Vote on the Euro Film Awards (Plus: Oscar Submits)

While I normally approve not of "people's choice" awards -- that's what box office is for -- I do find the European Film Awards a curious beast worth noting each year. They have variety by way of scattershot film culture, there being no unifying "Hollywood" to control them. This year their People's Choice Awards -- which you can vote on and enter for a chance to win a trip to the awards in Berlin -- offers up an odd collection of Camp Comedy (France's star-laden Potiche), Royalty Porn (The UK's Oscar winner The King's Speech), Meta History (Spain's Even The Rain), Message Movie (Denmark's Oscar Winner In a Better World), Neeson-y Thriller (the international Unknown), Fish Out of Water Comedy (Italy's Welcome to the South), Ensemble Drama (France's star-laden Little White Lies), and even Animated Family Film (Germany's Animals United).

And the Nominees Are...

Go and vote...
...as long as you're not planning to help The King's Speech win yet more statues. Cinema-Gods help us all.

Meanwhile the Oscar Foreign Film submissions continue...

NORWAY
Anne Sewitsky’s debut Happy, Happy (Sykt lykkelig) which we've previously discussed (I heart the trailer) will represent the land of the midnight sun in this year's Oscar race. Previous awards under its belt include the Sundance Festival's World Cinema Jury Prize Dramatic which, if you'll recall, is the same prize that the great Australian feature Animal Kingdom got its first big boost from in 2010. Joachim Trier's Oslo August 31st is the loser in this Oscar scenario but here's hoping that both films get stateside distribution. 

HUNGARY
Bela Tarr's The Turin Horse will represent daring Hungary in this year's Oscar race. Hungary nearly always competes for Most Atypical Submitted Film which is bad for their nominatability but great for proof of variety in that odd annual Oscar survey of what's happening in international cinema. This one will need a helping hand from that special committee that Oscar dreamt up to basically force critical darlings on to the nominated shortlist. The new system obviously paid off last year for Greece's Dogtooth. Cinema Underground tells it like so...

Not since Alexander Sokurov’s The Second Circle have I watched a movie that felt so much more like physical endurance than an active intellectual and emotional experience... The Turin Horse is a punishing film.  The people in it are ugly and often cruel.  Their lives are repetitive and arduous.  There is little plot, little action, little change of scenery, but there are plenty of long, long takes in which no words are spoken.   

And that's from a somewhat positive review.

Oscar Foreign Film Pages

August. It's a Wrap

This long hot summer is finally over. If you were at the beach for most of it, you're smart. So get caught up with the best of what we typed up these past 31 days with our excessively sweaty hands.

Blondes have more fun angst: Captain America and The Driver

Drive "People Will Love it Ten Years From Now!"
Unsung Heroes: Once Upon a Time in the West Michael C looks at the cinematography of this classic 
Academy Mixer bury this in a time capsule please: Liz, Natalie, Audrey! 
Complete The Sentence sure was fun to read about your favorite scenes in current movies 
Disney Princesses as Fashionistas an illustrated set 
5 Thoughts on Kaboom Gregg Araki needs to shake things up  
and...
5 Frames That Accurately Describe Ridley Scott's Bladerunner Sequel Plans

Topic O' Month: The Help kept selling tickets & sparking conversation 
Most Eyeballs: The Cast of Magic Mike (NSFW gallery of Steven Soderbergh's strippers)
Hot Conversations: Q&A: Julianne Pfeiffer, Musicals, Director Ressurections (the new series Q&A got y'all talking each time) 

Coming in September:
The Film Experience will be on a less frequent or possibly erratic posting schedule for the next week or so, a pre-season catnap if you will. The brand new and improved (or at least refreshed) season of The Film Experience begins on Tuesday, September 13th. Be here for prestige film season, Oscar mania, the return of many of your favorite weekly series, and the debut of "Actress Land"!

Notes From Venice: "The Ides of March"

Editor's Note: Please welcome Ferdi from Italy (pictured below) who has been a Film Experience reader for many years. He's also a critic for LoudVision so please visit them if you speak Italian. We're very happy to have him sending us bite-sized notes from Venice this year for The Film Experience. - Nathaniel R.

Ferdi reporting from the opening day of the 68th Venice Film Festival. 

TFE Correspondent Ferdinando Schiavone shot by Fabrizio Spinetta

The Ides Of March is exactly what we've come to expect from Clooney: a solid, classically made, political contemporary drama. It's got a subtle shakespearian twist, a sharp screenplay and a strong cast. (OK, Evan Rachel Wood is always Evans Rachel Wood but, dammit! she's always good). Ryan Gosling is undoubtedly best in show with a perfectly nuanced character arc. He sparkles most in a couple of tasty scenes with Wood. But poor Marisa Tomei is soooo underused (again!) and Clooney plays a character working up to a big speech in front of a live audience (again!). Nothing new or revolutionary here, but quite everything in the right place.

Hollywood glamour aside, it's quite a shy opening film for a festival this big. (Last year things were very different with the incendiary opener Black Swan.)

Photo via Zimbio

Everyone has been saying that The Ides of March is a good movie (perhaps because it's talking about the right things in a serious way) but where are the emotions? Press reaction at the very first screening ranged from good to tepid, but it took the arrival of the stars at the press conference (all present but for Gosling) before you could feel warmth of unconditional love. How will the public react tonight when it opens the festival?

Editor's Note: Now check out these starry photos that Ferdi sent along from his photographer Fabrizio Spinetta from tonight's big event. 

George Clooney in Venice © Fabrizio Spinetta

Two more fun photos after the jump! 

Click to read more ...

Oscar Madness Hits So Early...

I have a post scheduled to go up later suggesting that the new Film Experience 'season' will start on Tuesday September 13th.... after a wee break. But it seems that the Much Oscared Web we travel and help weave isn't even waiting till after the Labor Day Holiday to spazz out about Oscar This, Oscar That. You'd think Labor Day was already past us the way the web is collectively all up in Fall Movie Season's grill. Over at Movie|Line Stu Van Airsdale surveys the red carpeted landscape ahead with quotes from yours truly and other pundits who suffer, as I do, from gold fever. You know who they are. 

Are you ready for fall movie season yet? How ready: Scale of 1 to 10?
Or do you need a summer vacation from summer first?

In other news, little nuggets from Venice are on the way soon from two Film Experience correspondents. Stay tuned. 

"I don't wanna be normal!!!"