In Contention

Tag: Slumdog Millionaire

  • 11/28 Oscarweb Round-up

    • David Poland is still in two minds about “Benjamin Button,” but agrees with Kris that “Slumdog” is the one to beat. [The Hot Blog]

    • Kim Voynar, meanwhile, surveys the Best Picture contenders, and is as confused as the rest of us. Interesting point about the potential impact of current events on “Slumdog,” though.  [Movie City News]

    • One Richard on another: with the adaptation of “Revolutionary Road” looming large, Richard Price offers his impressions of Yates. [The Guardian]

    • William Friedkin on the shifting makeup of the movie cop. [The Guardian]

    • Under the threat of the actors’ strike, Screen International calls for a meeting of minds. [Screen Daily]

    • Amid the mixed reactions to “Australia,” Susan King concludes that we still need the epic. [Los Angeles Times]

    • Al Pacino pips Dakota Fanning for the top gong in Lou Lumenick’s holiday-appropriate Turkey of the Year awards. [New York Post]

    • And, keeping it seasonal, a selection of notable DVD releases, in time for your Christmas wishlist. [New York Times]

  • First set of winner predictions

    Clint Eastwood in Gran TorinoBefore the holiday I thought I’d make my first calls on the year’s Oscar winners.  Bear in mind we don’t even have a list of nominees yet and anything can happen.  I think around this time last year I was predicting “Into the Wild” for across-the-board wins and it only managed two nominations at the end of the day, so, grain of salt and all that.  I just like to go on the record around this time, so here we go:

    Best Picture: “Slumdog Millionaire”
    Best Director: Danny Boyle, “Slumdog Millionaire”
    Best Actor: Clint Eastwood, “Gran Torino”
    Best Actress: Cate Blanchett, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
    Best Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger, “The Dark Knight”
    Best Supporting Actress: Viola Davis, “Doubt”
    Best Adapted Screenplay: “Slumdog Millionaire”
    Best Original Screenplay: “Milk”
    Best Art Direction: “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
    Best Cinematography: “Defiance”
    Best Costume Design: “The Duchess”
    Best Film Editing: “Slumdog Millionaire”
    Best Makeup: “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
    Best Music – Original Score: “Defiance”
    Best Music – Original Song: “The Wrestler”
    Best Sound Editing: “The Dark Knight”
    Best Sound Mixing: “The Dark Knight”
    Best Visual Effects: “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
    Best Animated Feature Film: “WALL-E”
    Best Documentary Feature: “Man on Wire”
    Best Foreign Language Film: “Captain Abu Raed”

  • No one on the corner has swagger like us

    M.I.A.

    “A.R. was the most established, amazing producer…He works with 100-people orchestras, and his sound is huge. Then on the other end of the room was me, making music on GarageBand [software] and playing Danny these really gritty, badly recorded MP3s. We had all these meetings and stuff, and then I realized that’s what the movie is — it’s the contradiction between these two things. That’s what the whole continent [of India] is…

    “If I was painting a picture of that part of the world, it’s not that I’d make it more glum, but I would try not to involve all the positive stuff from it, like the singing and dancing and easy stuff. I think we’re already used to that, and comfortable with that part. So there times that I was like, ‘We don’t have to make it so Bollywood’ … Danny, I think, wanted it to be good on both sides. He wanted the Indian population to get it, as well as the West. That’s a really difficult thing to do, and I think he did it — I think he did it really well.”

    From Todd Martens’s 11/24 interview with artist M.I.A., re: her electrifying work on the “Slumdog Millionaire” soundtrack.

  • OFF THE CARPET: Insert witty Oscar column headline here

    Brad Pitt in The Curious Case of Benjamin ButtonThis year’s Oscar season is sapping the creativity from my bones.  Perhaps it’s foolish to come to this space every week and offer a full-blown column.  Sometimes there isn’t much to talk about.  This year, however, the things we do have to talk about don’t seem worth talking about.

    “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” for instance, was the most anticipated film of the season.  But three days after finally seeing the film, I’m not feeling the resonance I anticipated.  The film is a cinematic marvel, a stroke of screenwriting brilliance and a massive leap forward across an array of technical achievements.  But it hasn’t captured my imagination like I thought it would.

    Your guess is as good as mine on that one.

