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lacritfan wrote:Time to root for Katyn so Andrzej Wajda can have a "real" Oscar to go with his honorary one.

Katyn certainly looks in with a very strong chance, based on subject matter (not a Holocaust drama in the literal sense, but the same general area) and heavyweight director alone.

And aside from his honorary Oscar, Wajda's already been nominated three times and gone away empty-handed - and this is almost certainly his last large-scale film. It's had mixed reviews, but on the basis of what I've seen so far (a few unsubtitled scenes) it looks as though it pushes all the right buttons to appeal to Academy voters.

But the only one of the Foreign Language Film nominees that I've actually seen in full is Mongol...

...and my conspiracy theory is that the Academy made a point of including a Kazakh film on the shortlist by way of apologising for Borat, regardless of the film's actual merit.

(Actually, it's not that bad - I certainly wasn't bored! - but if you can imagine a biopic of Genghis Khan with a visual style that aims for a Zhang Yimou Hero look but falling some way short, and casting that's already caused much hilarity in Mongolia for its wild mishmash of regional and foreign accents, you've probably got a pretty good idea what it's like already. But it would be a shoo-in for Best Yurt-Burning Scene, if the Academy had had the nous to vote on that)

flyonthewall2983 wrote:Oh, and Norbit has more noms than Zodiac. Try and chew on that one for awhile.

It also has more Razzie nominations.

tavernier wrote:

lacritfan wrote:Time to root for Katyn so Andrzej Wajda can have a "real" Oscar to go with his honorary one.

Is it about the Holocaust? If so, he's a shoo-in.

Actually, I think the Holocaust favoritism has faded the past 3 or 4 years.

By the way, the film I co-produced, Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience. was nominated for doc feature. It's also now out on DVD from Docurama. If you are interested in buying or renting it, go for the feature version, not the PBS version.

Adam wrote:I think the Holocaust favoritism has faded the past 3 or 4 years. The film I co-produced, Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience. was nominated for doc feature. It's also now out on DVD from Docurama. If you are interested in buying or renting it, go for the feature version, not the PBS version.

Hell, back in '88 Au Revoir Les Enfants lost to Babette's Feast...

portnoy wrote:

tavernier wrote:

lacritfan wrote:Time to root for Katyn so Andrzej Wajda can have a "real" Oscar to go with his honorary one.

Is it about the Holocaust? If so, he's a shoo-in.

Are any of the foreign nominees about the Holocaust? If so, then that's your winner.

Ahem. The Counterfeiters is about the Holocaust.

Katyn recounts the 1940 Soviet slaying of thousands of Polish soldiers (including Wajda's father). Cinematographer is Pawel Edelman (The Pianist) and the score is by Krzysztof Penderecki.

lacritfan wrote:Katyn recounts the 1940 Soviet slaying of thousands of Polish soldiers (including Wajda's father). Cinematographer is Pawel Edelman (The Pianist) and the score is by Krzysztof Penderecki.

Woah... this just shot up to the top of my must see list.

miless wrote:Woah... this just shot up to the top of my must see list.

Here's the official site (with a subtitled trailer).

My Polish friends tell me that it's only middling Wajda at best, but it's been a phenomenal domestic hit - number two at the Polish box office last year, beaten only by Shrek the Third.

Which suggests that Wajda's strategy of making the film as direct and straightforward as he could with this material, to secure the widest possible audience, seems to have paid off - even if this means the film lacks the complexity and ambiguity of his greatest work.

MichaelB wrote:Here's the official site (with a subtitled trailer).

My Polish friends tell me that it's only middling Wajda at best, but it's been a phenomenal domestic hit - number two at the Polish box office last year, beaten only by Shrek the Third.

Which suggests that Wajda's strategy of making the film as direct and straightforward as he could with this material, to secure the widest possible audience, seems to have paid off - even if this means the film lacks the complexity and ambiguity of his greatest work.

Let's not forget that Katyn is a massive issue in Poland with kids learning about the massacre at their mother's knee. For years the Soviets pinnedthe blame on the Nazis but only relatively recently (with Glasnost) came clean. So it would be a big bums on seats affair whatever/whoever.
Also Wajda had a huge hit with another Polish coup de couer the epic novel ' Pan Tadeusz' which was a real plodding costume affair. So as Michael suggests I think this might fit the bill of worthy rather than worthwhile

NABOB OF NOWHERE wrote:Let's not forget that Katyn is a massive issue in Poland with kids learning about the massacre at their mother's knee. For years the Soviets pinned the blame on the Nazis but only relatively recently (with Glasnost) came clean. So it would be a big bums on seats affair whatever/whoever.

Wajda has wanted to make the film pretty much his entire life (given his close personal connection), but it was obviously impossible prior to 1990. When I interviewed him recently I asked why it took another 17 years, and he said he was waiting for the right script.

Also Wajda had a huge hit with another Polish coup de couer the epic novel ' Pan Tadeusz' which was a real plodding costume affair.

...and never released in Britain. In fact, the UK hasn't had a new Wajda film since Korczak in 1990, though it must be a racing certainty that Katyn will get a release. (Not least because the British Polish population has exploded in the three years since they joined the EU, so there's obviously a substantial potential audience!)

