(Kind of) Broken Embraces.

Jose here with some European awards news.

Luis Tosar in Celda 211

The nominees for the 24th annual Goya Awards were announced this past Saturday with Daniel Monzón's Celda 211, a prison drama, leading the field with 16 nominations including Best Picure and Best director. Alejandro Amenábar's Ágora followed with 13 nominations including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actress (Rachel Weisz).

The big news was the snub of Pedro Almodóvar's Broken Embraces in the top categories. This makes it the first Almodóvar movie of the past decade not to be nominated for Spain's Best Picture (Volver won in the top categories three years ago and Bad Education and Talk to Her were nominated but lost in their respective years).

Broken Embraces however received five nominations including Best Original Screenplay, Original Score, Costume Design, Hair & Makeup and Best Actress for Penélope Cruz.

Joining Cruz and Weisz in the Best Actress category were Maribel Verdú for Francis Ford Coppola's Tetro and Lola Dueñas (Cruz's Volver co-star) for Yo, También.

The top two categories stand as follows:

Best Picture and Best Director
Ágora, Alejandro Amenábar
Celda 211, Daniel Monzón
El Baile de la Victoria, Fernando Trueba
El Secreto de Sus Ojos, Juan José Campanella

It's interesting to note that both El Baile de la Victoria from Spain and El Secreto de Sus Ojos from Argentina were submitted by their respective countries to be considered for the Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award for 2009. Trueba won that prize for Belle Époque in 1992 and Campanella was also a nominee for Son of the Bride in the 2001 film year.

Argentinean actor Ricardo Darín (9 Queens) was a double nominee for his lead performance in El Secreto de Sus Ojos and his supporting work in El Baile de la Victoria.

Other important categories include...

Best Latin American Film: Dawson Isla 10 from Chile, Gigante from Uruguay, El secreto de sus ojos from Argentina, La teta asustada from Perú (all of the entries, except for Uruguay, are also submitted for the 82nd Oscars)

Best European Film: Welcome to the North from France, Let the Right One In from Sweden, The Class from France and Slumdog Millionaire from the UK.

The 24th Annual Goya Awards will be held February 14th in Madrid.

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Rosengje @ Cannes: On Tetro

Thanks to Rosengje for sharing her notes from Cannes. Here she is on Francis Ford Coppola's Tetro.

Tetro is, for lack of more eloquent phrasing, just not a very good movie. It follows Bennie (Alden Ehrenreich in his feature debut) as he attempts to reconcile with his brother Angelo (Vincent Gallo). After a stint in an asylum, Angelo has disowned his family and now resides in Argentina under the name "Tetro" with his almost-wife Miranda (Maribel Verdú).


The two brothers both suffer from the pressure of their genius composer father's expectations and betrayals. While the Oedipal issues at play throughout Tetro are intermittently appealing, the film suffers from Coppola's need to excessively explain the motives and psychology. Each revelation is played for maximum dramatic effect. Not only are we treated to various characters discussing each tidbit of information, but there are also accompanying film clips and ballet sequences as reminders. The modest, sincere appeal of the story of loosely connected family members trying to navigate evolving relationships is lost in the director's weighty treatment of the material.

The majority of Tetro is beautifully photographed though there's an over-reliance on visual motifs such as reflections in mirrored surface and the flashing of lights. The decision to shoot predominantly in black and white is mostly successful, but I was drawn out of the world during the garish color sequences and bothered by the insertion of modern devices as counterpoints. This fairly standard family tale is not necessarily tied to a specific time period, so the occasional presence of MacBooks seemed unnecessarily jarring.

And here we get to the element that's winning everyone over even if they're cold on the film, a new star in Aldon Ehrenreich.

Tetro's most appealing quality is its star. Ehrenreich resembles a divine hybrid of Leonardo DiCaprio, Emile Hirsch, and Matt Damon.


Every member of my demographically varied group was swooning over him (as do many of the women in the film). If the story of his discovery by Steven Spielberg in a bat-mitzvah video is true, he just becomes even more appealing. The role of Bennie doesn't require excessive emoting until a dramatic twist toward the end, but Ehrenreich maintains a casually charming screen presence. He keeps the camera's attention even when the story doesn't.

Leo, Emile and Matt conjoined, huh? How can all that starry goodness fit into one man? But more importantly, when will Francis Ford Coppola get his auteurial mojo back? Both Tetro and his previous picture, Youth Without Youth have disappointed the hopeful.

Red Carpet Lineup

Post Oscars the the crowds are smaller but red carpets never stopped being walked on. So here we go with this week's sampling.


