Review: The Zookeeper's Wife

A portion of this review was originally published in Nathaniel's column at Towleroad

Jessica Chastain stars as Antonina Zabinski, The Zookeeper's Wife, a true story based on the international bestseller of the same title. The Zabinski family run a lovingly crafted zoo in Warsaw but political unrest unnerves Jan Zabinski (Johan Heldenbergh) enough to attempt to send his wife and child away. Antonia, naive and endearingly devoted to her animals, won't have it. Then German bombs hit their attraction, killing many animals. Poland surrenders to Germany quickly. Much to the Zabinski’s horror they learn that their surviving animals will all be killed for meat to feed soldiers unless they can strike a deal with fellow zookeeper and now Nazi officer (Daniel Brühl, Hollywood’s go-to Germanic villain who isn’t named Christoph Waltz). 

While working on this deal with the devil, Antonina and her husband begin a dangerous game, hiding Jews in their now empty zoo until they can figure out a way to get them out of Poland to (relative) safety in a world gone mad...

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Instagram Fun with Baz, Elle, Orlando and More...

Would you rather...

See, everyone loves Star Wars! #flashback

A photo posted by Baz Luhrmann (@bazluhrmann) on Dec 16, 2016 at 3:05pm PST

...reminisce about the first time you saw Star Wars (1977) with Baz Lurhmann (can you believe how young he was here!)
...celebrate the 15th anniversary of Lord of the Rings with Orlando Bloom?
...go roller skating with Elle Fanning?
...visit Warsaw in the winter with Ewan McGregor? 
...or take your lunch from a RuPaul bag with Cheyenne Jackson?  

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Yes No Maybe So: "The Zookeeper's Wife"

No matter how many times we hear the story of World War II and The Holocaust it seems like we're still susceptible to forgetting their lessons. But at least filmmakers and novelists around the world tried to warn us to never forget. In our current climate where hate crimes are skyrocketing and a demagogue prepares to ascend to his throne after blaming our nation's problems on immigrants, how painful is it going to be to watch World War II movies?

Oh look here's another one...

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Foreign Watch: Two Oscar Favorites Join the Fray

We've been faithfully updating the Oscar charts daily to reflect the submissions in one of our favorite categories. We'd call it our favorite but then how would Cinematography, Production Design, both Actress categories, and Costume Design feel? The deadline for submission is just a few days away so in a week or two the Academy will make the list official. Generally speaking, there are one or two surprises from our charts once they do -- a sudden addition or replacement and maybe a single disqualification. But if this list holds we are just short of the all time record number. The are currently 82 submissions, which is one shy of the record from 2014 (the Ida year).

90 year old legend Andrezj Wajda with his film trophies

Among the newly announced films are After Image, a biopic of an avant garde artist, by Andrzej Wajda for Poland and The Idol, the true story of a man who competed on "Arab Idol," from Hany Abu-Assad of Palestine. Oscar loves these two directors so they're surely threats for the finalist list. Poland has submitted films by Honorary Oscar winner Andrzej Wajda a total of nine times in their history and four of those were nominated: The Promised Land in 1975, The Maids of Wilco in 1979, Man of Iron in 1981, and Katyn in 2007. Meanwhile both of Palestine's nominations in the Best Foreign Language Film category come from Hany Abu-Assad: Paradise Now in 2005 and Omar in 2013.  Can these men work their Oscar-hooking magic again?

Updates to the charts (part 1, part 2, part 3) also include new contenders from Argentina, Bangladesh, Jordan, Kazakhstan, South Africa, and Turkey.

Finland's Oscar Entry and the European Film Awards Finalists

Finland has chosen its Oscar submission this year.

They've gone with the acclaimed black and white boxing drama The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Maki which is about a featherweight championship match between American and Finnish boxers in 1962.

That film is also in the finalist list for the European Film Awards. Nominations for the EFAs will be announced on November 5th. The EFA ceremony changes location each year and this year it will be held in Poland on December 10th. Because of competing eligibility dates you'll notice that each year's EFA list contains films from different Oscar seasons. The list of their finalists for 2016 is after the jump...

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