2012 Golden Globe Predictions

A year older (literally, as of yesterday), but none the wiser, for here I am once again predicting those awards that are handed out in a ceremony that has (luckily) become a notorious one-man show courtesy of that comic genius called Ricky Gervais. Admittedly, the list of films in this year's selection does not include, for all its dull predictability, anything to make us throw up our hands in horror...or joy, depending on how seriously one takes these things. In other words, there's no The Tourist this year, although Angelina is back in the line-up at her most cosmopolitan: in the Foreign Language Film category, no less. I haven't seen In the Land of Blood of Honey yet, but rumour has it it might beat the Iranian masterpiece A Separation. After watching the trailer, I must confess Angelina's commendable effort looks like a heavily Balkan accented (if, unlike me, you have the time, please check out the language eligibility rules of this category in the Globes) war drama with a storyline that is cheaper than Jennifer Lopez's latest perfume. I might be wrong, though, and this is the Globes, so anything can happen.

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San Sebastian 2011 review: 'Le Skylab' by Julie Delpy and 'Take This Waltz' by Sarah Polley

It is hard not to draw comparisons between Julie Delpy and Sarah Polley, who have presented in consecutive days their latest films Le Skylab and Take This Waltz here at the San Sebastian Film Festival's competition strand.

Born to show business families, they both enjoyed successful careers as child actresses, then went on to work with some of the world's most acclaimed filmmakers (Delpy with Bernard Tavernier, Agnieszka Holland or Krzysztof Kieslowski; Polley, with Atom Egoyan or David Cronenberg) before making up their minds to write and direct their own movies and gaining international recognition for that work, including Oscar nominations in a discipline, writing, nobody would have predicted when Oscar buzz first started to purr around their names for their performances in Kieslowski's White and Egoyan's The Sweet Hereafter. (Julie Delpy shared a Best Original Screenplay Oscar nod with Before Sunset director Richard Linklater and co-star Ethan Hawke in 2005, while Sarah Polley was nominated in the Best Adapted Screenplay category for her film debut Away From Her in 2007).

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San Sebastian 2011 review: 'Albert Nobbs', a film by Rodrigo García

The key to the success of any film ascribed to the cross-dressing subgenre is whether the central performance is able to create an autonomous character who can live beyond the limitations of the gender gimmick. Sadly, Glenn Close's commendable effort to inhabit the character of Albert Nobbs, a woman dressed as a man to make a living as a waiter in 19th Century Ireland, completely fails to do so, for it has nothing more going for it than its gimmick. Not once during the almost two hours of this overlong, stagy rendering of George Moore's short story does the viewer (at least the one writing this review) have the impression to be watching anything else than a hugely popular actress, with coincidentally androgynous looks, dressed in drag for the sake of self-important farce.

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2011 Emmy Predictions

I'm a little tied up here in the middle of a major film festival, but in less than one hour Emmys are gonna start to be handed out and I can't miss my annual chance to go out on a limb with my predictions, get everything wrong and don't give a damn about it.

Actually, my interest in this year's Emmy race died out on September 10 when the Creative Arts Section of the awards was officially presented by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. That section includes the Guest Performance by an Actress in a Drama Series, where Randee Heller was up for an award for her memorable role of Mrs. Blankenship in the fourth season of Mad Men, but she lost out to Loreta Devine of Grey's Anatomy.

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San Sebastian 2011: Day 1

I've been merely 24 hours in San Sebastian but I'd swear I've spent here all my life. I arrived yesterday too late for the morning press screening of Intruders, opening film of the Official Selection, but just in time for the press conference, in which a self-assured Juan Carlos Fresnadillo defended his film surrounded by his cast, led by an irresistibly charming Clive Owen. There's no much to say here. Rumour quickly spread that Intruders is a disappointment, and judging by the banalities we heard during the press conference, it's probably true.

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