Golden Horse Nominees Include Two Oscar Contenders

Subtitled fare always seems to consume me in September and early October as the Foreign Language Submission List for Oscar takes shape (it's not quite official yet but the submission deadline has passed). This is also the time of year when The Golden Horse, the preeminent Chinese/Taiwanese film awards, announce their nominations. Rather than a huge Academy vote, the Golden Horse is determined by a jury. Andy Lau who starred in Hong Kong’s Oscar submission A Simple Life last year and is best known internationally for two hits from the Aughts (The House of Flying Daggers and Infernal Affairs which was later remade into The Departed) is the president of this year’s jury. 

Caught in the Web, China's Oscar submission, was apparently not eligible.

BEST PICTURE NOMINEES

• Beijing Blues -a police procedural 
• Mystery - is the leader with 8 nominations. It's a thriller from Lou Ye, who is most known for erotic dramas like Summer Palace and Cannes hit Spring Fever.
• Life Without Principle - This Johnnie To film about a loan shark is Hong Kong's Oscar submission this year.
• Gf*Bf -a decade long love triangle between three intimate friends with some gay elements. I included the trailer below
• The Bullet Vanishes  -a period piece and whodunnit

Flying Swords of Dragon’s Gate, which recently played in the states, won some technical nominations but none of the headline categories. 

Best Actor
Nick Cheung – Nightfall
Ching Wan Lau – Life Without Principle
Joseph Chang  - Gf*Bf
Chapman To –Vulgaria
Nicholas Tse –The Viral Factor 

Taiwan's Oscar submission "Touch of the Light" was only nominated for Best Actress

Best Actress
Baihe Bai –Love is Not Blind
Lei Hao - Mystery
Denise Ho –Life Without Principle
Lun-Mei Gwei – Gf*Bf
Sandrine Pinna –Touch of the Light

You can see the rest of the nominees at the official Golden Horse Awards site.

Curio: Carole Bayer Sager's Friends

Alexa here. Carole Bayer Sager is best known as a songwriter. Anyone who came of age in the 80s will know the songs she helped create with the likes of Marvin Hamlisch and her ex-husband Burt Bacarach. Many of these figured prominently in film, like "That's What Friends Are For" (I remember Rod Stewart's version being used in Night Shift, although Dionne Warwick's version with her friends is more famous) and "Nobody Does It Better" (one of the best Bond songs). Carole won an Oscar alongside Bacarach and Christopher Cross in 1981 for the indelible "Arthur's Theme (The Best That You Can Do)".

These days, less excited with songwriting, she has turned to oil painting.  She discusses her new work, mostly of large-scale abstractions and macro-like images of food, in October's issue of W magazine. While her abstractions are stronger, she has also painted portraits of her famous friends, many of which reveal an intimate side of figures we often don't get to see.  Here are a few from the film world she has captured. You can see all her work here.

Steve Martin and his wife Anne StringfieldNicole, Sunday Rose, and KeithStephen Spielberg

First & Last Season Six. Let's Play!

Season Six Commences! The first and last image (minus the opening and closing credits) from a motion picture.

first line

Throw it here, butter fingers." 

last line

PLAY BALL!"

Can you guess the movie?
 

Seth MacFarlane! Really?

 I can't say I saw this one coming. Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane has been named host of February's Oscars. Honestly I wouldn't even have guessed that if you'd let me guess 100 names.

Rule #1 of Oscar Host selection in the past has always been that the host was an instantly recognizable celebrity and household name, the kind of celebrity that even your grandparents would be familiar with: Whoopi, Steve Martin, Letterman, etcetera. It's never a behind the scenes creative, however famous his name or voice might be.

While MacFarlane is considerably less famous than past hosts that doesn't mean he won't do a fine job... his musical referencing will be a natural fit on Oscar night though the non-sequitor nature of his jokes (at least on Family Guy) might be a stranger fit. Are we in for another "Uma. Oprah"?

MacFarlane's selection is yet another example of the Academy's increasingly schizo "who are we?" identity crisis over the last handful of years. They can't stop themselves.

Are you a MacFarlane fan or were you hoping for someone with more star wattage? Who do you think they also considered before this left turn?

NYFF: "Bwakaw" is a Film Festival's Best Friend

Seventy year-old Rene (Eddie Garcia) is an elderly gay man who fits quite neatly into the crowded movie trope of "Grumpy Old Man." He doesn't have a lawn but he'd clearly want his neighbors to get off of it if he did. He doesn't seem to love anyone or anything other than his dog Bwakaw.

Eddie Garcia and Princess star in "Bwakaw", an Oscar contender from The Philippines

They say that a dog is a man's best friend but I don't think that it's usually meant quite so literally.  Rene is so grumpy that you aren't always sure he loves his faithful canine shadow. In one stinging heartbreakmidway through the film a veterinarian asks him "don't you ever touch your dog?" and it occurs to you that you've rarely seen him do so.

But Bwakaw isn't a demanding girl. She follows Rene everywhere he goes… except inside his house. She's been banned for making a mess the last time she was there and one imagines that was long ago; Rene doesn't let things go easily. He still sleeps, for example, in his boyhood home and he's still quite attached to all of his mother's things including her devout Catholicism though he isn't religious himself (This dichotomy informs several of the film's sharpest comic beats but that's a topic for a much longer piece.) So each night Bwakaw curls up sadly in the dirt at the bottom of the stairs leading to the sad man's bedroom and waits until morning to see her master again.

It's important to note here that Bwakaw the dog is a sandy girl. She'd be barely perceptible from Bwakaw the movie, with its terminally washed out light, colorless rooms, and graying characters, were it not for her happy trot and zest for life. Her name translates to "Voracious" though she's curiously slim and bony for a dog that likes to eat. 

Initially it's not at all clear why this film, a true gem from director Jun Lana and an absolutely worthy Oscar submission, is titled as it is. Bwakaw is not so much an active participant as a shadow, or a sidekick if you're feeling generous. For a good hour the film is little more than a perceptive character study -- not that those aren't welcome -- of a lonely gay man who's angry that he missed out on a full life.  In many ways Rene is a shadow in his own movie. Most of the colorful subplots, broad comedic bits, and vibrant personalities belong to other members of the cast.  Rene's "friends" (I use the term loosely given that he's consistently at odds with most of them) are two flamboyant gay men, a co-worker planning a trip to Canada, a rough taxi driver, a local priest who hears his confessions, and a woman losing her memory in a nearby old folk's home.

But when Bwakaw becomes ill Rene is finally shaken out of his ornery complacency and gradually begins to feel his life again instead of just planning for his death. The film beautifully and fluidly shifts to compliment his journey, letting more light and color and vibrancy into the images.

Many "feel good" inspirational movies boost the spirit synthetically by glossing over life's darkest moments or wishing them away with tunnel vision on the triumphant stuff. Rene's story, however harsh and lonely in its particulars, contains far richer inspiration at its core. Rene is so focused on mortality that he keeps forgetting to live but there's no point in climbing in the coffin before your time. Embrace whatever tiny happiness comes your way. Live. B+/A-

Related Pages
2012 Foreign Film Oscar Submissions Pt. 1: Albania to Italy
2012 Foreign Film Oscar Submissions Pt. 2: Japan to Vietnam
Foreign Film Finalist Prediction List just a little guesswork 

More NYFF
Lincoln's Noisy "Secret" Debut
The Paperboy & the Power of Nicole Kidman's Crotch 
Frances Ha, Dazzling Brooklyn Snapshot
Barbara Cold War Slow Burn
Our Children's Death March 
Hyde Park on Hudson Historical Fluff