    “The Reader” finally screened to the press at large yesterday, both here in Los Angeles and in the Big Apple.  The buzz leading up to the big reveal was that, hey, this might be a bigger contender than we anticipated.  But personally speaking, the result is almost an afterthought — no lingering, no spirited embrace of the film’s themes and story particulars.  Just another film.

    So, is it just me, or is the soft landing of so many of the year’s perceived heavies beginning to tangibly expose 2008 as the Oscar low point we all thought it would become?

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  • Let’s try this again…

    I’m off to the rescheduled “Benjamin Button” screening this afternoon, so here’s hoping the digital equipment at the Paramount Theater is up to snuff.  Better yet, let’s hop ethey actually got a print together (probably not).

    I’ll report back around 2:30 PST or so.  But there are a few opinions on the film already out there, some positive, some negative, some mixed.  Could “Slumdog Millionaire” really be pulling into the poll position?  It’s the one film that seems to capture the hearts of everyone.

    Anyway, stay tuned…

  • Narrowing it down

    Over at Awards Daily, Sasha Stone has taken it upon herself to whittle down the Best Picture race to a brisk 11-title list, and it makes for sobering reading:

    “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
    “The Dark Knight”
    “Doubt”
    “Frost/Nixon”
    “Gran Torino”
    “Milk”
    “Rachel Getting Married”
    “The Reader”
    “Revolutionary Road”
    “Slumdog Millionaire”
    “The Wrestler”

    I can’t be the only person looking down that list and gloomily wondering, “Is that it?” (I suppose some might argue for “Australia” still, but even the positive early reviews don’t give me a great feeling.) Sadly, not only is Stone probably right, but she’s still being relatively generous — I would strike “Rachel Getting Married” off the list without too much hesitation. Meanwhile, the level of hype centering on Clint Eastwood’s Best Actor campaign for “Gran Torino” has me wondering whether those who have seen it don’t deem it Best Picture material. (I remain among those unpersuaded by the film’s trailer.)

    It seems to me that “Doubt”‘s chances of a Best Picture nomination depend entirely on how much award steam it gathers in the acting races, while “The Reader” remains a puzzle to me — it has the right credentials, the trailer looks solid, but why don’t I sense more excitement around it? Harvey Weinstein is still struggling to regain his golden touch at the Oscars, and it remains to be seen whether that early bout of bad press over the film’s release-date kerfuffle will linger.

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  • Thumping ‘Slumdog’ soundtrack to be released

    Cover of Slumdog Millionaire original motion picture soundtrackThank God.  I was hoping Fox Searchlight would find a way to market this amazing material.  It worked well for them last year, albeit in the grungy, alt-rock vein.  But the music in “Slumdog Millionaire” is like a two-hour celebration, and it’s dying to be collected.

    The track listing, from MTV, has a lot of the A.R. Rahman stuff, of course (all of it exciting).  But M.I.A. pops up on there as well.  “Paper Planes” is put to great use in a montage that you wish would never end mid-film.

    The final track, as expected, is “Jai Ho,” the Bollywood number Searchlight is hoping will make some noise in the Best Original Song category.

    Check out the full story at MTV.  Here’s the track listing:

    1. “O… Saya” Performed by A R Rahman & M.I.A.
    2. “Riots” by A R Rahman
    3. “Mausam & Escape” by A R Rahman
    4. “Paper Planes” Performed by M.I.A.
    5. “Paper Planes” DFA REMIX Performed by M.I.A.
    6. “”Ringa Ringa” by A R Rahman featuring Alka Yagnik & Ila Arun
    7. “Liquid Dance” by A R Rahman featuring Palakkad Sriram & Madhumitha
    8. “Latika’s Theme” by A R Rahman featuring Suzanne
    9. “Aaj Ki Raat” Performed by Sonu Nigam, Mahalaxmi Lyer & Alisha Chinoi
    10. “Millionaire” by A R Rahman featuring Madhumitha
    11. “Gangsta Blues” by A R Rahman featuring BlaaZe & Tanvi Shah
    12. “Dreams on Fire” by A R Rahman featuring Suzzanne
    13. “Jai Ho” by A R Rahman featuring Sukhvinder Singh, Tanvi Shah & Mahalaxmi Iyer

  • 11/20 Oscarweb Round-up

    Simon Beaufoy• Kim Voynar talks to Simon Beaufoy about adapting “Slumdog Millionaire.” [Movie City News]

    • Patrick Goldstein hearts “Australia,” but suggest it is “perhaps too ambitious for its own good.” [The Big Picture]

