Slumdog Millionaire

Slumdog Millionaire, 208
Directed by Danny Boyle
Nominated for 10 Oscars, Won 8

Synopsis: Jamal Malik is an eighteen year old uneducated boy from the Slums of India. And he's one question away from winning India's Who Want To Be a Millionaire. But how could a boy, who's uneducated and from the slums, know answers and get farther than doctors and lawyers have? Jamal shows us, exactly how every question is answered, showing us his life growing up.


I'm going to start this off right now and tell you that my favourite film of 2008 was David Fincher's The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Yes, that long one, with Cate Blanchett and Brad Pitt, who aged backwards. While it was my favourite, I know and accept why it didn't win Best Picture, and why Slumdog did. Slumdog Millionaire was very deserving of the title.

The film was well-done in the way of telling Jamal's back story. The little boys who play him, and his brother Salim, were most excellent and I thought they were quite brilliant. They were hilarious, but they also dealt with the hard things in life, and saw so many things that many of us will never see in our lives.I appreciated the fact that, while this was sort of a story about Jamal's life, we saw the significance in everything. While I felt the love story line to be slightly detracting about from the film, overall it was well balanced between focusing on Jamal's life, and showing us how he knew all the answers.

The cinematography was quite excellent. Similar to The Hurt Locker, is was shaky, and "unprofessional" looking most times (especially when in the slums), and made you feel like you were there with Jamal and Salim. It creatively and beautifully portrayed the slums, the cities, the Taj Mahal, and everything in between. We see shots us children digging through trash, and being abused by cops, and just playing and having fun, not having much of a care in the world.  The colours were beautiful, and the use of Indian music in the film was great. 

Having a lot of speaking of Hindi in the film was well done, and felt more realistic, though often times it would randomly switch back into English. I'd have rather one or the other spoken, for continuities sake, but what can I do. Again, the little boys we are first introduced to were great, and were the best actors in the film. I thought they portrayed everything so well, and were great little actors.


This film gave so much interesting insight to the culture of India; the living conditions, the poverty, and exactly what people (children and adults alike) will do for money, including lie, cheat, steal and murder. It's an uncomfortable look that forces us to evaluate and certainly appreciate what we have, because there are so many others around the world who don't have what we do. It has such a strong story about real life poverty. Not the poverty we see on the TV ads, or read about in an article then don't look at again. It's a story of one boy's life, and how he deals with it, all the trouble he gets into, how awful he life really was, and how he still came out on top, knowing most of the answers on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? This film was well done because it didn't shy away from anything. While some of the violence was unnecessary, many of it was completely necessary because that's just what goes on, and it happens. And is still happening. While the plot of the story, wasn't all that believable and was lapped in story cliches at the end, it was an interesting look into India.

This film definitely opened my eyes up to the rest of the world, and how fortunate I am to have the life I do, while I shall continue to pray and help other less fortunate than I am.

Rating: 7.25/10

TIFF Review: 127 HOURS

Written by Danny Boyle and Simon Beaufoy

Directed by Danny Boyle

Starring James Franco

Aron Ralston: This rock has been waiting for me my whole life.

I thought that winning an Oscar might mellow SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE director, Danny Boyle, but it only seems to have fueled his fire. Before anything has a chance to happen in his latest, 127 HOURS, the screen is split into three and images of people going to work or running marathons are inundating the screen at rapid speeds. I understand that he has his own style but I want to see Boyle just let the action unfold for a change, instead of just chopping it up and rearranging it visually to simply make it look cooler. At times in Boyle’s career, it has felt like the images needed the overt style to become relevant or meaningful but this time is different. Boyle has finally found a story that begs for his personal yet simultaneously impersonal touch.

127 HOURS is the story of an adrenaline junkie, a nature nut, a loner. Forcing an image to wake the heck up and jump off the screen itself is akin to what protagonist Aron Ralston (James Franco) does whenever he can. And when he can’t make that happen, he would almost rather be alone. He seeks out thrills to elevate himself above the mundane just like Boyle tries to enhance his image. When Ralston gets away from the city though and into the peaks and valleys of Blue John Canyon, Boyle slows his pace and allows the sheer grandness and beauty of the landscape to speak for itself. And speak it does. It asserts itself and its immovable brilliance by reminding man just who’s in charge here after all when it almost swallows young Ralston whole.

Ralston is a real person and in 2003, he spent a sum total of, you guessed it, 127 hours literally stuck between a rock and hard place when a rock fell with him into a cavernous gap and crushed his arm against the wall. Franco’s journey as Ralston is rarely easy to bear and sometimes just as difficult for us to take as well. His spirit goes from exuberant to painfully sober to near delirium and he carries it off with a strength I’m not the least bit surprised to see. Boyle was sure to lighten the tension with flashbacks that inform us of exactly everything Ralston still has to live for, which in turn teaches him a thing or two about how to actually live for it. The point may be somewhat plain but the experience that is 127 HOURS is a testament to an amazing feat of human endurance and perseverance, as well as an adventure that won’t soon be forgotten.

