Capsules: 28 Hotel Rooms, Yossi, Caesar Must Die

In an effort to review every new film I see this year --  a task I have never accomplished but there's a first time for everything -- I will resort to capsules like these when I haven't reviewed properly. (I realize that my "Oscar" section of reviews implies that all films should be seen through this prism. This implication is not literal or an endorsement -- it's just something that's fun for me and some of you to think about.)

YOSSI
We're ten years on from Yossi & Jagger and Yossi is now a doctor, who buries himself in work to avoid living life or moving beyond that love cut short. When a chance encounter with Jagger's mother shakes him from his stupor, he ends up on holiday. Some of the notes are beautifully played -- the early tearful scene with Jagger's mother is super -- but Yossi is a maddeningly passive protagonist. The film happens to him rather than with hi, or even with his permission. He stubbornly refuses to participate in his own story which makes the redemptive new romance a really tough pill to swallow. Why would this vivacious younger man be interested in Yossi when Yossi himself isn't interested... in anything!? 

Yossi & Jagger & Tom

Grade: C (I would have loved to heartily endorse this movie because Yossi & Jagger was such a perfectly pitched mini-gem but it frustrated me despite a few really strong moments. So if you haven't seen Yossi & Jagger, please do rent it.)
Best in Show: Oz Zehavi almost sells you on the unfortunately lopsided romance as the young soldier Tom but I have to hand this one (emphatically) to Orly Silbersatz Banai as Varda, Jagger's mother who packs a surprising amount of drama into her two scenes. The rug is pulled out from under her but since she kept pretending the rug didn't even exist for ten-plus years...
Oscar Chances: Writer/director Eytan Fox has made 4 feature-length films prior to this one, and most of them have received international release, but he has yet to be selected for submission to represent Israel at the Oscars.

28 HOTEL ROOMS
A novelist (Chris Messina) and an accountant (Marin Ireland) have a fling in a hotel room on a business trip. She tells him it's one and done but they keep meeting on subsequent trips and a confusing, passionate relationship develops. It lasts for years. This is undoubtedly a 'one for the reel' project for both actors and sometimes plays like an acting exercize albeit a good one. Though it never quite transcends its gimmick (the title is the structure), it's affecting despite or maybe even because of the limitations of scope; their lives outside of these rooms begin to feel like fantasy or, in the inverse, like intrusions of reality on fantasy. (But honestly, for a drama that hinges on sexual compatability, it could've used a couple more sex scenes, or longer ones that developed the relationship. This is possible to do in sex scenes. See the great Israeli drama Late Marriage (2001) which is the film I always think of when I think of sex scenes that function as integral narrative and character development, like a great song in a musical or a perfect setpiece in an action film.

Grade: B
Best in Show: It's a complete duet so it'd be rude to pick one!
Oscar Chances?: This was from 2012 and got a teensy-teensy release. Now available on DVD.

CAESAR MUST DIE
This Berlinale winner from the Taviani brothers recreate an art therapy program of sorts in which inmates perform plays. By filming at a prison where they saw a play performed by inmates (a different play) with some real inmates and some actors, some play scenes and some scripted discussion of play scenes the movie effectively walks a line between documentary and drama. The line is no highwire though. The reality and fiction of the program and this particular production is blurred enough that the film never has the knife's edge of real danger that you'd think you'd feel watching real prisoners acting out murder plots, politics and betrayals. As we crosscut between auditions, production, and both formal and informal rehearsals we see the art begin to bleed into life for the inmates. The end result is intermittently moving as most productions of great work tend to be but it feels strangely abitrary; why wasn't it just a documentary?
Grade: B
Best in Show: Salvatore Striano as Brutus. There's a reason he became a professional actor after prison.
Oscar Chances?: Italy submitted this Cannes winner for Oscar consideration last season. It was one of the highest profile titles to not make the 9-wide finalist list.

"Fill The Void", "The Clown" and "After Lucia" Join the Very Crowded Foreign Race

Brazil, Israel, and Mexico -- three countries that have yet to produce an Oscar Foreign Film champ despite a small handful or two of previous nominees -- have now joined the fast-growing list of Oscar's subtitled contenders.

The tally now stands at 35...42 films 44 films and 4 finalist lists!

 Which means we've only got about 20 films left to hear about officially before the list is complete. October 1st is the deadline for submissions and in mid October Oscar will provide us with the official list which will usually contain a few surprises -- either a last minute film switcheroo, a disqualification, or a country that hadn't publicly announced suddenly surfacing on the list. Let's look at our new contenders and their countries nominee history after the jump.

Israel's New Contender: FILL THE VOID by Rama Burshtein which gives us an intimate look at the Hasidic community in Tel Aviv.

