The moral ambiguity of “Corpus Christi” is one of it’s most compelling elements. A film I regret missing at TIFF 2019, despite it’s well promoted debut, is among the most provocative of this years International Films submitted for Academy Award consideration. From Poland, Jan Komasa directs the script by 27-year-old first-time feature film screenwriter Mateusz […]
Typically with Russian submissions to the Academy for International Film, you see dark, brutal, dramatic epics often focused on violence. Loveless and Leviathan come to mind. The Russian selection committee look to the future with promising 26-year-old director Kantemir Balagov, only on his third feature but already capturing three major awards at Cannes, two this
Director Hans Petter Moland has adapted Per Petterson’s dense novel of the same name into a film that’s cinematically ornamental. Internationally, the film is being sold as a Stellan Skarsgård vehicle, despite the fact he’s a minor character in the story. Narratively framed similar to The Reader, Out Stealing Horses exists almost entirely in flashback.
Brazil’s entry to compete in the Academy Award for best International Film debuted at Cannes earlier this year where it received the Un Certain Regard Award for director Karim Aïnouz. “Invisible Life” has some stereotype issues, all women are victims in a story set in the 1950’s and that all men are pushers. Beyond that
Atlantics marks the second foreign film submission for Senegal for consideration in the Academy Awards International Film category. An easy choice for the west coast African country after actress-turned director Mati Diop, became first black female director in history to compete at Cannes earlier this year. Atlantics’ supernatural element makes it stand out among many
Evidence of the growing popularity in international films can be seen this year as two of the films vying for the Academy Award’s five slots feature Hollywood actors. Monos is the official submission from Colombia and stars Moises Arias (Ender’s Game) and Julianne Nicholson (August Osage County) in two of the more prominent roles. The
If you go back and watch the three previous Men in Black films, you will find they always defeat the alien’s but lose the battle against time. When “Men in Black” debuted back in 1997, it had a formula that worked during that era of filmmaking and Will Smith was at the top of his
There seems to be more trivia about Trash being the first film of Stephan Daldry’s that didn’t receive an Oscar nomination than the film itself. Sure the title might be off putting initially, but this Slumdog Millionaire type film about hope, friendship and doing the right thing has its moments. The Billy Elliott director as
The Connection has the thrill of the chase, suspense, two brilliant calculating minds pitted against one another, and awe, as it becomes more and more clear how broad the involvement in illegal activity extends up to high levels of government and across geographical space. It also shows the value of persistence and belief in oneself
In the Name of my Daughter is based on the story of a young woman’s disappearance in France, as written by her mother and brother in a memoir about ten years after she had gone missing. André Téchiné, the French director (and co-writer of the screenplay with Cedric Anger, and the brother, Jean-Charles Le Roux)