I’m back with another edition of the Oscar Calendar’s Weekly Watchlist.
May 27 is the final day of the nomination period for the Lammy Awards, so kindly Consider Mefor your ballot if you are an eligible voter. Seriously, if you haven’t voted yet, you should bookmark this page for later and go vote before the polls close!
The Cannes Film Festivalis getting most of the buzz this week, with strong reviews for Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom (already showing in limited release here in the states), Michael Haneke’s Amour, Leos Carax’ Holy Motors and Andrew Dominick’s Killing Them Softly are getting good reviews, as is Marion Cotillard’s performance in Jacques Audiard’s Rust And Bone. Meanwhile, Walter Salles’ On The Road, Lee Daniels’ The Paperboy and John Hillcoat’s Lawless appear to be getting much more mixed reactions. Antonio Mendez Esparza won the big prize at Cannes Critics Week for Aqui Y Alla, with Sofia’s Last Ambulance, God’s Neighbors and The Wild Ones also receiving honors. For even more information, Bonjour Tristesse and Movie On are covering the festival in great detail from afar, while Marshall And The Movies, Blue Print Review, FilmLand Empire, and Virginie’s Cinema give us an on-the-ground perspective.
Those who follow the Oscar shorts races like I do know that The Academy hosts a Student Academy Awards each year honoring student short films. This past week they announced the winners in unranked order. Gold, silver and bronze placements will be announced June 9, with the gold medal winners for each category (except documentary) automatically qualifying for full Academy Awards consideration, and on a few occasions the silver and bronze winners have gone on to get nominations as well. You can learn more about the nominees on their Tumblr page, or watch the trailers for many of them (and in one case the full movie) by clicking the links below.
Alternative Amanda Tasse for The Reality Clock (trailer)
Note that Ms. Tasse was the only winner in this category, so her film automatically qualifies for Oscar consideration!
Animation David Wolter for Eyrie (Full Movie) Mark Nelson for The Jockstrap Raiders (Trailer) Eric Pragh for My Little Friend
Documentary Ellen Tripler for Dying Green (Trailer) Keiko Wright for Hiro: A Story Of Japanese Internment (Trailer) Heather Burky for Lost Country (Trailer)
Foreign David Winstone for For Elsie (Trailer) Thomas Stuber for Of Dogs And Horses Elmar Imanov for The Swing Of The Coffin Maker
Narrative Justin Tipping for Nani (Trailer) Ryan Prows for Narcocorrido (Trailer) Mark Raso for Under
At the commercial theaters, the nostalgic Men In Black 3 seems to have the best chance of taking down The Avengers among popcorn audiences, while limited audiences will have the honor of watching Sy Omar’s Cesar Award winning performance in The Intouchables and Cannes opener Moonrise Kingdom. Other releases include Chernobyl Diaries, Cowgirls N’ Angels, Might Fine, Arjun The Warrior Princess, Hide Away, OC 87: The Obsessive Compulsive Major Depression Bipolar Asperger’s Movie
Finally, for those of you who didn’t do so at the beginning of this post, I’ll add another reminder to please Consider Mefor your Lammy Award ballot!
For more on what is coming up in the world of movies, be sure to check out the full Oscar Calendar, and let me know in the comments which of these films you are most looking forward to seeing! .
Yes, my friends, I have become one of those people who now gets more excited about the Cannes Film Festivalthan all those summer blockbusters. Granted, part of that is because last year’s festival had such an amazing lineup, with The Artist, The Tree Of Life, Midnight In Paris, Drive, We Need To Talk About Kevin, Melancholia and Footnote all premiering. This year’s lineup looks pretty exciting too, and my friend Bonjour Tristesse is covering it in great detail, from the Official Competition to Uncertain Regard, so make sure to check him out all this week.
Those who follow the Oscar shorts races will note the following directors qualified for next year’s Oscar consideration over the past week:
1. Martin Snopek and Ivana Laucikova for The Last Bus (Posledney Autobus) (Animated)
At the commercial theaters, we’ll see Sacha Baron Cohen’s The Dictator go up against Battleship and What To Expect When You’re Expecting. Other films opening this week include a series of documentary, independent and foreign films such as Elena, Polisse, Hysteria, American Animal, Beyond The Black Rainbow, Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has To Travel, Lovely Molly, Sinbad: The Fifth Voyage, If I Want To Whistle I Whistle, The Samaritan, Virginia, Crooked Arrows, Quill: The Life Of A Guide Dog, The Yankles and Mansome
Finally, please remember that the nomination period for the Lammy Awardsis underway, so kindly Consider Mefor your ballot if you are an eligible voter!
