Gran Torino scored big time this week as number one at the box office. Bride Wars, The Unborn and Marley and Me followed. You’d think Slumdog Millionaire would be higher than ninth place after winning the Golden Globe.
Weekend estimate for the box office is here. Clint Eastwood’s Gran Torino arrived on top, out scoring them all. That says plenty about Eastwood’s credibility and talent. Bride Wars came in second with The Unborn third.
The first major award of Oscar season has sent ripples of surprise across Hollywood. The National Board of Review, a collection of cultural elite, acdemics, and wealthy supporters of moving imagery, have announced its yearly award winners. The NBR awards always lean towards the arthouse crowd, and are rarely indicators of the Golden Globes and the Oscars, but last year they were the first to award No Country for Old Men for its brilliance, and we all know how well that film was received.
This year the presence of Danny Boyle’s Indian-based drama Slumdog Millionaire probably surprised many by being named as best film of 2008. The premise (a young Indian boy wins the local version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire) sounds pithy at first, but the consistently glowing reviews suggest this film has more heart than a hundred blockbusters. Could this Slumdog go all the way to the Oscars? We can only wait and see.
Talk about aging well… Clint Eastwood has directed on average a film a year this decade, and there’s no sign of stopping. And he has managed to pick up the occasional award on his way. This week sees the release of the trailer for his latest film, Gran Torino, which is due out December 17th.
At a first glance, this film seems a whole lot more appealing than the dull, drab tired story that Changeling seems to be (I mean police corruption, lost children and their desperate mothers, and unfair mental institutions have been done to death in cinema already. Clint must be too busy making movies to watch any of the dozens that cover those issues). For one, it stars Clint himself as a craggy old bastard at odds with his family and even the local wet-behind-the-ears priest. Already it feels more honest than Jolie wailing away with a glimmer of an Oscar in her eyes.
However, there’s somethign potentially subious about the premise. This old war vet bemoans the inclusion of “Chinese” into his neighbourhood, only to unwillingly intervene in some Asian gang terrorising. He bonds with the honest Hmong family and plans to stop the gang that’s hassling them. A simple idea, but does it suggest that Asians, or even immigrants, into the USA are weak and pathetic, and need the help of a good ol’ hard-as-nails white American to save them? The trailer does suggest so. Nevertheless, it looks a lot more engaging than Clint’s last few films, and may get audiences debating as to whether it’s an honest look at inter-racial tensions in the Land of the Free, or whether it’s just Dirty Harry Takes on the Asians.
The first major award of Oscar season has sent ripples of surprise across Hollywood. The National Board of Review, a collection of cultural elite, acdemics, and wealthy supporters of moving imagery, have announced its yearly award winners. The NBR awards always lean towards the arthouse crowd, and are rarely indicators of the Golden Globes and the Oscars, but last year they were the first to award 