Box Office Blather: Spectacles, Star Vehicles, Subtitles and Easy $

Year in Review Pt 1 of Many
It's time to wrap up 2010. You'll have to have patience since The Film Experience likes to do this piecemeal... and often! Let's do it every day at 10 AM or 10 PM or both when we magically have free time. How about that? We'll start with the US box office.

Box office hits get much coverage in the media so let's just dispense that basic "smash hit" list quick-like and move on to more interesting less covered seat-filler topics. All figures on all lists are up until the December 18th. And please go easy on any errors as I am unskilled at math is not my strong suit.



US Top Dozen

1. Toy Story 3 $415
2. Eyesore in Wonderland $334
3. Iron Man 2 $312
4. The Twilight Saga: Eclipse $300
5. Inception $292
6. The Commercial For Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Pt 2 $265
7. Despicable Me $250
8. Shrek Forever After $238
9. How to Train Your Dragon $217
10. The Karate Kid $176
11. Clash of the Titans $163
12. Grown-Ups $162

The list proves again - as in every year - that the American moviegoer has an extremely limited palette. There are only four types of films he/she will go to in droves: animated features, sequels/remakes (i.e. "franchises"), action/visual spectacles and broad comedies. It doesn't get more diverse until much further down the list. The only film in the year's top 25 that doesn't fit neatly into one of those four categories is Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island. So well done, Marty. That is a true accomplishment.

Subtitled Features
(I've included worldwide figures too for the sake of provenance)

1. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo [Sweden]  $10 (worldwide: $104)
2. The Girl Who Played With Fire [Sweden]  $7 (worldwide: $66)
3. The Secret in Their Eyes [Argentina]  $6 (worldwide: $33)
4. I Am Love [Italy] $5 (worldwide: $10)
5. The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest [Sweden]  $4 (worldwide: $40)
6. My Name is Khan [India]  $4 (worldwide: $41)
7. A Prophet [France] $2 (worldwide: $17)
8. Dabangg [India] $2 (worldwide: $3)
9. Kites [Miscellania] $1.6 (worldwide: $3)
10. Raajneeti [India] $1.5 (worldwide: $12)
11. MicMacs [France] $1.2 (worldwide: $16)
12. Golmaal 3 [India] $1 (worldwide: $2)

Beyond interest in the Swedish "Millenium" trilogy -- which dropped steadily with each film here and elsewhere in equal percentages -- it was tough going for international fare yet again. It seems like a different world entirely than when we regularly had a couple of substantial breakout hits a year (as recently as the mid Aughts). The only steady market seems to be Bollywood features, which regularly gross about a million with barely any media coverage. Oscar nominees are a far less stable subcategory. Despite more media coverage their grosses tend to be all over the place, ranging anywhere from $10,000 (Peru's Milk of Sorrow) to just over half a million (Israel's Ajami) to the $2 million range (France's A Prophet and 2009 holdover Germany's White Ribbon) to $6 million (the winner, Argentina's The Secret in Their Eyes). In other words it's a bit hard to imagine that the Oscar nomination does all that much more for the films than they could have managed on their own... unless they win. It's tough to quantify so it's aggravating that the studios seem to think that the first quarter is the only time to release the high profile foreign contenders. (It's like how the English language Oscar contenders all have to compete with each other for the same limited seasonal dollars from November through February. It's so weird.)

Next...?
Well, I was going to do a list based purely on original material but the list was so depressing (it was basically original material that could easily be confused for a remake) that I screamed abort! abort! and changed course immediately. Let's try this. Which DRAMAS, i.e. the things audiences mostly only want to see on their TVs now, were hits with moviegoers?

Top 12 Dramas (reality based i.e. no supernatural, genre or primarily action-focused stuff)

1. Shutter Island  $128 [debatable classification - remove it if you will]
2. The Town $92 [an action movie in a sense but mostly a drama]
3. The Social Network $91
4. Eat Pray Love $80
5. Dear John $80
6. The Last Song $62
7. Why Did I Get Married, Too $60
8. Secretariat $58
9. Letters to Juliet $53
10. Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps $52
11. For Colored Girls $37
12. The American $35

On this list we see that quality matters far less than having a star in your movie; just don't expect big returns on investment since big stars cost $10+ million. Also: Amanda Seyfried and Tyler Perry are good bets for non-gargantuan but sturdy profits. The Social Network, a film without any action sequence, gooey romance or crime-angle, is a true anomaly. It's only here because it's awesome and topical. But being awesome and topical will only get you to around $90-100. It's interesting that The Social Network's box office is so similar to Brokeback Mountain's, another anomaly that had quality as its chief selling point. (GASP. What a crazy thing to bank on!)