For more on what is coming up in the world of movies, be sure to check out the full Oscar Calendar, and let me know in the comments which of these films you are most looking forward to seeing! .
I’m back with another edition of the Oscar Calendar’s Weekly Watchlist.
We have a new record at the box office, with The Avengers making $207 million, the highest opening weekend in history. Be warned, however, that this could actually turn into bad news for U.S. audiences, as The Avengers opened abroad first, and then hit domestic screens after its “buzz” was unstoppable. Will more films follow suit? It has long been the case that smaller films have opened in a few major markets on limited release, and then trickled out to the rest of the country over time. But American audiences typically enjoyed opening weekends for the big blockbusters. That all may be changing in a global market, as studios learn from The Avengers’ success and begin to build buzz elsewhere before releasing their films to the backwater that is the United States. Captain America is now part of a team, you see, and that means that more and more often he is going to get second billing (and second or third releasing!)
Speaking of films that won’t come to the United States for a while, the Hot Docs Canadian International Film Festival has just ended, with Call Me Kuchu winning the jury prize, Chasing Ice taking the people’s choice award, and The Imposter winning the filmmaker’s choice award. Other winners included The World Before Her, The Law In These Parts, Tchoupitulas and and Meanwhile In Mamelodi. For more information on Hot Docs I recommend the excellent reviews at The Matinee and Big Thoughts From A Small Mind.
Another documentary, Caesar Must Die, won best picture, director and producer at the prestigious David Di Donatello Awards. Together with its win at Berlin, the Di Donatello award makes this the frontrunner to be Italy’s submission to next year’s foreign language Oscar race. Meanwhile, Alesandro Comodin’s Summer Of Giacomo and Lav Diaz’ Florentina Hubaldo CTE took the top prizes at the Jeonju International Film Festival, and the San Francisco International Film Festival awarded Policeman, The Exchange and Ok Enough Goodbye in its narrative category and It’s The Earth Not The Moon and Meanwhile In Mamelodi in the documentary race.
Those who follow the Oscar shorts races will note the following directors qualified for next year’s Oscar consideration over the past week:
1. Yan Giroux for for Surveillant 2. Julia Pott for Belly (animated) 3. Mich’ael Zupraner for Snow Tapes 4. Simone Massi for About Killing The Pig (Dell’Ammazzare Il Maiale) (animated)
While the documentary shorts don’t technically allow for qualification through festivals, it is also worth noting that Anna Nykyri’s Five Fragments Of The Extinct Empathy won the Hot Docs short award, with Dustin Guy Defa’s Family Nightmare also receiving special jury notice, and Willem Baptist’s I’m Never Afraid won in San Francisco.
At the commercial theaters, I expect The Avengers to continue its momentum, but the new releases that will be trying to unseat it include Dark Shadows, Girl In Progress, God Bless America, Hick, Tonight You’re Mine, Where Do We Go Now?, Nobody Else But You, A Bag Of Hammers, The Cup, Dragon Eyes, El Gringo, The Road, Romeo And Juliet In Yiddish, Small Beautifully Moving Parts, Stash House, Bonsai, Transit, The Philly Kid, Dangerous Ishhq and Yellow Submarine.
For more on what is coming up in the world of movies, be sure to check out the full Oscar Calendar, and let me know in the comments which of these films you are most looking forward to seeing! .
I’m back with another edition of the Oscar Calendar’s Weekly Watchlist, the place where I Assemble all the news from the world of film in an effort to help Avenge independent film against the studio blockbusters....
Everyone will of course be talking about their favorite superheroes this week, but if you are really into superheroes, make sure to check out my friend Bubbawheat’s year-round coverage at Flights Tights And Movie Nights, as well as a week full of guest posts that some of my favorite bloggers have written for the Avengers Week hosted by The Focused Photographer, and some first-person photographs of the stars taken by Jaina of Time Well Spent at the European premiere. While you’re doing that, don’t forget that there are a lot of fantastic film bloggers covering festivals on the ground this week. For great coverage of Tribeca, I recommend following I Luv Cinema and Life Between Films, and The NYC Film Chick. For information on Hot Docs I recommend following The Matinee and Big Thoughts From A Small Mind. And for reviews from the Independent Film Festival Boston, check out A Constant Visual Feast.
