My Two Cents on the Oscars
I have written about Iran's Separation (U.S. SPC, ISA: Memento) during last year's Berlinale and just saw Canada's Monsieur Lazhar (U.S. Music Box, ISA: Films Distribution). My partner Peter Belsito has written about Bullhead. I must see Footnote (U.S. SPC, ISA: Westend) and I have seen In Darkness (U.S. SPC, ISA: Beta). It's great that Sony Pictures Classics has 4 films nominated, 3 out of 5 for Best Foreign Language and 1 for Best Screenplay. Separation's nomination for Best Screenplay is a wonderful bonus surprise.
Monsieur Lazhar's story, involving children and discussing that taboo subject, death, is the sort of film I think the Academy would favor because it is about children. Its total lack of kitsch or sentimentalism, its gentle understated tone won me over totally when I saw it at the Art House Convergence last week. The Montreal based production company Micro_Scope, founded by Luc Dery, has also produced last year's Oscar nominee Incendies and is now working on Inch'Allah by director Anais Barbeau-Lavalette about three women, a Quebecoise, a Palestinian and an Israeli. We hope to see it in Cannes this year. Congratulations go to the Canadians. This year they have Oscar nominations for Monsieur Lazhar, Christopher Plummer for Best Supporting Actor in Beginners (U.S. and ISA: Focus Features), Hugo for Best Score, In Darkness which is a Canadian co-production with Poland, having received initial development money from Telefilm Canada when it was proposed to be in English, and 2 animated shorts by the National Film Board: Sunday (Dimanche) from Quebec and The Wild One. What is noticeably missing is any nomination at all for David Cronenberg's masterpiece A Dangerous Method.
All in all, the coming 2011 Academy Awards Show at 4:00 pm EST/ 7:00 pm PST on ABC TV February 26, 2012 will be interesting! I hope I will be invited to the party of the Winner of the Best Foreign Language Feature or Best Animated Feature (Films Distribution has a film in each category) to celebrate!
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3 Comments
Dave Jesteadt | January 29, 2012 6:22 PM
GKIDS is actually dedicated to releasing the highest quality independent and foreign animated features, not necessarily for families, although a lot of the films happen to skew that way simply because the films are made for family audiences in their home countries, and just happen to be very artfully done.
We knew when we saw Chico at Toronto that we had to have it, and actually created a new sub-label called LumaFilms just for the release of C&R and future "adult-oriented" animated films.
Thanks!
Dave
Gaspar Marino | January 26, 2012 7:01 PM
I too feel that A Separation was one of the best foreign films of the year. I also liked Circumstance. I will see Chico and Rita on your recommendation. It opens at the Angelika theatre in NYC on Feb. 10th. One film I must comment on as receiving a nomination for Best Picture is Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. I don't know if it was just me (although I, don't really think so), but I thought it was one of the worst films I have seen in maybe the last 5 years. The little boy's performance was so annoying and over the top that it completely robbed the film of any sympathy. Couldn't they have found a better child actor. Also, the situations were so absurd, that most of the audience laughed through three-quarters of the film, which I don't think was the intention. I don't know who Scott Rudin paid to get that film nominated?
Joe Hughey | January 26, 2012 2:46 PM
I agree, A Dangerous Method should have received some nominations. Cronenberg is much better a director than the supremely overrated Mallick, but the Academy gives him way too much hate, and seems blindly loyal to Mallick.
It's a funny world we live in.