Best Return on Investment???
This list is haphazard / insufficient using only production budgets vs. US distribution returns from box office mojo. In other words it's not so accurate (merchandising, foreign markets, DVD sales and the potential windfall of sequels all contribute to insanely costly movies making a lot of money... eventually. While marketing costs subtract from that profit margin all the while.) But I think the following list is interesting as a very blurry snapshot as to what films are profitable even before you factor in these other things.

1. Paranormal Activity 2 $84 gross = 28 times its budget.
2. The Last Exorcism  $41 gross =22.7 times its budget.
3. Easy A $58 gross  =7.25 times its budget.
4. Jackass 3-D $116 gross = 5.8 times its budget.
5. The Kids Are All Right $20 gross = 5 times its budget.
6. Twilight Saga: Eclipse $300 gross = 4.4 times its budget.
7. The Karate Kid $176 gross = 4.4 times its budget.
8. Diary of a Wimpy Kid $64 gross  = 4.2 times its budget. 
9. Despicable Me $250 gross = 3.6 times its budget. 
10. Dear John $80 gross  = 3.2 times its budget.

Black Swan, budgeted at $13 million may well join this top ten since it's already earned $15 million and it's only just finished its first weekend of wide release and once it wears off its opening week energy, presumably it'll get that Oscar nominee boost to keep it going.

If you include worldwide revenues and franchise potential the numbers would change. How to Train Your Dragon, for example, which cost $165 million to make and grossed $217 million doesn't sound that profitable until you factor in the foreign gross (another $277 million) and the eventual sequels ordered up, which will come into the world market with the most cost efficent marketing tool possible: familiarity. And some movies are far more profitable overseas: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo was budgeted at $13 million and has grossed $104 million worldwide, so only 10% of its gross is coming from America. But I was trying to make this as easy on myself as possible hence the US totals.

The year in box office. Crazy numbers. I'd be happy just making a really crappy "per screen average" figure this week. How 'bout you?

Finally..

It would... oh never mind. This post is long enough. What's the last movie you paid to see? Did you get your money's worth?

"Different Places" (Critics Awards & Dragon Tattoos)

Please read the title in your best exasperated Nomi Malone voice. Plz and thx. I can't read the words "different places" without hearing Showgirls in my head.

The big critics prizes (Los Angeles and New York) have come and gone but more cities are following suit declaring their bests. Now, by the magic of the expandable post, we can share them all without appearing to be as dull obsessive and monotonous about what we do here at the film experience as those investigations into unsolved cold cases are in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.

I've lept from Nomi to Noomi so I pray you're still with me.

I just watched the first film in the Millenium trilogy months after the hoopla and and I'm sorry that I have to ask it: WHAT is the big deal? It's so inelegantly structured as a film and so TV like in its choices. It's also a shade too enamored of the misogyny it condemns. I'd been vaguely curious to see it because audience identification with this violent barely verbal girlwoman fascinates me; what does it say about us that it's been such a great year for aspergers anti-heroes (see also: Social Network)? 

The best moments in the film were rare tossed off funny bits, usually courtesy of Michael Nykvist (who you'll recognize from the great Swedish picture Together or the Oscar nominee As It Is In Heaven)  and a few fine details within Noomi Rapace's leading work as the very popular Lisbeth Salander. You can sometimes catch Lisbeth trying to decipher her own impenetrable emotions as if they're as myterious to her as they are to us, which was a very nice actorly touch. Noomi was recently nominated for the "Critics Choice" and though she's good in the role, I can't say it was the revelation I'd hoped for given the acclaim and the sudden explosion of job offers that followed the trilogy (I'm actually totally weirded out that anyone -- in this case the film's director -- thinks she's been mistreated or cold shouldered by Hollywood).

In other words, I'm interested to see what Rooney Mara does for David Fincher in the same role; every once in a blue moon cover versions are better than originals. We'll see.

Mostly I was disappointed in the writing and filmmaking and that it felt like a television show. Just about the only visual thrill in the long film was the scene where black and white photos are made to move as continuous negatives chase each other. That image is smartly repeated. They must have known that it really worked. The scene haunts like the girl's a living ghost, which is a neat trick given the narrative. We wonder, along with Mikael Blomkvist, what spooked this dead girl and redirected her blurry gaze away from the camera.

