The Bus

Georges and Anne are in their eighties. They are cultivated, retired music teachers. Their daughter, who is also a musician, lives abroad with her family. One day, Anne has an attack. The couple's bond of love is severely tested.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1602620/

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Sony Pictures Classics bought the North American rights for this recently, but there's no release date yet. My guess is late 2012.

Coral

Looking forward to this.

Haneke's last film, The White Ribbon, was fantastic.

inri222

Except for the remake of Funny Games, his whole filmography is fantastic!
One of the best directors.

2009 The White Ribbon
2007 Funny Games
2005 Caché
2003 Time of the Wolf
2001 The Piano Teacher
2000 Code Unknown
1997 Funny Games
1997 The Castle
1994 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance
1992 Benny's Video
1989 The Seventh Continent

JumpCutz

^Agreed. I'll watch anything he directs.

Norm de Plume

Same here, but I hated Code Inconnu and found Time of the Wolf only so-so.

inri222

I felt the same way the first time I saw those 2 films. I even sold the dvd's.
Then years later I found the dvd's for $5 apiece and decided to give them a second chance.
After a second viewing I discovered that I was so wrong.

foofighters7

certainly one of my most anticipated films of 2012. All great.

Norm de Plume

Well, I'm not averse to giving them a second look, especially Code Unknown, which I saw a longer time ago. I don't think I would change my mind about Time of the Wolf, though. It just wasn't that great.

Solid Snake

Festival de Cannes Press Conference for Amour

It bothers me how Cannes FF won't let their videos be embedded but..whatever.

EEz28

Just won the Palme d'Or

JumpCutz

Wow. The White Ribbon 3 years ago and now Amour. Well done Haneke.

Solid Snake

Wow.

inri222

He is the man!

The Bus

This won't disappoint, although it's not as "out there" as his other films.

Dan

I haven't seen any of his other films (but I plan to!) so my only preconception was that I've heard that Cache and Funny Games (both versions) are pretty messed up films, but I knew not to expect gruesome violence in this one.

Amour was very well-made, but incredibly depressing. I kept wondering how far it was going to go in terms of showing the events play out, and it was heartbreaking in so many ways. I was constantly thinking, "could I do that? WOULD I?"
The conversation with one of the nurses was brutal. I could feel Georges' anger and frustration.
I can't say I "liked" the film, since that's the wrong word... but I appreciate what Haneke has done with it. My wife hated the long deliberate shots... while I felt it added to the realism of the situation.

So yeah... very good film... not a masterpiece. One viewing is more than enough for me, though. I'm looking forward to finally checking out the rest of his films, though.

Giles

well... oh I won't disappoint those who haven't seen it yet...



Haneke did not disappoint. definitely in my top ten of the year.

The Bus

It's been a while, but what's

Giles

The Bus

Yeah, that was really well done.

Coral

Watched this last night. One of the very best films of the year - if not, THE best.

Performances were great, and although it was very depressing - it was honest.

Haneke keeps hitting them out of the park.

mhg83

I saw this last night.Great film but why is this nominated for Best Picture? It already has one for best foreign film.

inri222

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/new...-double-410709

Haneke's 'Amour' Scores Rare Oscar Best Picture/Foreign Language Double

7:34 AM PST 1/10/2013 by Scott Roxborough

Only “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” “Z” and “Life is Beautiful” have been nominated in both categories in a single year.

COLOGNE, Germany – Academy voters showed they have much love for Michael Haneke's harrowing, touching Amour – nominating the French-language drama in five categories, including best director and best actress for Emmanuelle Riva.

Haneke has also managed the rarest of Oscar doubles, scoring nominations both in the Best Foreign Language category and for Best Picture. It puts Amour in an elite club. Only three films have managed the best film/best foreign language double in the same year before: Costa Gravas’ Z in 1969, Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in 2000 and Life is Beautiful from Roberto Benigni in 1998. All three ended up winning the best foreign language honor.

If history is any guide, Amour would seem to have a lock on the foreign language Oscar, but remains a dark horse for the best picture main event. No film not in a foreign language has ever won the Oscar's top prize. (Last year's Best Picture winner, The Artist, was a French production with Gallic stars, but featured just a single line of dialog– in English).

The same goes for best director. While many foreign-born helmers have earned the directors Oscar statuette –Michel Hazanavicicus, Milos Forman, Ang Lee and Roman Polanski among them – if Haneke wins, he would become the first to take home the trophy for a non-English film.

When it comes to the best picture category, only a handful of foreign films have even been in the running. While the Academy occasionally rewards outstanding performances in a foreign language – see Marion Cotillard's best actress win for La Vie en Rose (2007), Sophie Loren's 1961 win in the same category for Two Women and Benigni's getting the best actor nod with Life is Beautiful (1998) – best picture is an almost exclusively English-language club.

Depending on what you call a foreign language film, there have been only seven previous best picture nominees: Clint Eastwood's Letters from Iwo Jima (Japanese); Life is Beautiful and Michael Radford's Il Postino (both Italian), Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Chinese); Swedish films The Emigrants (1972) from Jan Troell and Ingmar Bergman's Cries and Whispers (1973) and, way back in 1938, Jean Renoir's La Grande Illusion, the first non-English language film to ever receive a Best Picture nomination. Sticklers might also include in that list Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's Babel, which is a mash-up of language, featuring dialog in Spanish, Japanese, and Arabic as well as English, or Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds due to the film's extensive dialog in German and French.

Troell's The Emigrants, which received four nominations in 1972, including for Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay and a Best Actress nom for star Liv Ullmann – actually did pick up a Best Foreign Language nomination as well, but it received that nomination in 1972. The year Cries and Whispers got its Best Picture nom, it was Troell's The New Land which picked up the nomination in the foreign language category. Renoir's La Grande Illusion was nominated before the introduction of the foreign language film category.

The five Oscar nominations for Amour aren't quite an Oscar record for a foreign language film – Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon scooped six nominations, Babel took a record seven – but whatever the outcome on Feb. 24, Michael Haneke has secured his place in the Oscar pantheon.

Jules Winfield

I hate this movie. I really fucking do. Haneke's style makes me feel like a 5 year old with ADD and I know it's not the case but fuck man, do something in your fucking movie. There are shots in this movie, long shots in this movie(It feels like the movie has only 8 cuts) that make the point, go past the point and go on for far too long. It's the art house equivalent of that Family guy joke where Peter falls down and hurts his knee and says "Oww!" for an hour. I went into this movie 33 years old with my wife and came out of it also having to smother my wife with a pillow because she got old and brittle. Now, here I am, having spent an eternity watching Amour and all I can do is complain about it on DVDTalk. They should have called this "Michael Haneke eats his own asshole for a week"

Jules Winfield

I did like some of the dialogue though. The one minute of dialogue was very nice.

ScorseseLovesU

Stay away from sharp objects when watching his films.