Academy Award Nominations 2011!

I haven't talked about the movie awards season so far this year--I guess other things have been on my mind (I usually talk about the Golden Globes). But that ends today! The Academy Award nominations were announced this morning. Pretty exciting, but really there were relatively few surprises.

The King's Speech led the pack with 12 nominations, but other top nominees included True Grit with 10 nods and The Social Network and Inception with eight each. All four received nominations for best picture along with 127 Hours, Black Swan, The Fighter, The Kids Are All Right, Toy Story 3, and Winter's Bone. These nominees almost match exactly the PGA nominees, with the exception of The Town, which the Academy exchanged for Winter's Bone. The Social Network and The King's Speech are the front-runners in this category, as The Social Network has gathered the most wins so far (including the Golden Globe), but The King's Speech just won the PGA award this past weekend. This is the second year in a row that ten best picture nominees have been selected, instead of five. I have to say I like it, since it gives less traditional Oscar bait, such as sci-fi (last year's District 9, this year's Inception) and animation (last year's Up, this year's Toy Story 3) a chance in the category. They are worthy movies as well, but I would guess that they would not have been nominated if there were only five nominees.

The directors receiving Oscar nominations were Darren Aronofsky for Black Swan, Joel and Ethan Cohen for True Grit, David Fincher for The Social Network, Tom Hooper for The King's Speech, and David O. Russel for The Fighter. I have to say that I was disappointed that Christopher Nolan did not get a nomination for Inception, as he did for the DGA Awards (the Cohen brothers did not get a DGA nomination this year). It was my favorite movie of the year, and I thought Nolan's direction was innovative enough to deserve a nomination here. But at least it was nominated for best picture and original screenplay.

The acting nominations held a few surprises, deviating from the SAG nominees in three cases: Javier Bardem (Biutiful) was nominated for the lead actor Oscar alongside Jeff Bridges (True Grit), Colin Firth (King's Speech), James Franco (127 Hours), and Jesse Eisenberg (Social Network) in place of Robert Duvall (Get Low); Michelle Williams (Blue Valentine) got an Oscar nod for lead actress along with Annette Bening (Kids Are All Right), Jennifer Lawrence (Winter's Bone), Nicole Kidman (Rabbit Hole), and Natalie Portman (Black Swan), while Hilary Swank (Conviction) was left out; and Jacki Weaver (Animal Kingdom) was nominated for the supporting actress Oscar with Amy Adams (The Fighter), Melissa Leo (The Fighter), Helena Bonham Carter (King's Speech), and Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit), where Mila Kunis (Black Swan) had received the SAG nod. Christian Bale (The Fighter), John Hawkes (Winter's Bone), Jeremy Renner (The Town), Mark Ruffalo (Kids Are All Right), and Geoffrey Rush (King's Speech) are the nominees for the supporting acting Oscar, as they are for the SAG award.

Whew, sorry for that dense paragraph. There were only three nominees for best animated feature this year (the number of eligible films was just short of the minimum required for there to be five nominees). Toy Story 3 and How To Train Your Dragon got two of the slots as predicted, and The Illusionist received the third, as some had speculated but was not a sure thing (Despicable Me had received the third PGA nomination).

I think the biggest surprise was that Waiting for Superman failed to receive a nomination at all in the feature documentary category, as it just won the PGA award in that category. I had to read the list three times before I was certain it wasn't there. I'm not disappointed, since my impression was that it was overrated (a bit of controversy came up when it was discovered that a key scene was staged, though maybe that's a small thing and other documentaries do it too and just don't get caught). I've perhaps a slight bias against the film having happily gone to public school and having a mother who taught in public school, though just because they neglect to include important established facts that might contradict or complicate their message doesn't necessarily make it a bad documentary, just a one-sided one. I did like The Cove, after all, and it was certainly one sided and probably left out some details that the opposing side would have liked to include. Anyway, I was hoping Waiting for Superman wouldn't win, but I was still very surprised to see it not nominated.

You can find the full list of nominees here, among other places.

The lesson I take away from these nominations is that I need to see more movies. I feel like I've seen a lot this year, but I've seen less than half of the best picture nominees, and I haven't seen all the visual effects nominees (Alice in Wonderland, Harry Potter 7, Hereafter, Inception, and Iron Man 2), which makes me worse off than I was last year. But I have seen four of the ten best picture nominees, as well as three of the five nominees for visual effects, cinematography, sound mixing, and score. So I'm not totally hopeless, but those aren't considered the "major" categories.

I hope that Natalie Portman wins for Black Swan. Annette Bening was delightful in a nuanced role, but Natalie Portman blew me away. I hope that Inception wins some gold, particularly best original screenplay (though it's competing against The Kids Are All Right, again, which I thought was wonderful). I don't think it has a chance in best picture, but with nominations in cinematography, art direction, original score, sound mixing, sound editing, and visual effects, hopefully it will be able to pick up a few. Beyond that, though, I sadly haven't seen enough films to have a strong--or informed--opinion. Still, I look forward to seeing more movies on these lists, and to finding out the winners. The Academy Awards will be presented on Sunday, February 27.

