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Fun Stuff => ENJOY => Topic started by: De_El on 27 Nov 2008, 21:34
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So this is a fairly high-profile movie. The latest movie directed by Danny Boyle, a director of increasingly varied sorts of films. It's been getting pretty rave reviews, was well-liked on the festival circuit, and there are already rumblings of Oscar bids.
For my part, I thought it was good, but occasionally embarrassingly cheesy. Charming but unbelievable, I kind of liked it, but ultimately it was not really my thing. I dunno; maybe I would have liked it better had I been in a different mood.
Uh. Thoughts?
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Have you read the book?
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No! Sorry.
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Should that matter?
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If you like movies and you don't see this as soon as possible you're an idiot. This is an amazing piece of filmmaking.
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See, that's what I've heard repeatedly. But the posters for it and the descriptions I've heard of it do not make me want to see it one iota.
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It's actually really good. Better than the book, even. The adaptation for the screen has tightened up the narrative a fair bit and cut out some of the (even more) unbelievable coincidences.
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See, that's what I've heard repeatedly. But the posters for it and the descriptions I've heard of it do not make me want to see it one iota.
It's not a shocking, visionary storyline. It's just a straightforward movie with a straightforward plot, that gets all it's points across beautifully, through some of the coolest cinematography and best use of music in film that I've ever seen. Get over your desire to see nonlinear jerkoff cinema and just go see a good movie.
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uuuurgh. I thought I would like the movie, it started out on a great introduction, with great stuff about fate, poverty, and cruelty; The entire second half changes into a love story.
If you find something sappy where most people don't, I wouldn't recommend this movie.
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It's a really cool movie for the two-hours-plus that you're in the cinema watching it. When you come out of the cinema it doesn't take long to realise that the characters are all paper-thin and the engine of the plot is a pretty tediously cliched and uninspiring romance, but when you're in the cinema it's all colour and light and amazing cinematography and fantastic locations. It's basically pure cinema and I certainly enjoyed it while I was watching it, and it's a lot better than most of the tosh that we're expected to pay our money and go see, but in no way is it the best film of the year as a lot of critics and casual cinema-goers seem to be suggesting. Not even close.
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Just got back from watching it. I have to agree with Harry here, although I probably liked it less than he did. The movie's actually quite slack up until the point at which flashback meets the movie's present time. Then I felt the "magic", as there were actually stakes, and there was the whole "everybody's rooting for the hero!" thing going, so you feel the same sort of excitement you feel when watching a sports film when the final plays / innings / what have you are about to begin.
Other than that, the love story at the heart of the film felt really, really undercooked. I suppose the problem for me was the imposition of thinly sketched fairy tale characters over a setting of real squalor and poverty. When a child in the movie jumps into a pool of shit, it's played for yuks, but I was bothered by the fact that if a kid were actually to do that they would likely contract many, probably fatal, diseases. Many people have actually died that way. But the kid gets soaped up and is healthy and beautiful well into the future. When a child is blinded so that he will pull in more begging money for his handlers, it's not a real character experiencing that, it's a child being eaten by the big bad witches in the gingerbread house, it's kids being turned into donkeys, it's a real horror but it isn't real, because nothing else in the film is. The real pull of the film for me was the actual game show / interrogation plotline. Everything else was filler.
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okay, i stopped reading after Kieffer's post because i don't want to have my opinion skewed before even seeing the film but i will say that i am definitely going to see this movie as soon as possible because i am a huge Danny Boyle fan. i've only seen one trailer for it and i don't even know what it's about but i'm going to see it just because it's Danny Boyle.
i'm actually excited to see it having no idea what it's about. it's like opening presents; you have no idea what to expect.
oh and did i mention that i love Danny Boyle? i'm pretty sure that i didn't. :-D
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I really thought that the torture scenes that opened the film were quite unnecessary in what otherwise would likely have been a PG-13 movie. That aside, I was actually very engrossed throughout. (Though it bugged me that they would slip in and out of English for no given reason.) The characters were incredibly engaging and deep, and every dramatic scene manages to hit hard enough without being overplayed. This fact testifies to the brilliant screenplay and directing, and I felt really added the the film's climax, a culmination of the entire point to the movie, allowing for crowd-pleasing closure and tying up all the right ends to a sublime drama.
Seriously, this movie was great. Movies that take place in foreign places like India often make it hard for American viewers to really understand the background of the given characters, especially if they're native to the land. However, Slumdog Millionaire manages to give just enough a vision into Indian culture without losing focus of the principle characters and plot.
