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» TMO Talk » Media Junkies » Slumdog Millionaire (Page 1)

 
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Author Topic: Slumdog Millionaire
Thorn Davis

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If you're in the mood for something you can watch with your mother, or some other elderly female acquaintance, and then go for a coffee afterwards and listen to them saying "Isn't is awful?", then Danny Boyle's slum-porn movie Slumdog Millionaire might be the movie for you. As an added bonus you can swan around with your mates later in the evening going "and you know, yeah, the other main character in the film is India, yeah?" which is the kind of thing nitwits love saying to each other.

Of course, if India is a character in the film it's probably the only real character on display. Who Wants To Be A Millionaire quiz whiz Jamal isn't really defined outside of the fact that his life has led him to a half dozen snippets of general knowledge that crop up as questions on the show. His brother's actions and personality shift as the plot demands it, and as for the girl... I defy anyone to come up with a single adjective to describe her. An absolutely empty - almost offensively so - character who exists solely to be the prize in the cock-waving contests that take place around her.

So, yeah, the film's mostly about shots of blind, 9 year old orphans singing or shanty town tracking shots that may as well have been spliced in from City of God. There's some cheap shots taken at tourists, although why the audience feels entitled to laugh when we're basically doing the same sort of gawping (albeit from the safety of the cinema) is beyond me. None of the scenes make a huge impact; there's nothing here that I'd look forward to seeing again and nothing that's genuinely suprising, but it all slips by easy enough, as Jamal floats through the perils of his existence until the feelgood finale.

I won't give too much away about the ending - although the film poster tells it all, anyway - but it kind of muddles anything the film had to say about love and money and happiness, and rests on such a ridiculous, audacious cop-out that it kind of dimishes everything that went before.

It's not totally without merit - it's funny and sweet enough, and the actor playing the Indian Chris Tarrant creates a villain almost as smug and hateful as the original. It'll probably win the best film oscar, too, which will be a bit depressing. But it's probably the kind of thing you should see just so you can understand what goes on out there.

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Carter
Taller than Bandy ?
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I haven't seen this yet, and wasn't planning to. And now I definitely won't!

I did see The Descent last night though, Thorn, and it was excellent. So much so that I thought to myself - Teh Horn must have had something to say about this at the time. And you had, and you agreed. This gave me a warm feeling inside.

Also - fatherhood is excellent. Pooing becomes socially funny, not just guilty funny, and you get to feel like the funniest and safest person in the world, ever, every day. Do you know what flavour yours is going to be?

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Thorn Davis

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Chinese, apparently. Octavia is refusing to answer my questons about this, but I did notice Dr Benway hanging round the house alot last autumn.
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Thorn Davis

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Thanks for the post though makes my thread look a little less like a wretched slice of vanity, wrung out through pride and hubris and then eagerly stapled to a noticeboard no-one will glance at.

[ 22.01.2009, 07:58: Message edited by: Thorn Davis ]

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Carter
Taller than Bandy ?
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If she's been eating lots of Kung Po Chicken it may not be Benway's fault. That's how biology works, you know.

This would mean that Ralph's mum ate a shitload of fuckwits, of course...

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Thorn Davis

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Still. Oscar nominations in 30 minutes. I'm sure a thread on that will get some replies, as long as someone else starts it.
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ralph

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quote:
Originally posted by Carter:
This would mean that Ralph's mum ate a shitload of fuckwits, of course...

[Roll Eyes]
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mart
Wearing nothing but a smile
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I know this is my 7,000th post, and I was supposed to come up with something sparkling, rather than the little grammar nazi rant below. I know that.

From the front page of the BBC website:

quote:
The nominations for the 81st Academy Awards are announced later, with films including Slumdog Millionaire likely to feature.
Doesn't anyone at the BBC notice these things? Films are likely to feature in the nominations, are they? Jesus.

And that fucking Volvo campaign. Less emissions? What the fuck? How did that ever get past anyone who works with words? Maybe they did object to it, but the suits insisted, which is even worse.

God.

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McDirts
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i LIKE tHE dESCENT. tHORN, LINK ME TO YOUR (sorry, caps lock) review of it please.
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Thorn Davis

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I didn't really write a whole lot about The Descent, I'm afriad. What I did say is preserved here, after a short conversation about the similarities between taking a shit and bumming. If I'd written more I probably would have included the following points

i) The Descent is a very good film - it should be called The Decent, lol (actually it is better than decent).

ii) Of course, the other main character in the film, yeah, is the caves themselves. *nods without breaking eye contact. *sips bottle of Tiger lager.