Hathaway & Franco, Spidey disaster, and Kershner dies

A few bits of entertainment news:

I've been tracking the Spider-Man musical, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, for a while now, first as I thought it sounded like a ridiculous idea, then as I thought it might turn out to be good, then as I saw it plagued by multiple problems (running out of money, losing cast members) and delays (remember when previews were supposed to start last February? those were the days...). The most recent news is not good. After all this time, the show finally opened for preview showings on November 28 (the premiere is scheduled for January 11), but the performance is being called a disaster (e.g. Studio Briefing, NYPost). There were multiple significant malfunctions, such as cast members (including Spidey himself) being left hanging over the audience for several minutes. These glitches forced the performance to stop four times in the first act, and once in the second. During one of the stops, an audience member was heard to say, "I feel like a guinea pig tonight. I feel like it’s a dress rehearsal." Well, it kind of was... Reeve Carney (Peter Parker) said that it was the first time they'd gone all the way through the show (broadway.com). Wow, no wonder there were so many things going wrong. The whole performance took three and a half hours, and to make things worse, some audience members reported a boring score and confusing script. The most expensive Broadway show ever, at $65 million, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark can't afford to be a flop. Things aren't looking good so far.

Irvin Kershner, director of Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back, passed away this past Saturday at age 87 (Variety). The first sequel to the original Star Wars, the darker Empire Strikes Back initially received mixed reviews. However, it has gone on to become the most highly praised of all the Star Wars films. Much of the credit is given to Kershner. RIP.

OK, now, let's end on a lighter note...
It has been announced that Anne Hathaway and James Franco will be hosting this year's Oscars ceremony (e.g. Studio Briefing). Last year's ceremony had a pair of hosts as well, with Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin hosting the event, but the choice breaks from recent tradition by having hosts who are neither comedians nor song-and-dance performers. Not that Franco and Hathaway can't be funny or sing (we've seen some evidence to the contrary), but these are not talents for which they are primarily known. About the choice, producers said, "James Franco and Anne Hathaway personify the next generation of Hollywood icons— fresh, exciting and multi-talented." Their selection may be an attempt to increase the ratings for the telecast, bringing in young eyes who may not have been drawn by last year's "old fogies." Franco is very likely to be nominated for a lead acting Oscar this year, for his role in 127 Hours. Anne Hathaway received a best actress nomination two years ago for her lead role in Rachel Getting Married, and has a chance at a nomination this year for her role in Love and Other Drugs. I like both of these actors, so I hope they find ways to use them well in the ceremony. I'm hopeful it will be an entertaining show.

Oscar-winning documentary The Cove

It's now been almost two weeks since the 2010 Academy Awards. Neil Patrick Harris had a fun opening number. I thought The Hurt Locker was a great movie, so I'm glad it won lots of awards (especially Bigelow's Best Director!). I felt a little bad that Avatar didn't win more, but it definitely deserved the visual effects, art direction, and cinematography awards it took away. Essentially, it was by far the best looking of this year's movies. I was pleased that Star Trek got something (for makeup). District 9 walked away empty handed, but it was great that it was nominated in such competitive categories (best picture and best adapted screenplay).

Still, the win that I was probably most excited about was The Cove for Best Documentary. I haven't seen any of the other nominees, so I can't really say if The Cove was the best, but it is probably the best documentary that I've ever seen, and I think it deserved the award. Sadly, the winners were shuffled off the stage before the second producer, Louie Psihoyos--the one who was also the director--was able to say anything. You can see what he would have said in his Oscar speech here (not even that long--would have been 30 sec). The cameras also managed to show only the briefest flash of Rick O'Barry's sign saying to text DOLPHIN to 44144.

One of the great things about The Cove is how entertaining it is. It has an exciting story with an intriguing setting and interesting players. Most of it is set in the town of Taiji in Japan, a quiet little fishing town. It seems idyllic, but of course beneath the surface is an industry that regularly herds dolphins into a hidden cove and slaughters them. They kill about 23,000 dolphins a year; their business is legal and carefully protected from publicity by the government. Taiji even has a nice aquarium where you can see the smart dolphins perform in cute little dolphin shows...while you munch on a snack of dolphin meat. The fishermen are understandably sick of outsiders coming in to protest their work, but it is still kind of funny seeing them try to provoke the visitors in different ways to attack them so they can get the pesky visitors arrested. What is especially troubling is that the fishermen don't even make that much money from the dolphin killing. They make most of their money from selling live dolphins they capture to dolphinariums and the like--it's about $125,000 a pop. The money for dolphin meat is much lower, since other whale meat is much more expensive than dolphin (in the documentary, they found dolphin meat being sold under false labels, but that's a whole other can of worms there). One organization offered to compensate the fishermen with the same amount they earn from killing dolphins--paying their salary--but the offer was declined.

