The Golden Era at the Golden Horse Awards

You may recall that last year the Golden Horse celebrated its 50th year so it was a big big deal. All the stars of Chinese language cinema were out with all the living winners of the lead acting prizes prominently displayed on stage. Zhang Ziyi finally took home Best Actress for The Grand Master, a prize that had continually eluded her. This year, the 51st, is bound to be a let down in comparison but it's still worth noting since we like to see how the Oscar submissions from various Asian countries fare. So let's just hit that straightaway...

Tang Wei stars in The Golden Era, a 30s era biopic of an important Chinese writer

THE GOLDEN ERA (Ann Hui) - Hong Kong's Oscar submission
This historical bio of a famous female writer finds Lust Caution's then-novice star Tang Wei headlining another acclaimed 3 hour period epic. It's nominated for 5 awards and they're all major ones: Feature, Director, Actress, Supporting Actress and Original Screenplay. No tech nominations though, which seems strange for a period epic. I'm still kicking myself for missing this one at TIFF but it's hard to fit the super-sized movies into those jampacked schedules.

ICE POISON (Midi Z) - Taiwan's Oscar submission
Our own Oscars don't ever have the "lone wolf" director anymore with the expanded Best Picture lineup and an increasing willingness to embrace chillier critical darlings anyway, but the Golden Horse got one this year. This Taiwanese drama about a poor young farmer and a woman escaping an arranged marriage who both  get mixed up in selling crystal meth is only nominated for Best Director.

MY BELOVED DEAREST (Sanif Olek) - Singapore's Oscar submission
Last year, Singapore was the surprise winner of the Best Feature Golden Horse (which tilts heavily China and Hong Kong) for their Oscar submission Ilo Ilo but this year their representing film either wasn't eligible or was not well loved by the Golden Horse jury. Zero nominations.

Black Coal Thin Ice led the nominations

We don't yet know what the mainland has chosen as their Oscar submission but the other films that were embraced by the Golden Horse Jury were: Black Coal, Thin Ice from China and winner of the Golden Bear early this year (Glenn reviewed) which led nominations with 8 including all the biggies - Feature, Director, Actress and Actor; Blind Massage from China, exactly what it's title implies, was not far behind with 7 nominations including Feature and Director; Kano from Taiwan, a true story baseball movie set in the 1930s won 6 nominations including Feature and Makeup & Costumes; Coming Home, the new Gong Li drama about a man returning from prison to his estranged wife, missed the key nod for Best Feature but won 5 other nominations including two for acting: Gong Li and a Newcomer nod for Zhang Huiwen who plays her daughter; Paradise in Service was also big in acting categories with three supporting nods but it missed Best Feature, too; A Fool about parents desperate to save their son convicted of a crime won five nominations including Feature.

Young Detective Dea: Rise of the Sea Dragon is available on Netflix Instant Watch!

And finally, just because it's fun to know these films -- and because yours truly kind of misses the days a decade ago when everyone was excited about wuxia movies - other films that did well, particularly in the tech awards included Brotherhood of Blades set in the Ming dynasty, The White Storm a drug underworld action film, No Man's Land about a lawyer's adventures in the Gobi desert and the biggie, a wuxia prequel with five tech nominations: Young Detective Dee: Rise of the Sea Dragon which is available on Netflix Instant Watch.

You can see a complete list of nominations here.

Extensive charts of this year's foreign language Oscar submissions (71 announced to date) are fully updated  here.

NYFF: Saint Laurent is Über-Stylish but...

Our NYFF coverage continues with Nathaniel on France's Oscar submission Saint Laurent.

If you're going to make a biopic of one of the great fashion designers, it better damn well be stylish. Saint Laurent one of two new biopics tackling the iconic French designer Yves Saint Laurent assures you of its gifts in this area almost immediately. There's nary a frame, at least for the first two thirds of the film, that you couldn't frame and admire for aesthetic reasons: rich decadent colors, gorgeous actors as gorgeous people, carefully composed shots in elaborately decorated homes, dark exclusive clubs, and interiors of stores that that are so beautiful in their rigidity that they look more like institutional museums after hours, free of consumers but full of art. Even the daring full frontal nudity is stylish, whether it's employed for confrontational queer desire or for humor as in a memorable sequence late in the picture between a clothed woman and naked one. The scene plays like unintentional comedy for a moment until you discern that it's actual comedy, a meta joke about overdetermined STYLE and the fashion world's self mythologizing nature within a movie positively dripping with style and self-mythologizing.

The director Bertrand Bonello (House of Tolerance, The Pornographer) has chosen the right form for his movie -- at least in part, telling the story visually first and foremost, and lushly and creatively at that. Would that I had a photographic memory to recount the many fine choices but there are three that stuck with me, all from the first and second acts...

dangerous gay players & beautiful dress-up muses after the jump...

