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Entries in Spain (55)

Monday
Feb062017

Goya Awards and Gowns

The 31st annual Goya Awards (Spain's Oscars) were held over the weekend in Madrid and we'd be remiss if we didn't share the winners -- particularly considering we recently posted statistics about their all time favorite actresses. This year's big winners were Raúl Arévalo's revenge drama The Fury of a Patient Man (which took Best Film and 3 other prizes) and A Monster Calls (which took Best Director and swept the technical categories with 9 wins). 

Ana Alvarez, Penélope Cruz, and Belen Lopez

Spain's Oscar submission, Almodóvar's Julieta, won only Best Actress for Emma Suarez who plays the older version of the titular character. Incredibly Suarez also won Best Supporting Actress for another film (The Next Skin) so Spain really worships her this year.  (After the jump a complete list of winners as well as other gowns and tuxes...)

Click to read more ...

Monday
Oct172016

Foreign Film Race Pt 5: "Hey, I know that face!"

"Everything u ever wanted to know about the foreign film category"
Pt 1 All the trailers (A-I) | Pt 2 All the trailers (J-Y) 
Pt 3 Debuts | Pt 4 Female Directors 

Pt 5. Actors You Know & Possibly Love
Successful actors really rack up the frequent flyer miles. Some pick up a second or third or fourth language and actually use those languages in their careers. Others merely stick to films in their native tongue but are magnetic or lucky enough to become well known all over the world.

So after surveying the 85 movies that are hoping to be nominated for this year's Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, here are 12 actors you may already know (or at least recognize) who star in one or more of the submissions this time around... 

Gael García Bernal made his feature film debut in the Oscar nominated Amores Perros (2000) and Oscar just kept right on gazing at him. As did we. To date he has starred in three Best Foreign Language Film nominees (Amores Perros, The Crime of Father Amaro, and No) and three other Oscar nominated films (Y Tu Mama TambienThe Motorcycle Diaries, and Babel). He could add two more Academy stamped titles to that very impressive list this year since he headlines both the Chilean submission (Neruda, reviewed) and the Mexican submission (Desierto, which just opened in US theaters).

Fionnula Flanagan has been working in Irish, British and US TV and film since the mid 1960s and has won an Emmy (for the 1970s miniseries Rich Man Poor Man) as well as a lifetime achievement prize at the Irish Film and Television Awards over the course of her long career. She won lots of new fans and a Saturn Award for her role as the spooky housekeeper in The Others (2001) and this year she co-stars in the interlocking stories of Little Secrets, the Brazilian Oscar submission.  

Ten more famiiar faces after the jump...

Click to read more ...

Wednesday
Oct052016

NYFF: Almodóvar's Julieta

Manuel here catching up with Pedro's latest at the New York Film Festival

Following the New York Film Festival screening of his 20th film, Pedro Almodóvar admitted that, in adapting Alice Munro’s short stories (from her collection, Runaway), he had aimed for a more restrained tone. Indeed, especially in comparison to his previous outing—the mile high club comedy I’m So Excited!Julieta is an aggressively austere affair. Of course, “austere Almodóvar” is still inimitably Almodóvar. Take the film’s first shot: we’re awash in a sea of red fabric. It looks like draperie, perhaps a bedsheet or even a curtain. It pulses like a heart...

Click to read more ...

Wednesday
Sep142016

More "Best Foreign Language Film" Oscar News

by Nathaniel R

Look at this cute still from Train Driver's Diary. That's Serbia's submission to the Foreign Language Film Oscar race which was announced yesterday. It won the audience prize at the Moscow Film Festival and tells the story of a retiring train driver training his son to take over. The old man holds an infamous record: the most accidental killings on the job. 

Forty-one countries have now made their announcements official including high profile choices like Chile's Neruda which stars Gael García Bernal and could put the auteur Pablo Larraín in contention for yet another nomination to whatever haul his brilliant Jackie picks up.

Spain's submission of Julieta, is even more high profile given Pedro Almodóvar's international statue...

Click to read more ...

