Slumdog Millionaire

[Rywill]

Seeing "Tim Elhajj" and "ruling penis" in the same sentence just caused me to suffer a bout of vertigo.

[Malcolm Tucker]

Sorry, I meant that getting to see it ruled. For me and Angrycoder.

[Kyle Wilson]

Originally Posted by TomChick

P.S. How is it that Cillian Murphy's penis "rules"? I don't really have a lot of experience with penises (well, except for one, which I have a fair bit of experience with), so I'm not sure how to evaluate what constitutes a "ruling penis". I suspect this is a job for Tim Elhajj.

Give a man an inch and he thinks he's a ruler.

[Bullhajj]

Originally Posted by Rywill

Seeing "Tim Elhajj" and "ruling penis" in the same sentence just caused me to suffer a bout of vertigo.

You? I missed Tom's post and came into this thread on yours. Talk about disorienting.

Originally Posted by TomChick

I don't really have a lot of experience with penises (well, except for one, which I have a fair bit of experience with), so I'm not sure how to evaluate what constitutes a "ruling penis". I suspect this is a job for Tim Elhajj.

I started a thread devoted to penises and I'm not sure how to evaluate what constitutes a "ruling penis" either. I am glad you qualified your experience with at least one unnamed penis.

[Bullhajj]

Originally Posted by Kyle Wilson

Give a man an inch and he thinks he's a ruler.

Funny. This pun deserves a place in the aforementioned penis thread.

[TomChick]

Originally Posted by Bullhajj

I am glad you qualified your experience with at least one unnamed penis.

Hey, what are you insinuating? Not that I don't have a name for my own penis, but I'm not about to tell it to you guys.

BTW, Tim, if I Google your name and "ruling penis", the top result is Lum's Hearts of Iron AAR. I'm sure Paradox would be proud.

-Tom

[Hanacker]

The two kids that play the youngest Salim and Latika still live in tents in the Mumbai slums. The article says their "lives are in the throes of change" but you'd think they'd have been able to upgrade a bit by now with the success of the movie.

[Kirian]

I'm pretty sure that Danny Boyle put the money they would be paid in a trust fund for them. This was to be paid to them upon completion of their schooling. There was some sort of scheme to get them to school every day by an auto-rickshaw the film paid for but I can't find confirmation of that.

Ah, here we are.

Originally Posted by Danny Boyle

"We, for a long time, for over a year now, we had a plan in place to the two children from very poor backgrounds should go to school and we're trying to keep them in school until they are 18, when a substantial sum of money will be released to them. I guess that's the carrot to try to keep them in school for as long as possible and we thought long and hard about what was the best way that they could have a long-term benefit from the film. The children, everybody, was paid well. Some of the figures that have been quoted are nonsense.

"The children were paid well but we're very mindful of trying to protect the children and as much as we can their families from the pressure the success of the film puts on them, the reception it had in India and also that some of these figures are being banded about in public.

"We don't want to reveal exact figures about what's in the trust fund, what's in the bank account for them for when they leave school because it will make them vulnerable and a target really but it is substantial, and they will hopefully gain benefit from the film long after the film has disappeared and long after the media who are chasing them at the moment sadly have lost interest in the film and that's been our approach throughout and I think it's the right approach. It's additionally things, since the reception of the film in North America, it's clear the film is going to make substantial profit to the distributors of the film and we've persuaded them all to join us in creating a fund which will be directed back to a number of institutions and causes in Mumbai that work with street children, so some of the profits of the film will go back directly there as well.

Via ABC news.

I really enjoyed the film, by the way. It's one of the most brilliant traditional pieces of film-making I have seen in recent years.

It feels more like a traditional film fairy-tale to me, like the modern version of something out of an earlier Hollywood. The only completely modern thing is a lot of the cinematography and a few of the cuts and scenes, which were fantastic.

[z22]

Anyone have the soundtrack? I recall digging the music while watching the movie.

