One Category at a Time: Foreign Language Film

Once considered a critical laughing stock for its arcane regulations and the dubious qualities of its nominees and winners, Best Foreign Language Film has slowly but surely gained some legitimacy over the last few years. Sure, the system ain't perfect (nor will it ever be), but the implementation of the executive nominating committee has yielded some solid rosters lately.

Of course, the general nominating membership is still prone to some of their milquetoast tendancies...

My Award Nominations: Best Foreign Film

Oscar voting closes today, and believe it or not, there are still some nominees that haven't even been made available for public consumption. One of them is Argentinian foreign language film hopeful Wild Tales, which you won't find on my own Best Foreign Film ballot for the obvious reason that I haven't seen it yet.

On that note, I'll remind you of the three-word caveat that always accompanies my own choices for this category every single year: "Subject to change". I am often forced to amend and improve my five nominees up to several months (sometimes years) after the fact because there's so much good world cinema out there and so little of it gets released in North America in a timely fashion. Among the buzziest international titles from 2014 that I still have to see are the aforementioned Wild Tales (which I may be able to catch just before the Oscars), Godard's Farewell to Language, and Hungarian festival sensation White God.

That being said, even if those or any other subtitled latecomers never make it to my screen, I'd still feel adequately satisfied with these five terrific films.

My Award Nominations: Best Cinematography

This was a great year for this category. Many DPs exhibited rich and varied work that was not only visually dazzling, but saturated with thematic subtext. Whittling it down to ten was tough enough, but then choosing five after that was even more painful (Bradford Young, I'm so sorry!).

Here are my Best Cinematography nominees for 2014, each accompanied as usual with a frame that stood out to me as especially memorable:

One Category at a Time: Cinematography

Twenty-two business days to go until the Oscars; Essentially New Year's Eve for film lovers and award obsessives, both camps into which I fall. How will I ever pass the time?

Why, by continuing my annual tradition of analyzing the various Oscar races in 'One Category at a Time', the very first article series I began back in 2008 when this was just a baby blog. I suppose six years old still seems kinda babyish, but relative to the age of the Internet, I guess that makes this site now more of a disrespectful teenager that wishes it could be more like the grownup websites. That's an appropriate description, I think.

Anyway, back to this year's series, which I will be kicking off (as I did last year) with my favourite category Best Cinematography. This year's race feels eerily similar to last year's, with one inarguable frontrunner soaring well above its competition... and it's the same person too!

Sunday Top Ten: Last Minute FYCs

Hard to believe that in a mere five days, Oscar ballots will be in. I'm sure there are no Academy members reading this, but it's still fun to bang the drum for one's favourite awards hopeful. Here are ten long shots (very long shots) that I feel would make inspired nominees:

Christmas Capsules (Reviews)

Things are probably going to get a bit quiet on this blog (and other award news outlets) over the next couple of weeks. All the Academy shortlists have been unveiled for applicable categories, top ten lists from most critics have been published, and at this point there's not much left to do but wait for the guilds to start piping up in the New Year.

Me, I'll be catching up with all sorts of early releases from this year as well as new ones as they open up in their plush holiday time slots. As I do, I'll keep adding my brief capsule reactions to this space, which you can check up on from time to time (I'll make an effort to tweet new entries). Consider it my Non-Denominational Mid-December Holiday Special to you, whose readership I appreciate all year round!

So have a merry Christmas, a happy Chanukah, a kwazy Kwanza, a tip-top Tet, and a solemn yet dignified Ramadan.

Foreign shortlist arrives; 'Shocking' omissions as always (but is it really shocking at this point?)

Nine films have been chosen to move on in the race for Best Foreign Language Film, and will be screened for nominating committee members over the coming weeks.

Every year, there are critically praised titles that miss this cut and have their awards hopes dashed early. For many, it even dictates whether or not they'll get a North American release. Suffering the cruel sting of omission this year is the Belgium's Two Days, One Night, centred around an acclaimed performance from Marion Cotillard (although many believe she still has an angle on a Best Actress nomination).