In Contention

Tag: Slumdog Millionaire

  • More history than that

    Sasha Stone points out a bit of sweep trivia that an Awards Daily reader passed her way.  But I think it goes even deeper than a SAG/DGA/BAFTA/Globe/BFCA sweep.

    To the best of my knowledge, the only film to ever FULLY dominate by winning the WGA, PGA, DGA, Golden Globe, USC Scripter and BAFTA  — six of the biggest precursor awards in the circuit — is Steven Spilberg’s “Schindler’s List” in 1993.  And the BFCA and SAG ensemble awards didn’t exists back then, So if “Slumdog” continues its streak by winning the WGA, BAFTA and Oscar, it will be the winningest awards film in 16 years, and really, of all time.  Unless I somehow missed a beat in there, but I don’t think I did.

    Now THAT’s history.

  • Boyle takes the DGA

    Better late than never. What do you want, I’ve been hangin’ with the OTHER Searchlight crew all night. Exclaim or complain in the comments below if you like.

  • BAFTA admits it needs mending

    Interesting. Variety reports that BAFTA is to re-evaluate its voting process — and it appears to be a direct response to the widespread criticism that greeted this year’s nominations, which baffled pundits and industry folk alike with some questionable inclusions (Tilda Swinton, Freida Pinto, a whopping eight nods for “Changeling”) and equally baffling snubs (most notoriously, a hurtful donut for Mike Leigh’s widely acclaimed “Happy-Go-Lucky”).

    To begin with, one needs to understand the eccentric, back-and-forth nature of BAFTA voting. The first round of voting produces a longlist of 15 contenders in each category — 5 of which are selected by the relevant branch (or ‘chapter’) of voters in that field (and marked as such on the ballot), with the other 10 chosen by the general BAFTA membership.

    The next two rounds of voting work in a reversal of the Oscar system. The 5 nominees are determined by the general membership, while the winners are decided by the relevant ‘chapter’ voters alone — with the exception of Best Film, Best Foreign Language Film and the four acting awards, for which all members vote.

    Confused? I don’t blame you. It’s a ludicrous system that has received a lot of flak in the industry (Mike Leigh himself has been a vocal critic in the past), not least because it frequently leads to some inexpertly chosen nominees. (This, for example, is how a film like “Mamma Mia!” lands a Best Score nod.) The obvious solution, then, would be to use ‘chapter’ voting to determine the nominees, right?

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  • A night at the Scripter Awards

    Cover of Q&A by Vikas SwarupUSC’s Scripter Awards ceremony is moving on up.  It’s evolved form an intimate gathering to a full spread awards dinner over the years, and last night’s festivities marked the first time the Scripter winner was unveiled at the show rather than beforehand.

    It gave the atmosphere a tinge of anticipation.  Even with the “Slumdog” writing on the wall, the Scripter is a place where the adapted screenplay race can at least find some variety.  Or at least it used to be.  Like any precursor as of late, it seems the Scripter might be bent on predicting Oscar.  So of course, Simon Beaufoy’s name was called (along with “Q&A” author Vikas Swarup) for “Slumdog Millionaire,” and the steamroller keeps moving.

    Jamie Lee Curtis was a nice enough emcee, bringing her signature brand of dry, slightly crazy humor to the table (a slight shift from Jason Alexander last year).  Earlier in the evening, Michael Chabon accepted the Literary Achivement Award (not a Lifetime Achievement Award, as last year’s introductory recipient Steven Zaillian made loudly clear).  Zaillian was on hand to present the honor and Chabon’s speech was touching, funny and certainly humble.  The best line: “I think it was Vladimir Nabokov who said, “Keep giving me prizes.  Prizes are awesome. (Laughter spreads throughout the room.)  He had the Russian accent, so…”

    Chabon was also quite self-deprecating, noting that he had no creative input into the screenplays adapted from his work that seem to be met with success or at the very least production (2000’s “Wonder Boys” and the upcoming “The Mysteries of Pittsburgh”).  But five years of his toiling away at an adaptation of his own “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay” has not even yielded a green light, he said.  “I was lucky enough to work on the second ‘Spider-Man’ film,” he said.  “You know the part where Spider-Man is holding up that big wall at the end and he says, ‘Hi,’ and Mary Jane says, ‘Hi,’ and Peter says, ‘This is really heavy’?  That was me.”

