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 ...

Top Ten: Alfred Hitchcock Movies

What are your favourite Hitchcock films? For the Master of Suspense's 120th birthday today, we ought to share them. He's been dead for 39 years but we don't think he'd mind the grave-digging each birthday because his films are immortal.

Mine would go like so:

1. Psycho (1960)
2. Notorious (1946)
3. Rear Window (1954)
4. Vertigo (1958)
   Those are the four that are unthinkably indecently perfect...

Click to read more ...

200 Oldest Living Screen Stars of Note

Nehemiah Persoff & Barbra Streisand in Yentl (1983)Papa can you hear me? 
Papa can you watch me... fly 🎵

Whenever I think of Yentl, which is surprisingly often since the movie doesn't stream anywhere and I haven't seen it in a billion years, I think of "Papa Can You Hear Me". Such a beautiful song. Did you know that the papa himself, actor Nehemiah Persoff, is still alive? He basically retired in the 1980s (his last live-action movie of note was the Schwarzenegger comedy Twins in 1988. He turns 100 on this very day so a Happy Centennial to Yentl's papa! 

Given this momentous birthday, we thought we should update and re-share our periodic list of the oldest living screen actors of note across film and television. We keep this list, not as a morbid countdown, but as a reminder that we should all watch movies from all eras and get to know and appreciate our elders, many of whom once made indelible contributions to popular culture. Some of the perpetually young ones still do like Cloris Leachman and Rita Moreno -- we see you, you spry nonagenarian and octogenarians!

Anyway here's the list! We hope you enjoy and get some screening ideas...

200 OLDEST LIVING SCREEN STARS

104 years young

 Norman Lloyd (11/08/14) 
Most recently seen in the supporting cast of Trainwreck. He started as a Hitchcock player (Saboteur, Spellbound) and later became a Hitchcock producer ("Alfred Hitchcock Presents") which led to a long producing career on TV (two Emmy nods). Other acting roles: Dead Poet's Society, The Flame and the Arrow, Wise Guy and St Elsewhere.

103 years young

 Olivia de Havilland (7/1/1916) 
This centenarian is the oldest bonafide MOVIE STAR alive and had already won Best Actress twice by the time she was 33 for To Each His Own (1946) and The Heiress (1949). Olivia's legend was cemented years earlier than either of her Oscar wins, though, with her first nomination as the kind-hearted "Melanie" in the immortal Gone With the Wind (1939). Lots more on Olivia here.

102 years young

 Kirk Douglas (12/9/1916) 
Spartacus himself and father to two time Oscar-winner Michael Douglas. Kirk was nominated for Best Actor three times for Champion, Lust For Life and the Hollywood-on-Hollywood heavily Oscared The Bad and the Beautiful which he is just incredible in. He received an Honorary Oscar in 1995...

Click to read more ...

France and the Oscar Race. Then and Now.

by Nathaniel R

As you've probably heard, France has altered their Oscar submission choice rules a bit. They'll now allow for "special screenings" (i.e. some variation of the common practice here in the US of the "qualifying run") to determine eligibility. In truth this wouldn't be news if it weren't France we were talking about. Most countries already allow some form of this practice so a film can be eligible for awards even if it isn't technically playing for audiences in time.

But France in the past has not allowed this given the country's very strict distribution rules. That's one of the reasons why, for example, that Blue is the Warmest Colour (2013) wasn't submitted in its year...

Click to read more ...

Halfway Mark: Best of 2019 (Thus Far)

by Nathaniel R

 
Let's wrap up the midyear review now with a general overview and behind the scenes beauty. Please don't consider this list 'official' awards since the back half of the year is usually more impressive than the first half due to annoying Oscar-focused distribution patterns. The point, nevertheless, is an important one: we should always be appreciating art and keeping lists so we don't forget delights that opened in non-awards season months like most awards voters do. 

TEN BEST MOVIES

Click to read more ...

Best LGBTQ Movies - Nathaniel's List

by Nathaniel R

At the beginning of the month we shared a collection of disparate lists from various websites on the "best LGBTQ films ever" and since that got such a good response let's return to the well for something more personal as Pride month winds down. Naturally when you make personal lists the order can be justifiably odd, even to your own eyes, so we must acknowledge first and foremost that this is by no means definitive: I haven't seen every queer movie ever made, and were the list to have been made on a different day or perhaps a different hour, it might be noticeably different, at least in ranking.

Nevertheless here's to hoping you enjoy this imperfect list of... 

Nathaniel's 125 Favourite Queer Movies

1. Cabaret (Fosse, 1972) 8 OSCAR WINS INCLUDING BEST DIRECTOR
2. Carol (Haynes, 2015)

Click to read more ...