2009 Academy Award Best Picture Nominees

The Oscar Academy nominations have been announced and this has inspired a visit to the DVD store. Most of the nominated films are available on copied DVD with a 10RM (NZ$5.00) price tag. The quality varies as one would expect with illegal product however these establishments run an on-the-surface, transparent and reputable business, promising money back guarantee if not satisfied.

Now let’s get the moral dilemma/issue of supporting contraband art commerce out of the way. I would love to see all of these films (correction – MOST) at the cinema, however, due to a combination of factors such as local taste, censorship, and glut of ridiculous Chinese slapstick comedies, their availability is limited.

I now feel cleansed.

To the films themselves, we have thus far seen Milk, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Reader, and Slumdog Millionaire but have yet to see Frost/Nixon. All, with the exception of Benjamin Button, are excellent movies. The writer of Forest Gump also wrote ‘Button’, and it shows. Not that Gump is a bad movie, just not Oscar worthy, - another point of commonality with Button. Too stylized, grandiose, try hard epical, with a corny narrative, this is a serious movie that tries too hard to be serious. Unlike ‘The Reader’ which captures the perfect tone for the delicate and weighty subject matter, allowing the viewer to reach their own moral and ethical conclusions on the participant’s considerable dilemmas. Couple that with Winslett’s star turn, this film should come close. ‘Milk’ also relies on a great performance by its star actor, Sean Penn, and paces itself well, capturing the stigma associated with homosexuality 30 years ago. A worthy nominee we thought.

Then there is Slumdog Millionaire. If you love movies that take you on a journey in the multiple sense of the word, then look forward to a fun couple of hours. With the hype, I was ready to be underwhelmed. I was not, and would not disagree if this won best picture. It follows the current trend of great stories, both written and visual, coming out of India (Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri, The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga) and reaching a western audience. Director Danny Boyle can tell a gritty story with a silver lining, as we saw in Trainspotting, and it doesn’t get much grittier then the slums of Bombay. It comes together in a moving, magic little film with fantastic acting from an ‘unknown’ cast.