Other / The Betfair Contrarian / 07 January 2009 /

The Betfair Contrarian loves the movies, especially betting on them, and the much-lauded feel-good hit Slumdog Millionaire is [1.72] Betfair to win the Best Picture gong at the Golden Globes. Our man tells you why the favourite won't take the prize when the awards are announced on Monday....

Danny Boyle's rags-to-riches tale is up against Frost/Nixon, The Reader, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Revolutionary Road. However, the Contrarian, who is brimming with confidence after correctly prophesising the New England Patriots' Superbowl hangover in the NFL this season, is far from convinced that Slumdog Millionaire will take the top prize on Sunday night.

Here are a few compelling reasons why you would be far better off putting your money on one of the other candidates:

Films set in the present day struggle

The Golden Globes voters do love a stroll down memory lane - 13 of the last 15 films to win in this category were not set in the present day, with American Beauty and Babel providing the only exceptions. All four of the other films nominated for the award this year are set in the past, leaving the excellent Slumdog Millionaire at a distinct disadvantage.

British directors can't win in consecutive years

Last year's Best Picture winner - Atonement - was directed by Englishman Joe Wright. This is terrible news for Slumdog Millionaire's Berkshire-born director Danny Boyle, as the last time that British directors were successful in consecutive years in this category was way back in 1969. On that occasion, Anne of the Thousand Days, directed by Charles Jarrott, followed up the 1968 success of the Lion in Winter director Anthony Harvey (note how the judges loved their history even then). The last Brit to suffer from this curse was the late Anthony Minghella, whose film Cold Mountain was nominated in 2003, a year after Stephen Daldry's The Hours triumphed. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (David Fincher) and Frost/Nixon (Ron Howard) were both directed by Americans.

Boyle is up against three directors who have won the award before

Frost/Nixon director Ron Howard has already won the Best Picture award before for A Beautiful Mind as has Stephen Daldry (The Reader) for The Hours and Sam Mendes (Revolutionary Road) for American Beauty. Both Howard and Daldry failed to win the category when first nominated before eventually going on to taste success which indicates that Boyle, for whom Slumdog Millionaire is his first nomination, may have to wait a while to ship the silverware.

The Best Picture winner is strongly linked to Hollywood casts

The lead actors in Best Picture winners tend to be major Hollywood stars whereas the protagonist in Slumdog Millionaire is 18-year-old Londoner Dev Patel, whose principal claim to fame came playing Anwar Kharral in Channel 4 teen drama Skins. The previous ten winners were Atonement (starring James McAvoy), Babel (Brad Pitt), Brokeback Mountain (Heath Ledger), The Aviator (Leonardo DiCaprio), The Lord of the Rings (Elijah Wood), The Hours (Nicole Kidman), A Beautiful Mind (Russell Crowe), Gladiator (Russell Crowe), American Beauty (Kevin Spacey) and Saving Private Ryan (Tom Hanks).

Speaking of big Hollywood stars...

The last time Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet - the stars of Revolutionary Road [5.4 to win the award] - acted alongside one another was in Titanic in 1997. On that occasion, their partnership helped the film claim that year's Best Picture award before crushing everyone at the Oscars. Even the jaded foreign press corps, responsible for picking the winners, can be susceptible to a little star power beamed square in their faces.

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