Israel's Nominee History - 10 noms / 0 wins
with links to Netflix pages -- all but one available for rental!
1964 Sallah
1971 The Policeman
1972 I Love You Rosa
1973 The House on Chelouche Street (instant watch!)
1977 Operation Thunderbolt
1986 Beyond The Walls
2007 Beaufort (instant watch!)
2008 Waltz With Bashir
2009 Ajami (instant watch!)
2011 Footnote 

Brazil's New Contender: THE CLOWN is about a father (Paulo José) and son (Selton Mello, also the director) who work together as clowns in the circus. The son no longer thinks himself funny and wants to settle down. 

Brazil's Nominee History - 4 noms / 0 wins
with links to Netflix pages if available
1962 Keeper of Promises
1995 O Quatrilho
1997 Four Days in September
1998 Central Station is by far the most universally beloved of Brazilian Oscar contenders even netting a well deserved Best Actress nomination for Fernanda Montenegro. In any other year it would surely have been a winning entry but it had the timing misfortune of going up against Life is Beautiful which was that year's even bigger foreign crossover hit, winning 3 Oscars on the big night (Actor, Foreign Film and Original Score) from its hefty 7 nomination tally which included Best Picture and Best Director nods.

Mexico's New Contender: AFTER LUCIA by Michel Franco is about high school bullying and was a hit at Cannes where it won the Un Certain Regard sidebar

Mexico's Nominee History - 8 noms / 0 wins
with links to Netflix pages -- unfortunately spotty
1960 Macario
1961 The Important Man 
1962 The Pearl of Tlayucan 
1975 Letters from Marusia 
2000 Amores Perros (instant watch!)
2002 The Crime of Father Amaro
2006 Pan's Labyrinth 
2010 Biutiful (instant watch!) 

WHO IS LEFT TO ANNOUNCE?

Plenty of countries in South America and Asia as well as three European biggies. The three countries with the mightiest Oscar stats that have yet to announce this year are...

 Denmark everyone assumes it will be the festival hit costume drama A Royal Affair... which has won acting awards and critical favor. So why haven't they announced that yet? Rumor has it they're announcing today so perhaps it's a done deal by the time you read this.  YEP. IT'S A ROYAL AFFAIR
Italy Reality had some buzz but NYFF is playing Caesar Must Die so it would sure be convenient... for me ;) ... if it were the latter.
Spain announces next Friday though they've already narrowed it down to three contenders. I'm hoping it's the silent black and white Snow White picture starring the internationally recognized Maribel Verdu (Y Tu Mama Tambien, Pan's Labyrinth, etcetera) because I like annual themes, don't you? See we're drowning in Snow White movies in 2012 -- you'd think this ancient story had just hit the public domain or something? -- so let's finally get a good one in the mix!

Oscar Watch, Israeli Edition: The Ophir Nominees

[Editor's Note: I asked our sometime correspondent in Israel, Yonatan, to bring us up to date on Israel's Oscar submission possibilities. They've been scoring nominations frequently of late. Alas my single favorite Israeli movie of all time (Late Marriage) was rejected by Oscar voters in its year - Nathaniel]

Can "Filling The Void" fill one Oscar spot in Foreign Film this year? 

Ten Israeli movies have been nominated for an Oscar in the Best Foreign Language Film category, four of them in the last five years. That list includes one indisputable landmark: Waltz with Bashir (2008) which is the first and only animated film, despite frequent submissions from all around the world, to score a nomination in this category. 

Israel's Oscar History
With links to Netflix pages -- all but one of them are available for rental!
1964 Sallah
1971 The Policeman
1972 I Love You Rosa
1973 The House on Chelouche Street (instant watch!)
1977 Operation Thunderbolt
1986 Beyond The Walls
2007 Beaufort (instant watch!)
2008 Waltz With Bashir
2009 Ajami (instant watch!)
2011 Footnote 

Still, without an Oscar win, Israel is the Peter O' Toole / Deborah Kerr of the foreign film category with the most never-winning nominations (just ahead of Poland's 9/0 record and Mexico's 8/0). After so many loses, a win seems perpetually just around the corner...

Click to read more ...

Mighty Submissions? Mexico's Got "Miss Bala" and China's Got Christian Bale

In the most mainstream-ready news yet for this year's Best Foreign Language Film competition, China has submitted Zhang Yimou's The Flowers of War. The movie has changed titles at least three times now (literally) but yes, that's the very expensive Christian Bale film based on Geling Yan's historical novel The 13 Flowers of Nanjing which is about the Nanjing massacre when Japanese soldiers slaughtered Chinese civilians in 1937. Bale will play a priest who is helping to save Chinese citizens. I believe previous titles included The 13 Women of Nanjing and Nanjing Heroes. After a very long production the movie will supposedly be opening this December.

Zhang Yimou and Christian Bale on the set

Christian Bale in a still from the film that just can't pick a title!

Zhang Yimou is a superstar as auteurs go, having previously directed international hits and awards magnets like Ju Dou (Oscar nominee Foreign Film ), Raise the Red Lantern (Oscar nominee Foreign Film), To Live (Golden Globe Nominee Foreign Film), Shanghai Triad (Oscar nominee -cinematography),  Hero (Oscar nominee -China), The House of Flying Daggers (Oscar nominee -cinematography) and Curse of the Golden Flower (Oscar nominee in costume design). 

