More International Oscar News: Several "Finalist" Lists Announced

by Nathaniel R

The Man Standing Next ...has the difficult task of following in Parasite's footsteps!

The submission charts for Oscar's Best International Feature Film race have been updated to reflect more new entries like Croatia's Extracurricular, Palestine's Gaza Mon Amour, Panama's war drama Causa Justa , Romania's documentary Collective, and South Korea's The Man Standing Next.

But the big news at the moment is six finalist lists so keep your eye out for any of these pictures to rise up...

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Women of a Certain Age and the Best Actress Race

This list/trivia article is revamped from a 2014 article...

 

With Sophia Loren (86), Meryl Streep (71 if she campaigns in lead), Frances McDormand (63), Michelle Pfeiffer (62), Viola Davis (55), Amy Adams (46), and Kate Winslet (45) all looking like viable discussion points for the upcoming Best Actress race, it's time to look at one of our favourite research areas: Age and Oscar Trivia. If any combo of five from those seven women make it (unlikely of course) we'll have our oldest Best Actress lineup of all time by a big margin. If only three or four of them make it we're still likely to have the oldest line up of all time though younger contenders like Andra Day, Vanessa Kirby, Elisabeth Moss, Jennifer Hudson, and Carey Mulligan (all in their 30s) are surely hoping to spoil this 'most mature' trivia party. 

Good news: The Academy is getting less ageist. We know because we've researched this for years. In fact as you can see in the "top ten most mature Best Actress lineups" after the jump, a good deal of the top ten is from recent years. When this first started happening we chalked it up to an anomaly due to Meryl Streep, but she's hardly the only senior citizen actress that they've nominated in the last 20 years. Ready for the list? 

The Top Ten Most Mature Best Actress Shortlists

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Yes No Maybe So: News of the World

by Nathaniel R

Suddenly we're feeling quite prophetic in expecting News of the World to receive a multitude of Oscar nominations. Universal has finally given us more than just a film still and the western drama looks exciting and robust. Check out the trailer and Yes No Maybe So after the jump...

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AFI Fest: Notturno

By Abe Friedtanzer

Italian documentarian Gianfranco Rosi’s last film, Fire at Sea, was released right around the time of the 2016 election. The Oscar-nominated film was a poignant and timely look at the implications of severely restricted immigration worldwide. Unlike popular recent documentaries like American Factory and Free Solo, Rosi’s work didn’t feature much dialogue or even a formed argument of any kind. Instead, plainly documenting what was happening was powerful enough to speak on its own. Rosi’s follow-up, Notturno, has a different focus but is much the same… 

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Middleburg Highlights: "Minari" and 'Coffee & Contenders'

by Nathaniel R

I had the pleasure of serving once again on Middleburg Film Festival's Oscar-discussion panel this past Friday. Jazz Tangcay, Clayton Davis, and I chose the name "Coffee & Contenders" because when we launched  the event last year it was first thing in the morning in a cozy room designed specifically for group gatherings at the Salamander Resort and Spa in Middleburg Virginia. You grabbed your complimentary coffee and pastries on the way in. This year we were completely virtual and on Zoom but the title was still literal. Coffees in hand we discussed the race.

The race is a mess of possibility without much clarity. It's not that there aren't contenders or reason to celebrate film (see Juan Carlos' recent rant). It's that we're in uncharted territory given the pandemic and suddenly virtual nature of movies and campaigning; Publicists and awards strategists have their work cut out for them! 

But let's talk about the winning film...

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