Thursday
Feb112016

Catching Up: Depp's Trump, Ladd's Gripe, Amy's Drama

We've been busy busy with interviews, awards pieces, Silence of the Lambs anniversary, and more so we're way behind on film news. So let's get caught up with news, awardage, and random recommended links...

RANDOMNESS
Pajiba Meryl Streep getting herself into trouble with an African comment when asked about diversity
LongReads Pregnancy in movies with Mad Max Fury Road as starting point
Inverse The Rock gleefully warning fans he'll get naked on HBO's Ballers
Funny or Die! Johnny Depp as Donald Trump. Didn't know they did 50 minute skits!
• Cinematic Corner we need to talk about Harrison Ford in Witness
Library of America Carrie Rickey on The Age of Innocence
• Unseen Films would like you to consider Toni Collette in Glassland 
• Coming Soon Gal Gadot's career before Wonder Woman
• Regal Cinemas cute teaser poster for Finding Dory


CASTING & PRODUCTION
• Variety Amy Schumer trying her hand at drama. She's joined the cast of the PTSD movie Thank You For Your Service which stars Miles Teller 
THR Chris Weitz will write the screenplay adaptation of upcoming nonfiction book 21 Years to Midnight which centers on Obergefell v. Hodges, which eventually led to the legalization of same-sex marriage
• AV Club The Bachelors will star JK Simmons as a widower. He and his son (uncast) meet two extraordinary women and their lives are transformed. Julie Delpy will play one of the women. We just hope this isn't yet another movie where women only exist to help the man through their character arc. 
• Tracking Board Goldie Hawn might finally act again... in a new Amy Schumer comedy
• The Film Stage has a lot of info on Claire Denis new project High Life so it's spoilery but the film will star Robert Pattison, Patricia Arquette, and Mia Goth from Nymphomaniac 

AWARDAGE
• Variety Mustang tops the Lumiere Awards in France (precursor to the Césars)
• THR I apologize that TFE forgot to cover the Goya awards. So much happens every week with awardage this time of year. The big winner was Truman starring Ricardo Darin (Secret in Their Eyes) and Javier Camera (Talk to Her). Best Actress had some international superstar nominees in Penelope Cruz and Juliette Binoche but they lost to Natalia de Molina (Techo y Comida)
• AARP "Movies for Grown-Ups Awards" red carpet. Spotlight took Best Picture. Ridley Scott best director. Acting winners: Lily Tomlin (Grandma), Bryan Cranston (Trumbo), Diane Ladd (Joy) and Mark Rylance (Bridge of Spies).  And you should know that Diane took the opportunity to speak out against Category Fraud. God bless her! And FYI, Ladd is NOT the Academy member actress I spoke to earlier this year who was angry and vowed to not for anyone pitched in the category. So people are finally if slowly starting to see this for what it is. Now, if only critics and journalists, who have such opinion-making power would stop promoting it in their own awards and write-ups! 

Here is Queen Ladd on the topic.

I've already seen snippy things on line about "she wouldn't have been nominated regardless," but, FACT: We do not know this. Listen up: if we didn't have Category Fraudsters each year people would be discussing the options among real supporting actresses (because people always discuss possibilities when it comes to the Oscars) and who knows who might have gained traction without Vikander and Mara sucking up all the conversation?

BRIE LARSON WORLD
• In Contention Brie and Saoirse Ronan honored in Santa Barbara
• Elle Magazine more Brie. Lots more.  
• Pajiba ...Elle Magazine has gone a little crazy with the photoshop, though.

THEATER & TV
Playbill Aaron Sorkin writing a new adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird for Broadway
• Gothamist Sikh actor Waris Ahluwalia, from Wes Anderson's movies, was banned from a flight since he wouldn't remove his turban!
• MNPP Great news for Bryan Fuller fans. The Hannibal and Pushing Daisies man will be running the new Star Trek series premiering a year from now.
• Slate reviews Samantha Bees political comedy show Full Frontal. (I was really hoping she's get Jon Stewart's seat when he left The Daily Show.)
Playbill YES! Sutton Foster will be part of the Gilmore Girls reunion. Can they just have her play her character from Bunheads since they take place in the same Sherman-Palladino world?
Theater Mania Stephen King's 5 reasons you should see Misery on stage.