Austria's "Joy" is out of the Oscar race

by Cláudio Alves

...And then there were 91...

As we predicted back when Nigeria's Oscar submission was disqualified from the Best International Feature race, the same fate has befallen Austria's Joy. Despite some German dialogue, most of the film is in English, due to the fact it tells the story of Nigerian immigrants living in Europe. After all, Nigeria's official language is English. Once again, such news makes us ask ourselves if this is a fair predicament. One thing's for sure – it's ridiculous that the Academy doesn't vet the country's submissions before announcing the list of eligible films. It'd certainly avoid a great deal of scandal.

Even if it's amply justifiable, such disqualification is unfortunate, even a bit sad, because Joy's an achingly poignant triumph. The sort which deserves to be celebrated by the Academy, but seldomly is…

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Podcast: JoJo Rabbit and Oscar's Screenplay Races

with Murtada Elfadl & Nathaniel R 

Index (38 minutes)
00:01 Taiki Waitit's JoJo Rabbit. Is its satire successful? We're mixed on just about everything within it including the actors though we both loved Scarlett Johansson as the mother to a little Nazi boy.
16:00 A Parasite tangent "It's so metaphorical!" 
19:20 JoJo Rabbit's Oscar chances hard to read, right? It could be anywhere from 2 to 8 noms
21:50 Adapted Screenplay - The Irishman, JoJo Rabbit, Little Women, etc?
27:00 Original Screenplay - Marriage Story, Parasite, Bombshell, etc?
35:00 Randomness: Hustlers, Dark Waters, and Cats
37:00 Off to Campaign Events!

Related: Oscar Screenplay charts

 You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the conversations in the comments, won't you? 

JoJo Rabbit and Screenplays

100th Anniversary: Felix the Cat

by Tim

This weekend marks the 100th birthday of cinema's first cartoon superstar. On November 9, 1919, Paramount released Feline Follies, produced by Pat Sullivan and animated by Otto Mesmer, a short gag-driven cartoon starring a black cat named Master Tom; the character was an immediate hit and by the time the third cartoon featuring the character came out five weeks later (they worked fast back in those days), he'd been renamed Felix. The rest is history: Felix the Cat was a bonafide phenomenon, igniting a craze for funny, mutable animals that hasn't let up at any point in the last century. Even Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse, the cinematic icon to end all icons, was initially conceived as a blatant Felix knock-off swapping out the cat's pointy ears for circles that were easier to draw.

You might not guess that to watch Feline Follies, which feels like an artifact from a lost civilization. This is what cartoons looked like in the 1910s: empty white voids full of characters who move in straight lines with few distinct movements, speaking in speech bubbles imported directly from newspaper comic strips...

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"Pain and Glory" leads the European Film Award Nominations

by Nathaniel R

The European Film Awards will be held in Berlin in just one month (December 7th) and big names are nominated: Pedro Almodóvar, Antonio Banderas, Yorgos Lanthimos, Olivia Colman, Roman Polanski, and more. But the question is who will actually attend and who will win? The Oscar submitted titles from Spain (Pain and Glory) and Italy (The Traitor) lead the nominations along with Roman Polanski's An Officer and a Spy from France. Almodóvar is of course an old favourite of the EFAs. With the Pain & Glory nominations he's now up to 22 EFA nominations (he's won 6 times plus received a special honor). His movies have won the top prize twice (All About My Mother and Talk To Her) while Volver won an "audience" version of Best Film, too. 

A full list of nominations with more comments is after the jump...

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Musings from SAG screenings (Pt 2): Judy, Bombshell, Little Women, and Dolemite

renee's first SAG winsIf you missed part one, we've invited a longtime SAG member to share this thoughts from SAG Nominating Committee screenings of the would be contenders... 

JUDY:  This one definitely got the most lackluster response.  When the movie was over, there was only a smattering of applause—though I had the feeling that had something to do with the way it ends.  It kind of ends with a whimper. But people got on their feet for Renee Zellweger—who appeared along with Finn Wittrock. They gushed about her performance—the acting, the singing, all of it.  And she had some interesting things to say about the research she did—particularly in regard to addiction. It’s an engaging performance, I think—but is it really as much of a “transformation” as people say?  I feel like you see a lot of Renee Zellweger in there—like, it’s as much Judy Garland playing Renee Zellweger as it is Renee Zellweger playing Judy Garland. Does that make any sense? And for what it’s worth, I hated the Oz stuff.  Was Louis B. Mayer a sexual predator?  You can’t just drop that suggestion into all the other horrible stuff and move on.  It all felt very undefined.

BOMBSHELL:  With no disrespect to Ms. Zellweger, the “transformation of the year” has got to be Charlize Theron as Megyn Kelly...

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