Slumdog Millionaire

Anyone else watch it? How did you feel about it.

Awesome movie

The girl was hot

It was the first Indian movie I'd seen, and it was amazing, though the overarching "destiny" theme was a bit cheesy, at least in western culture.

I enjoyed it, and the music especially. But I've seen countless Bollywood movies, and it's really not such a distinct break through movie as the Academy seems to think, at least not compared to some others.

I really think as far as the Oscars were concerned, there were better movies that deserved the Best Picture award, but for most it's only their first glimpse of these types of movies so their intrigued.

I do think the music awards were deserved. A.R Rahman's other works are equally good and some even superior.

awesome movie. saw it last night with my fiance.

possible spoiler alert?

- very modern________ cut scenes: for each "topical" question the director chose to use the "past" memory, then the "present" interrogation, then the actual question during the show at the end. this has the result of giving the audience the answer from the point of view of jamal first (who has always had the memory) before he is asked the question, which puts the audience firmly on the side of him being completely honest. great stuff

- yellow? what does yellow symbolise in indian culture? i notice young latika was wearing a dirty yellow dress when the men first picked up the children from the van. the first time jamal and latika meet deliberately (ie in the station) she is wearing a yellow sleeveless top. finally when they meet after the show has ended she is wearing a yellow shawl over her head, which becomes a scarf during the dance at the end (bollywood style). during the dance the background dancers are also waving yellow pieces of cloth. does it represent happiness? i do recall that when they find her in the brothel, she was NOT wearing yellow but aqua blue, and when jamal follows his brother to the gangster's house she was wearing white.

- was anyone else vaguely bothered that the opening "set" scenes (children running through the city) music was, while indian themed, sung by people with British accents?

- "salim with the money in the bathtub." can someone offer an explanation?

- latika was hot. i thought she was a bit too hot, personally.. according to (the totally unbiased and trustworthy source of) wikipedia jamal's original actor was considered "too handsome" for the part, and a supposedly less handsome actor was chosen instead. i thought it worked very well. couldn't it have worked with latika too? at least a little bit? she honestly looked like she'd come off a catwalk. yes, okay so she was exploited for her prettiness, i guess that makes sense..

some excellently dramatic and poignant moments, in no particular order:

- jamal's mother's death sequence
- tumbling off the train (from age 3 to 8 in a single fall! great stuff)
- meeting at the train station
- meeting the blind child,
- salim killing the orphanage/child labour guy and ...
- jumping DOWN from the toilet... oh gosh that is some visceral stuff going on there!

- oh and amazing images of india's lower classes cheering when jamal wins. so much energy and sense of unity, even though they are all different and struggling (and the fact that none of them know him).

those were my first reactions.

edit: when i said "modern" cut scenes, i kinda don't mean anything specific. maybe i mean western. not as in the film genre. aahh i don't know what i mean..

About the opening scene, I beleive it was sung by MIA, who's Sri Lankan though raised for a good part of her life in England, so that explains it.

And even the actor who portays Jamal is indo-British. Can;t really escape that hah.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Phoenix

About the opening scene, I beleive it was sung by MIA, who's Sri Lankan though raised for a good part of her life in England, so that explains it.

And even the actor who portays Jamal is indo-British. Can;t really escape that hah.

---

ahhh. yes i did notice that! it's pretty genuine hindi/urdu?whateverbollywoodthinksitis (eventhoughhe'smuslim)-sounding accent to begin with, but there's a moment later on when he totally has this London thing going... I was like aaaah was this made in Britain? heh

i don't really mind. the british culture has historically penetrated indian culture and there are a number of entrenched facets of language that originated from british involvement. i guess i'd be a lot more bothered if someone had had an american accent, which they didn't.

i have not seen this movie, but i was really surprised that this won Best Visual Effects over Iron Man and Dark Knight since it is a drama and wouldn't involve that much. lol

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Avenge

i have not seen this movie, but i was really surprised that this won Best Visual Effects over Iron Man and Dark Knight since it is a drama and wouldn't involve that much. lol

---

Haha, I do feel Dark knight got shafted in terms of awards. But I can see where they came from, since this movie is 'different' and the camera transitions were pretty awesome, and I'm guessing that plus all the pretty colors won it =]