Karl Markovics (left) in The Counterfeiters

Almost two weeks on, this year's biggest Oscar controversy is still rippling: the fact that the four acting awards went to Europeans, not Americans. It's a hypocritical quibble, considering the short shrift the Academy habitually gives to foreign films. Elevated to Best Picture nominee only 8 times, the jingoism-infused category forces diplomatic corps from around the globe to hawk their nations' wares to the tiny percentage of voters who won't base their decision on titles alone.

This year's winner, Austria's The Counterfeiters, now in theaters, is a decent film, buoyed by Karl Markovics's lead performance. He plays Sally Sorowitsch, a talented currency forger conscripted by the Nazis in a real-life scheme to flood the American and British economies in the waning days of World War II. Sorowitsch's skills, and those of several fellow Jewish captives, are rewarded with preferential treatment, relative to the conditions elsewhere in the concentration camp (rarely seen, but ever audible). The problem is that these moral quandaries -- survivor guilt; terrifying knowledge that a successful forgery buttresses the Nazi war machine -- are muddled by Stefan Ruzowitzky's documentary-like direction, a ham-fisted score (you half expect SS officers to twirl handlebar mustaches) and one-note supporting characters. As little angels and devils on Sally's shoulders, they reduce an existential dilemma to children's morality tale.

That these shortcomings were overlooked makes the omission of 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days from even the pre-nomination shortlist determined by the Academy (part of the Byzantine Foreign Language voting process) that much more inexcusable. 4 Months's Romanian director Cristian Mungiu created a flawless film about another crippling test of character, that was, in not just my opinion, the best movie of the year -- perhaps of the last several. No one looks to the Oscars for fairness, but must they so consistently advertise their isolationist indifference? --NICHOLAS MOSQUERA

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MVSTAT: Of the 60 foreign language films honored by the Academy since 1947, only 9 have come from non-European countries...