I do not think I have ever seen anything like this.
It seems that every high end critic knows something I do not about films.
It seems every awards body has seen something I have not.
Perhaps it is time to hang up my coat.
Maybe, just maybe, the awards race really is about the times in which we live, rather than the excellence in film making (I hear many people laughing at my very late realization) .
I mean right now, even though there is a recession, and more people are out of work than ever before, there is a ray of hope in the shape of President Elect - Barack Obama.
This hope has tapped right into the world view of film reviewers, and awards bodies everywhere (well the USA and UK).
Although 'Slumdog Millionaire' is not the best film ever made, nor is it the best film of the year, it most likely is the film that most perfectly captures this new sense of hope after many years of Bush inflicted darkness and war.
Perhaps I should be thankful that a film made up of an Indian cast, set in India is most likely going to sweep the Oscars (a very American (white) centric body of people), even in categories the film really has no place in being.
And I am thankful for that, as minorities have had a hard time breaking into Oscar's little elite club. But I have a reservation because it is at the expense of films that hardly ever get this chance at awards glory. 'The Dark Knight' and 'WALL-E' still could get hurt by this juggernaut. Two genre films that deserve to be in the final five for Best Picture, may end up brushed aside for more 'traditional' films. This is a shame as films should be judged purely on merit and not genre. In the case of 'WALL-E' it still has the animated category, but that is a consolation prize.
Now it seems the 'Slumdog' vice hold on the awards race has reached a pinnacle.
People got upset when Dev Patel got a SAG nomination in supporting actor, many feeling he was either lead or just not that good. Now BAFTA, that sometimes can throw curve balls that can affect the entire race, have not only nominated Dev Patel in lead, but Freida Pinto in supporting (for a role that mainly relies on her beauty) as well. In fact it is almost nominated in every category (so did 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button' but that is more default noms and technical brilliance).
However this happens every year. Performances that may not be the best of the year, that get noticed in awards, suddenly get major haters proclaiming them the worst of the year (Check out the recent post by
Ryan Adams over at Awards Daily if you don't believe me....poor Dev Freida don't deserve that amount of hate at all).
This all goes to show that this film is a cultural phenomena. People are celebrating how they feel when watching it, more than the merits of the film itself, which is perfectly fine - I have done this many times (hello Moulin Rouge!)
Added to this, the film is technically a foreign indie film for many people, so the feeling of seeing a 'high brow' film adds to the love.
There are two scenarios.
1) The Juggernaut keeps on going and the film wins everything.
2) It eventually hits a wall it cannot pass, and the Academy feel it is rewarded enough and throws some love around.
The Oscar nominations are next week, and for the first time I am feeling a little ill at the thought that things could go horribly wrong.
Perhaps I need to follow the attitude of Sally Hawkins' 'Poppy' from 'Happy-Go-Lucky' and think on the bright side.
But since BAFTA even snubbed her, I think even she may be a bit pissed too so I do not feel so bad.
And as for the 'Feel good film of the decade' quote...it surprises me how short memories are.
Sometimes, a movie has to take you down -- and I mean down, really far -- in order to lift you up. Push (pictured), adapted from a novel by Sapphire (the film's full, rather awkward title is Push: Based on the Novel By Sapphire), does just that. The picture is utterly merciless in how it presents its heroine: a teenage girl from Harlem named Precious Jones who is a stunted, abused, childishly inarticulate, morbidly obese shell of a human being, with a face so inexpressive -- so utterly locked in -- that it might be a visor clamped down over her real features. The director, Lee Daniels, shows us the awful circumstances that have caused Precious to be the way she is (she is pregnant -- for the second time -- by her drug-addict father), and the actress Gabourey Sidibe plays her without a flicker of sentimentality, but with barely visible tremors of emotion that cue us to everything this arrested girl is holding back. Push shows us how a young woman who is nothing but a thick, bruised wall of walking scar tissue slowly emerges, pulling herself out of her living hell, and Daniels demonstrates unflinching daring as a filmmaker by going this deep, this far, this ruthlessly into the pathologies of rage and dependence that can still linger in the haunted closets of impoverished African-American life. Push is one of those films that make you think, "There but for the grace of God go I," but it's a potent and moving experience, because by the end you feel you've witnessed nothing less than the birth of a soul.
