ICYMI - Eligibility for the 95th Oscars (and two noticeable absences)

We usually share the official "reminder" list for Academy voters but it's been so busy we forgot. Apologies. If you'd like to look it up it's here. 301 films are eligible for Best Picture this year. This list is a handy guide each year to clear up any doubts that remain about what actually got released in theaters, and in which calendar year (given that many films don't "qualify" until the year after their festival bows, this year that's the case for Benediction, The Cursed, and Pleasure, among others, which all first premiered in 2021). All of this becomes harder and harder to track each year with theatrical releases barely advertised and in theaters for increasingly short durations.

The biggest area of curiousity for us, is seeing which of the annual submissions for Best International Feature Film are eligible outside of that race and which were released but didn't submit for general eligibility...

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What did you see this week?

by Nathaniel R

Batman continues to be pop culture's second-most popular solo superhero. Matt Reeves' take on the dark knight, titled simply The Batman, grossed an impressive $128.5 million on its opening weekend and will likely make a lot more still since Hollywood is barely releasing any big movies these days. In fact there's no big wide release competition coming until Sandra Bullock and Channing Tatum arrive in three weeks with the adventure comedy The Lost City and no comic book competition for a full month until Morbius opens...

Weekend Box Office Estimates March 4th-6th 🔺 = new or expanding
OVER 800 SCREENS	UNDER 800 SCREENS
THE BATMAN	CYRANO

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Podcast: West Side Story, The Tender Bar, Don't Look Up... and Faye Dunaway?

Nick and Nathaniel reunion finale (part 3 of 3). Dear readers we hope you've enjoyed this epic talk between your host here and the long lost Nick Davis. Here's the final part in which we talk more 2021 movies plus a discussion of Gena Rowlands and Faye Dunaway due to the new class Nick is teaching.

 

78 minutes
00:01 Lana Wachowski going full meta in Matrix Resurrections
10:15 Nick's trouble with Leos Carax's Annette  (with some Pola X history)
17:50 Tony Kushner's reworking of West Side Story and its redux performances. Plus a bit of In the Heights thrown in for reasons Nathaniel objects to
32:00 France's Petite Maman  and Austria's Great Freedom 
39:30 Adam McKay's Don't Look Up and its limitations as well as the harsh critical response
47:00 An extremely odd double feature: Wes Anderson's The French Dispatch and George Clooney's The Tender Bar 
          BIG ACTRESSEXUAL FINISH
1:01:06 Nick is teaching a class called "Female Performance in Modern Hollywood" so we discuss our favourite Faye Dunaway and Gena Rowlands performances (with very brief asides to several other post-Method actresses)

You can listen to the podcast on iTunes, Stitcher or Spotify or download the attachment below. If you missed our previous recent discussion covering a full dozen 2021 movies, that's here. 

West Side Tender Bar with Faye

Best International Film: Austria, Croatia, Malta, and more

by Cláudio Alves

Our voyage around the world through Best International Film Oscar submissions is coming to an end. Tomorrow, the Academy will reveal its shortlist, reducing 92 contenders to just 15. Before that, though, I'd like to shine a light on three fantastic films, regardless of their awards chances. They are a jewel of queer cinema from Austria, a prickly character study from Croatia, and a throwback to the early days of Neorealism courtesy of Malta. At the end of this piece, I shall also reveal what films would make up my ideal Oscar shortlist…

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"Quo Vadis, Aida?" and "Flee" win big at the European Film Awards

by Nathaniel R

The years bleed together in the world of movie awards. Quo Vadis Aida?, the Bosnian drama, premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2020 before receiving an Oscar nomination for Best International Feature Film that same season. It lost the Oscar to 2020's European Film Awards champ, Denmark's Another Round. Now, a full movie awards season later, it has succeeded its once-vanquisher to also take the top prize at the European Film Awards. What's more two British Oscar winners last year, Promising Young Woman and The Father also picked up key prizes. The only Oscar hopeful this season that arguably got a boost from the European Awards was the animated documentary Flee, which triumphed in both of its categories, Animated Feature & Documentary Feature, a double-whammy it surely hopes to achieve again at the Oscars. You can watch the ceremony here if you're so inclined.

This has no bearing on the Oscars of course, since none of those films are eligible but it is a mild eyebrower raiser that France's Titane, Finland's Compartment No 6, Italy's The Hand of God, and Norway's Worst Person in the World, all of which are award-winning presumed threats to Oscar nominations this season, could beat the year-old Bosnian film in any of their categories. Complete list of winners after the jump...

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