I don’t know how many conversations I’ve had since February in which someone trashed the Academy for giving last year’s Best Foreign Language Oscar to the milquetoast Japanese dramedy Departures over edgier festival favorites like The Class and Waltz with Bashir. Now, finally, someone is doing something to restore director Yojiro Takita’s reputation.
The New York Asian Film Festival has just announced that they plan to show two pink films (ie: short softcore features) by the Departures director during their program this summer. Both films are part of the “Molester Train” series, which, according to an IGN review, “explores the unfortunate practice of perverts taking advantage of crowded trains and subways in Japan to abuse female passengers … here fictionally played up for the cameras by AV starlets.” The two Yojiro Takita contributions include Molester Train: Search For the Black Pearl (which the NYAFF press release calls “ridiculous”), and Molester Train: Wedding Capricio. Dates for the screenings haven’t been set yet, but we’re marking our calendars to mark our calendars.
The rest of the line-up of the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival has been released — that is, the Encounters, Spotlight, Showcase, Restored/Rediscovered and Midnight sections. As expected, Steven Soderbergh’s The Girlfriend Experience is there, as are quite a few Sundance holdovers, and the Oscar Winner That No One Has Seen, Departures. Earlier this week, I summed up the competitions; my picks for the most-promising-looking of the rest, with descriptions provided by the festival, follow after the jump.
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The Carpetbagger has posted the nine semi-finalists for the Best Foreign Film Oscar Nomination. Comparing this list to the list of 67 films submitted for consideration by their countries of origin, the only real notable omission I can spot is Italy’s Gomorrah; I’ve sen some bloggy chatter already lamenting the exclusion of Let the Right One In, but that film was passed over for submission by its home country of Sweden in favor of Everlasting Moments (which did make the shortlist). The full list, with links to the films we’ve covered (as you’ll see, we have a lot of catching up to do), after the jump.
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