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Tomorrow is the Submission Deadline in Oscar's Foreign Film Race

At the moment of this typing 67 films have been announced by their home countries as Oscar submissions and our famous charts are all updated to tell you about them with posters, running times, languages spoken, official site links, synopsis and more. This year's race has three countries who've never submitted before (Kosovo, Mauritania, and Panama). That's not a record since that was also true last year. Can we attribute the continual growth of this category to the general democratization of film now that (nearly) everything is digital and filmmaking is (theoretically) more affordable? Or perhaps it's a sure sign that the Oscar is still one of the most significant icons around the world?

The most exciting news this past week was Russia daringly choosing Cannes hit LEVIATHAN - not the kind of film they normally would send.Other new additions to the chart include Egypt's FACTORY GIRL, India's LIAR'S DICE, and New Zealands THE DEAD LANDS

The most entries this category has ever had was 76 (just last year) but that record is frequently busted. What about this year? My guess is it won't be that many since the films are due tomorrow and we've only heard 66 of them. But, consider this: Ten regularly participating countries are as of yet unannounced. Usually there are a handful of submissions on the official list that weren't covered in the trades or here. And usually at least one previously announced title doesn't appear when all is said and done due to last minute switcheroos by the home country, disqualifications, or politicking of one sort of the other. So my guess is 70-72 competitors this year. I still maintain that the new system of the finalist list that Oscar announces in early January needs tinkering. At nine films it seems cruel so few films lose out on a nomination that was dangling right in front of them. A better and less sadistic and potentially humiliating finalist list would be something like 12 pictures so the majority were runners up. In a general sense though I'm in huge favor of their new culling process; the quality of the shortlist has inarguably improved with all the tinkering in recent years.

Two Biggies Remain Unannounced:

• ARGENTINA - (5 nominations / 1 win)
  They haven't skipped the race since 1983. Will it be Wild Tales? UPDATE: YES, IT'S WILD TALES. WOOOO
• CHINA - (2 nominations)
  They haven't skipped the race since 2001. Despite often high profile entries China has trouble getting nominated. Might they submit Coming Home? It does reteam the auteur Zhang Yimou with his original muse Gong Li and their films together have often won a single Oscar nomination whether that was for cinematography (Shanghai Triad), costumes (Curse of the Golden Flower), or foreign film (Ju Dou, Raise the Red Lantern). Their other films together were probably near-misses since they won nominations elsewhere (To Live for the Golden Globes and The Story of Qi Ju for The Spirit Awards)

The following countries which semi-regularly submit have not yet announced:

CUBA has a great contender this year in "BEHAVIOR" but did they actually submit it? They sometimes don't bother.

• ALBANIA (never nominated)
• ALGERIA (5 nominations/1 win) - They have a strong record when they submit but they tend to drift in and out of interest in competing unless there's a Rachid Bouchareb film out (he's been their nominee three times: Dust of Life, Days of Glory, and Outside the Law)
• AZERBAIJAN  (never nominated) - Submitting for almost a decade now
• CUBA (1 nomination) -  They skipped the last two years but Behavior (reviewed) could be a legit contender for the statue if submitted. Their only nominee was the gay drama Strawberry & Chocolate from 1994
• LEBANON (never nominated) - Submitting since the late 90s
• SOUTH AFRICA (2 nominations/1 win) - Since they started submitting regularly in 2004 they've done very well with one nominee (Yesterday), one winner (Tsotsi), and one finalist that didn't quite make it (Life Above All)
• VIETNAM (1 nomination) -The Scent of Green Papaya, their only nominee, was their very first entry into the category

The following countries which occasionally submit have not yet announced:

• ARMENIA, AUSTRALIA, ECUADOR, IRAQ, KYRGYZSTAN, and CAMBODIA which was Cambodia nominated for the first time last year with the incredible documentary The Missing Picture. 

The following countries rarely submit but you never know:

• Chad, Costa Rica, Ethiopia, Fiji Islands, Greenland, Guatemala, Kenya, Malaysia, Mongolia, Nicaragua, Tajikstan, and Tanzania 

EXPLORE THE CATEGORY AND SOUND OFF ON WHICH FILMS AND COUNTRIES YOU'D LIKE TO SEE MORE COVERAGE OF RIGHT HERE. 

Pt. 1 Afghanistan through Ethiopia - 17 official submissions on this page
Pt. 2 Finland through Panama - 28 submissions on this page
Pt. 3 Peru through Vietnam  -21 submissions thus far

NYFF: J.K. Simmons Holds Court, Boosts Supporting Actor Bid

"I guess I was a professional musician. I got paid tens of dollars," J.K. Simmons shrugged, getting the first of many big laughs at the press conference for Damien Chazelle's Whiplash. He was being grilled about his music background (he studied classical music in college) and what he brought to his big big role in this crowdpleasing drama. Whiplash is about the sweaty bloody foul-mouthed, humiliating and combative relationship of Andrew, a talented drummer (Miles Teller) and his sadistic mentor, Professor Fletcher (Simmons).

