The Golden Era at the Golden Horse Awards

You may recall that last year the Golden Horse celebrated its 50th year so it was a big big deal. All the stars of Chinese language cinema were out with all the living winners of the lead acting prizes prominently displayed on stage. Zhang Ziyi finally took home Best Actress for The Grand Master, a prize that had continually eluded her. This year, the 51st, is bound to be a let down in comparison but it's still worth noting since we like to see how the Oscar submissions from various Asian countries fare. So let's just hit that straightaway...

Tang Wei stars in The Golden Era, a 30s era biopic of an important Chinese writer

THE GOLDEN ERA (Ann Hui) - Hong Kong's Oscar submission
This historical bio of a famous female writer finds Lust Caution's then-novice star Tang Wei headlining another acclaimed 3 hour period epic. It's nominated for 5 awards and they're all major ones: Feature, Director, Actress, Supporting Actress and Original Screenplay. No tech nominations though, which seems strange for a period epic. I'm still kicking myself for missing this one at TIFF but it's hard to fit the super-sized movies into those jampacked schedules.

ICE POISON (Midi Z) - Taiwan's Oscar submission
Our own Oscars don't ever have the "lone wolf" director anymore with the expanded Best Picture lineup and an increasing willingness to embrace chillier critical darlings anyway, but the Golden Horse got one this year. This Taiwanese drama about a poor young farmer and a woman escaping an arranged marriage who both  get mixed up in selling crystal meth is only nominated for Best Director.

MY BELOVED DEAREST (Sanif Olek) - Singapore's Oscar submission
Last year, Singapore was the surprise winner of the Best Feature Golden Horse (which tilts heavily China and Hong Kong) for their Oscar submission Ilo Ilo but this year their representing film either wasn't eligible or was not well loved by the Golden Horse jury. Zero nominations.

Black Coal Thin Ice led the nominations

We don't yet know what the mainland has chosen as their Oscar submission but the other films that were embraced by the Golden Horse Jury were: Black Coal, Thin Ice from China and winner of the Golden Bear early this year (Glenn reviewed) which led nominations with 8 including all the biggies - Feature, Director, Actress and Actor; Blind Massage from China, exactly what it's title implies, was not far behind with 7 nominations including Feature and Director; Kano from Taiwan, a true story baseball movie set in the 1930s won 6 nominations including Feature and Makeup & Costumes; Coming Home, the new Gong Li drama about a man returning from prison to his estranged wife, missed the key nod for Best Feature but won 5 other nominations including two for acting: Gong Li and a Newcomer nod for Zhang Huiwen who plays her daughter; Paradise in Service was also big in acting categories with three supporting nods but it missed Best Feature, too; A Fool about parents desperate to save their son convicted of a crime won five nominations including Feature.

Young Detective Dea: Rise of the Sea Dragon is available on Netflix Instant Watch!

And finally, just because it's fun to know these films -- and because yours truly kind of misses the days a decade ago when everyone was excited about wuxia movies - other films that did well, particularly in the tech awards included Brotherhood of Blades set in the Ming dynasty, The White Storm a drug underworld action film, No Man's Land about a lawyer's adventures in the Gobi desert and the biggie, a wuxia prequel with five tech nominations: Young Detective Dee: Rise of the Sea Dragon which is available on Netflix Instant Watch.

You can see a complete list of nominations here.

Extensive charts of this year's foreign language Oscar submissions (71 announced to date) are fully updated  here.

NYFF: From Russia with Love and 'Pomegranates'

New York Film Festival isn't just about the new. Here is Glenn on the restoration of Sergei Parajanov's 1968 avant-garde classic 'The Color of Pomegranates'.

Conversing at a bar last Friday night after the premiere NYFF screening of David Fincher’s Gone Girl, I mentioned to Nathaniel that I knew what shot I would choose for “Hit Me With Your Best Shot”. I’m not sure about you, but I frequently find myself attempting to work out what my selection would be when I watch a movie. As I’ve mentioned previously, I am very much into the visual and formal aspects of a film so whether it’s a cheap horror movie or a prestige epic my eyes attempt to scope these things out.

Which brings me to the restoration of Sergei Parajanov’s The Colour of Pomegranates (also known as Sayat Nova). This, quite frankly, is a film in which it would be impossible to find just one single piece of imagery to label the best.

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A Year with Kate: The Glass Menagerie (1973)

Episode 40 of 52: In which Katharine Hepburn takes to TV to show that Laurette Taylor can eat her heart out.

Apparently Kate adapted to TV quickly. Mere months after her first two part television interview on The Dick Cavett Show, Katharine Hepburn returned to the small screen, this time to act. Director Anthony Harvey (last teamed with Kate directing The Lion in Winter) did away with the more fantastical elements of the play in order to get a more "natural" feel, relying on strong acting rather than stagecraft. Nonetheless, The Glass Menagerie remains a touching work of nostalgia and regret that comments in unexpected ways on its legendary lead actress’s life.

