Apart from the world premiere of Michael Cuesta's Tell-Tale and one more festival screening and chance to shine for Hirokazu Kore-eda's Still Walking, the selections are comprised of unknown projects, New York-based film productions that were completed in the last year, a bunch of films that receive a May theatrical release anyways and a batch of better than average films that were showcased at Sundance.
So how does Yojiro Takita's Departures (Okuribito) beat out heavy favorites Israel's Waltz With Bashir and France's The Class? Smart pick ups and adequate marketing plans just don't cut it when it comes to promoting titles for Oscar campaigns and Sony Pictures Classics seemed to have botched, undersold both titles the moment the final five titles were announced.
The National Board of Review announced some good news for fans of Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire and great news for fans of David Fincher. Slumdog Millionnaire is officially tapped as a lead contender for an Oscar bid and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button won't go unnoticed as some people have speculated.
Essentially, the Annual Satellite Award nominations (now in their 13th year) is some crazy round up that resembles what the Golden Globes usually looks like, and with the extra categories it comes as no surprise that we find a horrible picture like Baz Luhrmann's Australia leading the nominations (thankfully it covers the tech categories and not the main) with Van Sant's Milk and Boyle's Slumdog leading the main caegories.