In the tiny little world of Oscar season and film critics we’ve just seen three major critics groups (who are all basically the same voters) go for the same movie – Drive My Car, which is Japan’s official entry into the International Feature category. It isn’t unheard of for an International Feature/Foreign Language film to get into the Oscar race. It just depends on how that movie translates beyond the insular bubble of film critics. Some do, some don’t. Parasite did. Roma did. Many hope that this film will get in for Best Picture. It would need around 100 people to name it as best film of the year and not critics. So we’ll see if it gets in anywhere else.
Steve Pond says:
While the NSFC is an organization of critics for U.S. outlets, a sizable majority of the wins went to films not in English, including three of the four acting awards. The award for “Drive My Car” made it only the fifth film to sweep the critics awards from the New York Film Critics Circle, Los Angeles Film Critics Association and National Society of Film Critics.
Here are the winners:
est Picture: “Drive My Car” (48 points)
Runners-up: “Petit Maman” (25), “The Power of the Dog” (23)
Best Actor: Hidetoshi Nishijima, “Drive My Car” (63)
Runners-up: Benedict Cumberbatch, “The Power of the Dog” (44); Simon Rex, “Red Rocket” (30)
Best Actress: Penelope Cruz, “Parallel Mothers” (55)
Runners-up: Renate Reinsve, “The Worst Person in the World” (42); Alana Haim, “Licorice Pizza” (32)
Best Supporting Actor: Anders Danielsen Lie, “The Worst Person in the World” (54)
Runners-up: Vincent Lindon, “Titane” (33); Mike Faist, “West Side Story” (26) and Kodi Smit-McPhee, “The Power of the Dog” (26)
Best Supporting Actress: Ruth Negga, “Passing” (46)
Runners-up: Ariana DeBose, “West Side Story” (22); Jessie Buckley, “The Lost Daughter” (21)
Best Director: Ryusuke Hamaguchi, “Drive My Car” and “Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy” (46)
Runners-up: Jane Campion, “The Power of the Dog” (36), Celine Sciamma, “Petite Maman” (28)
Best Screenplay: Ryusuke Hamaguchi and Takamasa Oe, “Drive My Car” (46)
Runners-up: Pedro Almodovar, “Parallel Mothers” (22); Paul Thomas Anderson, “Licorice Pizza” (20)
Best Nonfiction Film: “Flee” (41)
Runners-up: “Procession” (28) and “The Velvet Underground” (28)
Best Cinematography: Andrew Droz Palermo, “The Green Knight” (52)
Runners-up: Ari Wegner, “The Power of the Dog” (40); Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, “Memoria” (35)
Special citation for film awaiting U.S. distribution: “Returning to Reims,” Jean-Gabriel Periot
Film Heritage Award: Bertrand Tavernier and Peter Bogdanovich
Film Heritage Award: Maya Cade for the Black Film Archive
You won’t be able to imagine how cinematically inventive DRIVE MY CAR is until you see it. It is just crazy. Murakami-Chekhov smoothly interwoven, in-car dual dialogue structure, etc.
Start your prediction when you see it.
Imagine if the Academy chooses to nominate this movie, a film that nobody will watch no matter how much it wins. Critics have decided to disappear up their own asses even more than usual this year.
Sometimes people refuse to watch movies that are incredible for little to no reason. The people who do see these movies raving about them is not them going up their own asses but simply them not being deterred from watching masterpieces because “it’s got subtitles” or “it’s a little long”
Tony, have you watched Drive My Car?
I wouldn’t say that nobody will watch the film no matter how much it wins. I saw it in a sold out screening in Maine because of the critical and festival awards it garnered. This publicity means a lot. And if it exposes more people to excellent international cinema, what’s the harm?
What movies should the Academy nominate for Best Picture? Their collective favorite films of the year? The films they deem the “best,” regardless if they’re personal favorites? The films that capture the zeitgeist? The films that made the most money at the box office? The films that got the most views on streaming services? The ones that have the most media buzz? The ones that are most accessible and mainstream? Big budget tentpoles? Superhero movies?
Which films should the Academy exclude? Films with subtitles? International films? Independent films? Arthouse cinema? Critical favorites? Films that are over a certain length?
I’m asking these questions sincerely. What is the Academy’s responsibility here?
I am curious where all this Drive my Car love came from ? It certainly didn’t come from Cannes -where the Palme D’or went to Titane , the Gran Prix went to A Hero , the Jury prize went to Memoria and director went to Annette > The only award it won was for screenplay . Why bas this three hour movie based on a Beatles song { Just Kidding } become an Oscar juggernaut ?
