I couldn’t agree more with your thoughts on Slumdog and it was the same way I felt about Juno and Little Miss Sunshine. A sloppy mess of a happy-go-lucky fairy tale film with a beginning and an end and no real substance to carry it.

Im sorry but really who are you and what are your qualifications to rate a movie. I mean you are not a member of the Hollywood Foreign Press so you clearly have no credentials to bash a movie. I am an Indian american and Slumdog accurately captures the life of those in the slums of India. People like you could never understand this concept. And for those Indians that think they know better, shut up and support your country. If you think you can create a film better than this why don’t you do it instead of critique.

salman rushdie is an idiot and so are you.

slumdog was actually an amazing film. if you ever took the time to go to india & experience it for yourself (see the slums, the crime/corruption, the poor conditions & etc.) then you might actually agree. the child prostitution along with the thievery ring (recruiting young children to go out and beg on the streets of mumbai) is reality…the condition of the slums, lives of the poor people living in india & the animosity (and violence) that exists between muslims & indians (as depicted in the film)….also reality. the music (western mixed w/ indian…m.i.a.’s paper planes, a.r. rahman’s score, etc) was a perfect fusion to catch the ears of ppl arnd the world.

the acting was impressive. not only were the leads by two previously unknown actors (dev patel & freida pinto), but if you did the research, you’d find out that two of the “actors” the played the younger characters/kids on the movie were actually from the slums of mumbai. i’m actually glad they didn’t use anil kapoor nor irfan khan for any major parts. tired of watching well known actors do the same thing they’ve always done.

furthermore…this movie really stands out. dark knight as rushdie claims? hell no. its so generic its ridiculous. in the way of super hero movies, it was awesome (music, acting, screenplay, etc). (i even watched it on imax & since then, in the theaters twice more). but compared to other films? ledger’s acting was overrated. impressive, but overrated. he was awesome due him being a “method actor” like christian bale and others, but just because he died doesn’t mean he deserves praise for his acting (admit it…if he hadn’t died in real life, then that movie wldn’t have had such hype). slumdog covered all the bases. if you need to compare it to super hero movie…well, that’s covered too. it has romance/heartbreak, action/ violence, suspense, compassion, a taste of reality, a taste of fiction/fantasy, and so much more.

so, yes, you’re an idiot.

Isn’t a more appropriate comparison the backlash against Brokeback 3 years ago, in that indie-dominated Oscars? At this point - post-Globes - the odds were still on Brokeback, not Crash, for best pic. Even though, in retrospect, Crash was a much more typical Oscar winner. Don’t Academy voters often get bored if someone wins too much & is overhyped? Boyle will maybe get best director. It might even get adapted screenplay and score - but Batman will surely win Best Picture? It made a lot of money and faked complexity quite well. And Best Picture seems to value production values and marketing over artistic quality & cultural worthiness, no?

Two things:
1) This movie was NOT intended to capture any true essence of India or anything like that. It could have been filmed anywhere if it was not for the love story.
2) The love story in this movie is an Indian infactuation of love. Ask most Indians and they will agree that they can put themselves in Jamal’s shoes, in some form.

The movie has gaping reality/storyline holes but that was never a big deal for the billion people on the other side of the world. Have you seen a Bollywood film? Try capturing real India from them.

Keywords are DRAMA and ENTERTAINMENT

This so called backlash and particularly this website’s comments about Slumdog are a sign of the growing amount of film critics and commentators that simply do not have enough understanding of the films and movements that happened prior to the present time. Slumdog is a film that would better fit into “Old Hollywood.” It is grand storytelling that harks back to the films of the 40’s while sending up a nice tribute to Bollywood whose own films aesthetics mirror that of “Old Hollywood.” I think this site has sorely misjudged its understanding of Boyle’s intentions and successes with Slumdog Millionaire.

what backlash? you only want to increase website traffic, i bet!
hahahah….

i love juno and i loooove slumdog… you can’t hate it but you can’t hate those who love the movie…

good luck with your “backlash” campaign. nice website.

cheers!

If too many people like a movie, does Spoutblog automatically hate it?
c o n t r a r i a n i s m.

I agree. The movie had a good premise, but filled with violence and child abuse. The matter of “love” hardly stuck and I was constantly thinking about that poor kid whose eyes were plucked out. This movie completely screwed up my frame of mind for 3 days. The songs were good, but most of the scenes were cringingly repulsive.

I have to disagree with you guys about Slumdog, respectfully of course. I see where the backlash is coming from though. I was not a fan of Juno and it was then that I did really notice the way Fox Searchlight has gotten better at marketing indie kitsch in its films since Garden State came out in 2005 (although I do like that film). There is no doubt that Fox will try to have have a Best picture underdog every year for a while.

While there should be Slumdog backlash (like any movie, it can’t be above negativity) it is also a much weaker batch a films this year and especially during award season. I’ve spent my break looking for the movie to wow me since Wall-E and The Dark Knight because this is ’supposed’ to be the time for great film. I was mildly disappointed by Milk and more so by Button. I liked Doubt but it wasn’t outstanding. Slumdog, however, won me over unlike anything else I’ve seen. It might of been the predictable but powerful love story, or the feel good dance credits. Still that film (and Man On Wire) had me mesmerized. There are still a lot of films I need to see (The Reader, Gran Torino, Rev. Road, and The Wrestler) but it is the best I’ve seen so far.

