Slumdog Millionaire

[Stefen]

Yeah, and you have some of the safest taste on this whole site. If this had subtitles, you would have hated it.

On the flipside, if it had subs, the rest of us would have loved it. 

[abuck1220]

i think more of you would be just indifferent to it if it wasn't getting all these rave reviews/awards.

I don't think that's even debatable. I know I'd like it a lot more if it wasn't being heralded as the best movie of the year. Granted, it was a shitty year, but there were still better things that came out than Slumdog.

yeah, but at least it's good (in my opinion). juno was this movie last year except juno is an awful, awful piece of shit. i didn't love no country for old men by any means, but i still think it's at least decent, so it didn't bother me to see it rack up a bunch of awards. 

[Kal]

Yeah, and you have some of the safest taste on this whole site. If this had subtitles, you would have hated it.

On the flipside, if it had subs, the rest of us would have loved it. 

That was a bad one dude, you know MY MOVIE has subtitles?

[OrHowILearnedTo]

Any other year and this is a just a nice little film that would a pleasant surprise for a best director nom or something. But since 2008 sucked for great films i'm almost positive this will clean up at the oscars. But it's not like if it does win it's a complete travesty. I've only seen Benjamin Button and Revolutionary Road, and while i like these films much more and can't honestly say they are flat out deserving for best picture. My only complaint is that Revolutionary Road and Benjamin Button both have moments of greatness, while slumdog is just good, at best, throughout. It's an okay story done pretty well, but that's it. It has an interesting structure, and the child actors are pretty impressive, but the whole film relies on the love story and that's where it's really weak. Not once did i believe they were in love, it felt more like a guy obsessed with a really hot chick. There weren't enough moments as kids where it looked as though they really liked each other. Imo, the brother relationship could've been very interesting, but they didn't expand enough on stuff like where Salim sells Jamal's autograph. I though Dev Patel was pretty weak too.

The ending and the train station scene were cool though. Very Bollywood. But i'm glad the whole movie wasn't done that way.

[abuck1220]

why does everyone keep saying he only liked her because she was hot? he met her when he was like six.

[ᾦɐļᵲʊʂ]

But since 2008 sucked for great films i'm almost positive this will clean up at the oscars.

Are you choosing to ignore all the masterpieces that weren't nominated for anything at all?  2008 was a pretty fucking great year for movies, man.

[OrHowILearnedTo]

But since 2008 sucked for great films i'm almost positive this will clean up at the oscars.

Are you choosing to ignore all the masterpieces that weren't nominated for anything at all?  2008 was a pretty fucking great year for movies, man.

Ballast and Revolutionary Road was the only films close to masterpieces that i saw this year. Pretty much everything else was underwhelming (Wrestler, Button, Synechdoche, etc.). But i still havn't seen Wall-E 

[Alexandro]

what a boring, predictable movie.

to think that in Trainspotting, Boyle used a quiz show and his parents response to it while watching it on the tube as part of Renton's descent into madness and as a way to expose the boring, lazy comfy lives of middle class life everywhere in the world, and now the fuck makes a whole film ABOUT one, which by the way looks a lot like the one in Trainspotting and even has the same line of "it's the right answer!!"..I just find it depressing.

The whole film is one big "I saw THAT coming" after another. Ten minutes in...shit, two minutes in you know the whole story. You know the brother will be a problem, you know the girl will end up being kind of a whore (but a nice, warm hearted confused victim of the circumstances whore, of course), and you know he will win.

Boyle steals the visual intensity of City of God but without any of the substance, poverty and slums are used solely as a narrative gimmick being there with the only porpoise of make you feel better about that fuck when he finally gets the money.

I am baffled out of my fucking mind, even knowing that the oscars are useless pieces of shit that this and Benjamin Button are the ones winning everything. Best screenplay? Best director? Really, wow. The nail in the coffin for me to consider awards completely irrelevant forever.