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  • WEEKLY WRAP: ‘Slumdog,’ Sundance, Santa Barbara

    It slipped my mind to do this yesterday, but here’s the week that was:

    • “Slumdog Millionaire” steamrolled through the week’s precursors, taking the Producers Guild Award…

    • … before landing top honours at the SAG Awards, which we live-blogged for your pleasure.

    • Still on “Slumdog,” a potential smear campaign against the film was duly foiled.

    • No surprise, then, that this week’s Off the Carpet column declared the race pretty much over.

    • The Academy settled “The Reader” producers’ dilemma by breaking its ludicrous “three-nominee” rule.

    • Meanwhile, some are wondering whether Harvey Weinstein’s tactics could harm the film’s chances, particularly in the Best Actress race.

    • Away from the Oscar race, gritty urban drama “Push” cleaned up at Sundance.

    • The Santa Barbara fest carried on, with an interesting screenwriters’ forum among the highlights.

    • Still at Santa Barbara, Danny Boyle, Kate Winslet and this year’s six Virtuoso stars were among those celebrated.

    • Could “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” really go 0-for-13 on Oscar night?

    • Finally, rounding off a very “Slumdog”-flavoured week, be sure to check out our interview with the film’s brilliant craftsmen.

  • ‘Slumdog’ wins the Scripter

    E: It is not getting old.

  • TECH SUPPORT INTERVIEW: the crafts of ‘Slumdog Millionaire’

    Tech Support at In ContentionGarnering 10 nominations last week confirmed “Slumdog Millionaire”’s established status as the frontrunner for this year’s Best Picture Oscar.  Unusually for a Best Picture winner, the film failed to nab any acting nominations.  Its high tally counts comes from seven nominations in the crafts fields.

    I recently had the chance to speak to three of those below-the-line nominees: composer and songwriter A.R. Rahman, cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle and film editor Chris Dickens.  All are first-time nominees and all must be considered in genuine contention for statuettes, if not favored to win.

    Rahman, a self-proclaimed introvert, has already won Golden Globe and BFCA awards for his score, which has become massively popular.  Though very humble, it is clear he is relishing the opportunity to have his music exposed to such a wide audience.

    “I was attracted to the film right away,” he says.  “It is about modern India, young people and optimism.  There’s a kind of urge to it.  It’s not a laid-back score.  It needed something edgy and experimental to create interest in the whole thing.”

    Dickens also was attracted to the film right away, not only because of the story but because of the unique way it was to be told.  “Basically, the film was designed that way in the script,” he says.  “Though there was always a doubt in my mind as to how it would work when you saw it.  There are lots of different scenes that the audience had to understand to get to know where they were with the story.  The intention was always to shoot in different formats and different styles.  I found that fascinating.”

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  • Ways the Academy blew it, episode #4,623

    Bruce SpringsteenI haven’t really dug into the stinging Bruce Springsteen snub from eight days ago properly yet, but really, how off-the-mark could the Academy possibly be?  Not that the membership considers itself in the business of appearing relevant, but The Boss just played in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.  He’s got a new album out as of Tuesday (though admittedly one of his weakest to date).  He’ll be performing in front of one of the largest audiences in the country tomorrow.

    Oh yeah, and his song was clearly the best “original song” from a movie this year.  One that combines the ethos of the central character and the performer in such a way that its existence over a credit roll simply shouldn’t have been a factor.

    Way to miss the boat.

    Of course, I thought this was going to be his second Oscar.  And maybe I’m biased, since I worship at Springsteen’s altar.  I’ve seen him play four times, once in London, and the guy simply puts on the best show in rock and roll.