Last week’s winners at the Tribeca Film Festival, give us a lot to think about in terms of next year’s Oscar foreign language race, with Kim Nguyen’s Rebelle (War Witch), Lucy Mulloy’s Una Noche, and Daniel Burman’s All In ((La Suerte En Tus Manos) all picking up prizes. In the documentary category, watch out for Nisha Pahuja’s The World Before Her, Arnon Goldfinger’s The Flat (Hadira), and Jeroen van Velzen’s Wavumba. A little further West, Matthew Gordon’s The Dynamiter and David Fine’s Salaam Dunk took top prizes at Nashville Film Festival.
Those who follow the Oscar shorts races will note the following directors qualified for next year’s Oscar consideration over the past week:
1. Brian Buckley for Asad 2. Shawn Christensen for Curfew 3. Leo Verrier for Dripped (Animated) 4. Isold Uggadottir for Revolution Reykjavik 5. Craig Webster for Carbon
While the documentary shorts don’t technically allow for qualification through festivals, it is also worth noting that Nadav Kurtz’ Paraiso won best documentary short at Tribeca, while Matt Lenski’s Meaning Of Robots took the prize at Nashville and Tania Khalaf’s Gaza Shield won at Athens.
At the commercial theaters, the two films that I am most looking forward to are Marvel’s The Avengers and Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, both of which have already been showing abroad for a while and have received good reviews. If you haven’t heard about them, one features Judi Dench and Maggie Smith battling supervillains, while the other has Robert Downey Jr. and Chris Evans going to a retirement home in India--unless I somehow got that mixed up. Other wide and limited releases include First Position, Last Call At The Oasis, A Little Bit Of Heaven, LOL, The Perfect Family, Jannat 2, Jesus Henry Christ, Mother’s Day and Get The Gringo.
For more on what is coming up in the world of movies, be sure to check out the full Oscar Calendar, and let me know in the comments which of these films you are most looking forward to seeing! .
Those who follow the Oscar shorts races will note the following directors have qualified for next year’s Oscar consideration.
1. Laurie Thomas for Prima Donna 2. Ornana for (Notes On) Biology (Animated)
While the documentary shorts don’t technically allow for qualification through festivals, it is worth noting that Patrick Kack-Brice’s Maurice won best documentary short in Florida.
At the commercial theaters, the wide and limited releases include: The Pirates! Band Of Misfits, The Raven, Sound Of My Voice, Restless City, 96 Minutes, Bernie, The Broken Tower, Citizen Gangster, Elles, Headhunters, Safe, The Five-Year Engagement, Warriors Of The Rainbow: Seediq Bale, The Giant Mechanical Man, Mamitas, Inventing Our Life: The Kibbutz Experiment.
For more on what is coming up in the world of movies, be sure to check out the full Oscar Calendar, and let me know in the comments which of these films you are most looking forward to seeing! .
I’m back with another edition of the Oscar Calendar’s Weekly Watchlist.
Last week, the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival awarded its top honor to Fernand Melgar’s Special Flight (Vol Special), while Ann Hui’s A Simple Life, which was Hong Kong’s foreign language submission to the Oscars last year, picked up five “gongs” at the Hong Kong Film Awards, and the David Di Donatello Awards announced their nominees, including 16 nominations for Marco Tulio Giordana’s Story Of A Massacre (Romanzo Di Una Strage). Meanwhile, The Hunger Games continued to make a pig out of itself, hogging up all the crumbs that moviegoers might have spent on independent films. (Seriously, am I the only one who sees the irony here?)
Those who follow the Oscar shorts races will note the following directors have qualified for next year’s Oscar consideration.
1. Justin Reardon for The Hungarian Gangster Of Love 2. Pendleton Ward for Thank You (Animated) 3. Till Nowak for The Centrifuge Brain Project 4. Joost Reijmers for A Curious Conjunction Of Coincidences 5. Tudor Guirgiu for Superman, Spiderman Or Batman 6. Afarin Eghbal for Abuelas (Grandmothers) (Animated)
While the documentary shorts don’t technically allow for qualification through festivals, it is worth noting that Full Frame gave the award for best documentary short to Mira Jargil’s The Time We Have (Den Tid Vi Har), while Atlanta chose Willem Baptist’s I’m Never Afraid and Aspen went to Douglas Sloan for Elliott Erwitt: I Bark At Dogs. Tribeca, San Francisco, Athens, Florida, Nashville and the David Di Donatello awards are all qualifiers that will be announcing in the next few weeks.
