A Hard Day's Night

Yesterday
Director: Danny Boyle
Cast: Himesh Patel, Lily James, Kate McKinnon, Ed Sheeran
Released: June 28, 2019

Yesterday is a movie with an interesting premise that asks the question, what if the entire population lived in a world where the Beatles never existed? And only one young man remembers them and their timeless songs. This is what happens when a global blackout occurs (not sure why it would erase the memory of certain pop culture phenomenas (the Beatles aren't the only thing that are forgotten by the human race)). The blackout is equated to something they were expecting for Y2K....I guess it just happened 18 years later! It only lasts for 12 seconds. Our main character, Jack Malik (Himesh Patel), a struggling musician, is hit by a bus while riding his bike during that time and I guess that explains why the memory loss of certain things didn't affect him. A lot of things in this movie don't make sense, but you're just supposed to go with it.

His first clue that something is amiss is when he's in his hospital bed and says, "Will you still need me, will you still feed me when I'm 64?" to Ellie (Lily James), who is his friend and manager (and also a school teacher). She laughs at the comment and asks, "Why 64?" But then when he plays "Yesterday" for his friends with a new guitar, they are all amazed by the song and tell him how great it is and they have never heard of it. He thinks they are playing a joke on him (like anyone would; you would have to live under the biggest rock in a hole forty feet beneath the earth to never heard of the Beatles!) They think he is referring to an obscure pop group!

When the "joke" keeps going on into the evening, he gets on his computer and Googles "The Beatles", but the site only comes up with a page for the insect beetle. When he types in "John Paul George Ringo" he gets a hit for Pope John Paul.  He checks his albums and all of his Beatles records are gone. He also checks to see if some of his other favorite groups still exist and finds out that Oasis has also disappeared from everyone's memory. Now I understand why he is "saving" the Beatles catalogue, but it would be a shame if "Wonderwall", "Champagne Supernova", and "Don't Look Back in Anger" were lost to the world. C'mon, those are some quintessential '90s songs! We also find out that Coca-Cola and cigarettes don't exist any longer (the latter might actually be a good thing!)

I have a question: do/did the members of the Beatles exist/existed in this world, but they just never formed the Beatles, or is this a world where John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and George Harrison were never born into? This question will be answered later on.

Jack takes it upon himself to try to remember all the Beatles songs(or at least the popular ones; but still, that's quite a lot!) and tries to remember the lyrics and the music. I think this would be super difficult! Even with an artist I'm familiar with and like, I don't know if I could remember all the lyrics to their songs. Perhaps just the super popular ones, but even then I wouldn't be sure. I can sing the lyrics to any song I know when it's playing, but when I just have to remember it on my own? Nope, can't do it. At least not the entire song.

I love the scene where his parents want to hear one of his "new" songs and he starts playing "Let It Be" (probably one of the best Beatles songs there is!) and he keeps getting interrupted by their neighbor or someone's phone. He keeps starting over after he gets interrupted and everyone keeps getting restless because he keeps repeating the same line. All the poor guy is trying to do is play the entire song without any interruptions, but he never gets to because he gets so fed up after the fourth of fifth interruption and tells them that they're the first people on Earth to hear this song and that it's like watching da Vinci paint the Mona Lisa right in front of them. They're all just staring at him, probably thinking he's super full of himself and he never gets to play it for them because they are interrupted once again when the neighbor's wife stops over.

Jack begins playing the songs at small festivals, but nobody seems to really care. He thinks the problem is him and he doesn't have the je ne sais quoi that the Beatles did, but then a guy from a recording company takes notice of him and Jack and Lily record a demo and the thing takes flight, at least at a local level. Jack is about to confess to Lily where the songs really came from, but he gets distracted when Ed Sheeran (played by Ed Sheeran) wants him to come to Moscow with him and be his opening act. I did laugh when he refers to himself as "the ginger geezer". And when Jack's dad tells him, "You look like Ed Sheeran!" But please tell me his ring tone isn't one of his own songs in real life because that's so...tacky. Also, I like about 90% of his music, but I really do not care for "Shape of You", which is the song he has as his ringtone in this movie.

