Film Bitch Awards: Casting, Ensemble, Breakthrough, Young Actors

by Nathaniel R

We're still hoping to have the Film Bitch Awards wrapped up before Oscar night. Tonight, the remaining "extra" acting categories. We've already shared the Best Cameo performances so here's four more prizes to discuss and consider. Please do share your own favourites in these categories, too.

BEST CASTING / BEST ENSEMBLE
Some might argue that these categories go hand in hand (the way others object to the notion of Picture/Director splits) but we think of them as two different though highly complimentary accomplishments...

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All 95 Foreign Film Nominees This Century. Oscar & Box Office Trivia!

by Nathaniel R

Roma's great competition: Shoplifters, Never Look Away, Cold War, and Capernaum

Dear readers, I've been filled with existential despair this week. I'm not sure how to continue covering the Oscars next year if the Oscars are going to drain all the art out of it by denying all the categories that make cinema, cinema, and announcing them off air. I haven't quite formed my thoughts on this (I expect this upcoming Oscar night to be disastrous) for a complete post but while we still have the more movie-fan friendly categories to look forward to let's continue to talk about them!  We've done some research on how the foreign film category tends to fare in the US marketplace that we wanted to share. In addition to being a super high quality roster, this year's Foreign Film list has done well with audiences, too. 

Both Poland's Cold War  and Japan's Shoplifters have become genuine hits and will certainly outgross the long runs of the last few years worth of most talked about foreign flicks whether or not they were Oscar nominated like The Square, A Fantastic Woman , Elle, The Salesman, and The Handmaiden. In fact, in any year without Roma or each other in it, wouldn't Cold War or Shoplifters be winning this category with ease ?!? 

After the jump, let's take a look back at all 95 nominees this century and how well they fared at the box office. Plus lots of trivia just because trivia is fun and will ward off the despair...

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100 Most Popular Foreign Films of 2018 + the Oscar Hopefuls!

Our year in review party begins TODAY. A different list each day! Here's Nathaniel R...

Time for an annual look back at subtitled fare in cinemas. As with 2017 and the year before India, China, Mexico, and South Korea dominate with a smattering of Oscar contenders and random other countries faring much less well in the American marketplace. Much of the imbalance is due to dedicated distributors who saw a underserved market and focus specifically on it. Here in Manhattan, it's interesting to watch how this plays out. Generally speaking some big multiplexes reserve one or two screens for super specific distributors (Bollywood and mainstream Asian features for example are often at the Empire in Times Square which has 25 screens). Meanwhile the traditional "arthouse theaters" continue to rely on the decades-long practice of programming festival hits, docs, and arthouse style cinema which leans heavily European with a few buzzy Asian titles thrown in; in other words they're Oscar-aligned in their tastes.

For the purposes of the following list we skipped documentaries and animated films to keep the list more focused (and avoid arguments about dubbed versions or whatnot). The numbers are pulled from Box Office Mojo.

TOP 100 FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILMS FOR 2018
Domestic Box Office Grosses Only - Figures as of March 2nd, 2019

The $1 Million Plus Club
(The Success Stories) 

01 Padmaavat $11.8 (India) Jan 25th
This lux nearly 3 hour medieval epic is about an ambitious Sultan who becomes obsessed with a beautiful Queen. Available to stream on Amazon Prime.

02 Sanju $7.9 (India) June 29th
Biopic of a famous controversial actor. Available to stream on Netflix.

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More top ten lists for your reading pleasure...

List after list every day now. Wheeee,  we love this time of year even as we wish the majority of critics would actually wait for the last week of the year or the first week of the new year to do their top ten lists. Nobody has seen enough by early December is our feeling. But anyway here are a few more lists to check out from popular critics and sites...

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"Shoplifters" wins the APSA. On its way to an Oscar nod?

by Nathaniel R

Hello awards-enthusiasts! Since Glenn Dunks is returning to his Doc Corner series later today after his annual duties at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards, we realized we'd forgotten to list the winners and it's quite a good batch. Big prizes went to three currently buzzy foreign film Oscar hopefuls: Shoplifters (Japan), Burning (South Korea) and Capernaum (Lebanon). The first two are in theaters now in the US right now and Capernaum opens on December 14th. They're all terrific films and have to be considered very real threats for Oscar nominations. But it's true that that particular category is super competitive so virtually any high profile title might miss the shortlist. [Before we hear who nabbed the 5 nominations on January 22nd, the Academy will narrow that huge 87 film list down to just 9 contenders on December 17th.]

The list of APSA winners along with a few acceptance speeches after the jump...

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