So this weekend Slumdog Millionaire won an impressive eight Oscars out of ten. That kind of dominance is rare in any field. Few musicians have been able to impress the entire Grammy community, sorry Kanye West. Few presidents have been able to have four uninterrupted years of good feeling and inspirational bipartisanship, sorry President Obama. Few sports teams have been able to have perfect seasons, sorry New England Patriots.
The only individual or team in recent years that I can think of that have approached this zenith of dominance are Tiger Woods back at the beginning of the last presidency and last season’s Boston Celtics.
Woods famously spent the years between 1999 and 2002 making every other golfer obsolete. At his pinnacle in 2001 he held all four major titles at once. Tiger was supposed to be a sensation though. Perhaps the best balance of dominance and surprise was the Boston Celtics.
The Boston Celtics were on the brink of starting over, trading away Paul Pierce, and firing Danny Ainge. Then Ainge traded Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett and quickly took the team from a perpetual slide to a championship contender. Slumdog Millionaire was set to complete the slide and destiny as a direct to DVD movie. Strong film festival showings resulted in the movie being given a chance at theatres. Then word of mouth slowly turned the movie from an indie house film into a movie with multiple screens at cinemas throughout the United States.
Everyone seemed to root for the film. Not just in terms of box office numbers, but people seemed to just want to see the movie do well on every level. Everyone wanted to the Celtics do well too. They were the face of the NBA east of the Mississippi River for decades and there abysmal recent history felt like a hideous blight on the entire NBA by fans of all teams.
In the end, Slumdog would come away with four Golden Globes, five Critics’ Choice Awards, seven British Academy Film Awards, and eight Academy Awards. The Celtics dominated the NBA Finals series with the Los Angeles Lakers and walked away with a few honors of their own. Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen, and Paul Pierce played in the All Star game and Garnet won Defensive Player of the Year, was on the first team All NBA team, and was on the first team All-Defensive team.
The 2008-09 season no longer has the same magic for the Boston Celtics. They are once again a top tiered team, but the collective NBA no longer wants them to win. Look for a similar after effect for Slumdog Millionaire as detractors say that the movie won because of politics or some sort of international agreement between Hollywood and Bollywood. Whatever the reason the movie really, I guess the answer is: Suck it, Milk.