Everyone loves Jack's opening act and we see a tall man in the back and right away I can tell he has heard the songs Jack is singing before because he has a look of recognition on his face. So this got very interesting; Jack is not the only person in the world who remembers the Beatles. Of course he sings "Back in the USSR" and Ed Sheeran tells him he really likes the song and he thought it was cool that he called it USSR even though it probably stopped being called that before he was born. Doing some Google research, I found out the song was released in 1968 and stopped being called that in 1991. You think a lot more of his younger fans (hell, any aged fan!) would be confused by the title of this song, but they seemed to be loving it.

Ed Sheeran challenges Jack to a "song writing competition" just for fun, just to see who can write the better "new" song in just a matter of minutes. The Ed Sheeran song is pretty good; it's very Ed Sheeran-y. And of course he should have won considering Jack cheated when he passes off "The Long and Winding Road" as his own and something he wrote in under fifteen minutes just that evening. It's pretty funny because Ed Sheeran is starting to question his status as a song writer and if he really is that good and he goes off, defeated. He tells Jack that he's Mozart and he (Ed) is Salieri. I had never heard of Salieri before and looked him up. He was a well established composer until Mozart came along and took over and (obviously) became the much more recognized name. So I guess there's a reason why I'm not familiar with the name Salieri. Maybe Jack should have picked one of the lesser known, lesser regarded songs to not make poor Ed Sheeran feel so bad! I was very amused by this scene and you can tell Ed Sheeran had a lot of fun with it.

Jack is brought to L.A. by Ed's manager, Debra (Kate McKinnon), who wants him to write more songs and make them both super rich. Her plan is to have Jack make "an astonishing era-defining double album that changes popular music forever". (He definitely has enough material to make a double album!) At his going-away party, Ellie confesses that she has always been in love with him (you knew it was coming!) and now things are complicated between them because he's about to leave for Los Angeles where his life is about to change drastically. His (well, The Beatles') five most popular songs are released online and they're getting colossal hits and everyone is raving about them. We don't know which songs were picked (I guess they didn't want to start a debate about which are the five greatest Beatles songs of all time because I'm sure it's different for everyone) but "Let It Be" was definitely one of them (I think most people would agree about that anyway) because you see a news clip of Jack's dad saying that he and his wife were the first ones to ever hear "Let it Be". (Even though it was only the first line four times!) If I had to choose my five favorite Beatles song, they would be "Let it Be", "Hey Jude", "All You Need is Love", "Oh La Di, Oh La Da" (why wasn't that song called "Life Goes On"? The TV show with Corky got it right!), and "Here Comes the Sun." Ask me tomorrow and my list might change, but I feel pretty good about those. "Imagine" would also be in this conversation, but I don't know if it counts as a Beatles song since it was just John Lennon. In fact, I actually prefer "Imagine" to all of those songs, except maybe "Let It Be".

While working on the album in Los Angeles, he feels he needs to go to Liverpool to find more inspiration because certain things aren't clicking for him. While there we see a woman following him and she appears to be another person who is aware of the Beatles. (Of course someone from Liverpool would have to remember them!) Lily comes to Liverpool and they almost sleep together, but Lily tells him she doesn't want a one night stand because that's what it would be since he's going back to L.A. the next day.

Back there, he meets with the head of the label (who's played by Lamorne Morris aka Winston Bishop from New Girl, a show I'm currently watching on Netflix). They're in a huge room with other people who work at the company who are all applauding Jack on his major talent and success. The next step is to put everything together "into one single, irresistible album." The album title suggestions from Jack are rejected - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band because it's too many words and too confusing; The White Album because it has diversity issues (even though Jack is of Indian descent); and Abbey Road because "it doesn't have a lot going for it". (Probably because it's just a picture of the street!) He wants Jack's album to speak for itself and wants to call it One Man Only, to tell the world that Jack didn't have any help in the process of creating this album. I had a little chuckle when he says, "No 'featuring Cardi B.' No 'featuring Bieber." Ugh, the Beatles in the same sentence with those two? Just, no. No, no, no. Can we please live in a world where those two never existed? I seriously doubt we would miss ever miss anything. I also had a chuckle when the back of the album is revealed with a silhouette of Jack's head and it says "All songs, music and lyrics by Jack Malik. Only" and everyone is gasping and oohing and ahhing and clapping.

