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Not just The Turin Horse, Tabu wasn't listed as eligible for any of the major awards too, even though it clearly opened in the U.S. in mid-December 2012. Really blows, two of the best films of the past two years, and they're shut out of the nomination process because of the cultural intolerance in Hollywood. (Sorry, there's no nice way to say it - so many industry people in that town are contemptuous of world cinema.)

Even if they'd been deemed eligible by the Academy, been made in America and in English, and Harvey Weinstein had bought out the entirety of Variety to pimp them, neither of those films would have garnered an Oscar nomination in a million years. There's no correlation between Oscar recognition and quality, so I don't see this as any kind of tragedy.

The Oscars exist to celebrate Hollywood, with a few notable exceptions. The idea that difficult art house films, much less difficult foreign art house films, would be nominated betrays a total lack of understand of the awards. Frankly, an awards show that went in the opposite direction and focused solely on art house flicks and excluded blockbusters and studio-led critical darlings would be even less relevant, because it'd take away the politics, spectacle, history, and marketing (and so on) of the Oscars and leave only the meaningless "Film A is better than Film B" dog show antics

Of course they'll never be nominated, but it's a bit arrogant that they're not even eligible for consideration when the only bar for that is supposed to be "was released in the U.S. during the year." There have to have been some Oscar voters who had to vote for something other than their actual top 5 favorite films of the year because the Academy had neglected to include one or more of them on the list of eligible films.

Critic's Choice Awards have been given out. Here are some highlights.

SLP had a clean sweep of all the comedy awards (actor and actress, and Best Comedy Film).

Life of 3.14 won Best Cinematography over Roger Deakins.

Do you like apples? Affleck won Best Director despite a lack of a nomination at the Oscars. How do you like them apples?

Daniel Day-Lewis is carving his name on the Oscar already.

On the bright side for The Master, Philip Seymour Hoffman won Best Supporting Actor for giving the second-best performance of the movie (of course, given who had the best performance, that' not a complaint).

Looper won Best Horror/Sci-Fi Film, and bongoes... shit, I mean Joseph Gordon-Levitt got to go on stage twice and be awesome (I kind of have a crush on him).

Argo fuck yourself, cries Kathryn Bigelow and Steven Spielberg. It won Best Picture.

domino harvey wrote:The Oscars exist to celebrate Hollywood, with a few notable exceptions. The idea that difficult art house films, much less difficult foreign art house films, would be nominated betrays a total lack of understand of the awards. Frankly, an awards show that went in the opposite direction and focused solely on art house flicks and excluded blockbusters and studio-led critical darlings would be even less relevant, because it'd take away the politics, spectacle, history, and marketing (and so on) of the Oscars and leave only the meaningless "Film A is better than Film B" dog show antics

It's happened before that a difficult foreign art house film got nominated, hasn't it? Cries and Whispers? And I think Mirimax got a couple of foreign language ones through in the 90s.

Cries and Whispers (like a lot of Bergman films) was widely and popularly acclaimed (and hardly a difficult art house film)-- a somewhat more niche release than many contemporary American films, but in the public periphery more than similar art house fare of the day. But as I said, there ARE a few notable exceptions... Famous ones for Best Pic being Hamlet and the Red Shoes in the forties, which caused minor scandals among the academy members. But there's lots of bigger surprises in the outlying categories depending on who does the voting: a slot from the Directors branch went out far more often to foreign filmmakers, but on a category where everyone votes like Best Pic, you get safer choices that protected the studios making the films (More awards and nominations = more likely you'll keep your job)

I'll never have another chance to say this, so: Cries and Whispers was the Amelie of its day. Completely different cultural landscape nowadays.

(EDIT: not as much fun to type, but Cries and Whispers is pretty obviously analogous to Amour. Tabu or The Turin Horse getting a nomination would be more like Terra em transe or La cicatrice interieure getting one in the 60s / 70s.)

This year's Kinema Junpo Top 10

1. Kazoku no kuni / Our Homeland (YANG Yong-hi)
2. Kirishima, Bukatsu Yamerutteyo / The Kirishima Thing (YOSHIDA Daihachi)
3. Outrage Beyond (KITANO Takeshi)
4. Tsui no shintaku / The Terminal Trust (SUO Masayuki)
5. Kueki ressha / The Drudgery Train (YAMASHITA Nobuhiro)
6. Waga haha no ki / Chronicle of My Mother (HARADA Masato)
7. Fugainai boku wa sora o mita / The Cowards Who Looked to the Sky (TANADA Yuki)
8. Kagi-dorobô no mesoddo / Key of Life (UCHIDA Kenji)
9. Kibô no kuni / The Land of Hope (SONO Shion)
10. Yume uru futari / Dreams for Sale ISHIKAWA Miwa)
Runner-up. Kono sora no hana: Nagaoka hanabi monogatari / Casting Blossoms to the Sky (bayashi Nobuhiko)
Runner-up. SR: Saitama no rapper 3 / Roadside Fugitive (IRIE Yû )

(and Suo got best director award)

Needless to say, I haven't seen a single one of these....

