Slumdog Gajillionaire

Last night Slumdog Millionaire won the PGA Award. Who knew that golfers would love it so much? ;) I kid, that's the Producer's Guild of America one of the many film guilds that people think have the exact same membership as Oscar. Pssst, they don't. The PGA has almost 4000 members and there are under 500 in the Academy's corresponding branch. In the past 10 years the Producers have agreed with Oscar's selection of Best Picture exactly 50% of the time. This'll be another agreement.

thanks to TFE reader Michael for this "I was there" photo

For Slumdog Millionaire is no little underdog movie but the juggernaut. Perhaps that's why perceptions of the movie have become so skewered in both positive and negative ways. [editor's note: speaking of which, here's a fairly balanced piece on what Slumdog is and what is isn't -- and why it's gotten out of hand in both directions. Here's another piece that disagrees, saying the film's depiction of India is not fantasy but reality]. The Danny Boyle 'feel good' picture is also the second biggest box office grosser in the race (after Benjamin Button) which is usually a strong position to be in statistically.

Crowds continue to cheer for Slumdog, which is now big box office, too

I fear that there's no interesting "who will win?" scenarios left beyond maybe Best Actor and we're in for a dull preordained ceremony. We knew that Jamal was going to get the girl (Latika) and we know which movie is going to win. But then, the public at large loves it when the outcome is set ahead of time. I've never understood this at all -- I don't have that typical gene anywhere (freak!) preferring stories wherein it feels like the plot might swerve off into any direction whatsoever -- but it's a very well documented thing, from the success of trailers which tell you endings and twists, to the appeal of destiny stories like Slumdog, to Oscar ceremonies themselves which can get an uptick in ratings when there's an obvious sweeper in the Kodak.

I'll be live blogging the SAG Awards tonight right here. Will Slumdog's mini multiple Jamals and Latikas win this prize, too? Stay tuned.