94 Songs vie for the Oscar

by Cláudio Alves

ORLANDO: MY POLITICAL BIOGRAPHY is an unlikely contender but you gotta love its boldness.

The Academy has released a couple of eligibility lists, including one for the Best Original Song race. Ninety-four different tunes have been submitted for the Oscar. It's three maximum for each movie, from which only two can be nominated for the same title. Barbie, The Face of the Faceless, A Good Person, The Little Mermaid, State of the Unity, and Wish have submitted three, while many other projects went for double trouble. There are no significant surprises in terms of omitted contenders, but some submission choices delight with their boldness, and others shock because their origin is so obscure. For example, I quibble with the one song chosen from Dicks: The Musical and Carmen. I'm also delighted that Orlando: My Political Biography threw its hat in the race and just found out some of these movies even exist.

From American Symphony to Wonka, come discover the complete list of submissions…

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33 Titles Will Compete for Animated Feature but how many of them really have a shot?

by Nathaniel R

ELEMENTAL is a likely nominee

Long gone are the days when we had to wonder if we were getting only 3 nominees in the Animated Feature Category. This year 33 films are competing (provided a few of them make their one week qualifying runs in the next few weeks) so we'll easily have 5 nominees as we've come to expect. But which titles will it be? After the jump the contenders divvied up into six rough categories... 

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Best International Film: Poland's "The Peasants" & the Philippines' "The Missing"

by Cláudio Alves

As Guillermo del Toro loves to remind us, animation is cinema. It's not a genre but a medium with its own particularities and styles, distinct idioms, and formal grammar. This year, some countries have taken these values to heart, selecting animated works to represent them at the Oscars. Curiously, two of them offer original ways to consider Rotoscoping as an animation practice, defying those who dismiss such films as lesser. They are Poland's The Peasants, from the same team behind Loving Vincent, and The Missing from the Philippines. Between painterly ravishment and digital befuddlement, these filmmakers take Rotoscope cinema to its limits and beyond…

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"Fallen Leaves" and "The Zone of Interest" lead the EFA nominations

by Cláudio Alves

Because of their specific focus and disconnection from the mainstream release calendar, the European Film Awards are rarely seen as part of the long road to Oscar. Then again, there's always the exception that proves the rule, and this year is exceptional, alright. Many Academy Award contenders showed up across the board, even beyond those submitted for the Best International Film category. Jonathan Glazer's The Zone of Interest and Aki Kaurismäki's Fallen Leaves, for instance, scored nominations for Picture, Director, Actress, Actor, and Screenplay. Sandra Hüller even managed to double-dip, getting recognized for this Nazi nightmare and her turn in Justine Triet's Palme d'Or winner, Anatomy of a Fall.

Discover the complete list of European Film Awards nominations, plus some additional commentary, after the jump…

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First & Last 042

Can you guess the movie from its first and last shot?

The answer (and some Oscar talk) is after the jump...

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