• Cathy Yan chats with “Up in the Air” star Anna Kendrick. [Speakeasy]
• James Schamus sets to work on “tragic, suicidally depressing” script for Ang Lee. Terrific. [Hollywood Reporter]
• Peter Bradshaw saddles back up to “Toy Story 2,” with a father’s eye. [The Guardian]
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 the WWII-themed films in the mix would make the cut — but plumped for Norway’s “Max Manus” instead of the Netherlands’ “Winter in Wartime.” And festival hit “Samson and Delilah” was high on my radar, a film I suspected the executive committee might save (as I’m sure was the case).
I foolishly blanked on Argentina’s “The Secret in Their Eyes,” a romantic thriller that was extremely well received at Toronto in the fall, and may yet be the spoiler in this race. I’d received word that this was one to watch, but it slipped my mind this morning.
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 task, given the regularity with which this branch of the Academy slights seemingly sure-fire nominees in favour of less visible, and less acclaimed, fare. Indeed, a high-profile snub, with ensuing media outcry, has virtually become an annual Oscar tradition.
The furore over the omission of Romania’s “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days” two years ago even prompted a change in the voting system – to safeguard against such controversies, a smaller executive committee was appointed to add three titles to the six elected by the branch voters.
It didn’t work: when last year’s critical darling “Gomorrah” failed to impress even the new committee, the Academy was raked over the coals once more. The bottom line, then, is that even the mightiest title can’t be called a shoo-in in this race.
(More analysis, and shortlist predictions, after the cut.)
It’s been a while since a Greek production made any impact on the world cinema scene — arguably not since Theodouros Angelopoulos claimed the Palme d’Or in 1998 — so it’s interesting to see that Yorgos Lanthimos’ “Dogtooth,” a dark family drama about three siblings disconnected from the outside world by their parents, pushed past more fancied contenders to take the top prize in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard strand last night.
In doing so, it beat out the likes of “Precious” and “Samson and Delilah,” both of which enjoyed substantial attention and acclaim on the Croisette but went home empty-handed. (NOTE: “Samson and Delilah” later won the Camera d’Or award at the final awards ceremony.) Not that the former needed any more of a boost after its Sundance sweep, really.
The runner-up Jury Prize went to “Police, Adjective,” a comic Romanian policier about on a policeman wrestling with his conscience, which also took a FIPRESCI critics’ award yesterday. Raves have been coming thick and fast for this film, with the Guardian’s Mark Cousins one of several critics I’ve heard declaring it the best of the festival, in any section of competition. (Coming on the heels of “The Death of Mr Lazarescu” and “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days,” one must wonder: what are they teaching in Romanian film schools?)
Another common critical line doing the rounds is that the Un Certain Regard selection was, pound for pound, stronger than the Palme d’Or lineup. It’s hardly surprising, given that the strand has become more imposing with each year since it was introduced in 1998: UCR winners that have gone on to estimable arthouse success include “The Band’s Visit,” “Tyson” and the aforementioned “Lazarescu.” It’s a sign that, as I’ve said before, the selectors need to start taking more chances in the main competition.
More details on the rest of this year’s Un Certain Regard winners here.