Was 2008 a mediocre year for film, or do the nominations lie?

Adam Tanaka: This year, the Academy is going to try to hand it to people's opinions. "Slumdog Millionaire" has a massive audience base, and, tragically, it probably was the best movie nominated this year. In fact, it's not even a movie any more; it's a pop culture phenomenon.

Fareed Ben-Youssef: Like "Juno."

Jun Koh: It also has international ties to India, so it's not just a standard Hollywood production. Director Danny Boyle went to India, was able to give the film an Indian voice and didn't rob it of its identity. I mean, the ending scene with the little Bollywood dancing was actually a good injection of culture into the film ... The movie was uplifting and, yet, kind of sad, which makes for the perfect Oscar balance.

Isia Jasiewicz: The uplifting element is especially important this year, considering the current state of the economy. ‘Slumdog' is the ultimate Cinderella story, though for me, that actually was also its weakness. It was such a fairytale that it seemed strained. It would never happen in real life.

AT: But I don't think it was even trying for real life.

FBY: Yeah, it seemed to be set in its own world, in this sort of hyper-reality ... Boyle wants to say, "This is a story of Mumbai," so you do get an Orientalist edge throughout the picture.

JK: But it's also filmed very much in the tradition of Bollywood. The whole concept of a film being in its own world is very quintessentially Bollywood, where they're dancing in the middle of a movie, and the storylines are off in another universe. It would probably make an interesting paper, actually, to examine these different perspectives on Mumbai, as ‘Slumdog' is filmed in a very Bollywood style but by an American director.

FBY: Boyle is clearly in his element, making nice transitions and quick cuts that surprise, but the question is whether there's a rich emotional poignancy within the film. I think we know, though, that the cultural phenomenon of ‘Slumdog' will take precedence.

AT: Definitely. And the pop-culture emphasis is especially important. When I was watching ‘Slumdog,' I felt like I was watching a music video. But in five years, no one's really going to remember it. It'll seem dated.

IJ: That's true. As far as the story is concerned, it's just not enduring enough.

AT: I actually thought the story was really nice. It's a good hook for a movie, isn't it?

IJ: It might be a great concept, but I think the narrative wasn't that well executed. The one thing I can say in defense of ‘Slumdog,' though, is that it really takes advantage of the medium. It moved fluidly in time and space, which is a quality that's particular to film. It's the art form that's most suited for allowing the viewers to quickly understand what's happening, so that we traverse huge expanses of story. It may have been a stupid story, but it was definitely a big one.

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FBY: Unlike David Fincher, Boyle experiments a lot with his visuals, but rarely do his experiments fail. There's always the sense that he's challenging himself as a director to make as visceral a movie as possible. It's a tight movie on that level, the strongest of the bunch.

JK: What really stood out for me was the early scene, when you see the kids running through dumpsters and alleyways. It was visually astounding: You have the cameras going into improbable nooks and crannies, but then you have the wide-angle shots and the camera gazing up at kids. The directing is all in-your-face. The audience is really pulled into it. But if you strip away the camera point-of-views, the film is just like a little rubber chicken flopping around.

AT: I think Boyle is just a very good director. But I don't think this is the strongest case for his directing, personally, because I found it too slick. "Sunshine," on the other hand, was a movie that I loved but that no one saw. And I loved "Trainspotting," too.

FBY: So think of this as a compensation Oscar. "Here, Danny, you've done a lot of great movies. Whoa, ‘Shallow Grave' blew our minds. Here you go." A lot of these directors are being nominated for other films they've made in their careers. Boyle, as you said, has had a long career making small cult films that really resonate. And if Fincher wins for "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button," I think I'll just take it that he's winning for "Zodiac."

JK: Or "Fight Club," which was awesome. But ‘Button' was not. It never actually went on to question the emotions of aging backwards. The short story at least put the experience more in a societal context.

IJ: It did, a little bit. But the short story, like a lot of Fitzgerald's writing, depends on little bits of flavoring. In the story, Benjamin Button is actually born as a full-sized old man, walking and talking and playing chess, so it has comic value right away. The narrative could have been more real, because Button is born as a small baby who looks like an old man. The film had the opportunity to consider the consequences of aging backward more fully, but it utterly failed because nothing happened in the guy's life.

JK: The only reason I sat through the whole film was to watch Brad Pitt actually get to 20.

IJ: I have to say, normally I don't think Pitt's that attractive. But in this movie, when you reach his actual age, you can't help but think, "Gosh, he's so hot now!"

FBY: I think he's a great actor in some films, and he and Fincher have a nice relationship. But when Fincher stops talking about violence, to paraphrase my thesis adviser who hated the movie, he has nothing else to say. It's kind of sad: Last year, you had Joel Coen and Ethan Coen and Paul Anderson pulling out their best work - dark and brutal, with excessive charms. The director's category this year is testament to a low-key Academy that doesn't want to take any risks. It just puts up the directors of the year's five supposed prestige pictures.

AT: I think the best mainstream movie of 2008 was "Gran Torino," and I don't understand why it was completely ignored. Probably just because Clint Eastwood is in a position where the Academy has already given him all this stuff, and now it wants him to go shut up in a corner somewhere. But apart from "Million Dollar Baby," "Gran Torino" was his strongest work yet.

FBY: You get the sense that Eastwood woke up when he was about 75 and said, "You know what, I'm not just going to make good movies any more, I'm going to make great movies!" And "Gran Torino" is the product of a director who is at his artistic peak. It's a much stronger, more personal film than any of the five nominated pictures.

AT: The amazing thing about "Gran Torino" is that it manages to be both a meditation on old age and a really touching investigation of youth. You don't get the sense that a fogey old man directed it at all.

FBY: Maybe the Academy just said, "Listen, we've honored Martin Scorcese and Eastwood recently. Let's just keep our lenses on the 40-year-old directors now." But in their move to attract the younger generation, they're also picking films that seem less plugged in to the national consciousness.

IJ: If we're going to talk about movies that should have been nominated, I have to bring up "In Bruges." I think it's appalling that it was left out.

AT: That's just a consequence of its genre, though.

IJ: Yes, exactly! And that's my biggest gripe. I find it problematic that the movies in the musical or comedy category at the Golden Globes just get ignored by the Oscars. I can understand if the Academy wants to find stories with some big, strong messages and if they think that dramas are somehow more conditioned to that. But "In Bruges" actually spoke more to life's gray areas than any of the dramas that were nominated for Best Picture this year. Those five weren't emotionally engaging, as we've been saying, and isn't that the definition of a drama?

FBY: It's a shame for movie-goers when two of the best movies of the past decade - "There Will Be Blood" and "No Country for Old Men" - were justly nominated last year. But this year, if ‘Slumdog' wins, it would be the equivalent of "Juno" winning last year.

JK: I have to say, though, it just has been a really bad year for movies.

FBY: No, the nominations have been bad. You're left with the sense that 2008 was a mediocre year for film when movies like "In Bruges," "Happy-Go-Lucky" and various others were really special. It's a shame, but at the very least we'll have Hugh Jackman hosting.