In short... Noomi: B/B+ Movie: C Opportunity to See David Fincher Take a Crack At This Material: B- On this last. Fincher is one of my favorite filmmakers but I'd rather he do something else since this film already exists but he's very talented and he'll surely improve on it... though I'll miss the Swedish authenticity given that they're not changing the locale and given that I'm never very excited about people remaking foreign films for America. But my main question is: Why does he want to do yet another unsolved mystery/serial killer story? It's too early in that career to start repeating himself, isn't it?


What were we talking about? 

Oh, yes, critics prizes. If you'd like to discuss Toronto, San Diego, San Francisco and who dared to plant a flag that didn't say "Social Network!" on it >GASP!<, read on.


I'll always hold a soft sport for the San Diego Film Critics for loving Michelle Pfeiffer in White Oleander back in the day (surely one of the most brilliant/least rewarded mainstream performances of the entire decade) so what did the SDFC love this year?

San Diego
Picture Winter's Bone
Director Darren Aronofsky for Black Swan
Actress Jennifer Lawrence in Winter's Bone
Actor Colin Farrel in Ondine
Supporting Actress Lesley Manville in Another Year
Supporting Actor John Hawkes in Winter's Bone
Original Screenplay Jesse Armstrong, Sam Bain and Chris Morris for Four Lions
Adapted Screenplay Aaron Sorkin for The Social Network
Foreign Language Film I Am Love
Documentary Exit Through The Gift Shop
Cinematopraphy Wally Pfister for Inception
Animated Film Toy Story 3
Editing Jonathan Amos & Paul Machliss for Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
Production Design Dante Ferretti for Shutter Island
Score Rachel Portman for Never Let Me Go
Ensemble 44 Inch Chest
Body of Work Rebecca Hall (Please Give, The Town, Red Riding)
Kyle Count Award Duncan Shepherd (Film Critic)

• Congratulate them for at least thinking for themselves. This dangerous activity, thinking for oneself can yield results both beautiful (John Hawkes!) and horrifying (Rachel Portman's aural assault. You are not the lead actress of your movie, Ms. Portman! Let Mulligan do that.)

Toronto

Picture The Social Network
[Runner up: Black Swan & Uncle Boonmee]
Director David Fincher for The Social Network
[Runner up: Darren Aronofsky & Chris Nolan]Actress Jennifer Lawrence in Winter's Bone
[Runner up: Natalie Portman & Michelle Williams]
Actor Jesse Eisenberg in The Social Network [Runner up: Colin Firth & James Franco]
Supporting Actress Hailee Steinfeld in True Grit[Runner up: Amy Adams & Melissa Leo]
Supporting Actor Armie Hammer in The Social Network[Runner up: Christian Bale & Geoffrey Rush]
Screenplay  Aaron Sorkin for The Social Network
[Runner up: The King's Speech & True Grit]
Foreign Language Film Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
[Runner up: Mother & Of Gods and Men]
Documentary Exit Through The Gift Shop
[Runner up: Inside Job & Marwencol]
First Feature Exit Through The Gift Shop
[Runner up: Get Low & Monsters]
Animated Film How To Train Your Dragon[Runners up: Despicable Me & Toy Story 3]
Jay Scott Prize for Emerging Talent Daniel Cockburn
Special Citation Bruce Macdonald for directing four movies in 2010 This Movie is Broken, Trigger, Music From the Big House, and Hard Core Logo 2
Rogers Canadian Film Award Nominees Denis Villeneuve's Incendies, Vincenzo Natali's Splice and Bruce McDonald's Trigger

• Toronto's TFCA weirdly decided to honor a real supporting player (Armie Hammer) in one supporting category and then play fraud (Hailee) in the other. Why do critics organization do this? It's not like the Toronto Film Critics Association influences Oscar votes, so why lie? Also isn't it a touch bizarre that Uncle Boonmee (my review) is their runner up best picture AND their winner in foreign film but still can't manage to even be a best director runner up when the only reason anyone loves it so is that it's such a distillation of What Apichatpong "Joe" Weerasethakul does? Joe is the reason people love the movie, period. It's the very definition of an auteur film.
  

