Screening Season in Los Angeles - 10 Capsules

by Eurocheese

It’s that time of year! Los Angeles screening season is in full gear, with Oscar hopefuls sending out invites right and left. Here are my comments and rankings (by preference order)on the last batch of 10 films (!) with more to come soon.

One Battle After Another – A+. Paul Thomas Anderson’s brilliance can be hit and miss, but this is among his very best works. DiCaprio capitalizes on the comedic energy he’s brought to Tarantino films, bringing frenetic energy to this sprawling, action-packed epic. Teyana Taylor’s popping introduction, newcomer Chase Infiniti’s grounding steady hand and an insanely madcap villain from Sean Penn are all nomination-worthy, with even the smaller parts for Benicio del Toro and Regina Hall packing a punch. The must-see of the season...

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Review: P.T. Anderson's Glorious "One Battle After Another"

by Eric Blume

If you’re a regular site reader, you’ve probably been following all the film blogs discussing the new Paul Thomas Anderson epic, One Battle After Another.  So we don’t need to discuss plot or beat around the bush…the question is:  Does it really deliver like everyone has been saying? I remember being so excited before seeing Licorice Pizza -- it too was heralded by early viewers -- only to find it contrived and uninvolving in the cinema. My vote, this time, is an unqualified yes!  PTA is a great filmmaker:  ideologically ambitious, profoundly humanistic, and daringly assured technically.  Anderson delivers with depth and panache here in this new contemporary, highly political film... 

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NEON out there trying to hog the entire Best International Feature Film category!

by Nathaniel R

Dear reader, every time I've attempted to write anything regarding the Best International Feature Film race, another film was announced. Can't keep up! We're now up to 64 official submissions (the number is likely to top out in the 80s so 20ish films to go) with dozens of announcements since we last tried to get something on the main page. The big news is that France chose Jafar Panahi's It Was Just An Accident (We wonder what the average Frenchmen makes of two films in a row that aren't in French being submitted!), Spain chose Sirat by Oliver Laxe, and Brazil made it official with The Secret Agent by Aquarius / Bacarau director Kleber Mendoca Filho. All three films were sensations at Cannes and all three will be distributed by NEON in the US over the next two months.  NEON is poised to utterly dominate conversations around this Oscar race since they now have five super-buzzy contenders for this category including previously announced titles from major auteurs: Norway's Joachim Trier is back with Sentimental Value and South Korea's Park Chan-wook is in the house with No Other Choice. 

At this writing (Friday, Sept 19th, around 3:00 pm) 26 of the 62 films have secured distributions so more on when they're arriving after the jump...

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Venice: Oscar Contender "The Voice of Hind Rajab"

by Elisa Giudici

THE VOICE OF HIND RAJAB © Venice Film Festival

Tunisian filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania has always worked at the intersection of personal tragedy and political urgency. From The Man Who Sold His Skin to Four Daughters, she has shown a capacity to merge documentary impulses with bold formal invention. Yet with The Voice of Hind Rajab (the film that left Venice audiences openly sobbing halfway through its screening) she has taken that approach further, venturing into a space where cinema becomes almost unbearable.

The story is simple and shattering. On January 29, 2024, five-year-old Hind Rajab was trapped inside her family’s car in Gaza, surrounded by the corpses of her relatives and encircled by Israeli tanks...

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Halfway done with the Best International Film list?

by Nathaniel R

Behind the scenes I've been updating the Best International Film submission charts daily. At this writing we have 43 titles, which means we're about halfway done. We still haven't heard which title will represent heavy-hitters like Denmark, France, Italy, Spain, or last year's winner Brazil (though we do have finalists lists for a few of those mainstays of the category). We also impatiently await the decisions from three countries (China, Hong Kong, India) with major cinema industry that voters strangely resist on the regular (sigh). So check out the three charts (A-G / H-N / P-Y) and the current finalist list predictions.  Yes, the other Oscar charts will get an update very soon. We'll start when TIFF announces their People's Choice prize.

Today i wanted to highlight four of the newer submissions that I'm excited to see if I ever get the opportunity...

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