When The Glass Menagerie premiered in 1944, Laurette Taylor’s performance as Southern matriarch Amanda Wingfield effectively revolutionized American theatrical acting. In her second foray into Williams’ world, Katharine Hepburn steps out of Taylor’s long shadow. Hepburn's Amanda is not a dreamer, but a fighter. (The biggest shock: Katharine Hepburn, she of the infamous Bryn Mawr brogue, nearly conquers a Southern accent.) Kate plays the most Yankee Southern Belle; she speaks quickly and she demands rather than cajoles. As Kate plays her, Amanda uses her frequent escapes into memory as anecdotal proof that her current suffering is undeserved.

Trivia, nostalgia, and a good reason never to clean out your closet after the jump.

Another explosive family dinner courtesy of Tennessee Williams.

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Jon Favreau's Chef to spawn real-life restaurant

Manuel here with some culinary news courtesy of Jon Favreau and his box office hit Chef ($45 million worldwide gross!)  

In a new interview promoting the Blu-Ray release of the film, Favreau mentioned he's toying with the idea of opening up a restaurant inspired by the film. “I love sharing the food with people, so that they could see that food really is as good as it looks,” Favreau told Yahoo movies about the restaurant. “It’s not the wisest business venture, but for me it’s a way to let the movie live on and connect with the fans.” Not since Ratatouille has a foodie movie made me so crave the various dishes in front of me. Favreau's idea of letting the film live on and connect with the fans sounds like the type of menu and drink options that movie theaters like the Alamo Drafthouse (where you can get Death Becomes Her-inspired cocktails tonight over at Yonkers, for example) and the Nitehawk Cinema (where you can get Boyhood inspired queso!) here in NYC have been toying around for a while now. If you've seen the film, you know opening up an El Jefe restaurant seems like a rather no-brainer idea. I mean look at this!

 

Box office smashes associated with large corporations have been doing this for ages; at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter you can have butterbeer at Three Broomsticks, while at Disney World you can finally be their guest at well, Be Our Guest restaurant which opened recently. In all these endeavors the focus has been on the ambience, rarely on the food which is why Favreau's idea might be a more salivating enterprise. It makes me think of all the 2014 indie food tie-ins that could still come to be: wouldn't you love to grab a Mendl's courtesan Au chocolat from A Grand Budapest Pop-Up Patisserie? Or enjoy a chocolate cake at an Under the Skin inspired diner? I would caution anyone trying to open a Snowpiercer entomophagy protein bar stand, though. 

What other movie-themed or inspired restaurants would you like to see come to life? Would you be willing to trek it out to LA to get a taste of Favreau and celebrity chef Roy Choi's venture? 

September's Gone, Girl

What a busy busy month that was. We were overachievers here, really. I'm so exhausted I'm hoping to prick my finger on a cursed spindle for a little R&R. Traffic always picks up in the fall when the adult movies arrive so if you're just rejoining us we welcome you back with slighly chilled affection (this place is hopping all year round!) by pointing out what you may have missed.

Neo, Cheryl and Rocky hike the PCT

Index of Goodies 
Toronto was a blast! - a handydandy guide (and prizes) for everything I saw there
NYFF - in progress but we've already talked about a bunch of foreign films as well as Maps to the Stars, Gone Girl & Whiplash
Best Shot S5 -highlights from Under the Skin, Eternal Sunshine, The Matrix, etc...
Robert Wise Centennial - the team had fun looking back at this versatile Oscar winner's filmography with 5 randomly selected offerings: Audrey Rose, Somebody Up There Likes Me, Curse of the Cat People, and Star! 

Four Random Goodies
Pride - my favorite September release this year 
Gone Girl - Jason read the book, so he did our first review. (But, yes, I'll chime in at some point)
The Lion in Winter - Anne Marie's "A Year With Kate" finally hit this milestone film 
Showgirls - There can be only one "Goddess": Is it Cristal or Nomi? VOTE 

Most Discussed
American Beauty 15 years on... Do you root for Lester or Carolyn?
Julianne Moore in Still Alice ... a fine movie. An even better performance
10 Best Voice-Only Performances in Films... a team top ten feat. Ursula, the Genie, Darth Vader, and...?
The Last Five Years... you're all eager to see this one apparently. It has lots of problems but a musical where the stars can actually sing is a relief
Oscar Charts... those are always popular, and they're totally up to date right now. They get discussed in the various Oscar-centric articles 

Coming in October
We haven't yet decided how to celebrate the spooky month this year - any suggestions? But some things coming up include Inherent Vice, St. Vincent, Fury, more Gone Girl and the first wave of Oscar contender interviews including talent and creatives from Boyhood, Noah, Get On Up, Birdman and more. Plus a look back at the careers of the four giants receiving Honorary Oscars in early November. (We'll probably give Maureen O'Hara a whole week because you know that's how we roll).