Word: grans
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...also like the Academy to reveal the votes that went into the nominations. The top five are announced; let's hear the top 10. That would have told us exactly where The Dark Knight finished. And whether Clint Eastwood's Gran Torino got anywhere near the top five for Picture, Actor or Director. Another thing: this year it's entirely possible that Kate Winslet finished in the Best Actress top five for two performances - one in The Reader, the other in Revolutionary Road - but was named only for the first because that role earned her more votes and the Academy...
...Originally released Dec. 12 in only six theaters and hyped by Warner Bros. as a major-awards contender, the film won Eastwood early recognition by the National Board of Review as Best Actor, but that's been the exception to the rule. At the glitzy Golden Globes, Gran Torino was mentioned in just one category: original song. When the Oscar nominees were unveiled last week, Gran Torino was shut out of the competition completely. (See TIME's top 10 films...
...certainly one of the least likely blockbusters in some time. Starring Eastwood as a crotchety widower living in Detroit's Highland Park neighborhood - a veteran of the Korean War who eyes his Hmong neighbors suspiciously and launches into racist tirades when provoked - Gran Torino was filmed on location in a mere five weeks on a slim budget of $35 million. The majority of its Hmong characters were played by nonprofessionals. In addressing such tumultuous issues as racial strife, gang warfare and urban blight, it can hardly be categorized as escapist entertainment...
...blockbusters, but it's something a good many people can relate to," says Karie Bible, an analyst with Exhibitor Relations. Surely Eastwood could not have predicted, when he first set out to make the film, that Detroit's economic woes would be making national headlines by the time Gran Torino arrived in theaters (his character is a retired Ford assembly-plant worker), nor that the movie would be launching into wide release the same day the U.S. government released the darkest unemployment report in 16 years...
...Audiences, though, have embraced the film's realism. Bible's firm projects that the title will soar north of $150 million before it leaves theaters - making Gran Torino the biggest haul ever for an Eastwood film. By then, it may well pass the box-office totals posted last year by such summer tent poles as Mamma Mia!, The Incredible Hulk and Sex and the City. "Slumdog and The Wrestler are these Cinderella stories that have overshadowed Gran Torino, and yet here is another Cinderella story all its own," Dergarabedian says. "You look at Eastwood, and here he is directing Changeling...