    This would have been a fine way to prove yourself in the groove of what’s now, fresh, tangible.  I love the nomination of “O…Saya,” mind you.  I think it’s a much, MUCH better choice than “Jai Ho” (which never spoke to me), and of the nominees, the M.I.A./A.R. Rahman track is, I feel, the best of the lot.  And it’s hard to argue with “Down to Earth,” the likely winner (I’d imagine), but good lord.

    Am I alone here?

  • The angel says…

    Here is a movie from a director who had gotten typed into being a success only in x-treme cinema, set in another country, often in another language, with three sets of young, inexperienced actors playing the same kids from single-digits to 20-ish, delving into the internationalism of both human aspiration and the medium of television (which might as well be movies), unafraid to deliver some of the harshest moments in mainstream cinema this year, yet emotionally kind and compelling to its core… all of this, made for a studio Dependent that has been put out of business, sold off, in part, by the parent studio to another studio’s Dependent that passed on its first opportunity to make it, sold brilliantly, surrounded by talent that is both charming and unusually generous and kind of spirit, and now in line to win The Oscar and all that comes with that honor.

    From David Poland’s recent “20 Weeks to Oscar” column at Movie City News.  Of course, he later chalks “Ordinary People” up as superior to a modern masterwork like “Revolutionary Road,” but you take what you can get (while wondering why the comparison was made int he first place).

  • 1/30 Oscarweb Round-up

    Ahney Her• Good riddance. [Crain’s New York]

    • Bob Thompson talks to “Gran Torino” star Ahney Her. [National Post]

    • Pete Hammond digs into the hounding of “Slumdog.” [Notes on a Season]

    • Amy Adams makes a splash across the pond. [The Independent]

    • Jeff Wells is suspicious of the “Milk” come-from-behind talk. [Hollywood Elsewhere]

    • David Poland is suspicious about something…not really sure what. [The Hot Blog]

    • Helen Pidd spends some quality time with Penelope Cruz.  Envy her. [The Guardian]

  • The Bagger finds the meaning

    There are few journalists with as sharp an understanding of the tunnel vision that affects award-season coverage as David Carr.  So it’s with a guard of irony that, in yesterday’s ruminative NYT piece, he describes this year’s race as “somehow less frivolous than it has (been) in recent years.”

    While he acknowledges the comparative slightness of the Oscars against such events as Obama’s inauguration and the global financial crisis, he feels that the awards, and more particularly, the films being awarded, have a clearer collective sense of purpose — and resonance — this year:

    Consumers who are motivated by the laurels heaped on these films to plunk down increasingly scarce disposable income will leave the movie house with the message that circumstance is just that, and no match for the indomitability of human will. The films are built on individual successes — kids from the slums who better themselves, a television celebrity who finds his inner newsman, a newborn who overcomes old age and the midlife closeted man who steps into the light — that accrue to the greater good. That message, that darkness can be overcome by individuals working for the common good, is not so distant from the current collective impulse.

    I think it’s an intelligent point, but a flawed one. Carr may refer to this year’s nominees as “the filmed stories that have captured the public’s attention,” but the fact is that, in at least two cases, they haven’t. Carr already marks “The Reader,” the gloomiest and lowest-grossing of the Best Picture nominees, as an exception to his argument, but “Frost/Nixon” hasn’t fared much better commercially. In his recent chat with Charlie Rose, David Denby astutely pointed out that Ron Howard’s film rather overstates the relevance of an event that amounts to little more than an interesting historical footnote — and its $12 million gross so far suggests the public agrees.

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  • What, no one wants to circulate this story, too?

    Slumdog MillionaireEveryone was so quick to pounce on the “Slumdog Millionaire” smear pieces of the week, yet this Sandy Cohen AP piece as been sitting there, waiting for similar obsessive circulation for 31 whole minutes.

    Here’s a taste:

    The makers of “Slumdog Millionaire” have done more for the film’s child stars than their parents ever could, the father of one young actress said.

    Rafiq Qureshi, whose 7-year-old daughter, Rubina, appears in the film, said that the filmmakers enrolled his daughter in school and “are taking complete care of my child.”

