Michele Innocenti says:
Sunday, February 15, 2009 at 6:50am

now, this is ridicolous, slumdog again, and at this point no word is enough to comment this absurde awards year…they’re all voting by sympathy…and by carriage…they all voted it, let’s do the same…

there’s no chance that:

- slumdog’s cinematography is better than TCCOBB’s and TDK’s ones…
- slumdog’s editing is better than the one of frost/nixon or TDK…
-slumodg’s score is better than Wall.E’s And TCCOBB’s ones…
-slumdog’s sound is better than TDK’s…

but this is it…you’re all sure that this movie is how Cinema must be these black days, and they’re giving you want you want…
And I’ll wait until few months or years…at that point I’ll look around myself searching for somebody saying that this silly movie is histry or so deserving at least…
doub: pedophily revolutionary road: death of american way of life TDK: outlaw crusader better than institution forced to sacrifice himself on the altar of politician belief…
the best of the year left out but hey..it’s obama year! yes you can!

you can forget what real Cinema that matters is!

disgusted, not by you, but by all these silly awards…

Michele Innocenti says:
Sunday, February 15, 2009 at 7:50am

yes right man…
again, I’ll hear from you next year…when it will be forgotten and buried…

Other Ryan says:
Sunday, February 15, 2009 at 8:14am

@HBK: Amen.

I get the constructive criticism, but blind hate is infuriating. You would think Slumdog was Gigli or something.

Michele Innocenti says:
Sunday, February 15, 2009 at 8:54am

I didn’t talk about a bush allegory, I talked about a “outlaw crusader better than institution forced to sacrifice himself on the altar of politician belief…”
and this is not about bush but the political spirit america is living these months…nothing else…

@HBK:
slumdog’s cinematography and editing are smart non great, pure video clip cool style, so aggressive to the eyes that is impossible to be ignored…they’re not works of fine art like the others…
ar rahaman’s score…the man is a genius in your opinion, ok but here…man I alreafy said this once…this is as well cool disco music from india, nothing is really genius here…
and once and for all mine it’s not blind hate for slumdog…I consider this a nice movie, worth to be watched and considered but not even close the high tops reached this year by other movies, nor to movies such return of the king…red_wine don’t drink too much of it…
but this is it…it’s the oscars. stanley kubrick never won one of these, nor hitchcock and so many masters…they have their rules and we can only take them or not…

Ps: maybe I had to write “american dream”, sorry!

john says:
Sunday, February 15, 2009 at 10:40am

Slumdog was the ARMAGEDDON of indie sound… a wild frenetic mix keeping up with its rapid visuals and rollercoaster emotions on a minimum budget. It was also probably not the easiest film for the sound recordists, given the locales. However, despite the nice David and Goliath imagery, it hardly seems like the best choice given the mighty achievements by the mixers of IRON MAN, QUANTUM OF SOLACE, DARK KNIGHT, and WALLE.

Historically, the Academy’s nominations have been slight improvements on the CAS’s, putting the more impressive achievements in over some of the CAS’ less showy choices. CONAIR’s go-for-broke sound mix was picked by the Academy over the move straightforward MEN IN BLACK, for example.

However, for the last two years, the Academy has dropped the ball by selecting less impressive choices that the CAS. Ratatouille had better sound than 300? Really? (Although 3:10 to Yuma was an outstanding Academy pick, so perhaps I rush to judgement.) This year, WANTED and BUTTON are fine, but QUANTUM OF SOLACE outdid the former’s overkill with greater grace while IRON MAN outdid the latter’s classicity.

Never mind this, I’m full of cineaste crap. I just thought the other 4 CAS nominees were better than SLUMDOG on a sound level, and I liked IRON MAN and QUANTUM Of SOlacE more than WANTED and BUTTON soundwise, as well..

Hans says:
Sunday, February 15, 2009 at 1:36pm

I love Slumdog to death, but I think this is too much. Yes this is the little film that could, but I don’t consider it anywhere near the massive epics that deserved to be overawarded like Ben-Hur, Titanic or LOTR.

Slumdog deserves Picture, Adapted Screenplay, Director (though I would have preferred Nolan over Boyle in this race), Song, and maybe Editing.

Score: Thomas Newmann is long overdue, especially for a moving score that also pretty much served as the dialogue for half the movie. AR Rahman is great, and his music is innovative for a Hollywood movie, but I can’t help but think that for his next big film he’ll come out with more or less the same thing.

Editing: I can understand the correlation between Picture and Editing, but this is one of those years where I think people are simply making this another BP category. That said, this award definitely belongs to either Slumdog or The Dark Knight, and I wouldn’t mind the award going for the BP Snubee.

Cinematography: The look of a film. I’m in the camp that CCoBB and TDK are more groundbreaking than Slumdog, which is still a deserving nominee.

Song: O Saya should win, but it won’t now because of the campaign for the far more overrated song. Besides, an O Saya win here would give MIA and Rahman Oscars while allowing Newmann to have his score Oscar.

The sounds: It is such an epic no-brainer that these two awards should be split between WALL-E (mixing) and The Dark Knight (editing). Slumdog does not hold a candle to either of these

Zach says:
Sunday, February 15, 2009 at 3:23pm

OK, I don’t think anyone is still reading this, but I must correct my mistake above. Master and Commander won BAFTA and CAS but lost the Oscar to ROTK. So there isn’t a great precedent at least in recent years for the double-winner to take the Oscar, certainly not if it’s up against a more typical technical achievement.

But Slumdog would still be the first Best Picture in recent memory to win both going in and lose the Oscar.

Master and Commander was a solid Best Picture nominee that lost to the greatest sweep in the history of the Oscars. Walk the Line wasn’t a technical masterpiece and wasn’t nominated for Best Picture. It might not be so wise to predict against Slumdog at this point, though the precedent sides with The Dark Knight.

Craig says:
Sunday, February 15, 2009 at 6:16pm

@ HBK
Juno sucks.

Doro says:
Tuesday, February 17, 2009 at 7:13am

Zach what are you comparing? Those aren’t the CAS winners for those years.