Almost There: Juliette Binoche in "Three Colors: Blue"

by Cláudio Alves

With Pieces of a Woman having premiered on Netflix, Vanessa Kirby becomes one of the big contenders in this year's Best Actress race. She previously won the Volpi Cup, joining a selection of other actresses who managed to turn a win at Venice into genuine Oscar buzz. However, not every Volpi champion is as lucky as to get a nomination. In 1993, Juliette Binoche managed to earn the Cup for her studies of loss in the first part of Krzysztof Kieslowski's trilogy about Europe and the French Revolutionary ideals. Still, when Oscar nomination morning arrived, Binoche's searing work in Three Colors: Blue was not found amid AMPAS' choices…

Click to read more ...

How Had I Never Seen... "Beau Travail"?

by Cláudio Alves

People cope with stress in different ways. Earlier this month, when the US presidential election was unfolding and the world held its breath, I turned to Twitter to reminisce about 2020 cinematic excellence and try to calm my nerves. I also scoured the internet for good deals on physical media, a bit of retail therapy, adding more DVDs and Blu-Rays to a collection that has long ago surpassed a thousand films. Part of the new additions were my first ever Criterion editions! 

All this to say that the discs arrived this week and, since the Criterion Channel has a new collection of Claire Denis films, I decided to finally watch the much-lauded Beau Travail and write about the experience. And what an experience it was…

Click to read more ...

It's "Two of Us" for France. With so many Oscar nods will they ever win again?

by Nathaniel R

In something of a surprise move, France has selected the lesbian seniors drama Deux  (or Two of Us) for Oscar submission rather than their higher profile titles Summer of '85 with its EFA director nomination or Cuties with its hot potato festival run and Netflix controversy. This suggests that Two of Us might do very well in a month or three at the César Awards but for now let's talk France and Oscar as there's a LOT to discuss.

France is of course a total powerhouse at the Oscars. The Best International Feature Film category has existed as a competitive category for 64 years (as of last season) and France has been nominated in 59% of those races.

What's more they've tried to factor in to the competition 100% of the time! In point of fact, France is the only country that's never skipped an Oscar submission year.

FRANCE'S OSCAR STATS and key submissions after the jump...

Click to read more ...

The Furniture: "À Nous la Liberté" and Freedom from Industrial Design

"The Furniture," by Daniel Walber. (Click on the images for magnified detail)

Once upon a time, the Oscars were in November! Well, thrice upon a time. The 3rd, 4th and 5th Academy Awards were held in the fall - the last of them on November 18th, 1932. Nathaniel covreed the biggest piece of trivia from that night earlier this morning. But there were also a few firsts, including the debut of the short film categories and the first-ever foreign-language nominee. René Clair’s À nous la liberté was nominated for Best Art Direction, an award it lost to a cruise ship comedy called Transatlantic.

But it’s Clair and art director Lazare Meerson who have the last laugh, as their losing film is now largely regarded as a classic and Transatlantic barely has a Wikipedia page. A nous la liberte is a charming little oddity, a musical comedy about the alienation inherent in modern industry. It opens in a prison, where cellmates Émile (Henri Marchand) and Louis (Raymond Cordy) are at work hand-carving toy horses. The cavernous space evokes the ominous architecture of the modern prison, its high balconies a reminder of constant surveillance...

Click to read more ...

Review: "Deerskin" on HBO

by Cláudio Alves

Fashion kills in one of Quentin Dupieux's latest absurdist comedies, the loony nightmare that is Deerskin. After blessing moviegoers with the nonsensical sight of a homicidal tire in Rubber, the French director has now imbued a fringed jacket with the power to unravel the human mind and precipitate its wearers into paroxysms of murderous madness. Jean Dujardin's Georges is the victim of such demonic influence, though, at the start, he, like all things in Deerskin, appears unnervingly mundane…

Click to read more ...