At the commercial theaters, the wide and limited releases include: Darling Companion, Chimpanzee, The Eye Of The Storm, Fightville, Goodbye First Love, Hit So Hard, The Lucky One, Marley, Think Like A Man, The Moth Diaries, To The Arctic, Downtown Express, My Way, Whores’ Glory, Zombie Dawn, and Penumbra.
For more on what is coming up in the world of movies, be sure to check out the full Oscar Calendar. .
I’m back with another edition of the Oscar Calendar’s Weekly Watchlist.
Last week The Hunger Games continued its gluttony at the box office, while Adam Sandler’s Jack & Jill swept all ten categories at the Razzie Awards. Song Of Silence, The End Of Puberty, Jai Bhim Comrade, Back To The Square, The Mirror Never Lies, and Monsieur Lazhar picked up awards at the Hong Kong International Film Festival. Under African Skies took home the audience award at the Cleveland International Film Festival, while Lack Of Evidence won at the Ann Arbor Film Festival.
Fans of foreign cinema should keep their eyes peeled this week as the Academy of Italian Cinema announces the short list for the David Di Donatello Awards on Thursday. Winners of the Hong Kong Film Awards are also expected to be announced.
Those who follow the Oscar shorts races will note the following directors have qualified for next year’s Oscar consideration (I hope to update my predictions in these categories soon). 1. Shawn Christensen for Curfew 2. Leo Verrier for Dripped (Animated) 3. Hayoun Kwon for Lack Of Evidence (Manque de Preuves) 4. Daniel Schmidt and Gabriel Abrantes for Palaces Of Pity 5. Sylvia Schedelbauer for Sounding Glass 6. Don Hertzfeld for It’s Such A Beautiful Day (Animated) 7. Scott Stark for Traces (Animated)
Next week we can expect Short Qualifying announcements from Atlanta Film Festival and Aspen Shortsfest. Athens, Florida and the David Di Donatello awards are also qualifiers, but will probably not be announced until later weeks.
At the commercial theaters, the wide and limited releases include: The Lady, Blue Like Jazz, The Cabin In The Woods, Deadline, Detention, Life Happens, Lockout, Monsieur Lazhar, A Simple Life, Movie 43, Touchback, Unraveled, The Three Stooges, Woman Thou Art Loosed On The Seventh Day, Badass, Falling Apart, Hit So Hard, How To Grow A Band, L!fe Happens, Post Mortem, Touchback, Bad Ass, and Here Comes The Boom.
For more on what is coming up in the world of movies, be sure to check out the full Oscar Calendar. .
I am proud to announce two new features for this blog. The first is the Oscar Calendar. It is a project that I have been working on behind the scenes for a while, and am happy to finally present publicly. The Oscar Calendar is a comprehensive guide where you can find all the dates that an Oscar prognosticator needs, from precursor awards and industry guilds to critics groups and film festivals. I have also included film release dates (both US and a few international), and information about when Academy press announcements and eligibility lists for the technical and genre categories are likely to be delivered. For those who follow the animated short and live action short categories, the Academy’s approved qualifying film festivals are marked with the notation “(Shorts Qualifier)”. You can find the full Oscar Calendar HERE.
The second feature is my Weekly Watchlist. This is where I will say a little bit about the events coming up in the week ahead. A preview, if you will, of news items to watch.
The biggest news item that is likely to land on your radar is the April Fool’s Day ceremony for the Razzie Awards. Their choices always seem a little too mainstream for me (aren’t there any bad documentaries or indie films?), but at least I managed to skip most of them. As I said in my review of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1, I think that the boys gang up on this series a bit too much. Look for Adam Sandler’s Jack And Jill to sweep a good many of the categories this year.
Those who follow the Oscar shorts races will note that Cleveland and Atlanta are qualifying festivals for both their narrative and animated short awards, and Ann Arbor has four short awards that all qualify.
As I look at the new releases for the coming week, I am not sure that any of them have what it takes to beat The Hunger Games at the box office. Oddly, one film being released has already won 11 Oscars! That’s right, Titanic is being re-released in 3D. The week’s newer fare includes the wide and limited release of American Reunion, Damsels In Distress, The Hunter, Take Me Home, We Have A Pope, We The Party, Comic Con: Episode IV- A Fans Hope, ATM, Detention, Keyhole, Purification, Surviving Progress, This Binary Universe and Iron Sky (in Europe).
For more on what is coming up in the world of movies, be sure to check out the full Oscar Calendar. .