There's a very cringe-worthy scene where Jack is recording "Hey Jude" and Ed Sheeran is there and he thinks it would be better if the words were "Hey Dude" instead. (Heh, remember that show on Nickelodeon? That's what I think of when I hear "Hey Dude"). Debra also thinks this is a brilliant idea and tells him it's so much better and Jack is like, "Is it? Is it really?" No, it's totally awful!

At a press conference, the Russian man and the woman from Liverpool are there in the audience and one of them holds up a yellow submarine (which hasn't become a thing yet in this parallel universe) and the other one asks him who is his favorite - John, Paul, George, or Ringo? They want to talk to him privately and I'm thinking, Ooh! This is going to be interesting. They're either going to extort him for money or make him feel guilty and tell him to confess his big secret and reveal who is really behind all of these amazing songs that everyone loves. But, no. They thank him for giving the world the music of the Beatles. Then they all start dancing around in a circle singing "Yellow Submarine." The way they shot these two prior to this scene really made it seem like they were being ominous about the whole thing. The fact that they're thanking Jack and being super nice to him made me feel disappointed. I want some damn drama in my movies!

This next part may be considered spoiler-y; so take that as a warning!

One of them tells Jack they "did some digging" and hands him an address of someone he may want to talk to. Remember when I was wondering if the Beatles themselves as individual people existed in this world? Well, we get the answer to that question when Jack goes to the address given to him - a small house near the beach - and an elderly man wearing denim with long hair and round glasses answers the door and introduces himself as "John". At first I was like, That can't be John Lennon! He died nearly 40 years ago! And then I realized, if he was never in the Beatles, then he never got famous, thus never got assassinated. So in this world, he most likely would still be alive. He is played by Robert Carlyle aka Mr. Gold/Rumplestiltskin from the TV series Once Upon a Time. I know they style him the way they do so the audience knows it's John Lennon, but I did find it amusing that if he were still alive today, he'd be wearing the same glasses and have the same haircut. This version of John Lennon seems totally chill that a random stranger showed up on his doorstep and doesn't really question why he seems so in awe of him. John tells Jack that he is happy and gives him some advice including, "Tell the girl you love that you love her" and "Tell the truth to everywhere when you can." As you may have guessed, Jack will heed this advice. When he asks how old John is and hears his answer, he replies with, "Fantastic! You made it to 78!"and gives the befuddled man a hug.

At his first big concert at Wembley Stadium, Jack confesses his love to Ellie and tells the truth about the Beatles. Ellie is somewhere under the stage and there's a camera on her that puts her face on full display on a jumbo tron. Luckily she is beautiful and fresh-faced, but ooh, if that were me, I would be so pissed! I don't want a close up of my face on some big ass screen where everyone can stare at it! Just one of my many worst nightmares! Jack offers the Beatles songs for free and releases all of them online which makes Debra furious.

So I predicted this movie would end with everything going back to normal; that the world would once again remember the Beatles, but being that John Lennon is alive in this world, I guess it would be cruel to take him away and the world (except for three people) still goes on without remembering a group called the Beatles ever existed, but at least they have their music to enjoy (for free!) thanks to Jack. We also find out that "Harry Potter" has also been erased from everyone's memory. I hope Jack remembers enough to write all seven books! I feel like trying to write one book from memory would be difficult enough, let alone seven.

So I guess in this universe, the movie Across the Universe doesn't exist either! I need to watch that and review it soon. I saw it when it first came out and liked it, but just never took the time to revisit it. I do have the soundtrack and shhh, don't tell anyone, but I actually like the movie's rendition of "I Want to Hold Your Hand" better than the Beatles'!

It Is Written

Slumdog Millionaire

Director: Danny Boyle

Cast: Dev Patel, Freida Pinto, Anil Kapoor, Irrfan Khan, Madhur Mittal
Released in theaters: December 25, 2008

Viewed in theaters: January 20, 2009

Oscar nominations:

Best Picture (won)

Best Director - Danny Boyle (won)

Best Adapted Screenplay - Simon Beaufoy (won)

Best Cinematography (won)

Best Sound (won)

Best Editing (won)

Best Sound Editing (lost to The Dark Knight)

Best Original Song - Jai Ho by A.R. Rahman (won)

Best Original Score - A.R. Rahman (won)

What movie won the Oscar for the Best Picture of 2008?

a. The Dark Knight                b. Wall-e
c. Frost/Nixon                       d. Slumdog Millionaire

If you chose d, you are correct. And hopefully you didn't need to phone a friend to find out the answer! (Even though I literally just wrote it did win the Oscar right above the question!) Slumdog Millionaire takes a popular game show (Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?) and sets it in India where a young man gets on the show and does very well as the questions seem to correlate with his own (very harrowing) life. Not only that, but the questions are also asked in chronological order of the events that happened in his life.