San Francisco
Picture The Social Network
Director (tie) David Fincher for The Social Network and Darren Aronofsky for Black Swan
Actress Michelle Williams in Blue Valentine
Actor Colin Firth in The King's Speech
Supporting Actress Jacki Weaver in Animal Kingdom
Supporting Actor John Hawkes in Winter's Bone
Original Screenplay The King's Speech
Adapted Screenplay The Social Network
Foreign Language Film Mother
Documentary The Tillman Story
Cinematography Matthew Libatique for Black Swan
Animated Film Toy Story 3
Marlong Riggs Award for Courage and Vision in the Bay Area Film Community Elliot Lavine who is a teacher, exhibitor and repertory curator for Bay Area programming. He helped revive popularity of film noir and pre-Code feature films.

• I love the specialized local awards that film critic organizations usually gives. That's a good use of their power. Oscar predictions is not a good use of their power. Just sayin'. Not that that's what San Francisco has done this year exactly... though they probably got a few "right"

LFF 2010: five final festival films to wrap up with...

Craig here from Dark Eye Socket with my LFF wrap-up.

As of tonight the BFI London Film Festival is done for another year. It's been a stellar year all told, if the surplus of reports are to be believed. And I'd willingly add a further approving nod to the list. I didn't manage to see everything I wanted (juggling festival times and dates with travel arrangements is an art – one that's open to fateful intervention...and multiple tube delays), but what I saw was on the whole a bumper crop. Roll on next year, I say. Here are five previous reviews, selected from the films I saw:  Uncle Boonmee, A Screaming Man, Winter Vacation, Rare Exports and What I Love the Most. And below are five final mini reviews of a few festival highlights.

Thomas Vinterberg introduced his new film, Submarino, in a cheeky fashion: “if all goes well, you’ll be depressed at the end of the film. Enjoy yourselves!” It was no happy time sure, but it was an enthralling film, despite its determinedly grim subject matter. It follows two brothers’ hard, poverty-stricken lives in contemporary Copenhagen; a family tragedy as kids has left them scarred and emotionally unable to cope with adult existence. Hope is hard to grasp, but not too far away; redemption comes at a cost but may just stop dead the cycle of despair plaguing one or both of the brothers. The characters' direness isn’t forced or over baked and sympathy is well-earned. Lead actors Jakob Cedergren and Peter Plaugborg are excellent as, respectively, the older and younger siblings. Vinterberg’s humanistic approach is thoroughly rewarding and the tautness of the script ensures we become embroiled in the brothers’ plights. It’s strangely an easy film to like, but not always pleasant to watch. B-

 Submarino

Abel, the second directorial effort by actor Diego Luna, was a complete contrast to Submarino (I saw them consecutively). The story of a boy, the titular Abel, who returns home from a stay at a psychiatric hospital to resume living with his mother and siblings – only to assume the role of patriarch of the house, brought on by his father’s disappearance years earlier. The family go along with the ruse in the hope that it aids the boy’s recovery. It’s an amusing, sweet-natured look at how families are truly peculiar to themselves more so than to others. It also questions the role of the father in modern Mexican life and makes more than a few choice and aptly conveyed criticisms of male-dominated hierarchies.





Though it plays all this with pleasant abandon, Luna handles the few slightly troubling darker moments with able care. If the ending seemed a bit easily arrived at, it was made up for by the wonderful photography and easygoing performances, not least a cracking turn by young Christopher Ruiz-Esparza as Abel. C

Abel

Two excellent documentaries at the LFF this year were, for my money, two of the fest's best. The first, Journey’s End (La Belle visite) from French-Canadian director Jean-François Caissy, looks at the day-to-day lives of the residents of a Quebec retirement home for the elderly – the L'Auberge des Caps – over five seasons. Situated between a frosty ocean view and a busy Highway, the home, refurbished from an abandoned motel, is a building once made for passing visitors, but now houses folks in the later stages of their lives. Caissy unobtrusively documents random events with warm assurance: dear old gals getting their hair done, the comings and goings of deliverymen, birthday celebrations, personal prayer time and even the home’s resident dog, who frequently scarpers the vast, long corridors. All the community is shown with great thoughtfulness, and interest in their lives is duly maintained through Caissy’s sure-handed control of his material. The inherent tranquillity of it all is thrown into sharp relief by the inevitable idea of finality aroused by the title. It was a joy to spend time with these people. B

