Slumdog Millionaire cleans up at box-office

Last summer Slumdog Millionaireseemed fated for distribution limbo in the US after Warner Bros closed down its speciality division, which financed it. Now it's the runaway train headed for the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood next month with 10 Oscar nominations.

Its prospects in the Best Bicture category have been bolstered by victories in the Screen Actors Guild and Producers Guild of America awards last weekend.

Slumdogis powering away at the box-office even though a fifth of it is in Hindi and it features no well-known actors. Its success has been fuelled by all the kudos it collected, along with rave reviews and crucially, word-of-mouth recommendations.

Last weekend it held firm atop the box-office chart in the UK and Ireland, despite competition from two mainstream action movies ( Valkyrie and Underworld3: Rise of the Lycans) and three awards-season rivals ( Milk, Frost/Nixonand Rachel Getting Married).

In the US, where it is now showing on 1,411 screens, Slumdogcontinues to ascend the box-office chart, though Paul Blart: Mall Copwhich is showing on 3,144 screens, continues to rule the roost. Starring Kevin James as a bumbling but heroic New Jersey security guard, it has survived critical panning. Variety described it as "an almost shockingly amateurish one-note comedy", while the Boston Globecompared it to "something stubbed out in an ashtray".

Frozen River put on ice

Are you looking forward to seeing Frozen River, the US indie which has garnered Oscar nominations for Best Actress (Melissa Leo) and Best Original Screenplay (Courtney Hunt)? Be prepared to wait a while because the movie has yet to be acquired for distribution here, even though it's been on the festival circuit since Sundance a year ago, when it won the Grand Jury Prize.

In Frozen River, Leo, who played detective Kay Howard in the 1990s TV series Homicide: Life on the Street, stars an impoverished single mother who desperate for money, teams with a neighbour (Misty Upham) to smuggle illegal immigrants into the US.

Presenting writer-director Hunt with her award at Sundance, Quentin Tarantino stated that the film “put my heart in a vice and proceeded to twist that vice until the last frame.”

Hail Césars

Leading the field with a record 10 nominations for the César awards, the French equivalent of the Oscars, is two-part saga Public Enemy Number One.

On the evidence of the first half shown at Toronto last September, it’s one of the thrillers of the decade. The protagonist is the reckless gangster Jacques Mesrine, portrayed with chilling conviction by Vincent Cassel. Director Jean-François Richet shows terrific flair for the visceral action set-pieces that abound in his movie based on the autobiography Mesrine wrote in jail.

The Class took five César nominations, as did I've Loved You So Long, featuring Kristin Scott Thomas. French box-office phenomenon Welcome to the Sticksgot a single nomination, for best screenplay. Guillaume Depardieu (son of Gérard), who died last October at the age of 37, received a posthumous nomination as best actor for Versailles.

The Césars will be presented in Paris on February 27th.

Tudors costumes nominated

For the second consecutive year, Irish costume designer Joan Bergin has been nominated by her peers in the Costume Designers Guild for her work on The Tudors. The awards will be presented in Los Angeles on February 17th. Bergin, based in Dublin, has won two Emmy awards for that series. Her many movie credits include My Left Foot, Dancing at Lughnasa, Veronica Guerinand The Prestige.

Dust-up at Sundance

The most talked-about action scene at last week's Sundance festival happened off-screen. Varietyfilm reviewer John Anderson was having breakfast after a screening of environmental documentary Dirt! The Moviewhen Jeff Dowd, representing the film's producers, passionately argued that Anderson should reconsider his view of a movie he had told Dowd was "poor, too simplistic, too redundant".

When Dowd persisted, Anderson, who has known Dowd for 25 years, punched him. “I didn’t want to hurt him,” Anderson said. “This was nothing close to a fistfight.” Dowd did not press assault charges.

When Push comes to Mariah

F Scott Fitzgerald famously declared that there are no second acts in American lives. To disprove him, singer Mariah Carey, whose 2001 movie star vehicle Glitterwas savaged by critics, has rebounded with her (non-singing) portrayal of a welfare counsellor in Push, which took the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance last weekend.

Reviews have described Carey’s performance as “credible”, “disarming”, “pitch perfect” and “surprisingly authentic”.

mdwyer@irish-times.ie