The main player in The Cove is Rick O'Barry, the dolphin trainer for the popular '60s "Flipper" TV show. He seems a bit of a fanatic, but his story is an interesting one. After his TV show went off the air and his dolphin friends were sent to aquariums, he saw that they were really depressed there. Not only were they confined to limited areas, but they were highly stressed by the noise--not just of the people, but even of their own tanks and filtration systems. One of the dolphins he had loved and worked with, he says, was so miserable she committed suicide in his arms. She looked at him and then just stopped breathing (dolphins, unlike humans, have to make the conscious decision to take each breath, which makes sense given that they live underwater). That is what set him off, and he saw that the show that he had participated in had now popularized these dolphinariums which were making the dolphins miserable. Furthermore, since the fishermen of Taiji really earn their living by selling live dolphins to dolphinariums, as he sees it the popularity of dolphin shows is funding the slaughter of 23,000 dolphins a year in the Taiji cove.

In The Cove, O'Barry recruits a special team to his cause. Someone in the movie compares their team to Ocean's 11, and that is a bit what it's like: different people with different specializations (for example, champion free-divers, and a movie set designer who made rock-looking casings in which to hide cameras) brought together to carry out a heist. Their mission: to get video and audio footage of the hidden cove where the dolphins are all killed. It's pretty suspenseful as they carefully observe the guards' routines and then descend on the cove in the middle of the night, literally fearing for their lives as they trespass on forbidden property.

The documentary also has clever clips selected to give you a sense of the ridiculous arguments made by the defenders of the dolphin harvest. It's the kind of pleasure you get when watching Jon Stewart show clips of Glenn Beck or Michele Bachmann. They also have good "gotcha" moments in some interviews, with satisfaction similar to that found in The Daily Show or Colbert Report interviews (the silly pre-taped and edited ones, not the ones during the show). For instance, there's an exchange with someone from Japan's fisheries department that goes something like this:
Fisheries guy: But the dolphins are slaughtered very humanely, with a special knife that they stick right through the spinal cord so they are killed instantly.
Director Psihoyos: If they weren't killed that way, would it be wrong?
Fisheries guy: I don't deal with ifs.
Director Psihoyos: Well, take a look at this.
Shows clip of fishermen on boats lazily spearing dolphins with jabs of long harpoons, after which the dolphins swim helplessly through the water, bleeding out over periods of minutes, until finally going under.
Fisheries guy: (Watches silently, and then--) Where and when did you get this footage?

There are also some relaxing, eye candy moments in the movie, with clips of dolphins in the waves, and of one of the free-divers swimming with dolphins in their natural habitat. One wonders if the dolphins are all calling out to each other Hey, look, it's a human, come check her out! Isn't she cute? It looked like so much fun, I realized that if I ever do swim with a dolphin, I want it to be out in the open ocean where they are free. Yeah, I was totally jealous of that free-diver and her monofin (I want to swim like a mermaid, too!).

The documentary offered a pretty one-sided look at the story, certainly, but it made a convincing case. One wonders whether the movie, and its increased publicity from winning the Academy Award, will be able to bring the change it aims to inspire. The trouble is, as pointed out in the documentary itself and in Psihoyos's (extended) acceptance speech, it's the people of Japan who need to know what's going on. The Japanese government won't change its policies because some outraged westerners are telling them that Taiji's practices are wrong. But the fact is that it seems most people in Japan don't view dolphin as a food animal--it's just in the small region around Taiji that they eat dolphin. And even within Taiji, there's some disagreement about the consumption of dolphin meat for health reasons (they were planning on putting it in mandatory school lunches, but some concerned parents prevented it). If enough people in Japan protest Taiji's dolphin slaughter, maybe the government will stop protecting the Taiji fishermen, and the fishermen will be convinced that the small profit they make from selling dolphin meat isn't worth it.

Time will tell what the documentary can accomplish. For now, I will just highly recommend that you see this Oscar-winning documentary if you get the chance--it's on DVD. It's fun, moving, and meaningful--what great entertainment should be.


Go to http://www.takepart.com/thecove/

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This post explains why I enjoyed the movie, but my next post gives reasons why I agree with its message: Reasons not to eat dolphins
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The 81st Annual Academy Awards

I am happy to report that I did not end up watching the Oscars show alone. I started out with about five other people watching it with me, though by the end there was just one other person who had lasted the > 3 hour ceremony.

