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Monday
Jan112021

International Oscar Race Pt 1: The Contenders List and where to see them

Listen up Oscar fans and international cinema aficioniados. We'd been holding off on this three part deep dive into the list of titles vying for Best International Feature Film until the Academy's announcement. Sadly we hear through the grapevine that they're not actually making this list "official" until very late in January. In other words, less than two weeks after they announce the 90 plus titles, they'll be cutting most of them when the finalist list of ten is announced on February 9th. This is no way to treat the movies, giving them such a tiny window of "official" attention. So we're sharing the list of 93 titles (a record) now and doing our deep dive now... with the caveat that one or two titles might change in late January when the Academy makes this official. If things do change we'll republish the list and the articles then. If they don't, we can just link back. 

NOTES ON THIS LIST: For more details on the films like genre, plot, running time, directors, please see the corresponding Oscar charts linked below. If we've reviewed or written about the movie itself or the country's Oscar history, it's linked below. If the title has a * by it, that means it's got an arguably high profile going into the screenings / voting period (though that's no guarantee of a nomination) by way of either its filmmaking team, noisy campaign, media coverage, or festival heat...

CHART 1  Albania through Greece 

Finland. Denmark. Egypt. Costa Rica

  • Albania, Open Door
  • Argentina, The Sleepwalkers
  • Armenia, Songs of Solomon
  • Austria, What We Wanted  (streaming on Netflix)
  • Ecuador, Emptiness
  • Egypt, When We're Born
  • Estonia, The Last Ones
  • Finland, Tove
  • France, Deux/Two of Us

 

CHART 2 Guatemala through Pakistan

Hong Kong. Nigeria. Latvia. Iceland

  • Japan, True Mothers
  • Jordan, 200 Meters
  • Kazakhstan, The Crying Steppe
  • Kenya, The Letter
  • Kosovo, Exile
  • Kyrgyzstan, Running to the Sky
  • Latvia, Blizzard of Souls / The Rifleman 
  • Lebanon, Broken Keys
  • Lesotho, This is not a Burial, It's a Ressurection * FIRST SUBMISSION
  • Lithuania, Nova Lituania  (streaming on MUBI)
  • Luxembourg, River Tales
  • Malaysia, Roh/Soul
  • Mexico, I'm No Longer Here * (streaming on Netflix)
  • Mongolia, Veins of the World
  • Montenegro, Breasts
  • Morocco, The Unknown Saint
  • Netherlands, Bulado
  • Nigeria, The Milkmaid
  • North Macedonia, Willow
  • Norway, Hope
  • Pakistan, Zindagi Tamasha/Circus of Life

CHART 3 - Palestine through Vietnam

Ukraine. Sweden. Poland. Vietnam

  • Saudia Arabia, Scales
  • Senegal, Nafi's Father
  • Serbia, Dara in Jasenovac
  • Singapore, Wet Season
  • Slovakia, The Auschwitz Report
  • Slovenia, Stories from the Chestnut Woods
  • South Africa, Toorbos
  • South Korea, The Man Standing Next (available to rent)
  • Spain, The Endless Trench (streaming on Netflix)
  • Sudan, You Will Die at 20  FIRST SUBMISSION
  • Suriname, Wiren   FIRST SUBMISSION
  • Sweden, Charter
  • Switzerland, My Little Sister

This list is also available on Letterboxd if you'd like to track your viewing.

INITIALLY ANNOUNCED BUT NOT ON OSCAR'S SCREENING LIST

Algeria's Heliopolis, Belarus's Persian Lesson (disqualified as not Belarusian enough), Canada's Funny Boy (disqualified due to too much English language), Bhutan's Lunana: Yak in the Classroom, Portugal's Listen (disqualified due to too much English language), and Uzbekistan's 2000 Songs of Farida.

Are you planning on seeing any of these films? If you've already seen some which are you rooting for?  

Monday
Jan112021

First annual (?) "Super" Awards

by Nathaniel R

The Old Guard takes "best superhero film" honors

We're still trying to wrap our heads around the absolutely bizarre decision by the executives of the Critics Choice Association to launch a genre-specific awards show (think the Saturn Awards only from talking heads at various outlets rather than the fans) in the very year where most of those kinds of movies didn't actually open and in which none of the big stars would be able to actually attend. It's a head scratcher in so many ways though happily two good movies (Palm Springs and Soul) led with the most prizes.

Here are the winners (no, we did not vote)...

Click to read more ...

Monday
Jan112021

Gay Best Friend: Duncan in "Set It Up"

A series by Christopher James investigating the 'Gay Best Friend' trope in movies.

At 13 minutes into the movie, we meet Duncan (Pete Davidson). Very quickly after, we wish we hadn't met him.

I can admit this. Many of my choices for Gay Best Friend have been examples that I’ve loved. In the 90s and 00s, this was often one of the few ways we would see positive gay representation on the screen. Still, this trope can be negative when it leans on broad characterizations, the gay best friend as an empty accessory.

Netflix’s Set It Up (2018) was a breath of fresh air in some ways. Theatrical releases were reserved for either superhero movies or more “cinematic” prestige fare. The romantic comedy genre was being edged out, only to find its home on Netflix. Set It Up had all the makings of a Pillow Talk old-fashioned romantic comedy with the modern sheen of a How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days. Harper (Zoey Deutsch) and Charlie (Glen Powell) are overworked assistants who set their respective bosses up with each other (Taye Diggs and Lucy Lui) so they can have more work-life balance. Sparks fly between the bosses and assistants. 

Unfortunately, it features a “gay best friend” character that embodies everything that’s wrong with the stereotype and threatens to derail a perfectly fun movie...

Click to read more ...

Monday
Jan112021

Showbiz History: Founding of the Academy and two Golden Globe nights

7 random things that happened on this day, January 11th, in showbiz history

Hattie McDaniel in her younger years. Not sure what year in this photo, though.

1911  Hattie McDaniel, then just 17 years-old, marries her first husband. She was already a performer, and worked in carnivals, minstrel shows, and radio before hitting the movies in the early 1930s. She famously became the first African-American to be nominated for or to win an Oscar. There is, finally, a biopic happening and it will star Raven Goodwin (The Station Agent, Being Mary Jane). 

1927 The creation of AMPAS came (arguably) on this day at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles...

Click to read more ...

Sunday
Jan102021

How Had I Never Seen... "Monsoon Wedding"?

by Cláudio Alves

Last year, Chloé Zhao won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival for Nomadland. Unlike Cannes, which only awarded one woman (Jane Campion for The Piano) with the Palme d'Or in its history, Venice has named five female directors as the grand victors of its main competition. One of them, Mira Nair's Monsoon Wedding, I hadn't seen.  Since the Criterion Channel has just added Mira Nair's 2001 Venice-winner, it seems like a good time to correct this lacuna. Without further ado, let's delve into the rainy festivities of this Monsoon Wedding

Click to read more ...