At 08:37 AM 2/19/99 -0500, you wrote:
>I am mostly wondering how/why "Life Is Beautiful" can be considered a
>domestic (USA) film. I'm sure there's a simple answer - I just won't like it.


It's not considered a domestic film.  The eligibility requirement for Best
Picture is that the film play commercially for one week in LA; it's just
that films not in English are rarely nominated.  After all this year had
one other foreign film nominated for Best Picture:  Elizabeth.  (Or one and
a half if you count Shakespeare in Love's co-production status.)
English-language foreign films are often nominated (The Full Monty, Secrets
& Lies, Babe, The Piano, Shine) and sometimes win (Gandhi, Chariots of
Fire, Tom Jones).

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Lang Thompson
http://www.tcf.ua.edu/wlt4

World Cinema Review
http://www.tcf.ua.edu/wlt4/wcr.htm

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Online resources for film/TV studies may be found at ScreenSite
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