The relevant results:
Slumdog Millionaire was the big winner of the night, taking home eight statues from its ten nominations, for best picture, director Danny Boyle, adapted screenplay, cinematography, editing, music, song, and sound (mixing). The only two nominations it lost were sound editing to The Dark Knight and best song to itself (it had two noms in the category). Benjamin Button, which had received the most nominations, was left to pick up Slumdog's scraps, in best art direction, makeup, and visual effects. Milk enjoyed two big wins for best actor Sean Penn and for original screenplay. Dark Knight, which had received eight nominations, won two for sound editing and best supporting actor; Heath Ledger's parents and sister accepted the award on behalf of his daughter Matilda. Wall-E, which had received 6 nominations, won only for best animated feature film. Kate Winslet won her first Oscar (it was her sixth nomination) for best actress in The Reader; Penelope Cruz won her first Oscar for best supporting actress in Vicky Cristina Barcelona. The Dutchess won for costumes. Doubt and Frost/Nixon both left empty-handed. Overall, the results lived up to the awards predictions. The only surprise of the night was the Best Foreign Language Film award, which went to Japan's Okuribito, not to either of the more recognized front-runners, Israel's Waltz with Bashir and France's The Class.

The production of the Oscar show:
The Academy Awards show itself was structured to tell the story of the process of making a movie. This was fine, though there were some categories--animated feature and short, feature and short documentaries, and foreign film--that didn't fit in with the story, and the supporting acting categories were sprinkled around as well, breaking with the overall structure. Plus, the best director award had to come near the end, which in the structure of the story seemed a bit contrived. The acting category presentations were very long. For each acting award, five previous winners would stand in a semi-circle on stage and make a little tribute speech for each of the five nominees, then welcome the winner as a new member of their fraternity/sorority. I suppose if you were one of the nominees it might have been sweet to have Sophia Loren flatter you or Alan Arkin mess up your name, but it took too long and was kind of boring. Luckily, the other categories were done fairly efficiently, particularly since several were grouped together with the same presenters.

The show had a bunch of montages, but I wasn't particularly interested by most of them. Romances from the past year's movies? Lame. I wonder if they managed to attract more young viewers by parading Robert Pattinson, Zac Efron, and Vanessa Hudgens across the stage. I also have to complain about the use of the random blue-tinted clips on a five-second loop that they used to fill in the gaps of the screen whenever it cut to show shrunken shots of nominees/presenters (they're hard to describe, but if you watched the show, you saw it many times). For the most part, I was not aware of the clips, which I think was the point (they shouldn't distract me from the presenter or nominee). But my friend and I both found the Kung Fu Panda clip very distracting. If I see Po catching that thing in his mouth one more time... Yeah, we were pretty sick of seeing that every five seconds throughout the show.

Hugh Jackman didn't have that much to do (I guess less host filler helps move the show along), though he did do two song and dance numbers. I really liked the opening medley about selected nominated movies--Anne Hathaway as Nixon in a Frost/Nixon romance was great, and the bit about The Reader ("I haven't seen The Reader") was hilarious. But I do tend to like musicals, so I'm not sure what other people's reactions will be. Presenter Ben Stiller took an easy jab at Joaquin Phoenix, gum and all. Freida Pinto had a really nice blue dress. Dev Patel is adorable, and he looked so excited and elated each time Slumdog won an award. And the little children got up on the stage at the end when it won Best Picture! So cute!

I thought it was a good show overall. Could have been better, and shorter, of course. And over the credits at the end, they showed some preview clips from upcoming 2009 films. Let the new Oscar race begin!


some of my frock; take what you're given

Random thoughts on a rainy Sunday

Three little things on my mind at the moment.

The first is the news that The Dark Knight has passed the $1 billion mark in worldwide box office take (Variety, IMDb). It is the fourth film to do so, after Titanic, RotK, and the second Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Its re-release in IMAX following the Oscar nominations as well as new grosses in Ecuador helped it top $1 bil. Pretty impressive.

The second thing is the new Mass Effect 2 teaser. A teaser indeed. An unnecessarily cruel teaser. How long do we have to wait for this thing? Between this teaser, the far-off promise of Diablo III, and the delay of DAO to Q4 2009, I'm going out of my mind with anticipation. I need a new game right now to take my mind off of things. Now!

The third thing on my mind is the Academy Awards show tonight. Who will win? What beautiful dresses will we see? What horrendous dresses will we see? What is the deal with all these surprises the show organizers have hinted at? I'm excited to see Hugh Jackman and whoever else singing and dancing. I hope it won't be a letdown. We'll see what kind of an audience they get, but I'll certainly be watching tonight. If I liked to throw parties, I'd have thrown an Oscar party. But seeing as I'm way too lazy to do that, I'll put on some fancy clothes and watch the show with maybe one or two friends. If they're interested. Which they may not be. Oh well, whatever. It's not like it would be pathetic for me to sit alone in front of a TV for three hours wearing a fancy dress to watch an awards show to which I have no real relation. Right?


