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Last year, the Austin connections at the Oscars were easy to spot: actress Sandra Bullock and musician Ryan Bingham, both of whom brought home the little gold guys. This year, Austin is a little less obvious in the Academy Award nominations, but you can still find local connections if you poke around a bit. Let's hope some of these folks walk away with awards next month:

John Hawkes: Supporting Actor, Winter's Bone -- Hawkes (pictured at right) started his career in Austin before his role in this excellent movie, which played SXSW 2010. You can find him in a couple of Austin-shot movies, too: he's in Eve's Necklace and going back a few years, plays a liquor-store clerk in From Dusk Til Dawn.Dogtooth: Foreign Language Film, Greece -- One of the film's producers is Athina Rachel Tsangari, a filmmaker who divides her time between Greece and Austin. She was...

[Insert Keanu Reeves, Cameron Diaz joke here]  Actually, there are probably a lot of fans of the strange Japanese satire, The Fuccon's around these parts, so having actual Mannequins do the visual portion of the acting is not a new thing.  Taking that to the obvious next level, a feature length film, director Daniel Erickson has crafted some what of a throwback to relationship melodrama and noir conventions of yesteryear to spin out one of the more odd confections (and that is saying something) at this years Fantasia Film Festival.  It should be noted that there is indeed at least one top shelf actor doing the voices in Eve's Necklace, the most excellent character-actor John Hawkes of Deadwood, Eastbound&Down, and most recently kicking ass in Winter's Bone. ...

You want the best of genre film from Canada, the Us and around the globe? Fantasia is the place.

Montreal, June 29, 2010 - For its fourteenth edition, the Fantasia Film Festival is proud to present over 50 titles from Asia. Once again, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Hong Kong and the People's Republic of China are widely represented, demonstrating the great quality and diversity of their industries. And, as always, the programming team is also dedicated to exposing several hidden gems hailing from emerging national cinemas. Through these, audiences can discover new visions and new sensibilities. Therefore, the public will be privy to works hailing from Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia and - a first for the festival - Indonesia. The filmic multicultural feast prepared by the 2010 Fantasia Film Festival promises to satisfy film lovers of all kinds.

Fantasia's 2010 occidental lineup of World Cinema is once again on fire with an astounding kaleidoscope of styles and sensibilities.