Finally got a chance to see this last night and really enjoyed it, much more than I thought I was going to honestly. It's only showing on one screen in our area and I was told it's been selling out every screening.

For those who have seen it, there's a couple of scenes that I was curious about:

Because they were Muslims, parker. Those were anti-Muslim riots that actually happened in the early 90's.

Thanks guys.

I never thought that concept was actually driving Jamal - it's used as part of the framing device for US to know, but I never once thought that Jamal believed 'it is written'... He just loved Latika and was willing to do anything and everything to be with her...

Danny Boyle said in an interview that Jamal was in fact driven by the "it is written" concept.

Here's the post (#58) where I posted the snippet from the interview:
http://forum.dvdtalk.com/9094405-post58.html

I thought it was a good film, but feel he dropped the ball in

Also, I don't understand

That scene worked fine for me, everything that needed to be expressed was and from that point on, winning really meant nothing, he succeeded in doing what he was aiming for.

Regarding the first point, I recall in the US version of the show the time is pretty limited so it's not like a whole lot could be said. I think the key was just Jamal hearing her and knowing she was safe.

As for the second, I don't recall him giving that answer but maybe someone else that saw it more recently can confirm.

Winner of the big SAG award! Fuck yes.

By the way i forgot to include my critic blurb if I had one: "We accept your apology for The Beach, Mr. Boyle!"

1) This scene was truly wonderful. Plus his reaction to the phone call.

2) Jamal never picked "A" as you say... or even B. The host wanted him to choose B.

This concludes what appears to me to be a somewhat harsh, even blinkered assessment of the film.

When BBC Radio 4 did a piece on the film they asked a non-Bollywood Indian film maker to comment. His view was that a major part of why it worked outside of India was that it eschewed the unreal aspects of "traditional" i.e. Bollywood-style Indian films. Indians have come to expect such cliched film-making but other countries enjoy their own cliches.

He said that the worldwide interest might help stimulate a demand for more "reality" in Indian film-making, which was something that he explicitly welcomed.

Speaking personally, I have little to no interest in the Bollywood style: the pastiche they did over the credits was knowing/clever enough to hold the interest of the full cinema audience when I watched it a few weeks ago but would have turned me off if it'd had been the pattern for the whole film.

In brief, you have slammed a film for the offence of not aping the styles of the majority of the successful films of the country in which it is set. To me this seems highly illogical. I was going to address the accusations in the snipped comment above but realised that this might turn this into a political thread which I think we can do without However, at the risk of appearing to engage in ad hominem tactics, one wonders whether your membership name is intended to indicate a desire to shock....?

I finally saw it yesterday and I have to admit I thought it was awful. Horribly cliched, formulaic, an basically just a thin plot held together with a bunch of tedious music videos. I couldn't have cared less about any of the characters, and I was also offended at how exploitative it was, making abject poverty and destitution seem trite. It was almost as if "Dharavi World" had become a new Disney attraction.

A film critic buddy of mine told me I would hate it, but I didn't believe him. Turn out he was right. I'm glad other people enjoyed it, but it clearly wasn't for me.

Slumdog Millionaire was my pick for best movie of 2008 (Dark Knight is my "favorite" and will be watched more often, but Slumdog Millionaire is clearly a better film).

But then I saw Revolutionary Road last night. Wow, great film and fantastic performances from the two leads, and several of the supportings. I can't believe none of them were nominated.

My criticism of the movie is not that it doesn't try to ape the style of Bollywood films, but that it actually does ape many of the cliches of Bollywood storytelling but with little of the heart, soul or imagination that drives the best Indian movies. In the end, it just feels like product -- the calculated product of a clever filmmaker attempting to show how hip he is by churning out a Bollywood style film, but then only capturing the surface sheen and very little of the essence.

I don't think the film is terrible, just vastly overpraised. It is what it is: a slick, fitfully entertaining Bollywood knockoff that also tries to masquerade as a meaningful art movie by wallowing in so-called slum "realism" and graphic violence to kids. Yet the storyline is too contrived and superficial to support its pretensions and it all comes off as little more than a hodgepodge of white man's art film vs. goofy Bollywood plot.

Yes, there are many horrible Bollywood movies churned out by hack directors. Just as there are many horrible American hollywood movies churned out by hack directors and many bad European and British movies. And some of the worst Bollywood films are the ones that try too hard to ape and copy successful American movies. Not all Bollywood movies are mindless song and dance fests, just most of the bad ones.

Slumdog Millionaire resides somewhere in between the horrible Bollywood movies and the great ones. In short, it is mediocre.

I thought most bollywood films were crap? This film easily trumps most bollywood films I think.

How many have you seen?

Who's the one that started calling this a Bollywood film? Slumdog Millionaire is not a Bollywood film. It's as much a Bollywood film as calling The 40-Year Old Virgin a Bollywood film (both films break out into song-and-dance at the end).

Slumdog Millionaire is an Indian film with a western director - that's all. Calling Slumdog Millionaire a Bollywood film is the equivalent of calling Bend It Like Beckham or Monsoon Wedding a Bollywood film.

There are Bollywood Indian films and there are non-Bollywood Indian films. I just want to clarify that.

If you want to see Bollywood films that aren't crap, then I'll give you the list (but a very short list).

I would recommend doing research before thowing the "bollywood" term applied to all indian films. Typical Bollywood film = Typical Hollywood film. Calling Slumdog Millionaire a "Bollywood" film is also the equivalent of calling The Brown Bunny a "Hollywood" film.

Did you mean to post this in the Chandni Chowk to China thread?

I never said Slumdog was a bollywood film. I clearly know that Boyle is not Indian. Or working in the Bollywood system. I just said...that I thought most of those films were crap. To further add on, yes I've seen Salaam Bombay among others. I just have seen little good product therefore my quick poke about a lot of their films being crap..cuz they have a shit system for copyright laws and whatnot.

If it had the following it would have been successful in India.

Several song and dance numbers in the middle, some involving random groups of people.

A big leadup to a wedding/long lost reunion.

Some really camp offbeat Indian funnyman who makes faces when the camera zooms in on him.

A lot of sexy Indian Actors and Actresses, who are there for the eye candy, but never get beyond a PG in the sex department.

People selling Pakora and Samosa in the cinema hall.

lol...it'd be funny if a bollywood version of this film was a special feature on the DVD..