Sixty three films were submitted for consideration for the Foreign Language Oscar including some well loved biggies as 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days and Persepolis. I had assumed that these two were pretty much shoe-ins but looks like I was off. Way off.
The short list has just been announced and neither of those films are on the list. To be honest, none of the films I though would make the cut (including Jar City, The Orphanage (our review) and I Just Didn’t Do It) made it on the list. Here are the films that did make it:
- Austria, The Counterfeiters*, Stefan Ruzowitzky, director
- Brazil, The Year My Parents Went on Vacation*, Cao Hamburger, director
- Canada, Days of Darkness*, Denys Arcand, director
- Israel, Beaufort, Joseph Cedar, director
- Italy, The Unknown, Giuseppe Tornatore, director
- Kazakhstan, Mongol*, Sergei Bodrov, director
- Poland, Katyn, Andrzej Wajda, director
- Russia, 12*, Nikita Mikhalkov, director
- Serbia, The Trap, Srdan Golubovic, director
Out of those, I’ve heard of five and I’m going to guess they’re the five that will make the cut (I’ve put an asterix next to them) but we’ll have to wait and see until the announcement next Tuesday but what I’m most curious about is whether this is a sign of what we can expect from the 2008 Oscar race. Could it be that the Academy will actually surprise this year?
Can’t believe 4 Months… isn’t on here. And I assume the studio is hoping Diving Bell and the Butterfly will be up for best picture?
Yes. The deal with “Diving Bell”…the French decided to put up Persepolis instead and yes…I think they’re thought was that Diving Bell may have legs for best picture on it’s own…probably because of the director.
ok whats up with Wajda? I see his name everywhere but I have not seen anything by him… is he the shit? My full-on hard-on for Kiewslowski as of late makes me want to see more polish cinema.
Ditto to Andrew’s comment re: no 4 Months… on there (and I’m finally going to see it tomorrow, sheesh!).
Thrilled to see some CanCon, although I wasn’t over the moon about Denys Arcands L’âge des ténèbres.
I’m very impressed Mongol made the list, hopefully some people will get to see it. Truly epic.
Holy EurAsia batman. Not much love for the Orient this year.
I’m hoping for a win for MONGOL, although I know it won’t happen. And this short-list may just make someone put out a R1 DVD of “12″ which I’ve been itching to see for a while now.
Always a fan of Giuseppe Tornatore. Haven’t seen the film, but I’m sure it’s fabulous.
Kurt’s description of Mongol on the Cinecast also has me intrigued.
My guess is The Counterfeiters becomes the front runner. I’m wondering if Persepolis will get some Animated love.
Not putting 4 months on this list invalidates it. But I guess it’s nothing new that americans have bad taste in movies.
Now you’re just getting nasty.
Well, I don’t mean to – but come on…
It too maybe is hoping for best picture? Which is ridiculous to think it would ever make it, but hey… ya never know I guess. Unless it was on the “long list”. Don’t know how these things work. Was it even submitted for contention by Romania?
I believe it was submitted.
“But I guess it’s nothing new that americans have bad taste in movies.”
We can’t all be as accomplished as Uwe Boll. Oh SNAP!
I guess americans should be praised for not embracing Uwe Boll movies (of which I have seen none, they aren’t released here). At least they recognize that they produce enough horrible shit themselves.
Henrik, don’t you like a lot of American films? Like Spider-man 3 and Hulk and Death Proof?
According to Dr. Boll his new flick was a decent hit in Europe, though that doesn’t mean it opened in Denmark I guess.
What are the exciting films coming out of your awesomely cultured country these days?
I love alot of american films. Tons of them! But that doesn’t change the fact that of the 600 films released each year, maybe 10 are good.
I’m not saying my country releases more good films than America. At all. There is alot of shit being produced here and alot of it does do good business unfortunately. But the ratio is better. There are not as many movies produced, and if there were, alot more of them would be worthwhile if the current ratio was upheld.
If you don’t think your country is any better why don’t you phrase your comments more neutrally? Why is it always “Americans are dumb this”, “American film sucks that”?
Henrik, I like some Danish films. Lars Von Trier is one of my favorite directors working today. But it’s easy to have a good average when you’re batting less. And you didn’t exactly answer my question (I admit it was partly an accussation disguised as a question) what are the cool Danish films that make up your better quality to crap ration? What should we be keeping our eyes out for. I admit I don’t get too see as much European cinema as I’d like (which is why I appreciate Kurt). In part it’s because I happen to think American cinema is the best in the world.
I don’t know too much about Denmark but for the most part the big dumb BlockBusters Holly Wood is famous for are popular all over the world. In fact a lot of those action franchises are driven by revenue from the over seas markets. If I were so inclined I could just as easily argue that it’s European audiences who are inflicting low brow crap on Americans.
I object to your (constant) remarks about Americans and our films not because there’s no truth to them. But because a) complaining about “Hollywood crap” is too easy a target. It’s an easy shorthand for psuedo intellectuals who want to prove their mettle without going through the bother of actually offering an intelligent opinion and b) it’s only half the story. Surely the Tarantinos and the Andersons, The Coens, Spike Lee, David Lynch and Spielburg, Gus Van Sant and Sam Raimi merrit some consideration in the equation. Some studio financed a Werner Herzog movie this year, doesn’t that buy Hollywood some good will?
I don’t think Hollywood should not exist. There’s some good stuff coming out of there that can’t be made anywhere else. Like Spider-Man. And there are some good stars from Hollywood, like Will Ferrell. It’s just easy to be disillusioned when seeing how much extremely bad stuff from America is released here. We get SO much cinema from America, and so little from every other nation in the world. That’s why they’re the target for my rage.
And just because I’m danish, that doesn’t mean I think Danmark produces the best cinema in the world. Not all of us are unable to throw away our cultural inheritance in order to form a mind of our own about things. I don’t really have a favorite nation per say, but of all the movies that I hold as the ones that I personally think make the artform worth spending time on hardly any has been produced in Hollywood. And that is an imbalance, considering how many movies they have produced over the years.
Jesus Christ Henrik, I never accused you of being a nationalist, I never got the impression Danish film was your favorite. I asked you a simple question about Danish film because I’m not especially familiar with it.
It says a lot about you that you don’t have a favorite country but you clearly have a least favorite one.
To get back to the original topic, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days was Romania’s submission. Here is the press release of all the 63 countries that submitted films for the 2007 awards:
http://www.oscars.org/press/pressreleases/2007/07.10.17a.html
If there was ever a year to love American cinema it was 2007.
Movies about abortion don’t play well to the Academy. They like safe and easy targets like the Iraq War,Racism, and wire taping. They don’t like stradling the line, rather they want to pile on the side that is winning in the public’s eyes.
Well Rusty, you made it seem like in order to critisize american cinema, I had to point out how danish cinema was superior. I think that about 98.7% of cinema that is released around the world every year is borderline waste of time. Only about 30 films every year are worth the film they’re shot on.
How Do You Say “Oscar Scandal” in Romanian?:
http://blogs.laweekly.com/foundas/how-do-you-say-oscar-scandal-i/
“its failure to advance to this penultimate round of the nominating process is as embarrassing a blunder as any in the Academy’s history: You can put it right up there with the Best Picture win by Crash (2004).”
I *heart* this guy!
I agree that it’s preposterous that it’s not nominated, but this guy compares the camerawork of 4 months, to that of The Bourne Ultimatum, which makes him lose a shitload of credibility points. If anything, the camerawork of 4 months is the exact antithesis of what was comitted on TBU.
He compares the execution of the camera work, not the style.