By Rob Woollard
Agence France-Presse

BEVERLY HILLS–The race for the Oscars enters the final lap here Thursday with drama “Slumdog Millionaire” vying for top honors as nominations for the 81st Academy Awards are revealed.

After sweeping a series of awards in the build-up to Thursday’s pre-dawn announcement at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Mumbai-set “Slumdog Millionaire” is regarded as a certainty to earn nominations in the best picture and best director categories.

A rags-to-riches love story about a contestant on India’s version of television quiz show “Who Wants to be a Millionaire,” the film has already been installed as favorite for the best picture statuette at the February 22 awards show at Hollywood’s Kodak Theatre.

However, Oscars pundits believe British director Danny Boyle’s film could be vulnerable if the Batman blockbuster “The Dark Knight” elbows its way into contention across multiple categories.

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By Clarence Yu

THE Wrestler tells the story of Randy “The Ram” Robinson (Mickey Rourke), a professional wrestler 20 years from the peak of his career in the 1980s. Once famous in the world over (think Hulk Hogan), he is now reduced to participating in independently staged matches and holding a part-time job to eke out a living.

He is estranged from his daughter Stephanie (Evan Rachel Wood), and the only person he can confide in is an aging stripper named Cassidy (Oscar winner Marisa Tomei) who is also past her prime. Unlike Randy, who is living in the past, Cassidy has a firmer grip on reality and is looking to finish her career as she realizes that she cannot sustain her job on her fading looks. Randy, however, is stuck in the past, reliving his glory days by taking steroids to sustain his aging body, and following a regimen that includes pumping iron and tanning himself in a salon to keep up appearances.

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By Lawrence Casiraya
INQUIRER.net

WHAT if blindness is an infectious disease that is contagious as the common cold?

This is the basic storyline–adapted from a novel by Nobel prize-winning author Jose Saramago–behind the latest film from rising Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles (The Constant Gardener, City of God).

Don’t expect this to be something like “Outbreak”, though. There’s no use getting engrossed so much in how an antidote is discovered in the end. No other animal even appears in the movie except for a dog.

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By Izah Morales
INQUIRER.net

WHEN time ticks counterclockwise, how would life be?

This is the challenge faced by Benjamin Button as his life unfolds in reverse. In the middle of World War I, Benjamin is born in an 80-year-old man’s physique. His shocking condition leads his father Thomas Button (Jason Flemyng) to leave him outside a home for the aged. In the caring hands of Queenie (Taraji Henson), Benjamin finds a home among the elderly. There, he finds the love that makes him “grow” young.

Brad Pitt plays the protagonist’s role of Button in David Fincher’s “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.” Fincher’s film is an adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1920s short story. In the film, Benjamin Button was physically old but mentally young. But in Fitzgerald’s story, he is physically old and mentally old as he is capable of talking right after being born.

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By Clarence Yu

MILK tells the real-life story of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man ever elected to public office. Based on actual events, the premise of the movie seems inspiring: the struggle of a man representing a hated, minority community who overcomes all obstacles to win representation in government.

Looks can be deceiving, however. The movie’s running time just doesn’t give enough to build on Harvey Milk’s character, aptly portrayed by Sean Penn in a fine performance.

The film, directed by Gus Van Sant, covers Milk’s life from 1970 to 1978, the time in which he begins his rapid ascent from a down-and-out, 40-year-old insurance executive to his final years as a gay-civil rights activist and eventually, an elected public official, serving as a City Supervisor of San Francisco.

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