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Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Popular awards...

The 9 films short-listed for the Best Foreign film Oscar are:

  • The Baader-Meinhof Complex (Germany, Uli Edel)
  • The Class (France, Laurent Cantet)
  • Departures (Japan, Yojiro Takita)
  • Everlasting Moments (Sweden, Jan Troell)
  • The Necessities of Life (Canada, Benoit Pilon)
  • Revanche (Austria, Gotz Spielmann)
  • Tear This Heart Out (Mexico, Roberto Sneider)
  • Three Monkeys (Turkey, Nuri Bilge Ceylan)
  • Waltz with Bashir (Israel, Ari Folman)

  • The most alarming miss from the list is Gomorra. I refuse to believe that all of the above 9 films are better than Gomorra. Ofcourse, I can only speculate about the validity of these movies as it will probably take me another 2 years to see the above films as none of the above 9 films have opened in my city yet although Three Monkeys had a solitary show at CIFF last year.

    Anyway, here are some predictions for the sake of it:

  • Waltz With Bashir will win the foreign film award and maybe that will be enough to ensure that the movie opens in my city.

  • The Dark Knight will not only get a nomination for best film but will win the award. Why? Because if an average yet highly popular movie like Titanic can win best film then The Dark Knight has a great chance.

  • Slumdog Millionaire will not get a nomination for best film but Danny Boyle will be nominated for best director. In fact, Slumdog.. will not win any awards and that includes A.R Rahman.


  • Unlike the Golden Globes, I think the Oscars will ensure that all the awards will only go to big Hollywood studio films and well known American actors. That is a feeling I got after seeing the expression of a majority of the people when some of the winners were announced at the Globes. Example: there seemed to be some puzzled looks when Shah Rukh Khan came on stage and joked with the Slumdog.. team. Only a few Hollywood actors, including Christina Applegate, appeared to be applauding for Slumdog..while the rest sat puzzled. Maybe most of the Hollywood actors had no idea who Shah Rukh Khan was or why Anil Kapoor seemed so happy? Or maybe they were still grappling with how to pronounce A.R Rahman's name, something the announcer mangled horribly?

    Honestly, I am not that concerned about who wins but the unfortunate reality is these awards dictate what movies open in smaller cities across Canada and America. So if a lesser known film wins then that will give hope that it might open in a city outside of L.A, New York and Toronto. Otherwise, one has to wait another year for a DVD release of the film while the multiplexes continue to be packed with movies about green ogres and flavor of the month super-heroes.

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