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
Filed in: Daily
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
‘Incendies’ trailer
Posted by Guy Lodge · 12:10 pm · February 1st, 2011
While some pundits are assuming that Javier Bardem’s Best Actor nomination makes “Biutiful” the film to beat in the foreign-language category — despite the fact that recent Oscar history doesn’t favor the biggest name in the contest — my instincts tell me the real race is between Susanne Bier’s “In a Better World” and Denis […]
Filed in: Daily
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-outrĂ© 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 […]
Filed in: Daily
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 […]
Filed in: Daily
Academy announces official list of 65 foreign Oscar entries
Posted by Guy Lodge · 11:00 am · October 13th, 2010
For the past few months, we’ve been keeping you abreast of the submissions for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, so this finalized list of contenders, which was sleuthed by Pete Hammond earlier this morning (and officially unveiled by AMPAS via press release here), doesn’t contain too many surprises. As usual, however, a few low-profile […]
Filed in: Daily
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 […]
Filed in: Uncategorized
TIFF: ‘The King’s Speech’ takes Toronto audience award
Posted by Guy Lodge · 10:56 am · September 19th, 2010
Well, in case you weren’t already convinced, you can pretty much write a Best Picture nod for “The King’s Speech” in ink now. Following in the footsteps of such titles as “American Beauty,” “Slumdog Millionaire” and “Precious,” The Weinstein Company’s period drama just took the People’s Choice Award on the last day of the Toronto […]
Filed in: Daily