Alan Rickman (1946-2016)

I saw him on stage as Elyot in "Private Lives" almost 15 years ago, but it'll be his cinematic roles, mostly his villains and his role in "Galaxy Quest" that I'll remember him for.

Los Amantes Pasajeros (2013)

I originally watched Almodóvar's "Los Amantes Pasajeros" when it came out in 2013. At the time, I ended not writing about it, thinking it silly and generally agreeing with the poor reviews. Watching it again, I couldn't help thinking how hollow it really is. There really isn't much holding it together. Almodóvar was clearly trying to emulate his earlier comedies but failed completely to capture the effortlessness and the energy of, say, "Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios".

A technical problem in a flight causes the plane to have to circle for hours on the air, in the hope that an empty runaway is found to have it land. Despite the (preposterous) catastrophe film premise, this is just an excuse to put crew and first class passengers together, exposing their problems. The economy class (and the female crew) are drugged - a political satire element that the director hammered in press interviews at the time of the release.

Many of director's usual actors were on call: Javier Cámara, Lola Dueñas, Cecilia Roth, Antonio Banderas, Penélope Cruz, etc.. However, while he may have relished the opportunity to work again with many favourites, the character list is too long and in need of an edit. This is a major problem - the first class passenger list is too big for a 90 minute film and we spend too much time changing from one to the other. Random subplots go nowhere, most noticeable the actor who decides to take sleeping pills and the newly weds, who contribute little more than eye candy to the film. As a result, and with the exception of Lola Dueñas's character, I couldn't care less if all of them had disappeared or died when the plane finally lands. The crew fared better, partly because their soap-opera style antics are far more relatable than pseudo-political/financial/sexual scandals, some of them perhaps too specific to the Spanish context.

Javier Cámara makes the most of having the best character in the film and gives the best performance. Whether he is panicking or drunk, he commands your attention. Alas, this says far more of his acting ability than anything to do with the film. Banderas and Cruz provide cameos (while causing the aforementioned technical problem), Dueñas and the actors playing the rest of the crew do well and Roth is completely wasted.

At the time of "La Piel que Habito" I mention "the absence of his trademark random strange characters (again, no transsexuals, no drag queens, although there is a surrogate mother) and the colour palette which has toned down the reds and oranges that intoxicated "La Mala Educación" and "Volver"". These are back - sort of. The colour palette is toned up again, even if only a little bit, and while there aren't transsexuals or drag queens, there are plenty of random strange characters (a dominatrix and most of the crew come to mind). But disappointingly, most parts often drift to stereotypes that would cause an outcry if not coming from an openly gay director. Having said that, the relationship between the captain and Cámara's character is by far the most rewarding element of the film, with Hugo Silva's closeted co-pilot storyline the funniest (if not particularly original or deep) mostly thanks to the actor's charm.

The bizarre "I'm so Excited" sequence, where Cámara and the other two gay stewarts perform and lipsync to the song is both surreal and technically the most interesting sequence in the film. But it serves no other purpose than providing an odd English title of the film, missing the double meaning of the word "pasajeros" in Spanish (i.e. passengers and transient). 

His next film, coming out in 2016, is supposed to be a melodrama. My hopes are still high. Melodrama has suited him better in recent years. And even if it ends an honourable failure like "La Piel que Habito", surely it won't be as hollow as this. But perhaps the lesson here is that one shouldn't try to redo the past. In trying to do so, Almodóvar missed its soul. 

Lauren Bacall (1924-2014)

She was discovered by Hawks, met Bogart and became a legend. And that was only her first film.

But a 70 year career is often reduced to four years and four films made at its very beginning  is over simplistic (actually, usually only two or three - no one ever remembers "Dark Passage", sometimes probably not even "Key Largo"). As is to focus on her status as a fashion icon, on "The Look" or her looks (and by the way, she still looked amazing in her last public appearances). Bacall was much more interesting both off and on screen. I will focus on the second. This was a woman that worked both in Hollywood's Golden Age and in 21st Century arthouse. She was directed by Hawks, Minnelli and Sirk. But she was also directed by Lars von Trier and Jonathan Glazer.