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Cherry In Hove
Channel 39
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Don't apologise for using caps lock. It makes you look edgy and slightly unhinged.
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dang65
it's all the rage
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quote:
Originally posted by mart:
Less emissions? What the fuck?

"Less" is the word now Mart. "Fewer" is finished. It's has no place in the post-Crunch lexicon.
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McDirts
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Yay The Descent! I agree with your prognosis, it being a British production made it doubly satisfying. The only thing I didn't like about it was the all female Pepsi max bit at the beginning.
That and 28 Days Later - which I also enjoyed immensely, mainly because it reminded me so much of the BBC TV series of Day of the Triffids, which held me enthralled as a youngster in the early 80's.
 -

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Thorn Davis

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I can't believe this just got nominated for best director and The Wrestler didn't. SDM just feels like Danny Boyle screaming "LOOK! JUMP CUTS! BRIGHT LIGHTS! FAST FORWARD! BLURRY VISUALS! CAMERA ON ITS SIDE! THIS IS DIRECTING!" all the way through.
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Ringo

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I... didn't really like The Descent. I get what you're saying about the relentless claustraphobia and sense of hopelessness, but I thought the action sequences were terrible. Any time there was any fighting it was just like flashes of limbs flailing around and you weren't sure what the hell was going on until afterwards, when you find out who died.

It was ok, but there really wasn't anything original or challenging to it. Good fun I guess, and it's one of those bleak movies that doesn't give you a nice happy ending. Not one I'll be buying though.

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McDirts
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I bought it. Come on Ringo! An alternative species of Homo Sapien that evolved underground??? And hunts through sonar waves???? And eats us????????? What's not to love?????????????
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Ringo

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It just seemed like Cannibal Ferox in caves. With less likeable characters. It wasn't a technically bad film but it just felt very clicheed. And I didn't feel it did the relentless terror thing quite as well as The Ruins which seems to be destined to disappear more or less completely unwatched.
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McDirts
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You've seen the Ruins? I heard that was scary...?
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Ringo

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Yeah I thought it was pretty good. A lot better than I was expecting. It has one of the best spinal injury moments I've ever seen in a film.
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Waynster

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I saw the Descent a couple of years back, and yeah on the whole a pretty decent film - I'm not big on the horror/monster genre, but that - along with the also aforementioned Dog Soldiers I did enjoy. Maybe I'm just far more receptive to British movies.

Slumdog Millionaire I did enjoy - it's just a feelgood movie but I'm not sure if it warrants all the Oscar praise - I'd have to say Mickey Rourke's portrayal in the Wrestler, along with the honesty and barenakedness of it all I think are far more rewarding. Films like Slumdog get made by the bucketfull in Bollywood, but I guess for the blinkered voters who have never seen stuff like that before, it's a revolutionary epic - shame they didn't get out of their own arses once in a while and looked beyond that white-lettered hill they so revere...

--------------------
Noli nothis permittere te terere

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New Way Of Decay

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quote:
Originally posted by McDirts:
[QB] Yay The Descent! I agree with your prognosis, it being a British production made it doubly satisfying. The only thing I didn't like about it was the all female Pepsi max bit at the beginning.
That and 28 Days Later - which I also enjoyed immensely, mainly because it reminded me so much of the BBC TV series of Day of the Triffids, which held

It's really gutting that Tilde and Benny The Ball became one poster.

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BUY A TICKET AND WATCH SOME METAL

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Tilde
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ouch.
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New Way Of Decay

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Stop looking so hurt and say you'll stay this time.

--------------------
BUY A TICKET AND WATCH SOME METAL

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Jimmy Big Nuts
CounterCulture Vex'
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I recommend Eden Lake. Watched it the other night for the second time, and enjoyed it more. The main kid (on the left) is excellent.

 -

It's a Deliverance / Hills Have Eyes style tale of the middle classes being hunted through the woods by the underclass locals. In this case, a lovely couple called Steve (probably an IT project manager or recruitment consultant) and Jenny (A primary school teacher) take a trip to an empty beach by a lake, for healthy fun and a marriage proposal. A bunch of naughty teenagers turn up as well, and hilarity ensues.

It's actually pretty tough if you let yourself get into it. At the last showing I went to, one woman was sobbing and another one just kept going "Oh my God...it's horrible...it's so horrible'. Surely a good sign. This was taking place at the Roxy bar in London Bridge - a bastion for 'think while you drink' types, who the film was probably squarely attacking. The violence is always nasty, the tone remains steadfastly dismal, and the chase never slows down.