Addendum (Thoughts on what briefly turned into a snowy Sunday and then suddenly became a very sunny Sunday):
I have not blogged about the second episode of Dollhouse. I haven't really made a habit of blogging weekly about episodes of the dozen or so TV shows that I watch. But since the subject has come up... This week's Dollhouse put Echo into a "Most Dangerous Game" situation (spoiler: she doesn't die) and introduced what it seems will become a recurring plot involving an ex-Active called Alpha. Mysterious. In his review of the first episode of Dollhouse in Entertainment Weekly, Ken Tucker had expressed concern that, because each week Echo would be given a new personality, audiences would find themselves oddly detached with "no consistent hero to root for every week." I think with this second episode, we start to see what that's going to be like, and I think it's going to work. Eliza Dushku's new characters have been readily likable and interesting, but there is also clearly some element of her that isn't being totally erased, and we the audience can latch onto that part of her that is fighting to persist and to be recognized. We have also gained some insight into her relationship with her handler Langdon, which I think will be another consistency to keep us emotionally engaged with the show. Let's hope they can keep it up.

V, He-Man, Hyperion, Sea Kittens and more

Well, I've been saving up entertainment news stories that have interested me for a while now without making a post, so some of these aren't recent news anymore. But here are my thoughts on them anyway.

Emily Blunt is in talks to play Black Widow in Iron Man 2, with Mickey Rourke and Sam Rockwell also negotiating to play villains in the sequel (Variety). But Blunt is also committed to join Jason Segel and Jack Black in Gulliver's Travels (Variety), which may interfere with filming for the Black Widow role. Her representatives are trying to work out a way for her to be in both movies. I loved the first Iron Man movie (I just bought it on Amazon--boy am I a sucker for that "Spend $25 and get free super-saver shipping!" deal), so I am definitely interested to hear how the casting goes. All I've seen Emily Blunt in is Devil Wears Prada, but I think she's great, so I hope she can work out the scheduling conflicts.
>Update 2/16/09: Scarlett Johansson is reportedly in talks to take on the Black Widow role, as Blunt's commitment to Gulliver's Travels will cause her to miss out on the Iron Man 2 role (IMDb).

As of mid-January, there was still talk of a possible Pushing Daisies movie (IMDb). They're keeping my hope alive, at least. Lost and BSG are back on this season now, but I still miss my weekly fix of Pushing Daisies. I wonder if and when they're planning on showing the final un-aired episodes.

This isn't really entertainment news, but I did hear of it on a TV show. Thanks to Stephen Colbert, I now know about the delightful PETA campaign to get people to refer to fish as "sea kittens" in the hope that it will make people think twice before eating fish. Well, to paraphrase Colbert, I'll be happy to give up eating what PETA calls "sea kittens":


as long as I can start eating what I like to call "land fish":


Mmmmm. Now, the campaign did not work for me; for environmental purposes, I think it would be good to be a vegan, but I'm not at a place right now where I'm willing to give up meat, much less dairy. Still, I did go to PETA's sea kitten website, where I made myself a sea kitten:

Isn't she cute? (And do you get the reference?)

The Narnia movies are back on again. After Disney dropped the franchise due to the movies' big budgets and Prince Caspian's less impressive box office take, 20th Century Fox has agreed to develop Walden Media's next Narnia movie, Voyage of the Dawn Treader (Variety, IMDb). I still haven't seen Caspian, but I liked the first movie, and it's always good to know that fantasy movies are still alive. I hope this one will be able to impress at the box office, encouraging more.

ABC has greenlit a pilot for a reworking of 1980s sci-fi series V (Variety). The series is written by Scott Peters, who did The 4400, and tells the story of a seemingly friendly alien race that comes to Earth but turns out to have nefarious plans. I've never seen the original series or The 4400, so I don't really have much to say about the project, but I'm always interested to hear of new sci-fi series coming to network TV. Some new adaptations of old sci-fi series have worked (Battlestar Galactica), and some have not (Bionic Woman). We'll see where this one falls.

By the power of Grayskull! V isn't the only series from the '80s getting a reimagining; a new He-Man movie is in the works. Warner Bros. is financing Masters of the Universe, which will be directed by Kung Fu Panda co-director John Stevenson (Variety). Mattel's toy line will likely be getting a nice reboot as well. My brothers and I loved watching He-Man as kids; we had a bunch of episodes recorded on VHS and we certainly had a lot of He-Man toys. Being a girl, though, I of course preferred She-Ra. Maybe if He-Man is successful, they'll make a She-Ra movie, too. I don't know, though; it's hard to imagine He-Man not being campy (I mean, just the name is pretty silly).

Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion, two sci-fi novels by Dan Simmons, are being adapted into one film, to be called "Hyperion Cantos", by Warner Bros. The screenplay is being written by Trevor Sands, who also adapted David Brin's Startide Rising into what may be an upcoming Paramount movie, and Scott Derrickson, director of the The Day the Earth Stood Still remake, is set to direct (Variety). I haven't read Dan Simmons, but as I've mentioned, I'm always interested to hear of sci-fi projects. That said, I hear the remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still was awful, so I don't know if we should get our hopes up about this movie.

M. Night Shyamalan is making a movie called "The Last Airbender", which is apparently based on a Nickelodeon series (Variety). I don't know anything about such a series--I don't get Nickelodeon--but it sounds to me like Shyamalan is planning to make a kids movie. *Shiver.* Well, he has mostly disappointed of late, so maybe Airbender will be good for him. And Dev Patel (Slumdog Millionaire) has just joined the cast. I saw him on a recent Daily Show with Jon Stewart, and I'm just a little bit in love with him. But, uh, he's 18. Legal, sure, but still too young for me not to be a little creepy. Anyway, uh, speaking of the Oscars...

Producers of the Academy Awards show have said that the Oscars are going to be full of surprises this year (IMDb, NY Times). Nominees were told they should "be prepared" (ooh, ominous) and that a lot of risks will be taken. One interesting twist is that they said there is actually going to be some kind of story line told in the awards show itself. The presenters of the awards are being kept secret, which is unusual, and audiences should expect host Hugh Jackman to sing a number directed by Baz Luhrmann. With ratings for the Oscars falling in recent years, and without a huge blockbuster presence in the big categories once again, the producers of the show are clearly trying to change things up to attract a larger audience. I'll be watching, at least. Time, and Nielsen, will tell how many other people tune in with me.

Slumdog Millionaire

Well I finally saw one of this year's Oscar contenders. I was one of the many people who flocked to the theater to see Slumdog Millionaire as it expanded its release this past weekend.

I can see why people love the movie so much. It is beautiful, funny, suspenseful, romantic, sad, touching, and has an endearing character that the audience can easily root for. Also, it is probably the only nominee this year that ends with a big dance number. And what leaves you feeling better than a joyous group dance number? I mean, even the little children dance! Too cute!

Slumdog Millionaire tells the story of Jamal, an orphan from the slums of Mumbai who winds up one question away from winning the jackpot 20 million rupees on India's version of the game show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. Convinced that Jamal is cheating, an interrogator forces Jamal to explain how a "slumdog" could know each answer, and the movie cuts back and forth from the game show questions to the scenes from Jamal's past where he learned the answers. In these flashbacks, we see his tragic childhood, how he and his older brother Salim struggled to make it with no one to look after them, how he befriended fellow orphan Latika, and how every time he and Latika are torn apart, he devotes himself to finding her again.

No, the movie's not perfect. First I'd like to air this minor grievance of mine. The start of the movie poses a multiple choice question, where, as on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, the four choices appear one by one. These were my thoughts as they appeared:

Jamal Malik is one question away from winning 20 million rupees. How did he do it?
A. He cheated
No way, I'm sure he didn't.
B. He's lucky
Probably, very.
C. He's a genius
Maybe.
D. It is written
Like, in a book or adapted screenplay? Of course. Way to break the fourth wall. Oh, you mean like destiny or something. Okay, that's probably it, then.

When it is said that something "is written", figuratively speaking it implies something like "it is written in the stars," which essentially means "it is fate." But you have to be careful using the phrase in something that is literally written. In the context of a movie or book, saying something "is written" just sounds obvious. Okay, sorry, just had to get that off my chest. Moving on...

The use of game show questions to prompt the flashback sequences that tell the story is a nice device, but it is not original. Similar premises have probably been used a number of times before, but I remember reading one particular book in middle school that used this sort of device, a Newbery Medal winner called The View from Saturday by E.L. Konigsburg. It was about a team of friends competing in an academic bowl, and with each question they answered, it would cut to the point that they learned the answer. Now, like most books that I read more than half a lifetime ago, I hardly remember this book (though it may be interesting to note the few details I do remember: A weird boy on the school bus who wears shorts on the first day of school invites some friends to a tea party with references from Alice in Wonderland, and tip and posh are acronyms), but I do remember that general premise. Still Slumdog Millionaire makes good use of the device, and it is the poignant story told through the flashbacks that makes the movie great.

Some of the story was a little predictable, like what the last question would be, and the fact that Jamal would be phoning a friend and Latika would be the one answering the phone. But it is written, right? If fate is writing the story, it might as well work out just as it seems like it should. And there was much to the story that I did not find predictable or unoriginal. The children were adorable--I particularly enjoyed seeing the various ways that Jamal and his brother made a living growing up (remind me to bring an extra pair of shoes if I ever visit the Taj Mahal). And while it may seem like the same old rags to riches fantasy we've seen countless times before, it's not so simple. At the beginning of the movie, when Jamal looks totally dazed on the game show and doesn't seem happy whenever he gets an answer right, I was kind of mumbling to myself, "Just snap out of it, kid, and smile or something." I didn't understand why he didn't seem excited that he was winning. But eventually I realized that he didn't care about the money. I'm sure that the money he wins helps buy him a life that he never could have dreamed of (the movie naturally ends before we see how he spends all the money), but he wasn't on the show to get rich. It's a rags to riches story where the riches aren't the point.