So as Michael suggests I think this might fit the bill of worthy rather than worthwhile

The first opinion I heard from someone who'd actually seen it was Interrogation director Ryszard Bugajski, who told me point blank that it was Wajda's worst film. (And he has absolutely no other reason to attack Wajda, who put his own career on the line to defend Bugajski's film). Other opinions have been more generous, but the consensus I'm picking up is that it certainly achieves its primary aim - i.e. increasing awareness of Katyn in a medium far more vivid and immediate than a history book - but it falls some way short of what Wajda's capable of, both dramatically and intellectually.

My understanding is that it's largely told in flashback from the point of view of women spending the rest of the 1940s trying to find out what happened to their husbands - as Wajda's own mother would have done - before the truth is spelled out in the final scenes. But since we all know what happened, I imagine there's not a huge amount of suspense, and there's absolutely no chance that Wajda's going to pull a last-minute happy-ending surprise (or indeed any other kind of surprise) out of his hat - it wouldn't suit his temperament anyway, and since there wasn't a happy ending for his own family it would be unthinkable that he'd let anyone else off the hook.

So, given these (reported) problems, I can easily see how it might fall into the "worthy" category - it's clearly an important film by definition (if only because of its cathartic subject), and it equally clearly needed to be made, and arguably made by this particular director, whose entire adult life has been spent in the shadow of what happened at Katyn. But Wajda does seem to have problems with adapting material that's too personal. He once said that if he could remake just one of his films, it would be Lotna (1959) - which, tellingly, is also obliquely about his father, who was a cavalry officer. And his other famously problematic film - though fascinating arguably for this reason, as it's so clear that Wajda really doesn't know what he wants to say or even what kind of film he's making - is Everything For Sale (1968), made as a direct response to the premature death of Zbigniew Cybulski.

Mind you, none of this is going to put me off seeing it!

I have for a long time admired Wajda's work, particularly Man of Marble/Iron and Promised Land. I have worked with many polish crew from DPs down to PAs who have long experience with him. They all sing the same unfortunate song. That he has become very very disengaged from the act /art of film making, delegating all other responsibility other than dealing with the top named actors to other departments. In fact I had a very very minor role on one of his films involving the scene of the destruction of Warsaw. A key moment one would have thought, but he was totally absent leaving it entirely to the Production Designer and DP to supervise.

MichaelB wrote:But the only one of the Foreign Language Film nominees that I've actually seen in full is Mongol...

...and my conspiracy theory is that the Academy made a point of including a Kazakh film on the shortlist by way of apologising for Borat, regardless of the film's actual merit.

I'm still trying to figure out how it met the Academy's criteria to qualify as an entry for Kazakhstan. It's my understanding it was funded primarily by Russians and Germans, written and directed by Russians, and filmed primarily in China.

Kirkinson wrote:I'm still trying to figure out how it met the Academy's criteria to qualify as an entry for Kazakhstan. It's my understanding it was funded primarily by Russians and Germans, written and directed by Russians, and filmed primarily in China.

...and in Mongolian.

(Allegedly - various Mongolian commentators have complained that it's far from authentic!)

Wow, Julie Christie willing to cross picket lines for Oscar. Man, fuck her.

I'm sure she won't be the only one....I'd be curious to see who does not attend, if the strike's still going on.

The Coens won the DGA award last night.

Robert Elswit won the ASC for There Will Be Blood.

The SAG awards are tonight on TNT.

Full list of Screen Actors Guild winners:

TV:
-Male Actor in a Drama Series: James Gandolfini, The Sopranos
-Female Actor in a Drama Series: Edie Falco, The Sopranos
-Ensemble in a Drama Series: The Sopranos
-Female Actor in a Comedy Series: Tina Fey, 30 Rock
-Male Actor in a Comedy Series: Alec Baldwin, 30 Rock
-Ensemble in a Comedy: The cast of The Office
-Male Actor in a TV Movie or Miniseries: Kevin Kline, As You Like It
-Female Actor in a TV Movie or Miniseries: Queen Latifah, Life Support
-Stunt Ensemble in a TV Series: 24

FILM:
-Cast in a Motion Picture: No Country for Old Men
-Male Actor in a Leading Role: Daniel Day Lewis, There Will Be Blood
-Female Actor in a Leading Role: Julie Christie, Away From Her
-Male Actor in a Supporting Role: Javier Bardem, No Country for Old Men
-Female Actor in a Supporting Role: Ruby Dee, American Gangster
-Stunt Ensemble in a Motion Picture: The Bourne Ultimatum

I'm still utterly baffled by the sudden love for Ruby Dee.

domino harvey wrote:Wow, Julie Christie willing to cross picket lines for Oscar. Man, fuck her.

One of the most left-leaning actresses of her generation; she must really want that statue!

"Falling Slowly" may lose its Oscar nomination for best song. Decision will be forthcoming from the Academy today.

I suspect Ruby Dee could be this year's 'you're not dead yet and haven't won an Oscar, so here we go'.

I haven't seen the film (or very many at all from the nominees - most have not made it down here yet) so have no idead if it would be a deserved win or not.

Am I the only person, besides the good Mrs Amicus, who thinks Cate Blanchett's nomination for The Golden Age was deserved? I suspect I might soon find out...[/quote]

Dr Amicus wrote:Am I the only person, besides the good Mrs Amicus, who thinks Cate Blanchett's nomination for The Golden Age was deserved? I suspect I might soon find out...

Yes.

but her role in I'm Not There will win.

domino harvey wrote:Wow, Julie Christie willing to cross picket lines for Oscar. Man, fuck her.

...aaaaand the award goes to Marion Cotillard.

On Feb. 23rd head over to select AMC theaters and see a marathon of the Best Pictures nominees for $30.