Foreign Oscar Buzz: Israel, Hungary and Romania

Soon we'll be inundated with Foreign Film Oscar Submission news but for now news from three countries to get us started. The Oscar Charts will be up this weekend for this always diverse and exciting (if you're paying attention) category. [Thanks to Daniel, Yonatan and A.D. for the tips]

S#x Acts

ISRAEL
Israel has been on a hot streak with Oscar with four nominations in the past six years so news of the Ophir Awards is always important. This narrows the field for which film will be their official submission since they go with the Ophir winner. Seven films are in the running for their Best Picture (The Ophir).

The frontrunner is Bethlehem (12 nominations) a drama about the Arab- Israel conflict which focuses on three characters: An Israeli secret services agent, his teenage Palestinian informant and the informant's older brother, a commander of the Al Aqsa Martyr's brigade. Other nominees include S#x Acts, a drama about a transfer student who improves her social status via the boys at her new school. Sukaryot is about an Israeli-Arab entrepreneur wants to open a chain of candy store competing directly with an Israeli corporation. Magic Men is a dramedy about a Hasidic Jew who joins his magician father on a trip to Greece to find the man who saved his father during the Holocaust. And the soul comedy is Hunting Elephants about a child's adult relatives who set out to rob a bank. (Patrick Stewart is one of the leads so perhaps this will have too much English dialogue to qualify?) Far less likely are two films which only scored Best Picture nominations at the Ophirs: White Panther about a young Russian who seeks refuge from street gangs in a local boxing gym and I Am Bialik, a mockumentary about a man who claims he's descended from Israel's national poet.

ROMANIA
Tough Romanian cinema has been hot with critics for nearly a decade but has yet to catch on with the Academy, who (generally speaking) prefer warmer films. Can Child's Pose, their 2013 submission, break through? The Golden Bear winning film stars the acclaimed Luminita Gheorghiu who previously appeared in two of the country's most important exports (4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days and The Death of Mr Lazarescu).

Luminita in "Child's Pose"

The Guardian synopsizes the contemporary political drama like so:

the film tells the story of a mother's desperate and often illegal attempts to save her son from prosecution after he knocks down and kills an impoverished teenager...

HUNGARY
The official submission is The Notebook/A nagy füzet which was the Karlovy Vary winner. Hungary had a solid Oscar run in the 1980s but has had difficult finding traction since and especially in the past couple of decades when they've made very daring oddball choices for their representative films. This new one appears to be more in Oscar's wheelhouse since it's about two young boys ripped from their parents during World War II.

For whatever reason, Oscar has historically been very kind to narratives about children in wartime in this category, not just because at least a handful of films that fit that genre seem to be submitted each year but because the tear-jerking obviously transcends culture and language barriers. This one looks discomfitingly unsentimental though with children hardening themselves to atrocities. 

If you've seen any of these at festivals, have your say in the comments. Which country are you most excited to see land a nod this year?

Meryl Goes "Supporting" - The Scare Quotes Are Mandatory

Ever since I first fell in love with the Oscars as a young boy, I declared the Oscars my Christmas. Of course as my Oscar obsession grew I had to adjust. Nomination Morning became Christmas (full of sleepless night, early morning thrills, and a few dud gifts) and the Ceremony itself became New Year's Eve (rambunctious, noisy, equal parts exhilarating and disappointing, and usually causing a hangover). 

Santa (aka The Academy) thinks I've been naughty every year.

I must've been because they always throw a giant lump of Category Fraud coal in my stocking. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences added the supporting categories in 1936 when they realized that they hadn't accounted for honoring character actors who bring so much to the industry and to each movie and their current awards only honored movie stars. 77 years later they no longer care about their intentions and now all the acting categories are designed to honor movie stars. Which leaves character actors to just do their work (its own reward, sure) in their former thankless way. They are, after all, very low on Hollywood's totem pole and Hollywood is a place where power matters. 

I wasn't at all surprised to hear that August: Osage County, which has in every incarnation had two leads (Barbara & Violet), suddenly only had one for its future Oscar campaigns according to Gold Derby.

I am, however, a bit surprised that that it's Violet/Streep who all the action centers on who has mysteriously becoming a "supporting" character. [more]

Click to read more ...