[Stefen]

to think that in Trainspotting, Boyle used a quiz show and his parents response to it while watching it on the tube as part of Renton's descent into madness and as a way to expose the boring, lazy comfy lives of middle class life everywhere in the world, and now the fuck makes a whole film ABOUT one, which by the way looks a lot like the one in Trainspotting and even has the same line of "it's the right answer!!"..I just find it depressing.

[ᾦɐļᵲʊʂ]

But since 2008 sucked for great films i'm almost positive this will clean up at the oscars.

Are you choosing to ignore all the masterpieces that weren't nominated for anything at all?  2008 was a pretty fucking great year for movies, man.

Ballast and Revolutionary Road was the only films close to masterpieces that i saw this year. Pretty much everything else was underwhelming (Wrestler, Button, Synechdoche, etc.). But i still havn't seen Wall-E 

If you thought that Revolutionary Road was a masterpiece, let alone one of the only ones in 2008, then for you, I can see 2008 being a completely dry season.

Also: what is a masterpiece to you and what underwhelms you if Revolutionary Road outperforms Synecdoche or the Wrestler?

[OrHowILearnedTo]

But since 2008 sucked for great films i'm almost positive this will clean up at the oscars.

Are you choosing to ignore all the masterpieces that weren't nominated for anything at all?  2008 was a pretty fucking great year for movies, man.

Ballast and Revolutionary Road was the only films close to masterpieces that i saw this year. Pretty much everything else was underwhelming (Wrestler, Button, Synechdoche, etc.). But i still havn't seen Wall-E 

If you thought that Revolutionary Road was a masterpiece, let alone one of the only ones in 2008, then for you, I can see 2008 being a completely dry season.

Also: what is a masterpiece to you and what underwhelms you if Revolutionary Road outperforms Synecdoche or the Wrestler?

That's obviously a pretty difficult question to answer. I didn't say that Revolutionary Road was a masterpiece, I would have to see it again to confirm this, but It was probably to closest thing to a great film this year, imo. My film prof. used to (and i assume still does) say that film, and art in general, should tell us something about about life that we already knew, but had forgotten (or something along those lines, I'm paraphrasing). While I don't always agree with that statement, I do believe that Revolutionary Road did this better than any other film this year. The Wrestler does this too, but has major flaws especially surrounding Marrisa Tomei's character. All her scenes weren't written well at all, or a least not on a level with the rest of the film. This is why i was totally surprised with her nomination (not that i really care though). I loved The Wrestler, it's definitely in my top five this year, but it wasn't as good as i thought it was going to be. Maybe underwhelmed wasn't the best word for it, because it's still damn good, but it was a slight disappointment. Synecdoche is a different story, I loved and hated that movie at the same time, and i'll try to write something half decent in it's own thread once i see it again.

But yeah, i didn't really like 2008 that much.

[Stefen]

I'm with you. I wasn't feeling 2008 very much either. There were some good movies, but I don't think anything that will go down as an all-time great.

[matt35mm]

So, does anyone else think that this is utter bullshit?  Yeah, nice for these kids I guess, but the entire motivation and justification for it is barf-worthy.  There were outcries from images of slum-life and the response was to give 2 kids an apartment each for being in a movie?  What are people supposed to take from this?  Or will it actually succeed as the slight-of-hand that it so badly wants to be?

And they're receiving these homes from "the authorities," according to the article.  What The Fuck.  Thanks, Authorities!

--------------------------------------

'Slumdog' child actors to get new homes

MUMBAI (Reuters Life!) – The two main child actors from "Slumdog Millionaire" are to receive new homes from the authorities after the small-budget movie swept the Oscars, winning eight Academy Awards.

The Mumbai homes will go to Rubina Ali and Azharuddin Ismail, who played the young roles of the movie's central characters, Latika and Salim, in the rags-to-riches romance about a poor Indian boy competing for love and money on a TV game show.