But with Bale in the lead (or prominent ensemble) role, one wonders how much of his new film is in English and whether that might not be a problem when the Oscar committee starts ruling about eligibility? Early reports suggested that 40% of the film would be in English though there's also dialogue in Mandarin, Japanese, and Chinese. Academy rules don't allow the majority of your dialogue to be in English in this category so we shall see. You know how finicky the Oscar committee can get about eligibility rulings. But one things for sure: this film won't have trouble winning attention with Yimou behind the camera and Bale in front of it. 

IN OTHER NEWS...

Runar Runnarson's debut feature VOLCANO will represent Iceland for the Oscars. It's the story of a retiree rediscovering his life. The film already has achieved a small degree of fame for an old age sex scene. Reviews are strong and it's said to be quite moving.

Last year's winning country Denmark has gone with SuperClasico

Then we have two countries that share the distinction of several nominations without a win yet.

Israel will present FOOTNOTE, the story of combative father and son Talmud professors which won the screenplay prize at Cannes. Israel is the most nominated losing country ever having been up to bat for 9 Oscars thus far.

Mexico (tied with Poland, just behind Israel, at 8 nominations without a win) will go with MISS BALA as most cinephiles suspected. I will be seeing the acclaimed beauty-queen in distress drama Tuesday for the New York Film Festival. Can't wait after all the good things I've heard. 

Here's the US trailer which I'm not watching so as to be surprised next week. The film opens in limited release next month after this final festival bow. 

Imagine that. At least TWO of the contenders are actually opening in the States before the following calendar year! It's so rare these days. And lately when that's happened it's been on December 31st. Boo! So give Mexico's Miss Bala and China's The Flowers of War points for braving a real release and not banking on the lottery ticket of a future Oscar nomination before hitting the big screen.

Useful Useless Statistics!
Countries that submit regularly that still wait on virgin nominations:
Bulgaria, Chile, Colombia, Croatia, Luxembourg, Mongolia, Portugal, The Philippines, Serbia, Slovenia, Thailand, Turkey, Venezuela ...and current cinematic hotspots Romania and South Korea.

Oscar's favored countries *these past 10 years* (they tend to go in waves):

1. Germany (6 nominations, 2 wins these past ten years)
2. France (5 nominations or 50% of the lineups)
3. Canada (3 nominations, 1 win these past ten years)

Most favored country (in history) that has had a rough run with Oscar lately: Spain is the third most honored country in the Academy's entire history (19 nominations and 4 wins) but they've only been nominated once in the past ten years. Of course they won that year (The Sea Inside) and two of Spain's biggest stars also won acting Oscars recently (marrieds Javier Bardem and Penélope Cruz ... so, uh, never mind. I take it back. Not a rough run! It's ITALY that's smarting. Just one nomination for the country with the most competitive wins and second most nominations ever these past ten years. What's going on Italy?)

CHART UPDATES (ONGOING) HERE including new films from Ireland, Albania, and Vietnam.

Foreign Oscar Track: Israel and Norway

Two more countries, neither of which have ever won the Foreign Film Prize in Hollywood, have announced their finalists lists.

We'll take Norway first since it's less popular with Oscar (5 nominations) and because I stand humbly before you to say I was wrong. My conjecture about what might be submitted -- other than the new Joachim Trier -- was quite wobbly. The three finalists are not the biggies from the Amanda awards but Joachim Trier’s Oslo, August 31st (Oslo, 31. august) which we briefly discussed, Anne Sewitsky’s Happy, Happy (Sykt lykkelig) and Jens Lien’s Sons of Norway (Sønner av Norge). While Trier has the highest international profile, that doesn't always equate with submission choice. Happy Happy is a very frisky marital comedy (I ♥ the trailer) and Sons of Norway is a punk rock coming of age film that even features a cameo from Sex Pistol Johnny Rotten. Neither of the trailers are subtitled and both feature nudity but if you want to see them they're here: Happy Happy and Sons of Norway.

Award winning filmmaker Joseph CedarIsrael, which has been nominated nine times (and thrice consecutively in recent years), just announced the nominees for their Oscars, the Ophir Awards.  This is always the list they pull from for their Best Foreign Language Film submission so it's probably going to be the 13 times nominated (whew) frontrunner Joseph Cedar's Footnote which played at Cannes winning the Screenplay award but garnering somewhat mixed reviews. It's about feuding father and son professors at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Writer/director Joseph Cedar, who was actually born here in New York City, was previously nominated for the soldier drama Beaufort (2007). 

But if there's a dark horse submission it'll be one of these four: Yossi Madmoni's Restoration, Nadav Lapid's Policeman (Ha-Shoter) Marco Carmel's My Lovely Sister or Maya Kenig's Off White Lies... all of which are more difficult to find info on then the Norwegian films at this point.

Slowly Evolving Oscar Foreign Film Pages Are Here.