Oscar's Foreign Race Pt 2: Female Directors & Debut Filmmakers

Pt 1 - All 81 Movie Trailers
Pt 2 Everything You Wanted to Know About the Foreign Language Film Category...  *But Were Afraid to Ask

Mustang has a female director and female cast. Will this be a good year for women in Oscar's Foreign Film race?

The next time you see someone tweeting about the lack of female directors that get work in Hollywood, please point them to Oscar's Foreign Language Film category. This category reminds us, year after year, that Hollywood is not the entirety of Cinema. We'd do well to commit that to memory. And progressive thinking moviegoers would do well to seek out the alternate voices that already exist that they say they want... even if that requires reading subtitles.

You see, each year countries around the world are asked to submit one film to represent their entire country at the Oscars (it need no longer be in an indigenous language to that country, just not in English). Each year at least a handful of countries submit films directed by women. This year it's much more than that. Now, that might not be a direct correlative to "it's better for female directors in ____ than in the USA" but it's not nothing!

Consider the act in reverse. Can you imagine Hollywood, if they were forced to submit one film that represented them for a whole calendar year, choosing a female-directed film to speak for them? Given their lack of interest in films about women let alone films directed by them, this seems unthinkable. The sole exception is probably Kathryn Bigelow's military drama The Hurt Locker (2009). 

Where are the Women? Right Here!
This year the Oscar race for Best Foreign Language Film has 81 contenders. A total of 13 of those films are directed or co-directed by women. [More...]

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"Oh, what a tweet. What a lovely tweet!"

In case you needed another reason to love Edgar Wright...

Hey @TheAcademy, I don't even need the voting form. Put me down for 'Fury Road' in all categories. Even Documentary. pic.twitter.com/zg0MNPWA9Y

— edgarwright (@edgarwright) September 29, 2015

P.S. I know this is a terribly silly thing to worry about but I worry about it every day. Can Mad Max manage any Oscar nominations?

Mad Max Fury Road is a freaking miracle. Obviously a Best Picture nomination would be a lot to ask for (though deserved) and without precedent (No live-action sequel has ever been nominated for Best Picture unless its predecessor had also been... no not even The Dark Knight or Skyfall despite their abundant nominations elsewhere. And, no, Silence of the Lambs was not a sequel to Manhunter. The only sequel to win this honor was Toy Story 3... in an expanded field). But if Mad Max Fury Road isn't on track for cinematography and sound and editing and the like... what good are any of these craft branches at all since they're meant to recognized inspired work? 

6 Questions. Best Actor / Supporting Actor Races

The Oscar prediction charts are revised for ACTOR and SUPPORTING ACTOR and boy is the competition ever on. Here are 5 questions for you to discuss in the comments and as you consider your own predictions at home. 

1. Is Best Supporting Actor actually stronger than Best Actor this year?
With the decision of Spotlight to run its two arguable leads as supporting (it is an ensemble film so this makes a kind of justified sense... even if a "convenient" kind) and excitement for Johnny Depp's Black Mass star turn already dying down (or is this just our imagination?) the Best Actor race suddenly looks a little thinner than expected and the Supporting Actor race a lot fuller. The category confusions that crop up every year now as well as Hollywood's deep love of all star male ensembles have made things a lot harder for true supporting players of the male persuasion. Years ago, for example, I'd guess that Stanley Tucci had a slam dunk case for his scene stealing in Spotlight and Chiwetel Ejiofor had a real dark horse opportunity as the sympathetic home base of The Martian (think Ed Harris's nominated role in Apollo 13) but I couldn't fit either of them into even the top 15. 

2. Will young actors be in the mix for a change?
While Oscar's love of young women and resistance to young men is well documented on this site (and in any perusal of Oscar stats) two of the most well regarded performance from the recent festival circuit were Abraham Attah, who is only 14, and Jacob Tremblay, who is only 8, who lead Beasts of No Nation and Room respectively. In almost all cases male leads who are very young go supporting with Oscar voters (think Timothy Hutton in Ordinary People, River Phoenix in Running on Empty, and Haley Joel Osment in The Sixth Sense) though their female counterparts are harder to predict in terms of which category they might find traction in. Still I wonder if anyone will believe Attah as "supporting?" In the recent IndieWire TIFF poll we discussed -- which provides a good example of how few critics care about "category" distinctions -- Tremblay was very high up in the supporting votes (despite being the only male star of his two-hander movie) whereas Attah was high up in the leading charts despite playing opposite a pretty big star of the same gender in Idris Elba, who himself had extremely few leading votes (they were mostly supporting) which suggests to me that people won't ever think of Attah as supporting Elba but the other way around. 

