With Danny Boyle’s DGA win over the weekend, Slumdog Millionaire achieved a near-impossible feat; it became even more favored to win the Oscar for Best Picture. Once thought to be an underdog, Slumdog has been pretty much unstoppable throughout the awards season, even picking up the undeserved top honor at the SAG Awards, and has never fallen from its position of frontrunner since it took the lead months ago. Yet last week, the internet was populated by talk of a Slumdog backlash, and for the first time in weeks, other Best Picture candidates were seriously being discussed as slightly plausible victors. The two titles considered most likely to be a threat to Boyle’s film are The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Milk, with little concern for either Frost/Nixon or The Reader. However, while the former candidate is probably a sure thing to lose, the latter film should not yet be dismissed.
Before the Academy Award nominations were announced last month, The Reader wasn’t even thought to be a contender for any major category except Best Supporting Actress. Now, among its five nominations, it’s up for three higher-tiered Oscars, including Best Picture. So, we can’t rightly continue underestimating its potential. This isn’t to say that we are predicting The Reader to win Best Picture; Slumdog is still the safest bet for the top prize. But odds for The Reader do need to be adjusted, as its chances are a lot closer to, if not better than, secondary favorites Benjamin Button and Milk. Of course, as the it stands now, the film should be an appealing choice for any gamblers out there, because a surprise Best Picture win for The Reader would pay out big time. So, our immediate apologies to betters if the following seven factors have any influence on professional oddsmakers out there.
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Though I first buzzed about an Academy Award nomination for Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight more than a month before his death, I now want to take it all back. I feel all the talk of Ledger’s posthumous Oscar chances will cloud my mind when I finally do see it, and it will probably also cloud the Academy’s judgment, too. Six months from now, when the nominations are announced on January 22 (coincidentally the one-year anniversary of Ledger’s death), if Ledger is not recognized for his role as The Joker, there will surely be an uproar — actually, Hollywood might just up and self-implode.
I’m not the only one annoyed by all the Oscar buzz. Terry Gilliam, who directed Ledger in The Brothers Grimm and the upcoming The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, is calling “bullshit” on the whole thing, particularly against Warner Bros., which Gilliam accuses of exploiting Ledger’s death and chance of a posthumous Oscar for publicity purposes. Considering most Oscar campaigns for live actors are really just part of movie marketing, he has a good point.
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