Slumdog Millionaire is now on a completely unprecedented awards-season streak, as it picked up wins from four guilds over the weekend: the Art Directors Guild (ADG) and Cinema Audio Society (CAS) on Saturday, and the American Cinema Editors (ACE) and the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC) on Sunday. Add to that its victories at the BAFTAs, Golden Globes, Producers Guild, Directors Guild, Writers Guild, Broadcast Critics, and SAG awards and you have a completely unheard-of pre-Oscar sweep. (For example, Chicago and The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King both lost the WGA prize; American Beauty didn’t win the ACE, ADG, or CAS; Forrest Gump lost the ASC and BAFTA trophies; and even Schindler’s List couldn’t pick up the ASC or CAS prizes.) With Oscar ballots due tomorrow, it will take nothing short of a miracle for any of the four other Best Picture nominees to close this gap. The full lists of winners are below.
Art Directors Guild
Period Film: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Fantasy Film: The Dark Knight
Contemporary Film: Slumdog Millionaire
Cinema Audio Society
Slumdog Millionaire
American Cinema Editors
Dramatic Film: Slumdog Millionaire
Comedic Film: WALL•E
American Society of Cinematogaphers
Slumdog Millionaire
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Just wait. A year or two from now. Everyone will say that Slumdog Millionaire didn’t deserve the wins it will get. Something about the hype for this movie is so off putting. I can’t believe it’s better than some of the other nominees. Sorry, I just can’t.
The only chance the other people in the field has, if somehow the people who actually voted for the Oscar went another way on mass.
The award hype for this movie is nausating!
I love this movie. Stacey, I’m going to respectfully disagree with you. Slumdog Millionaire is a fantastic movie, and years from now, I believe it will be regarded as such. Besides, which of the Best Picture nominees DO deserve to win over Slumdog Millionaire? Please don’t say Milk!
Everyone I talk to loves this movie. I saw it twice and it got to me even more the second time. I like it when great movies with no overpaid stars or directors can get so much attention and can connect with a global audience. I hope more quality movies like this are made and do well.
Okay, I loved Slumdog Millionaire, don’t get me wrong, but this is getting a little annoying. Do people really not want to award ANY other film? There are so many good ones; Slumdog isn’t the only movie that deserves trophies.
it even won an NAACP award. and it deserves it. though is should have won best picture. loved the secret life of bees. but SDM was better.
reminds me of Jhud winning all the awards and people started hating. SDM is the best movie i’ve seen all year. and i watched everything…well except HSM3.
I totally agree, Sarah. The way Slumdog is dominating the award season, you’d think it was a ridiculously weak year in movies. That couldn’t be further from the truth. I can honestly say I’ve seen every movie nominated for the major awards, and most nominated for the smaller ones, and–while I really enjoyed Slumdog and thought it was great–it is actually only number six on my list. Why? Because there were SO many phenomenal movies this year, and it’s a shame that each and every set of voters found it necessary to hop on the Slumdog train instead of spreading the wealth to give other movies this year the credit they deserve. For the record, my top five would be:
1. Milk
2. Frozen River
3. Changeling
4. Doubt
5. The Reader
SDM is a very good film but it also represents people who make it against all odds, something people want to see now in these times, the Mumbai attacks surely helped bring this film to light and I think its great that the US is showing the world we are not secular.
When I saw SM I was a little skeptical… I thought it couldn’t be as good as everybody said… after all it’s a movie about a boy on who wants to be a millionaire… oooh man was I wrong… it is one of the best movies I’ve seen in many years! I LOVED IT… LOVED IT… LOVED IT!!! I have seen it three times already! and can’t get tired of it. Danny Boyle is a genius! and this movie is a masterpiece!
This award love over Slumdog Millionaire is just getting out of hand. I mean, seriously, there are other movies out there, better photographed, better written, better sounding and better directed than this film. Not to say that I don’t like the film, I really did, but I am just really getting sick and tired of it winning everything and frankly, it’s getting obnoxious. Here’s what it swept:
National Board of Review
Broadcast Film Critics
Golden Globes
Screen Actors Guild
Directors Guild
Writers Guild
Producers Guild
American Society of Cinematographers
Cinema Audio Society
Art Directors Guild
American Cinema Editors
Also, I’m getting tired of the Academy cramming their elitest, predictable nominees down our throats. Personally, I feel The Dark Knight and Wall-E were robbed in favor of “supporting independent films.” Ooo, look at us, we’re edgy & supporting the little guy when they should be encouraging studios to keep making smart movies. This is going to be a boring year.
Slumdog Millionaire is a great film, but a great movie called Milk deserves to be sweeping, not this movie. I can understand it winning a fair amount of awards, but not sweeping like it is now.
Hadn’t Brokeback Mountain won all these pre-Oscar awards too? That didn’t help when it came to the Oscars. How it lost to Crash, I’ll never understand.
At this point, I’m inclined to think that they’re just throwing awards at it to make it go away. I haven’t seen it so I won’t bash it, but this press/media blitz is making me sick of it.
I love, love Slumdog, I know the cool thing to do now is to bash it. But, i just saw last week after the bashing began and I thought, oh my god, obviously is being bashed by people who have not seen it. It will stay with me forever, because it was so grand, epic, and yet small and truthful, it’s a story for the ages,a timeless film. I can’t speak highly enough about it. It’s a visual experience that will be around for years to come.
IT ALSO WON THE AWARD FOR MOST OVERRATRED FILM OF 2008! CONGRATULATIONS SLUMDONG!