And while an icon of Hollywood, she did surprisingly little film work during the Golden Age, just over a dozen films between 1944 and 1960. But she certainly knew how to pick them. In the early 1950s she played a lesbian in Curtiz's "Young Man with a Horn"(*), stealing the film from under Kirk Douglas and Doris Day's feet, and a romantic gold digger in the Cinemascope delight that is "How to Marry a Millionaire". As the decade moved on, she starrred in "Written in the Wind" for Sirk and "The Cobweb" and "Designing Woman" for Minnelli. The latter is one of her most memorable performances, in a opposites attract romantic comedy with Gregory Peck. She also played Elvira in a rarely seen TV adaptation of Noël Coward's "Blithe Spirit".

For the next couple of decades she worked on television and theatre and her film work was in waves, but included a supporting role in a guilty pleasure of mine ("Sex and the Single Girl"), the leading lady in John Wayne's last film and a scene stealing performance in "Murder in the Orient Express".

In 1996, she ran away with "The Mirror Has Two Faces", her only Oscar nomination (which she lost unexpectedly to Juliette Binoche). In 2009, she finally got an special achievement award - but  then she got the limelight slightly stolen, as it was the first year where special Oscars were presented separately.

Yes, she taught Bogart how to whistle, but she did so much more than that.

(*) Until her death, "Young Man with a Horn" was likely to have been the oldest film with all leads still alive.

Robin Williams (1951-2014)

This was a shock. Can't remember what was the last film with him I saw ("Insomnia"?) but from the late 1980s to the late 1990s he had a touch of Midas in him. In "Aladdin" he stole the show with a perfect performance.

Bob Hoskins (1942-2014)

With Betty Boop, in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit".

Peter O'Toole (1932-2013)

It was his first leading role on screen, and it was the one which made him immortal. No matter that his career lasted a further fifty years, he'll always be T.E. Lawrence, i.e. Lawrence of Arabia. The only reason he didn't sweap all awards, Oscar included, was Gregory Peck and "To Kill a Mockingbird".

A magnificient actor, not just in Lean's film but in films as diverse as "The Lion in the Winter" and "Venus" and two of my personal favourites the delightful "How to Steal a Million" with Audrey Hepburn and as the voice of food critic Anton Ego in "Ratatouille".

After seven missed nominations, the Academy gave him an honourary Oscar. He almost declined it, saying he wasn't over yet. He wasn't - he got an eighth for "Venus".

Richard Griffiths (1947-2013)

From Harry Potter to "The History Boys" and everything before, between and after, Richard Griffiths was a fantastic actor and it was always a pleasure to watch him.

Magnificient, Marvellous Meryl

And at long last, she got her third Oscar, 29 years after the last... An excellent performance in a ok, occasionally mediocre, occasionally good film with too much kindness for its subject matter has finally given her her just reward. She's finally in the pantheon of actors with three or more awards(*) - a fair prize of one of the best living actresses.

Of course I could argue she should have won it before, particularly with "Out of Africa" (too soon after "Sophie's Choice", I know), "The Bridges of Madison County" and "The Hours" (she didn't even get a nomination and she was by far the best thing in the film). As a guilty pleasure, I would even add "The Devil Wears Prada" to that list. Now, can she do a play in London? Please, please, please...
My only regret? That Glenn Close couldn't get the Oscar she long deserves.

As for the rest? Well, I pass...

(*) - just in case you're wondering, they others are: Katharine Hepburn, Ingrid Bergman, Walter Brennan and Jack Nicholson. Hepburn had four, the others three. Brennan was a wonderful actor, but three Oscars in five years was a bit too much.

Precious (2009) poster

Another example of a Saul Bass inspired poster. I am yet to see "Precious", but from what I know of it, the poster gets the main message spot on. I hadn't seen the poster before, which I suspect is the US one, but it came up on a search of Saul Bass images.

