Foreign Film Long List Overachieving Recap!

If the Academy is on the same time table they were last year with the Foreign Language Film volunteer committee we should know the 9 finalists from the 80-wide foreign submission list before the weekend. But before we get there, let's look back on where we've been. It's the most coverage we've ever done for one of our favorite categories so we hope you've been reading along and trying to see what you could (these films are often elusive, we know). 

Much thanks to Jose who has been invaluable in seeking out interviews. Catch up on the coverage like so...

"everything u ever wanted to know about the foreign film category *...but were afraid to ask" Pt 1 81 Trailers | Pt 2 Female Directors & Debuts | Pt 3 Zoology | Pt 4 I know that face! | Pt 5 More Trivia!

THE NOMINEES

embrace of the serpent

Colombia, Embrace of the Serpent  REVIEW  & INTERVIEW
Denmark, A War PILOU ASBAEK & INTERVIEW 
France, Mustang REVIEW & INTERVIEW 
Hungary, Son of Saul  REVIEW & INTERVIEW  
Jordan, Theeb INTERVIEW  

goodnight mommy

THE OTHER SUBMISSIONS

Afghanistan, Utopia DISQUALIFIED | Albania, Bota | Algeria, Twilight of Shadows 
Argentina, The Clan  REVIEWED | Australia, Arrows of the Thunder Dragon 
Austria, Goodnight Mommy INTERVIEW | Bangladesh, Jalal’s Story 
Belgium, The Brand New Testament | Bosnia and Herzegovina, Our Everyday Story
Brazil, The Second Mother INTERVIEW | Bulgaria, The Judgment
Cambodia, The Last Reel |  Canada, Félix and Meira INTERVIEW

Chile, The Club REVIEW | China, Go Away Mr. Tumor
Costa Rica, Imprisoned | Croatia High Sun | Czech Republic Home Care  
Dominican Republic, Sand Dollars  REVIEW & INTERVIEW | Estonia, 1944
Ethiopia, Lamb | Finland, The Fencer | Georgia, Moira
 Germany, Labyrinth of Lies REVIEW & INTERVIEW 

Greece, Xenia | Guatemala, Ixcanul REVIEW | Hong Kong, To the Fore
 Iceland, Rams INTERVIEW | India, Court | Iran, Muhammad: The Messenger of God
 Iraq, Memories on Stone | Ireland, Viva
Israel, Baba Joon REVIEW | Italy, Don't Be Bad INTERVIEW 
Ivory Coast, Run | Japan, 100 Yen Love |  Kazakhstan, Stranger
Kosovo, Babai | Kyrgyzstan, Heavenly Nomadic | Latvia, Modris | Lebanon, Void

Lithuania, Summer of Sangaile | Luxembourg, Baby (A)lone | Macedonia, Honey Night
Malaysia, Men Who Save the World | Mexico, 600 Miles INTERVIEW 
Montenegro, You Carry Me | Morocco, Aida | Nepal, Talakjung vs Tulke
Netherlands, The Paradise Suite | Norway, The Wave REVIEW & INTERVIEW
Pakistan, Moor | Palestine, The Wanted 18 | Paraguay, Cloudy Times | Peru, NN
Philippines, Heneral Luna INTERVIEW  | Poland, 11 Minutes
Portugal, Arabian Nights - Vol 2 REVIEW |Romania, Aferim! | Russia, Sunstroke

Serbia, Enclave | Singapore, 7 Letters | Slovakia, Goat INTERVIEW
Slovenia, The Tree | South Africa, The Two of Us | South Korea, The Throne
Spain, Flowers INTERVIEW | Sweden, A Pigeon Sat on a Branch... REVIEW
Switzerland, Iraqi Odyssey | Taiwan, The Assassin REVIEW & GOLDEN HORSE
Thailand, How to Win at Checkers (Every Time) | Turkey, Sivas
United Kingdom, Under Milk Wood | Uruguay, A Moonless Night INTERVIEW
Venezuela, Gone With the River | Vietnam, Jackpot

the assassin

FOREIGN CHARTS (FOR EVEN MORE INFORMATION)

Review: The Good Dinosaur

Tim here. The Good Dinosaur is, in the first place, a kids' film: not a film about kids but also somewhat for adults, like Inside Out. Or, indeed, most of what Pixar Animation Studios has produced in its 20 years of making features. In fact, even including the unabashed toy commercials of the Cars franchise, this might be the most unmixed "for the kids" movie out of the 16 films of the Pixar canon. This has translated into a lot of disappointment from a lot of people openly hoping for another film at the Inside Out level of emotional sophistication and narrative creativity, which was really never going to be in the cards; frankly, the movie doesn't seem to have any designs on that kind of sophistication.

Still, it's easy to be too harsh on the movie: simple and direct as The Good Dinosaur certainly is, it's an enormously strong version of its stock narrative.

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AFI Fest Closing Night - The Big Short

Anne Marie here, wiping the glitter from my eyes after another year of AFI Fest.