First, it’s not an Oscar juggernaut. Not yet anyway. AMPAS deemed Titane unworthy to be shortlisted (film too weird?). I also assume that because DMC is a slow-burn, it’s less of a festival hit kind of a movie, where more exuberant titles would stand out more on initial viewing.
On top of what Idle Time mentioned, I’ve read of a rumor that a specific jury member disliked the film considerably and blocked it from winning Palme consideration
This is interesting 😀 You know which member they were talking about?
Yes (it should be pretty easy to find, I think Ruimy was the one writing about it). Apparently the same person (whose work I have great respect for) blocked Memoria as well (and Ahed’s Knee), meaning that they made sure that my two favorite movies of the year so far didn’t get to win the Palme
True, already found the suspect! 😉
P.S.: And glad to see you liked DMC as much as I did!
Thanks for that bit of info.
The “blocking” sounds harsh, like they have some personal vendetta or something.
To win these festival’s top prize, the film has to be unanimously liked. One person disliking it and it’s a no-go.
While I disagree with this juror’s taste (I’m not surprised since I don’t like most of their films), it’s their right and entitlement for having been selected to be on the board this year. And that’s great. It means that the type of films they choose each year are different from the previous. There’s no pattern, like, say, the Globes or Oscars.
Otherwise agreed but if I’m not mistaken, the jury president gets to choose how the voting goes every year and thus it varies based on the year in that regard as well
From showbiz411, a critic member of the Critics Choice:
“I know there’s a Film Twitter feeling that “Drive My Car” will be “Parasite,” win Best Picture and really up-end the film business. If that’s how the Oscars seem like they’re going, no one will watch the broadcast on March 27th. This is what’s happened to the Emmy Awards: the statues go to shows with small audiences, minuscule, no one watches the Emmys as a result. If the point is to make all this irrelevant, we’re headed in that direction very fast.”
If ratings are the motivation for awarding an Oscar then the award becomes meaningless.
What were the ratings for the people’s choice awards?
Their relevance is a combination of knowing the winners are chosen by people from the industry plus ratings. But if they start rewarding movies like DMC, they’ll lose ratings, and eventually will be like the Tony Awards.
But if they don’t award the things they genuinely like but rather just algorithmically choose the movies that made money, they will not be chosen by the people in the industry and they will lose their relevance
They’ll lose their relevance either way. They need to find a solution, just like they did when they didn’t nominate the best movie of 2008 at the 2009 Oscars: The Dark Knight. They increased the number of BP nominees from 5 to 10 in following year. In 2018 they announced a new category called Outstanding Achievement in Popular Film, but they gave up on the idea. We need that category.
Why? Why would that increase ratings?
It won’t. That point has been made abundantly clear. Ther is no evidence whatsoever it will. But plenty that it won’t.
There is so much weirdly misplaced anger in these parts lately
It seems to me to be hat some people have lost confidence in their iwn views and so are looking for someone to blame for their loss of confidence. Notice, Sasha’s article have political dimension. If your side isn’t winning the argument, you start to question your side. That’s what some intelligent people do. And on the other side, stupid people double down on it. But of course, there’s a difference between question your own side and starting to believe in the other side’s propaganda and start building a dangerous narrative.
The point is that it would be very counter productive and maybe even dangerous. Sometimes it’s not what you but how you say it. Work on how you deliver the message rather than changing your believes. That’s if you really believe your message to right.
So if they’re going to lose all relevance either way (not that I necessarily agree with that, their relevance is something that has to change its meaning but they will not lose it), why do they need to give up the small amount of dignity their awards still have and just lose all autonomy?
I don’t know how much ABC pays The Academy every year for the broadcast rights, but knowing NBC pays the HFPA $60 million annually, we can guess The Academy receives something around $100 million, maybe? It’s a business, and that answers your question.
But if they lose their relevance by giving awards just to blockbusters (which you admit would happen), ABC won’t pay for the awards show either if the Academy stops having a mind of their own in deciding these awards
What is the problem with Drive My Car?
It’s not in English. Americans don’t like to read subtitles.
Americans by and large are too stupid for words.
Don’t forget too lazy to read.
Unless of course they’re getting old and losing their hearing, then they’d turn on the closed-caption to not miss the dialogues. 🙂
Yeah, exactly. I do that when I am watching normal TV. It’s a stupid excuse.
Well, that’s their problems, isn’t it. Where are we going to dumbing down for lazy people? Read isn’t and shouldn’t be that hard.
