The Slumdog Snags Oodles of Oscars

http://www.mtviggy.com/content/6912

Enjooooy

32 total national film awards, with six best film awards. [link] Most of his films broke even, with occasional record-breaking blockbusters such as Goopi Gayen Bagha Bayen.

f Adoor Gopalakrishnan tried to portray black travails in inner city Detroit. what are the chances that it would turn out well?

Not well. He would take two hours just on a leisurely rumination of the cab ride from the house to Trivandrum airport With a 5 minute shot of the cab wheels slowly turning.

it seemed to me from the movie that danny boyle was looking to make an escapist entertainer,

Ok. If you were to rate a bollywood escapist movie as a 10 what would you give SDM.

Actually the director made a film about drug users in his society.

I hope he did a good job and I suggest that he should stick to a society that he really knows and understands. Satyajit Ray was also criticised for making poverty porn but then he was desi and hence acceptable to an extent. Incidentally none of his movies won a best film award in India nor were they really successfull. Seriously, why pay good money to watch pain that can experience in real life. Much better to watch an action hero beat up the local goonda – something you wish you could do in real life but cant.

I love how Melbourne Desi wants someone to “stick to his own society” while ignoring the globalized notions of his own username.

I am a fan of cross-cultural art and people of different parts of the world working together to tell a story that goes beyond borders and stikes a chord with all people.

Though its appearance was inevitable, I’ve been astonished at some of the anti-”Slumdog” backlash, by observers who seem to regret that the film isn’t a somber position paper from Human Rights Watch. Demanding that poor people be miserable and rent their garments on screen is as patronizing an attitude in its own way as Samuel Goldwyn’s insistence that the sets for his 1937 film “Dead End” be free of trash. “There won’t be any dirty slums,” biographer Scott Berg reports the mogul declared. “Not in my picture!” Given that it’s basically a delirious fantasy, what’s frankly surprising about “Slumdog Millionaire” is how much realism there is in it, not how little. It’s an old-fashioned movie, for heaven’s sake, a hugely accomplished piece of entertainment that delights audiences across the widest possible spectrum, which is exactly what traditional Hollywood so often lusts for and fails to achieve. If academy members don’t recognize and reward that kind of success, there are going to be a lot fewer of them to enjoy in the future

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my mum, who dislikes, ‘sad’ ‘realistic’ movies and is a big fan of escapism at the movies loved ‘slumdog’ (she liked it far more than i did) and she caught on the technical merits of the movie even though she isn’t much of a movie buff. first, she liked that the flashbacks/forwards were executed really well, and second, she appreciated that the movie didn’t contain ‘extra’ elements or sub-plots that would clutter the plot. third, she felt that the movie did not try to encompass all the poverty porn cliches, and focused appropriately on the problems of the characters themselves.

i think boyle deserves credit for adapting bolly-sensibilities for a global audience (i think the influence of desi cinema on sm is palpable). and for working with both amateur and accomplished cast members to deliver a tightly edited mass-appeal product.

as far as ‘milk’ goes; i don’t doubt it is a great movie. but let’s nt kid ourselves, it is also standard fare in the conventional oscar-bait menu: inspiring biopic carried by a superb performer.

It’s interesting to hear your take on the movie, but you might change your mind if you saw it. It’s a fairly positive upbeat movie about how a young man, through his pluck, street smarts and virtue, manages to rise above all of the challenges thrown at him. Life in the slums is shown to be a varied experience, not great, but not horrible. Lastly, the movie is based on a novel which was written by an Indian (a diplomat no less) and had an Indian assistant director.

In short, while I respect your reservations, I’m not sure whether they connect well with the movie I saw and wonder if you’d feel the same way after you saw the film.

I was lucky in that I saw the movie very early, before the hype started, so I had no expectations about it. I did see it with my cousin from Bombay, and she did love it.

Ok. If you were to rate a bollywood escapist movie as a 10 what would you give SDM.

Actually the director made a film about drug users in his society.

I hope he did a good job and I suggest that he should stick to a society that he really knows and understands. Satyajit Ray was also criticised for making poverty porn but then he was desi and hence acceptable to an extent. Incidentally none of his movies won a best film award in India nor were they really successfull. Seriously, why pay good money to watch pain that can experience in real life. Much better to watch an action hero beat up the local goonda – something you wish you could do in real life but cant.

DM has held itself out to be more reality than fantasy warranting a viscereal reaction.

i think you are being unfair. i don’t think anybody but the clueless (of whom there are many) will think of it as some visceral or realistic portrayal of life in india. it seemed to me from the movie that danny boyle was looking to make an escapist entertainer, and it succeeded at that level. i think the movie is getting praise that far exceeds its cinematic merits – significantly for the reason you mention above (i can’t really say since i haven’t seen all the competitors (the reader looks like oscar bait tripe, but milk is the movie that seems like is getting robbed bigtime this year), but i think it is unfair to hold the moviemakers responsible for that.