoops this year's 59th Golden Horse Awards slipped right by us. They were held on November 19th in Taipei. The annual event covers the best in Chinese-language cinema and are juried awards. Director Ann Hui was Jury President this year and actor Chang Chen was also on the jury. The cinematographer Mark Lee Ping-bing (In the Mood for Love) took over the awards executive committee lead role from Ang Lee. Though the Hong Kong thriller Limbo had led the nominations with 14 and won the most awards, the big winner was a film called Coo-Coo 043. Nominees, photos, winners, and a few comments about the films are after the jump... 

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Happy Thanksgiving!

Dear readers, I have COVID for the second time which has spoiled my holiday (great timing!) but hopefully yours is going great! Thank you for your patience of late -- so grateful for any of you still with us or rooting for us. Coverage will be revving back up for the final festive month of the year. We'll have several "Oscar Volleys" (we started with editing), more reviews (here's everything for this year), plus interviews with a few directors and actors for you very soon. Also here are all the updated Oscar charts... and of course those updates won't last long before the winds shift. 'Tis the season'. 

xo, Nathaniel 

Doc Corner: Laura Poitras with 'All The Beauty and the Bloodshed'

By Glenn Dunks

There is a line early in All the Beauty and the Bloodshed where somebody describes the film’s subject, photographer and activist Nan Goldin, as somebody who “knew how to use her power.” I found it appropriate that the director of this movie is Laura Poitras, somebody to whom you could also say knows how to use their power. Poitras is, after all, the filmmaker who has been at the centre of multiple political stories—I mean, it’s rare for a documentarian to be a character in a dramatization of a major news story (she was portrayed by Melissa Leo in Oliver Stone’s Snowden). And to watch a Poitras film is often to be swept up in a swirl of chaos and pain.

Unlike Risk (about Julian Assange) or her Oscar-winning Citizenfour (about Edward Snowden), Poitras herself is not a part of the story here. Nevertheless, her latest is the thrilling and involving work of a filmmaker whose skills feel almost unparalleled. There’s a quiet, almost sneaking, grandeur to her work here as a filmmaker, directing the viewer down the many paths of Goldin’s story with grace, humility and intrigue, and with a technical finesse that is subtle yet entirely specific from one cut to the next.

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Review: "Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery" Ups the Ante to Glorious Results

by Christopher James

Sometimes, bigger is actually better.

Over Thanksgiving weekend in 2019, Knives Out became a sleeper hit, delivering a perfectly fun and witty whodunnit perfect for all generations. The Netflix sequel, Glass Onion, ups the ante in every way possible. The set is bigger, the cast is starrier, the cameos are plentiful. Despite the excess on screen, none of the magic of the original is lost. In fact, Glass Onion improves on the original, taking a character we know and love and thrusting him into a funnier and more zany mystery. The heart is still there so sign me up for plenty more chapters of Detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) solving elaborate mysteries.

For those concerned, never fear. No major spoilers are ahead. The latest Benoit Blanc tale, which just opened in cinemas, deserves to be seen with as fresh of eyes as possible...

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Oscar contenders win at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards

by Nathaniel R

Cambodia's Oscar submission won two awards at APSA

Even if you are a deeply committed film obsessive there are films you will never have heard of that will win or be nominated for prizes during awards season. That's one of the reasons we love to check in with awards bodies overeas. If only all movies could be released everywhere for us cinephiles!  We just caught up with the Asia Pacific Screen Awards, now in their 15th year.  Indonesia's Before Now & Then took the top prize but in addition to a few nominees we hadn't yet heard of, five current Oscar hopefuls won prizes: International Feature contenders Joyland, Return to Seoul, Aurora's Sunrise, and Muru, and the documentary All That Breathes... 

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