Oscar Scuttlebutt: Hateful Eight, Best Actress, and More

Nathaniel, popping in from a busy AFI schedule to gossip with you!  

One of the best things about this annual trip to Los Angeles, besides meeting West Coast fans and spending time with rarely seen LA friends, is hearing the gossip around the Oscar campaigns and individual opinions on the movie. As I suspected Youth resonates with a lot of people in the industry. I've always thought the Oscar conversations on the internet are sleeping on this one because it's a) not in theaters yet and b) skews older than active rooting interests of typical online communities. Also extremely happy to report that people in town seem more confident in Charlotte Rampling's prospects for a 45 Years nomination than I have previously been. She's getting a tribute at the AFI and Kirsten Dunst is even hosting a party in her honor this weekend.

Now, one must always take every anecdote and opinion with a whole block of salt since one man's treasure is another's junk, some assumptions will always be proven wrong, and depending on who is talking there may be an agenda floating around, visible or well hidden. Here are some tidbits you may be interested in though keep in mind that it's all just hearsay after the jump...

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'Sherpa' and 'Only the Dead' Capture the Escalation of Tragedy

Glenn here to discuss two Australian films on Oscar's documentary long list.

Jennifer Peedom’s Sherpa began life as an otherwise unassuming documentary about a man most people would never get to know. If the production of this Australian-made documentary about Mount Everest’s most revered guide had continued as planned, it would have no doubt been an informative and satisfying portrait of Phurba Tashi and his people – the Sherpa are an ethnic group – as well as their quiet village life in the mountains of Nepal.

But the production didn't go as planned...

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Interview: Germán Tejeira on 'A Moonless Night,' Uruguay's Oscar Submission

Jose here. When I scheduled my interview with director Germán Tejeira who is based in Montevideo, I hadn’t been counting on the internet being unaware that Uruguay had gotten rid of their own Daylight Savings Time, a practice which was deemed “old fashioned” and “inefficient” by the progressive government. We had to reschedule the interview, but Tejeira was kind enough to laugh the confusion off and even sent me an article which explained how this new practice had brought chaos within his own country. It was an anecdote I found peculiarly surreal, something out of a movie perhaps, and one that for that matter reminded me of Tejeira’s own A Moonless Night, a charming account of three men trying to find their, existential, way in the Uruguayan countryside during New Year’s Eve.

Cesar (Marcel Keroglian) is a cab driver spending the holiday with his ex-wife’s new family, Antonio (Roberto Suarez) is a magician en route to a presentation whose car breaks down stranding him and his rabbit Oliver, Molgota (Daniel Melingo) is a singer released from jail a day earlier so he can perform at a New Year’s party. Their routine is altered by a blackout, but to say their stories cross paths in a traditional way would be a disservice to Tejeira’s lovely screenplay, and his perceptive direction. The film has been selected as Uruguay’s Oscar representative and I discussed that with the director, as well as his perception of what films should provoke in spectators, and whether Uruguay has a well defined “cinematic identity”.

Read the interview after the jump...

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AFI Fest: James White

Kieran, here reporting from AFI Fest in Hollywood.

James White (played by Christopher Abbott) is a 21-year-old whose life is in a kind of disarray that's sometimes indistinguishable, at least from the outset, from typical millenial aimlessness. He spends his evenings binge drinking, getting high and instigating bar fights all while harboring vague notions of becoming a writer. His estranged father has recently passed away and he sleeps on the sofa of his ailing mother, insisting that he's only there to take care of her. There's a lot in that plot description to suggest something trite and indie-by-numbers. My own antennae were up for yet another indie about a disaffected, yet ambiguously wealthy young white man. Thankfully, writer-director Josh Mond's directorial debut (he was previously a producer on Martha Marcy May Marlene whose director, Sean Durkin is a producer here) opts for something more specific and lived-in here.

The film's saving grace, at least on the script level, is that it manages to be kind to its lead character without co-signing his worldview or behavior. Yes, James is "a mess" as a family friend played by Ron Livingston tells him during a job interview that's going terribly in every possible way. [More...]

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Interview: The Star of Philippines' Oscar Submission 'Heneral Luna' on the Subjectivity of History

Jose here. Since its release in the Philippines, historical epic Heneral Luna has been shattering box office record after record, not only managing to break even in almost no time, but also drawing very young audiences, some of whom might have taken advantage of a half-off student discount (take note Hollywood!). The film which chronicles the campaign by General Antonio Luna to combat American invaders in the late 19th century is directed with flair by Jerrold Tarog. Thanks to its commercial and critical success not only did it open Stateside in late October, it was selected by the Philippines as their official Oscar submission.

The star John Arcilla gives a ferocious lead performance as the titular army officer. 
Arcilla is one of the Philippines’ most respected actors, having made a name for himself as a star across television, stage and film. In America, he will be best known for a supporting performance in The Bourne Legacy, and his terrific work in Metro Manila, but as shown in Heneral Luna he can carry an entire epic on his shoulders. Despite the terrible reception that kept interrupting our phone interview, Arcilla also proved to be an incredibly insightful conversationalist, making remarks that made me wish I could sit down and talk history and politics with him for an entire afternoon. We talked about his process when playing historical characters, remembering the subjectivity of history and what an Oscar nomination might bring the film.

full interview after the jump...

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