Call it a study in failed tourism: in four expeditions into urban Abu Dhabi in search of specific destinations, I got lost and gave up before getting there three times. The problem — at least, its a problem for us New Yorkers; I’m sure it makes perfect sense to Abu Dhabi residents –– is that the buildings in the city have no street addresses. The email sign-offs of MEIFF employees state the address of their office as “Abu Dhabi Film Centre, next to Abu Dhabi TV, opposite Rosary School.” Locals find things by referring to landmarks: schools, malls, hotels or, in the absence of a structure that takes up a city block or more, usually a fast food place, apparently most commonly a KFC. My adventures getting repeatedly lost in this system sort of puts a new spin on my Das Racist analogy from earlier in the week: in a city that has erased most visible traces of its pre-1970s, Bedouin history to make way for global capitalism, the only commonly understood landmarks left are a product of that economic eagerness. And, of course, mosques.
Even after days of curious and ultimately confused wandering, including a trip to The Largest Mosque in the Arab World where I was harshly scolded by security guards every time my bangs fell out of my loose-fitting borrowed shayla, the place I felt most like a tourist in Abu Dhabi was in a movie theater. From the moment I got off the plane in Abu Dhabi, Blue had been billed to me as the hot ticket of the film festival. A Bollywood caper starring Indian superstars Sanjay Dutt and Akshay Kumar and former Miss Universe Lara Dutta, and featuring music by Slumdog Millionaire Oscar winner A. R. Rahman and Kylie Minogue, the film’s sole Gala screening drew a sample of Abu Dhabi’s large South Asian population apparently starved for a glimpse of famous faces. Judging from the lengthy line that snaked through the Emirates Palace before the screening, there was much more popular demand for Blue than for any of the Hollywood features or international indies given similar Gala treatment.
In addition to winning Best Picture (and seven other awards) at the Oscars last week, Slumdog Millionaire passed a major box office benchmark. It has now grossed more than $100 million in the U.S., which is pretty astonishing for a film with one-third of its dialogue in a foreign language. But is Slumdog’s popularity a one-shot in terms of its audience’s interest in India, or are moviegoers actually now more curious about the nation and its own films?
Some websites are simplifying the question of whether or not Slumdog will be a gateway film with polls asking if American moviegoers will now “go Bollywood” (40% of Cinematical readers flat out answered, “no.”), which is rather silly since Danny Boyle’s movie bears no resemblance to the majority of Bollywood pictures. In fact, Americans have in the past received far greater entry points into Indian cinema by way of films involving Anglo or NRI (non-resident Indian) protagonists directed by culturally bridging filmmakers (such as NRI helmers Deepa Mehta, Mira Nair and Gurinder Chadha), than the more-touristy type of filmmaking represented with Slumdog.
If someone truly wants to become familiar with Bollywood, he or she should probably just jump right in and then patiently get used to the style, which can be quite difficult for Westerners to immediately grasp. The extremely interested might benefit from reading the section on popular Indian cinema in Dimitris Eleftheriotis and Gary Needham’s Asian Cinemas: A Reader & Guide, a book that does a really great job acquainting the Western spectator with Eastern film form. Or, the more casually curious cinephile could simply follow our guide to accessible Indian (or India-based) films for the Slumdog lover to watch next: …Read more
While at the Dubai International Film Festival over the weekend, Terminator Salvation director McG “announced” that a fifth installment of the Terminator franchise is definitely in the works, although The Halcyon Co. revealed over a year ago their plans for a trilogy. That McG is back to helm the installment must mean Halcyon is happier with the way Salvation looks than some of us are.
F/X artist-turned-director Stephen Norrington is finally following up The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen with the remake of The Crowthat’s been talked about in Hollywood for awhile. I wonder if Jason Statham is still interested in playing the lead.
Oh yeah, the weekend’s box office results: well, The Day the Earth Stood Still managed to just barely edge out The Happening to be the higher grossing of the year’s lame eco-sci-fi films. The animated film you never heard of, Delgo, couldn’t make a million bucks on more than 2,000 screens, while the Bollywood film you never heard of, Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi, cracked a million bucks on about 100 screens. And a ton of limited specialty films, including new releases Gran Torino, Wendy and Lucy, The Reader, Doubt and Che, all had better per-screen-averages than did the #1 film, The Day the Earth Stood Still.
Paul Schrader is reportedly done with Hollywood. His next film will be a Bollywood production titled Extreme City. The action pic will be a cross-cultural story, though probably more Bollywood-style than Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire; it won’t be a masala film but is likely to have a few more musical numbers.