When the movie starts, we get three different timelines. The first is the introduction of Jamal Malik (Del Patel), the eighteen-year Indian Muslim boy on Who Wants To Be a Millionaire? with the charismatic host (Anil Kapoor) who pronounces the show's title with an enthusiastic, "Who wants to be a milla-naire!" The second timeline is after the show where he's being smacked around and accused of cheating because he knew all the answers. Being a poor, uneducated kid from the slums, nobody is buying that he could have gotten all the answers right. And the third timeline is any flashback to Jamal when he was younger and how he knew the answers.

The show begins innocently enough. The questions always start out easy, increasing with difficulty with each one. The first question asked is who is the star of a 1973 hit film? Jamal should know this answer regardless because the actor, Amitabh Bachchan, is super famous, but we get a flashback of when he was a young kid (around five) and how his favorite actor was filming nearby where he lived. Unfortunately for Jamal, his older brother, Salim, has locked him in a makeshift port-a-potty (which is just a wooden stall sitting atop stilts with a hole in the middle where you do your business) after Jamal cost his a customer (they charged people to use the toilet). In one of the more disgusting scenes of the film, the young Jamal holds his nose (like that's going to work!) and jumps into the lake of crap and swims his way out. He is just covered head to toe in crap and I can only imagine how awful the stench must be. To his credit, Amitabh signs the photo of himself Jamal gives to him without being grossed out by the sight or smell. It is now Jamal's most prized possession and we will later find out that Salim soon after sold it for money, establishing the rocky relationship between the two bothers.

So here's a fun fact: Amitabh Bachchan is the actual host of the Indian version of Who Wants To Be a Millioniare? (at least for the majority of its run), so I guess that question about him was a shoutout.

The second question is also very easy and should be one that every Indian should know since it's a question asking what it reads on their national emblem. However, Jamal doesn't know it and needs to ask the audience. The two police questioning him find it odd that he needed help with such an easy question while he knew the answers to more difficult questions. The police officer played by Irrfan Khan tells him that his five-year-old daughter could answer that question. Jamal replies by asking them if they know how much a plate of pani puri cost or who stole someone's bike last Thursday. The officers don't know even though Jamal knows both those answers. I guess this is to show us that some questions that are obvious to some, may not be the case for others. However, I think Jamal wasted his "ask the audience" card and should have saved it for another questions (like the last one!) Even if you didn't know the answer, you could probably guess it correctly just by using common sense. The options given were "Truth alone triumphs"; "Fashion alone triumphs", "Lies alone triumph"; and "Money alone triumphs." C'mon, you don't have to be a genius to figure out that one (which is exactly what Jamal tells them in reference to the first question). Total waste of a lifeline, Jamal! You're lucky you did so well.

The show continues and as the questions become more difficult, Jamal's life is about to as well. His mother is killed by a mob of Hindus who are rioting against Muslims. Jamal and his brother run for their lives through the chaos and call for a girl in their age range to join them. The girl's name is Latika and the three of them call themselves the Three Musketeers, after the book they've been reading in school. The three youngsters think they've ben rescued when a well dressed man finds them in a junkyard and gives them each a bottle of ice cold Coke. We next see them in a bus being driven somewhere with other young children. At first the "Three Musketeers" are happy as they are eating plenty of food and have lots of equipment to play with (like tire swings) so it looks like an amusement park to these kids from the slums. The looks on their faces when they see their new home is that of pure joy. They conclude that Maman, the man who rescued them from poverty and malnourishment, is "a saint". However, that's not the case and Maman is actually training homeless kids to be beggars in order to make money. Not only that, but in the most harrowing scene, he pours acid in some of the childrens' eyes after they've been drugged and sedated to blind them. He does this to the kids with the more beautiful singing voices because blind kids make more money because of the sympathy factor. Jamal finds this out and he and Salim and Latika escape. The two brothers make it onto a train, but Latika is not quick enough and her captors catch up to her which devastates Jamal, but Salim assures him that she'll be fine because she always is.