Maribel Verdú would like to know what it is with French actresses and The Film Experience. How about some attention for the Spanish ladies? Rupert Friend and Keira Knightley attended the opening of his film The Young Victoria (previous post). Rupert will be the love of Michelle Pfeiffer and Emily Blunt's lives this year onscreen. Offscreen he's still Keira's. They make such a beautiful couple but they're both so angular one wonders if they keep gauze and surgical tape on their nightstands just as a precaution. Cheekbones that kill.

Breaking news: Charlize Theron still hot, still knows it. Can we please have more Carla Gugino and Miranda Richardson onscreen? Come on agents, casting directors, producers etcetera. Use them (We discussed Miranda earlier). More on Carla next week since Watchmen opens today. She's playing Silk Spectre, the first. Speaking of... Malin Akerman is smirking at me. 'You can try to shove me off to the side Nathaniel but I'm coming for you. After Watchmen, I'll be everywhere. Like Megan Fox all over again.' I'm not quite ready to say uncle. We'll see how she does as Silk Spectre II. Was it just me or did Malik sort of blow that bitchtastic opportunity she had in 27 Dresses by playing it safe? That movie needed a dose of over the top villainy to give it some flavor.

We'll end with the stars of the sibling ex-con drama I've Loved You So Long, Elsa Zylberstein and the great Kristin Scott Thomas. They're pictured left at the Cesars (France's Oscars) last week. Elsa didn't ever get real traction for the supporting race here at the Oscars but in France she won the statue. Kristin was nominated for lead actress (as were two other actresses we adore Sylvie Testud and Tilda Swinton) but lost to Yolande Moreau in Séraphine which is about the french painter Séraphine de Senlis. That biopic swept the Cesars winning seven prizes. It isn't only the American Academy that loves the epic period bios. I'd say to expect this to be France's submission for next year's Oscars but for the fact that France always has an enviable supply of dozens and dozens of valid contenders.

My interview with Kristin is now up!

Spain and Oscar's Big Foreign Film Race

I used to be the only site that covered the Oscar Foreign Film Race in anything more than a 'list of titles' way. The sandbox is no longer my terrain alone [*sniffle*] -- even the corporate sites have sections for it now. But at least, you'll give me this hat tip, my foreign Oscar section is always compiled with messy love rather than corporate mandated Oscar-mania. And it has been for years.

I even have a google map of the category --right now it's a charming toddler but when it's full grown (i.e. complete) you'll find it a very informative and handsome fellow. It should keep you well stocked in DVD rental ideas. Feedback appreciated though it's still under construction.


UPDATED 09/26*
Spain is Oscar's third favorite submitting country (19 nominations and 4 wins) in this category. They narrowed their race down to three films. The first was Sangre de Mayo (Blood of May) from José Luis Garci who has represented Spain four times in this category winning for Volver a Empezar back in 1982. But Spain doesn't always go the way we expect. They've snubbed famous directors with potential winner films before: famously Pedro Almodovar's Talk to Her was passed over in 2002.

The second was Gracia Querejeta's female driven Siete Mesas de Billar Francés (Seven Tables of French Billiards --what an odd title?!) which co-stars Blanca Portillo (an Almodóvar favorite) who won Best Actress at the San Sebastian Film Festival for this film and Maribel Verdu (pictured, from Y Tu Mama Tambien and Pan's Labyrinth) who are grieving the loss of the same man, one's father the other's lover.

The third and the selected film is Los Girasoles Ciegos (The Blind Sunflowers) a post war drama by José Luis Cuerda which also stars Maribel Verdú -- she's popular these days -- and Talk to Her's Javier Camara.

Now on to the ever growing number of countries that have announced their representative films...

44 official entries announced thus far
Page 1: Austria to Finland
Page 2: France to Japan
Page 3: The Netherlands through Vietnam
* Vietnam's entry may be heading towards disqualification

...with more movies still to be announced if the past number of total submissions is indication -- it usually reaches about 60, give or take a few. All entries must be submitted to AMPAS by October 1st but it'll take Oscar another week or three to release the "official" list.

Don't you love this part? Now if only all of them were available to each and every one us in whichever country we happen to watch movies in. Here's to global distribution for all of this year's submissions.

I bid you adieu with this trailer for Painted Skin which is playing the role of the mandatory Asian action submission



...which, following tradition, the Academy will then ignore, as is their habit post Crouching Tiger (with the wonderful colorful exception of Hero and the blah biopic size of Mongol.
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