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Every problem can be solved by having ten best picture noms in doc and foreign language.

That's a bad idea, T. Holly. So people can have twice as many movies to ignore?

No, let foreign countries submit more than one movie; get adventurous, not play it too safe. Help aleviate our nationalistic navel grazing.

Well, I agree with reforming the ridiculous 'one country submits one film' rule. Expanding the category to 10 seems needless. They need to do a better job selecting the nominees, not just selecting a bigger group of the same slanted pool.

No! Keep the one-film-per-country rule, but also allow films that received a qualifying run to be nominated! That way Spain can submit whatever crazy-arsed weirdo movie they want, but voters - if they so wish - can also vote for Broken Embraces. Or movies such as Sin Nombre or Summer Hours can also get nominated alongside A Prophet, which can still act as France's official representation.

Although, they would then have to make a rule that only two films from a single country can be nominated. We don't want France occupying 4 slots not matter how good of a year they had.

The one-film-per-country thing is a good way of getting films noticed. Would any of us had heard of the Argentinian movie that was nominated? Or would anybody feel the desire to seek out Samson & Delilah? I doubt it.

The Argentinean movie played AFI fest here. It's just okay -- were it in English it would be dismissed as fairly middlebrow studio fare.

Excellent Kami, but make it ten and maybe Samon & Deliah (extraordinary) and Secert in Their Eyes (Bob Koehler likes Latin) can divert our eyes from ex-husbands of 3 years 20 years ago and Hollywood insiders who jerk tears from us and have annoying little boy movie-children. And 5 more docs, as that genre re-roots.

Review
http://www.lytrules.com/blog/2009/11/08/afi-fest-2009-secrets-n-eyes/

And look what showed up in Portland

http://blog.oregonlive.com/madaboutmovies/2010/02/oscars_your_basic_generic_nomi.html

here's what makes the 1 country 1 film rule good, as an official selection, at least. If it weren't for that rule, we'd have only had five countries ever earn a foreign film nomination: France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, and Japan. Nowhere else would have ever been paid any attention to because film scholars only care about ye-olde-world (if its in swedish, talking about religion is okay, but its banal to hear it rather than to read it!) countries because those countries are 'legit' due to having famous painters and sculptors and whatnot. And Japan because Japan has always been hip, from the 1850s forward. Just take a look at any film schools history of cinema classes, I dare you to find representation from countries other than the above (granted you may get one obligatory film from China or Hong Kong if the prof is daring).

Most years would result in us having multiple french and italian films nominated leaving most of the rest of world cinema more ignored than it already is.

I mean, for goodness sake, they already amended the rules last year so that they ensure the Palme D'Or winner will always be nominated by the executive committee (so long as its picked by its country), regardless of quality, because the academy has to affirm the Cannes decision or they're out of touch. :-/ the academy making its own opinion is no longer allowed, consensus agreement for all. :D But at least the academy actually picked the best of the five to win foreign language film last year (and with four excellent films and the very good Waltz with Bashir all nominated,there really wasn't a bad choice to be made, imo).

***

but in any event, the LA times article on the distribution of oscar nominees missed the boat. The landmark is selling tickets for both Inglorious Bastards and Hurt Locker this weekend (also returning is An Education).

Additionally the LA times failed to ask the only important question regarding Avatar's strategy. Two days before Avatar wins 8 or 9 oscars it loses all (or close to 90% of all) of its 3D screens to Alice in Wonderland. The question is:

Does Fox have a flat prints release strategy in place to begin for Avatar on March 5th when it loses all those 3D screens?

Both Return of the King and Titanic (the only BP movies comparable to Avatar) received significant box office bumps from their wins, and are the only recent movies to really receive a significant bump from oscar wins. if Fox wants to take advantage of that opportunity, they had better be ready to have flat screens in play on March 5th.

The other thing the LA times article missed on, talking distribution of the foreign films (1 in theatres, one scheduled for theatres, 3???), Documentaries (two on DVD, 3???), ani/live shorts (at the Nuart, and the one showing at the academy), doc shorts (no one allowed to ever see them, as best I can tell).

For instance, it would make sense to me for all the shorts to go up on itunes the day of the nominations, they'd probably sell decently well, and I'd buy all the doc shorts since there is no way to see them otherwise. It's a shame there's not an online rental model in place for the films in these five ghetto categories to take advantage of the oscar nomination.

