Extra! Extra! Link All About It

So much news and other things to link up. Okay, here we go...

Polygon <-- I wrote this piece for them on The Dark Knight and the Oscar quake that followed. Have a look won't you? 
The Ringer LOLZ. The forthcoming Downton Abbey movie ...with zombies
Variety Weinstein Company's library of hundreds of Oscary films and TV shows like Project Runway now owned by a new company Lantern Entertainment. 
MNPP Tab Hunter marathon on TMC this Friday!
/Film Batwoman series in development at CW. It's another one of those Berlanti superhero shows. I enjoyed The Flash for a time but I really wish if we're going to have this many shows that there would be some differentiation of producing teams so that there wouldn't be so much homogeny with point of view.

More after the jump including MoviePass trouble and new projects for Halle Berry, Taraji P Henson, Rose Byrne, and Kate Winslet... 

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The Passion of the Link

screen
• THR details the first attempt to put Black Panther on screen in the 1990s with Wesley Snipes stories about trying to collaborate with John Singleton (ye olde creative differences)
• Coming Soon Jim Caviezel and Mel Gibson reuniting for a sequel to Passion of the Christ about, you guessed it, the Resurrection
• IndieWire you knew that RuPaul was a major film buff, didn't you? Here he is on this year's Oscar race

More after the jump including Andrew Scott, honoring supporting actors, Bollywood stars, Xavier Dolan's next project, and Armie Hammer in a track suit...

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100 Biggest Foreign Language Hits of 2017

Our year in review party begins. A different list each day. Here's Nathaniel R...

In the Fade didnt risk release in 2017 after all, hoping for Oscar favor to buoy its release in 2018Time for an annual look back at subtitled fare in cinemas. As with last year's list India, China, Mexico, and South Korea dominate with a smattering of other countries faring much less well in the American marketplace. Much of that is due, we think, to dedicated distributors focusing specifically on one market like FIP, China Lion and WellGo. Some of the movies we though might be big deals this year like Chile's Oscar nominee A Fantastic Woman opted for Oscar qualifying release only and Germany's Oscar finalist In the Fade starring Diane Kruger (pictured left) opted to sneak out at the last second to qualify for all Oscars though it did not receive nominations, buried in that post Christmas glut of tiny releases.

For the purposes of this list we skipped documentaries and animated films to keep the list more focused (and avoid arguments about dubbed versions or whatnot) but please to know that had we kept them in the wonderful Turkish street cat documentary Kedi would be in the top ten right here. This list is otherwise, as carefully as we could manage, accurate though we're happy to take corrections should we have missed something.

TOP 100 FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILMS FOR 2017
Listed By US Box Office Gross only  - FINAL TOTALS | Title links to reviews

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New to Netflix: "LOEV" is a many splendored thing

Please welcome new contributor Seán McGovern to TFE

LGBT titles on Netflix are tricky – how to see cute boys, feel all fuzzy and yet be artistic? Enter last year's critically acclaimed LOEV, which breezed its way onto Netflix everywhere last week. LOEV, Sudhanshu Saria's dreamy and offbeat romance from India was both a critical and audience favorite of the festival circuit in 2016. 

Western viewers may take for granted the quality and significance of some LGBT film out there, but having gay central characters in Indian cinema is still greatly taboo and faces serious challenges by the cencors – upbeat Bollywood films such as Kapoor & Sons take on an extra sense of daring when viewed by different sets of eyes (and yep, still make boffo box office).

Navigating romance was only part of it for Saria who I spoke with earlier today...

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Box Office For Those Who Can Read...

by Nathaniel R

Since this weekend's box office results are just too dull to report on (April has been seriously lacking in new mainstream movies of worth) let's swerve over to the arthouse for this weekend's box office chart. And this gives us an excuse to talk about the the underdiscussed auteur François Ozon, too. D'accord? Which foreign language films have been most popular with US moviegoers in the first third of the year?

TOP FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILMS RELEASED IN 2017
(numbers as of April 30th, some of these are still in theaters)

01 Baahubali 2: The Conclusion (India) $10.1
A sequel to the 2015 epic about ancient India. 

02 Your Name (Japan) $4.2
Many people thought this should have been nominated for the animation feature Oscar last year -- from my understanding it's being shown in both English dub and in subtitled versions though I'm not 100% confident about this understanding.

⇱ 03 Raees (India) $3.2
Shah Rukh Khan continues to be a very reliable Bollywood draw. His latest is about a bootlegger in Guajarat...

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