How do you solve a problem like Best Foreign Language Film? I’m not sure you can, but in the Academy’s case, it’s certainly not for lack of trying. The voting process in this eternally dissatisfying ghetto category is now such a Frankenstein’s monster of stages, rules, committees, sub-committees, longlists, shortlists and more committees that it’s […]
Oscar’s foreign race hasn’t found the fix
Posted by Guy Lodge · 12:51 pm · February 25th, 2011
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OSCAR GUIDE: Best Foreign Language Film
Posted by Kristopher Tapley · 9:31 am · February 22nd, 2011
The race for Best Foreign Language Film has been covered diligently by Guy Lodge here at In Contention throughout the season. I confess that I failed to see most of the 65 submissions and, as usual, waited until the shortlist was unveiled before I really dug into the titles. This category has, of course, been […]
Filed in: Oscar Guide
2/21 OSCARWEB ROUND-UP: Seidler’s Oscar virgin confessions, Bier on ‘Better World,’ the close races
Posted by Kristopher Tapley · 8:58 am · February 21st, 2011
• David Seidler: Confessions of a 73-year-old Oscar virgin. [Los Angeles Times] • Ageism and the Oscar party Bollywood would throw. [The Huffington Post] • Anne Thompson talks to “In a Better World director Susanne Bier. [Thompson on Hollywood]
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‘In a Better World’ trailer
Posted by Kristopher Tapley · 12:05 pm · February 3rd, 2011
Following “Incendies” on Tuesday, we have another trailer today for a Best Foreign Language Film nominee seeing a 2011 domestic release: Susanne Bier’s “In a Better World” (which also won the Golden Globe). I’ll get into the film more in-depth when the Oscar Guide makes its way to the category, but for now, I have […]
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Greece makes foreign Oscar shortlist, France snubbed
Posted by Guy Lodge · 9:42 am · January 19th, 2011
“Dogtooth.” That’s the title an every Oscar pundit’s lips right now, as Greece’s critically beloved but super-outré submission — which includes inter-sibling sex and feline homicide in its curious bag of tricks — stunned pretty much everyone by showing up on the nine-title shortlist for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar. I can hardly believe […]
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Predicting the foreign-language Oscar shortlist
Posted by Guy Lodge · 5:25 pm · January 18th, 2011
Tomorrow, we get the last of the Academy’s crucial pre-nomination shortlists, as the list of 65 entries for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar is slashed to just nine titles, from which the eventual nominees will be announced in a week’s time. Predicting these nine is a vague and mostly thankless task, but I am […]
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Five things I learned from the Golden Globes
Posted by Guy Lodge · 5:37 pm · January 17th, 2011
Appropriately enough for the occasion, I watched last night’s Golden Globe awards in a celebratory alcoholic fog (the night having coincided with a friend’s birthday) so thick it took most of today to sleep it off — hence the apologetically late posting. My memory of the evening’s finer details is therefore about as clear as, […]
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Frontrunners stay strong at the Golden Globes
Posted by Kristopher Tapley · 4:01 pm · January 16th, 2011
Zzzzz…huh?, wha? Oh… First and foremost, I have to note Ricky Gervais’s work as emcee. Last year’s stint was a bit stale, I thought, but this year the gloves were off. Way off. Which, for whatever reason, I was okay with tonight. The difference between Gervais and Armond White, though, if you want to go […]
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Foreign Oscar update
Posted by Guy Lodge · 4:06 pm · October 4th, 2010
I neglected to mention this over a busy weekend, but the deadline for Best Foreign Language Film Oscar submissions passed on Friday. That doesn’t necessarily mean we have all the contenders set in stone, however — we’re still waiting on the official list from the Academy, which always features a couple of latecomers and a […]
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Susanne Bier’s latest in foreign Oscar hunt
Posted by Guy Lodge · 4:15 pm · September 24th, 2010
One week from the deadline and the Best Foreign Language Film submissions are coming in thick and fast — our updated list currently boasts 44 titles. The number of those titles I’ve actually seen is, regrettably, still in the single digits, but it does include one of today’s arrivals to the race, India’s “Peepli Live” […]
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