The movie is muscularly directed by Chazelle, like he's got as much to prove as Andrew (he'll direct another music related film next) and edited for maximum razzle-dazzle as if syncopated to the double time jazz rhythm -- or any other rhythm, really, that Fletcher demands during grueling rehearsals. Often stopping the action to scream "Not my tempo!" 

Whiplash than sometimes gives off the illusion that it's directed from within, as if the film is continually queued by, responding to, or enraged at Fletcher's barked orders, precise time signature hand movements, and threatening in-your-face closeups. The illusion than is that Professor Fletcher is demanding the movie conform to him, rather than the movie inviting him to be its antagonist.  

At the press conference the 59 year old actor was also the star of the show. In this case he had no competition for the spotlight. Miles Teller wasn't there and the film's young director was stuck in traffic allowing J.K. the bulk of the press conference to himself. Though his face is familiar from a long career of well received supporting roles he doesn't usually get this much of the screen (or stage as it were) all to himself. He took the opportunity to keep the press laughing, faux-mock his young co-star for being too busy "working" to be there with him, and for not making the short with him which was used to raise interest and funding for the movie (the short, which was a huge hit at Sundance in 2013, co-starred Johnny Simmons, no relation, who J.K. complimented adding that his take on the Andrew character was much different than Teller's work). J.K. reserved most of the good-natured teasing for his director who he continually referred to as an "adolescent" or "child". When the 29 year old director arrived toward the end of the event, and the questions began to flow his way, Simmons burst out laughing when a reporter began his question with the formal "Mister Chazelle..." 

A true scene stealer, that J.K. Simmons.

J.K., Damien, and Miles on set

It was deeply moving for me to work with musicians of that calibre and relive that part of my youth after having taken so many left turns in my career. It was really fun to work with musicians every day at work and/or scream at people which are two of my favorite things."

But for all his joking he managed to slip in thoughtful responses to questions, emotional hooks, and admitting that he wasn't sure how to unpack some of the provocative questions the movie raises about teaching and pushing people to greatness. This juggling act should serve him well in the quest for Oscar gold. The crowd was stunned to hear that they shot this tense intimate movie in just 19 days, a tiny blip in the amount of time they've spent promoting it since. As you'll recall the film premiered to rapturous response at Sundance 2014 and finally hits theaters in select cities on October 10th. Count on J.K. Simmons to spend the first two months of 2015 on red carpets and with cameras trained tightly to his face on Oscar night.

The Oscar Race: Then, Now, Next Three Months

THEN...
One final honor for last year's best picture winner 12 Years a Slave (2013). We've heard talk of this before but it's official now: The National School Boards Association has partnered with the filmmakers and Peguin Books to make 12 Years a Slave and its study guide available to high schools across America. When I attended a Steve McQueen event last year in LA this dream was literally all that he wanted to talk about with the moderator despite the panel being called "On Directing" and his movie being an Oscar favorite.

The news was official a few days back

“I am thrilled that my dream of having 12 YEARS A SLAVE available to high school students is finally a reality. Solomon Northup’s powerful story needs to be shared and remembered for generations to come. This is a wonderful opportunity for our youth to learn about the past. I truly appreciate the efforts of Montel Williams, the National School Boards Association, New Regency, Penguin Books, and Fox Searchlight for making this happen,” said Steve McQueen, director of 12 YEARS A SLAVE.

Congratulations to all and to America, come to think of it, because if the utterly irrational reaction to the Obama era in some quarters has taught us anything it's that racism is a poison that isn't easily cured and destroys the brain first.

We're at war here."
- Anna Morales (Jessica Chastain) in "A Most Violent Year" 

NOW...
None of 2014's Oscar hopefuls thus far have had the kind of seismic impact that Gravity and 12 Years a Slave were beginning to exhibit this time last year, which means that the race is wide open and the battle will be bloody and heated for attention. This is both exciting and dull simultaneously since anything might possibly happen but people need things to obsessively root for to stay interested and the films this year don't seem to be grabbing moviegoers en masse apart from, you know, the superhero blockbusters. The Oscar Charts are updated in every single category for your punditry pleasures! 

Best Actress, which we should know better than to call "weak" in any given year, is suddenly heating up with Julianne & Reese looking more and more like battling locks for the statue and Jessica Chastain switching over there, too -- news from A24 -- from the previously assumed supporting position for A Most Violent Year.

INDEX | PICTURE | DIRECTOR | SCREENPLAYS
ACTRESS | ACTOR | SUPP. ACTRESS | SUPP. ACTOR
FOREIGN FILMS with SUBMISSION CHARTS
VISUALS | SOUND | ANIMATED FEATURES

Sound off in the comments. You know what to do.

THE NEXT THREE MONTHS... 

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