Wednesday, December 21, 2016 at 3:15PM Would you rather...
...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?
Thursday, November 17, 2016 at 7:00PM 
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...
Friday, September 30, 2016 at 8:40PM 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.
Monday, September 5, 2016 at 10:00PM 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...
Wednesday, October 22, 2014 at 10:51AM 
You can watch the Kehinde Wiley documentary here from PBSAs you may have heard, the finalist list for the Documentary Short Oscar has been announced. It is 8 films wide from which (presumably) 5 nominees will emerge though remember in the Aughts when it was usually 4 nominees which is so annoying. (Symmetry please, Oscar). Among those 8 films we have a few about illness (The Lions Mouth Opens, Joanna, Our Curse), one about the arts (Kehinde Wiley: An Economy of Grace) one environmental picture (White Earth) one picture Nathaniel will never be able to sit through because it's about slaughterhouses (The Reaper) which means he can't have a perfect Oscar record this year, and one about a natural disaster (One Child) which killed thousands but which focuses on three families.
The complete absence of World War II / Holocaust related docs will make your Oscar pool way harder this year. Sorry about it. Half the films are in English with Spanish, Chinese, and two from Poland filling the other half. You can read more about these films on the animation/documentary page which has been fully updated this morning with links to official sites and trailers.
For comparison's sake here are the trailers to Joanna and Our Curse. Get this: They're both about families dealing with incurable life-threatening illnesses, they're both from Poland, and they're both debut films from their directors Aneta Kopacz and Tomasz Sliwinski respectively
JOANNA by Aneta Kopacz - trailer for the short documentary (40') from Wajda Studio on Vimeo.
You can read more about the individual entries and where to watch the films or purchase them on the updated Animation & Documentary Oscar Chart
