100th Anniversary: "Leaves from Satan's Book"

by Cláudio Alves

Carl Theodor Dreyer is one of my favorite filmmakers. I'll never forget the first time I watched The Passion of Joan of Arc on the big screen and was transported, how experiencing Vampyr felt like witnessing a projected nightmare, the ecstasy of Ordet's ending or Gertrud's stern ruminations on love. It's to my great shame that I'm not familiar with the Danish director's early works, having mostly ignored them until now. The centennial of Dreyer's second feature, Leaves from Satan's Book, makes this a great time to start correcting these cinephilic lacunas…

Click to read more ...

Will Mads Mikkelsen have another Oscar hit?

by Nathaniel R

Mads Mikkelsen stars in "Another Round"

Denmark is currently Oscar's favourite country in the Best International Feature category. Yes, we know they're not the "all time" favourite country, so don't @ us. But in the past 10 years (2010-2019) they've been nominated 50% of the time, with two additional finalists. Deep involvement in 70% of the Oscar conversations in a decade is a pretty great track record. How long can they keep it up? We won't know if they'll nab another nomination this season until a few months from now but Denmark just announced their finalists. On November 17th, they'll choose their submission between the following films: 

• Another Round by Thomas Vinterberg 
• A Perfectly Normal Family by Malou Reymann
• Shorta by Anders Ølholm and Frederik Louis Hviid. 

If Denmark wants to bet based on past success they'll go with Another Round.  It just won the top prize at the London Film Festival. Plus, international star Mads Mikkelsen has headlined three Oscar-nominated films from his home country previously....

Click to read more ...

Watch at Home (as if you had other options currently)

Happy St Patrick's Day!  It hasn't really felt like that holiday without bars open, has it? 

Time for our bi or tri-weekly listing of new titles to DVD and BluRay... plus a little new-to-streaming thrown in for good measure. Given that most of us are trapped at home withe coronavirus pandemic blu-rays and streaming are necessary. 

New(ish) to Blu-Ray and DVD
• Black Christmas - horror remake
• Bombshell - Oscar winner for Best Makeup
• Charlies Angels - another iteration
• Dark Waters - Todd Haynes legal drama
• Jumanji the Next Level - hit sequel
• Queen & Slim - polarizing crime romance
• Richard Jewell - Eastwood dud
• Spies in Disguise - animated
• Uncut Gems - critical darling
• 5B - a doc on the AIDS crisis in 1980s San Francisco.

New to streaming recently
We've freeze-framed a few titles at entirely random places...

Click to read more ...

Best International Feature: France, Denmark & Russia's contenders

by Cláudio Alves

In less than two weeks, December 16th to be exact, we'll know the Best International Feature shortlist. In previous years, there were only nine finalists but, due to recent rule changes, the list has been expanded to ten titles. As usual, expect to see a lot of European productions since this category loves to reward the cinema of the Old Continent. Thinking of those preferences, I've decided to purview the submissions of three European champions of the past. 

Specifically, they are France, with nine competitive wins and three honorary awards uner their belt; Denmark, with three victories; and Russia, which won once or four times if you count USSR's wins. We'll start with the most-nominated country in the category's History…

Click to read more ...

International Feature Film Oscar List... we're almost there!

Trine Dyrholm seduces her stepson in Denmark's submission "Queen of Hearts"

Countries have until October 1st to submit their representing film to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. Though there's one week left, we now have practically the whole list with 82 pictures announcing (see the charts and the letterboxd list) Last year the list was  87 pictures long and the record is 92 which was in 2017 so we'll probably see a slightly longer list when the Academy officially publishes it. Usually one or two films will mysteriously drop out or be replaced that were previously announced, too. So it's not official until it's official.

Do we talk about this category too much at TFE? Maybe so but we're into it. After the jump, 10 entries you can see early if you try and the 9 newest submissions.

The latest entries...

Click to read more ...