La Piel que Habito (2011)

Two years ago, when "Los Abrazos Rotos" came out, I wrote that it could be the beginning of new phase in Almodóvar's career. Having seen his latest film, "La Piel que Habito" I saw nothing that contradicted me. The most obvious, are the absence of his trademark random strange characters (again, no transexuals, no drag queens, although there is a surrogate mother) and the colour palette which has toned down the reds and oranges that intoxicated "La Mala Educación" and "Volver".

I'm still at odds on how much I liked it. In some ways it is an honourable failure, but it kept me interested, even if the first twist was predictable way too soon (partly from the way it's shot and introduced). It is well acted, and the cast, with the exception of the actor playing Vicente and the attemps of Brazilian accents, are very good. The three leads are excellent (I never noticed the leading lady before despite having seen a few films with her). Almodóvar has, I think, admitted the debt he owes to "Les yeux sans visage" ("Eyes without a Face") rather obvious from the iconic mask in the poster but I also picked "Vertigo" (more to that later), the Argentinean film "El Secreto de sus Ojos" (a scene that rhymed with that film's ending), Almodóvar's own "Átame!" and something else that I couldn't identify.

In a house in Toledo, a surgeon (Antonio Banderas) has been testing a new type of artificial skin, one which is strong enough to resist burnings. His guinea pig is a beautiful woman (Elena Anaya) - but who is she and why is he been keeping her prisoner? This is a film which I feel very hard to write about without giving a lot of the plot away - so please consider this a spoiler warning, as I will give most of it away.

While the film's beginning is fairly straightforward, is the second act (the two flashbacks) that make it truly fascinating. The flashbacks are meant to explain to us how and why things have happened. They present a truly dark vision on human nature: whereas the first act could be read partly as a case of Stockholm's Syndrome, the second adds to it a whole new dimension. We now have a rapist being punished by the victim's father (and later raped by the man who started the whole cycle of death and violence) and a much more disturbing case of Pygmalion-like Stockholm's Syndrome. It is also a case of "Vertigo"-like necrophilia, where Banderas's character recreates his dead wife in his prey. And just going a step back, it is interesting how the key moment of the film, the second rape scene, relies heavily on the viewer's perception of the characters involved more than on anything shown. The young man (under the influence of recreational drugs) has no idea that the girl is taking for a walk is incapable of giving consent (or even of understanding sex, as she is just an overgrown child). As the final act starts, we move from sexual politics and a dark thriller, and it crashes down into a convencional ending that reaffirms life and preaches that art can save your soul. I am not so sure if was the ending to expect for such a necrophiliac work - Almodóvar seemed to have lacked Hitchcock's courage.

I like to make two final brief poins: First, the true connection to Brazil isn't explained, but that's just bad editing or writing). Unless the connection is Vera Cruz, the name of Anaya's character - meaning True Cross, it was the original of Brazil. Second, I quite like the unexplored aspect of the bioethics of the film, but sadly that is kept to a small scene where Banderas argues why he should play God.
PS - there are some Spanish posters for the film (like the one just above) which are definitely worth a look.

Raúl Ruiz (1941-2011)

Raúl Ruiz (or Raoul Ruiz if you prefer the French spelling) died today. I only saw two of his films, "Le Temps Retrouvé" (1999) and "Mistérios de Lisboa" (2010, poster above). I liked both without loving them, but since the second is a major adaptation of the work of a Portuguese writer, Camilo Castelo Branco, shot in Portugal and with a Portuguese cast, I realised I could not but pay homage to him. After all, he has managed to make this XIX century novel a small success in XXI century France. Obrigado.

La Doppia Ora (2009) French poster

Below is the French poster for an Italian film called La Doppia Ora. Is it just me, or does this remind you of Saul Bass?

L'Arnacoeur, or a tale of two trailers

L'Arnacoeur, is soon opening in the UK. I saw the British trailer and thought it stupid, idiotic and had no wish to see the film whatsoever. You can see why, surely.