There is considerable controversy surrounding the film. Some people think that it paints India in a bad light. Sure, it shows tough living conditions in Mumbai's slums, but it's a story about a kid from the slums. And every country has its poor parts; it is clear in the movie that the whole country is not like the slums where Jamal grew up. Another controversy is over the use of the word "slumdog" in the title of the movie. As one social activist protester reportedly put it, "Referring to people living in slums as dogs is a violation of human rights" (IMDb). Setting aside the fact that using a word is not a violation of human rights so much as preventing someone from using the word is (well, at least it's a violation of rights in some places), I think these protesters are missing the point. First of all, they may not realize how much we like dogs. Another compound word that uses "dog" is "underdog", which happens to describe Jamal as well. And, as it turns out, people like to root for the underdog. When the Giants face off against the Patriots and are called the underdogs*, they don't claim that their rights have been violated. They probably welcome the designation. Calling the movie "Slumdog Millionaire" is not calling people who live in slums animals. Besides, the whole movie is dedicated to making the audience feel for Jamal, to sympathize with him and root for him. Whatever the title, if anything the audience leaves with a higher opinion of people who live in slums than when they entered. So even if the word is perceived by some as derogatory, one could argue that the use of the word is ironic: here is a character that some people might look down on and call a slumdog, but he is a good, deserving person who wins big on a game show. Nowhere in there is Danny Boyle calling the real people who live in slums anything less than human. Stop burning him in effigy.

Well, I absolutely loved the movie. I didn't enjoy it as much as Dark Knight, but that's personal taste. And I sure didn't leave Dark Knight dancing. Hopefully I'll get to see other Oscar contenders before the big night, but if not, at least I've seen the front-runner underdog Slumdog Millionaire.


*I hope you appreciate the fact that coming up with a sports team reference is a frightening and torturous process for me.

Academy Awards Nominations!

Don't be sad, the Season of Giving is not over yet: the 81st Annual Academy Awards nominations were announced this morning! And I, um, still haven't seen any of the nominees in the six major categories (i.e., picture, director, and lead and supporting actors and actresses), save for Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight. In a somewhat poignant coincidence, his nomination for Best Performance by and Actor in a Supporting Role (isn't it diplomatic that the official title doesn't say who is actually the best actor, just who gave the best performance of the year) comes exactly one year after his untimely death. And he is one of the surest bets of the year; it would be a huge upset if he doesn't win. In any other year, I would be rooting for Robert Downey Jr. in Tropic Thunder, but not this year. Not against Ledger.

Well, the fact that I haven't seen many of the nominees puts me in a strange position. I am always reading about the movie business, so I feel well acquainted with the nominees and want to talk about them like everyone else. But I don't actually have informed opinions of my own about any of them. I guess I will talk about what opinions I have, anyway, as well as whatever I find interesting about the nominations.

Benjamin Button was the big winner in the Oscar nominations, with a hefty total of 13--the same number that Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King received (though it is not expected to win all of them, as RotK did). The Best Picture nominees are The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Slumdog Millionaire, The Reader, Milk, and Frost/Nixon. They all also received nominations for their directors and screenwriters (Milk for original screenplay, the others for adapted). Revolutionary Road, which had fared well at the Golden Globes with nominations for picture, director, and lead actor and actress (for which Kate Winslet won), received only one major category nomination for supporting actor Michael Shannon. Leonardo DiCaprio was the only actor who received a Golden Globe nomination for leading role in a drama who did not get an Oscar nod; Richard Jenkins received the honor instead for The Visitor. Similarly, Kate Winslet's Golden Globe-winning performance in Revolutionary Road was ousted in the Oscar nominations and replaced by... Kate Winslet in The Reader, for which Winslet had actually won a supporting actress Golden Globe. As has happened before, the Golden Globes and Oscars disagreed on what constitutes a lead and a supporting role. Also in the lead actress category, Melissa Leo was nominated for Frozen River in place of Golden Globe nominee Kristin Scott Thomas.

Wall-E received a nomination for Best Animated Feature, but it also received nominations in original screenplay, original score, original song, sound, and sound editing, setting a Pixar record in number of nominations and tying Beauty and the Beast as the most nominated animated film. I hope they cook up something cute for the awards show when Wall-E accepts its animated feature award (which there is little doubt it will do).