I’m calling BS on ‘you are an idiot’s comments re “accurately captur[ing] the life of those in the slums”.
I’ve just returned from 3 weeks in India, and the movie perfectly summed up how India looked to me… in the first 2 weeks.
Past that, the reality of the poverty sinks in, and the fact the movie basically glamorises life as a ’slumdog’ was the biggest problem in this movie and quite insulting.

The rest of your post is pretty moronic and doesn’t deserve rebuttal.

My biggest problem with the film (though I still enjoyed it in many parts) was the inconsistency of ‘Salim’ going from ally of the protagonist to antagonist between scenes with no reasoning or justification, the game show host stating he was a ’slumdog’ also for no reason. Both of these problems may have been the cause of scenes being dropped from the final cut (not that that is any excuse) but worst of all the film needed to make up its mind and take itself seriously or stick to being a feel-good tale. Opening the film with graphic torture and closing it with our protagonist solving all his life problems by winning a game show and performing a Bollywood dance sequence? No thanks.

What a Movie!! As a real slum dog millionaire living in the US, I saw the movie several times and thoroughly enjoyed it– laughed and cried with it. The rich Bollywood whitish looking Indian actors make me want to puke. Over 90% of Indians are beautiful poor people– not these Kapoors and the Khans and the Bachans and so on… It was great to see a real Indian looking girl— go Frieda! And go Dev!! Kudos to Danny!!

I found the film started off interesting but turned into a “hero conquers the odds and gets the girl” cliche. The female character in particular is completely undeveloped in the film - reminds me of female leads back in the eighties.

I enjoy reading American bloggers. I have not yet seen the film “Slumdog” but I am looking forward to it.

Bunch of Neo-nazis.

First off, the idea that you have to be apart of the Hollywood Foreign Press to be a qualified movie reviewer is absolutely. absurd. I guarantee that the previous poster has blasted movies himself that have received great praise by many.

Secondly, I have to agree to a certain degree with this blog. Slumdog is a very well made movie, in terms of cinematography, music and the like, with very little going on in the plot department. And please, refrain from telling me that I did not understand what was going on because I did. Jamal went on the show not to win money but to find his long lost love.

My issues come with the structure. We see all of JEmals life events unfold through these questions on the game show. And every question, EVERY question, just so happens to be explained by some event in his past life. So with each question, I found myself being lulled into a very formulaic film mechanism. Jemal receives the question, flashback that includes answer, and present where he answers the question and… Surprise, he answered it correctly! Throw in occasional scenes with the police interrogators and the cycle keeps repeating.

I feel this movie is getting way more praise than it deserves. It is by no means an awful movie. It has simply been blown out of proportion. It’s themes of predetermined actions and fate are way tired idea in movies and other creative mediums.

If the Oscars are supposed to be the judge of the creates picture of the year, I hope they have the sense to see that the emperor truly has no clothes when it comes to this movie.

And one more thing. Would people really love this movie so much if it wasn’t made in a foreign country?

You are so wide of the mark.

The film is very viewable and does the downtrodden masses a favour.
It’s certainly not a feelgood film and should not be marketed as such.
First of all look upon it as entertainment for a flabby westrn populace.
That’s probably all it was ever meant to be.
It works on that level and several others.
One of which is to bring the reality of Indian cities to the wider world.

Let’s face it, Asians (especially Indians) are disliked by Western whites for “stealing” jobs (IT, manufacturing); Asians in western nations are usually very into school and work - therefore a “capitalistic threat” to the Stuff White People Like (SWPL) crowd; Asians are at the bottom of the SWPL’s PC “minority” hierarchy, not considered American or minority enough, no history of slavery like Blacks do to provoke white guilt, Asians are nerdy and not cool (don’t make edgy music like them other more “entertaining” minorities do) enough to give SWPL white kidz “authenticity” and somethin’ to rebel about; Asians are not tough/violent/extreme enough like Middle-Easterners for SWPL kidz to scare their parents with.

This is why when Asians succeed at anything (like this movie) or advance economically (such as with the outsourced IT jobs and manufacturing) the SWPL’s and other elite Western whites who are usually in support of wealth redistribution to poor people (and most of Asia is dirt poor), multiculturalism, “uplifting” minorities, etc - are suddenly angered and irritated, as if the Asian person has climbed over other more worthy and coooler causes in the PC hierarchy.

THAT is the real reason for your manufactured “backlash”.

SWPL crowd must control “cool”, and therefore control World Culture. The hierarchy must be followed, wait your turn chinks, japs, gooks, hindus, ghandis, pakis, and other Asians who “steal” Western jobs and don’t even give us “cool” or kiss our SWPL shoes in return. How dare you filthy people - doncha kno da deal ? (shhh, hope know1 realizes where we got all of our totally kool “Western” leftist zen “passive resistance” pacifistic principles from - the Asian EAST after all - but gotta let the koool kidz think we invented it all, World Culture is SWPL’s full time job, after all, we’re the godz we ctrl Hollywood ! we know-it and see-it allz, koool is our religion, doncha know, we hand out the communion when it’s your turn, not a minute before, get back to the back of the PC line where you belong).

An absolute disappointment and an overrated film. With a totally unrealistic quiz show scenes. With the exception of the child actors, the adult cast (in particular the main actor) really let the film down.

As the famous quote: “The tenor’s voice is spoilt by affectation, And for the bass, the beast can only bellow; In fact, he had no singing education, An ignorant, noteless, timeless, tuneless fellow.” (Lord Byron)!!

How did they blind the young boy? Was hot oil used or did they scoop out his eye with the spoon?