What if everything we know about awards season is wrong?

By Steven Zeitchik

Well, it's now all over but the shouting, and the Oscars (and a few guild awards, of course). The big stories from the Globes tonight are now clear (and thank you for following the liveblog below) -- newcomers like Rourke and Hawkins, left-fielders like Farrell, beloved class presidents like Winslet and recent favorites coronated, like Slumdog.

But the real lesson is the kinds of movies that have statues in front of them. There were a number of big prestige pictures this season that were built to win awards: "Frost/Nixon." "Milk." "Doubt." Sure, they're designed to make money. But find us a producer or exec on any of those movies who, in their most candid moments, doesn't also say they've been thinking with these films about taking their place on, or getting out a shout out from, the podium at a big awards show. Find someone who says that it's not a key metric of these movies' performance. Yet among these three pics none got a single statue Sunday.

Then you have "Slumdog Millionaire," the canine that could, the overnight millionaire, the movie that was made with modest hopes of getting a small release. The movie that was caught in the WIP downsizing earlier this year.  The movie that, let's face it, no one outside the most plugged in development exec even heard of before August. It, not any of the so-called awards movies, wins the three major awards a drama could win at the Globes, and is set up for plenty more at the Oscars.

They say with all the blogging and straw-polling it's hard to get a surprise during awards season. But with everything that's happened these last few months, it may now be time to say that that the entire awards season is a surprise.

Comments

[jake]

Truthfully when it comes down to the Oscars, the indepedent film rarely wins -- Little Miss Sunshine (which won the PGA, the SAG) or Sideways (which won the SAG).

Truthfully, the Academy should go with the best picture of the year and that is THE DARK KNIGHT, if they would just get over themselves and see that this is not a great comic book movie, it is a great movie period. Take out the superhero element and you got something very close to the movies that the Academy likes to award -- such as the Godfather and the Departed.

[sara]

While I think The Dark Knight was a great film, I don't think it compares in overall importance to Slumdog Millionaire, which, dramatically, moves audiences in ways we have not seen in recent years.

[Mark]

It took me ten viewings of Dark Knight and six viewings of Slumdog before I finally acknowledged that Slumdog deserved to be bumped up to number one for the year for me. Qualitywise they're so close and it came down to my belief Slumdog is tighter than Dark Knight which probably could have lost about 10 minutes. It really came down to something that small. Both would be deserving any other year, but this year I have to go with man who knows all the answers.