I’d rather watch the Oscars dying with a minimum style today, despite some questionable choices these years past, than surviving by becoming the People’s Choice Awards, not gonna lie. It’s quite adorable to see showbiz411 thinking that any prize is relevant today for the masses, poor thing.
And it’s quite curious and illuminating that DMC detractors are giving more buzz to the BP win that its own fans. As if honouring a different way of filmaking was a catastrophe because your friendly neighborhood Spiderman is going to save the Oscar ratings. God bless you.
Wonder who the member that was quoted was? I have a guess.
This is all a bunch of hot air. Drive My Car is nothing like Parasite. The latter was directed by a much more well known director (by American industry standards), who made two films in English before Parasite. Furthermore, Parasite is a much more accessible film that is easier to watch. Drive My Car is a long, slow burn that requires attention and introspection on the part of the viewer. Two completely different films. I think Drive My Car has a decent shot at getting a few major nominations (Picture, Director, Adapted Screenplay), but it won’t win anything. I adore both films, by the way. Two of my absolute favorites in the last five years.
This fear mongering is the other side of the Spider-Man coin.
Well, the two films are similar because they have all Asian faces in the movie. So you know the depth of these people’s perception. Problematic to say the least.
Yes, it seems to bring xenophobia in people. Either that or snobbery about highbrow films.
^ Generally agree. Both Parasite and Drive My Car are exceptional, but are very different films. More “mainstream” audiences really responded to the former (which was a well-paced thriller), whereas they are resisting the latter (which is a well-paced slow-burn). Parasite‘s success is explicable (especially in hindsight), but that doesn’t pave the way for Hamaguchi this year (although I would love if it got nominated in some major categories).
After the LAFCA went for Drive My Car in a big way I’d wager it would have influenced the GG voters
I expect it to win tonight but I have Parallel Mothers as a spoiler
Much better collection of films than at Oscars.
And by the way, I saw Drive My Car in August 2021 and loved it instantly, without even knowing the film is (will be) major awards contender.
the Parallel Mothers surge continues to show… Drive my Car is stealing the attention, but it is an extremely open field. I still think that AMPAS may not even finish Drive my Car’s 3 hours running time (with subtitles!), but it is true that, if enough watch it, they will nominate it. Parallel Mothers is an easier sell – as The Worst Person in the World, also is, by the way – and that’s why I think it may prevail with the Oscar/BAFTA/SAG crowd (where Drive my Car would be an extremely shocking nomination for Ensemble)… out of all the foreign language contenders, Parallel Mothers is the only one that assures inmediate attention to any AMPAS members, to watch a screener with subtitles (Almodovar+Cruz), and both are pro campaigners… (Almodovar parties are legendary, as shown in Madonna’s old doc)… and that’s why I think we could actually see Cruz showing up at SAG/BAFTA/Oscar and BAFTA and Oscar featuring more than 2 noms for PM
DMC and PM are two different movies. They don’t have to compete for attention. PM is not a contender for BP. The actors might watch it to see if they want to nominate Cruz, given the wins she’s gotten.
DMC just received the trifecta. Headlines in trades have been given to this movie as the best film of the year for the past month. Not everyone, but plenty enough, will watch it to see what’s the hoopla is all about. That’s what a small film needs — attention and exposure.
Not everyone but perhaps enough people will love it to vote for it. To say that AMPAS as a whole will not finish a 3 hour movie with subtitles is condescending, especially about a body of voters that you come to chew fat over every day. A lot of them are working film artists. That says a lot more than a lot of ppl who visit this site. They are not high school educated construction workers for gah’s sake.
Many voters will not watch it but will have listened to the hype and applause and will vote for it anyway ..that’s often the way it is with foreign film in subtitle
I agreed all along your post until that last phrase. I could speak hours about working class cinephiles I know and pretentious knobheads with a lousy diploma and poor views on art. Yikes.
No offense was meant. I was simply projecting what a lot of people think what AMPAS voters are, lazy people who don’t read subtitles. I do know that a lot of general American viewers who are just reluctant to watch movies with subtitles, whether they’re cinephiles or not. I just don’t think you can ascribe that to the AMPAS voters as a whole.