Then yesterday, speaking to a French friend, she mentioned she was really keen to watch the film, so out of curiosity I looked for the French trailer and now I am quite curious to see it, as it sounds really clever. (Sorry, no subtitles)


So, my question - why dumb down the trailer to the point of idiocity?

An Education (2009)

I liked "An Education". It's a well made film with a nice story. It is well constructed. It has a charismatic leading actress that, come out of nowhere, carries nearly the whole weight of the film on her shoulders. It has two great performances by Peter Sarsgaard and Alfred Molina, the latter excellent and underused as the leading lady's father. As a plus it has a cameo from Emma Thompson and Rosamund Pike gets the chance of a light role that sadly doesn't amount to much, although it isn't her fault - but maybe I am still in awe of her after watching her as Hedda Gabler recently.

It's a romantic fantasy in a fairy tale world of girl's schools, chocolate box London and Parisian dreams. But the idea of a father allowing his 16-old daughter to marry a 30 something and to abandon school and the Oxford dreams that he harbours with so much acquiescence bothers me and verges on implausibility. I can not believe that for a minute in 1960s middle class, suburban London. It also proves that films are made in the editing room, not on the set: please watch the deleted scenes on the DVD. Two whole sequences are presented in a fuller, alternative form. Whoever decided to go with the final version deserves a medal. It slightly bothers me that Nick Hornby got praised simply because he's a famous writer. If the two re-edited sequences are representative of his script then he clearly doesn't understand drama or cinema. Of course, this is a bit unfair, as I am using something that did not make to the final cut, but my point is it could have had. True, Carey Mulligan deserves all the praise she got, but overall I felt so underwhelmed by the whole thing.

So, then to my point: how can this truly pass for one of the best films of the year?! It's a lovely soufflé, a delightful bonbon, an indulgent ice-cream cup (ok, you get the idea) but nothing more. You'll enjoy it while it lasts but it will vanish out of your mind at best a few days after watching it, if not earlier. I expect the contenders to best films of the year to move me, to make me laugh, to make me cry, to make me think, to make me hate or fall in love with the characters (as appropriate) and ultimately with the films themselves - or do I really have too high expectations?

La Dama y la Muerte (2009)

A hilarious animated short that I hope will get the Oscar. Death and some doctors battle for the life of a dear old lady, but no one has asked her for her opinion.

Official website here where you can see the short itself (direct link here).

Thank you, I guess...

5 films will be competing for an Oscar for Best Animated Film because of this. I guess there had to be SOME redeeming feature to it. Click on it to see it in a normal size - it doesn't improve though...

Edit: The film was "THE DOLPHIN - Story of a Dreamer".

Los Abrazos Rotos (2009)

Three years after the acclaim of "Volver", Almodóvar's new film has had some mixed reviews. From what I read of the bad reviews, they partly they accused him of self-indulgence, partly of creating a convoluted story which is hard to follow. I strongly believe that those defending the second point should reassess their career of choice and limit themselves to watch something more appropriate to their intellectual abilities, like "Transformers" or "Meet the Spartans". Yes, the film has a flashback, and there are scenes from the film-within-the-film in that flashback, but you can easily tell them apart (either that or I am a genius).

However, those who accuse him of self-indulgence have a case. There are many moments throughout Almodóvar's new opus that brought to my mind scenes of past films (and not only his own - Penélope Cruz as Audrey Hepburn?!). Not only "Women on a Verge of a Nervous Breakdown", which seems to be revamped into the film they are shooting - the gazpacho full of sleeping pills, the leading lady throwing her ex's things from her apartment to the street, the insane second wife, the nosy downstairs neighbour, and I am sure I could go on if I recalled "Women..." better. It also mimics the plot structure of "Bad Education" - a film within the film and flashbacks. And there is even a voice-over/dubbing moment, which is ever present in so many of his films with Carmen Maura and Victoria Abril. And like "Bad Education" and "Law of Desire" one of the lead characters is a film director. Clearly the director/screenwriter is repeating his motifs a bit more frequently than he should - or maybe this is a general wink to an audience which by now has a good grasp of his film career, and most of us are missing the point.

