Cheshire Times Two: The Oscars & "The International"

Raleigh, NC, February 17, 2009 --(PR.com)-- On the pages of Raleigh Metro Magazine - and on his blog accessed through Metro’s website (www.metronc.com) – acclaimed film critic Godfrey Cheshire tackles the agendas and other factors that influence Oscar nominations and winners, with additional comments on “the first 2009 movie strongly resonating with our current difficulties” – The International.

In Metro’s February edition, available on newsstands now, Cheshire points out the reasons a film may or may not be nominated for the Oscars: “everything from box office impact to studio priorities to critical acclaim to the imponderables of popularity, fashion and star power.” And concerning this year’s Best Picture nominees, Cheshire states that “serious dramatic movies of any sort are now an endangered species.”

Cheshire also mentions his own brush with Oscar. His highly acclaimed full-length documentary Moving Midway was passed over as a nominee for the Best Documentary category.

In his Metro blog, Cheshire praises director Tom Tykwer’s The International as “a stylish, expertly made transnational thriller with a provocatively timely theme.” Starring Clive Owen and Naomi Watts, the film is set in motion by the investigation of a large European bank suspected of trying to gain control of the national deficits of several countries to make them “slaves of debt.”

“In its world of bankers run amok, with dreadful consequences that spill across the world,” Cheshire writes, “The International gives us a concise, potent symbol of an economically beleaguered planet and its mood of foreboding.”

Both of Godfrey Cheshire’s current critiques can be accessed by going to www.metronc.com and clicking “Cheshire on Film.”

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