AMPAS members are widely known to let the screeners to their kids, or reject watching a gay cowboys movie… Drive my car has a lot of positive buzz and attention earned to it. However, Titane’s Palm d’Or meant nothing so far? There are films that are a harder sell and those which are an easy sell. That’s the Drive my car vs. Parallel Mothers fight for attention. Parallel Mothers had Hollywood and AMPAS attention since the project was announced. Drive my car is a surprise, 3 hours long – which is a lot of time dedicated to a film, mind you remember – and also with subtitles (meaning, audience need to pay attention or they will miss stuff). That’s why I still think that Parallel Mothers is a more likely BP nominee than Drive my car… add to this, Almodovar’s parties and Cruz’s campaigning. Both are former Oscar winners, for reasons beyond their obvious talent. Never lose perspective… Drive my car would be a completely unusual nominee. I can see it scoring an Original Screenplay nom, even Director. But honestly, I think Parallel Mothers is also equally – at least – able to pull that off, and also with a Lead Actress and Score likely nominations status.
If Parallel Mothers get in, it would be because of its own strength. Same with Drive My Car. I don’t think they would cancel it each other out. They might not have the same fans who would have to pick one or the other.
For sure, glad you cleared it up.
I might have been wrong about Drive My Car missing the International Feature nom (although I’m still not very confident), but I still don’t think it will really land anywhere else. Maaaaybe Adapted Screenplay.
Best Foreign Language Film 1) Drive My Car; 2) Hand Of God. Need to Watch A Hero.
Best Picture Oscar Potential: 1) Power Of The Dog; 2) King Richard; 3) The Harder They Fall (Yes, I know they will not be up for Oscar consideration, but it was one of the Year’s Best Cinematic Masterpieces);
4) Drive My Car; 5) Belfast – The aforementioned 5 are Exceptional Movies.
6)The Lost Daughter; 7) InThe Heights; 8) Coda; 9) Tender Bar; The aforementioned 4 are Great Movies.10) West Side Story; 11) Passing; 12) Encanto (I Love Original Song We Don’t Talk About Bruno/Lin Manuel Miranda Creative Musical Genius) – These 4 Are Very Good Films. I Need to Watch Cyrano!
13) Dune; 14) Sing 2; 14) Respect; 15) Spencer; 16) Raya And The Last Dragon-Decent.
“I Love Original Song We Don’t Talk About Bruno”
Me too. 🙂 (The movie as a whole… I wasn’t as much of a fan…)
I agree. I have viewed superior anime movies from previous years…Zootopia, Wolfwalkers, Soul, Aladdin, The Lion King, Little Mermaid, Spirited Away, Mulan, Princess Mononoke, Escaflowne and so forth. The Disney animes are the ones from 1990’s not the Live-Action.
Eclectic taste, to be sure. You’re proof that someone who loves an Encanto can also love Drive My Car. Too many people make Drive My Car out like it’s some alien of a movie and that AMPAS will get turned off by it. I think they’re just projecting their own prejudice.
I fully expect the messaging to pivot from Spidey must be nominated to Spidey must win
Unlike Last year’s Best Picture Winner Nomadland, It is original, inventive, intriguing film. Theacting, originalality, story is captivating.
Relax, we all know this won’t happen. Drive My Car, unlike Parasite, received no Globe and Critics’ Choice nods outside foreign language film. A film hasn’t won best picture without any Globe nods outside foreign film since 1981 (and that was a film in English). Drive My Car is likely to receive a total of zero SAG nods (unlike Parasite, which won ensemble). And I bet it won’t get into the DGA five. BAFTA nods are not likely either. But these wins might help it secure a nod, which is far from a done deal, and would be well-deserved.
I haven’t checked this fact, but The Social Network, L.A. Confidential, and Goodfellas (three of the four so far), lost best picture at the Oscars. Only The Hurt Locker went on to win.
Schindler’s List also won all three. Drive My Car is actually the sixth film to sweep all three.
best director and / or screenplay is happening
A nomination might be happening, the win isn’t.
I don’t think anyone is saying it’s gonna win.
The word “Relax” implies Drive my Car does not deserve BP nomination.
You should replace it with “Sadly”.
We know the Oscars will flop if Drive My Car becomes the BP frontrunner. People outside the awards season don’t know much about that movie. They better nominate Spider Man, Lady Gaga, and Don’t Look Up if they don’t want another fiasco.
If the motivation for a nomination is tv ratings, then the award loses all meaning
Zendaya is really popular, should they nominate her? And how about Dwayne Johnson? Everyone loves him, let’s put him up too! And how about nominating that Kurt Warner film for a bunch of awards? That’ll get the heartland to watch fersure!
“And I’m proud to be an American, where at least I know I’m free..”
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No, since Zendaya is only on screen for 7 1/2 minutes of Dune.