[jpinard]

Does this movie have any non-fictional basis?

[Eduardo X]

Originally Posted by jpinard

Does this movie have any non-fictional basis?

Absolutely. It isn't an autobiography, but most of the stuff in the movie happens in India.

[Equis]

So Slumdog Millionaire finally deigns to make it to my part of the world, and I have to say I really enjoyed most of it. It's a really good movie, just shy of being great. I won't say it's Danny Boyle's best work, but it certainly does seem like Andrew Dod Mantle's best cinematography.

I agree that the earlier parts were much better than the final act, which I thought devolve a bit too much into schlocky cheese. As soon as Salim gave his number to Jamal, I more or less figured out how the movie would end, just as much as it is fully coincidental that the right answer to the final question would be in the slot easiest to guess. Hand-waving that "it is written" doesn't absolve it of its plot woes. On the other hand, I really loved all the montages, like the running sequence, the Taj Mahal and especially the train sequence. The rest of the editing may be a bit too conventional, (part of the underlying structure is Jamal having two really intense conversations sitting down, how much editing can you do?) but the montages more than make up for that.

The romance and final kiss is definitely earned, though part of me wished for all the effort they had in setting up the epic nature of their relationship, pulling such a low-key reunion at the train station was a bit of a deflation. (also, I've never seen an Indian Train station so empty.) If they were headed for epic kiss, they should have just gone all the way. I understand it was thematically circular, but sigh, it could have used a little more magic.

Otherwise though, it's definitely one of Danny Boyle's best films. I rank it up above 28 days later and Millions, but below Trainspotting.

[Jeff Green]

Originally Posted by z22

Anyone have the soundtrack? I recall digging the music while watching the movie.

The soundtrack is awesome. Get it.

[RepoMan]

I can't believe no one yet mentioned in this thread the big giveaway that this is a Danny Boyle movie: the

[SPOILER]



swimming-in-shit scene. Gaaah. But my wife and I really dug it; GODDAMN was I ever glad there was a happy ending. I was grinning ear to ear all the way through the Bollywood.

Now I'll have to admit that I've never seen 28 Days Later or Sunshine, and they're both going to have to go on the Instant queue (or something), because I'm a major Boyle fan now.

[Jon_Danger]

Originally Posted by RepoMan

Now I'll have to admit that I've never seen 28 Days Later or Sunshine, and they're both going to have to go on the Instant queue (or something), because I'm a major Boyle fan now.

They are vastly different movies than slumdog.

[Equisilus]

All great movies, to one degree or another, though.

As for Slumdog itself, I thought the love story could have been more emotionally engaging. That was surely due to the fact that we had to take the main character's word for his feelings for most of the movie, not having had the chance to see the two interact very often. Fortunately, everything else about the movie was super (watched it on BD, an early Amazon.ca release a couple weeks ago).

[Quitch]

I'm in the "Good but not great" crowd, though the film hooked me deep enough that I didn't notice the now obvious divide between the childhood and adult parts of the story. Only issue I had is as Salim's hair changed the film remind me how similar the arc was to City of God, a much better film.

Having read the book before this was made a film (and not realised it until I saw the new cover on said book recently) I was trying hard not to draw comparisons because nothing ruins watching a film like constantly thinking about the book. I think the film does well on its own merits and the love story feels like it belongs rather than your usual case of having one for its own sake. That said, the story of Jamal and the show's host was much less satisfying in the film, the guy just came across as pulling a dick move for very little reason. It also means the end boils down to a lucky guess rather than the more satisfying end of the book. However, much of that is because they changed the central thread into a love story.

Gotta give the film props for best credits this year though.

I also found the inspector strangely charismatic and would have liked to have seen more of him. I'd also happily have spent my life searching for Freida Pinto.

Originally Posted by TomChick

but I'm the guy who totally dug the third act twist in Sunshine, so what do I know?

Wait... what?