It's difficult for anyone outside of festival programmers and the hardest of hardcore festival-going writers to have seen all of the movies that end up on the Oscar shortlist, posted by Indiewire and everyone in creation by the time you read this. This year I've seen more of them than usual for me, a full one-third of them. I should be seeing a couple of them soon since they're still showing in town.
The one movie that's missing that I presume will be everyone's "it got robbed" this year is Kurt Kuenne's Dear Zachary, which I couldn't get into at SXSW and haven't had another shot at since. I trust the buzz on it, and recommend you do the same and see it before it airs on TV (if you're near an upcoming screening). I'm not shocked that Religulous didn't make the cut in the same way I didn't expect Borat to be a Best Picture nominee. Having seen five of the fifteen on the list, I can definitively say that they're all better than Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, and that's not to say I am not fond of the movie. It's very interesting and engaging, but it's the kind of movie I could put on pause, leave the room for twenty minutes and return. I can't say the same about the five I've seen that are on this list.
Below are the ones I've seen and then underneath is the rest of the list.
"Encounters at the End of the World"
Wonderful work from Herzog soon to be available on Bluray for those (unlike me) who have a big pioneer plasma set and top-notch player
"In a Dream"
An absolutely deserving first feature doc that I reviewed back in March at SXSW. I had a feeling that this one would sneak up behind long-held favorites like Man on Wire, Encounters, and Standard Operating Procedure
"Man on Wire"
No one should be surprised on this one. Lots of ads, lots of screenings, an excellent film that got pimped perfectly.
"Standard Operating Procedure"
Anyone wonder what Errol Morris would do if one of his (extremely deserving) films didn't get nominated?
"They Killed Sister Dorothy"
Another excellent SXSW flick that I can't find my writeup for, which means it's lost somewhere on my jump drive that all my backups were on. Really excellent, deserving contender with one of my favorite doc-god-voices, President Jed Bartlett-Estevez-Sheen. Enraged me almost as much as Who Killed the Electric Car?
"At the Death House Door"
"The Betrayal" (Nerakhoon)
"Blessed Is the Match: The Life and Death of Hannah Senesh"
"Fuel"
"The Garden"
"Glass: A Portrait of Philip in Twelve Parts"
"I.O.U.S.A."
"Made in America"
"Pray the Devil Back to Hell"
"Trouble the Water"
If I were to make an educated guess of what the final 5 will look like, I'd actually posit that the five I've seen could be it. It's a good mix that I.O.U.S.A. might invade thanks to the current and worsening financial crisis. I'm not guessing it's these five just because I've seen them (no hubris here, that's a trademark of Movie City News...oh, there I go again), but it really is a pretty diverse, high quality spread honestly. I've been lucky. I should have something else on this general subject later in the week.