It would be nice if Doubt would get a little more recognition for its excellence, but if another film had to get the recognition–then I’m glad it’s Slumdog. It’s one of the best films of the year! I really believe it will be remembered just like It’s A Wonderful Life.
no, Brokeback Mountaind had not swept all those awards as a matter of fact it split some of them with CRASH, the eventual winner. Chicago Critics went with Crash, it lost the ASC, the ACE and several others. I think it’s fontrunner status was mostly media created. Though I too thought it was a Crash surprise, for my money Good Night and Good Luck was the deserving winner that year.
What is so great about MILK? The Golden Globes had the good sense not to even nominate it for Best Picture. Probably because in their mind the story had already been told in the documentary, THE MAYOR OF CASTRO STREET. If any movie is overrated this year–it’s MILK!
SLUMDOG should also win Most Overrated Movie in History.
The Wrestler is the best movie I saw last year, but it’s not even nominated. I haven’t seen Benjamin Button or Frost/Nixon, but out of the other 3 I have seen, I think Milk deserves the Best Pic over Slumdog. Though I enjoyed Slumdog and even The Reader as well.
Slumdog Millionaire is a superficial crowd pleaser, its fun but it has the depth of a ride at Disney World. This year’s Shakespeare in Love.
Slumdog was great and it is one of the greatest this year but i personally thought The Curious Case ofBenjamin Button was harder to pull off andif it wasnt for the early hype would have easily sweep the awawrds. The early hype made sound better than it was and that killed its chances. Slumdog winning is just to much and i wishthisyear was closer because great movies like The Wrestler, Milk, Walle, The Dark Knight and Curious Case were completely and utterly overlooked this year by all preoscar races
i only saw 2 of the nominated movies: benjamin button which was really good, in my top 3 of the year, but it was a little long and frost/nixon which was really good as well. the hype for slumdog is too much…its kind of annoying when it wins ALL the awards. milk looks good but i might not win for the same reason brokeback mountain didn’t win 3 years ago. i think the reader will win
slumdog is winning all the awards because it is a riviting film with a great narrative and a great fictionary tale of hope love that seems to be part of the appeal and draw of the film. milk will not win for the same reasons that brokeback lost, most of the academy members are old perhaps homophobic, and besides the doc is supposed to be superior. the reader is the darkhorse, but has been largely snubbed by critics, yet once again winslit will represent and take the lead prize. nixon/frost doesn’t have a chance. along with the reader, button is a film tht shouldn’t have been nominated. it’s pretentious, intellectually insulting, utter garbage with great pedigree. so of the nominated films, slumdog has all the momentum, rightly so. there was no other film that was as exhilarating, moving and splendidly directed and acted. Years from now it will be viewed as a classic. even if batman or walle would have been nominated, they wouldn’t have won anyway.
Don’t worry Stacey, I’m already saying Slumdog doesn’t deserve the wins it’s getting. Some of us have broken free of the delusion already!
thank you stacey.. i thought i was the only one… i mean its a good movie but sweeping all of these awards?? uhhh no.
but i did enjoy it
Sorry bbop I will say Milk. It it relevent and moving. Slumdog was really good but a tad overrated. I also really enjoyed the reader which I know has its detractors. Sadly the best movie of the year “Let the right one in” got ignored completely
It’s not better than LOTR, Schindler’s List, or American Beauty.
Simple; incredibly weak competition. Benjamin Button, Frost Nixon, Milk, all very good films, but none of them are actually great.
With the Oscars being given out next week, I figure that I should put in my view, along with all of you guys. Finally, there are people that sound like they care and love movies as much as I do. The first topic I wish to write about, is Slumdog Millionaire’s awards. It definately does not deserve all of them. Although it was a good movie, I didn’t think that it lived up to evrtyone’s hype. There are definately other movies that deserve these awards, especially Benjamin Button, Frost/Nixon, and The Dark Knight. I really hope that Slumdog doesn’t win best picture, because I am so sick of people calling it “the little movie that could.” Academy voters shouldn’t be favoring a movie, just because there was little hope of it succeeding. There were plenty of other fims that deserved a Best Picture nomination, like WALL-E and The Dark Knight. Take out Slumdog, Milk, and The Reader, and put in WALL-E, The Dark Knight, and Doubt. Now those films deserve much higher recognition than they’re gettin
Slumdog is great, and it deserves all the awards. I have seen it three times now, and each time I experience something new. Once you get past the “superficial crowd pleaser” stuff the first time, you realize there’s actually a lot more going on.
Also, I think all the recognition, apart from the fact it’s a great movie, really reflects the world we are living in right now. In these hard times, people want to reward a movie that recognizes overcoming adversity. The Oscars are political, and have always been influenced by the outside world.
Continuatuion- A note to the Academy: you guys totally blow for not nominating Wall-e for Best Picture. It’s because it was an animation film right? This film is up against Kung Fu Panda and Bolt. Why not just give Wall-e the freakin’ Best Animated Fim Oscar now? It definately deserves better competition. If the Academy didn’t have a problem nominating Beauty and the Beast for Beast Picture back in 1991, why should they have a problem nominating Wall-e? I liked Slumdog, but I feel that Wall-e is a much more superior film.
Another note to the Academy: I’m not trying to sound insensitive, but stop obsessing over Holocaust and gay rights movies. Just because certain films carry those topics, that doesn’t mean they are the only good films out there. Wall-e had total originality, and The Dark Knight transecended the superhero genre, but obviously, the Academy was to busy drooling over Holocaust movies, gay rights, and Slumdog Millionaire. Again to the Academy, you guys totally blow!