This is a tamed film compared to his previous works. I am not sure if it's aimed to be a crowd pleaser, but it might just be. There are no transvestites, drag-queens, transsexuals or bizarre events. It's a much simpler story of obsessions and things untold, clearly taking inspiration from the "women's pictures" of the 1940s. I should point out by now that I actually liked the film. It's nostalgic for a cinema that I love - there are some crucial stairs taken directly from old Hollywood sets. But it has some wonderful moments which are Almodóvar's own. His colour palette. The scene I mentioned above with voice-over/dubbing and that can be seen out-of-context in the trailer. Put it in context and it has an unsuspecting emotional power, albeit an "artificial" one.

Afterwards I was wondering what will follow from here and I suspect that in a few years time we'll realise that the director has started a new phase in his career.

PS - This review is especially dedicated to a homonym.

10 films from the last decade

That my film preferences lie with older stuff is not a surprise to anyone reading this blog. But people get annoyed when I can’t list a recent film which isn’t animated among my favourites. Even here, I think there have been only a handful of comments or posts about more recent films. So in order to dismiss the idea that I only watch or like old films, I went through my voting history at IMDb and selected a few from the top rated ones.

I have chosen the titles from films I have rated 8 or more and had a release date of 2000 or later. I have deliberately excluded animation, as otherwise Pixar would rule with Monsters, Inc., The Incredibles and Ratatouille making the cut. This also means that there’s no “Persepolis”. It is not the list of my highest rated films – my criteria change through time, and unless I watch the film again, I won’t revise my vote. Instead, I chose films that I thought were something different or left a mark on me for positive reasons – several are European, which is a change from what would have been a similar list 10 years ago. So, are you ready? Here it goes in chronological order:

Gosford Park (Robert Altman, 2001) – I think Altman described this as a Who-cares-Whodunit. It’s a very accurate description insomuch as the mystery goes. It is far more an account of the upstairs, downstairs lives of English aristocracy in 1932. The cast is nearly a who’s who of the great living British actors (Judi Dench, Miranda Richardson and a few others come to mind as missing) and the film is worth seeing for Maggie Smith’s scene stealing Countess alone.

Le Fate Ignoranti (Ferzan Ozpetek, 2001) – I can’t remember why I went to see this. I think someone recommend it. I also can’t remember if I saw it in the Watershed or (more likely) the Arnolfini in Bristol. But I was won over and Ozpetek has since become one of my favourite directors. A potential soap-opera (a woman finding out her recently deceased husband was having an affair with a man), it turns into a study of grief, survival, family and as in all Ozpetek films – food. And as ironies go, the two leads (playing opposite ends of the “love triangle”) end up playing husband and wife in Ozpetek’s later “Saturno Contro”.

À la folie... pas du tout (Laetitia Colombani, 2002) – Despite a 2002 release data I have only watched it a few months ago. It has Audrey Tautou and a fantastic script that kept surprising me, without being implausible. It uses a fantastic, old story device – different accounts of the same story. And, as always, the versions don’t necessarily match.

Far From Heaven (Todd Haynes, 2002) – If I had to venture a favourite in this list this is probably it. When I saw it last (and I have seen it three times, I think) I had yet to see Sirk’s “All That Heaven Allows” from which it borrows massively. Maybe it will change my perception of it, maybe not. It still has a fantastic script, Julianne Moore’s best performance ever (and that's a difficult choice), Elmer Bernstein’s beautiful score which was sadly his last, and Haynes endless love for the material is paying homage to.

La Mala Educación (Pedro Almodóvar, 2004) – In the mid-1990s, before he skyrocketed in the English-speaking world, I had passed through a mini love affair with Almodóvar. Then “Kika” came along (I saw it on the first TV screening in Portugal, so I guess around 1996-1997) and the affair was broken. “La Mala Educación” was the film that reconciled me with the Spanish director’s oeuvre. It probably isn’t my favourite Almodóvar, but I couldn’t resist all the “Double Indemnity” quotes, and Gael García Bernal is certainly one of cinema's deadliest “femmes fatales”.