I gotta be honest, I really liked the sequences with the kids. I feel like I would've appreciated them more if I didn't already know how one of them turned out (Salim was actually the best character in my opinion, I love the way he was portrayed; THAT is how you do character development) but they definitely did a great job of setting up the personal connection Latika and Jamal, fleshing out each of their characters, and in and of themselves were very interesting stories.
Now to go see Gran Torino and forget all about it...
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I'll third Harry here. It's quite good for what it is but by no means a contemporary masterpiece.
On a petty note, I was a bit thrown off by how the filmmakers chose to mix Indian and English culture and language. The film (somewhat) accurately portrayed Indian life but sacrificed realism to make it comprehensible to western audiences. I appreciate the attempt but in the end it just jumbled shit up unnecessarily. The actors (particularly the WWTBAM? host) switched languages mid-sentence and the TV show was displayed in the American format (questions and answers are in English, etc). I found myself wishing that the producers had firmly decided between accessible and fully accurate rather than compromise.
Also, what was with the Bollywood dance sequence during the credits? It seemed really out of place and cheapened any emotion that the love story and the older brother's sacrifice evoked.
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I actually think that was the liveliest part of the film! I imagine it was just something that was filmed at the tail end of the shoot, just for fun.
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Just a note on the comments about slipping in and out of English. My girlfirend (who is Indian, and grew up there) says that particualrly in the big cities, people slip in and out of english constantly. Most people are taught it at a young age, and at this point it has been practicaly integrated into hindi. If you watch any of the Hindi musicals you will see them do this. Having seen the movie, I'm sure they amped it up a bit for claritys sake, but it wasnt completly unrealistic. Oh, and in regards to the dance sequence at the end - it was my girlfriends favorite part, because it made her feel like Boyle had genuine respect for Indian cinema tradiction, as practically no movie comes outof India without a dance scene. They were also doing pretty traditional dancing. I can see how some people wouldnt like it though, can be a bit jarring and doesnt seem to fit.
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Just a note on the comments about slipping in and out of English. My girlfirend (who is Indian, and grew up there) says that particualrly in the big cities, people slip in and out of english constantly. Most people are taught it at a young age, and at this point it has been practicaly integrated into hindi. If you watch any of the Hindi musicals you will see them do this. Having seen the movie, I'm sure they amped it up a bit for claritys sake, but it wasnt completly unrealistic. Oh, and in regards to the dance sequence at the end - it was my girlfriends favorite part, because it made her feel like Boyle had genuine respect for Indian cinema tradiction, as practically no movie comes outof India without a dance scene. They were also doing pretty traditional dancing. I can see how some people wouldnt like it though, can be a bit jarring and doesnt seem to fit.
As someone who has spent a bit of time in India, I agree 100% on the English thing. Switching back and forth between English and Hindi is very common among Indians, and especially on Indian TV. It's worth considering that English is one of India's national languages, and that people in many parts of the country prefer it to Hindi.
I also agree on the dancing. While I can see how it might have seemed cheesy, the fact is, that kind of dancing is central to the Indian film culture and if you're doing an Indian film with Indian actors, you really should have a dance number somewhere. The end credits let him give that nod to India without disrupting the rest of the story.
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Doesn't India have something like 17 native languages? English would be a good cultural ligament.
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There are about 20 recognized official languages. This list has 61 languages, ranked by speakers, which are native to the subcontinent: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Indian_languages_by_total_speakers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Indian_languages_by_total_speakers)
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That's a pretty fair explanation. Thanks!
Mind you, I took no issue with the dance sequence other than it seemed really out of place following such a poignant story.
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If you don't like this movie you're a bad person. Real talk. Stop nitpicking and appreciate how fucking good it is you fucks.
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A typically well-considered review from Peter Bradshaw in today's Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/jan/09/slumdog-millionaire-review-danny-boyle (http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/jan/09/slumdog-millionaire-review-danny-boyle)
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If you don't like this movie you're a bad person. Real talk. Stop nitpicking and appreciate how fucking good it is you fucks.
I sincerely hope this is satirical/ironical/not serious.
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Then you don't know him.
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Just came back from seeing this a couple of hours ago, it was my first cinema trip of 2009 and have to say it was a pretty good way to start my cinematic year.
One thing I'd say to people is that here (Ireland) it has been advertised with the words "The feel good film of the decade" on the poster, I wouldn't go into this expecting a happy clappy "feel good flick". Its a feel good film the same way that Shawshank Redemption is a feel good film, and as a better man than me once said "You have to go through a whole lot of Shawshank before you get to the redemption" The opening 30-45 minutes is pretty dark and rough going, but I did really really enjoy it, I know some people have complained about the coincidences and criss-crossing paths in the film as being just that bit too unbelievable, but at the end of the day I think the whole film has to be taken as a fable, and as such I think the dance sequence in the final credit sequence fits in perfectly, and what goes before earns it it's fabuloust sequence!
