Foreign Oscar Competition 2008!

Well, I realize now that I never posted after my predictions from last year....I was pleased with how I did....I predicted 4 of the 9 shortlisted films, and my alternate (Serbia) got in as well.

Incidentally, I predicted the shortlist of five poorly, choosing Austria, Brazil, Italy, Russia, Serbia…..only 2 correct. But I did predict correctly that Austria would win, which I felt confident of even before the shortlist was announced. Oscar loves the Holocaust.

I was one of the few people not that surprised about "4 Months" or "Persepolis". The uproar over the fact that they were not nominated was upsetting because I highly doubt that most of the bloggers and critics who complained saw more than three or four films on the list. I thought “4 Months” and “Persepolis” were both very good films. They were both thought-provoking, interesting, well-acted…everything a film should be. That said, I saw 20 of the 63 films, and they would not have made my Top Five either. Add to the fact that I didn’t see ANY of the five films that got nominated (I live in Japan, so I am anxiously waiting for the US DVD releases. “The Counterfeiters” and “Mongol” are scheduled to come out in August) so perhaps Romania and France didn’t have the best after all.

That said, I have little faith in a Foreign Film Committee that has chosen to honor such bombs as Sweden’s “Under the Sun” and Finland’s “Man Without A Past”, while ignoring classics like “The Sea” (Iceland), “The King & the Clown” (Korea) and now “Klass” from Estonia (Probaby, my favorite of the 20 I have seen so far….but it’s close)

Oscar has invited 95 countries to the Oscars this year….In the next few weeks, I’ll be posting my submission predictions for all 98 countries that have sent films in the past (several dozen won’t send anything at all) plus the two most likely debuts in this year’s competition- Jordan and Pakistan.