Journey's End

The second documentary to wow me was Frederick Wiseman’s Boxing Gym, now playing in US theaters. Wiseman is as much a film artist as any fiction filmmaker, and is often (rightly) held up as such alongside many a fellow documentarian (Chris Marker and the Maysles bros, for instance), especially for his no talking heads, no descriptive onscreen captions and, ultimately, no fuss approach. As ever, his mastery of the form is present and apparent. The titular gym in Austin, Texas is the focus of Wiseman’s elegant and measured gaze: its owner Richard Lord and various members – including lawyers, students, young mothers, doctors, soldiers – train, chat and generally box happily away whenever their often busy lives permit. All the while Wiseman, with his signature visual dexterity, acutely captures key moments and exchanges which reach far beyond the activity at hand to reveal insights into contemporary America. The sounds and aural rhytms of the gym are particularly notable: the noise of fast punches to speed bags, the constant buzz from the training timer chart, the white noise of friendly banter in the background. It’s a visually splendid film, too: light falling on the gym floor, frenetic, dance-like close-ups of nimble-footed boxers and still shots of the city in bright daylight all display Wiseman’s skill with crisp composition. But the telling snapshots of individual gym members resonate most. I was interested in each person’s history, the fleeting ins and outs of their lives, and could’ve happily spent many more hours with them at Lord's gym. Wiseman gets every aspect spot on. A

Boxing Gym

Finally, Sofia Coppola’s new film Somewhere was, at once, a pleasant surprise and a film seemingly set on autopilot. It’s lovely to look at but it feels rather too much like happy stasis. The first half hour is largely a series of beautifully photographed scenes simply woven together, featuring a strung-out Hollywood actor played by Stephen Dorff frittering his time away lounging with pole dancers and film world flakes in between routine appointments. That’s all well and good until he has to take charge of his estranged daughter (Elle Fanning) and attempt to emotionally re-engage with his real self.

Dazed, cool-around-the-edges drifters are common currency for Coppola, and the film doesnt tread anywhere fresh. It’s fairly easy to predict where Somewhere will end up. The film meanders nicely enough – Sofia does love those lazy days – but it loses some of its early finesse on later scenes which don’t go anywhere or say anything particularly interesting. Coppola is obviously criticising the Hollywood machine here, but she’s also clearly enamoured with it. Is she maybe too close to really have something coruscating to say. She’s a direct product of it, which makes several of her soft attacks come off as slightly too precious. It’s not ivanssxtc (though I’m actually quite glad about that), but it does effectively pinpoint some of the less glamorous actorish tasks with effective wit and clarity. (An 'old-man make-up' test sitting is both deliberately dull and languorously creepy, and my favourite moment in the whole film – it subtly speaks volumes about the sometimes tedious nature of stardom in one acute slow zoom.)

Somewhere

Somewhere has the most relaxed, laid back atmosphere of any film I’ve seen in 2010 so far, save for perhaps Greenberg, and is a refreshing and escapist diversion for a globe still in economic crisis (though is an indulgent tale about a privileged, self-examining A-lister quite what the world desperately needs right now?). Dorff and Fanning are very good and Harris Savides’ photography (more L.A. kinship with Greenberg) is some of the year’s best. But, to be honest, Coppola is coasting, however blissful the ride. C-

My personal top five from the LFF were: 1. Boxing Gym, 2. A Screaming Man, 3. Journey's End, 4. Submarino, 5. Our Life

Linkenstein

What follows is a strange amalgam of old and new links. It's a frankenstein roundup, stitched together over the past four days from aborted link posts that were accidentally unposted... until now. "IT'S ALIVE!"


/Film Jon Hamm as Superman?
Movie|Line's failed/jokey photoshop attempt at the same thing utterly delights me (pictured left)
I Just Want to Be Perfect Black Swan website devoted to Nina's (Natalie Portman) psyche.
Cinema Blend a look at the newly announced cast of The Hobbit. With pics. Why do I feel that this movie is going to be such a disaster when I love the LotR trilogy? I guess I've lost faith in Peter Jackson given that the beauty of King Kong was smothered by a lack of self-editing and then we got the disastrous The Lovely Bones.

