Fox Searchlight Pictures

Some of my favorite movies that have been released since the beginning of the new century have been distributed by Fox Searchlight Pictures. Most of these films have been independent films, though some of them have been British films (including The Full Monty and last year's Slumdog Millionaire, both curiously written by Simon Beaufoy). Though it mainly distributes independent and British films, it is involved in production of some of their films. In the last three years, Fox Searchlight has made a strong showing at the Academy Awards with a film that was called "the little film that could" back in 2006 and 2007, and this Sunday, it is predicted (or some would say "it is written") that their nominee will be the winner.
Fox Searchlight is a film division of Twentieth Century Fox, which was established in 1994 to finanace these smaller films. Twentieth Century Fox is one of the six Worldwide major American Film Studios, which include Warner and Universal. Twentieth Century Fox was founded in 1935 with the merging of Fox Film Corporation (founded by William Fox in 1915) and Twentieth Century Pictures, which was founded in 1933 by Darryl F. Zanuck, Joseph Schenck, Raymond Griffith and William Goetz. It's currently owned by News Corporation, which is owned by Austrailian, right-wing magnate Rupert Murdoch. Fox has always been accused of being biased towards the right, in their news reports, in their programing. These right-wing tendencies doesn't affect Fox Searchlight's selection of films.

As we're approaching the Academy Awards this Sunday, I'd like to talk about Fox Searchlight's track record. they have had four films nominated in the last five years. The first one was the 2004 critical darling Sideway, directed by Alexander Payne, starring Paul Giamatti, Thomas Haden Church, Virginia Madsen and Sandra Oh. Sideways is based on a novel of the same name by Rex Pickett about a Middle School teacher/ aspiring writer named Miles Raymond (Giamatti), who takes his best friend Jack (Church) on a wine-tasting trip around California on the week before his wedding, where he discovers in a beautiful waitress named Maya (Madsen) a chance to redeem his life after his failed marriage and his failure to get a novel published. Sideways was a film that took the critics by storm, nearly cleaning out every major critics award that season, including LA and NY, and it wound up with five nominations including Best Picture, only winning an Oscar for Adapted Screenplay (by Alexander Payne and Jim Taylor), losing out to Clint Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby from Warner (I was personally more moved by Million Dollar Baby, but I found Sideways to be an impressive films upon multiple viewings. I don't find it that funny, but I find it very moving and I find the characters, while extremely flawed, very relatable). Sideways did sweep the Independent Spirit Awards with six awards including Best Feature, and awards for Giamatti, Church, Madsen and for Alexander Payne as a writer and Director.

Two years later the awards season recieved a small surprise in the little indie comedy that became a critical and audience darling, with its stunning cast, and it's colorful shade of yellow. This film is Little Miss Sunshine, from an original screenplay by Michael Arndt, directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valeria Faris, and starring Greg Kinnear, Toni Collette, Steve Carrell, Paul Dano, Abigail Breslin and Alan Arkin. I saw this film in the summer, way before it was getting any awards buzz, and remember loving it so much that it became my favorite movie that year, and to this day, I could see it 50 times, knowing every line, and not get tired of it. It's the story of a dysfunctional family that consists of a failed motivational speaker (Kinnear), his supportive wife (Collette), her suicidal brother (Carrell), his foul-mouthed, heroin-addicted father (Arkin), her mute-by-choice, Nietszche loving teenage son (Dano) and their wide-eyed, plucky daughter Olive (Breslin) who dreams of being a beauty queen. When she's invited to compete in the Little Miss Sunshine pageant in Redondo Beach, the family hops on their busted yellow VW bus and head to California. The film got a lot of critical praise, made over $100 million worlwide, and took a spot in the Oscar's Best Picture lineup (including three other nominations) with a campaign that included driving a yellow VW bus around LA and providing cupcakes. However, it lost Best Picture to Martin Scorsese's The Departed. It did win OScars for Best Original Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor (for Alan Arkin), and it won four awards at the Independent Spirit Awards, including Best Picture.

The following year, released what turned into its most commercially successful film to date, and also nabbed a spot in the Best Picture line-up. That film was Juno, from an original screenplay by Diablo Cody, directed by Jason Reitman, and starring Ellen Page, Michael Cera, Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman, Olivia Thirlby, J.K. Simmons and Allison Janney. It's the story of Juno McGuff (Page) a 16-year-old girl who gets pregnant from a one-night stand with her best frend Paulie Bleaker (Cera) and finding herself unable to have an abortion, she decides to give the baby up for adoption. She finds the perfect couple in Mark and Vanessa Loring (Bateman and Garner), but things get complicated as she gets to know the couple more, and she is forced to face her true feelings for Paulie. The film became a cultural icon that brought upon a new way for people to talk, and it ended up maing over $143 million domestically and over $228 million worldwide. Diablo Cody and Ellen Page got the most praise for the screenplay and her performance. It wound up with four Oscar nominations including Best Picture, and won the OScar for Best Original Screenplay (Diablo Cody). It lost Best Picture to the Coen Brothers' No Country for Old Men, but it also won Best Feature at the Independent Spirit Awards, as well as an award for Ellen Page and one for Diablo Cody.

This year, the little film from Fox Searchlight that has taken the season by storm is Slumdog Millionaire, based on the novel Q & A by Vikas Swarup, directed by Danny Boyle, and starring Dev Patel, Freida Pinto, Anil Kapoor and Irfhan Khan. It's the story of Jamal Malik (Patel) a slumdog from Mumbai who is one question away from the grand prize in "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?". This leads to an investigation on how this slumdog cheated on the show, but Jamal reveals how he knew every answer on the show by linking it to a different even in his life. Up to now, the film has won almost every precursor award that has mattered, including the Golden Globe, the Critics Choice award, the NBR, and with 10 nominations including Best Picture, it seems to be poised to win the Oscar, which would make the first Fox Searchlight film to win this award. To think this films almost wasn't released in theaters. IT was abandoned by Warner Independent, and was about to go direct-to-video, until Fox Searchlight picked it up. Now it's become a phenomenon.
One thing you'll notice about these films is that Sideways, Little Miss Sunshine and Juno won OScars for their screenplays. That's one of the reasons I love films from Fox Searchlight, they are first and foremost, great stories. Stories that might be very funny, or very moving, or very affecting, but the studio looks for good stories to distribute. They're also the studio behind the distribution of In America, Thank You for Smoking, Waitress, Once, The Darjeeling Limited and The Wrestler just to name a few that I've loved. They also distributed Danny Boyle's Millions, Sunshine and 28 Days Later. It's a studio that is always on the lookout for something original and breathtaking, and actively campaigns to have it notices by the Academy and other voting bodies.