    • John Horn surveys the Oscar season films from the perspective of studio (read: dollar) appeal. [Los Angeles Times]

    • Tim Gray wants to rob hard-working professionals of their day of televised glory. [Variety]

    • Actors mimicking political elite this season. [Variety]

    • One more comeback story for Mickey Rourke. [Variety]

    • Stuart Levine on the art of the Oscar clip. [Variety]

    • And an eye on the music races. [Variety]

  • The Real Geezers dig ‘Slumdog’

  • 11/18 Oscarweb Round-up

    Coraline• Jeffrey Wells responds to the documentary short list. [Hollywood Elsewhere]

    • Dave Karger and Missy Schwartz go back and forth on the Oscar prospects of “Slumdog Millionaire.” [Entertainment Weekly]

    • T.L. Stanley catches up with a report from the “Revolutionary Road” screening this weekend. [Gold Rush]

    • Peter Bart whines about a lack of Oscar ads…again.  And insultingly draws the conclusion that studios are hanging talent out to dry.  Again. [Variety]

    • Patrick Goldstein chastises Bart for the whining (fair enough), but in calling for a moratorium on ad buys, fails to understand that their existence might have something to do with the fact that he hasn’t had to accept a buy-out yet.  Just sayin’. [The Big Picture]

    • Reporting with the Dudes from the “Big Lebowski” festival. [The Guardian]

    • Kathy Marks reports from the ground at the “Australia” premiere in Sydney. [The Independent]

    • Alonso Duralde runs down 10 competitors for Best Picture. [MSNBC]

    • Mickey Mouse turns 80. [CNN]

    • David Frank comes up with 10 reasons not to make a third “Batman” film.  Kris Tapley hunts David Frank down with a pair of garden sheers. [Rope of Silicon]

    • Helen Mirren talks about the joys of being in her birthday suit. [The Times]

    • Susan Wloszczyna talks to Henry Selick about the upcoming “Coraline.” [USA Today]

    • Praising the film for the most part, Glenn Kenny hopes “Revolutionary Road” can find an audience. [Some Came Running]

  • WEEKLY WRAP: ‘Dark Knight’ disqualified, Rourke interviewed, ‘Australia’ unwrapped

    Kind of an in-between week, this. Here’s how it went down:

    • In probably the most discussed Oscar news of the week, “The Dark Knight” was dodgily ruled ineligible in the Best Original Score category.

    • On a happier note, we sat down with surefire Best Actor nominee Mickey Rourke.

    • A shortlist of 14 films was announced for the Animated Feature race — not that it’s a “race” at all.

    • “Australia” was revealed to a besotted Oprah… but is it really the Oscar-bait some people think it is?

    • Ahead of “Slumdog Millionaire”‘s Stateside opening, we considered the contributions of DP Anthony Dod Mantle and composer A.R. Rahman.

    • Kris was appreciative of Edward Zwick’s “Defiance” … even if several critics weren’t.

    • The dynamic Italian duo of “Gomorrah” and “Il Divo” led the nominations for the European Film Awards.

    • “Gomorrah,” meanwhile, has designs on more than just the Foreign Film category at the Oscars.

    • Tech Support showcased the frequently surprising Best Makeup category.

    • Entertainment Weekly named Robert Downey Jr. their Entertainer of the Year, which Richard Jenkins among the also-rans.

    • We were charmed by “Last Chance Harvey,” a low-flying contender in the acting categories.

    • And finally, in another biopic-heavy season, we counted down the all-time best examples of the genre.

  • A.R. Rahman: “Danny wanted it loud”

    I have no idea what the Academy’s fussy music branch will make of it, but A.R. Rahman’s busy, boisterous score for “Slumdog Millionaire” is one of my favourite efforts in the field this year. Fusing contemporary Indian pop with more traditional Bollywood motifs and flashes of electronica, it’s an achievement as limber and witty as the film it accompanies.

    Rahman has long been revered, both as a composer and a pop star, in his native India, but he’s only recently begun testing Western waters. I appreciated his elaborately heightened contributions to last year’s “Elizabeth: The Golden Age” more than most, but “Slumdog” should really make his name in this part of the world.

    There’s a brief but insightful interview with Rahman over at Vulture, in which he discusses the considerable differences between working for Bollywood and working for Boyle — a difference over over 100 musical cues, for starters. In the light of a discussion going on a recent comments thread about how a score should operate within a film, I thought this statement rather interesting:

    What’s good about [Boyle] is that he likes how Indian films mix music. You push it and it comes out. We wanted it edgy, upfront. He said every piece of music was going to be a piece by itself. Normally some directors suppress music — they always want the effects to be loud and the music to be softer. Danny wanted it loud.

