International Oscar Update: A Boat Load of Official Contenders

by Nathaniel R

We have now reached the season where it's hard to keep up with all the updates and it will keep on being this way throughout September. Nevertheless I'm at least keeping the submission charts up to date. At this writing twenty-five countries have selected their official contender for Best International Feature Film. We can safely expect another 60 or so countries to submit by the deadline of October 1. In terms of participation the category peaked at 97 contenders back in 2020 and has been dipping slightly since and has returned to 2010 numbers (the high 80s).

After the jump the "new" announcements since our last update are in bold and I've highlighted one new contender per chart for fun...

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Dragula: Titans S1.E2 "Revenge of the Witch"

by Nathaniel R

Just give us dark beauty, right?

Challenges on competition reality shows are planned out in advance but sometimes it's fun to imagine they aren't but instead, forced by the previous episode. Last week, when Dragula Titan's competitors were asked to reinterpret a classic horror type for a Halloween party, nobody chose a witch, surely the most common costume of all. So for episode two, witches are the whole theme. Revenge! 

For those of you who need a little cinematic referencing in your TV (oh, maybe that's just me?) the guest judges were the "Demon Nun" herself Bonnie Aarons (The Conjuring 2, The Nun, Mulholland Drive) and director Darren Stein (Jawbreaker, GBF)...

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Review: 'Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness'

by Nathaniel R

In the recent What If? series on Disney+, which is based on the comic book series of the same name, Marvel's writers could fashion any kind of variation on traditional heroes (and villains) and storylines without any actual consequences for the large familiar canon. Zombie avengers? Sure! Peggy Carter as Captain America? Why not! The What If? series of the 1970s was not quite the beginning of the Multiverse in comics but it was close enough. These thought experiments were always pitched as alternate realities (as opposed to pure fiction) though it took awhile before the effects were felt. The multiverse essentially became a shortcut to any type of retconning any storyteller wanted to do; Contrary to all that dialogue in Loki, Marvel has no "sacred" timeline given all the reversals, resurrections, reboots, and switcheroos. The multiverse virus was even more of an epidemic in DC comics, Marvel's top competitor.

Unfortunately if What If is essentially fan-fiction without the fans, then Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is arguably stingers without a movie. The latest MCU movie is positively awash in cameos and teases for future installments, resulting in a film that feels very much like an incoherent feature-length mid-credits scene... 

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Beauty Break: Ten Sexiest Witches in Movies

HAPPY HALLOWEEN 👻🎃

Julian Sands in Warlock (1989) though, alas, we haven't seen it.

In the absence of writing time today, how about a visual list. Have you ever wondered why there are so few male witches (or warlocks if you will) in cinema? They're far more common on television. And when warlocks or sorcerers are portrayed in cinema they're usually asexual (sorry but Doctor Strange is the least sexy Avenger!) or old men and are just as likely to be good as evil.

Witches on the other hand are often sexual and usually beautiful... though the beauty is often an illusion. Many of those most glamorous witches are hiding a hideous side -- like they're secretly an old decrepit crone or something less than human (think of Anjelica Huston in The Witches... which we often do). Or maybe they are beautiful but their favourite disguise is something hideous (think Snow White's Queen). This frightening dichotomy and their dangerous sexuality surely has got heaps to do with cinema's male gaze. (This is a way of saying that we hoped for some gender parity in this holiday list of "Sexy Witches!" but it's almost all women.)

AFTER THE JUMP - TEN SEXIEST MOVIE WITCHES...

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If only voodoo dolls were real...

Michelle Pfeiffer as the sorceress "Lamia" in Stardust... think of all the practical applications during this particular precipice in human history.