3. Both male acting categories won't clear up until...?
Quentin Tarantino's Hateful Eight starts screening. Or perhaps you think the key film is another film entirely.

4. Which actor do you think has a better shot at winning (if nominated) than he does at actually being nominated?
My guess is Harvey Keitel in Youth. His film director/best friend feels like a supporting character, at least until he takes over the movie for about 20 minutes or so. You could make an easy case that he's more overdue for Oscar gold than the Spotlight boys for example. But maybe you feel this odd distinction goes to someone else in either lead or supporting - Dicaprio perhaps.

5. Do you think Oscar statistics will get a shake up this year?
The last time two men from the same film were nominated in the same category is quite a long time ago now though it didn't use to be all that rare. Two supporting actors happened in Bugsy (1991) 24 years ago. Two lead actors happened in Amadeus (1984) 31 years ago. Three supporting (male) actors nominated for the same film happened thrice, first with On the Waterfront (1954) and then twice over with The Godfather parts 1 and 2 (1972/1974)... could Hateful 8 or Spotlight actually make it a fourth? (Since 1991 the only category that has seen any double nominations in acting -- and it's happened a lot -- is Supporting Actress.)

6. If you had to vote for your own supporting actor ballot RIGHT NOW (preferences not predictions) who would you include?
It's a tough call but I'd be looking at these 11 names (Brolin, Del Toro, Elliott, Ejiofor, Tucci, Schreiber... and the guys from the best of summer in review) and these 2 if I decided to allow for the supporting distinction (Keaton & Keitel), category distinctions I'm still having internal debates about.

List Mania! Frances McDormand and all the "Triple Crown" Icons

Since I'm on record as being annoyed that all anyone cares about is the EGOT and since Steve asked in the comments of the Emmy post-mortem about my preferred obsession (The Triple Crown of Acting) to date only 21 actors* have accomplished this, two of them within this very calendar year (Dame Helen Mirren and Frances McDormand). Of course this has become more commonplace than it used to be given that actors no longer feel like they should be solely a movie star, or solely a tv actor, or only a thespian of the stage. With more and more people willing to do all three, sometimes consistently, these ranks will likely swell in another 20 years.

Currently the rarified list of actors who've won The Tony, The Oscar and The Emmy for their acting reads like so...

Frances McDormand is your latest Triple Crown Winner. From Fargo (1996) to Good People (2011) to Olive Kitteridge (2014)

• Jack Albertson (Tony: 65, Oscar: 69, Emmy: 75)
• Anne Bancroft (Tony: 58, Oscar: 63, Emmy: 99)
• Ingrid Bergman (Oscar: 45, Tony: 47, Emmy: 60)
  Our Ingrid Bergman Centennial was fun wasn't it? You're welcome. Ingrid is the youngest performance to complete the trinity at age 45. 
• Shirley Booth (Tony: 49, Oscar: 53, Emmy: 62)
• Ellen Burstyn (Oscar: 75, Tony: 77, Emmy: 09)
• Melvyn Douglas (Tony: 60, Oscar: 64, Emmy: 68)
  Did you know that this Hud star was Illeanna Douglas's grandfather? I certainly didn't.
• Helen Hayes (Oscar: 32, Tony 47, Emmy: 53)
  (Though IMDb does not state what her Emmy was for so who knows if she's a special case or not)
• Jeremy Irons (Tony: 84, Oscar: 91, Emmy: 97)
• Frances McDormand (Oscar: 97, Tony: 11, Emmy: 15)
  The most recent inductee to this hall of fame. 
• Helen Mirren (Emmy: 96, Oscar: 07, Tony: 15)
  And yes she won all three for playing Queens named Elizabeth! Though she has multiple Emmys so she's won for other roles, too. 
• Thomas Mitchell (Oscar: 40, Tony: 53, Emmy: 53) 
• Rita Moreno (Oscar: 62, Tony: 75, Emmy: 77)
  The second youngest to the Triple. She was 46 when she completed it with the Emmy for The Muppet Show
• Al Pacino (Tony: 69, Oscar: 93, Emmy: 04)
• Christopher Plummer (Tony: 74, Emmy: 77, Oscar: 12)
• Vanessa Redgrave (Oscar: 78, Emmy: 81, Tony: 03)
• Jason Robards (Tony: 59, Oscar: 77, Emmy: 88)
• Geoffrey Rush (Oscar: 97, Emmy: 05, Tony: 09)
• Paul Scofield (Tony: 62, Oscar: 67, Emmy: 69)
  The youngest male actor to the Triple. He was 47 when he completed it with the Emmy for Male of the Species 
• Maggie Smith (Oscar: 70, Tony: 90, Emmy: 03)
• Maureen Stapleton (Tony: 51, Emmy: 68, Oscar: 82)
• Jessica Tandy (Tony: 78, Emmy: 88, Oscar: 90)

