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June 19, 2013
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Slumdog SourpussPosted on Feb 23, 2009
It may be the best picture, but Hirsh Sawhney writes in the Guardian that “Slumdog Millionaire” is a simplistic text that “far from spreading the blame for global poverty ... actually suggests that the west is the solution to India’s problems.”
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By The Old Hooligan, February 25, 2009 at 5:11 am Link to this comment
Nothing against this film, I haven’t seen it. But doesn’t the U.S. make enough worthy motion pictures of its own each year, without what is essentially a foreign film being accorded Best Picture?
As I said, I’ve not seen ‘Slumdog Millionaire.’ Nor do I intend to. I just wish the Academy had honored this film in another category. Didn’t we used to have a ‘Foreign Films’ section in these awards shows?
At least ‘Best Supporting Actor’ went to the right man. It was a bittersweet victory for the memory Heath Ledger, in a fairer world he would have been here to receive it himself last Sunday night.
Report thisBy Chis@, February 24, 2009 at 3:01 pm Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
“City of God” was a romantic autobiography, portraying reality - what happened in the carioca slum by that name, from how it was a pick pocket, small crimes favela in the 60s, from then becoming the violent narcotraffic ghetto in the 90s.
More on Paulo Lins, the author (book published in 97):
http://lamnews.com/paulo_lins.htm
Much less fantasy and makeup than “Slumdog”
Report thisBy sab, February 24, 2009 at 7:53 am Link to this comment
(Unregistered commenter)
“Poverty Porn” is the perfect way of describing the apeal this movie has in America. Looking at disgusting, shit-filled sewer these people are surviving in is such a great way to make us feel so much superior.. This is a perfect reflection of the pervert psychie of American Liberalism. There are so many good movies made in India but then why this movie is attracting all the attention?
Oh these third world people with their un-civilized ways.. look how cruel and backward they are.. and look how civilized and cultured WE are.. let’s give these human scums as many Oscars as possible to celebrate their ugliness in this clean, civilzed western world of ours..
hell, let’s go and check out these slums on our next vacation.. I am so sick of same boring Paris and London every year.. I need something more exciting.. exoctic vacation.. man.. I am already getting a hard on… What a wonderful movie..
(copied from my last post)
Report thisBy jackpine savage, February 24, 2009 at 6:07 am Link to this comment
I didn’t realize that there was some grand social message in the film. It just seemed like a well told story to me, and it was based on a novel.
Just because the whining masses of Western Snivelization take themselves so seriously doesn’t mean that the rest of the world must do the same.
Again, i got no impression that a message was being sent through the film, rather a fictional story being told. I read Charlotte’s Web as a kid and didn’t end up believing that pigs talk to spiders.
Report thisBy WriterOnTheStorm, February 23, 2009 at 8:02 pm Link to this comment
Like “City Of God” before it, Slumdog relies on a new kind of third-world hokum. Of course, the love-conquers-all story is a fairy tale, but so is its characterization of the depravity of the Mombai underclass, and the lawlessness of the police. This is not the romanticized Dickensian world of the Artful Dodger. Just a grimy, pedestrian scrim, void of meaning and metaphorical dimension - a drab rat’s maze through which our would-be lovers scurry and huddle for the viewer’s amusement. In the end, it’s the film’s upbeat M.I.A.-meets-Bhangra tunes that do most of the hard work of clueing us in to the film’s aspirations as a fairly straightforward curry-flavored pop fantasy.
Apparently, we are extremely susceptible to these jejune depictions of strange and exotic lands. Just look how eagerly we bought into the neocon tableau vivant of Iraq and Iran as the wellspring of all things evil. No doubt it is the reptilian fear of the “other” at work here.
[Apologies to those who already read this on another thread. It seemed just as appropriate here]
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