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  • Extremely complicated new Buzzmeter launches

    Well, I’m sure Tom O’Neil can finally breathe a sigh of relief, after trying his damnedest to stay ahead of the curb with pundit aggregation while The Envelope’s new Buzzmeter was put together.  Well, it’s finally debuted, and though there are a ton of pundits involved, I find myself wondering if any (or many) of them will get confused or downright agitated by the involved (if impressive) interface.

    That said, the new digs are highly informative, with new members and comments sections for each pundit on their various picks.  I’m slowly making my way through mine, though all my picks are in place for now.  There are about 12 of us chiming in at the moment, with the predicted five Best Picture nominees being “Australia,” “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” “The Dark Knight,” “Frost/Nixon” and “Slumdog Millionaire.”  I was most surprised by the Best Director placement for Jonathan Demme, but anyway, I expect a number of these things to slip and slide as more and more pundits sign on and commit.

    Check out the new Buzzmeter here.

  • Winded from the start

    This is well off topic, since it’s such a slow news day (and week), but is anyone else ever thrown for a loop by the longish headlines that appear on New York Times stories?  They seem to get more drastic in the arts & leisure section.

    I’ve had my hand at writing for the Times, and each story had a giant headline tacked on.  A profile of Eric Roth and his tendency to get difficult scripts made in the studio system, with a look toward those scripts that have been lost in that system along the way, landed the headline: “His Screenplays Get Made, Except The Ones That Don’t.” (“His” was actually “Eric Roth’s” in the print edition.)  Another piece about Walden Media and New Line Cinema’s road to the big screen for the children’s classic “How to Eat Fried Worms” was saddled with “‘How to Eat Fried Worms’ (Ick! Yuck! Ugh!) Lures Boys With a Tasty Tale.” And on and on.

    There have been some creative ones that really nail the story, mind you, like a piece about “Hollywoodland” and the George Reeves back story: “The (Tinsel) Town That Ate Superman.” But more often than not, it’s this long-winded stuff.

    Today, I ran across Manhola Dargis’ “Slumdog Millionaire” review and there it was, confusing me before I even dug into the copy:

    New York Times review of Slumdog Millionaire

    Am I alone here?  I love the work the Times does, despite the aimless criticism from this outlet or that.  But these headlines gotta go.

  • 11/12 Oscarweb Round-up

    Ben Stiller• David Chen junkets Danny Boyle on the director’s inspirations. [/Film]

    • David Poland is being pissy about when Paramount wants to screen their Oscar contender this year. [The Hot Blog]

    • Lou Lumenick rounds up the infinitely boring denials and foreplay coming from the “Australia” camp.  Can we just get to the movie already and stop with the lame “news” bytes? [Lumeick on Film]

    • Noah Forrest is kind of over James Bond. [Movie City News]

    • Steven Zeitchik gives “Slumdog Millionaire” another look and still loves what he sees. [Risky Biz Blog]

    • Logan Hill, meanwhile, talks to the film’s standout Dev Patel. [Vulture]

    • Sasha Stone pegs the season as the year of the showcase perf. [Awards Daily]

    • Chris Lee corners “Changeling” star Angelina Jolie about life and stuff. [The Envelope]

    • As the Buzzmeter rumbles to life, slowly, a few more pundits chime in with Tom O’Neil. [Gold Derby]

    • “Gomorrah” producer Domenico Procacci and IFC Films won’t be content with a mere Best Foreign Language Film mention. [Variety]

    • Museum of the Moving Image honoree Ben Stiller talks his feting to Daniel Frankel. [Variety]

    • Dave Karger puts Frank Langella’s likely Oscar clip out there for all to see. [Entertainment Weekly]

  • Anthony Dod Mantle — it is time

    Anthony Dod MantleI don’t generally throw myself full force behind a contender with the kind of FYC spirit I’m about to project.  We all have our favorites and we all hope this person or that will finally get the recognition deserved, but it’s a different thing to full on advocate.  But today, I just can’t help myself.

    Watching “Slumdog Millionaire” a second time Friday night as part of the AFI Danny Boyle tribute, I was taken once again by the urgent nature of the film’s visual style.  It’s a direct reflection of Boyle’s energetic attitude toward life and the cinema, of course.  But it’s also the result of wonderful creativity from cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle.

