Final notes on the season of 'Slumdog'

It's always interesting on the day after a grueling, never-ending awards season to see so many bloggers jumping right back into the fray with lists of contenders for next year's Oscar race.

Gimme a break, or at least a weekend, before we have to get back into it. Anyway, who knows what's really gonna happen next year when the most celebrated movie of this year didn't even have a distributor putting it in the game until an announcement on Aug. 28!!!  That was when it was revealed that Fox Searchlight would release "Slumdog Millionaire" in North America. A few days later, it played for the first time in Telluride, and it was off to the races. What turned out to be another best picture nominee, "The Reader" (which was still shooting as late as August), didn't even announce it was going to compete in this year's race until Sept. 29 (and then to great controversy)!

But back to "Slumdog's" Telluride debut. I was at that screening. You could feel the excitement and the sense of discovery. Until then, the movie was almost surely going straight to DVD, in the U.S. at least. Warner Bros., which produced it, no longer had an indie division to release it and didn't want to be bothered. As I have written here, I first heard the name "Slumdog Millionaire" at an L.A. Film Festival party in June in a casual conversation with Bob Berney, the indie-savvy president of the soon-to-be-defunct Picturehouse (another division shut down by Warners). He told me he had seen this remarkable film and wanted to help on the release, although even Bob didn't really see its awards potential at that point. File it under: You just never know.  Instead of handing it to Berney, though, Warners gave it to Searchlight (retaining a 50% financial interest) and Fox execs have been gloating ever since. The combination of a great but different kind of movie and an inventive, smart distributor made the difference between blockbuster movie  or  Blockbuster rental.  As Fox co-chair Jim Gianopulos told me at Sunday night's "Slumdog" celebration, "You gotta love Hollywood."

That initial  "Slumdog" Telluride screening and final Oscar victory party were just two of a number of highlights for me this season. There were many more:

-- Seeing Woody Allen's "Vicky Christina Barcelona" at its first press screening last May in Cannes was thrilling, not only because it was a masterful comic comeback for Woody but also because I was able to witness and immediately note an Oscar-winning performance by Penelope Cruz.

-- Being blown away by the first finished print of Ron Howard's "Frost/Nixon" back on April 17 at Leonard Maltin's USC class. The session was accompanied by an hourlong Q&A with Howard for 500 students, who  seemed to love the movie despite its being about events that happened before they were even born.

-- Another highlight happened in the heat of last season on Dec.  5, 2007, when director Christopher Nolan hosted an Imax press preview of the first six minutes of "The Dark Knight," and we all got a taste of the extraordinary originality of Heath Ledger's Joker.

-- Moderating those Q&A and tribute sessions with the likes of Mickey Rourke, David Fincher, Meryl Streep,  Leo and Kate, Christopher Nolan, Angelina Jolie and so many others was another great highlight for me.

-- And, as always, watching the awards season progress and the fortunes of movies rise and fall is fascinating stuff.

Looking back now, maybe it was a sign that "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,"  the movie I thought certainly could -- and deserved to -- go all the way to best picture, had to shut down 20 minutes into a disastrous first press and industry screening at the DGA due to digital projection problems. The "Button" team recovered nicely with a good-natured reception in the lobby and successful screenings later in the week, but the jinx was on.

It did get three well-deserved Oscars (makeup, visual effects, art direction), but being runner-up to a little-known British picture shot partially in the Hindi language was not part of the master plan. You can't always predict how these things are gonna go.

So again, how can we possibly predict with any sense of confidence where next year will take us? I guess Oscar junkies must have their fun. But with the industry and independent film distribution in the doldrums, it's entirely possible that there's another "Slumdog" out there just waiting to be discovered and released in time for next year's awards season. I can remember no other time when there were so many good, independently made films that can't seem to get arrested.

Lasse Halstrom's remarkably beautiful and touching new film, "Hachiko: A Dog's Story," with Richard Gere and Joan Allen, is still looking to lock in domestic distribution in an industry wary of taking on anything that doesn't have a marketing hook.

"Strength and Honour," from debuting writer-director Mark Mahon, is a kind of Irish "Rocky" with a wonderful lead performance by Michael Madsen and a great track record at the film festivals where it has appeared, but it still can't find someone willing to take a chance on it. Although hard-nosed critics aren't likely to go for the film's sentiment, I had the opportunity to show it to my UCLA Sneak Preview class a few weeks ago, and the response was astounding. This same group had seen "Slumdog Millionaire" in the fall session and they seemed equally pleased by this feel-good crowd-pleaser.

Unless someone can see the potential for such films as "Hachiko" and the "Strength and Honour" and so many other mid-range movies with the potential to touch an audience the way "Slumdog" has, these films will just wind up in the same bargain DVD bins where "Slumdog" was headed until the movie gods intervened.

With hope,  next season will provide its share of Cinderella stories and fun stuff to write about. This awards cycle, which I have been chronicling in "Notes on a Season" since Cannes last May, has certainly not disappointed.

It was fitting that it all ended Sunday night with an Oscar ceremony that was one for the ages -- a beautifully produced show by Bill Condon and Laurence Mark that captured everything we still love about movies and the Academy Awards.  Those bloggers, columnists and critics out there who were panning it before it was even over have had to run back into their holes and take cover from the vociferous reaction, in and out of the industry, to their ill-conceived attack.

"I don't get the criticism,"  one longtime academy member told me Monday. "This was an amazing show. You could just feel it in waves as it went along. Those guys [Condon and Mark], they are really good."

I'm told the academy itself was fielding numerous calls complaining about the complainers -- but, hey, everyone is entitled to an opinion even if it was formed before the show made it to the air. You can't please everyone, but with this production the Academy got back on track -- and the 13% increase in ratings was the cherry on top. Here's hoping this team returns next year. Clearly, the public still has a jones on for the Oscars when they are produced with smarts and style.

As for "Notes," this is it for awhile, at least until we have a whole new batch of real, not imagined,  contenders to riff on.

Until then, as Queen Latifah so poignantly crooned Sunday night, "I'll be seeing you."

--Pete Hammond 

The young cast of "Slumdog Millionaire" takes a moment to pose with their best picture Oscar. Photo: Getty Images

Comments

[David Miami Beach]

I'm sure the ceremony was great in person, but honestly, on television it did not play that well. It was like watching a Broadway show on DVD,nice, but just not the same as being there live.

[David]

That's a bit rich of a blogger on The Envelope to decry the obsessive, premature selection of Awards show nominees/winners when that's basically what you do all year...

[Eight Women Dream]

I liked that Slumdog won, but did not like this year's Oscar show at all. What is it with all the quick cuts like the camera has ADD and can't focus on the same spot on the stage for more than 30 seconds? It reminded me of Rosie's TV Variety Show that lasted for one night. Here we have people winning awards for cinematography with the worst use of cameras ever.

[Erwin]

I stumbled upon this website by accident and I barely managed to get through the first three lines of your blog before falling asleep. Good grief, do you honestly find all this drivel interesting? I think there's a bit more to life than salivating over the ins and outs of the movie industry you know.

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