What Ingrid Watches

November has finally come and the Oscar fever is rising! Soon the first nominations and awards will be announced and you will be able to follow it all here. But let's have a look at some of the recent news. I will also give you my opinion of some movies that I have seen in the meantime. A couple of weeks ago the Academy announced its longlist of countries submitting their movie for the International Feature Film Oscar. The list was 93 titles long, which was a record. Unfortunately, the Academy had to disqualify one movie; the Nigerian film contained English dialogue, which is a big nono. Really too bad, since it was the first time that Nigeria participated. Ford vs. Ferrari has been released in the meantime and the reviews are mainly (very) positive. Quite extraordinary is the fact that the two main actors - Matt Damon and Christian Bale - will be competing against each other in the Best Actor category. What happens when you have 2 very strong actors in one movie, is that u...

Today I present you another trailer of an upcoming movie that is linked to the Oscars: Weathering with You, Japan's submission for the International Feature Film Oscar. As you can see, Japan has chosen an animated movie this year, which is not a coincidence because Weathering with You is one of the most successful movies in that country this year. The movie also appears in the Academy's long list of Animated Feature Film, where 32 movies have been submitted (which is a record by the way). The plot centres around 2 main characters. Hodaka Morishima is a 16-year old schoolboy who runs away from home and ends up in a very rainy Tokyo, where he wants to become a writer. Soon he meets an orphan girl, Hina Amano, who has a really special gift: she can change the weather with her mind. A friendship emerges quite quickly, but will they become more than friends? I found the trailer to be really beautiful, moving and magical. The most magnificent scenes feature an almost submerge...

The trailer that I present to you today is also linked to the Oscars; Our Mothers is actually the Belgian submission for the International Feature Film Oscar. To be honest, the choice of this movie came as a total surprise, not only for Belgian movie viewers but also for critics everywhere in general. Many had expected that my country would have chosen Young Ahmed by the Dardenne brothers (Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne), which won the Best Director Award at the Cannes Film Festival of this year. The movies by this duo - usually social dramas - are quite successful, especially with the critics and at film festivals. But critical success does not automatically guarantee an Oscar nomination. In the past, Belgium did submit movies by the two brothers (for the International Feature Film Oscar) and none of them actually got nominated, let alone shortlisted. Is this the reason why this year we chose another movie by another director? Mind you, Our Mothers by Guatemalan director Cesar D...

In May of this year, Parasite won the Palme d'Or at the Festival of Cannes. Ever since that moment, the last movie by director Bong Joon-ho (The Host, Okja) has received one raving review after another and it is now even considered to be one of the best movies of 2019. But how well will this South-Korean movie do at the Oscars? Let's face it: Asian movies usually don't do so well at the Oscars. Granted, regularly an Asian movie will receive a nomination in the category of foreign film, but that's about it. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was one of the very few to receive other nominations, including Best Movie but that's about it... Will Parasite prove to be the exception to the rule? Is the audience ready for another foreign movie with subtitles? The critics at least are! Neon, who will launch Parasite in America, has got some big plans. With its campaign, it will try to achieve the mere impossible: nominations for Best Foreign Language Film, Best Movie, Bes...