ONTD Rachel McAdams and Michael Sheen. I must have slept through this pairing. This is news to me.
Cinematical Pixar gives its first female director the book (Brenda Chapman was to helm The Brave previously due out in 2012...but you know, I assume this could delay the movie). Boo.
Montages (in Norwegian) a look at what's coming up very soon in Norwegian film. The writer is most excited for The King of  Bastøy starring Stellan Skarsgard, Kristoffer Joner and Benjamin Helstad. The film takes place in 1915 and is based on a true story about a youth prison. Hmmm. Could it be next year's Oscar submission? It's never too early to start thinking about that given that the Oscar eligibility calendar is already in the 2011 film year now when it comes to Best Foreign Language Film.

(Partially) Off Cinema
Tiger Beatdown "No One is Ever On Your Side" excellent, excellent article on Mad Men's Betty Draper Francis. A must read for fans of the show in case you missed it.
Benefit of the Doubt on Metroid, feminism and the Aliens franchise (if you're curious as to why that's suddenly in the air again, it's due to the box set's release Alien Anthology.)
Moby Lives on literature's problems in reflecting our internet ruled new world: timeliness or timelessness?
The Faster Times a list of all the new shows coming to Broadway in the spring.
The Oatmeal How to Pet a Cat. Hee

Something That's Really Bothering Me
Did you read the NY Times piece about the shortage of memorable lines in the movies these days? I suppose it's only helping them that everyone has been talking about the piece and linking to it (like me) for a couple of days but I do not understand the response. I've only read a couple of "in response" articles but they seemed to join in the lament. The article cites 90s films like Terminator 2, Forrest Gump and Jerry Maguire as among the last mammoth 'quotables.' Some response articles are saying things like "yeah, it's sad that movies aren't literate anymore..." I'm sorry but Forrest F'in Gump and Jerry Maguire are not literate movies. They just had fun simple catchphrases. Why are people equating catchphrase-making with great screenwriting and extrapolating that into a lament for the state of modern cinema? Does that mean that Arnold Schwarzenegger movies deserved Best Screenplay Oscars?  A lack of catchphrases does not a poor screenplay make. The article makes a vague statement indicating that these things can take time,  citing "Plastics" from The Graduate as a line that percolated before boiling. But then it blames The Social Network for not having a great lines (um, excuse me? It has hundreds of great lines... it'll just take awhile for a few  of them to rise to the top) Meanwhile The Big Lebowski is praised for "The Dude abides." Listen. The Coen Bros write great dialogue. But I was around in 1998 when The Big Lebowski premiered. It was received with pockets of enthusiasm (as their pictures usually are) but mostly a shrug, and some considered it a small setback after Fargo (which had been nearly as popular as Raising Arizona, their first mainstream breakthrough. Lebowski wasn't.) It was only years later after obsessive fandom had successfully added several fresh coats of "classic" paint on Lebowski that people were incessantly quoting its dialogue and acting like it was this huge hit and of the best films of the 90s.

The article does suddenly remember that "I drink your milkshake" (There Will Be Blood) permeated pop culture but completely forgets about "I wish I knew how to quit you" (Brokeback Mountain) which was quoted just about as often as movie lines ever get quoted. And then there are any number of lines from Mean Girls (Best Shot subject this week!) as reader Dom pointed out a few days ago. You or someone you know quotes that movie every day. I know, right. 

I guarantee you that "milkshake" and "quit you"will never disappear. And that 5 years from now, some line from The Social Network will still be in the public vernacular. One day people might not even remember where they first heard the line they end up using from The Social Network it may dig so deep down into the bone marrow of everyday conversation. You think everyone who has ever said "fasten your seatbelts. It's going to be a bumpy night" was thinking of All About Eve (or had even seen All About Eve) when they first said it?

The Foreign Film List Grows: Miki's Endurance, Maria's Acclaim

63 countries have now announced their Oscar submissions. Last year we had 65 films and the most ever, if my data is correct, was 2008 in which 67 countries competed for the coveted 5 slots. (If 10 is the number for Best Picture, shouldn't the corresponding prize for subtitled features, also be 10? ) In other words, numbers-wise, we're just about finished. The deadline has already passed but some countries are quiet about their submissions. The "official" official list will arrive any minute now... or next week depending on the speed with which AMPAS does their paperwork. Soon is the point.

A naked blue moment from Puerto Rico's Miente a.k.a. Lie. Spanish is the
language to know in this category. 11 of the 63 entries are in Spanish!

I've updated all the pages so you can see the info. The major contending countries, those frequently in the hunt, have all announced their representative films.