Best BP lineup to balance the arthouse with the mainstream is;
Mainstream: Dune, No Time to Die, In the Heights.
Arthouse: TPOTD, Belfast, CODA.
IMHO, 2 women deserve to be in the best director race at the oscars.
Judi Dench won an Oscar for about as much screentime.
What does balance have to with anything? It’s a meritocracy. If the ten best films were all arthouse, is it fair to replace one with a commercial film for BALANCE?
The sex of the director nominees is irrelevant. If you go down that road, where is the representation for the LGTBQ community, the Innuit community, the Maori filmmakers, and especially POC? Odds are there will not be a single POC director nominated. I say they withhold the Branagh nomination, redistrict the whole nomination process, and force a POC nomination in there
Wrong movie. 😉
DMC is not going to be a BP frontrunner by any stretch of the imagination. The current suspense is that would it make it to the lineup of 10.
It seems that all other NYFCC+LAFCA+NSFC BP sweepers (Ferdinand listed five, some other source said four – but no list) were at least top 3 in the BP race at the Oscars. So maybe even its contending for the win isn’t 100% out of question. (I don’t think it will and I definitely don’t think it will win, but, given this historical pattern, maybe it’s not silly to argue that it might.)
Those five are: Goodfellas, Schindler’s List, L.A. Confidential, The Hurt Locker and The Social Network.
I would say the 3 non-winners of those five are in the top 2 to contend for BP. But they also had a lot else going for them, them being American films which the Guilds readily gave them many nods. And at this point lavished by GG and CC. If one is sensible, it won’t look like DMC is going to be that decorated prior to the Oscars. So yeah a nod is the best we can expect.
That’s true, I guess I undersold it a bit, now that I look at it more closely. They were all pretty clearly at least top 2. 🙂
“But they also had a lot else going for them, them being American films which the Guilds readily gave them many nods. And at this point lavished by GG and CC.”
Of course. Personally, I’m somewhere between filler nod and its not even getting in for BP right now, but I’m just saying, given how rare this triple win is and how strong the winners have all turned out to be, the notion that it could in fact win Best Picture (which I don’t believe in myself) is not actually ridiculous, even given all of the arguments against it.
They won’t . Won’t be just a flop. It will be the final nail in the coffin. They’re not that apocalyptic. Drive My Car – $354,330 domestically. Keep it in foreign film. The annoying thing besides this sweep was the complete snub of Dune. NSFC is an outlier, and they went WAY WAY off the reservation today.
Some critics need to understand they only have a job because of the big studios and big movies. But you know, critics can do whatever they want, as long as that doesn’t become a trend with the major awards.
So what you’re saying is that critics should in an ideal world not do their jobs when assessing bigger movies and just give them automatic raves and throw all their awards at those movies, leading to a situation where they have no actual meaning since they’re not even assessing movies critically and honestly anymore? Why not just replace all film critics with random fanboys on the internet in that case?
You know what? What I said above about their jobs was said by a member of The Critics Choice who hated what the NSFC did. He said they’re not supporting their business.
You mean the Pundits Choice Awards who care about nothing but predict the Oscars? On the contrary, it is the Pundits Choice members who do a disservice to film criticism.
Then that person is a moron. Critics are supposed to be independent of the business interests of the studios. If they aren’t, they lose all their meaning
“Critics only have jobs because of big studios and big movies.”
Is that because Spidey fans and No Time to Die fans are also the biggest readers of film critiques? Otherwise, why do critics’ jobs depend on big movies and 14-year old Spidey fans?
Your last phrase is my own definition of fiasco. Putting TV ratings over cinema is valid, too.
Let’s pretend DMC is the best movie released last year, and that we don’t have very good options that are way more popular than DMC.
We don’t have to pretend, DMC is one of if not the best film of 2021. There are other options that would also be deserving, but I doubt they would help with ratings either. If you like popularity contests you can have the MTV movie awards and the People’s Choice Awards for that. NWH is a real contender in those kind of awards ceremonies which are also not watched by anyone anymore. (I actually don’t know if they exist anymore)
Turns out I’ve been pretending since August, then.
More popular options? for sure.
Better? If only…
Nobody is saying it will be a “frontrunner”. You probably don’t know what the word means.
Just to put this in context Armond White in his National Review review called iDrive My Car Green Book for the art house crowd !
Unless you’ve seen the movie and has some insight of your own or that you agree with AW…
Other than that… you know what they say about opinions. It’s like an … Everybody has one.