    Boyle says he first took notice of Mantle’s work on the Dogme classic “Festen.”  The two first collaborated on television’s “Strumpet” before moving into daring digital territory with the modern zombie classic “28 Days Later,” and then Mantle moved back to his Dogme roots, taking on projects for Thomas Vinterberg and Lars von Trier with a little Boyle thrown in between (2004’s “Millions”).

    I never much responded to the supposed revelation that was Dogme, so Mantle first caught my eye with “28 Days Later” and especially with Kevin Macdonald’s “The Last King of Scotland,” where I suddenly felt the earth move under the weight of a new talent’s insistence on a refreshingly vigorous intimacy with his photography.

    Much like Harris Savides, Cesar Charlone or Rodrigo Prieto, Mantle is finding himself moving in and out of the independent market with eye-popping work that can go unnoticed in the wake of the postcard photography that tends to be singled out during the awards season.  But his work is alive, crackling with immediacy and actively creative in the service of story, never more so than in “Slumdog Millionaire,” Boyle’s latest vibrant contribution to the silver screen.

    The time has come for Mantle to be recognized for the innovation he lends not only this film, but the trade itself.  I fully expect “Slumdog” to find a home in numerous categories, but if I could insist consideration of just one aspect of its elaborate below-the-line construction, it would be for Mantle’s contribution.  What fierce life he has captured here.

  • 11/9 Oscarweb Round-up

    Warner Bros. Pictures' Watchmen• Steve Weintraub has a sweet four-video series on Ben Burtt’s process for creating the sounds of “WALL-E” and the “Star Wars” films.  Worth a look if you’re into the tech arena like we are. [Collider]

    • Bad news for Baz Luhrmann’s “Australia.”  A forced happy ending. [News.com.au]

    • Cherry Jones gives her approval of Meryl Streep’s turn in “Doubt.” [Gold Derby]

    • But elsewhere, the odds are being stacked against the film. [Vulture]

    • Dave Karger and Missy Schwartz discuss the season’s most unknown commodities: “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” and “Revolutionary Road.” [Oscar Watch]

    • Brad Brevet finds some striking similarities between the new “Watchmen” poster and an old “Dark Knight” international one-sheet. [Rope of Silicon]

    • In the midst of AFI Fest, John Horn gets some quality time with “Slumdog Millionaire” director Danny Boyle. [Los Angeles Times]

    • Meanwhile, Anne Thompson responds to a second “Slumdog” screening. [Thompson on Hollywood]

    • The new gadgetry of Bond. [New York Daily News]

    • Amy Raphael profiles Kelly Macdonald as “Choke” lands across the pond. [The Guardian]

    • Also in the U.K., Toby Jones continues to stir the waters with below-the-radar portrayals. [The Times]

    • Deborah Solomon cranks out a Q&A with “Frost/Nixon” director Ron Howard. [New York Times]

    • Jeffrey Wells defends the violence of Matteo Garrone’s “Gomorrah” against the potential ignorance of the foreign film committee. [Hollywood Elsewhere]

  • Still nobody knows anything

    At least, that’s the message I get from Pete Hammond’s latest column, in which he somewhat half-heartedly claims that the Best Picture frontrunners at this stage are “WALL-E,” “The Dark Knight” and “Changeling.” In that order, apparently — with “Slumdog Millionaire” creeping up behind.

    I realize Hammond has access to more Academy members than I do (not hard, since I know none), but I find that hard to swallow. Of the summer blockbusters, “The Dark Knight” looks to me to have more campaigning momentum than “WALL-E,” though I’m still not predicting it as a nominee. And I can’t see “Changeling” making much headway in the race with such a mixed critical reception. Surely, of the seen contenders, “Slumdog Millionaire” is ahead of all three. What I really learn from this is that Academy members clearly need to see more movies.

    More helpful to me is this tidbit Hammond offers on the Best Foreign Language Film race:

    From what we’ve been told only Germany, Japan and Russia have made any significant impact, with Italy’s Cannes Grand Prix winner, “Gomorra,” getting predictions that it will be one of the final five, despite mixed response from some who frowned on its generous amount of violence. And the Portuguese film “Our Beloved Month of August” was apparently so poorly received that some members were trying to leave before they could “officially” exit and still receive credit for seeing it.

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