Doc Corner: Experiments within reality as Glenn sits on DOKLeipzig's FIPRESCI Jury

By Glenn Dunks

In October, I had the pleasure of being on my first virtual FIPRESCI jury. The International Federation of Film Critics is an organisation that has allowed me to visit and judge both the San Francisco and Stockholm festivals in the past. Since moving back home to Australia it’s has become much harder to do. Still, I wouldn’t have been able to attend DOK Leipzig in Germany for a multitude of reasons this year even without a global pandemic halting international travel. But I was able to attend this doc and animation festival from the relative comfort of my couch! 

My fellow jurors were Yun-hua Chen (critic and film academy member from Germany) and Hrovje Puksek (programmer for the Festival of Tolerance in Zagreb in Croatia). We each watched 12 films from the international competition before landing on our winner: Darío Doria's Vicenta of Argentina.

Our statement...

Click to read more ...

Review: Jungleland

By Abe Friedtanzer

There is a certain general structure that can be expected in films about fighters. A boxer or wrestler will be driven to succeed through sheer strength and commitment to their craft, and will usually have a firm supporter in their corner egging them on and ensuring that they don’t falter. Inevitably, an injury or some outside factor will threaten their physical ability, and that will be precisely the moment that everything is riding on their performance, including a large sum of money that will make or break their future. If that’s essentially the narrative framework, the richness of the characters and the performances is what’s needed to differentiate a specific film from the pack.

Let’s take a look at a new theatrical and VOD release, Jungleland…

Click to read more ...

1987: Vanessa Redgrave in "Prick Up Your Ears"

Each month before the Smackdown, Nick Taylor looks at alternates to Oscar's ballot...

As Cláudio wrote sometime last year (that's how long ago Sunday was, right?), the 1987 Supporting Actress vintage boasts a truly unique set of contenders. Their specific careers, overall narratives, and individual performances and the films they were in could hardly have been more different. Add in the fact that all five were one-and-done nominees and the whole list takes on a genuinely ephemeral, one-of-a-kind quality, even if three of them have the same first name.

The presence of brand names just for A-list star power, would, in most years, dilute this quality. Still, it’s strange to see some of Oscar’s favorite names on the outside looking in during 1987. Top theorists have speculated for decades how Anjelica Huston failed to get cited for her sad, moving performance in The Dead. And what about Vanessa Redgrave in Prick Up Your Ears, who won NYFCC and was the only Golden Globe nominee who didn’t translate to Oscar’s ballot...

Click to read more ...

Pt 2 - Looking at Netflix's contenders in all Oscar categories

by Juan Carlos Ojano

As explained in Part One we're looking at Netflix's deep slate this year and pinpointing how they might be competitive in each of the 23 Oscar categories (it used to be 24 categories but Sound Editing and Sound Mixing have now become one category). In part two, which follows after the jump, we're discussing the "big eight" marquee categories, plus animated feature...

Click to read more ...

Showbiz History: Oscared Siblings and Tilda's Sensuality

Six random things that happened on this day, November 5th, in showbiz history

Douglas Shearer and his baby sister Norma

1930 The third Oscars were held (yes, the Oscars were in Novembers for three years early in their history. The masterful anti-war picture All Quiet on the Western Front took Best Picture. The First Lady of MGM, Norma Shearer won Best Actress (The Divorcée) but, get this, her big brother Douglas won Best Sound Recording for her Best Picture rival (The Big House) making them the first sibling pair to win Oscars. 15 more pairs of siblings have followed them to win Oscars. They are, in rough chronological order...

Click to read more ...