The movie takes a little break from all its bleakness and horrific moments and gives us a reprieve with some more lighthearted scenes including a montage of the brothers stealing food while traveling on trains through India set to M.I.A.'s Paper Planes. (Remember that song? It only seems like yesterday it was everywhere on the radio). During the montage, as you do, the brothers age so Salim is now a teenager and Jamal is probably eleven or twelve. They end up in Agra by way of Mumbai and pretend to be private tour guides for people visiting the Taj Mahal. Now I have no doubt the Taj Mahal is a sight to behold, but that attraction has to be infested with tourists all the time. They don't get the idea until Jamal is just standing around and a British couple comes up to him and asks him if they can give him a private tour and they'll pay him extra. (I guess they didn't notice he wasn't wearing a name tag like the other tour guides). Seeing the money, Jamal is glad to oblige, although I question his knowledge of the Taj Mahal because he claims it was supposed to be a five-star hotel but the emperor who built it for his wife died before any of the rooms were built and he calls the reflection pool the swimming pool. He tells the couple that the emperor's wife died in a road accident and when they question him and say they thought she died in childbirth, he tells them that she was on the way to the hospital when it happened. The boys also make money by taking photos of tourists in front of the Taj Mahal and also stealing and selling nice shoes that are required to be taken off before entering the premises.

After that nice little interlude, the movie goes back to being grim. They have returned to Mumbai and Jamal finds the boy with the beautiful singing voice who was blinded and finds out that Latika is in training to be a prostitute (at least she got to keep her eyesight!) and is known as "Cherry" on Pilar Street. It's a little disturbing because she can't be more than thirteen years old. By this time Salim has already perfected his thieving skills, but he can now add murder to his criminal record because he kills Maman when they retrieve Latika. He didn't even kill him in defense; it was just cold-blood murder.

The brothers have a falling out, and, to be honest, I didn't quite understand why Salim wanted to kick out his brother, I guess he just wanted Latika for himself. There's another time jump and Jamal is now being played by Dev Patel in the flashblacks, so I'm not sure what happened to Jamal in between those years. He's now working as a chaiwala (someone who serves and sells tea) at a call center (which we learn earlier in the movie when he tells the game show host what he does for a living) and when he covers for someone who needs to use the bathroom, he tries to find Latika and Salim by using the database. Unfortunately, he doesn't know Latika's last name, so he gets thousands of entries when he just types in her first name. Even typing in his brother's full name, he gets fifteen results and calls all the numbers until he reaches Salim. We find out that Salim now works for a crime boss named Javed (who was an enemy of Maman, so he admired Salim for killing him) and Latika is living with Javed in his posh house as his in-house whore, so to speak. She and Jamal have a sweet reunion before Javed returns and Latkia puts an apron on Jamal and tells Javed that Jamal is the new cook so as not to raise any suspicions. Jamal notices that she is watching Who Wants To Be a Millionaire? before Javed comes in and makes her switch the channel to the cricket match. He is such a jerk because he doesn't even watch the television in the kitchen; he goes to the living room to watch the game, so he wasn't even watching it on the TV in the kitchen! In a very low voice, Jamal tells Latika that he will wait everyday at the local train station at five o'clock until she comes, but she says it is too late for that. However, she does attempt to meet him there not that long after only to be found out and captured by Salim and is taken away.

There is an interesting part during the game where they are taking a break after a question about a cricket player has been asked and when Jamal comes out of the bathroom, he sees that the host has written "B" with the condensation on the mirror in an attempt to fool him. When they return from a commercial break, Jamal chooses the 50/50 lifeline for the question and only B and D remain as choices (the Indian Regis Philbin must know which choices get knocked off if the 50/50 is chosen). I have to give the host credit for remaining calm and acting excited for Jamal when he (after a very dramatic pause) chooses D, which is, indeed the correct answer when you know he was furious on the inside. I'm not sure why he wanted to sabotage Jamal and make him choose the wrong answer; is it because he doesn't want to pay him all that money? Do most game shows not want their contestants to win so they don't have to shell out the money? But wouldn't they want that because it's more dramatic when they do win? Hmm, we need an investigative report on this, stat! I know he thinks he's cheating, but I feel like you could find out if someone was being fed answers from an outside source.