The closing night party of AFI Fest presented by Audi was the premiere of The Big Short, the star-studded story of the 2007 financial crisis. Director Adam McKay is best known for comedies like Anchorman, but in defiance of genre expectations, McKay has adapted a book by Michael Lewis of Moneyball fame. Nearly the entire cast walked the red carpet: Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, and Christian Bale were in attendance (minus Brad Pitt), along with the lesser-used-but-no-lesser-in-our-minds Melissa Leo, Finn Wittrock, Adepero Oduye, and Academy Award Winner Marisa Tomei.

The Big Short is a tough sell as Wall Street movies go. If it had been made 2 or 3 years ago, McKay's comedy drama might have been considered on point, but after the Occupy Movement, Wolf of Wall Street, and an economy finally limping back towards recovery, The Big Short may have trouble motivating an audience. Part of its challenge is that McKay's protagonists are the traders who profited off of the collapse of the economy. Three groups of traders - Christian Bale's glass-eyed genius, Carell's angry Chicken Little, and Brad Pitt's charismatic "retired" trader, all corralled by Ryan Gosling's slick Wall Street insider - see the housing market bubble about to explode, and decide to bet against the house. McKay attempts to portray them as prophetic, or at least clear-eyed in the face of systematic stupidity, but a third act shift towards righteous indignation does away with any good will that may have been built.

Tone is a struggle overall for McKay, and the weakest point of a film with a lot of balls in the air. How exactly do you make a movie about the financial market that is entertaining, informative, and accessible? Drawing from his comedy roots, McKay keeps the build up to 2007 fairly light, adding fantastical inserts in order to explain financial concepts. (The audience favorite was Margot Robbie in a bubble bath explaining subprime loans.) However, these stylistic risks, along with random intertitles and quick montages, as often as not obscure rather than enlighten. Once the financial crisis hits, McKay pulls an abrupt about-face, and righteous indignation takes hold. Whether audiences take to the film's message may depend on how redundant this righteous indignation feels 2 hours into the movie and 7 years after the fact.

At the afterparty, crowds swarmed around the major stars who made a fairly hasty exit. However, we stuck around and got to meet Adepero Oduye, who plays a small role as Steve Carell's advisor in The Big Short, but is better known as the star of Dee Rees's lauded 2011 film Pariah. Nathaniel snagged a picture with Oduye and chatted with her about Meryl Streep's shoutout at the 2012 Golden Globes (all roads do lead to Meryl).

Later, we got into a brief conversation with Oduye about Pariah's influence. She was extremely gracious as she gushed over the film's personal signficance for her, and its importance in LGBTQ representation of people of color. Then we chatted about passion projects. We ended the conversation with a hug. That was hands down the warmest way I've ever ended a film festival.

AFI Fest: 5 Reasons to See 'The Lobster'

Margaret here, reporting from AFI Fest in Los Angeles..

The Lobster is the first English-language film from director Yorgos Lanthimos, Academy Award nominee for unsettling black comedy Dogtooth. The buzz since it debuted at Cannes (where it won the Jury Prize) has largely focused on its eyebrow-raising premise: in a society where being part of a couple is mandatory, the perpetually or recently single are rounded up and sent to The Hotel where they must either pair off or be turned into an animal. It's offbeat and biting and not for everyone, but it's also captivating and dryly hilarious. Here are five reasons you should check it out:

1) A bonkers premise improbably well-executed. The setup is so very odd that its ambition alone would make it worth seeing; the fact that the movie sells it without ever straining under the weight of exposition is masterful. In Lanthimos' bizarro world, where existing social rituals around courtship are both flattened and taken the extreme, lonely people scrutinize and reject each other with laughably trivial reasons and deadly serious consequences. Interactions are stilted, and many scenes sound for all the world like they've been dubbed over with a foreign-language translation, except what we're hearing are the actual words coming out of the actors' mouths. But the universe feels fully realized: odd as the relationship dynamics are, they're both internally consistent and recognizably human.

four more reasons after the jump...

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Review: Spectre

Tim here. Four films in, it feels like it's been enough time for the Daniel Craig era of James Bond films to stop doing the origin story thing, but nope, Spectre – the 24th film in the franchise, and the first in its second half-century of life – once again finds the rebooted series putting a whole movie's worth of energy into establishing something that was covered in, like, one scene back in 1963's From Russia with Love. That being the existence of the titular criminal organization, the Special Executive for Counterintelligence, Terrorism, Revenge, and Extortion. It's not so much frustrating as it is baffling: "learn more about Spectre" is basically the whole of the film's plot, with no real threat that needs to be stopped. There's some weird and unsatisfying business with a multinational agreement to share espionage resources, I guess that's the thing driving the plot. A cache of stolen nukes or an attempt to start World War III, it ain't.

Does any of that really matter? If anything, Spectre reveals the core pleasures of the Bond franchise, by removing even the vestige of an actual narrative. It's an exercise in lifestyle porn globetrotting, with Craig handsomely filling out a whole bunch of Tom Ford suits as director Sam Mendes and cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema take great pains to make a lot of extremely gorgeous locations in Europe and North Africa look, well, gorgeous. At frequent intervals there is an action setpiece, most of which are pretty terrific. [More...]

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