Sommersturm (Marco Kreuzpaintner, 2004) – This is one of those films where a good script and confident acting and direction do combine quite well to produce something that is better than the sum of the parts. It’s a coming of age, coming out tale. Two teenager best friends are part of a rowing team, until one of them starts going out with a girl in the team and the other gets jealous.

Un long dimanche de fiançailles (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2004) – Audrey Tautou again… A woman believes beyond all reason that her lover is still alive despite being given for dead in WWI. I didn’t think too much of “Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain”, although I know I am in the minority. However there was something about this next Jeunet/Tautou collaboration that touched me and makes me want to go back to it. But this time I want to see the film without the aid of English subtitles (French ones are allowed though).

Startdust (Matthew Vaughn, 2007) – This one appeals to the child, the romantic and the fan of swashbucklers in me. I watched it on the edge of my seat, something very rare, and with a smile on my face throughout. To make it perfect, I would take Rickie Gervais and Sienna Miller out of it. And then there’s Michelle Pfeiffer’s perfect, inspired casting – the scene when she admires herself in the mirror is my favourite. ‘Nouf said.

Gone Baby Gone (Ben Affleck, 2007) – I wasn’t expecting much, and certainly not the punch in the stomach that is this film. Discussing it with a friend a few days ago, he said the film was worth because of the ending. I think it is the most uncompromising ending I have seen in a film since “I am a fugitive from a Chain Gang” (and I mean that chronologically, so it's 1933) – but the film is more than that. It demands your attention and keeps you focus on it. Casey Affleck is great, and so is the actress who got the Best Supporting Actress nomination. Pity that life occasionally imitates art, and the film never got the attention it deserved.

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (Tim Burton, 2007) – A cinematographic adaptation of a Broadway musical is not the easiest thing to do. An adaptation of a Sondheim musical is even less, because of his music and his themes – this is not a musical for the masses, nor are the themes of Sweeney Todd for the fainted hearted. However, Tim Burton managed to do it successfully, helped by Johnny Deep and Helena Bonham-Carter, the latter massively overlooked. My favourite moment of hers is towards the end when she closes a door behind her. Her face shows how much heart broken she is for what she has done, which she knows it’s the only thing she could have done.

Some really good news

A few months ago I mentioned the trailer for a friend's film. There have been some good news, which hopefully will be even better in a few months.

The Oscars, or I don't care anymore

Recently the Academy has decided to increase the number of nominees in the best film category from 5 to 10, something they haven’t done since the early 1940s. This is part of a set of moves to increase the audience of the Oscar telecast, along with reforms on the Best Song category and the honorary awards, with the latter no longer part of the main telecast. A friend asked me for my reaction – which is, I couldn’t care less. This wasn’t as a pointless question as it sounds – I am a bit of an Oscar buff, and from 1991 till about five years ago I was quite keen on the Oscars (some people are still surprised at my growing indifference). Something has changed recently – I am finding the films chosen too predictable, too dull, too much Oscar-by-numbers. I think the first time I fully felt this was after watching “Mystic River” and thinking Tim Robbins would get an Oscar for a part that wasn’t necessarily his best but because he played a “challenging” part, four months before the fact. It was a predictable, “tick the boxes and get an award” affair that has only got worst.

Over the last few years, few interesting things were nominated at all, but even the potential nominees list wasn't that much better. Ratatouille and Marion Cotillard were exceptions, Ben Affleck's directorial debut “Gone Baby, Gone” was another – despite only getting a single nomination. The first third of Wall-E was one of the most beautiful films I've seen (but I wouldn't give it an award, because the rest is way too silly). I still haven't seen “Slumdog Millionaire”, but I have my doubts that it will be my choice of best film of the year. And then there are films like “Doubt”, “Frost/Nixon” and the likes, who have the pretence of a pedigree and are just DULL. “Doubt” irritated me because an actress got a nomination because she read her lines – her performance is indifferent, brief, but her speech is amazing (*) – and very much reveals the theatrical origins of the play. “Frost/Nixon” was even worst – there is no point to the film, no tension, nothing. Everyone knows how it’ll end. Surely people should be aware of that tension is an essential part of engaging an audience. Others are just overrated and no one will watch them in 15 years, despite the fact they aren't half bad, just not as good as the press made them (“Juno” comes to mind). It’s what I call the “Dances with Wolves” syndrome.

