Regional Critics Group Consensus: Slumdog Millionaire

Posted by Michael Dance

Seems like every day another minor city (minor as pertaining to the Oscars, anyway) comes out of the blue and announces its film critics group's year-end awards.

Since I didn't much feel like dedicating posts to the St. Louis Film Critics or the Dallas Fort-Worth Film Critics when they were first announced, I figure I'd aggregate each different group's Best Picture awards and see if any trends emerged. Here are the results:

Austin:
The Dark Knight (runner-up: Slumdog Millionaire)

Boston:
Slumdog Millionaire and Wall-E (tie)

Dallas Fort-Worth:
Slumdog Millionaire (runner-up: Milk)

Houston:
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

New York Online:
Slumdog Millionaire

Phoenix:
Slumdog Millionaire

San Diego:
Slumdog Millionaire (runner-up: The Dark Knight)

San Francisco:
Milk

St. Louis:
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Toronto:
Wendy and Lucy (runners-up: Rachel Getting Married and Wall-E)

Alliance of Women Film Journalists:
Slumdog Millionaire

South Eastern Film Critics:
Milk (Runner-Up: Slumdog Millionaire)

Okay, that's it: Slumdog Millionaire is a lock for a Best Picture nomination. It was already looking good, but I'm calling it: lock. Done. It's got the support of the critics and the audiences.

Milk also kept popping up (although winning with the San Francisco Film Critics almost shouldn't even count, given that the entire movie is about San Francisco), enough for me to think that it will be one of those Best Picture nominees that won't have a chance of winning.

The Wrestler has been absent from most of these lists (although usually Mickey Rourke is a runner-up Best Actor to Sean Penn). I still think it has an outside shot at a Best Picture nomination. Despite the wrestling subject matter, the structure of the film is just conventional enough and just profound enough to be really appealing to voters -- and it still has a 100% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Box office will be crucial.

Recent Entries:
· The Will Smith Factor
· Chicago Film Critics: Wall-E and Slumdog
· More SAG Winners and Losers

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