    “Whatever a parent could have done, they have done much more than that,” he said during an interview with AP Television in Mumbai, India on Wednesday.

    The rest here. Let’s move on, shall we? Whoever did the whispering, it was a valiant effort.

  • Is ‘Slumdog’ score too pop?

    Thanks to Nat Rogers at The Film Experience for pointing out a really worthwhile article in the Wall Street Journal, in which music critic Jim Fusilli takes a close look at this year’s nominees for Best Original Score. It’s not a category which tends to inspire much intelligent coverage in mainstream outlets, so it’s great to see someone giving the race the attention it deserves.

    Fusilli starts by commending the Academy for dodging the iffy qualification issues that have plagued previous races — principally the weirdly flexible criteria that allowed “Babel” in, but not “There Will Be Blood” — though I would still venture that “The Dark Knight”‘s initial disqualification scuppered its chances in the category. In any case, this year’s five nominated scores are all clearly original works, and Fusilli is generally impressed by the calibre of the competition. He is, however, not entirely convinced by frontrunner A.R. Rahman’s work on “Slumdog Millionaire”:

    This year, voters will have to decide whether to recognize music that’s most memorable as catchy pop or symphonic music that illuminates story and character. Mr. Rahman’s ebullient work for “Slumdog Millionaire,” a film about a poor boy who may win a fortune on a game show, is likely the early favorite — last week, I stopped in a theater in Boston to see it again and members of the audience cheered when his name appeared in the end credits. That may not be what a film-score composer is looking for. As Mr. Elfman told me last week, “If I’m going for any reaction, the best I could possibly hope for is that they see my name and go, ‘Oh really?’ Writing a score that gets people to jump out of the chairs is a whole other ballgame.”

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  • Brit critics follow the script

    It seems we really have reached consensus here. The Richard Attenborough Film Awards, a relatively new set of awards voted on by regional UK critics, haved chimed in with nearly everyone else, handing their Film of the Year and Director of the Year honours to Danny Boyle’s “Slumdog Millionaire.”

    They stuck with the well-awarded in the acting categories too, crowning Mickey Rourke and Kate Winslet (for “The Reader”) as Actor and Actress of the Year, respectively, while Dev Patel took the Breakthrough Star award.

    Meanwhile, I’m pleased to see Screenwriter of the Year went to Martin McDonagh for “In Bruges.” That might have been a less expected choice a month ago, before the nearly year-old release achieved a remarkable awards-season turnaround in the last few weeks.

    Four People’s Choice awards were spread between “The Dark Knight,” “Mamma Mia!” and “Slumdog,” completing a very British-leaning set of winners — hardly surprising, given that last year, the Attenboroughs were all about “Atonement.” I expect the BAFTA winners list will look somewhat similar.

    List of winners after the cut.

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  • 1/29 Oscarweb Round-up

    Joaquin Phoenix• Looks like Mickey Rourke isn’t going to get into the ring after all. [Associated Press]

    • Perhaps in response to snarky items like this? [Vulture]

    • Kim Voynar deconstructs the Oscar nominations a week later. [Movie City News]

    • In case it wasn’t obvious from the start, Joaquin Phoenix has been punkin’ y’all. [Entertainment Weekly]

    • Anne Thompson wonders if “Milk” is coming up on the outside.  I’ve heard some people here in Santa Barbara call it the #2 film in the mix, which it certainly might be.  Very interesting… [Thompson on Hollywood]

    • An opportune time for a story like this.  (If we really, REALLY want to get all conspiracy theorist about it, The Times is the Telegraph’s conservative competition.  And who owns The Times?) [Daily Telegraph]

    • Rather than post the emailed producers’ statement myself, I’ll just point you to Sasha Stone’s post with the full release. [Awards Daily]

    • Following that awesome Newsweek actors round table, Patrick Goldstein worships at the altar of Frank Langella (who, I just discovered today, is friggin’ 71 — now THAT’s aging well). [The Big Pucture]

  • 1/27 Oscarweb Round-up

    Stephen DaldryA late installment today.  Relaxing.