That was the penultimate question and they have ran out of time and have to wait until the next evening to continue. I remember when Who Wants To Be a Millionaire? premiered and it was on every weeknight and you would have to wait until the next night if they ran out of time with one contestant. I suppose that makes sense because you don't know how far a contestant will get...they could get all the answers like Jamal or they could flame out by the third question (God, that would be embarrassing). I remember I had the PC game version of it. I probably won it, like once!

Remember how Latkia was watching Who Wants To Be a Millionaire? So now we know why Jamal went on the game show (which he was able to obtain a spot through his job at the call center) since he knows she watches it often. He tells the police officer that he went on the show because he thought she'd be watching. The officer tells him he is free to go. By this time, we are in current time with the timeline and all of India has been watching this young "slumdog" making a killing on the show and are cheering him on. A TV reporter claims that "an estimated 90 million people" will tune in tonight to see if he will win the grand prize of twenty million rupees. Ninety million people; that is insane! I don't think even that many people tuned in to watch the finale of M*A*S*H which is supposed to be one of the most watched shows in American history. Granted, India does have a population of a billion people, but still! Ok, so I just looked at a chart and the finale of M*A*S*H is the most watched episode of American TV and it actually had 125 million people, so okay, I was wrong! That's crazy. But this was back in the day (1983) when there were only, like, five channels, so what else were people supposed to watch? I also looked up the conversion rate for twenty million rupees and it is roughly equal to $308,000. What? That's nowhere near a million dollars! I feel like Jamal is getting gypped here.

Salim knows that Jamal will never give up, so he lets Latika escape by giving her his car keys and cell phone and tells her he'll take care of Javed if he finds out. She is trying to get to the WWTBAM? studios, but the streets are jammed with traffic and people. She ends up getting out of the car and watching the show in a display store window with a crowd.

The last question Jamal has to answer is "What is the name of the third Musketeer?" (The one that isn't Athos or Porthos). Keep in mind that this has been an ongoing theme throughout the film. When we first see Jamal and his brother, they are reading The Three Musketeers in school (or at least, supposed to be reading). When they meet Latika, Jamal says that she can be the third Musketeer and Salim points out they don't even know the name of that one. I definitely wouldn't know the answer to this question either! I love Jamal's reaction where he laughs to himself and smiles because you know he's thinking, Of course this is the question I would get. The one question he's never known or thought he would ever have to know. He even admits to the host he doesn't know the answer, but wants to continue to play and chooses to phone a friend. See, this is where the ask the audience lifeline would come in handy. True, they may not always give you the correct answer, but I would feel confident that this is a popular book that most people would know the right answer. The host reminds him that if he gets the wrong answer, then he will lose everything he's won so far, which is ten million rupees.

Salim's number is dialed and the audience (both in the movie and in actual theaters when the movie was released, I'm sure!) are on pins and needles as the phone rings and rings. When Jamal tells the host that it's his brother's number he's dialing, Latika hightails it back to the car where she's left the phone and answers right before they're about to hang up. Jamal is glad to hear from her and know that she's okay. He asks her the question and she admits she doesn't know the answer either. Jamal ends up taking an educated guess...and of course he's right. (The answer is Aramis, by the way). The audience just explodes into cheers as well as everyone else in the country who is watching. This is juxtaposed with a scene of Salim killing Javed and his men killing him in return. We all know that Salim wasn't long for this world with the life he chose for himself.

The movie ends happily, though, for Jamal and Latika who are reunited at the train station. And with the twenty million rupees he's just won, he is no longer a slumdog...just a slumdog millionaire! (Wouldn't that be an oxymoron?)

The end credits are one of my favorite end credits along with Return of the King and Kill Bill: Vol 2. The main actors and a bunch of dancers behind them are doing a flashmob dance at the train station to a song composed by A.R. Rahman called Jai Ho, with some very heavy Indian influences. I also love how they show the three actors who played the characters of Jamal, Latika, and Salim. I refer to them as Young (the characters at their oldest!), Younger (the characters as young teens or almost teens) and Youngest (the characters as kids). It is just very cool how the credits are unraveled.

And I'll cap this review with another fun fact: exactly nine years ago today, Slumdog Millionaire won its Oscar for Best Picture (not to mention the seven other Oscars it won) when the Academy Awards aired on February 22, 2009.