European Film Award Nominations. Good news for 8 Oscar contenders

The Precursors are coming! The Precursors are coming! Though the European Film Awards hardly have Oscar on their minds when they vote (bless them) it's all part of the grand circus of November-February honors to commemorate each film year. Several European films hoping to score Oscar nods in the Foreign Language Film race have reason to be hopeful given their warm embrace here.

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NYFF: "Toni Erdmann" is Astonishing

Here's Jason reporting from the NYFF on a Cannes favorite and Oscar hopeful

It's not often you hear an audience of movie critics gasp out loud at something on-screen, but Toni Erdmann, the new comedy of forced familial closeness from German director Maren Ade, has a comic moment so perfectly timed that it got the civilized cinema-set of New York City to jump out of their seats like this was an Evil Dead movie in 3D. You know you've got 'em hooked when you can conjure up such a response - Hitchcock called it playing the audience like a piano. The fact that it comes via a comic-beat here, and not via a cat jumping onto a final girl's shoulder or a shower stabbing, makes it all the more astonishing.

And make no mistake - Toni Erdmann is astonishing...

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Why Aquarius's Trouble in Brazil Could Bolster Its Oscar Chances (and other foreign film Oscar buzz)

It's that exciting time of the year again when we start hearing the names of the films selected to compete in this year's Oscar race for Foreign Language Film. It's our signature category at TFE (outside of Lead and Supporting Actressing of course and arguably the eye candy tech categories). All four of the foreign charts are now up and will be frequently updated when news comes in. We currently have 9 official submissions but dozens more will be named in the next three weeks. 

Current Predictions
100% likely to change since only about 10% of the field is known at this point.
Chart 1 (Afgahnistan - Finland)
Submissions from Australia, Croatia, and Cuba. Finalists from Brazil and Denmark
Chart 2 (France through Morocco)  
Submissions from Georgia & Germany. Finalists from Israel.
Chart 3 (Nepal through Vietnam)
Submissions from Romania, Saudi Arabia, Switzerland, and Venezuela. Finalists from The Netherlands and Spain.

Last year Jose and I interviewed representatives from 17 films and the team reviewed another dozen still and we hope to provide similarly extensive coverage again this year. Check out the charts above and do share with your friends and countrymen! 

the great Sonia Braga at Cannes in May

Germany's Toni Erdmann is currently leading the Oscar buzz but the other topic on everyone's lips in this category is what will happen with Brazil's Aquarius. More on that and a couple of other speculative bits after the jump...

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Best of the 21st Century?

by Nathaniel R

Mulholland Drive voted the best film of the 21st century (thus far)Though we may collectively scratch our head at the need to do 21st century best of lists so often and at odd intervals. After 16 years? Ermm, okay? Lists usually get people talking. The BBC polled 177 critics (of which I was, alas, not one) and the results were both enjoyable and annoying, as with all lists.

Some notes:

• I won't see Toni Erdmann for another few weeks so I can't speak to its quality but it's odd to see it on a "best of the century list" when the film has only opened in one country (France) outside of its home countries (Germany/Austria). It starts opening in other countries next month and also hits the Toronto Film Festival. So that seems...early

 • Did Christopher Nolan really need 3 pictures in the top 100? I maintain that Inception does not hold up and is relentlessly and numbingly expository for anything beyond a single viewing and it's even kind of annoying during that first plunge. Cinema about dreams should be mysterious...

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Cannes Winners 2016

Despite what was generally regarded as one of the strongest Cannes lineup in many years, George Miller's jury wasn't having the critical consensus. At all. They didn't remotely follow the "buzz" whilst handing out their honors...

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