In a much more respectable marketing tie-in, The Soloist has been connected to a food drive called Feed the Need, which will collect 1 million pounds of food by December 15 — four months before the film opens.
The moviegoing demographics for this week’s “stuffed” Thanksgiving schedule are to be as follows: older woman to Australia; younger women to Four Christmases; youngest women/girls to Twilight; all men to Transporter 3; kids to Bolt. And some lucky people in 19 cities who don’t mind sold out shows will go see Milk.
The holidays are coming, and that either means spending time with your dysfunctional family or escaping them for the movies … where you’re likely to be met by other, fictional dysfunctional families. Already this season, Rachel Getting Marriedintroduced us to the f’ed up faux masala of the Buchman clan, and later this month we get to follow Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon as they’re pulled into their separate quadrants of kin in Four Christmases. Also, for those who think dysfunction is an American tradition, this weekend sees the release of the French film A Christmas Tale (Un conte de Noël), which unites the two major premises of dysfunctional family movies by being set during the holidays and involving an ill family member.
With two more weeks left until Thanksgiving, after which we might not want to think about another family, real or cinematic, for the rest of our lives, it’s a perfect time to celebrate those dysfunctional tribes we love the best. Literally thousands of movies feature such families, though, so we’re sure to have left out some of your favorites. Definitely chime in below, and/or join the discussion currently going on over in our Top 5 group.
This review originally appeared during the Telluride Film Festival. Slumdog Millionaire opens in select markets tomorrow.
Danny Boyle’s latest offering, Slumdog Millionaire, is generating a fair amount of buzz here at Telluride. Not unlike last year’s Juno, the film showed up in one of the mysterious TBA slots, delighting audiences made weary by a slate of good but somewhat depressing films, such as Hunger, Waltz with Bashir and Adam Resurrected. Slumdog Millionaire follows the story of Jamal Malik, an unlikely winner of India’s version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire. Jamal, his brother Samir, and fellow orphan Latika, manage to survive an almost absurd number of scrapes, the memory of each one coincidentally providing Jamal with answers to the game show questions. The film is big, fast, fun, and colorful, but ultimately a mess.
After the disappointment of Righteous Kill, which was blatantly sold as a Scorsese wannabe, it’s great to hear that Robert De Niro will play another mobster for his old friend Marty. This one will be adapted from the book I Heard You Paint Houses, about a real contract killer named Frank “The Irishman” Sheeran. It would be especially cool if Scorsese could find a part for Pacino, as well as a small role for Tina Fey to get kicked to death in.
Also reunited: Yogi and Boo-Boo. The cartoon bears will now be computer-generated for a live-action/CG hybrid described as along the lines of Alvin and the Chipmunks. “Hey Boo-Boo, is that a poop in that pic-a-nic basket?”
Bollywood productions have shut down just as India’s blockbuster season begins, due to a strike from 22 separate unions, including extras and camera operators. The strike is expected to cause a lot of hardship and subsequent melodramatic situations followed by an epic song-and-dance number that also serves as new contract negotiations.
Danny Boyle’s latest offering, Slumdog Millionaire, is generating a fair amount of buzz here at Telluride. Not unlike last year’s Juno, the film showed up in one of the mysterious TBA slots, delighting audiences made weary by a slate of good but somewhat depressing films, such as Hunger, Waltz with Bashir and Adam Resurrected. Slumdog Millionaire follows the story of Jamal Malik, an unlikely winner of India’s version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire. Jamal, his brother Samir, and fellow orphan Latika, manage to survive an almost absurd number of scrapes, the memory of each one coincidentally providing Jamal with answers to the game show questions. The film is big, fast, fun, and colorful, but ultimately a mess.
Liz Mermn’s Shot in Bombay weaves a complicated web of Bollywood intrigue. The film follows the making of a Bollywood gangster film based on real events (Shootout at Lokhandwala), complete with interviews of the hardened cops 15 years after the notorious shootout. Another layer of the Bollywood-meets-underworld tale is that leading man Sanjay Dutt keeps getting pulled away from the set to fight an ongoing court battle involving illicit weapons possession. I talked with Liz Mermin about Bollywood, gangsters, and celebrity worship.
SXSW 2008 Interview: Liz Mermin of Shot in Bombay [8:53m]: Play Now | Download
We’ve had a bit of trouble getting this episode to go through the iTunes feed, so we hope this re-post will fix the problem. The original post, with episode description and embedded player, is here.
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Liz Mermn’s 
