Words By Thembi

A Gold Oscar…Not exactly like the statue many actors will receive at tonight’s Academy Awards

An Academy Award doesn’t say as much about the quality of a movie as it does about the coincidences of social climate and content, the reputation of an actor and his/her past performances, and basically what the Academy freaking feels like doing. That said, I try to catch all of the Best Picture nominees every year and 2008 was not a hot year for movies, so it wasn’t all fun and games. I may not bother with the show itself because I’m pretty confident about five basic outcomes:

1. Slumdog Millionaire is cliched the story of a poor boy with dreams chasing a hooker with a heart of gold. However, if you read Oliver Twist while listening to M.I.A. in the background, you could save $10 at the theater because you pretty much already saw this joint. You could practically smell the Mumbai dust and the lack of deodorant through the screen, so I didn’t personally care too much for this film.

Still, everyone loves orphans, South Asian is the new black and a country in recession can’t help but indulge in a bit of “poverty porn,” so most people found it heartwarming and fascinating. Thanks to popular support, Slumdog Millionaire is my bet to win Best Picture and probably Best Director since none of the actors themselves are nominated.

2. Forrest Whitaker’s lazy eye will go head to head with a nip slip for most distracting moment of the night, and my psychic abilities tell me that we can count on Read the rest of this entry »

This isn’t really my cup of lemonade.

But as I sit here sorting through my Google Reader & inbox, debating which piece will write itself over the next two hours I figure this would be a good filler piece for some of you. Apparently this has been out for a minute but *spoiler alert* it’s the first few minutes of the film. *spoiler alert* Read the rest of this entry »