Saving Mr Link

Towleroad the new men of Dowton Abbey. So excited to see Weekend's Tom Cullen in the mix!
The Kind of Face You Hate on David Cronenberg's The Fly (1986) and John Frankenheimer's Seconds (1966, newly released from the Criterion Collection)
Guardian Xan Brooks loves non-professional film actors. Someone has to.
Variety says Snowpiercer is doing great business in its home of Korea, though it can't be their Oscar submission given that it's in English. Unfortunately the Weinstein Co still plans to cut 20 minutes before the US release
Amiresque looks back at the filmmaking of 12 Angry Men

Dial P For Popcorn (in Portuguese) riffs on an old article I wrote in 2008 about actors who were overdue for Oscar wins and at the time everyone (not just me) thought Johnny Depp was next. My how time/choices change everything.
TV Blend Juliette Lewis, Matt Dillon and The LEOgend will all be appearing in M Night Shyamalan's TV series Wayward Pines based on the book series "Pines" by Blake Crouch. 
MNPP Which is hotter Mark Strong or...? 

D23 Buzz
Awards Daily Saving Mr Banks is still fanning Oscar flames with clip debuts at D23, will the current buzz heat turn into a bonfire?
FanVoice Angelina Jolie also promotes Maleficent at the same expo, and the clip shown was the scene where she curses baby Aurora to the horror of the fairies 
Hero Complex Awesome director Brad Bird (the filmography! The Iron Giant, Ratatouille, The Incredibles, Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol) is still playing coy with what Tomorrowland is actually about. But this is a good thing. More mystery in film promotion, please! 

Box Office
Elysium, which we've just reviewed, topped the box office. Meanwhile World War Z (Reviewed) is just inches away from $200 million domestic despite all the negative buzz before its opening - the film aged well for me (its best passages really stick) and now my review is looking too harsh. Blue Jasmine (Reviewed and Podcasted) is still going strong nearly cracking the top ten box office without the aid of thousands of theaters. Fruitvale Station (reviewed and podcasted) didn't turn into the crossover talking-point hit that The Weinstein Co but it's at a respectable $13 million plus and will undoubtedly use its DVD release to recharge its Oscar buzz later on this calendar year. 

WHAT DID YOU SEE THIS WEEKEND? 

Yes, No, Maybe So: "Philomena"

After a quiet six or seven months on the Best Actress front we have two real contenders (Cate Blanchett & Brie Larson) and in the fall and winter the usual glut of heavy hitters. We've already seen trailers for Meryl's 4th Oscar plea, Emma's comeback and Sandra's tease. And now... Dame Judi Dench as Philomena, a woman whose son was given up for adoption when she was a young girl fifty years earlier.

I did not abandon my child."

My quick reaction to the trailer...

YES - Dench doesn't carry films as often as we'd like so we're there. The tears will undoubtedly flow given that people struggling to reconcile their lives and lost children demand kleenex. Philomena's matter-of-fact loopiness (the portion control joke, her "Ann Boleyn" comment) might provide good laughs.

NO - The trailer suggests that we are as interested in Steve Coogan's career trouble journey as in her life. This would not be the case.

MAYBE SO - The light comic tone suggests a different film than we were expecting given the overall concept. Perhaps this is another Mrs Henderson Presents (which barely challenges Dench) rather than a Her Majesty Mrs Brown in terms of depth and potency. It seems unlikely, at least in this tiny sample, to impress like her tour de force in Notes on a Scandal. 

THE TRAILER

Are you a Yes, No, Maybe So? And which Judi Dench film does the trailer most remind you of?

Podcast: FYC Summer & Fruitvale Station

Season Something. Episode 2
A second consecutive week with Nathaniel, Nick, Joe and Katey ... can you believe it? (But, pssst, we recorded this one at the same time as last week's Blue Jasmine convo. As you listen Nathaniel is heading out of town for his first gay wedding, Bride & Bride division)

This week's headlining film topic is the divisive response to Fruitvale Station (previously reviewed) and whether or not it can bear the burden of its hype on "Oscar"'s march towards Oscar. We also weigh in on whether Octavia Spencer and Michael B Jordan deserve nominations for their work. But it's not all Fruitvale. We find ways to throw Short Term 12, World War Z, Blancanieves, and The Heat, into the conversation and a few old movies, text messages, and documentaries make cameos too  -- you know we like to keep it loose and rangey.  

P.S. Nick's DVD shelves make one more key appearance so to fully understand us you'll want to remind yourself of his chronological shelving and his idea of a Year Zero... 1982's Frances. 

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download it on iTunes.

Fruitvale and FYCs