The PGA and DGA nominations got my hopes up about The Dark Knight, but The Reader slipped into its place. Or Milk stole Revolutionary Road's place, if you're looking at the Golden Globes, but that would be silly... even though I just did that a whole bunch in my discussion of the acting categories above. Anyway, Dark Knight did get a respectable 8 nominations. In addition to best supporting actor, it received nods for cinematography, film editing, art direction, makeup, sound, sound editing, and visual effects. After all the fuss over whether it should be eligible for best score (it was disqualified, then requalified), it didn't end up with a nomination in that category.

A Best Picture and/or Best Director would have been nice for The Dark Knight, and it might have helped the Oscar show's lagging ratings of late. I would never support the Academy pandering to the masses by throwing in a nomination for a huge box office hit just to get more viewers--their job is to give the recognition for achievement in film that box office dollars cannot give. Nor would I even suggest that the Academy is shamefully out of touch with mainstream tastes; judging by last weekend's box office receipts, mainstream tastes can themselves be shameful. I would just feel better knowing that the Academy is not prejudiced against comic book films simply because of lingering fanboy stigma. They showed that they could accept a great fantasy film, but RotK was a full five years ago. Since I haven't seen any of the actual Best Picture nominees, I can't say which should give up its place to The Dark Knight (though the DGA and PGA say The Reader). Still, the five nominees all ooze Oscar bait. It would have been refreshing to see a dark knight on the list with them.

Aliens, Heroes, and Hugh Jackman

A decade from now, we may have an angry mob of aliens at our doorstep. In a stellar publicity stunt, 20th Century Fox is promoting its new re-imagining of alien movie The Day the Earth Stood Still by beaming the movie from a satellite communications network in Cape Canaveral, Florida to Alpha Centauri, our nearest neighbor star system (Variety, IMDb). The question is, will they also send a compendium of movie reviews so the residents of said star system will know not to bother watching it?

If Galaxy Quest and Contact teach us anything, it's that aliens pay attention to the Earth media that makes it out into space. And considering the universally dismal reviews that the new Day the Earth Stood Still is receiving, we can only expect a dismal reception throughout the universe. If the denizens of Alpha Centauri are a warlike race, the offense of having such a horrible movie beamed to them will force them to declare war on us. But even if the Alpha Centaurians are keepers of peace, the movie will prove to them that we humans cannot be trusted to take care of our own culture and they will be forced to intervene... by destroying us. Luckily, it will take over four years for the signal to reach Alpha Centauri, and presuming that Alpha Centauri technology has not developed to the point of faster-than-light travel, it will take another four years or more for their armies to reach the Earth. After that, all bets are off.

Well, that was my favorite bit of recent news. What else has interested me lately?

Spider-Man The Musical continues to sling its way towards the Broadway stage with Julie Taymor at the helm. Evan Rachel Wood, who showed off her singing talent in Taymor's Across the Universe, has officially signed on to play the part of Mary Jane (IMDb). Taymor is still trying to get her other Across the Universe lead, Jim Sturgess, to play Peter Parker. We'll see how that goes.

I have already made it abundantly clear that I am very sad about ABC's cancellation of Pushing Daisies. It is possible, though, that some good may come of it. As distraught as I have been about PD's demise, I have also been distraught (along with countless other fans) over the pathetic decline of Heroes. I have refrained from ranting in this blog each week about my specific gripes with various nonsensical plot developments, but suffice it to say that a show that I once enjoyed and admired has turned into a mishmash of Heroes doing random things for no good reason amidst a world of forced plot devices. Sometimes I feel like they must have new writers each week who have not seen more than two of the previous episodes. Plot twists are great, but they still have to make sense. It's fine not to be able to see a twist coming before it happens, but it's a problem if you still can't see the twist coming after it happens. Hmm, apparently the one sentence did not suffice for my venting, but I'll stop myself there at four. Anyway... Bryan Fuller, who co-executive produced the well-loved first season of Heroes and wrote a couple of its episodes ("Collision" and "Company Man"), has not been working on Heroes for the past two years because he was busy being the creator of Pushing Daisies. Now that PD has been canceled, Fuller has returned to Heroes as a consultant. There are no guarantees that Heroes can or will be saved, but fans at least have a reason not to give up hope (EW Ausiello Files interview).

Lastly, it was announced today that Hugh Jackman will be hosting the Oscars (Variety, IMDb). I hope he will do some singing. He won an Emmy for hosting the Tony Awards the year after he won a Tony for his starring role in Boy from Oz (which I saw--he was great, as was the show), so he has some good qualifications. While not a comedian in the same sense that recent hosts Jon Stewart, Ellen DeGeneres, Chris Rock, Steve Martin and others are, he knows how to work an audience from a stage, is fun and likable, and he is the World's Sexiest Man Alive. I'm looking forward to the Oscars. Hopefully it will happen. We'll see how the strike thing plays out...