Slumdog Millionaire Wins Best Pic, 8 Oscars®

2009 Oscar® Winner Count:
Slumdog 8, Benjamin Button 3, Milk 2, Dark Knight 2

Picture: Slumdog Millionaire
Director: Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire)
Actress: Kate Winslet (The Reader)
Actor: Sean Penn (Milk)
Supporting Actress: Penelope Cruz (Vicky Christina Barcelona)
Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger (Dark Knight)

Original Screenplay: Dustin Lance Black (Milk)
Adapted Screenplay: Simon

Slumdog Millionaire Ready to Complete the Awards Sweep

Frida Pinto in Slumdog Millionaire

This year's feel good film, Slumdog Millionaire, directed by Danny Boyle, is set to complete a sweep of this year's major film awards on Sunday, Feb. 22nd at the Oscars® ("no wagering").


Here's the new link for Slumdog Millionaire at the Internet Movie Database:
Slumdog Millionaire at IMDB



(Frida Pinto, rt., gets my vote for whatever she's got)

So far

2009 Director’s Guild Awards - Slumdog Wins

The little indie film that nearly went straight to dvd won yet another best of the year award on Feb. 1 - thanks to Fox Searchlight, the popular and uplifting film actually got distributed worldwide.

[Film]
Director: Danny Boyle for Slumdog Millionaire
Documentary: Ari Folman for Waltz With Bashir
Honorary Lifetime Membership: film critic Roger Ebert

[TV]
TV Drama Series: Dan Attias for The

Slumdog Millionaire wins Producer's Guild Award

Producer’s Guild of America Awards 2009

[These pretty much echoed the Golden Globes and Critic's Choice awards]

Movie: Slumdog Millionaire
Animated Film: Wall-E
Documentary: Man On Wire

Long Form Television: John Adams
Episodic Comedy: 30 Rock
Episodic Drama: Mad Men
Non-Fiction TV: 60 Minutes
Live Entertainment/Competition TV: The Colbert Report

They should combine several of these shorter

Screen Actors Guild Awards

The SAG awards results (held on Jan 25th). They give awards only to actors (the award is called The Actor®) - and the word "actress" is prohibited. They also give awards for ensemble acting, and for both film and tv.
Can't you just hear the kids at home: "Hey, mommy won The Actor" - "Wow! Is it Tom Cruise?"

2009 SAG Winners (career totals shown)

Film
Ensemble Cast: Slumdog Millionaire
Lead

2009 Golden Globe Awards - Slumdog and Winslet Big Winners

Slumdog Millionaire won the big awards, and four total, but Kate Winslet won both Best Actress and Supporting Actress, her first two Golden Globe awards.

2009 Golden Globe Award Winners

[Movies]
Drama Film: Slumdog Millionaire
Comedy/Musical Film: Vicki Christina Barcelona
Director, Film: Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire
Actress, Mus/Comedy Film: Sally Hawkins, Happy Go
Actor, Mus/Comedy Film:

Slumdog Millionaire wins Critics Choice Award

Director Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire won the Critic's Choice award as Best Picture, Boyle won director and the film won five awards overall at Thursday nights Critic's Choics awards for 2008 films.

Best Picture: Slumdog Millionaire
Best Director: Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire
Best Action Picture: The Dark Knight
Best Comedy Picture: Tropic Thunder
Best Animated Picture: Wall-E
Best

Slumdog Millionaire

“Slumdog Millionaire” is one of the best films of the year, one that is sure to grab many Oscar nominations, and deservedly so.

I knew next to nothing about it going in, which may have helped. Beautifully directed by Danny Boyle (“28 Days Later”) it’s one of the best looking films of the year, as well as one of the most emotionally engaging.

In a nutshell, “Slumdog Millionaire” relates the story of Jamal (Dev Patel), a young man who is winning a large amount of money on India’s version of “Who Wants to be a Millionaire”. Despite having no education and growing up in poverty, he knows all the answers. The host is suspicious and has the police kidnap and torture Jamal to find out how he is cheating.

During the show’s taping, and his interrogation, we get flashbacks to his childhood spent in extreme poverty and minor criminal activity, like pick pocketing and participating in con games. Orphaned due to rioting, Jamal and his brother Salim eke out an existence on the streets of Mumbai, where they are taken by a Fagin-like mentor. The film follows the brothers through their lives.

I’m making the film sound more grim than it is, and while there are horrifying sequences of abuse and torture, there’s also comedy, love, and heartbreak – a lot like life. Many incidents are shown as the story moves back and forth in time, but Boyle is such a good director and the three sets of actors he has portraying the three leads at different points of their lives are so strong that I had no trouble following it.

There’s also a very touching love story that spans several decades, as Jamal becomes friends with a young orphan girl named Latika. They lose touch but he never stops thinking about her, or looking for her. Latkia grows up and becomes the object of desire of many men. She is played by an actress named Freida Pinto and she is one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen in a movie. I think we’ll be seeing more of her, not just for her dazzling smile, but for her warm and engaging presence

There’s other visual attractiveness on display besides Ms. Pinto. The cinematography of Anthony Dod Mantle is breathtaking; one practically inhales the sights of India. He is sure to get an Oscar nomination, and likely the statue itself, as will Editor Chris Dickens, who juggles the three different time strands with relative ease. The score by A.R. Rahman is also one of the year’s best.

And for a most satisfying coda, we get a Bollywood-style musical number with the cast during the end credits.

Despite my great enthusiasm for the film, I’m only giving it three and half stars out of four. There’s so much to take in and absorb, that I’m not sure I could properly appreciate it on one viewing. I have little doubt that a second viewing would easily boost it to a four star rating.