I read over my comment and it sounds more sarcastic than I intended. Sorry. Plus don't read too much into it.

*Please, not plus.

I love well documented comments!

when it comes about Foreign Language the stakes are a lil higher because each country can send just one movie

Take a look at French, Italian, Spanish and Greek movies, I won't even tell about Russian movies - I would watch anytime a movie from the countries above- think Pedro Almodóvar for Spain, Luc Besson France, Italy- Roberto Benigni,

all of them are different in tone and genre from country to country so when we look the British movies are slightly different from Hollywood... the difference is just in tone and accent

but British movies are in English and the accent isn't really a problem to take an Oscar home and Hugh Laurie can choose to act in Dr House( for a lil Golden Globe or a lil nomination for Emmy) or can go home to make a movie with John Malkovich or another gig with Emma Thompson. To win another Oscar, Helen Mirren just has to find anpther interesting new movie to make.

if the language is English even India can take home 8 Oscars with Slumdog Millionaire

I've seen movies from all over Europe, movies made since 1949 till today-I love to bits a war movie La Bicyclette Bleue -2000 with Laetitia Casta and my fav greek actor Georges Corraface

Each country has her own culture and her own style to make a movie
I realize now that I've seen tons of them ( we have about 5 national channels and more than 15 cable channels that air anything you want from all over the world - I learned that my thing aren't Northern European movies - cinemax 1 and 2 airs them -no matter how pretty the actors are - I don't like the plots, the acting and the directing ) but the countries with neo-latin languages and Russian can do very good movies - not every time my cup of tea but pretty good - with interesting plots, strong acting and directing -

However in Europe ppl rarely pay at cinema to watch such movies( that ultimately land on television) - because they can be miss or hit -for English language movies we already have the reviews from USA or UK - think that multiplexes want their money back after running a movie

I would love to see smth like Korean cinema where they really run their own movies and they have money to produce them - a Romanian movie has a budget smaller than 800,000 Euro

One of my favorite Spanish movies is Pan's Labyrinth and it did well at the Oscars, but to be fair to your argument it was a submission from Mexico, not Spain. I admit I too have seen my fair share of European (non-English speaking) movies, but with an Uncle from Burma in the family, I've probably seen more Asian films (from India and moving towards the East) than non-English European films.

I knew the Oscars was a big deal, but it's turning out to be more of a BIG deal than I thought. In any case, come February, good luck to everyone.

of course when it comes about the movies we depend on our circumstance - I see them because in my country television is a big deal (more than Korean television even though with less success, but we produce variety shows rather than dramas- and the dramas produced here have South American influence - from Mexico, Venezuela and Argentina) therefore our channels air movies in 2 slots 8 PM and 10 PM.

In the beginning, in my country, Indian movies and dramas had success because of the gypsies - they are a pretty large minority here

About environment we live in- my parents love European movies and my husband loves American shows like Lost, 24, Heroes, Dr House, Grey's Anatomy - the thing is that in my house everyone marathons their obsession and if I like it I watch it too - but primarily I watch kdramas and jdramas

In my opinion Europeans tendency to shock through images damages a little - because this enters the soul just for the second we see those images but don't remain there - like Korean or Japanese movies do (errmm even Japan has her share of movies about death with another tone of shocking)
European don't go for fluffy and sweet and usually PDs don't search the prettiest image nor the landscape - they go for reality - try Volver and Manolete with Penélope Cruz - you will discover another pace, another world that sometimes looks like a dream and sometimes it is just like in your living room - even in my country the customs are different the vibe is familiar to me