FYC: "Ride Your Wave" for Best Animated Feature

by Cláudio Alves

There's nothing more wonderful about cinema, about art as a whole, than the ability to surprise. If I feel a film showed me sights I never thought possible, if it told me stories I could have never imagined, it instantly earns respect and a special place in my heart. Following that line of thinking, one must say that no other picture in this awards season surprised me quite as much as Masaaki Yuasa's Ride Your Wave. Mixing supernatural stylings and teenage melodrama, the Japanese director has managed to create one of the most painful portraits of loss and paralyzing grief in a long time. If you thought the sight of a girl talking to a water bottle would never make you tear up, think again…

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Streaming Roulette (March 1st-7th): It's a Sin, Nomadland, Billie Holiday...

by Nathaniel R

Chocolate ice cream. I want chocolate ice cream.

Golden Globe winner Andra Day stars in United States vs Billie Holiday (reviewed), currently streaming on Hulu. Have you seen it yet? That Best Actress nomination race sure is intense, isn't it?

We've decided to do our streaming roulette feature a bit differently and weekly. It's too overwelming to list everything that's going to be available for an entire month and who checks back three weeks later anyway? Instead we'll highlight 5-10 viewing recommendations and/or curiousities each week when they're fresh or about to leave. Naturally the first day of the month is always crazy with the movie dump so this might feel like a monthly roundup, anyways...

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Best International Feature: Indonesia, Senegal, Thailand

by Cláudio Alves

Tomorrow we'll know which 15 films made the Academy's shortlist in the Best International Feature Film category. In this series of capsule review trios, I've looked at 27 films whose quality spanned from shoddy propaganda to caustic masterpiece. To end in a round number, I'd like to shine a light on three films that are very unlikely to be chosen by AMPAS. Three features whose singular oddness and inspiringly weird ideas deserve to be celebrated, even though one of them can be called faultless. Join me, as I try to describe the wonders of an Indonesian horror flick with historical ambitions, a Senegalese tragedy with Shakespearean proportions, and a Thai coming-of-age tale centered on the ideologies inherent to minimalist interior design…

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Best International Feature: Iran, Jordan, Saudi Arabia

by Cláudio Alves

In the past decade, Middle Eastern cinema has been having a moment among Oscar voters. At the very least, the cinema of Asghar Farhadi has earned AMPAS' attention. The director's A Separation and The Salesman won the trophies for Best International Feature, and the first film got an additional nomination for Best Original Screenplay. As for other countries from the region, Israel, Palestine, Jordan, and Lebanon have each won at least one nomination in the past ten years. I'm excited to see if this trend continues in the 2020s. With that in mind, let's delve into the films submitted for the 93rd Academy Awards by Iran, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia…

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Best International Feature: China, India, Japan

by Cláudio Alves

The cultural hegemony of Hollywood can make it seem as if the American film industry were the biggest in the world. However, some nations produce even more cinema than the US, and, annually, there's a much greater number of non-English-speaking features than Anglophonic ones. Since the Oscars tend to relegate such films to the Best International Feature category, it's possible to get a skewed view of the global realities of movie-making from them. In truth, the Academy's very local in its choices. With that in mind, let's explore the submissions of three countries whose industries are as robust as America's…

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