    • Kvetching over the “Dark Knight” slight, with stats to assist.  “The Reader” is officially the worst reviewed Best Picture nominee since 2000 and the lowest grossing as well. [Film.com]

    • The ‘Slumdog’ smear sure is relentless.  It’s just sad to see smart reporters like Dennis Lim taking the bait from publicists and an all-too-convenient backlash. [Slate]

    • Peter Bart dug the SAG Awards. [Peter Bart]

    • Dave Karger runs down some 2008 Oscar trivia, including the Stephen Daldry hat-trick of Best Director nods that, I believe, one of our commenters was all over on Thursday. [Entertainment Weekly]

    • Mickey Rourke is gonna lace up the boots for real at WrestleMania. [MSNBC]

    • David Carr and the value of an Oscar, monetarily speaking. [The Carpetbagger]

    • Patrick Goldstein checks out David Denby and A.O. Scott going at it on Charlie Rose. [The Big Picture]

    • The Weinstein Company brings on Lionsgate honcho Tom Ortenberg.  Hey, that might actually work. [Los Angeles Times]

  • SANTA BARBARA: Danny Boyle reflects on his career

    Cliff Curtis in SunshineThere are a number of ambitious films that fascinate me despite their level of failure.  “Syriana” and “Hancock” are recent examples, but the quintessential exhibit has to be Danny Boyle’s “Sunshine,” which I caught once more today in the middle of career retrospective for the filmmaker.

    I still stand by every word I wrote about the film nearly two years ago.  It flakes apart swiftly in a final act that may have been doomed on the page, but damn if it isn’t a magnificent, near-masterpiece for about an hour and 15 minutes.  We’re talking true magisterial work from Boyle that has me chomping at the bit, anxious to see him tackle a deep space saga once more.  When I interviewed the director back in November, he said the process of making “Sunshine” made him understand why filmmakers only ever seem to make one space film.  “It’s merciless, the demands on you,” he said at the time.  “The precision you have to bring is migraine-inducing.”

    But this thing came close to top-of-the-genre material, and I hope and pray he has another one in him.  Something less boiled in genre like this one eventually is, perhaps.  Something ethereal, reaching for philosophical heights he and screenwriter Alex Garland clearly had in mind.  I’d be front row center.

    Anyway, Boyle was in town this evening to talk about his career once more, an eight-film stretch that seems, by all accounts, to be headed for an Oscar next month for his work on “Slumdog Millionaire.”  He sat down with festival director Roger Durling after the film screened at the Lobero Theatre tonight to discuss the fairytale story of the film, both on screen and off, and he was met with a massive standing ovation from the packed theater.

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  • OFF THE CARPET: Welcome to phase two

    Brad Pitt in The Curious Case of Benjamin ButtonThe nominations and all their ghastly reality are behind us.  The first two major guilds have spoken.  “Slumdog Millionaire” continues a long, slow (too slow for Searchlight) march toward Oscar, and ironically enough, the only film to win two awards at last night’s SAG ceremony was the one a lot of people were pissed got the shaft on Thursday.

    Such is the season.

    Phase two is a different game altogether.  Everyone has renewed life.  “Frost/Nixon” and “The Reader” are going to be happy to be there, while Focus and Paramount really think “Slumdog”‘s perch isn’t as water-tight as it could be.  Then again, that SAG ensemble victory had to burst one or two of thsoe balloons keeping their spirits afloat.

    The races of interest to me are lead actor, where a truly deserving Mickey Rourke goes toe-to-toe with an inarguable Sean Penn (maybe a fight to both their deaths as Frank Langella tip-toes past them and nabs the big prize?) and Best Supporting Actress, suddenly there for the taking as Kate Winslet has vacated the field in favor of dashing the hopes of the leading ladies who were all set to duke it out.

    Could Penelope Cruz (so dashing and sweet here in Santa Barbara last night) suddenly be the favorite once more?  Or is this just the moment Viola Davis has been waiting for?  Better yet, could Taraji P. Henson, probably the biggest charmer of the bunch, switch ont he after-burners and leave everyone in the dust?

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