• Afghanistan to France
  (23 films. No word yet from Bolivia, Chad, Ecuador or Fiji.)
• Germany to Nicarauga
  (19 films. No word yet from Kyrgizistan, Lebanon or Malaysia.)
• Norway to Venezuela
  (21 announcements. No word yet from Singapore, Sri Lanka, Ukraine or Vietnam)

I wanted to highlight two important actors in this year's field.

First, we have to note the presence of the 60 year old actor Miki Manojlovic (pictured left). He is the star of two of the submissions this year: Bosnia's Cirkus Columbia and Serbia's Solemn Promise (also known as Besa). If headlining two of the 60+ submissions isn't enough of a mark of border-crossing popularity, consider that he also appeared in last year's finalist from Bulgaria The World is Big and Salvation Lurks Around the Corner, Serbia's submission from 2007 The Trap and 25 years ago he was part of the Oscar nominated Yugoslavian hit When Father Was Away on Business back when subtitled films used to have long theatrical runs. (Sigh. Good times.) If he looks familiar to you you may have seen him in an Emir Kusturica picture (he's made a few) or in François Ozon's Criminal Lovers.

I also wanted to note the presence of Norway's Maria Bonnevie. She was born in Sweden to Norwegian actors and grew up in Norway. But today she a star of international cinema. She's another face that should be growing familiar to festival audiences and the voting body of this particular Oscar branch. She's headlined a past Oscar submission, Denmark's Reconstruction (2003), and won various best actress citations for I am Dina (2002). She starred in the Russian film The Banishment (2007) for the acclaimed director Andrei Zvyagintsev. She's representing Norway this year with Engelen in which she plays a drug addict mother.  I am ashamedly (mostly) unfamiliar with her which I can't quite figure out as I love Scandinavian cinema and I have heard of many of her titles. She hasn't really crossed over or 'gone Hollywood' as some international beauties do (and directors, too, actually) once they make a name for themselves at home. But she did appear in that odd Antonio Banderas Viking picture The 13th Warrior (1999) which I have very foggy memories of and you may have also seen her, as I did, in the terrific Norwegian thriller Insomnia (1997).  Yep, the one that Christopher Nolan remade quickly (The Let The Right One In to Let Me In trajectory has happened over and over again in the history of cinema)

Left to right: The Polar Bear King was one of her earliest pictures; Insomnia
wowed critics and then got remade; romancing Film Experience favorite
Nikolaj Lie Kass in Oscar submission Reconstruction; and The 13th Warrior.

Left to right: Best Actress wins for I Am Dina; the Russian film Banishment;
addiction drama Engelen, Norway's current Oscar submission.

Just looking at stills from her filmography makes me assume she's like the Nordic Cate Blanchett. She's a few years younger but she looks similarly dramatically versatile is what I'm saying.

Three Questions For You:

1. Are you a fan of Bonnevie or Miki? 
2. Which of the 60+ submissions are you anxious to see in the unfortunately distant future?
3. Are you proud of yourself for being fluent in Spanish right about now? I'm jealous!

Foreign Film Oscar Submissions: Alexander Skarsgård's Little Brother

We haven't heard quite yet if Norway will submit A Somewhat Gentle Man for Oscar consideration but if they do the Skarsgård clan could take up two spots in the Academy's foreign film competition.

The Skarsgårds are totally taking over movies and television! Father Stellan has been in everything for decades now from blockbusters (Pirates of the Caribbean, Mamma Mia) to arthouse favorites and beyond. Alexander Skarsgård, his son (they're pictured left in an old photo), bouyed by the media's ravenous appetite for True Blood has become a hot commodity in the past couple of years. And now little brother Bill Skarsgård has the lead role in Sweden's Oscar entry Simple Simon.

Here's the trailer.



In other foreign film news we know that Peru chose Contracorriente (Undertow) which I previously reviewed and quite liked. It's got seaside beauty, and Oscar likes a good nature shot but it's also a gay romantic drama so who knows if they'll respond well. Meanwhile Hungary continues to rebel against well known Oscar taste by choosing films with a surreal bent. Good for them for being themselves.

Can you imagine how boring it would be for Oscar voters if they had to sit through 60 films that were all inspirational biopics, sports dramas or travelogues with old people and little kid in tow?

Austria to France only one confirmed film, La Pivellina
Germany to The Netherlands three confirmed films including Hungary's crazed-sounding Bibliotheque Pascal
Norway to Vietnam seven films confirmed.