By the way his Ten favorite films of all time are Sansho the Bailiff , The Passion of Joan of Arc , Nouvell Vague , Nashville , The Magnificent Ambersons , Lola , Lawrence of Arabia ,Jules and Jim,Intolerance and L’avventura !
And no I haven’t seen Drive my Car yet but i intend to.
Each of those films would inspire panicked culture war columns here if they were Oscar front runners.
Absolute legend.
You read the National Review?
Just for his reviews .
What an amazing set of winners ….
LOVE seeing Penelope Cruz here. Please, Oscar voters, nominate this queen for Best Actress.
She’s gaining traction! I think she may and should win the whole thing!
She needs the nom for the sag this next Wednesday!
Best female performance of the year hands down!
Forget driving a Car, this film is gonna need a truck to haul home all the Oscars it’s going to win! It’s a complete Academy sweep now for Hamaguchi’s masterpiece, including categories it’s not even being mentioned for like Animated short, Song, Documentary feature, and Hair and Makeup
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what took you so long? I’ve been waiting for you! 🙂
I’ve been in and out of consciousness from drinking heavily.
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Let’s not get carried away here….
Yes, they have a lot of overlap of voters with the other two majors. Yet, all three only agree once in a decade, starting in 1990.
What NSFC tends to do is once NY and LA announce the winners, they have another month to mull over the previous choices and they tend to revise and go their own way, refining their choices. And rarely they just can’t, like this year.
The “Go Your Own Way” this year is that NY and LA gave DMC BP yet Campion BD. NSFC says nope! We won’t play politics and will give Hamaguchi his deserving BD.
What’s also interesting is DMC’s progression in the wins. At NY, it only won BP, then in LA it won BP and screenplay. Now here, NSFC shy no more gave it FOUR top awards.
It could be a threat for everything at this point, sending ripples through almost all of the categories.
I think it lands in four categories at the minimum.
When will the industry start demanding Asian movies to be more diverse? The actors of Parasite are all from South Korea. Drive My Car has only Japanese actors. No diversity.
Gosh, with those kind of jokes, you should be writing comedy movies.
Funny joke, but there ARE other actors here that aren’t Japanese
Right? Obviously spoken by an ignorant.
Drive my car has actors from different countries speaking their own languages.
not sure if trolling or just woke
Can’t wait for fanboys’ heads to explode if DRIVE MY CAR gets a Best Picture nomination and SPIDER-MAN 8 doesn’t
I wonder if DMC can make Picture and/or Director line-up. Directors Branch likes to nominate foreign directors, and the movie’s shoo-in to win Foreign Language Movie.
Certainly, Director, and maybe Screenplay. Everything else will be a slight longshot save for International Film
If Hamaguchi gets into director, that’s a big shakeup. My two cents is that Campion and PTA are locks in that category. Hamaguchi getting in would leave just 2 spots from the group of Branagh, Spielberg, Villeneuve, McKay
PTA is no lock at all, especially after missing the Globe nod. If he misses the BAFTA nod, which he might, he’ll be on shaky ground.
The Director’s branch often goes their own way, and aren’t as ‘allergic’ to Foreign filmmakers as the general membership. The Writers also can be quite eclectic. Can easily see DRIVE score in both those catergories
It’s amazing how great films can be when the filmmakers don’t care one iota about American culture wars. That’s why international cinema is surging!
It’s also quite fascinating that the NSFC went big time for Japanese, Norwegian, French, and Spanish films. And a very sad statement about American cinema. The only English-language releases that were big players were The Power of the Dog (which won nothing) and Passing (which won one category).
It’s also quite fascinating that the NSFC went big time for Japanese, Norwegian, French, and Spanish films. And a very sad statement about American cinema. The only English-language releases that were big players were The Power of the Dog (which won nothing) and Passing (which won one category).
And Ruth Negga (Passing) is British. 🙂
Irish actually. Ethiopian/Irish
The ascension of international cinema to a place not seen since the 60’s is a cause for celebration if one truly believes in film as art. I’m confused by the attitude that such a thing is bad or something to dismiss or even apologize for.
No way in Hell can these International films of today be compared to the works of Bergman , Fellini ,Kurasawa , Truffaut , Tarkovsky or Bunuel !! *It’s good to see this happening but let’s not over do it, !
The key phrase is “not seen since”
You make it sound as if American films of today are comparable to the works of Welles, Hitchcock, Griffith, Ford, Huston, Scorsese and Spielberg’s early works. And yes, Parasite will be in the pantheon of the best films ever made.