Slumdog Millionaire

Ozark waitresses turned boxers. Los Angelenos battling over racial and social inequality. Boston's criminal element and a do-gooder detective. A West Texas cowboy and a satchel of money. A slum kid from India and a game show. Bomb specialists in Iraq hooked on the drug of war. On the surface, these plots ? of "Million Dollar Baby," "Crash," "The Departed," "No Country for Old Men," "Slumdog Millionaire" and "The Hurt Locker" ? have one thing in common: Oscars for best picture (in chronological order since 2005)

Reporting from Toronto In 2008, directors Danny Boyle and Darren Aronofsky came to the Toronto International Film Festival with two unknown commodities and emerged with awards-season favorites. It looks like history is repeating itself. The filmmakers, who previously wooed awards voters with "Slumdog Millionaire" and "The Wrestler," respectively, are back this season with new films. And, as happened two years ago, both of them won goodwill and frontrunner status at Toronto, the preeminent North American film showcase that wrapped Sunday.

Four years ago, a controversial British film called "Death of a President" stormed into the Toronto International Film Festival. The media was abuzz about its premise, which imagined that George W. Bush had been assassinated and Dick Cheney had ascended to the presidency. It became the hottest ticket of the festival that year and inspired intense debate about the limits of artistic and political expression — before fizzling in commercial release. Toronto, the preeminent North American gathering for top-tier filmmakers that starts Thursday and runs through next weekend, generates more heat and contention than almost any other festival.

If the Oscar-winning "Slumdog Millionaire" was a Western outsider's cheery fantasia of modern India, "Peepli Live" can be seen as its funhouse-mirror opposite: an insider's satiric comedy-drama about a troubled India rarely glimpsed by foreign tourists. "Slumdog" presented an urban rags-to-riches fairy tale about a quick-witted young man who scores big on a TV game show, beats the bad guys and gets the girl. By contrast, "Peepli Live" conjures a rural morality tale about a noble but none-too-bright young farmer named Natha who nearly loses everything, including his life, because of some of the same forces (globalization, corruption, easy money)

Nobody expected the bottom to drop out on A.R. Rahman's world tour. A Bollywood megastar and prolific film composer estimated to have sold more than 350 million albums worldwide, he's revered as a musical demigod across the Indian Diaspora. In the U.S., of course, Rahman is best known as the guy behind the "Slumdog Millionaire" soundtrack who nabbed two Oscars, a Golden Globe and two Grammys for his propulsive scoring contributions to the hit 2008 indie romance. So, earlier this month, as he embarked on his "A.R.

Danny Boyle, the Oscar-winning director of "Slumdog Millionaire," will oversee the opening ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics. Boyle was introduced Thursday as the artistic director of the ceremony to be held on July 27, 2012. The announcement was made in the shadow of the new 80,000-seat Olympic stadium in east London that will host both the opening and closing of the Games. Boyle won the best-director Academy Award in 2009 for "Slumdog Millionaire," a film that won eight Oscars including best picture.

Last year at this time, "Slumdog Millionaire" was such a prohibitive favorite that at some point all the other contenders seemed to take the rest of the season off. This year hasn't been nearly as predictable, nor as uniform. Favorites have had a shakier hold on their categories, and no movie has spread as widely across ballots as "Slumdog" did. That's why pundits (at least until recently) had whipped themselves frothy about the prospect of a left-field success. But as the awards season moves from confusion to clarity -- as it began to do when "Avatar" won best film and best director prizes at the Golden Globes Sunday night -- it also risks veering into certainty.

When "Slumdog Millionaire" premiered at the 2008 Telluride Film Festival, audiences cheered for the uplifting story about a kid from the Mumbai slums who wins big on a game show. After it went on to take home the coveted Audience Prize at the Toronto International Film Festival, the film's award season performance went on to mirror that of its winning main character. Ultimately, "Slumdog" took home eight Oscar statuettes, including the one for best picture, which, for many people, further solidified the film festival's Oscar-auguring powers.

Perhaps some credit should go to the Oscar-winning film "Slumdog Millionaire" for the near-capacity crowd on hand for the India Calling! event Sunday night at the Hollywood Bowl. A grand panoply of traditional and modern music, dance, art and cuisine, the evening highlighted India's seemingly limitless aesthetic varieties. The Ravi Shankar Centre Ensemble's performance presented the classical and folk elements of India's fertile musical legacy using intriguing hybridized forms.

A child star of the Oscar-winning movie "Slumdog Millionaire" moved into his new home Saturday in a Mumbai suburb, a far cry from the shanty by the railway tracks that had been his family's dwelling. Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail, 9, played the youngest Salim in British director Danny Boyle's rags-to-riches film about a slum dweller who ends up on a TV game show. His eyes bright and a big smile plastered on his face, Ismail showed off his new apartment in Vile Parle to guests.