Awards fodder
After seeing The Fighter the other day, I realised I've now seen nine of the ten Best Picture nominees for the upcoming Oscars, which has given me a thoroughly undeserved sense of smugness. Six of these have been covered in one form or another in earlier ramblings - ok, technically five and a half due to the Winter's Bone fiasco . And I have no intention of seeing the tenth, True Grit , because - CONTROVERSIAL OPINION ALERT - I'm not a fan of the Coens. But still - check me out, eh? Herewith some thoughts on the other three: 127 Hours has done pretty good box office considering the tough-sell subject matter, all of which is down to the tremendous reserves of public goodwill for Danny Boyle. These lay somewhat dormant for a while, perhaps down to his restless flitting between genres and consequent diminishing returns. Even so, it sounds incredible now that Slumdog nearly didn't get a theatrical release. It's much easier to see why Boyle didn't stay on the e...