My problem, I think, is that I have seen too many films, which make me incredibly critical of sub par stuff. Last week I went to see “Last Chance Harvey”, and suddenly I realised that (for a few scenes only, to be fair) I was watching a third rate version of "An Affair to Remember" (itself a remake). Only Somerset House ain't the Empire State Building. Last night, while watching De Palma’s “The Black Dahlia”, I encountered quite obvious references to “Double Indemnity”, “Body Heat” and the 1970s version of “The Postman Always Rings Twice” (which I never even saw) – and I am not even a film noir connoisseur.

The problem is that the Oscars no longer make sense in today's movie industry. They were created at a time where a handful of studios produced the vast majority of American films, and the goal was to reward that same industry. This means that most voters would watch most films or be aware of them. A look back at the nominations between 1927 and say 1960 will reveal most of relevant A-productions of American films of the period in there, even if didn’t win, even if they only have a single nomination for sound or best assistant director or whatever. (Please note I am not discussing winners, and looking at the list of films nominated, regardless of how many nominations they got). There are of course, exceptions. Hardly any B-stuff, which means that except for A-titles like Double Indemnity or The Maltese Falcon, film noir is absent. The same goes for gangster films or westerns (except those by Mr Ford) although comedies were deemed good enough to get nominations in the 1930s and 1940s. This insularity is why very few non-American films were rewarded in the first years – a notable exception is Charles Laughton’s performance in “The Private Life of Henry VIII”.

Nowadays the Academy wants the Oscar to be an international award, to reflect a global market, yet only a handful of films not in English language are distributed in LA (the necessary criterion to be eligible). Moreover, even those need a marketing powerhouse behind them, like Miramax was in the 1990s, otherwise they won't go anywhere. But here lies the problem: as you expand your pool of films and attempt to become universal, it must become painfully obvious the impossibility of the task and you are forced to recognise you can’t be exhaustive. On the other hand, the criteria for a foreign language film, the category created to recognise that there are other markets out there, are archaic, complicated and extremely political, as each country submits a single film for the category.

And there's all the fuss in 2008 because none of the actors who won is American (despite the fact that Tilda Swanson and Daniel Day-Lewis are English speaking performers in American films, and Javier Barden was acting in English in an American movie). If an Oscar nomination is any measurement of quality, there are only a handful of non-English speaking actors who were good enough to be nominated. Must be that acting is really bad outside the English speaking world. For instance, Carmen Maura which is an actress that I like very much is not "good enough". (She's was Penelope Cruz' mother in Volver). If you compare two films, whatever their origin or language, the criteria should be the same. In a sense, Cannes, Venice or Berlin are fairer competitions - you're either in the short list or not, but at least they don't claim to cover the world.

The core problem is this: the Oscars are now plainly about the money (although there’s still the pretence of quality). The money at the box-office, the home video sales and the revenue from the telecast. The Academy also wants to get audiences inside the US and outside the US, and the more they want both, in the end they'll end with neither. The films they're rewarding now are pale imitations of the films they should have recognised about 5, 10, 15 years ago. It's Sundance as a brand.

Ultimately, what they expect is that if the next “Ratatouille” or the next “The Dark Knight” gets nominated it will boost audiences. It won’t for two reasons. First because everyone knows they won’t win – a “serious” film will. Second, what everyone forgets is that “The Dark Knight”, good as it was, was mostly hyped because a fantastic and disturbing performance by an excellent actor who had recently died. Take that out, and it will deflate.

(*) – A brief performance is not necessarily unworthy of an Oscar. Judi Dench steals “Shakespeare in Love” with 8 minutes of screen time, and Anthony Hopkins only appears for about half an hour in “The Silence of the Lambs”.