Last year the Laemmle Monica did show the Betrayal, Trouble the Water and Man on Wire on Saturday and Sunday 10AM shows, so twice a week for those three films, I'm hoping they'll pick up those other three docs again this year.

You thought Departures was the best nominee last year? I'm curious as to why you enjoyed it, I thought it was terribly mediocre, and was surprised that it won, considering how excellent The Class and Waltz with Bashir are.

Also, I believe Sin Nombre was made with American money, which would disqualify it. I remember when that happened to Motorcycle Diaries.

Avatar surpassed Titanic as the #1 domestic film of all-time yesterday, officially. According to Box Office Mojo. History.

"That's a bad idea, T. Holly. So people can have twice as many movies to ignore?"

Raising their visibility would be bad how? Sure, most people ignore Docs and foreign pics, but there's bound to be a few people that's hear about something they wouldn't have otherwise.

movielocke, it would be self-limiting because they know that submitting more than one or two has a dimishing effect on getting attention. And The White Ribbon - Cannes herd mentality highlights why 10 is a more appropriate number for a diverse group which the U.S. cannot approach and does us no good. Ditto doc.

well that makes sense T. Holly, but you're presuming that countries would have a say in a process (self limiting) if the rule were discarded and the nominations were thrown open.

Yes I think Departures was the best of the five:

Revanche was a beautifully shot meditative film with many good elements but it was a hair too meditative for me, interesting and a suberb film, but not something I connected to.

The Class is a film I feel I like mainly because of the personal connection of having so many teachers in my family and extended family. The depiction was relentlessly authentic, but again, meandered and was meditative rather than feeling like characters developed I feel like everyone was in the same place by the end of the film. Which is a great job of displaying the cyclical and at times hopeless structure of compulsory education.

Waltz with Bashir I would have liked more if I saw it on video, rather than on film. In the theatre it seemed exposed over and over again as lacking any texture to the animation. Oh the shading and lighting was very well done with expressive colors, but it had that Avid/FinalCut plug in look in many respects giving it a "flat-and-stacked" look (and I know how fucking hard it is to get those plugins to look as good as this film looked) but for me it was failure as an animated medium. I realize it used the animation to represent the dreams and past and that they used it on the interviews to keep it consistent, but to me it was offputting rather than distancing. The film, however, was educational about a little war I wasn't really aware of before.

Baader Meinhof Complex was a beautifully made and although straightforward fairly complex film, at times it reminded me a lot of Z, and in a good way. The performances in this film were especially terrific, I felt, and I really loved the story. And it seemed more relevant in how it was addressing a historical moment that reflects todays current events more so than the equally apt Waltz With Bashir's, which I felt was more focused on the angst and denial of "why did we do this?" and the PTSD inherent in that question.

Departures was the one film that stood out. It was luminously human both in the growth of the main character and in the film's story of his three relationships: with his wife, his teacher and his community (and in a way with his always absent father). The performances were uniformly stellar and were deeply affecting to me (not to mention that Hisaishi score), and I felt the film achieved more with understated visual gracenotes, rhythm, and composition than any of the other films. Additionally the way the film transforms audience expectations of funereal ceremony and dead bodies from something vaguely disquieting (and even repulsive career choice) into something that is deeply healing and unveiled as an occupation of tremendous honor and skill, not unlike playing for a symphony. I just feel there is more character description done silently in the way the elder Sasaki handles the discrepencies of one of the early funerals than in most other films released in the last year. Departures illustrates that life floats in the moments between the departures of the ones around us and it movingly illustrates the human condition in a universal way. There's also an additional subtheme about Daigo modernizing as he becomes less traditionally stoic and opens up to his wife, letting his guard down, including her in his career and becoming less dictatorial and more accepting of her individuality by the end of the film.

in other words I felt there was a lot more to Departures, emotionally, thematically, and in simple film mechanics, than in the other four films.

The Class was by far the best of the three foreign language nominees that I saw last year, then Baader (decent, but nothing extraordinary) and then Waltz with Bashir (overrated, frustrating, pointless as an animation AND a documentary).

"The one-film-per-country thing is a good way of getting films noticed. Would any of us had heard of the Argentinian movie that was nominated? Or would anybody feel the desire to seek out Samson & Delilah? I doubt it."

