Oscar Ceremony 2008
It’s not over until the fat lady sings. Since Amy Adams is anything but fat, that meant another three hours of Oscar give-aways after her rendition of "Happy Working Song" from Enchanted.
Nearly four hours into the Oscarcast 2008…
And it’s finally over. No Country for Old Men has been voted the best film of 2007.
I must admit that I didn’t really watch the ceremony, except to listen to the announcements of the year’s Oscar winners. For about two seconds, I did, however, check out Amy Adams singing a ditty from Enchanted — I just wanted to take a look at her, who, in my view, should have been one of this year’s five best actress nominees.
And I did watch Jon [...]
by Andre Soares | February 25, 2008
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Tags: 2008 Oscar, Academy Awards, Amy Adams, Christopher Rouse, Film Awards, Glen Hansard, Heath Ledger, Jon Stewart, Oscar Ceremony 2008, Stefan Ruzowitzky, The Counterfeiters
Oscar 2008: Foreign Language Film Nominees Symposium
Katyn (top); The Counterfeiters (middle); Mongol (bottom)
The filmmakers of this year’s Academy Award-nominated foreign-language films will take part — "subject to availability" — in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences‘ Foreign Language Film Award Nominees Symposium on Saturday, February 23, at 10 a.m. at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills. [2008 Foreign Language Film Academy Award Symposium Photos.]
The event, which includes clips from the nominated films and a Q&A session with audience members, will be moderated by Oscar-winning producer and Foreign Language Executive Committee Chair Mark Johnson.
The 2007 Foreign Language Film nominees are:
Austria, The Counterfeiters, Stefan Ruzowitzky, director
Israel, Beaufort, Joseph Cedar, director
Kazakhstan, Mongol, Sergei Bodrov, director
[...]
by Andre Soares | January 29, 2008
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Tags: 12, 2008 Oscar, Academy Awards, Andrzej Wajda, Beaufort, Film Awards, Foreign Language Film Category, Joseph Cedar, Katyn, Los Angeles Screenings, Mongol, Nikita Mikhalkov, Sergei Bodrov, Stefan Ruzowitzky, The Counterfeiters
Oscar 2008: Nine Foreign-Language Film Semi-Finalists
Oscar 2008: Best Foreign-Language Film Semi-Finalists
The semi-finalist films, listed in alphabetical order by country, are:
Austria, The Counterfeiters, Stefan Ruzowitzky, director
Nazis have a Jewish prisoner create fake American and British currency in order to weaken their enemies’ economies
Brazil, The Year My Parents Went on Vacation, Cao Hamburger, director
In 1970, during the height of the military dictatorship in Brazil, a boy is left alone in São Paulo’s Jewish quarter after his parents "go on vacation"
Canada, Days of Darkness, Denys Arcand, director
A civil servant finds solace from his drab existence by coming up with all types of Walter Mitty-like fantasies
Israel, Beaufort, Joseph Cedar, director
Israeli platoon leaves the last [...]
by Andre Soares | January 15, 2008
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Tags: 12, 2008 Oscar, Academy Awards, Beaufort, Days of Darkness, Film Awards, Foreign Language Film Category, Katyn, Mongol, The Counterfeiters, The Trap, The Unknown, The Year My Parents Went on Vacation
Oscar 2008: Best Foreign-Language Film Semi-Finalists
The Unknown by Giuseppe Tornatore (top); The Counterfeiters by Stefan Ruzowitzky (bottom)
When I stated in my Oscar 2008 predictions that the Academy’s foreign-language film shortlist is the most difficult to predict, I wasn’t kidding.
Nowhere to be found in the list of nine foreign-language film semi-finalists are:
Cristian Mungiu’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days — last year’s Cannes Film Festival winner and considered by numerous U.S. critics one of the best films of 2007;
Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud’s much-ballyhooed and New York Film Critics Circle winner Persepolis, which may still get a best animated feature nod;
and Juan Antonio Bayona’s box-office hit and multiple-Goya nominee The Orphanage.
Additionally, there was a major surprise among those that [...]
by Andre Soares | January 15, 2008
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Tags: 2008 Oscar, 4 Months 3 Weeks and 2 Days, Academy Awards, Film Awards, Foreign Language Film Category, Katyn, Mongol, Stefan Ruzowitzky, The Counterfeiters, The Unknown
Berlin 2007: Marianne Faithfull, THE WITNESSES
Peeping jane Marianne Faithfull tries to see if there’s a best actress Silver Bear awaiting her on the other side of the glory hole.
In The Guardian, Geoffrey Macnab interviews Marianne Faithfull, whose Irina Palm, the story of a woman who becomes a sex worker in order to get money for her sick grandson, was screened at the Berlinale:
"Irina Palm is far less voyeuristic than such a synopsis might suggest. Faithfull plays Maggie beautifully, with an understatement that belies her rock’n’roll past. She is at pains to point out that there is nothing remotely glamorous or funny about working in the sex industry. ‘I’ve had friends who worked in the sex trade, really good friends. And they are now dead. [...]
by Andre Soares | February 15, 2007
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Tags: André Téchiné, Berlin 2007, Berlin Film Festival, Film Festivals, Irina Palm, Johan Libéreau, Marianne Faithfull, Sami Bouajila, The Counterfeiters, The Witnesses
Berlin 2007: 300, THE COUNTERFEITERS, YELLA
300 by Zack Snyder (top); Nina Hoss in Yella (middle); In Memory of Myself by Saverio Costanzo (bottom)
Berlin Film Festival 2007: Part I
A few other titles that sound intriguing:
Inspired by Frank Miller’s drawings and directed by Zack Snyder, 300 depicts the battle of Thermopylae in the year 480 B.C.E. At that decisive battle, King Leonidas of Sparta and a mere 300 followers confronted invader King Xerxes‘ brush-stomping Persian army. If the film looks even half as good as the stills, it’ll win every cinematography and production design award for 2007. But I wonder if 300 will display anything resembling intelligent storytelling, or if it’ll simply be a series of extended battle sequences glorifying bravery, honor, sadism, and all those great [...]
by Andre Soares | January 26, 2007
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Tags: 300, Berlin 2007, Berlin Film Festival, Film Festivals, I'm a Cyborg But That's Ok, In Memory of Myself, Nina Hoss, The Counterfeiters, The Year My Parents Went on Vacation, Yella
