Is anyone else predicting The Class (France) to upset frontrunner Waltz with Bashir (Israel) in the Best Foreign Language Film category? I am.

It reminds me of when Pan's Labyrinth was defeated by The Lives of Others. Both, of course, extremely well-reviewed, but the more conventional, "mature" film won in the end.

Plus, excitement for The Class is still building (it just had a very successful limited release and glowing reviews are popping up in most major newspapers and magazines), while excitement for Waltz with Bashir seems to have reached its limit and may be subsiding. Not to mention The Class is simply the better reviewed film (94 on Metacritic vs. a 90 for "Bashir").

France has won the award 12 times. Israel never has. If this means anything.

I still cannot believe that Gomorra wasn't nominated.

umm...this isn't a very gutsy prediction at all. actually, predicting foreign is just stupid in general.

Did I call it "gutsy?" It's just an observation, though most people ARE predicting Waltz with Bashir to win. So if I wanted to call it gutsy, I could have.

And if predicting Best Foreign Language films offends you so very much, I wonder: why are you reading or responding to this thread?

Thank God Gomorra wasn't nominated.

It's possible. When it comes to foreign films, the meaningful film tends to top the artful film (No Man's Land over Amelie and Lives of Others over Pan's). Remember, only 500 people vote in the Foreign Film category because only people who attending special screenings can vote in this category (along with the short and documentary categories).

This seems to be a trend. The foreign film getting all the acclaim loses to the one other foreign movie that was getting some attention out of the nominees.

umm, Palme D'Or anyone? It's just like the biggest film award in the world.

Have you seen it?

4 Months 3 Weeks & 2 Days, The Wind That Shakes the Barley, The Child, Fahrenheit 9/11, and Elephant have been the winners of the Palme D'Or since The Pianist won it, and then you have to go back to 1996 to find a winner that I've even heard of. None of them received any Oscar nominations (or in case that's wrong, none of them have won any Oscars). It's one of the most prestigious awards out there, yes, but it has very little weight on the Oscars.

My point wasn't that it's a strong Oscar correlation, but rather, your opinion that Waltz has "all the acclaim" and The Class "has some attention" is an uniformed one.

as far as awards season goes, Waltz has gotten almost all of the acclaim. It won the Golden Globe as well as the majority of critics association Foreign Film awards. The Class comes in a clear second (of the five nominees, I'm excluding Let the Right One In here), but Waltz has gotten most of the attention thus far.

It also didn't have a U.S. release until 2009 (last week, I think).

The Class has gotten lots of acclaim, just check Metacritic.

Anyway...I think Waltz is winning. It's too "important".

The Class strikes me as the important one here, while Waltz is timely but perhaps too much so and frankly stinks of Persepolis apologism to me.

Persepolis was brilliant.

I didn't think Persepolis was all that special.

Persepolis also didn't think that you were that special.

So - - no one discussing it in this thread has seen it, right?

No, though I hope to soon (if they open here). I'm especially excited for "The Class."

I would be surprised if "The Class" didn't win tonight.

It's nowhere near as good as Bashir, so yeah, it'll probably win.

Brilliant as it might be, it stand absolutely no chance. It' just not something that the academy would award, and probably wouldn't have not even gotten a nomination were it not for the new rules for voting this year.

It's Bashir vs. Departures all the way.

Actually, I agree here. It has that sort of angle that tends to win the foreign award, plus they hate animation.

I've seen it, and it seems much more along the lines of what they vote for than WWB. But maybe they'll wanna shake things up this time, who knows... it's also a wonderful film.