Well, as I suspected, my predictions for the Academy’s foreign film shortlist were mainly off the mark, though I maintained my 4-from-9 strike rate from last year … so, yay for consistency. That said, I’m not terribly surprised by the films that did make the cut. As I wrote earlier today, I knew one of […]
Foreign notes
Posted by Guy Lodge · 12:08 pm · January 20th, 2010
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Academy’s foreign shortlist unveiled
Posted by Kristopher Tapley · 10:18 am · January 20th, 2010
Well, Guy nailed down four of them. But you just never know what this controversial branch is going to do. I’d love to know what the secondary committee had to re-institute (probably “A Prophet”), but nevertheless, we have our nine. The only films I was predicting that didn’t make the cut are “Backyard” from Mexico […]
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Waiting on Oscar’s foreign language shortlist
Posted by Guy Lodge · 8:29 am · January 20th, 2010
Last Saturday, the Academy concluded four months of screenings of the 65 films in contention for this year’s Best Foreign Language Film award. Today, that tall pile of titles will be culled to a shortlist of just nine contenders, from which the eventual five nominees will be chosen. Making predictions here is a pretty thankless […]
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10/30 Oscarweb Round-up
Posted by Guy Lodge · 8:03 am · October 30th, 2009
• Brian Lowry on how The Ten is an Oscarcast producer’s nightmare. [Variety] • With Hugh Jackman out, Jeff Wells thinks the Oscars need to skew younger with their host. [Hollywood Elsewhere] • The producers of “London River” launch a deserved Oscar campaign for Brenda Blethyn, despite still lacking US distribution. [Notes on a Season]
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LONDON: Exploding girls on trains
Posted by Guy Lodge · 4:00 pm · October 25th, 2009
Not my most successful day at the London Film Festival today, as a communication error kept me out of the fest’s final “Samson and Delilah” screening — vexing partly because it leaves a significant gap in the collective review I had planned to do of multiple foreign Oscar contenders next week, but more simply because […]
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Counting down to the London fest
Posted by Guy Lodge · 5:52 am · October 14th, 2009
(Apologies for the “Fantastic Mr. Fox” review that appeared prematurely here as a result of embargo confusion. It will be reposted later today.) There may have been silence on my end these past few days, but I assure you it hasn’t been for lack of activity. The days leading up to the London Film Festival […]
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Australia and Spain enter foreign-language race
Posted by Guy Lodge · 11:33 am · September 29th, 2009
As regular readers have probably noticed, I’ve been away (undeservedly, apparently) on vacation for the past week or so, so I’ve missed out on the recent influx of submissions for the Best Foreign Language Film race. Fortunately, Kris has been keeping you up to speed with our new foreign contenders page. Thanks, meanwhile, to the […]
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London fest adds awards, goes heavy on Clooney
Posted by Guy Lodge · 7:41 am · September 9th, 2009
While still ensconced in Venice, I must admit that the thought of diving into another festival makes me slightly dizzy — but the London Film Festival doesn’t care about that. LFF artistic director Sandra Hebron unveiled a strong lineup this morning, but the real news is that they have added a bevy of awards to […]
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Yes, but you didn’t actually WIN
Posted by Guy Lodge · 5:31 pm · July 9th, 2009
There are several reasons I’m bothered by this one-sheet for gay rom-com “I Love You Phillip Morris,” which has built up a fair amount of goodwill from its appearances at Sundance and Cannes this year.
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Cracks show in Cannes lineup
Posted by Guy Lodge · 7:12 am · May 17th, 2009
After surveying the reviews of Johnnie To’s “Vengeance” and Brillante Mendoza’s “Kinatay,” it seems safe to assume that neither film is a contender for the Palme d’Or — in the latter, we may even have our first real critical punchbag of the Competition. ScreenDaily dismisses “Vengeance,” an action effort teaming Hong Kong genre lord To […]
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