http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B001GQACGE/almosthuman
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – You can call "Slumdog Millionaire," the Fox Searchlight movie with more plaudits and awards expectations than Barack Obama, many things. A dark horse isn't one of them.
Yet if the Danny Boyle film emerges from the pack to pick up best picture, best director and best adapted screenplay Academy Award nominations -- it would be one of the least likely best picture nominees in history.
By conventional expectations, the British director's India-set movie about a slum kid who fights his way out of poverty and on to a "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire"-type show shouldn't work onscreen. Any other project to attempt such a melange of genres -- a Dickensian coming-of-age story, a romantic fairy tale, a "Kite Runner"-ish saga of class and religious tensions, a pop-culture sendup, a globalist screed, a game show drama, a gangster epic and a Bollywood fable -- normally would end up either unmade or a big mess. But Boyle's film is one of the most appealing in years precisely because of that ambition.
A similar kaleidoscope of challenges awaits its bid for awards.
"Slumdog," which opened Wednesday in exclusive engagements, is rolling out more slowly -- Searchlight chief operating officer Stephen Gilula calls the strategy "almost old-fashioned" -- than almost any serious best picture contender in years. This weekend, it's playing in fewer than 20 theaters, and by its fourth weekend it will be in about 100. (By contrast, the studio's indie darling "Juno" was on nearly 1,000 screens in its fourth weekend last year.)
Meanwhile, to say the film lacks stars is like saying Boyle's "Trainspotting" was about some guys who dabbled in heroin. Of the 100 films nominated for best picture in the past 20 years, you can count on one hand those that didn't feature one recognizable actor.
And Searchlight, which acquired the film from Warners in August, had to develop one of the fastest campaigns in award history -- no other best picture nominee in the modern era has ever lacked a viable distributor that late.
These aren't obstacles lost on Searchlight executives. "With 'Little Miss Sunshine,' we had Steve Carell, and with 'Juno,' we had Michael Cera coming out of 'Superbad.' But this is incredibly challenging," Gilula acknowledges. "And India is an entirely unfamiliar milieu."
So why is it as certain as death, taxes and a Weinstein Oscar push that this movie will be nominated?
Partly because reviewers have been raving in such awards-critical outlets as the Los Angeles Times and New York Times. Partly because the movie already is picking up a head of publicity steam, with cast members slated to appear on NBC's "Today" next week. Partly because of what a critic said of Boyle: that he's a director who makes "entertainment run deep." And after a few years of dark indie contenders, Oscar voters might find themselves in the mood for something deeply entertaining.
Then there's Searchlight's strong track record: Over the past couple of years, it has fielded at least two buzz movies heading into the season, with one making a run at best picture and the other awards: "Little Miss Sunshine" and "The Last King of Scotland" two years ago and "Juno" and "The Savages" last year. This time around, Searchlight is pushing "Slumdog" and "The Wrestler," the unlikely comeback vehicle for Mickey Rourke, which opens December 19.
http://chitika.com/publishers.php?refid=almosthuman99
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