Best International Film: Luxembourg, Paraguay, Switzerland

by Cláudio Alves

Instead of thinking about continental closeness, feminine authorship, or similar Oscar records, today's Best international Film submissions are bonded by a thematic link. The pictures selected to represent Luxembourg, Paraguay, and Switzerland all explore matters of displacement, whether through immigration or forced uprooting. They run the gamut, from fiction to documentary, from stories of economic precarity and political oppression to tales of colonial trauma. Though they're championing their countries in the Oscar race, these films consider the nations through complicated lenses and layers of otherness…

Click to read more ...

Oscar Finalist List Predictions!

by Nathaniel R

On Monday (December 21st) we'll be hearing the Oscar finalists list in the 10 categories that use that process to winnow down the vast array of possibilities before nomination balloting. There were 9 previously but Oscar has added Sound into the mix this year. That category has had quite a rollercoaster of late, given that it was two categories just two years ago, it was conjoined for 2020, and now it joins the "bakeoff" groups; in short it's getting smaller and smaller each year! After Monday's massive reveal we can really dig in to each Oscar race (and closely revamp each Oscar chart) individually. Isn't it strange that the finalist lists in these 10 categories are coming so much earlier than the actual nomination ballots (which don't go out for another 5 and a 1/2 weeks.

Anyway, let's quickly predict the finalist lists, shall we? You can use this cheat sheet to laugh at me or praise me later, depending on my success rate. If there's a link we've previously written about the picture...

Click to read more ...

Best International Film: China, India, Indonesia

by Cláudio Alves

This journey through the Best International Film Oscar submissions has taken us to Europe and Latin America thus far, leaving some continents sorely underrepresented. In hopes of remedying that, this entry shall focus exclusively on Asian contenders. They are the latest work from a respected auteur who has represented China seven times before. From India, an award-winning feature debut shot on a tiny budget and severe minimalism. Finally, Indonesia brings us a beautiful character study in a hundred shades of purple…

Click to read more ...

West Side Story's Oscar journeys (then & now)

by Nathaniel R

3 of West Side Story's Oscar wins: SUPPORTING ACTOR (Chakiris), DIRECTOR (Robbins & Wise), SUPPORTING ACTRESS (Moreno)

The original West Side Story, which premiered on October 18th, 1961, and which we've discussed in great detail here, was a true four-quadrant blockbuster. It was not only the top-grossing film of its year but an all out Oscar smash. By the spring of 1962 West Side Story was so popular that it did a near complete sweep at the 34th annual Academy Awards ceremony, losing in only one of its categories: Best Adapted Screenplay (which went to the Holocaust courtroom drama Judgment at Nuremberg). But that wasn't all in terms of West Side Story mania. The very next month it competed for "Album of the Year" at the 4th Annual Grammys Awards (it had to settle for winning Best Soundtrack Album since "Judy at Carnegie Hall" took the top prize) and stayed at #1 on the Billboard album charts for almost an entire year (no joke).

How well will the new West Side Story fare? That's a difficult question because a lot of things have changed since West Side Story's initial movie run 60 years ago, including the popularity of musicals within mainstream culture, the number of Oscar categories, the nature of both Oscar campaigns and moviegoing, and even one role within the famous musical...

Click to read more ...

Review: "Nightmare Alley" only in theaters

by Matt St Clair

Nightmare Alley, Guillermo del Toro’s anticipated follow-up to The Shape of Water, is quite a risk for the Oscar-winning auteur. Del Toro ditches the phantasmic monsters he’s known for in favor of human monstrosity, the beasts within all of us that drive our carnal needs. As with the original 1947 noir, Nightmare Alley is an exemplary exercise on the folly of man and what happens when the line between man and beast becomes blurred. 

The main anti-hero who toes that line is Stan Carlisle (Bradley Cooper), a carny with a knack for manipulating people. His subjects include fellow carny and eventual love interest/accomplice Molly Cahill (Rooney Mara), Paul Krumbein (David Strathairn) and his fortune teller wife Zeena (Toni Collette), and a wealthy fearsome widower Ezra Grindle (Richard Jenkins). Cooper's piercing eyes and bewildering smile make him a perfect casting fit for the manipulative con man. He is a man of few words which is just as well; the words when they come are lies and deceit. It is in Cooper’s expressive face where we see Stan’s constant fear of his troubled past resurfacing...

Click to read more ...