I'm not so sure people will be watching The Master in 50 years. Not many people watched it in 2012. I respected the film (particularly the 70mm), but film will not exist in 2062. And absent the FILM cinematography, it is a bore. In 2062 I will be watching the latest Batman reboot.

Hm.

The Narrator Returns wrote:Life of 3.14 won Best Cinematography over Roger Deakins.

I both love and hate you for typing this.

domino harvey wrote:The Oscars exist to celebrate Hollywood, with a few notable exceptions. The idea that difficult art house films, much less difficult foreign art house films, would be nominated betrays a total lack of understand of the awards. Frankly, an awards show that went in the opposite direction and focused solely on art house flicks and excluded blockbusters and studio-led critical darlings would be even less relevant, because it'd take away the politics, spectacle, history, and marketing (and so on) of the Oscars and leave only the meaningless "Film A is better than Film B" dog show antics

Definitely. If anything, the last few years have been surprising and have felt more like critic choices than "real" Academy picks.

Steven H wrote:

domino harvey wrote:The Oscars exist to celebrate Hollywood, with a few notable exceptions. The idea that difficult art house films, much less difficult foreign art house films, would be nominated betrays a total lack of understand of the awards. Frankly, an awards show that went in the opposite direction and focused solely on art house flicks and excluded blockbusters and studio-led critical darlings would be even less relevant, because it'd take away the politics, spectacle, history, and marketing (and so on) of the Oscars and leave only the meaningless "Film A is better than Film B" dog show antics

Definitely. If anything, the last few years have been surprising and have felt more like critic choices than "real" Academy picks.

I get this, but you know plebs are considering these the greatest films of all time, not a self-serving spectacle. It's tiresome to discuss the "merits" of Oscar winners with people who aren't actually interested in film. I'm sure it's a wonderful evening gown competition, but that is where my interest fades.

Jeff wrote:

domino harvey wrote:I think it's between Lincoln and Silver Linings Playbook now. SLP clearly connected with voters and Lincoln seems to be a film people admire but without much enthusiasm-- SLP may be the little film that could. None of the other Best Pics with director noms feel likely

I like both of those films. I'm afraid the "little film that could" going up against Lincoln might end up being Beasts of the Southern Wild, a film I've grown to hate more with each passing day. It got quite a few nominations, and lots of people are in love with the damn thing. It feels like this year's Crash, which I guess makes Lincoln this year's Brokeback Mountain or something.

With the caveat that I've not seen Beast of the Southern Wild and am simply judging by all the hoopla (including the stuff about the young age of the actress), it seems less like this year's Crash best picture contender than this year's "Keisha Castle-Hughes in Whale Rider" best actress nomination.

Beasts of the Southern Wild is a worse film that Crash. Let that roll around in your brain for a minute. So yes, it could go all the way. Literally any film nominated this year could win, Best Director rule be damned

Query: Netflix is sending me Beasts tonight because apparently it is a film that I have to have an opinion about. Should I kill myself instead of watching it?

You don't need our guidance beforehand: You'll want to kill yourself of your own accord minutes into it

If only not watching the film were an option.

For the record, The Turin Horse was Hungary's nomination for the Best Foreign Film Oscar last year.

To no-one's surprise, it didn't get beyond the initial long list.

Coincidentally, the Oscar was won by A Separation, the film that won the Golden Bear to Tarr's Silver at the 2011 Berlin Film Festival.

domino harvey wrote:Beasts of the Southern Wild is a worse film that Crash.

I don't think that's true, and at any rate, although I still need to see four of the Best Picture nominees, I wouldn't even put Beasts at the bottom of this year's list. So far the leader for that distinction is Life of Pi, which has some pretty pictures but is deadly dull and very confused about what its trying to say (a trait I'm told the book shares).

Actually, I'd rather watch Beasts again over Argo, too. I can certainly understand why people wouldn't like Beasts, and I'm still not sure what I think about it myself, but the hate is getting pretty hysterical.

Has Midnight's Children been released in the US yet? It has had lukewarm reviews in the UK but it would be the kind of film I would have expected to figure strongly in awards season.

colinr0380 wrote:Has Midnight's Children been released in the US yet? It has had lukewarm reviews in the UK but it would be the kind of film I would have expected to figure strongly in awards season.

It opened in Canada, and will probably get a bunch of Genie Award noms. I skipped it, based on reviews of some people I know.

Listened to all five Academy Award nominated songs. There are only two worthwhile entries: "Skyfall" from Skyfall and "Everybody Needs a Best Friend" from Ted. The other three are dull, emotionless rubbish. Why did they even bother with five nominees? Should have been only two like last year.

tarpilot wrote:For all its faults, Argo features a cast of actors reciting dialogue, which puts it two up on Beasts

Yeah, well, as far as that goes, I'd rather watch the guy playing Wink do his thing than Arkin do his same tired crotchety old man routine for the 1 billionth time.