I think it works so well because all the characters are drawn squarely as archetypes, but not too the degree that they become wholly unbelievable. The local youth become every group of teens you've ever avoided out of fear, and the middle class couple seem to somehow become you. In that sense it's almost like a simulation of how bad shit would go down. It's stripped away enough for you to role-play your way through the proceedings. You aren't scared for their safety, but your own. It's also slightly tongue in cheek, I think. In a way, it's mocking the absurd levels of terror that the middle classes can foster when it comes to their relations with their less fortunate cousins. Quite an achievement, considering that there's really nothing to the film but running around in the woods, trying to avoid a sticky end at the hands of some relentless attackers.

[ 23.01.2009, 06:18: Message edited by: Jimmy Big Nuts ]

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McDirts
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quote:
Originally posted by New Way Of Decay:
quote:
Originally posted by McDirts:
[QB] Yay The Descent! I agree with your prognosis, it being a British production made it doubly satisfying. The only thing I didn't like about it was the all female Pepsi max bit at the beginning.
That and 28 Days Later - which I also enjoyed immensely, mainly because it reminded me so much of the BBC TV series of Day of the Triffids, which held

It's really gutting that Tilde and Benny The Ball became one poster.
Damn you for not understanding what you mean...
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Jimmy Big Nuts
CounterCulture Vex'
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I don't anticipate going to see Slumdog Millionaire. I'd like to check out The Wrestling, Milk, and of course "Underworld: Rise of a Lycans" - a film surely made only so that thorn can go and pay £10 to watch it, and then write a harsh but entertaining piece where it's revealed that it's not a great film.
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Thorn Davis

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That was the kind of thng that kept me sane when I was unemployed. I got genuinely excited at the thought of AVPR Alien Vs Predator 2 Requiem coming out because NWoD had asked me to write a review of it and I treated it like I'd been given an important job to do. Good days.
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Jimmy Big Nuts
CounterCulture Vex'
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I found unemployment to be the perfect chance to shrug off the shackles of sanity.
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ralph

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Except for the worrying about where I'm going to get money from part, I found being unemployed to be one of the best things that ever happened to me. Of course I was single then and didn't have the wife and kids to worry about...
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McDirts
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I thought discovering MD 20/20 Grape and Kiwi 'Wine' was one of the best things to ever happen to you?
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Thorn Davis

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I didn't really have that. Some days were worse/ better than others but having to go for interviews, speaking to potential employers on the phone and being acutely aware of the fact that everyone was sort of waiting for me to disintegrate meant that unemployment was a time when I really had to keep it together, even though it's a time when everything is driving you to fall apart.

Journalism, for me, was the best shot at mental and physical collapse. Because you're holding all the cards, it doesn't really matter how unhinged your behaviour is - people still have to suck up to, so your boss will never find out that you threatened someone with a beer bottle and then tried to fuck a PR girl. The only person you need to impress is your editor, and as long as you can keep it together long enough to write a feature once a week, you find that you're free to behave however you wish. Even better, everyone else seems to have come to the same realisation, so you pretty much blend in.

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ralph

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quote:
Originally posted by McDirts:
I thought discovering MD 20/20 Grape and Kiwi 'Wine' was one of the best things to ever happen to you?

It was...but that discovery was made possible by suddenly being unemployed...and needing an inexpensive (yet tasty) way to get the alcohol I needed.
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Octavia
I hate Valentine's Day.
Stupid commercialised crap
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When I was made redundant I had this driving must work at all costs thing, regardless of pay or convenience. I got canned in the morning on the day my remortgage went through and the boyfriend of the time, while unsympathetic, got me some work with a friend of his so I was working again the same afternoon, albeit only for a few days.

Spent the next six weeks registered with temp agencies doing everything from working in a building site office to stuffing envelopes and washing up. I couldn't stand not working, and it was a case of doing anything rather than sit at home and have to think about it. CVs and stuff got done in the evening. As long as I was earning some money I felt like it didn't matter what I did because of the prospect of losing the house. How long I could have sustained it I don't know, but I got a proper job after a couple of months.

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Octavia
I hate Valentine's Day.
Stupid commercialised crap
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Oh yes, and Slumdog really doesn't deserve all those nominations. We watched Serenity last night as a sort of antidote. Any one of those characters has more character than anyone in Slumdog. Latika really is offensively lame.
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ralph

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quote:
Originally posted by Octavia:
I couldn't stand not working

I don't get this -- the US government was kind enough to send me a check every week not to work. I'll have to guess that you never discovered the pure joy that is MD 20/20...
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