I'm sorry, is the category "Best Foreign Language Film" or is "Five Foreign Language Films That Need More Publicity Than Other Foreign Language Films That Maybe Were Better But Got Noticed Enough Already"?

I love seeing the variety of films from other countries, even films that don't get nominated in the first place, but it really is like having an Olympics with a rule saying every country can only send one athlete to each event.

But the best foreign language movies don't always get a release in America. Are you suggesting that the foreign language branch should have to sit through an infinite number of movies that a country decides to submit? Or that only movies that received a US release should be eligible? That'd do more harm than good.

But anyway, my plan would allow these unheard of films to get some publicity if they're good enough for a nomination while also allowing something such as The Maid, Sin Nombre or Summer Hours to get nominated if the branch likes them enough. Spain would be allowed to enter something different and possibly worthier than just an instant selection of Almodovar (they always get criticised when they choose someone who isn't Almodovar), but if the branch really dug Broken Embraces then they could nominate it as well/instead.

It's all very well and good for people on these sort of blogs to say that Summer Hours deserved to be nominated over that movie from Argentina that they've never heard of, but maybe that movie DID deserve to be nominated and people just haven't seen it. That Argentinian movie could be better than any foreign language movie that was released in the US in 2009, but barely anybody will know. Although now the film has a chance to actually be seen and to be judged like any other movie.

I also think they need to scrap the inneligibility of movies from multiple countries such as Cache or The Motorcycle Diaries. Indeed, the category is "foreign language film" not "foreign language film that only one country had a hand in making", or whatever.

Just popping in that I think the White Ribbon got its cinematography nomination more for the equisite compositions and rhythm than for being the novelty of black and white. And man that opening shot as the stop gradually opens and opens and opens revealing a brighter and brighter image, wonderful.

Great performances particularly from the one boy (was his character Martin, I think), and some really stunning scenes, like when his father is confronting him, or when he fetches something for his father early on. But boy, it really does plod and seems to mainly take its time reveling in sordid little details more than anything else. I kept getting caught up in it from time to time, and start thinking, "wow, this might be a Haneke film I actually like!" only to be let down again and again. The film doesn't plod, but it is every bit as deliberative and slow as a Serious Man (actually A Serious Man is the perfect English-language equivalent of White Ribbon, as both are basically the same movie). I was disappointed, overall, I'd rank it well below all five of last year's foreign film nominees. A shame that it started out so good and ended up so blah.

But really, the film does leave you with the same haunting question as A Serious Man left you with: "How many licks does it take to get to the tootsie roll center of a tootsie pop?"

The World May Never Know.

feh.

Agreed about the cinematography. I think it was Guy Lodge at InContention that gave the best description of the use of black and white in The White Ribbon. I can't be bothered finding it now but it's out there somewhere.

As for the film, I liked it in a general sort of way, but I think it suffers from the same from as another middle entry Haneke, Code Unknown. It's great when recalling certain moments and scenes, and at times in my memory it feels like a movie made of vignettes. But I don't think it was tied together as well because after a while it did just sorta feel like it was going on with its thing and not going anywhere. I know a lot of people find the "mystery" just a Haneke ruse, but I found the film at its most compelling when it was focusing on that aspect. It's just the sort of thing I respond to more in a movie.

It sits firmly within that middle streak of Haneke movies for me with Code Unknown. Not as good as Hidden or The Piano Teacher, but far from the cinematic wastelands that are Funny Games and Time of the Wolf.

WRT Avatar "losing" screens to Alice In Wonderland. Has Fox considered the Disney strategy for Hannah Montana? Remember how all those 3D screens suddenly appeared?
There's all-digital houses out there - I'm thinking there's plenty of room for houses with 1-3 digital screens to get more projectors, especially now they know the product is going to be there.

god help me, i find haneke's US 'funny games' just horrifically compelling, like a car crash i can't turn away from, and i'm sorta thinking that's exactly what he was going for. i'd love to pick his brain on that one.

(SPOILER: on my second viewing, during the scene at the end on the boat when the terrible twosome give anne the heave-ho into the drink, i found myself again desperately and stupidly scanning the surface of the water for her, bobbing like a cork off in the distance, hoping against hope that i'd missed her the first time around. that haneke, what a comedian)

plus i'd watch tim roth sitting on the throne reading a magazine for two constipated hours, he's that mesmerising to me

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