Doc Corner: Patricio Guzmán’s 'The Cordillera of Dreams'

By Glenn Dunks

Desert. Sky. Water. Mountains. Just the subjects alone suggest a nation of dichotomies. Patricio Guzmán’s most recent films about his troubled home-country of Chile have covered a lot of his people’s terrain. Capping a trilogy of documentaries that began with 2010’s Nostalgia for the Light and 2015’s The Pearl Button, The Cordillera of Dreams retains Guzmán’s searching and plaintive approach to Chile’s history as he poetically explores the connection between the Chilean people and the stretch of Andes mountains that surround the capital of Santiago.

The South American nation has remained a constant across his career despite living in exile since 1973 when his epic three-part The Battle of Chile was smuggled out of the country and premiered to extraordinary acclaim (he has lived in Europe ever since)...

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Poll: Voyage of the Damned (1976) it is.

We shared a list of new to streaming titles and then polled you on which  new-to-streaming titles that Nathaniel had never seen did he have to watch and write about? The winner by a considerable margin was Voyage of the Damned (1976). This all star WW II era drama about a ship carrying German Jewish refugees away from Nazi Germany was nominated for 3 Oscars (including Supporting Actress) and 6 Golden Globes (including Best Picture Drama) and is now streaming on HBO. So watch it this week and we'll discuss on Monday February 24th. 

The vote totals if you're interested:

1. Voyage of the Damned (1976) - 40% of the votes
2. The Tin Drum (1979) - 14% of the votes
3. Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne (1987) -14% of the votes
4. The Island (2005) - 13% of the votes
5. Footlight Parade (1933), Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter (1974), Dirty Harry (1971), and Gate of Hell (1953) divvied up the remaining votes with under 5% each.

A Decade of Oscar Fashion: Top 10 Looks

by Cláudio Alves

Despite dwindling ratings and ever-growing criticisms, the Academy Awards ceremony is still one of Hollywood's grandest nights. For Oscar enthusiasts, it's like Christmas. For fashion lovers, it's a glamour fest like few others. As we look back at a decade of past ceremonies, we can't help but be dazzled again by the stylish wonders we saw parading through the red carpet each golden night. Since we love list-making, it seems fit to consider such a topic through the lenses of a top 10, elaborating on what were the most memorable and beautiful outfits of Oscar's last decade.

Before we get to the very best, we must celebrate some honorable mentions. From Billy Porter's take on a classic tuxedo to Quvenzhané Wallis' puppy purse, the last ten years were made more glamourous by these Hollywood beauties…

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Sophia Loren Returns...

by Eric Blume

Variety recently announced that Netflix has acquired rights to an Italian remake of the 1977 Oscar winner for Best Foreign Film, Madame Rosa. Now titled The Life Ahead, it stars Sophia Loren in the Simone Signoret role, who this time "forges a bond with a 12-year-old Senegalese immigrant boy named Momo."

There's a lot to unpack here.  The original Madame Rosa movie is notoriously one of the worst winners of that Oscar category, and for good reason:  the movie is sentimental garbage.  This French film won over, among others, Luis Bunuel's challenging The Obscure Object of Desire and Ettore Scola's A Special Day, starring Marcello Mastroianni and...Sophia Loren...

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"Parasite" and the other most popular foreign film hits of our lifetimes.

by Nathaniel R

In lieu of the traditional box office charts for the holiday weekend, it's time to marvel yet again at how leggy Parasite (2019) continues to be. After its Oscar win a week ago it doubled its screen count and is expected to take in over $5 million this weekend once the actual money has been counted. So let's take a look at the very biggest international hits since box office stats began to be a commonly reported thing. Which foreign films were the all time biggest hits (since the late 80s)? For clarity we're talking about films that weren't in English but also weren't from the US which removes Mel Gibson's weird dead language projects like Passion of the Christ and Apocalypto, Clint Eastwood's Iwo Jima, and the recent Lulu Wang hit The Farewell among a few others. 

THE 25 HIGHEST-GROSSING INTERNATIONAL
FOREIGN-LANGUAGE FILMS
IN DOMESTIC RELEASE (1987-2019)

01 Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon (Taiwan, 2000) $128
10 Oscar nominations including Best Picture. 4 wins. There will never be another subtitled hit as big as this one but what a glorious film to find up top. 

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