So yeah, go see it, you'll certainly spend your x dollars on much much worse later this year.
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See, that's what I've heard repeatedly. But the posters for it and the descriptions I've heard of it do not make me want to see it one iota.
It's not a shocking, visionary storyline. It's just a straightforward movie with a straightforward plot, that gets all it's points across beautifully, through some of the coolest cinematography and best use of music in film that I've ever seen. Get over your desire to see nonlinear jerkoff cinema and just go see a good movie.
This. And to see Freida Pinto, who is absolutely gorgeous.
I left this movie feeling very calm and satisfied. Yes, it was predictable. They told you the end before it even started. The little surprises for me were in each little side story, not in the ending.
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I thought this movie was a lot of fun, quite stylish, convincingly acted (for the most part) ect. ect. Yes it ended incredibly predictably, yes the shift to essentially a straight romance was a little off and good lord yes the very end was schmaltzy. That being said, it's really enjoyable, and, as I read somewhere or other, people want to see happy endings at the moment, what with non-stop war and the abyss of economic depression looming and so on. They go to the movies to forget, to have a good time, to see a nice story told well. Slumdog delivers that to be sure. It definitely isn't "jerkoff cinema." It knows what it is and that's exactly what it wants to be. I really enjoyed it the entire time and while I want to see "The Wrestler" and "Revolutionary Road" and "Doubt" and so on, I expect to leave those feeling pretty crummy. This is a lot of fun and it doesn't take itself too seriously and it's just really well made (probably because Danny Boyle is awesome. He's made not only one of the best drug movies ever and the best horror film of the decade but he's made a cool sci-fi movie and a pretty good adventure-ish type movie as well and some others I haven't seen- a good track record, that). See it! It deserved the Golden Globe and it deserves an Oscar nomination as well (I'm conflicted over whether it should win though. There are some other options that keep coming back to me).
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If you don't like this movie you're a bad person. Real talk. Stop nitpicking and appreciate how fucking good it is you fucks.
I sincerely hope this is satirical/ironical/not serious.
The movie is just this fucking good. There is something dead inside of you if you can't appreciate it.
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The only good thing Danny Boyle ever did was Trainspotting. That was mainly because the book already ruled.
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Nope, guess again.
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I haven't seen this one yet, one of my friends said it was great, so I probably will.
Also, Danny Boyle completely resurrected (and improved) zombie movies with 28 Days Later. Sunshine was pretty okay as well, in addition to being the most visually beautiful film ever.
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Danny Boyle's films as of late have had a tendency to fall apart in the third act. This one doesn't have that problem. I'd argue that it gets good in its third act.
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The actors (particularly the WWTBAM? host) switched languages mid-sentence and the TV show was displayed in the American format (questions and answers are in English, etc). I found myself wishing that the producers had firmly decided between accessible and fully accurate rather than compromise.
Have you ever actually been to India and spoken to Indians? The educated ones who are multilingual do exactly that. They frequently jump from Hindi to English mid-sentence. It makes it a lot of fun to communicate with them, but frustratingly difficult to watch, say, a news program.
That said, my gutter Hindi has improved a great deal as a result.
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Also, Danny Boyle completely resurrected (and improved) zombie movies with 28 Days Later. Sunshine was pretty okay as well, in addition to being the most visually beautiful film ever.
28 Days Later? Seriously? That movie was completely unoriginal, un-unique, and un-inspired. The only saving grace was the soundtrack. The rest of the movie seemed cheesy, forced, and boring.
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You're thinking of 28 WEEKS Later, that one was cheesy and forced and boring and had a lame soundtrack (the guy only had two weeks to do it, but it sounded like canned post-rock). 28 DAYS Later was awesome. Not quite as much as Dazed is purporting it to be (zombie movies were never in any danger, you just haven't been watching the right zombie movies), but it is easily one of the better zombie movies out there.
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As I said above, I'm convinced it's the best horror film of the decade. Probably of the best since Alien in fact.. To be fair, it's a genre with metric tons of shit falling into it on a regular basis but I guess that makes the few standouts more impressive.
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To be honest, 28 Days Later is one of a very small number of movies (less than 5) that will actually scare me.
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I actually wasn't too fond of 28 Days Later, I thought it was cheesy too. Apparently, though, Hoppipolla is on the soundtrack for Slumdog Millionaire, so I'm going to go see it. I figure Danny Boyle's taste must be better than I thought it was.