2008 best pictureRating: 12/20 (Jen: 16/20)
Plot: On the verge of winning 400 billion rupees on Indian's version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, Jamal is arrested on the suspicion that he is somehow cheating. As the police sergeant watches the show with Jamal and questions him on how he knew the answers, his biography unfolds and we watch him growing up with his brother, becoming an orphan, and falling in love.
I really sort of hated this movie. If your favorite part a movie is the montage (fragments of a story told visually with some really terrible background music), then this is the movie for you because the entire movie seems like a two-hour montage. The story stutters along in a clumsy way that ends up getting really predictable and leaving me completely unsatisfied. I really hated the way the film looked. The jump cuts, the angles, some handheld stuff, unnecessary camera movements, the oddly-placed subtitles, the colors. Along with a deafening soundtrack that went great with voices that were nearly inaudible at times, the movie actually made me a little sick to my stomach. Everything was so loud and modern, both sonically and visually. The romantic plot (and accompanying themes) are nearly offensive, but I did like the ideas about how knowledge is shaped by our experiences. I also liked the acting for the most part, especially since a large percentage of the cast was children. I really liked the guy who played the Indian Regis Philbin. This movie tries to be ultra-pessimistic and feel-good at the same time and winds up a choppy, annoying mess that I ain't falling for. I'm shocked that this won best picture.
It's funny, I haven't really had the urge to see this and your review was totally in synch with what i thought the movie was going to be like....
ReplyDeleteA 12, huh? It seems like your main issue was the filming style, which can be pretty subjective. I hate rap music, and there is nothing anyone will ever be able to do to make me like it. Some stuff may be great, but it is not to my taste.
ReplyDelete"Slumdog Millionaire" (horrible title) has a vibrant, kinetic style that is well suited to it's story. I think without it, the sad, depressing moments and the horrid Indian landscape would overwhelm the mood. Hand-held filming is way overused in today's movies by poor or lazy filmmakers, but it is perfectly suited to this story. "Slumdog..." is not trying to be "Oliver Twist". It has more in common with another great Boyle film, "Trainspotting".
"Clumsy"? We see the lives of three main characters intertwined over a 20 year period as well as several well defined supporting characters. This is a very well organized story.
"Predictable"? Boy meets girl, crap happens, boy gets girl in the end. Eighty percent of movies are predictable in this way (I pulled the figure out of my butt). "Slumdog..." is very unpredictable in how it gets there and when you say the romantic plot was nearly offensive, I think you would be hard pressed to find two more likeable leads, and the payoff is very emotionally fulfilling. I don't get the pessimistic comment. The environment deserves pessimism, but the movie is not.
"Loud". I saw this in a theatre and had no problem with the dialogue. Maybe you need a new TV (*_*).
Finally, I thought this was the best movie of last year (losing my credibility, it beat out "Kung Fu Panda" and "The Dark Knight"). I was happy it won Best Picture. A 17.
The good news is this probably won't qualify for AFI consideration.
ReplyDeleteI hated 'Trainspotting' too...actually, I hated 'Trainspotting' even more since I couldn't even finish it.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if I can argue that the leads weren't likable, but I don't think the characters had depth. She was more flat than he was, but neither one was really developed all that much. Jamal was really only developed by what was happening to him rather than being developed by what he is. The fact that his facial expressions very rarely change probably doesn't help. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I dislike the older Jamar's performance.
Style, whether it's fair or not, is going to be a big part of how a movie is judged. I'm not against the genre (like, rap) here, but I completely disagree with you about the kinetic style being suited to the story. I thought it distracted from the story. I was so focused on how much I hated what I was seeing and hearing, that I had trouble focusing on what was happening with the characters. That is not good film making.
Well-defined supporting characters? Where? I didn't think the three main characters were well defined. The brother, I thought, was the most roundly developed. I also thought he was the most interesting character.
I don't think you should say this movie is predictable like 80% of the movies out there when trying to argue its merits. I definitely like some boy-meets-girl-etc.-etc. movies. I even like some that are predictable. But this is not only predictable; it's predictable in a bad romantic comedy sort of way. The whole train station thing was really unbelievable, and I'm not just referring to the dancing at the end.
I probably do need a new t.v., but that wasn't the problem. The music was blaring, so I'd turn down the volume a little bit and then wouldn't be able to hear the dialogue. Maybe I'm getting old.
Best movie of 2008, eh? I haven't seen much of 2008. 'The Dark Knight' is barely better. But so was that new Indiana Jones movie.
I don't remember if he's Jamar or Jamal, by the way, so I just went ahead and used both.
ReplyDeleteThere is little point of going further with someone who hated "Trainspotting" (one of my top-20 all-time films or who still defends the new Indiana Jones movie. I respect your right to be wrong... in my sometimes flawed opinion.
ReplyDeleteI don't remember 'Trainspotting' being on your list...do I really need to try that one again? It's been probably 12 years since I gave that a partial chance.
ReplyDeleteMy highest compliment for a movie is to call it electric. "Trainspotting" blew me away with an amazing combination of smart dialogue, great humor, awesome soundtrack, unforgetable characters, and a few disturbing scenes of horror and violence. It is 18 or 19 on my all-time list, so yeah, I think you should give it another shot.
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