I Am Love Sour Grapes

Have you seen I Am Love yet? The Globe nominee is available for rental so get on that.Director Luca Guadagnino with Marisa Berenson & Tilda SwintonI read the following quote over at Hollywood Reporter and I found it both amusing, right-on and the kind of thing you shouldn't say out loud. Seems Luca Guadagnino, the man behind the brilliant Globe & BFCA nominated I Am Love is not happy with the

You Were Saying...? (Extended Thoughts on Previous Topics)

I pray my occasional 'look at these comments!' posts don't come off as desperate. I'm just a very chatty person, what can I say? Since we are all becoming cyborgs, comments feel closer to conversation all the time. One day we will all forget how to speak. We will grow extra sets of fingers for more typing speed. Evolution will shrink our hands so that we can text with greater ease on our tiny

Interview: Javier Fuentes-León and the Oscar Submission "Undertow"

I meet first-time feature director, US based Javier Fuentes-León in a tasty Puerto Rican restaurant called Sazon. We're there to chat up his Peruvian/Colombian movie "Undertow" (also known as Contracorriente), a romantic gay drama which is also a portrait of a rural community and also a ghost story. But the 'where from?',  'what kind?' and 'why this?' of it are surface details. Javier

Golden Horse Awards: Ethan's Little Buddy, Nicholas Absent Shirt

The Golden Horse Awards were held last night. They're often thought of as the Chinese Oscars because the tradition goes back the furthest and honors a wide pool of Chinese language films from multiple countries (China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, etcetera). Though neither Monga, Taiwan's submission for Oscar's Foreign Language Film competition, nor Aftershock (China's submission), 

LFF 2010: Zero Hours Remain

David from Victim of the Time with one last report from the 54th BFI London Film Festival.Craig gave you a packed wrap-up earlier today, but I couldn't let you go without getting in another word myself. I caught near to 50 films during the past month (give or take a couple I, er, nodded off during), and I'm happy to say there were an abundance of highs and a general lack of lows - maybe I just

LFF 2010: five final festival films to wrap up with...

Craig here from Dark Eye Socket with my LFF wrap-up.As of tonight the BFI London Film Festival is done for another year. It's been a stellar year all told, if the surplus of reports are to be believed. And I'd willingly add a further approving nod to the list. I didn't manage to see everything I wanted (juggling festival times and dates with travel arrangements is an art – one that's open to

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LFF: Picco an Oscar Nominee

David of Victim of the Time reporting from the 54th BFI London Film Festival.I'd like to stick some exciting star sightings into my little introduction here, but sadly the only famous body part I've laid eyes on (so far) is Freida Pinto's head. Before we get to the enticing capsules -two starkly different Foreign Film Oscar contenders and one harrowing prison drama that trumps them both - a bit

Foreign Film Oscars: International Beauty Pageant.

If you'd like to read about the now official Oscar submissions for Best Foreign Language Film,  click away. But because you -- make that we -- can't see most of the films, due to the hideous state of international distribution, let us use this Academy press release as an excuse to take a different view, a sexytime view... a Beauty Break if you will. Let's gawk at the actors and actresses who are

NYFF Finale: 7 Word Reviews (Meek's Cutoff, Another Year, Hereafter, More...)

Oh readers. What to do with me? I'm always falling behind. In an effort to acknowledge that NYFF ended this weekend, and fall prestige/early campaign season is already upon us (Toy Story 3 event tonight!), here's everything I saw at the NYFF. I got sick right in the middle so I missed a handful I wanted to see. The films are presented in the order I saw with a brief description and a 7 Word

The Foreign Film List Grows: Miki's Endurance, Maria's Acclaim

63 countries have now announced their Oscar submissions. Last year we had 65 films and the most ever, if my data is correct, was 2008 in which 67 countries competed for the coveted 5 slots. (If 10 is the number for Best Picture, shouldn't the corresponding prize for subtitled features, also be 10? ) In other words, numbers-wise, we're just about finished. The deadline has already passed but some

NYFF: A Summary

The 48th New York Film Festival screenings begin with a promo reel in which a graphic animated map of the world is formed. Famous director names are paired with their countries of origin in rapid succession until the entire globe is lit up as if powered by the cinema itself! It’s a simple—even subtly clever—way to remind us that cinema is a global artform and that the NYFF in dependably

Foreign Film Race: Ricardo Darín... Again. And More...

First comes Oscar. If you follow my charts and this race each year it's impossible to escape Argentinian movie star Ricardo Darín. Not only is he continually employed but whichever body chooses Argentina's Oscar submission each year has a huge crush. He's the star of their 2001 nominee Son of the Bride and their 2009 winner The Secret in Their Eyes and he's also principle cast in their submission

Uruguay Must Choose: "Leo's Room" or "The Useful Life"?

Keeping up with the foreign film Oscar submission announcements is a sisyphean task. Uruguay hasn't announced yet but I'm hearing from an inside source that three different groups of voters weigh in and the field has been narrowed to two films: Leo's Room, a gay drama about coming out, and The Useful Life which is about a film programmer and a dying theater. MUBI calls it "distinctly ungeeky in

Disastrous Javier and Disaster Epic Compete For Foreign-Language Oscar

Fifty countries have now announced their Oscar submissions. We usually end with sixty-plus competitors so there's a dozen movies (approximately) left unannounced. The big question marks are Spain (we're guessing Celda 211 nope, Spain chose Even the Rain starring Gael García Bernal) and Italy (we're guessing The Man Who Will Come) since both countries are favorites of Academy voters. We'll know

NYFF: "Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives"

*slight spoilers ahead but this is not a "plot" film.*Uncle Boonmee can recall his past lives. My memory is hardly as uncanny. Recalling or describing Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, the Cannes Palme D'Or winner and Thailand's Oscar submission, even a few days after the screening is mysteriously challenging. Even your notes won't help you.This is not to say that the movie isn't

Foreign Film Race: Coco Martin's Winning Moves, France's Losing Streak

Coco Martin (left) is smiling because his career is going so nicely, thank you very much. He employs the savvy modern move of many a contemporary Hollywood star which is to say he alternates between mainstream projects for the fame/money and indie films for the cred. 'One for audiences, one for me' as it were (see also: Clooney, Moore and dozens of American A-listers). The irony for stars outside

Modern Maestros: Aleksandr Sokurov

Maestro: Aleksandr SokruovKnown For: critically acclaimed Russian art filmsInfluences: Tarkovsky, Tarkovsky and... well TarkovskyMasterpieces: Russian Ark Disasters: noneBetter than you remember: none, or allBox Office: over 2 mil for Russian ArkArt cinema is alive and well (and not as difficult to watch as the naysayers keep naysaying), and the lovers of such cinema are thankful that

NYFF: "Poetry"

Nathaniel, reporting from the New York Film FestivalIn the first shots of Poetry, the latest film from gifted director Lee Chang-dong (Secret Sunshine) an idyllic moment of little kids playing by a river is interrupted by a floating object in the water. The corpse of a middle school student is floating their way. This nonsensational but horrific reveal will soon intersect with the story of Mija (

The Foreign Film Oscar Race: So Much (International) Drama

But first things first. If German's popular drama When We Leave is nominated and wins, can the actress Sibel Kekilli please -- pretty pretty please -- repeat her barefoot acceptance/sit- in from Germany's Film Awards this past April? That'd be so sweet.Oscar night thrives on weird surprises and they get so few. Sibel to the rescue. (I'm aware that Actresses don't accept Best Foreign Film Statues