The Oscars were gay and Latino, just like I am

by Jorge Molina

A couple of months ago I wrote a piece for this site about feeling seen, in a way I hadn't before, onscreen. Coco and Call Me by Your Name perfectly captured two different parts of my identity. Fast forward to Sunday’s 90th Academy Awards. Both of those movies deservedly won statues. More surprisingly a never ending parade of queer and Latino moments made me feel, yet again, that someone like myself has a place in the biggest stage in the world...

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I'll link to that 🍸

• YouTube fanmade teaser trailer for Venom with Tom Hardy. Love the use of the Cure lyrics
• My New Plaid Pants a special edition of 'do dump or marry' with Hitchcock classic Rear Window on its 63rd birthday
• Gothamist exciting news for library card holders in LA and NYC -- your public library card actually grants you access to TONS of Criterion Collection streaming titles. Here's how to access them
• Oh My Disney some of the Disney Princess movies are coming back to movie theaters in September and October. YASQUEEN... I mean, YASPRINCESSES. I'm most excited to see Mulan onscreen again because I barely remember it. Seems way too early to revive Moana though.
• EW celebrates the return of Will & Grace with a photoshoot

 

• Observations on Film Art wonderful piece on Dunkirk's emotional core (or whether it has one), color palette, and more
• Remezcla is the new Chilean film Hazlo como hombre (opening Sept 1st) homophobic or just making fun of homophobia?
• New Yorker Richard Brody is watching 80s action movies he's never seen before! Ha. Somehow the classic Die Hard (1988) had eluded him until now
• Self Styled Siren's bad movie double feature: The Legend of Lylah Clare with Kim Novak and Where Love Has Gone with Susan Hayward
• Coming Soon new clip from Marvel's Inhumans features Medusa's prehensile hair. Ugh, I want this to be good but it does not look good
• THR HFPA, the Golden Globe peeps, just gave away nearly $3 million in scholarships and grants to entertainment non-profits. Well done
• Variety interesting report on a working class actor running for the SAF-AFTRA presidency
• i09 12 things to love about The Lost Boys (1987) that have nothing to do with vampires
• Coming Soon several characters from AHS: Cult revealed
• NYT on the casting of indian actors for Taylor Sheridan's Wind River
• MNPP Hugh Jackman and trainer-in-speedo spend soooo much time at the beach. But the photos are inspiring

OffScreen
• Dress The Part if you have lots of extra cash, here are suggestions for how to 'shop the look' of  Atomic Blonde
• Business Insider fascinating study about decision-making and how who you spend time with affects your brainwaves
• Mike's Movie Projector Imelda Staunton never stops. Now she's rehearsing Follies

New Oscar Chart ~ Foreign Hopefuls Part 1

We won't start hearing about "official submissions" for Oscar's Foreign Language Film race until September but until then, it's speculation time! The first chart is up looking at countries from Afghanistan through Ethiopia.

The most high profile film from this batch, other than possibly another Austrian submission from Michael Haneke (Happy End), is Chile's A Fantastic Woman. It's a trans drama that took three prizes at Berlinale. If it's as good as director Sebastian Lelio's previous Oscar submission (Gloria) we'll have to riot if he's passed over again. 

Other intriguing prospects include the well reviewed black and white fairy tale November from Estonia and possibly another submission from Oscar winner Jan Sverak of the Czech Republic. Sverak won the foreign film Oscar for his art house sleeper hit Kolya  (1996) about a stepfather and his little boy and his latest called Barefoot is another childhood tale set in the countryside during World War II.

Check out the chart and report back

Have you heard of the Platino Awards?

Though The Film Experience likes to track key foreign awards (examples include the Césars, Goyas, and the Golden Horse, in addition to the massive Oscars circus, those groups proliferate just like American precursors do. I've lost track of how many awards that Asian cinema, for example, has. But how about South America? The Platino awards are relatively new. They're now in their fourth year honoring films from the Ibero-America region, which is to say primarily Spanish and Portuguese speaking countries, i.e. former territories of Spain and Portugal, plus those countries for good measure.

Here's why we should start paying attention to them: in their short existence they've given Best Film to a truly outstanding picture every single time:  Chile's Gloria (2014) an amazing study of a divorcee rebuilding her romantic life with an Oscar worthy performance by Paulina García (we nominated her here); Argentina's rowdy, funny, Oscar nominated and deeply pleasurable anthology Wild Tales (2015); and Colombia's mystical wonder Embrace of the Serpent (2015) which you already know we're wild about.

Penelope Cruz is one of 37 women vying for a Best Actress nomination (for her new film Queen of Spain)

We don't have the nominee list yet as the ceremony isn't until July. Like the Oscars, they only allow a certain number of contenders from each country (2 or 3 in their case as opposed to Oscar's 1 film per country rule) but their long list includes a lot of Oscar submissions from the past season. Some highlights include Chile's playful fictionalized biopic Neruda, Brazil's critical sensation Aquarius, Almodovar's Julieta, the fantasy A Monster Calls, Paraguay’s father daughter road trip movie called Guaraní, and at least three LGBT titles: Chile's Rara which is an LGBT family drama, the Venezuelan Oscar submission From Afar, and the Cuban political drama Santa & Andres. You can see the complete longlist for Best Film here which will be narrowed down to 5 nominees soon. There are 37 women vying for the Best Actress nomination but we'd be shocked if both Emma Suarez from Julieta and Sonia Braga from Aquarius didn't make it.

Review: Pablo Larraín's "Neruda" and "Jackie"

Nathaniel R reporting from the NYFF/TIFF as these films played at both fests... 

Fortieth birthdays don't get much better than this. In August Chile's most celebrated filmmaker Pablo Larraín turned the big 4-0 just after his excellent new film Neruda opened in his home country. One month later Jackie, his first English language picture, joined Neruda on the international festival circuit to even more excitement. Both are likely and deserving Oscar nominees come January. Pretty good year.

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