No Love For 'Slumdog' Actors?

In the latest issue of Entertainment Weekly (the one with Julia Roberts and Clive Owen on the cover), Nina Makhija from Philadelphia wrote a letter asking why a movie that had so many nominations and wins failed to recognize any of the actors in the film. She wonders where Dev Patel was for Best Supporting Actor (Editor's Note: I think he was the lead not supporting role) or Frieda Pinto for Best Supporting Actress (Editor's Note: This one's supporting). Now EW writer Dave Karger did give her a partial answer and said that, yes, there have been movies that won Best Picture and did not receive any acting nominations. Even movies that won a truckload of Oscars. Aside from that though the discussion sort of ends there for him. So, for your reading pleasure, I give you the eleven films that won Best Picture that didn't get any acting nods:

• Wings (1927-1928) - 2 Wins (SWEEP)
• All Quiet on the Western Front (1929-1930) - 2 Wins (2 Unclaimed Nominations)
• Grand Hotel (1931-1932) - 1 Win (SWEEP)
• An American In Paris (1951) - 6 Wins (2 Unclaimed Nominations)
• The Greatest Show On Earth (1952) - 2 Wins (3 Unclaimed Nominations)
• Around The World In 80 Days (1956) - 5 Wins (3 Unclaimed Nominations)
• GiGi (1958) - 9 Wins (SWEEP)
• The Last Emperor (1987) - 9 Wins (SWEEP)
• Braveheart (1995) - 5 Wins (5 Unclaimed Nominations)
• The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) - 11 Wins (SWEEP)
• Slumdog Millionaire (2008) - 8 Wins (2 Unclaimed Nominations)

So there you have it. You may notice that most of these movies aren't nearly as enjoyable to watch as some of the movies with acting nominations, which just goes to show that good acting can really help a movie sometimes.

Me To Sony: Give Up On UMD

Some of you may be familiar with Sony's UMD format, but in case you aren't here's the general gist of it: The format, which stands for Universal Media Disk, was supposed to be one of the main selling features for Sony's handheld console the PSP (Playstation Portable), and for the first couple of years studios released movies on UMD day-and-date with the DVD. Problem is the format never really caught on, and soon only Sony themselves were really the only ones still supporting the format. It's been my opinion since I heard of the format that it was a lousy idea. An optical disk format that only worked on a handheld format but cost the same as a DVD which could be used on most optical disk platforms? Why would I bother? Well, apparently Sony still considers UMD to be important to their lineup.

Nevermind that the format was undermined right from the start by portable DVD players, but in the age of BluRay do we really want to watch epic movies like "Braveheart," "The Dark Knight," and "300" on a nine inch screen? My advice to Sony is to just give it up. Right now they have an online rental store for the PSP where people can rent a movie for a few dollars and watch them on the system. Sony should persue that instead and cut their losses with PSP. Will they? Not likely, but it's nice to think so.