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Entries in Oscars (18) (231)

Monday
Sep172018

YNMS: Mary Poppins Returns

Movie trailer step in time.
Movie trailer step in time.
Movie trailer step in time.
Never need a reason, never need a rhyme
Movie trailer step in time!

It's finally here! After the jump the Mary Poppins Returns trailer and our Yes No Maybe So™ breakdown.

Click to read more ...

Sunday
Sep162018

TIFF Delivers an Oscar bound-surprise with "Green Book" 

by Nathaniel R

Go figure. The winner of TIFF's "Grolsch's People's Choice Award" is a film that literally none of my TIFF airbnb troupe (Joe Reid, Chris Feil, Nick Davis and I) saw during our 10 day stretch in Ontario. Green Book by Peter Farrelly (yes, of Dumb and Dumber and There's Something About Mary fame) took TIFF's most coveted prize. (the runners up were Barry Jenkins' If Beale Street Could Talk and Alfonso Cuarón's Roma). So we'll have to add it to the Best Picture chart when we update this week (we're looking at probably Wednesday night for across the board updates to reflect all the festival madness).

In the entire 40 year history of this prize, stretching From Girlfriends (1978) through Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017), 16 of the winners went on to Best Picture nods at the Oscars. The 40 winners also include 7 future Best Picture winners, 6 future Best Foreign Language Film winners, and 2 future Best Documentary Feature winners. The Oscar correlation is getting stronger all the time, too...

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Wednesday
Sep122018

TIFF: Nicole Kidman and "Destroyer"

by Nathaniel R

One of the screenwriters of the sun-blasted crime thriller Destroyer, describes the movie as "a detective investigating herself." Allowing a screenwriter rather than the reviewer to pigeonhole their movie may be an abdication of duty, but an appropriate one; Destroyer has long gone rogue, flashing its badge but totally off the clock. Even the LAPD, which we all know has behavioral trouble of its own, wouldn't approve of Detective Erin Bell's (Nicole Kidman) "police work" in the real world.

You can't imagine that she'd still be allowed that badge given her AWOL behavior and frequent intoxication but realism isn't what Destroyer is after. Director Karyn Kusama, introducing the movie at TIFF told us to "enjoy" it, providing her own finger quotes around the word, betraying a welcome sense of humor which is unfortunately little seen within the film. But again, levity is not what this relentless film is after...

Click to read more ...

Wednesday
Sep122018

Six More Foreign Film Oscar Contenders

by Nathaniel R

We're now up to 36 entries for Best Foreign Language Film, so  over one-third of the way to the full list. Of the six latest announcements The Heiresses has had the arguably highest profile at festivals but the Russian entry is the most "typically Oscar-like" in subject matter, though that thankfully matters less than it once did, even in the foreign category. 

  • The Great Mystical Circus Brazil
    A century in the life of a family of circus owners. This is the 7th time Brazil has submitted a film by Carlos Diegues. He's their most frequently submitted director but none of his submitted films have been nominated. 
  • Graves Without a Name Cambodia
    Rithy Panh created Cambodia's only Oscar nominee (the brilliant documentary The Missing Picture). This is another doc on the same topic: the Kmer Rouge and genocide
  • Polyxeni Greece 
    The plot sounds intriguing. A young Greek orphan with a lust for life, is adopted and raised by a wealthy Greek-Turkish couple, unaware that people are plotting and after her large inheritance. Greece used to automatically submit the winner of the Thessaloniki Film Festival but those awards have since been abolished. The new big prizes for Greek films are the Hellenic Film Awards (often referred to as "the Iris" like we call the Academy Awards "Oscar"). They began in 2010 with Dogtooth as their first winner but winning the Iris (which Polyxeni did) doesn't automatically get you the Oscar submission since the submission is now decided by a committee. 
  • Sunset Hungary
    It's László Nemes' follow up to his Oscar winning debut Son of Saul. He's gone further back in time from World War II in the previous picture to just before World War I for this story of a young woman who wants to be a milliner in a hat shop previously owned by her parents.
  • The Heiresses Paraguay 
    Lesbian drama about a formerly wealthy woman restarting her life after her longtime partner is imprisoned. Among its several festival prizes is the promising Best Actress win at Berlinale.
  • Sobibor  - Russia 
    A true story of a prisoner uprising at an extermination camp in Russia during World War II.

Related:
FOREIGN FILM PREDICTIONS
FOREIGN FILM SUBMISSION CHARTS

Saturday
Sep082018

Burning, The Cakemaker and more join the Foreign Film Race.

by Nathaniel R

 

We're now up to 31 Oscar submissions so, a third of our way to the finish line. Here are the new announcements since the last post. 

  • The Cakemaker- Israel 
    A gay drama about a man who becomes friends with his dead lover's wife (who didn't know they were involved). It just won the Ophir for Best Picture (along with Best Director, Actress, and more). This had a theatrical release in the US over the summer. Have y'all seen it? 
  • Gutland  - Luxembourg  
    We recently mentioned that this noir starring Frederic Lau (Victoria) and Vicky Krieps (Phantom Thread) is streaming on Amazon Prime. But when we mentioned it we had no idea it would be Oscar submitted.
  • The Resistant Banker - The Netherlands 
    WW II drama about a Dutch banker funding the resistance under the noses of Nazis. That sounds right up the ally of how Oscar used to play the Foreign Film category but times have changed. Will it be good enough to appeal to their WW II drama-loving previous natures?
  • Offenders - Serbia
    A thriller about university students out to test a theory that human nature inevitably leads to anarchy.  
  • Burning -South Korea
    The Cannes hit which gets a US release in early November. Oscar is notoriously resistant to Asian cinema which is a total shame since this one has received rave reviews and its South Korea's third time choosing a  Lee Chang-dong picture and he's such a talented filmmaker but Oscar has yet to recognize that. Or South Korea in general despite their awesome cinema.
  • Champions - Spain
     A film about a team of disabled athletes starring real disabled people. It's apparently a huge crowd-pleasing hit in Spain

Related:
FOREIGN FILM PREDICTIONS
FOREIGN FILM SUBMISSION CHARTS