"These two children have brought laurels to the country, and we have been told that they live in slums, which cannot even be classified as housing," said Gautam Chatterjee, head of the state-run Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority.

Authorities did not say where the home would be only that there would be apartments and near a "prime location."

Ali, 8, currently lives in a tiny hovel in a rubbish strewn slum near railway tracks in India's financial hub. Ismail sleeps under a polythene sheet-covered roof in the same slum. Open sewers run nearby and both homes have no running water.

The movie, based in Mumbai, took home eight awards from the Oscars including best picture and best director for Britain's Danny Boyle.

But in the leadup to Sunday's Oscars, the movie's success around the globe was overshadowed by objections in India to its name which some Indians find offensive, its depiction of the lives of impoverished Indians, and the treatment of the cast.

There was an outcry after pictures emerged of the child stars living in squalor despite the $15 million movie earning about $100 million since its North American release last November.

But since the Oscars, India's media has been caught in a patriotic frenzy and politicians have jumped on the bandwagon to praise Indians involved in the film.

Boyle and producer Christian Colson have flatly rejected claims of exploiting children for the movie.

They said the children were paid above local Indian wages and enrolled in school for the first time with a fund set up to pay for their education, medical emergencies and "basic living costs."

Fox Searchlight Pictures, the 20th Century Film Fox studio behind the film, paid for visas, travel and accommodation for nine children to fly to Los Angeles for the Oscars.

[Stefen]

lol.

"wtf!"

[matt35mm]

Slumdog Millionaire star falls ill

Slumdog Millionaire child star Azharuddin Ismail has fallen ill as fears grow about the psychological state of the two young Indian actors.

Azhar, 10, spent the weekend vomiting and has developed a temperature of 103 degrees since returning home last week after travelling to the Oscars with co-star Rubina Ali, 9.

He has been prescribed antibiotics by doctors, who said he is suffering from fever and exhaustion, but his condition has continued to worsen.

Azhar's neighbours have also rallied round to build an 8ft by 5ft metal structure for him to sleep under out of the sun.

The families of the two child stars have said their children are not readjusting to life back in the slums after five days of glitz and glamour in Los Angeles.

Mother Shameem Ismail said: "It has all become too much for him. He is very ill and has not recovered from going to America and all the media interest since we got back."

Rubina's father Rafiq Qureshi said. "Getting used to life back here in the slum again is proving tough for her and she has not wanted to see her friends since she got back. She just wants to spend all her time away from the slum now and I just hope we get the flat that has been promised to us.":

Both the Mumbai housing authority and Slumdog's producer Christian Colson have said they are going to provide proper flats for the two families. However, as yet the families have been told nothing and remain in the deprived slum.

Azhar, cuddling his new pet guinea pig, said: "I am very sad. I feel sleepy, hot and sick all the time. I can't get to sleep here – there are too many mosquitoes and it is so hot. I just wish I was in America still."

Having flown in a plane, slept in a soft bed and used a clean and functioning bathroom for the first time in their lives at a five-star hotel, the kids say they have now realised what life is like on the other side of the coin and the reality of being back in the slum is hitting them hard.

"I don't want to live here in the slum anymore," Rubina said, wearing the dirt stained ball gown that she has not wanted to take off since Oscars night. "I don't want to sleep on the floor anymore. I want a proper bed and live where the air does not smell of poo. I have seen what it is like in America. Here, there is garbage everywhere, people get angry, swear and shout. I have realised how bad life is here. I just want to get out."

Social workers have called for the children to be placed in care and state that they need to be given protection – either from Danny Boyle and the film production company or the Indian authorities.

"I cannot believe these kids have just been left like this after being taken to Hollywood. It is bound to affect them psychologically," said social worker Sanjay Bhatia, who works in the slum.

India's Women and Child Development Minister Renuka Chowdhary is "appalled" at the beating that Azhar took at the hands of his father on Friday. Azhar was thrashed for saying he wanted to sleep rather than talk to a journalist who had offered money to his father.