Weird Statistic
The Emmy, which seems like the easiest to win since they have so many damn categories, is actually won last by the majority of Triple Crowners. How about that? 

Eddie Redmayne is very young to have already won two of the big threeWho do you think will join the list next?
Of currently working stars Viola Davis, Cicely Tyson, Neil Patrick Harris, Ellen Barkin, Hugh Jackman and Bryan Cranston are just missing the Oscar which is obviously the hardest to win.

Overachiever Glenn Close has three Tonys and three Emmys but (sigh) zero Oscars. Kevin Spacey, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Dame Judi Dench, Denzel Washington and Marcia Gay Harden are just missing the Emmy. The youngest immediate threats are Anne Hathaway and Eddie Redmayne: she is only 32 and just needs a Tony; he is only 33 and just needs an Emmy... though he isn't currently doing any TV so the Triple Crown will probably have to wait. 

And get this: Sally Field, Meryl Streep, Jessica Lange, Dianne Wiest and Jane Fonda who all have won multiple Oscars and multiple Emmys are all just missing the Tony though they've all worked the Broadway stage!

Depressing Three-Medium Stats: Sir Ian McKellen, a hugely lauded thespian has only won the Tony despite Oscar & Emmy nominations. The gifted Sarah Paulson who works all three mediums with regularity has not won any of the prizes and has only been Emmy-nominated. The Lovely Laura Linney, another regular three-medium threat has only won the Emmy despite multiple Tony and Oscar nominations. Marisa Tomei who works all three has only won the Oscar with no Tony or Emmy honors. Martha Plimptonwho does all three (though movies only occasionally) has only won the Emmy but has at least been nominated for multiple Tonys. Kathleen Turner who only occasionally does TV (unthinkably her work on Friends did not even win her a Guest Actress nomination) but used to be a huge movie star has been nominated for the Oscars and Grammys (once) and the Tonys (twice) but has yet to win any of the big showbiz awards beyond her two Golden Globes. Annette Bening has NONE of the top three prizes despite being nominated for all. The strange thing is that though she now regularly does stage work, she does not do it on Broadway. She could win a Tony if she came back!

* Special Cases: Notable superstars like Judy Garland (her Oscar was a non-competitive juvenile Oscar), Liza Minnelli (her Emmy was for a televised concert), Barbra Streisand (her Tony was a special award) and Whoopi Goldberg (her Emmy was not a Primetime Emmy which is all that people usually refer to when they talk about winning Emmys) won all three statues but they did not win them all in regular competitive categories or for performances exactly so they are special cases.

Saoirse Ronan, All Grown Up

Behold the new poster for Oscar hopeful Brooklyn (reviewed at Sundance) which arrives in theaters on November 6th from Fox Searchlight. 

Though it's not half as distinctive or even film-representative as the earlier teaser poster, one thing it does aptly convey is the maturation of Saoirse Ronan. Brooklyn is her bridge movie. She was a famous teen (see: Atonement). Now, at 21, she's an actress fully ready for those complicated adult roles that will surely come her way. She's terrific in the film, charting this young immigrant's progress from overwhelmed mouse to confident young romantic heroine.

the earlier more beautiful posterTrivia Alert 
Should Saoirse be nominated in Best Actress at 21, she won't break the record of fastest to two nominations. That record ain't budging since Angela Lansbury has held it for about 69 years now, winning her first two nominations by 20. But she will break the crowded tie for Lansbury's runner up (Kate Winslet, Sal Mineo, and Jennifer Lawrence all got to two Oscar nominations by the age of 22). 

Do you think she'll manage it?